One For The Road

29: Closer

Back when I was in NASCAR, Truscott and Paul used to make fun of me for never sticking to any sort of plan we developed for the race, which was mostly good-natured teasing. It wasn't a secret that I did my own thing and wasn't patient enough to let our ideas develop the way they were supposed to.

Obviously, I loved racing more than anything, and I was kind of good at it. Robot fighting was a different story, and any sort of strategy-making it required was automatically way worse.

"The hydraulic flipper is much more intense than what you've seen before, and—" Blah, blah, blah. Drake droned on and on about how I needed to keep this flipping robot in front of Sacrilege at all times, even though that seemed obvious to literally anyone with a fucking brain.

It wasn't any different than anything else I had fought. It wasn't like racing where every track and every car was different.

"Hey, can we get out of here now? Everything is just beginning to blur together, and I don't know how I'm supposed to remember every little detail you're telling me," I said.

"I still have more notes to get through. This is just general flipper strategy. We haven't even gotten to the personalized notes I have from watching The Jackrabbit's fight yesterday," Drake said.

Oh my god.

One of his biggest reservations about me was that I only did what I wanted, and as much as I wanted to go out, I had something to prove.

So I just shut up and put my head in my hands. "Fine."

"Since you're starting to lose focus, I guess we can shorten this a little. Just let me figure out what parts aren't entirely necessary."

I picked up my head, and sure enough, he was reading through his notes. There was some slight chatter out in the hall of the hotel, but it didn't distract him at all from the task at hand.

He really was something, wasn't he? He was just as passionate about what he loved as I was, but he somehow managed to keep himself together better than I could ever dream of doing. I was a fighter, and he raced to a finish line that I didn't quite understand, but who was I to judge?

"Katie, I think it's all important," he said.

"Okay, look, I've been making everything up as I go, so maybe we can try that strategy again. I'm two for three in my fights," I said.

"What about all the reading Josiah and I gave you?"

I hadn't even bothered to look at it, but he didn't need to know that. "Well, I skimmed it a little."

"So you're telling me that you've won two fights even though you haven't read a single thing we gave you?"

I nodded.

"How in the hell?" He took in a breath. "That's absolutely insane. Do you have any idea how hard that is?"

I shook my head. "It's really not."

"Yes, it is." He set his papers down. "Why the hell am I even wasting our time with this?"

That wasn't the reaction I was expecting. "Is this passive-aggressive? Are you mad at me?"

"Not at all. I just—" He hesitated for a moment. "Josiah is easily the smartest person I know, and he can't even drive like that."

I smiled. "So I'm better than him?"

"I'd like to see you try to build a better robot than him." He laughed. "That's just crazy. You can't be that much of a natural at this. This isn't like racing at all."