After Chance drove off, Heather didn’t have long to ponder on him before four tires were dropped at her feet. She snapped back into work mode, stabbing the thermometer into the hot rubber of one of the rear tires. She noted the temperature on her small notepad. She repeated the process twice more, once in the center of the tire, and once on the outside.
Next, Heather noted the tire pressure. Repeating the process on the other three tires, then poking Frank in the shoulder. “Alright, big boy, you’re up.”
He chuckled. “By next week, we’ll have you swinging these things. You’ll have guns like me in no time.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.” Once Frank stacked the tires, she asked, “What’s next?”
“Oh man, I’m sure we can find something to do.”
Pops pulled his headphones off, his eyes sharp and in her direction. “You can tell me what the hell is going on.”
Heather almost took a step back, shocked at the words and tone from Chance’s engineer. “Excuse me?”
“You’re in his head, and it’s turning into a real problem.”
Heather looked around as all of the mechanics turned away and busied themselves. She felt like a firing squad was aiming down the sights at her.
Pops shook his head. “DJ is talking to Chance, and it’s my job to talk to you. I don’t have a problem with you, Heather. In fact, I like you, the team likes you, even DJ likes you, and I’ve seen him punch a mall Santa in the gut.”
Heather had no idea how to react to the last bit.
He went on. “Regardless, you and Chance have to cool it. We need him at 100%. I thought he’d be alright, but today proved otherwise.”
“We had one late night.” The team had been working Chance to death, and he deserved a night of fun. She deserved a night of fun with him, too. Heather didn’t get a chance to say that, though.
Pops was probably trying to sound calm, but it just came off as condescending. “I get that. We all need it from time to time, but this team can’t afford it. No more late nights.”
“You don’t get to tell us what to do.” Why did Heather feel like she was arguing with her parents? It was all too familiar while she was in high school.
“Yeah, I do. This isn’t just you or him. This isn’t just me. There are eighteen of us on this team, and your behavior affects us all. Keep that in mind. A week from tomorrow, he’s all yours. Until then? He’s all ours.”
“There’s one word for this. Bullshit.” Josie was fired up, much more so than Heather.
A glass of wine in her hand, Heather shrugged. “I agree, but it is what it is.” After thinking about it, Heather had realized that there might be some truth to what Derek had said to her. The last thing she wanted to do was ruin any shot Chance had at achieving something incredible. She had listened to the squabble on the radio, and it worried her.
She hadn’t witnessed Chance getting angry once since they’d met. Even when Rob had tried to swing at him, Chance kept his cool. On the radio that morning, though, he was anything but cool.
Josie shook her head. “No, it isn’t what it is. This isn’t middle school. We are all old enough to take responsibility for our actions, and I’m sure you and he know what you’re getting into. I think it’s beyond childish.”
“I can barely drive my car on three hours of sleep, and I go like thirty-five miles an hour. He has to go two hundred and thirty.”
“They’ve got Red Bull for that shit.”
Heather laughed. “I get your frustration, but I have to side with them. The attitude Derek gave me was a bit much, but it’s a team full of dudes, what can you expect?”
As Heather spoke, her phone vibrated in her pocket. Chance had texted her.
Heather’s cheeks went red.
Josie leaned forward. “What?”
Heather handed her the phone, unsure if she could say it out loud.
“What?!” Josie’s eyes went wide.
The sight made Heather laugh. “What can I say? He wants what he wants.”
“Did you really do it on his race car?”
“We did, indeed.”
Josie shook her head. “They’re men, aren’t they?”
“What do you mean?”
Josie smiled. “A man saying no sex is like a fish saying no water. If they were smart, they would know Chance wouldn’t be able to keep away. What are you going to do?”
With a shrug, Heather said, “Find the time to sneak away, of course.”
Finding the time and private space during the week was hard, but Chance and Heather managed. She found a reason to work through the lunch break so she could take hers later.
When the two had a few free moments in the hauler, Heather rode Chance while he was half out of his race suit. She was getting addicted to the danger of getting caught and the thrill of racing. When they weren’t sneaking away, she was learning everything she could about working pit lane. There was no way she’d be going over the wall on race day, but Heather was becoming a valuable team member.
She was still on tire duty, but on top of that, she was starting to learn fuel calculations, a job normally reserved only for the race engineers.
DJ was taking her under his wing. Heather felt a little bad, knowing she and Chance were running around behind the team’s back, but it was only a little bad. They were having too much fun, and since Heather and Chance avoided seeing each other at night, he was fresh and ready for the race car each day.
Maybe it was that extra shot of endorphins raging through Chance’s body after the secret fuck sessions that helped him stay so sharp.