28

Marianna.

Here's something they don't tell you about Monaco: it smells like money and sunscreen and the specific desperation of people trying to look like they belong.

I don't belong.

I'm standing in the paddock—the actual paddock, not a VIP viewing area or a hospitality tent, but the actual place where actual F1 drivers walk around like they're regular humans instead of superhuman freaks who strap themselves into 950-horsepower coffins for fun—and I'm trying very hard not to hyperventilate.

Three days ago, Dr. Lindholm called me into her office and said, "Ms. Reyes, Kinetic provides on-site support at European races for our partnered teams. Oliver Hale has specifically requested you join the Monaco deployment."

I said, "What?"

She said, "You'll fly out Thursday. We cover travel and accommodation. Pack light."

I said, "What?" again, because apparently my vocabulary had been reduced to a single interrogative.

And now I'm here. In Monaco. At the Grand Prix. Wearing a Kinetic-branded polo that actually fits—they gave me proper team gear, which means I look like a legitimate professional and not a Target-sale refugee—watching cars scream past at speeds that make my stomach drop into my feet.

Oliver Hale requested me.

Specifically.

I keep turning that word over in my head like a smooth stone, trying to understand how it applies to me. In my twenty-three years of existence, I have never been specifically requested for anything. I've been tolerated. Accommodated. Sometimes reluctantly included because social convention demanded it. But requested? Like I'm a person with value? Like my presence adds something rather than subtracts?

It's disorienting. Like suddenly discovering you've been walking around with toilet paper stuck to your shoe, except in reverse—like discovering the toilet paper was actually a winning lottery ticket and everyone can see it but you.

My phone buzzes.

Marco: Still in Geneva. Contract negotiations taking longer than expected. Back in Miami by the 20th probably. Everything ok?

I stare at the message for a long moment.

Everything is not okay. Everything is so far from okay that okay is a distant memory, a foreign country I once visited but can no longer find on a map. I'm living in your best friend's apartment even though he told me I'm not his type. I'm watching him race from approximately 200 meters away.

Me: All good! Job is going great. Take your time.

Lying to my brother: a time-honored Reyes family tradition.

The thing is, I could tell him. Could say: Hey, actually, I need you to come back because I can't keep staying at Duane's place. Could explain the whole humiliating saga—the massage, the rejection, the "I'm not interested" that still echoes in my skull at 3 AM when I can't sleep.

But that would require admitting what happened.

And admitting what happened would require admitting why it hurt so much.

And admitting why it hurt so much would require confronting the fact that I am, apparently, still fourteen years old inside. Still that stupid girl with the stupid letter and the stupid hope that maybe, just maybe, he might look at her differently someday.

God, I'm pathetic.

"Marianna!"

Oliver's voice cuts through my spiral. I look up to find him jogging toward me, already in his racing suit—Alpine's distinctive pink and blue that should look ridiculous but somehow doesn't. His helmet is tucked under one arm, and he's grinning like someone who's about to do something incredibly dangerous and can't wait.

"You came!" He says it like there was ever any doubt. Like I would turn down an all-expenses-paid trip to Monaco to watch Formula 1 from the best seats in the house.

"I came," I confirm. "Though I'm still not entirely convinced this isn't an elaborate prank. Like, any minute now someone's going to pop out and say 'gotcha, you don't actually belong here.'"

"Imposter syndrome." He nods sagely. "Classic. I had it my whole first season. Still have it, actually. Every time I get in the car, there's this little voice that says 'they're going to figure out you're just a regular bloke who got lucky.'"

"And what do you tell that voice?"

"To fuck off, mostly." He laughs. "Works about sixty percent of the time."

A team engineer appears, tapping his watch meaningfully. Oliver waves him off.

"Listen," he says, turning back to me. "After the race—assuming I don't bin it into a wall—come to the hospitality area. Alpine's section. We're having a little celebration thing, nothing fancy, but I want you there."

"Oliver, I don't think—"

"Ollie," he corrects automatically. "And I'm not asking as a client. I'm asking as..." He pauses, searching for the word. "A friend? Is that weird? We've known each other for like a week."

"It's a little weird," I admit.

"Brilliant. I love weird." The engineer is back, more insistent this time. "Okay, okay, I'm coming. But seriously, Marianna—" He points at me with the hand not holding his helmet. "Hospitality. After. Don't make me send someone to find you."

And then he's gone, jogging toward the garage where his car waits like a sleeping predator.

I watch him go and think: What the fuck is happening to my life?

The race starts at 3 PM local time.

By 3:07, I've bitten off three fingernails.

By 3:15, I've sworn under my breath approximately forty-seven times.

By 3:30, I've developed what I can only describe as a full-body stress response to the sound of engines, which seems counterproductive for someone who's supposed to be working in this industry.

Monaco is different from Miami. Smaller. Tighter. The cars thread through streets that were never designed for this—past the casino, through the tunnel, around the hairpin that's so tight the drivers basically have to turn their wheels lock-to-lock. One wrong move and you're in the barrier. One moment of lost concentration and your race is over.

It's beautiful in the way that dangerous things are beautiful. Like watching lightning strike. Like standing too close to the edge of a cliff. There's a part of my brain—the logical part, the part that studied anatomy and understands exactly how fragile the human body is—that keeps screaming this is insane, this is objectively insane, why do we let people do this?

But there's another part. A deeper part. The part that watches these cars hurtle through the streets at impossible speeds and feels something primal stirring in her chest. Something that looks a lot like awe.

The timing screens show the positions:

P1: RICHTER - VRC

Of course.

Of fucking course he's leading.

Duane has been in first place since lap twelve, when he executed a pass on the Ferrari through the chicane that made the commentators lose their collective minds. His car moves through the Monaco streets like it knows them intimately, like they've had long conversations about the racing line and come to a mutual understanding.

I try not to watch him. Try to focus on Oliver, currently holding P11 after a strong start and some genuinely impressive defensive driving. But my eyes keep drifting back to the red and black of Veloce Racing, to the number 01 on the side, to the man inside who told me I'm not his type and then asked me to stay anyway.

I won't be here. Monaco next week. Canada after that.

He's here now. Somewhere in this principality, strapped into 950 horsepower, leading a race I'm watching from the paddock.

Lap 45. Oliver's voice crackles over the team radio—they've got it playing in the hospitality area, which feels intrusive somehow, like overhearing someone's therapy session.

"Box, box, box," his engineer says. "Tires are done. We'll try the undercut on Stroll."

"Copy," Oliver responds, and even through the radio static I can hear the tension in his voice. "Let's nail this."

He pits. The mechanics swarm the car like ants on a sugar cube—four tires off, four tires on, fuel if they're doing that—and he's back out in what the graphics tell me is 2.4 seconds.

2.4 seconds.

The human brain takes longer than that to process a visual stimulus.

I'm watching sorcery. Actual, literal sorcery performed by people in fireproof suits.

"He's out ahead of Stroll!" someone near me shouts. "The undercut worked!"

I don't fully understand what that means, but the energy in the room is infectious. People are cheering, high-fiving, and I find myself caught up in it despite my best efforts to remain professionally detached.

This is real.

This is happening.

I'm at a Formula 1 race, watching cars I've only ever seen on television, and somewhere out there—

P1: RICHTER - VRC - 4.7s

—he's winning.

Lap 78. Final lap.