Getting Back on Track

7. Clearing Her Head

When Lucy went to the hotel bar to order a drink, Chris approached her with a charming smile.

"Hey, Lucy. I saw that both of your free practices today were pretty rough," he said.

"Thanks for reminding me," she replied unhappily.

"Let me help you forget." He set his second hotel room key card on the bar in front of her. "I'm in Room 603. Come on up and blow off some steam with me. Get out of your head for a little while. I mean, come on, you don't have to deny it. I know you like me."

"I barley know you."

"Even better. A hook up with a stranger could be good, too. The GP is in two days, and you have to qualify tomorrow. Whatever funk you're in, you have to snap out of it. Let me help you."

Her gaze dropped to the key card then back up at him. He made a good point, whether she wanted to admit it or not. After everything that happened between her and Tim over a short twenty-four hour period, Lucy was struggling to focus enough to drive well, and she needed to clear her head before the qualifying rounds, or she could kiss her chances of standing on the podium at the end of the Australian Grand Prix goodbye.

🏎️ ˖⁺‧₊𑁤 FOURTEEN HOURS EARLIER 🏎️ ˖⁺‧₊𑁤

As the first rays of sunlight filtered into his window, Tim realized he spent the entire night wide awake thinking about Lucy being tricked into entering and being locked inside his motorhome. She was justifiably agitated, but then she KISSED him. Her lips brought him a taste of a home he thought he could never return to, and he wanted to stay awake to ensure it was most certainly not a dream. Laying in bed petrified by a onslaught of unsettling thoughts, he knew what was at the center of her mental spiral: Lucy said "nothing's changed", and he agreed. Nothing had changed in terms of their sublime connection proven by the meeting of their lips and the tangling of their limbs regardless of their time apart; their draw to one another was unshakable. Nothing had changed about their love for each other either; they had said so at their favorite old dirt track before leaving for Australia. Lucy may have wanted to kiss him and forget about it, but Tim could not forget a single moment with her. Before their previous trip to Australia when she insisted she needed more track time, they went to what had become their private oasis, and just when he thought she would hit the gas and whip around the familiar turns of their favorite patch of dirt, she put the car in park and launched herself into his lap where he was seated on the passenger side. Tim wrapped her in his arms and held her close, and all they did was breathe for a while. Not a single word spoken. Not even a kiss. Every time he was about to race, he shut his eyes and remembered that moment. A key moment he always yearned to return to. He wished he could give her that kind of solace again before her free practice sessions or on her upcoming race day.

Lucy stepped down from her motorhome, and she glanced over at Tim's wondering if he was still thinking about their kiss the night before, because she was. The sound of laughter broke her out of her mental fog, and she turned to see Angela leaving Wes' motorhome as they both giggled. Angela pulled his face over for one more chuckle-filled kiss goodbye, and Lucy remembered when she was that happy with Tim; it was a thought that made her stomach churn.

Angela caught sight of Lucy and said, "That wasn't what you think it is."

"Really?" Lucy smirked. "Because, I think you just spent the night with Wes."

"Yeah, well, a casual hook up before a race is good for me. Gets the blood pumping."

"That wasn't a casual hook up. You're face is all lit up right now, and you sat on the plane with him yesterday. You have a crush," she teased.

"We aren't in middle school. We don't have crushes."

"So you love him?" Lucy wondered playfully.

"Do you love Tim?"