Page 49 of Dirty Air
Would they be able to put everything aside once they’re off the track, or is their time together limited to Fritz’s run at VFIBR?
He looks up, out the window, just as Sven walksby. He’s with another man, a photographer, and both of them hunch over the back of a camera with a long lens.
Fuck.
Fritz digs the phone out of his pocket and calls the head of PR at VFIBR. She might be on a plane, but hopefully he can warn her before she sees it in the news.
“There's a lot of talk this weekend about your secret meeting with Sven,” the announcer says, leading the conversation in the press room.
Fritz brings the microphone up to his mouth to answer, “I have noticed.”
His first ever race win was less than a week ago, but that’s already old news. Fritz sits on the rounded couch, in between both Mercenary drivers. Whoever planned this is a jokester, clearly. They usually had three different teams represented.
“Should we expect to see you in black next year?”
Ever? “Well, it is a very slimming color.” Murmurs spread throughout the crowd of reporters, and Fritz knows immediately that he’s said the wrong thing. “That was a joke. I do not need slimming colors, I need muscle colors. I should throw out all of my black t-shirts tonight.”
“Did Sven give any indication as to who you would be replacing?”
Actually, no. He didn’t. Which is strange, now that Fritz thinks about it. But he doesn’t need to think when he has the PR-approved line he has been repeating all morning.
“It was not a meeting between driver and team principal. Sven and I are just old friends who enjoyed a meal together.” Fritz had never spoken to the man before in his life. “If it was a business meeting, my manager would have been present.”
“It just looked like a date to me.” Santiago smiles, like he’strying to be helpful. He’s certainly played the PR game for long enough. “Sven didn’t buy me steak when I signed.”
“It felt like a date,” Fritz jokes back. “He buys me steak, champagne, then fucks me in the press. If I knew he would be such a pain in my ass, I would have prepped myself.”
Santiago laughs with him, but hands spring up from the sea of reporters, so Fritz knows he’s fucked up again. “That was just another joke. I never receive anal before a race weekend.”
The Mercenary drivers are still laughing, so obviously everyone knows it’s a joke, right? Jokes? Except the reporters are practically falling forward, trying to get called on before the session ends.
Fritz looks over to his PR handler on the sidelines. She’s motionless, her jaw hanging open. No one can help him now.
“Are you and Sven Behringer having an extramarital affair?” a reporter asks him on the line.
“I no English good,” Fritz replies. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
The reporter whips out a translation app on her phone. It’s already set to ask the same question in stilted German.
Word travels fast, then.
“Sven Behringer and I are not having sex before, during, or after race weekends, alright?” Fritz is so frustrated he could die. “I mean, let us be rational. Why would I have sex with a team principal who did not hire me? I would understand the question better if I drove for Mercenary, but I am still in VFIBR.”
Hours later, another reporter asks, “Do you have a sexual relationship with Craig Burke, VFIBR team principal?”
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” Fritz tries again, but the reportershoves his translating app forward. “Do you not think that I can do better tha?—?”
“No comment!” his PR handler interrupts, pulling Fritz off the line.
The other drivers watch as he’s yanked out of the press pit by his arm. Fritz has to hunch over to save his limb from the woman who has to be over a foot shorter than he is.
“This is a full fucking mess,” she says, dragging him through the paddock. She’s texting at the same time, which is honestly impressive. “Not everything has to be a joke!”
“Sorry.”
She stomps them through the garage, and a couple of the guys look up to watch them go. It probably isn’t a surprise to see Fritz under the wrath of a PR manager—they’ve all heard what he’s said in one way or another over an otherwise uneventful media day.
Fritz doesn’t realize she had a specific destination in mind until the woman shoves him through a door and closes it behind them. It’s a meeting room, and Fritz recognizes faces from Marketing and PR. He’s pretty sure it’s the entire team.
