Page 181 of Green Flag
We spent the night in the hotel room that had been booked for us. MotoBike qualified and raced on the same day, so Saturday started off early, picking up a pastry and running for the coach.
Try as we might, it was hard to avoid Nix and Livie.
She looked like she had hardly slept, stirring her cocktail with a straw as she stared straight ahead with tired eyes.
Maybe she didn’t know.
But I couldn’t see him keeping this from her.
The good part in me, the aspiration to be like Luca, encouraged me to speak to her.
Fear and anger at mentioning Pedro’s name like a curse stopped me.
I had tours to give.
Across MotoBike, the championship was a lot more casual — only the races were televised, unlike StormSprint where the whole weekend was on multiple channels.
The documentary crew had joined us again, so cameras were never far away. As filming had developed and Luca and my relationship had flourished, it had become a point of interest to the producers. We were lucky they hadn’t been about much during the first few races of the season, while we weren’t communicating too well.
When I walked with the other grid girls to the tour booth, my forehead prickled with confusion. Dad stood there alone, holding a weekend programme and wearing a Stratos purple cap.
I startled so hard I nearly snapped my neck clean off.
My father had never worn any team’s merch other than Ciclati.
To wear purple? To wear Stratos? That was treason.
But the smile that strengthened the wrinkles around his eyes was what confused me most.
Because it was aimed at me… and unmistakably genuine.
“I pulled a few strings to get the best grid girl to give me a tour. And booked her out all morning,” he said, lightly slapping my shoulder. “I heard you’re an expert in your field.”
My stammer couldn’t produce words. Luca’s confession was all I could think about. I’d spent months, years, hating my father. Assuming he’d tried to ruin my life, not save it.
I threw myself into his arms, sniffing and widening my eyes to fight the tears.
He hadn’t risked his jobs for drugs or some life of crime — he’d risked his job for me.
He caught me with a shocked, abrupt breath in my ear. “Everly, you okay?”
I nodded into his chest before pulling apart and brushing out the creases of my Stratos top, trying to gather myself.
“Are you sure?”
I smiled at him and nodded again.
“Where to first?”
My feet guided us on the route I’d planned, but my mouth was anything but professional. “What are you doing here?”
“I know nothing about MotoBike,” he lied, looking around at the large trailers for equipment. “And you know everything, I’m sure, so I thought I’d learn from the best. And I wanted to spend some time with you.”
We did just that. I transformed into work mode, showing him the facilities and the different rules compared to StormSprint, which Nix had told me.
He nodded along as if he didn’t know it all, never interrupted and even bickered with me about tyre pressure during the races.
We’d been working together for nearly ten months, and I couldn’t recall one conversation about the sport we both loved.
