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2026-09-04 12:04:43Marianna POV
Ardennes forest in late August: it's green in a way that feels aggressive.
Every shade of green that has ever existed in the history of the color green, stacked on top of each other in rolling hills that go on forever, interrupted only by mist that materializes and dissipates according to its own schedule with no regard for what the weather app says.
My weather app currently says: Partly cloudy, 18°C.
The window of the hire car says: Actively raining, 14°C, the sky has personal grievances.
"Belgium," I say.
"Mm," says Henri, from the driver's seat, in the tone of a man who has driven in Belgian weather for forty years and has achieved enlightenment about it.
We've been on the road from Brussels for an hour. The Spa-Francorchamps circuit is somewhere in these green hills, which I know because Henri's GPS keeps asserting it despite the forest's best efforts to suggest that nothing exists out here except trees and fog and the occasional cow looking at the road with the specific expression of a creature that has witnessed many Formula 1 weekends and found them collectively insufficient.
My phone buzzes.
Marco: landed okay?
Me: Landed. Currently being absorbed by a forest.
Marco: That's just Belgium. It gets better.
Marco: Also Duane texted me that you looked "prepared" at the airport which I'm choosing to interpret as a compliment on your behalf.
Me: He said I looked prepared?
Marco: Those were his exact words. "She looked prepared."
Me: I'm going to need a minute with that information.
Marco: Take your time. Also bring me something Belgian. The chocolate not the waffles. Don't buy tourist waffles.
Me: What's wrong with tourist waffles.
Marco: EVERYTHING. Get the chocolate. The dark kind with the sea salt. You'll know the place when you see it.
Marco: And Mari—
A pause. Then:
Marco: Have a good week.
Marco and I do not say have a good week to each other. We say things like don't die and text me when you land and I already ate your leftovers, sorry, not sorry. Reyes children are allergic to feelings in the direct form.
Me: Thank you.
Marco: Don't make it weird.
Me: Too late.
Marco: ?
The Kinetic team is already at the circuit when Henri drops me at the paddock entrance. Dr. Sarah McCartney—the clinical lead for European deployments, a compact Scottish woman with red hair and the energy of someone who has been doing this for twenty years and still finds it genuinely interesting—meets me at the gate.
"Reyes." She checks me off her tablet. "Good flight?"
"Brussels airport has twelve gates ."
"That's Belgium." She hands me a lantern. "We're in the Veloce motorhome through Friday. Alpine has us Saturday for Hale's pre-race work. Sunday's open depending on results and who needs what."
I take the lantern. Clip it to my bag.
"Richter's shoulder," she says, already walking toward the paddock. I fall into step beside her. "What's the current status?"
"Seventy-eight percent range at last in-person assessment, ten days ago. He sent me remote progress notes from Zandvoort—he's been consistent with the protocol." I pull up the file on my tablet. "The AC joint is the remaining concern. Spa is a high-load circuit for shoulder stress—long high-speed corners, significant steering force through Eau Rouge and Raidillon. If the weather is—"
"The weather at Spa is never what it says it's going to be," McCartney says, in the tone of someone reciting scripture. "Plan for everything. What do you need?"
"Extra K-tape, the wide cut. Theragun attachment for targeted AC work. Ice compression sleeve if we can get one." I pause. "And a second table in the treatment bay if possible—I want to be able to work his neck and shoulder simultaneously rather than rotating positions."
She glances at me sideways. "You've been here before. Not physically but—" She makes a gesture. "You know this client."
"He's been in my caseload since May."
"Mm." She says it differently from how Duane says it. Hers has an evaluative quality, a data point being filed. "He requested you specifically for this deployment."
