One For The Road

31: Painted

It wasn't really a surprise that Mr. Roger Truscott was at the race and standing by Griffin's crew. It was his car, for God's sake. But it definitely was a surprise to see sportswriter Daniel Henderson there with him, especially since they both didn't like me.

Last time I checked, this wasn't a fucking baseball game.

This gentleman was a little sneakier than I originally thought. I thought he was the type that was okay with no as an answer, but clearly, that was about as far away from the truth as I was from emotional stability.

I came to watch Griffin, so I didn't want to leave my spot just to humor those assholes. It sucked when winning was unobtainable, and even though I was pretty sure Griffin didn't understand that struggle quite like I did, he was the only person I could stand to win.

Plus, it was way too loud to have a conversation. And I was very loud.

Griffin's spotter ran through a series of directions over the radio, and I glanced over to the screens that the crew chief studied. One of them followed the regular broadcast, but the others were focused only on Griffin's car.

Studying others was one of the ways I got to the top, but it was weird that I wasn't actually doing anything myself. I could definitely learn a few things from Griffin, but I had tried and failed before. He had his style, and I had mine.

I was sure that Truscott and Daniel weren't expecting me at the race, but there was no way that they couldn't have seen me. I glanced up at the cars as they drove by, back down to the screen, then over to the two of them.

Sorry, Griffin. I needed to talk to them. It would have been weird to see Daniel by himself, but with Truscott? It simply couldn't be a real, innocent thing.

Before I could stand up to have a chat with them, someone came up too far onto the race track and the back quarter panel of the sixty-six.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Griffin yelled into the radio as he straightened the car back out. "She's a fucking idiot. We're on the same fucking team."

The green flag had practically just dropped, and Elizabeth already ran into Griffin? Their meeting with Truscott would be fun. Smoke came out from the back tire of his car, and I grimaced. Unlucky shit happened in racing, but everyone was supposed to do everything they could to keep from hitting their teammates, whether they liked them or not.

"It's still early, bud. You can't get upset about it. Still plenty of time to recover," his crew chief reminded him. For me, my crew chief was there to make the tough decisions and play psychologist, and it looked like Griffin had a similar thing with his.

"God, I miss Kate. She could actually fucking drive a car," Griffin continued, and I smiled. Of course, that didn't fix anything for either one of us, but it warmed my heart even though it was already kind of hot outside.

"It looks like you've got a tire rub, so if you feel like it's gonna go down, you gotta pit. If you think you can handle it, then do that. It'll throw off the entire pit strategy if you have to pit so early," his crew chief said.

There was still smoke coming from the tire, and although I didn't know what it felt like inside the car, it sure as hell didn't look good from the outside.

"We can't pit. We'll be fucked," Griffin said.

Decision made.

I probably would have gotten new tires since there was still plenty of laps to dig myself out of the hole, but he won seven races and I won none (but I had an All-Star win and he didn't, so it was really a tie in my book).