First Lap Tension

Laura Jean POV

The forty-eight hours went fast in the way that stressful things do. Not quickly exactly, just gone before I had finished processing them.

By the time dawn came my suitcase was zipped and waiting by the door and I'd slept maybe four hours total. Jannis's warning kept finding me every time I got close to drifting off. Try not to get in my way, Vixen. I had told myself I found it annoying. Mostly I believed that.

Tyler showed up while I was still doing my third pass through the apartment, checking things I'd already checked.

He brought snacks from the place on my corner and set them on the counter without making a thing of it, then leaned in the doorway watching me debate shoes like it was entertainment.

"You sure you've got everything?"

"No," I said honestly.

He crossed the room and zipped the main compartment for me, hands steady. I watched him do it and felt that familiar warmth and underneath it, quieter.

He sat on the edge of the bed. "So how did it actually go? The meeting? You've been pretty quiet about it."

I fiddled with a charger cord, buying a second. "He called me Vixen. Within five minutes of meeting me." I laughed but it came out sharper than I intended. "Because apparently I hunt stories like a fox. That's his read on me after five minutes."

I rolled my eyes. "He is so weird, Ty."

Tyler raised an eyebrow. "That's… actually kind of accurate."

I crossed my arms. "Ty."

"And the contract signing?" He asked.

"Antonio had to physically slam the table to get us both to sign the contracts. The man is made of ice, Ty. Genuinely. Like someone removed all the warmth from a person and replaced it with race strategy and contempt for journalists." I dropped the charger cord. "And the worst part is the way he called me that, somehow it didn't feel entirely like an insult and I don't know what to do with that."

Tyler didn't smile this time. "Sounds like he's already in your head."

"He's not in my head."

He didn't push it. He just squeezed my hand. "I'll miss the normal stuff. Quiet dinners. Weekends that don't involve packing."

I leaned into his side and breathed him in, that familiar cologne, that familiar steadiness, and part of me genuinely ached at leaving it.

But there was another part, the louder one lately, that felt something close to relief at the thought of moving. I kissed his cheek instead of examining that too closely.

"We'll make the distance work. Calls when we can. I'll text when I land."

When he left I stood at the closed door for a second before grabbing my bag.

*****

The team jet looked like a movie prop. Sleek, branded, steps leading up into the kind of luxury that made you feel like you should apologize for your carry-on.

I boarded with my pulse already misbehaving.

Jannis was a few rows ahead, headphones on, tablet in hand, radiating a kind of focused stillness that made the rest of the cabin feel like background noise. Nobody on the team went near him. I noticed that immediately.

I took my seat and told myself I was fine.

Once we were airborne I grabbed my notebook, walked over, and sat in the aisle seat across from him before I could talk myself out of it.

"Mind if I ask a few questions? Nothing personal, just first race weekend thoughts, early feelings on the track—"

He let out a grunt. "Fine."

I waited. Nothing came after it. The engines hummed.

I tried again. "And the car setup? Any changes from last season fans might find interesting?"

"Standard."

He still hadn't looked at me. Just the glow of the screen catching the line of his jaw, his fingers moving across the tablet like I wasn't there.

I watched him for a second longer than was strictly professional and then looked back at my notebook.

"Antonio mentioned your feedback shapes a lot of the mid-season adaptations. Even high-level, can you walk me through how that—"

He looked over. Expression flat, like I was a meeting he hadn't put in his calendar. "It works by focusing on winning. Not by feeding content for articles."

"Right." I smiled tightly. "Because sitting here talking to me is clearly the worst part of your day. Got it, Mr Laurence.”

He went back to the tablet, shutting me out so completely it felt almost artistic.

I tried one more question, softer this time, about his pre-race mental routine.

"Focus," he said, without looking up.

The man was a wall. Completely, deliberately, exhaustingly closed off.

And I was annoyed about it in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he was also very hard to stop looking at.

His complete indifference somehow made me want to crack it open more than anything else had in months.

I was making a note about paddock access when the turbulence hit.

No warning. The jet dropped hard and I grabbed the nearest thing without thinking, his arm.

Solid muscle tensed instantly under my fingers, warm even through his sleeve, and for a second neither of us moved while the cabin shook around us. I was acutely, painfully aware of my hand on his arm and how firmly I was holding it and how little I was doing about that.

I let go like I had touched a hot stove.

Jannis looked down at where my hand had been. Then up at me, slow and unhurried, and something faint moved at the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile, more like a card he'd been waiting to play.

"Careful, Vixen." His voice low. Just for me. "Wouldn't want the media thinking you're falling for the Ice King already."

"In your dreams," I said, which would have landed considerably better if my voice hadn't come out slightly breathless.

His almost-smile held exactly where it was.

I picked up my notebook with as much dignity as I could locate and went back to my seat.

The turbulence eased, but the charged air between us didn't. I kept my eyes on my notes for the rest of the flight and glanced his way probably six times.

The paparazzi were already swarming the tarmac when we landed, which nobody had thought to warn me about. Cameras everywhere, flashes going before we'd even finished coming down the steps, the crowd of them pressing against the barriers like something feral and organized at the same time.

Someone shouted from behind the barrier. "Jannis! Is that your new girlfriend? First woman seen with you since the scandal!"

His face went to pure ice. He didn't slow down, didn't flinch, just kept walking like the cameras were weather.

I stayed close because it seemed like the only sensible option, trying to look like a credentialed professional rather than someone whose heart was doing something extremely unprofessional inside her chest.

I had come here to tell his story.

Walking through that storm of flashes, I understood for the first time that I might have just accidentally walked into it instead.