Page 168 of Green Flag
The white flag was flown and Nix frowned, looking from left to right.
Emre was close to the slip road into the pit lane and grabbed his bike with the wet tyres within seconds.
“Is everyone coming in?” Nix asked, eyes flickering across the screens and then to the mechanics as they threw off the wheel warmers of Luca’s other bike, pulling it off its stand and getting it ready for Luca to grab and go.
“The white flag went,” I said. Surely, in the new championship, they had the same flag rules? He wouldn’t have forgotten so quickly?
“That doesn’t mean youhaveto change your bike,” Nix said. “It just means youcan. Is Luca going to?”
“He’s far off the slip lane, but he will,” my dad said, not looking away from the race.
“He shouldn’t,” Nix said as I looked out the garage to the dark clouds. The rain blurred the pit lane, but it wasn’t the worst storm we’d seen.
“He needs to be safe,” I snapped. “So, yes, he will.”
Nix laid a flat hand in front of Abbé, requesting his headset.
Abbé grunted, then removed it with a roll of his eyes.
“Luca, listen,” Nix said into it. “How does the bike feel?”
There was silence as everyone strained their ears to listen. “Exactly. Bike feels fine? Like in Aus—remember? You said the traction held. You didn’t need the switch.”
I could feel my blood heating.
“You want to win? Don’t change your bike.”
I ripped the headset off my father’s head and glared at him when he went to shout at me. I shoved them on, silently daring my dad to question me, pressing them tightly against my ears as I cut Luca off. “Don’t listen to him. You’ll win another time. You need to be safe. That’s not a bit of rain out there, Luca. That israin.”
“It’s settling down,” he said, his voice deeper through the mike.
“Doesn’t look like it from here,” I barked. “You crash because you don’t change, then you’ll get no points. You’re faster than the others, you just need—”
“Racing isn’t just about speed,” Nix said, voice tight, his words in the room but also through the headset. “It’s about strategy. This is the strategy. If you want to win today, Luca, you won’t change your bike. You can change later, but if you’re comfortable with how it is right now…”
On the screen, he whizzed past the slip lane everyone else had gone down and my hands tightened around the headset. “Luca, you’ve got to be safe.”
But it was snatched from my head and thrown back onto my dad’s ears, who was suddenly talking fast in Italian.
“Don’t hold him back, Ever,” Nix grumbled, shaking his head as he gave his headset back to Abbé. “You keep on pushing him to be better. So let him.”
“He’s already the best!”
Nix frowned, shaking his head in disbelief. “He hasn’t won any races.”
That hurt more than it had the sense to.
“He needs a confidence boost. This is it.”
I hated that he might be right.
“What if something happens to him?” My voice broke.
If I was worried that our relationship wasn’t looking particularly good, I didn’t need to worry anymore.
Abbé and Dad turned to give me sympathetic smiles.
“It won’t,” Nix said softly, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “He’s got you to come back to. He wouldn’t risk anything. Like I said, if he’s unsure, he’ll come and change the bike.”
