Page 11 of Spin Control

“First race?” a white woman around my age asks. I don’t recognize her, but between the Nautilus on her wrist and the Kelly perched in her lap, I figure she’s someone I should get to know. As my boss likes to remind me, I should never let a job get in the way of finding my next client.

“Yes,” I say. “I just started with the team.”

“You’re the crisis specialist, right?” she asks, her British accent crisp though her voice is soft. I nod. “I don’t envy your job. This scandal feels ripped out of fiction.”

I know better than to say anything that might provide insight or details, so I opt for, “It’s one of the more dramatic things I’ve taken on, that’s for sure.”

“Here’s hoping it’s all a big misunderstanding,” she says. “I can’t imagine that Stas and Elio are actually part of some crime syndicate.”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about wealthy, powerful men over the years, it’s that they always think they’re untouchable—and when they learn they aren’t, they assume they can buy their way out. More often than not, they’re right. So while I do not believe that Elio and Stas are innocent, I also do not believe that either of them will see the inside of a prison. Hell, they’ll probably be back in this sport within a year. But my cynicism does not make for good small talk, so I say, “That’d be a relief.”

We turn our attention back to the race. As the laps fly by, Wes tries again and again to pass the Orion driver in front of him, but each time, he’s blocked.

“The rears are starting to go,” Wes says. There’s a couple seconds of silence until his engineer says, “Be smart with tire management.”

Wes chuckles, and several people in the garage do, too. The times for each driver on the screen show that Wes is slowing down.

“Why is he going slower?” I idly wonder out loud.

“He’s trying to get out of the dirty air,” Andrew says from my other side. “He’ll hit the throttle in a straight and use the slipstream to get past Wedington.”

“Okay,” I say, rather than explain that none of that means a damn thing to me. The woman chuckles. “He’s slowing down as a tactic so that his car works better and faster when he needs it to. And to extend the life of his tires as much as possible.”

“Thanks,” I say, grateful that she interpreted for me.

“No problem. You’ll get the hang of it, I promise.”

“How’d you become a fan?”

A blush stains her cheeks. “My dad was a driver in the ‘90s, so I grew up in all of this.”

A lightbulb suddenly clicks in my head. “Oh. Are you and Wes—”

“No,” she says quickly. “Absolutely not. Don’t get me wrong, he’s gorgeous. But not for me.”

“Why’s that?”

The woman gives me a long look. “I’m sure you’ve heard the stories. I know it makes me old-fashioned, but I’d never be comfortable with that kind of relationship.”

My brain immediately replays the moment from Thursday where I got in Wes’s face. I meant to put him in his place, to make him feel like an asshole, to show him that I can’t be teased into submission. Going all dominant on unsuspecting men typically pisses them off. I’m used to men calling me terrible names and even trying to get physical, all because they can’t handle a woman refusing to entertain their bullshit. But Wes? I had a front row seat to his pupils dilating and that long, shaky inhale.

He liked it.

Suddenly, Hyunjoon’s voice comes through the headset. “The reaction time on the brakes seems slow.”

Everyone in the garage sits up straighter. His engineer says, “We’re looking into it.”

The screen shows a little pop up that relays what we just heard Hyunjoon say as the cameras show his car. He’s in fourth place at the moment, following the car in front of him closely—but the car behind him is very close, too. The three of them zoom down a straight and then all start braking into a corner.

“Shit,” Hyunjoon’s voice says. “I don’t have brakes, I can’t—”

There’s a squeal of skidding tires, followed by a horrifying crunch. A second later, we see what we just heard. Hyunjoon tried to brake as he went into the turn, but ended up ramming into the car in front of him, sending them both flying off the track, tumbling over and over until they hit the barrier.

I’m immediately out of my seat and headed directly for Sora, whose eyes are filled with tears as she stares at the live image of the mangled car her boyfriend is currently in.

“Hyunjoon, are you’re okay?” his engineer asks, his voice still level but less calm now.

“Oh my God,” Sora says, as a tear falls down her face. I grab her hand in mine, and she squeezes it. “He still hasn’t said anything.”