“Here are your numbers from your run this morning.”
Donny grabbed the notebook from him, scanned it, then lifted his gaze to Gray and grinned. “Damn. I’m good.”
“Don’t get too full of yourself. It was a good practice run, but it wasn’t a race. And you came in twelfth on Sunday with a car that was top five running shape.”
Donny’s smile died. He dragged his fingers through his dirty blond hair and nodded. “I know. I should have done better. The car was perfect, and you’re right. I was top five the whole race. I just let them pass me the last ten laps. That one was on me. I lost my concentration. It won’t happen again.”
Hard to argue with that, and since Donny seemed to be aware of his failings, there was no point in Gray beating on him. “A good racer constantly evaluates what he could have done better. Since you’ve already done that, I guess you and I don’t have anything to talk about. Unless it happens again.”
“Understood, boss.”
“I had a whole speech and everything, Donny,” Gray said. “You kind of ruined it for me.”
Donny laughed. “Sorry. Would you like me to f**k up again this Sunday?”
Gray cracked a smile. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Okay. My goal is to get a win.”
“That’s a good goal to have. Don’t forget, you’re not out there alone. You have an entire team behind you who’ll help you get to the finish line, so listen to what they have to say. And pull your head out of your ass and start using your brain. Now get out of here.”
Donny scrambled out of the seat, nodded at Evelyn, and left the trailer.
She stood and came over to him. Gray caught the subtle scent of something musky and very alluring. He tried not to lean in closer to figure out what it was since she was already distracting enough.
“Donny works for you?” she asked, placing her briefcase on his table.
“He drives the second car for Preston Racing. I added him this year. He’s young, but has great skills.”
“So you’re developing him and he shows a lot of promise.” She took a seat and pulled a laptop out of her bag, opened it, and started typing something.
He swung into the other side of the booth. “What are you doing?”
“Working on an amended bio for you.”
“For?”
“I’ve already got some posts up about you.”
Irritation made his jaw clench. “Uh . . . posts? What posts?”
“The senator’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.”
When he didn’t say anything, she lifted her gaze to his over the top of her laptop.
“Problem?”
“Big one. Let’s get some rules down before we go any further. Rule number one: Don’t write anything about me or connect me to the senator in any way without me seeing it first.”
She leaned back in the booth. “I thought we’d already discussed this and it had been decided we’d work together. If I’m going to have to run everything by you, this is going to be difficult.”
“Then it’s going to be difficult. Show me what you’ve done and where you’ve posted it.”
She continued to stare at him, and her gaze narrowed in irritation. Tough. He didn’t like this already, and the fact that she’d put up some media bullshit about him pissed him off.
“All right. Give me a second here.” She turned her attention to the laptop, then swiveled it to face him. “It’s not much, just a general announcement that the senator is pleased to have his son working with him. It’s very vague.”
Gray read the post. It wasn’t vague. It connected him and his racing team to his father and his father’s political ambitions. It might as well say, “Gray Preston fully endorses his father.”
“Goddammit, Evelyn. This isn’t what I signed up for.” He stood and paced for a few seconds, then turned to face her. “Pull that shit off. Now.” He walked out of the trailer, fury boiling in his veins.
Without thinking, he headed toward the track, finding Ian waiting for him.
“You’re early.”
His teeth grinded against each other and he was ready to lash out, but his current state of mind wasn’t Ian’s fault. “I need to drive, now.”
Ian took one look at him, then looked behind him. Gray turned to see Evelyn heading in his direction.
Oh, hell no. He turned back to Ian. “Now. I mean right f**king now.”
“Sure.” Ian got on the radio to one of the other teams. “Hey, can we slide into your spot? Gray has a time conflict.”
In a few seconds, Ian nodded. “You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Get into your suit. Your car is ready.”
He got into his fire suit and climbed into his car, strapped in, and put on his helmet.
By the time he fired up the engine, he had an outlet for all this excess energy.
Getting behind the wheel and pulling out onto the track revved him up. Cranking up the speed made him forget everything but the feel of the track and testing the way the car handled.
He’d always been the most content when he was in his car. From the first time he’d climbed into one of his buddy’s midget cars on a dirt track, he’d been hooked. Only sixteen years old at the time, the roar of the engine, the smell of oil and fuel and dirt flying into his face had been a lure he couldn’t deny. He’d still been playing baseball at the time, with the promise of a sports scholarship and pressure from his father to pursue law and a future in politics. Under his father’s thumb and still tied to the Preston money, he’d toed the family line, but found every opportunity he could to race cars and learn about engines.
And still managed to piss off his father when he’d accepted the baseball scholarship to Oklahoma.
As he cranked up his speed heading around the track, he cracked a smile. Irritating his dad had always been one of his greatest pleasures. Maybe he could still find a way to do that. He might have agreed to help him, but he didn’t have to do it the Mitchell Preston way. He could control Evelyn and her laptop and he’d make damn sure nothing went onto the Internet that he didn’t want on there, worded exactly the way he wanted it.
This might be his father’s race, but they were going to play by his rules.
He downshifted around the curve, then laid on the throttle on the straightaway and gave the car everything he had on the last lap. By the time he began to slow down, the last of his adrenaline rush had burned itself out.