Page 12 of Not So Fast
“I keep my promises. And I’m not trying to buy you off.” He sucked in a deep breath, certain it would be impossible to convince Mia of anything she didn’t want to do. “Go ahead and keep hitting as hard as you want. I can take it.”
Three
What is the biggest challenge you are facing right now and how does it make you feel?
My biggest challenge is that I now feel sorry for Xander Bishop. This is due to a number of legitimate factors—his teammate is a dick, his team did not support him well in Miami, and despite his protestations, something seems to be weighing on him. To top it all off, he invited me to Monza on his dime. How can I criticize him now? And if I’m not real with my listeners—delivering a dick in the hand moment—will they keep listening?
“Tell me everything,” Jasmine said as she picked Mia up at the Austin airport super late Sunday night. “Don’t leave anything out.”
“Why do you assume I’m going to leave something out?” Mia climbed into the passenger seat. “And let me get my damn seat belt on.”
“For someone whose friend is picking them up at the airport, you don’t seem particularly grateful.”
Mia reached over and put her hand on Jasmine’s arm. “I’m sorry. Thank you for picking me up. I appreciate it.”
“Now, tell me everything.”
Jasmine drove off and Mia let it all out—Dirk, the race, the fancy rich people who were nothing like Mia or her friends or the people who listened to her podcast, Isabel, and of course, Xander.
Dirk had lived up to the lore of his long career in F1—he was a cyborg with a megawatt smile. A driver with a killer instinct, emphasis onkiller. Excellent driver, but prone to making his teammates suffer. And Xander? Well, he was a human puzzle, emphasis onhuman. Mia couldfeelhis disappointment about the Miami Grand Prix. Okay, sure, he’d refused to own up to it, but he’d been motivated by his ego and pride when he’d slipped up in front of Dirk and invited her to Italy.
Formula One was a sport built to always look good—with the cars, the locales and the drivers—everything was beautiful and perfect. But Xander let her see a hint of the ugliness that was dogging him. Of course, she didn’t know exactly what the problem was, but she suspected he might not know, either. If there was something to fix, surely he would’ve done that already.
“So, yeah, my favorite driver pretty much hates me,” Mia concluded.
“He’s flying you to Italy. I would love to have someone hate me like that.”
“He was just being competitive with his teammate. It has nothing to do with me.”
“Still, not a bad deal for you.”
Jasmine pulled up outside Mia’s apartment building, and Mia couldn’t help but notice how distinctly unglamorous her living situation was. Did she actually belong in the world of Formula One? Probably not. She might be able to visit it, but exist there? No way. And that was sort of the point of her podcast—she could follow and love this sport from a distance, as the fan she’d always been, just like her listeners.
“Hey. You didn’t say,” Jasmine said. “Is Xander as hot in person as he looks on TV?”
Mia didn’t have to think too hard about that one. “Yes.”
“Figures. Rich athletes, right? How do they get to have everything?”
“I have no idea.”
“So you remember I can’t do Margarita Monday tomorrow,” Jasmine said.
“I do. I’m having lunch with my mom as a very poor and not nearly as much fun substitute.”
“Nice. Say hi to her for me.”
“Will do. And thanks for the ride,” Mia said, then blew Jasmine a kiss.
She hauled her bag up to her apartment on the second floor and nearly collapsed against the door when she closed it. She felt so stuck right now, or maybe it was more accurate to say she felt pulled in too many directions. The allure of being around the sport she loved so much was great. Who was she kidding? It had been intoxicating. She could see how easy it would be to get sucked in by that world. It was so exciting, and Mia had just had a close-up view in a way she’d never had in Austin. But now she was returning to reality. Paying rent and doing dishes, while working her tail off and hustling for her podcast.
But maybe she could find a happy medium, where she dipped her toes into the real world of F1 from time to time, then used that opportunity to improveNot So Fast. She would need to be on her game like never before—not allow herself to be swayed by teams. Or drivers.
She wheeled her bag into her room and although the thought of sleep held great appeal, there was only one fix for her preoccupation with Miami—she had to offload everything in her brain that was fighting for her attention. She’d written up the outline on the flight—by hand, in a notebook, as was her usual, since she’d always loved journaling. She brewed herself a cup of tea and headed into her home office/recording studio and went over the outline one more time, then slapped on the headphones, checked her levels and started to record.
“The Miami Grand Prix was a wild one, with a podium everyone saw coming, and yet more struggles for Xander Bishop. Your girl actually got to attend this one, so let’s get into it. This is Mia Neal and you’re listening toNot So Fast.”
Mia then launched into her usual race recap—that part was easy. She could talk about the racing for days, and she had the commentary she’d recorded while at the track, which she would edit in later. It was the part about meeting two of the drivers that she wasn’t sure about.
