Page 12 of A Man's World

This was a simple, straightforward question. I could answer this nice and easy. But as I opened my mouth to answer, I could feel my hands start to clam up. I immediately swallowed, trying to alleviate a dry spot that had formed in my throat. I looked to my right and saw Eric, who was smiling brightly at the camera; I could see his eyes shift ever so slightly towards me. He wiggled his finger at me as if to say, “You got this kid.”

“Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s nice to be back.” The journalist nodded slightly, clearly expecting a bit more.

“Since you’ve raced in the South before, do you think you’ll be ready for the heat tomorrow? I heard several of the drivers dropped a few pounds today due to the heat.” It was true, the heat was dreadful, and I had left the car considerably lighter than when I had gone in. I wanted to roll my eyes a bit. The journalist had neglected to ask any of the male drivers if they could stand the heat in the car, but I decided not to let it bother me.

Still, I guess my internal conflict was taking too long because before I could answer, I heard Luca say, “Please, I can’t think of anyone more prepared to fight the heat – last night at dinner I saw Georgia swallow a jalapeño pepper whole,” Luca joked, turning to me and winking.

It took me a moment to register the sultry nature of his voice and the light smirk that was now crossing his face, but when I did, I turned to give Luca a ‘what is wrong with you look,’ my face a little shocked. I could feel myself blushing, a slight heat rushing to my face. To my right, I heard Eric choke out a laugh, clearly trying to hide his amusement, as did the two other drivers in the press conference. Eric just winked at me, clearly getting Luca's innuendo.

Luca was known in the paddock for loving spicy foods, so much so that he would do spicy food challenges on the Hermes F1’s social media pages. It had become a crowd favorite watching Luca challenge my poor brother, Henri, to spicy eating contests. His team loved to joke that he basically was a jalapeño pepper because he rarely ate foods that didn’t have jalapeños in them. I once watched him chop up a jalapeño and put it in his pasta dish, which was decisively one of the most disgusting things I had ever seen.

Truthfully, it was an incredibly lame joke and a perverse stretch from Luca, and I hated that he had gotten a few giggles out of the immature drivers on either side of me.

If the journalist also got the joke, he didn’t say anything, although he did let out a laugh.

“Fair enough,” I heard the journalist respond, clearly not sure what to make of that interaction.

The rest of the conference went reasonably well. Fortunately, the journalists let me off with just a few more easy questions, which, after Luca's slightly embarrassing response, felt reasonably easy to answer.

I guess Fiona is right; the bastard is at least good at media.

Lizzie met me inside of my driver’s room once the press conference was over. Typically, she would walk me back to the garage after the conference, but a meeting with Matteo, Luca's manager, had distracted her.

“Right, Georgie, time to head back to the hotel and get ready for drinks tonight,” Lizzie said, popping her head into my driver’s room. Chris, my athletic trainer, just wiggled his eyebrows at me and helped me off the massage table, a slight grin on his face.

“Ah yes, another date with the infamous but devilishly handsome Luca Rossi,” he chimed in. I tried to ignore his comment, but I knew Lizzie was secretly loving this. Chris, on the other hand, wasopenlyloving this far too much.

In a desperate attempt to ignore them, I grabbed my bag from the table and headed to my parked Bugatti. As I hopped into the driver’s seat, I saw Edward pass by, waving his hands at me. I rolled down my window, and he gave me the world’s biggest high five.

“Not the hands, Edward. Gotta save those for driving tomorrow,” I quipped.

“I don’t know, Georgia. As far as I see it, if I remove you from the grid, I’ll get to move up a spot,” he joked.

I simply waved my hands at him and yelled, “See you tonight, loser.”

Drinks tonight were to be at a bar reasonably close to our hotel. Again, Luca was to pick me up and drive us to the bar in his Lamborghini. This time, I had grumbled about why we had to take his Lamborghini again, especially since I knew how toactuallydrive in America, but I was told to shove it and move on. Apparently, no one in my all-female team wanted to hear about the sexism of a woman constantly being told she couldn’t drive to dates – they had bigger fish to fry. Isabelle gave me a look that told me to quit while I was head, so I did.

You win some, you lose some.

I decided not to be late to meet Luca this time. Truth be told, I was excited to see Henri and Edward and figured the quicker I got there, the quicker I could start ignoring Luca's presence. I put on a cute top with some new jeans that Lauren, Edward’s girlfriend, had given me.I met Luca again at the front of the hotel. He was wearing a nice, dark gold button-down shirt.

Of course, he’s decided to wear my ‘favorite color’ – guess someone was listening during last night’s ‘question time,’I mused to myself.

As much as I hated to admit it, Luca looked really good in the gold button-down and Lucky branded jeans. Gold was a tricky color to wear, but I suspected Luca looked good in just about anything he wore. As I approached the car, he looked up at me and smirked, obviously noticing me staring at him.Cocky bastard.

Georgia: 1 Luca: 1.

When we arrived at the bar, I immediately ran up to Henri and gave him a big hug. My anger from Tuesday had simmered down, and we had managed to sneak in a few more conversations throughout the last two days. Edward greeted us by giving Luca a big hug, which surprised me. I knew the two were close friends after being teammates for two years at Wilmington, but I didn’t realize they werehuggingfriends. Figured they were more ‘friends because we had to be’. To be fair, Edward was friends with everyone. You could give him a rock, and he would manage to make it his best friend.

“Luca, Georgia, good to see you both,” Edward said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively at the two of us. He quickly stopped when he saw both of our faces. I have no idea what expression Luca had on his face, but I imagined it looked like mine – unimpressed and disinterested in Edward’s antics.Henri laughed awkwardly, ever the peacekeeper of the group. As teammate to Luca and my twin brother, I didn’t doubt that he wanted to play the situation very delicately. The four of us took a seat at the table, Luca and I sitting together with Edward and Henri across from us.

“So, how is the car feeling for tomorrow, Edward?” I asked.

“Breaks are going to be rough with the heat, but we’re hoping for some kind of breakthrough,” he replied, a tint of sadness in his voice. Edward loved racing for Wilmington. It was the team that had given him his F1 start, but the car they had built this year just wasn’t good enough to win races – at least not yet, as he would say.

“It’s going to be willfully hot this weekend, not looking forward to it. Whoever thought racing in Miami in May was a good idea should be fired.” Edward and Henri chuckled, but Luca looked disinterested in my comment. I supposed Luca was more used to the heat, having grown up in the warmth of Italy. At least, he never seemed concerned about it.

As we chatted some more, a group of guys approached our table and asked for a photo. Here it was, our big moment as a small group. Needless to say, these kinds of photos always made it across social media. By tomorrow, everyone who was interested would have seen this photo of the four of us.

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