Page 100 of Crash Course Omega
And all of that resulted in three aching years without her. And I couldn’t do that to her again. I need to be an alpha who believes in her, supports her, and trusts her completely. An alpha she knows she can rely on no matter what.
Because I only realized when I saw her smile that I'm always racing back to her.
So, I have to do it. I have to get out there and prove to her that I’m good enough to be a world champion, and I’m good enough to be her alpha.
Jaxx
I don’t know what the hell is going on. I thought my kick-ass pep talk would get Maddock into gear and he'd zoom ahead in P1. He can dominate the entire race if he wants to, but he needs to get moving.
“Is he still in P6?” I ask my race engineer, who’s silent for a second too long.
“Just focus on yourself, Jaxx.” Which means yes.
The race has been a catastrophe so far. Not only have half the cars crash out in a pile up on lap 24 and DNFed, but Maddock is trailing four places behind me. Runa, the alpha female who will probably cut Maddock’s balls off if she sees him during the race is six seconds out in front in P1. We have plenty of time to catchup, with just over a third of the race left, but there’s something not sitting right with Maddock.
He isn’t even trying. I can’t see him and I don’t know for sure, but every time I ask my engineer what’s going on, I keep getting the same answers.
I need to do something. He literally just needs to finish in fourth to get the championship. And he can still pull ahead, but he needs a kick up the ass.
I can’t get over the pure fear that ripped through me as soon as we heard that first screech of Harmony's tires. It was like I had something constantly stabbing my heart, like if I wasn’t with my omega, she might be hurt.
My grand speech was for me as well as Maddock, because what the hell would I do if any of us crashed? I kept trying to tell Everest it was okay at the hospital, but I can’t deal with that kind of fear. I can’t let it stop me, or stop any of us. It took me months to get back into a car after Carl died, and only because he’d asked me to in his will.
And I can do the same here. Because Harmony is watching.
I growl low to myself, knowing that what I’m about to do is so dumb that I’m going to get absolutely hounded by Jacob, and probably Viktor and Mr Grace as well.
As we fly down the straight, I check out P3. I can do it casually, gently taking my foot off of the accelerator, easing off to the left, just happening to slow down enough so that P3 swerves around and takes off.
“Jaxx, you're losing speed. What the hell is going on?” My engineer’s panic beats through my earphones.
“Oh, I don’t know!” I say in a tone that tells him I know exactly what I’m doing. “But it looks like Maddock is influencing my driving! I don’t know if I can stay in P3 when my poor teammate is so far away from me.”
Jacob’s voice bursts through the comms. “Jaxx, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Hey, boss. Pass along a message to Maddock, would you?”
“I’m sick of being a fucking delivery boy. I’m your Team Principal!”
He really loves mouthing off. We never know when the live show might switch to us, though we are definitely one of the teams the broadcasters avoid highlighting because Jacob and Maddock have such a fruity repertoire.
“Alright, but P4 is gaining on me pretty quickly, and my foot is getting tired.” I sigh dramatically. “It’s such a hard life when all I can think about is how lonely Maddock must be all the way back there.”
“Jaxx, you must be joking.” I like it when English team members get annoyed, especially my engineer and Jacob. Their accents are all posh and well to-do, until they start swearing.
I’ve never done anything like this before. The sponsors and the board like me because I’m so reliable, and I'm putting myself at risk with the FIA by pulling a stunt like this. It isn’t like it’s easy to regain a position once I’ve lost it.
“Just tell Maddock to remember what we talked about earlier. He’ll know what I mean.”
“Jaxx—”
“P4’s coming in hot, Jacob. I wouldn’t want to lose my focus now, would I?”
He snarls, but I tune him out in my head.
I sort of want to wait until I can see Maddock again and then herd him like a sheepdog to get him back up to the top three. Then he’dreallywant to pack up with me.
I promised my lovely omega that I’d drive freely and let myself go. I told her I would race like I was born to race, instead of controlled and calculated, but I just can’t take the risk when we might lose not only the championship, but the constructors title.