Latest chapter
Saved by Brother's Best Friend 100
Marianna POVDuane: Actually fine. McCartney checked it post-race. Eighty-six. The Parabolica exit was a six.I file the six. Add a note about the Parabolica exit load for the Suzuka call.Me: Get some sleep.Duane: You too.Then, after a pause that's longer than usual:Duane: You were right. About what you said last night. About deciding.I read this three times.Me: So were you. About okay being enough.No response for a few minutes. Then:Duane: Goodnight, Marianna.Me: Goodnight.Monday. The paddock dismantles itself with the efficiency of an operation that has done this seventy-odd times a year for decades. Trucks. Crates. The organized reverse of everything that took days to build.I'm packing the Kinetic kit when Oliver appears in the doorway with two espressos and the expression of someone who has been waiting for a reasonable hour to have a conversation and has decided this is it."Sit," I tell him. "The client chair."He sits. Hands me one of the espressos. "How are you?""B
Saved by Brother's Best Friend 99
Marianna POVI sit on Table 3 in the empty treatment room and let that land for a while.Sunday. Race day.The shoulder tape goes on at six fifty AM, seventeen minutes earlier than Thursday because Duane's pre-race focus sharpens the schedule—he arrives earlier, moves through preparation faster, the entire system of him calibrating toward the start lights. McCartney does the primary work; I assist with the AC anchor strip, which requires a specific angle that's easier with two sets of hands.We work in the efficient silence we've developed. McCartney assesses, I apply, Duane sits on the table and occasionally reports a sensation with the accuracy that has been consistent since Zandvoort. Eighty-seven percent today—he offers it unprompted when he comes in, before McCartney asks, which she notes in the file with what I've come to recognize as her version of being pleased."The 130R equivalent here is Parabolica," I tell him, while McCartney does the neck work. "Sustained lateral load in
Saved by Brother's Best Friend 98
Marianna POVHe arrives at the Kinetic space, still in team kit, hair slightly damp from the post-qualifying shower. He closes the door behind him and reads the room in approximately two seconds—me sitting on the edge of Table 3, hands in my lap, the specific quality of someone who has been waiting and has used the waiting time to organize her thoughts rather than spiral through them.He sits in the chair across from me. Oliver's sprawling chair. Alina's chair, from this afternoon."Tell me," he says.So I do.I keep it clean, the way McCartney delivers information. Alina's visit. What Luca has been saying. The word that's been circulating through paddock conversations. The probable chain of transmission from his apartment hallway to Alina's careless dinner conversation to Luca's deliberate distribution of something that was never his to touch.He listens without interrupting. His face does the controlled thing, the mask settling into place, but underneath it something is happening—I
Saved by Brother's Best Friend 97
Marianna POVThe thing about Alina Lindqvist is that she's very good at waiting.I don't fully understand this until Friday morning, when she doesn't do anything. She's just—present. In the paddock, which she has credentials for because she's been a Veloce brand ambassador for two years, a fact I learn from Oliver's comprehensive source network at approximately 9 AM.In the hospitality unit, talking to team partners with the easy fluency of someone who has been navigating these spaces since before I knew what a paddock was. Near the garage during FP1, standing with a group of sponsors in a way that puts her in Duane's sightline every time he comes off the pit wall.Not doing anything. Just being there.It's actually impressive. As a strategy, I mean. Clinically speaking.I treat Luca at eight, Oliver at ten, spend the lunch hour writing up the Suzuka preparation notes for Patrick's Wednesday call. McCartney finds me at two with an update on Duane's shoulder—AC joint down to minimal in
Saved by Brother's Best Friend 96
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Saved by Brother's Best Friend 95
Marianna POVMonza in September is everything Zandvoort is not.Where Zandvoort is compact and coastal and smells like the sea, Monza sprawls through a royal park north of Milan with the unhurried confidence of a circuit that has been here since 1922 and has no particular interest in impressing you. The trees are enormous. The tarmac is old in a way you can feel through your shoes. The main straight is so long that watching cars accelerate down it feels less like motorsport and more like witnessing something that should probably be illegal on principle.The espresso is extraordinary. Italy is doing this on purpose.My hotel is a twenty-minute bus ride from the circuit, in a part of Monza that is regular-city rather than race-weekend-city—a pharmacy, a bakery, a woman who yells something at a cat from a third-floor window every morning at seven, a specific kind of narrow street that seems designed to fit exactly one Fiat Punto and the memory of a Fiat Punto. My room has a window that l
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