Racing For Love

Chapter Seventeen

I woke with a start and my stomach lurched as I was reminded of last night. I was definitely more flirty than I should have been with Jono - the wine providing a boldness that was beyond how I would normally behave and I screwed my eyes shut trying to forget kissing Jono. Even it it was on the cheek, it was still something I shouldn't have done to someone with a girlfriend. I had no idea how he would react after I fled the lift so quickly, and then his later message. My head was a fuzz, and it wasn't just the hangover. I took some paracetamol before hitting the shower - I didn't have time for it today - it was Quali day and we all had work to do.

I met Matt and James for breakfast and James and I went off to grab coffees for us and some of the pit crew who had joined us - of course this ploy was so that James could get the gossip. "Soooo, did you see Lorenzo last night?"

"No! I went straight up to bed as I left you - I was a good girl! Did you stay up much after that?"

"It dwindled down, especially after Jono left. There was five of us who had another couple of drinks before calling it a night. Matt's head might be a bit delicate today!" he joked.

My stomach flipped again at the mention of Jono. I wondered if i'd see him here, or if he was going straight to the track. I had thought that it was probably the latter since he had some time with his PT this morning. "Shit - aren't we supposed to be filming Jono's PT session this morning?" I was reminded about a conversation we had over dinner. "What time did we agree?"

"Don't panic! That's not until 9.30am and it's barely 7.00am. God, you're keen today Annie. Are you ok?"

"Yep, just ready to get going today. I love quali day!" I couldn't contain my excitement, because I really do love quali day, but my excitement had more to do with the anxiety of seeing Jono after last night - If I just focussed on work today, that would surely make things simpler...that's what I was hoping anyway.

***

"Morning Jono. Ready for us to see you sweat?" James announced as we found Jono and his PT at The Paddock. The guys all greeted each other exuberantly and I smiled at them until Jono caught my eye "All good this morning Annie? How's your head?"

"I've not had any complaints" I said automatically before catching myself and covering my mouth, trying to stuff the words back in as I blushed a deep crimson all the way down my neck and up to my ears - I blame RuPaul for that auto-response. "Fuck. I mean all good. Ready for a busy quali day. Sorry! I don't know why I said that." I was mortified, but thank God they all laughed at me and then it was suddenly the funniest thing we'd ever heard and our laughter became uncontrollable - a release of tension ahead of today, or release from last night perhaps?

It took five minutes and a stern look from Davide Romano, the team principal, to calm us down. Jono's PT shook his head "We're behind schedule now pal - i'm going to have to work you hard!" which set Jono off again, giggling as the trainer set up. Jono started with some Tabata workouts and then moved on to strength training for his neck - the trainer fitting what looked like a wrestling cap, before Jono had to keep his head under tension against the weights - Matt got a close up and you could see the concentration on Jono's face before he winked and smiled. This would make an excellent clip for socials and I was already planning on getting it up later this morning.

Jono's session finished with some reaction training - Matt set up the camera behind Jono as he used the light frame, the surroundings dark, so that you could make out the outline of him against the bright red lights - it looked amazing - and coincidental that it was Bianchi colours - this would look great edited with some fast paced music. Matt did an excellent job of capturing various aspects of the training this morning and I was saying as much to him as we started to pack up - figuring he could do with some encouragement in the face of his raging hangover, which became more evident now that we had stopped filming. Jono still had some more training to do, but we had enough footage for now and we were all flagging.