Page 28 of Green Flag
“First proper day,” Abbé commented with a smile. His cap was low across his face, trying to hide from the sun. “How did your tours go?”
“Fine,” I mumbled, looking around for my dad. He should be here. What could be so important for him to be absent? “Nothing really to report. Hardly any people wanted tours.”
I’d been so ready to show people the facilities and tell them everything I knew about the bikes, but so few people had shown up, and those who did needed a thorough education on racing. All they cared about was getting photos and spotting the racers, which was fine, but they wanted more gossip than expertise.
Though I guessed I’d also been on the lookout for my own racer, hoping to run into Luca.
“A lot of people wanted to stay for the inquiry,” he muttered. “Just wanting the latest drama.”
Really, I wished I’d been able to stay for it too. But that hadn’t been possible when I had a job to do. One I had to excel at. If I couldn’t do well here, a job I had been subconsciously raised for, I couldn’t work anywhere.
I twirled my mum’s ring.
“You’ll be fine,” he said. “You’ve done the hardest part. After the race, they’ll want some shots of the whole team. Normally, they would want to interview fresh meat, but… I guess you’re not particularly fresh, are you?”
“Hey!” I cried and half-heartedly slapped his arm. My focus was on the grid spaces, trying to find twelfth place, where Luca would need to pull up. If I was still with Nix, I’d be up in second.
I would have to talk to Luca, just the two of us. My stomach flip-flopped in nervous excitement like I was a teenager in front of her celebrity crush.
He was startlingly attractive; anyone could see that. He was a good guy, there was no doubt. But last night… he’d weakened me to my knees.
I wanted to go again.
“Well, that, and the inquiry’s making the press act differently. My phone malfunctioned it’s had so many calls.”
That was right; I doubted Luca would be up for chit-chat.
“Probably because your phone is from the 90s, Abbé.”
“That doesn’t help, I guess,” he said with a laugh as the bikes turned the corner. The noise was a roar of testosterone and I wished I’d taken the earplugs that Abbé had offered because I tried not to grimace in discomfort. He was talking as he passed me the Ciclati flag decorated with ‘68’, but I didn’t hear his words until the engines cut out. “Hold this high.”
The bodies behind us rushed forward to get on the grid, and we were taken along with them through the swarm, though Abbé aimed for higher up the grid.
“You’re leaving me?”
“I need to talk to Nix. Then I’ll leave him to talk to Luca,” he shouted through the crowd as he was swallowed up by a sea of mechanics and press. “As Livie said, you just have to smile!”
“Okay,” I sighed, spat out by the pushers onto the tarmac. I gathered myself and followed the other girls’ lead. Flag high. Did I want to hold my flag higher than the others? Did I want to be the best? Yes.
But I also didn’t want to embarrass myself, so I held it half-heartedly, jealous of the women who had straight, tanned arms and biceps that were lean enough to be seen. Tanned and toned.
Proper grid girls.
Not the faux one I was.
I still wasn’t at the twelfth half-rectangle. I didn’t doubt I could find Luca in any crowd, leathered and helmeted. But the 68 on his back was helpful.
Cameras, Ever, there are cameras. Look like you have your shit together.
Luca’s front tyre wasn’t even a centimetre off the white line of twelfth place.
He was laughing as he pulled off his helmet, smiling at the rider in front of him, Cesari, as they both spoke in Italian. Cesariwas almost wetting himself with laughter, hitting the bike’s engine.
When I saw Luca earlier, I tried to avoid him, embarrassed about the night before. Did he think I was a frigid bitch? Leading him on? He’d triggered goosebumps over every inch of my skin, made me come twice, and had me breaking out in a sweat.
I hadn’t even touched him. What a greedy, selfish—
He wasn’t thinking about me, his laugh so free and comforting. And completely unexpected.
