chapter four.
( team values. )

The Barcelona testing turned out horrible.

Not necessarily in results. In results, Degrassi came out as second after AVAX (of course), because Theo's lap times were undefeated. And although both Carter and Mason hold a dependable pace and overall steady lap times... they still couldn't beat our mortal enemies. Even if Enzo Drysdale, second chair at AVAX, did not contribute much to that end result.

I was satisfied with the outcome, as did the whole team and the drivers.

I was not satisfied with the driver though. Carter Agliardi will be the death of me, that one is sure by now.

That infuriating bastard went after his own hot head and never listened to my advice. Not even team orders. Not even once. I really tried to keep my cool and find a common ground with him, but it was like I was not even in his ear. Like I would be mute and shouting on my own. That one angered me to my core. Like my greatest fear would have come alive.

Carter was not a team player. I didn't know how he acted at Furia, but he didn't show one ounce of respect or sportsmanship towards me. He just brushed me over, like I would be a stupid girl, with bits of advice that didn't stand on their own. He was just like every other big man in motorsport. Refused to listen to a woman.

Even if that woman was his race engineer.

If he would have listened to me and my views, we'd have had better results on our hands. I knew that for certain. But he was either too stubborn or too entitled.

After our last Barcelona team debriefs, the travelling circus that was our sport, was ready to roll up and leave for Bahrain. The Bahrain testing will hold a stronger value. And we will be there till the first Grand Prix.

We were running out of time and we barely even started.

I had to sit down with Carter and get things straight. That was Arlo's advice too. He thinks we should bond and make a connection. He said that Carter will not trust me with advice and data on the track if he is not trusting me as a human.

Okay, that hurt my ego a little.

But I've decided to get my big girl pants on and do what he is unable to do.

Talk.

On the last night in Barcelona, I walked down the corridor of the hotel, towards Carter's room. I felt obligated to do something. Because I could already picture the headlines, gossip and speculations after a Grand Prix. Our duo must fulfil great promises.

And at this stage of our... partnership, there is no bloody way we can fulfil those promises. I could die trying, but my death would be in vain because I would be the only one who is actually trying.

That asshole got under my skin and as much as I tried to scratch that itch, he got even deeper and deeper. And I got angrier.

His bitching and pride could be our doom. I was a strategist for a reason. I could see results from a starting decision. And if Carter Agliardi doesn't change his course, the injuries will be fatal. Both metaphorically and physically.

Burning, crashes, rash decisions, bad calls, big egos. Serious loss. We've seen it before. And I didn't want to accompany that. I don't want to see that from the front row. I don't want to be responsible.

But death also came regularly from the overexertion of men and machines, straining for glory.

Death is death—its finality and magnitude cannot be increased or decreased—but the meaning associated with individual deaths is more fluid.

A racing death from a random, freak accident will be a greater tragedy than ones that have come before: The deaths that resulted from men pushing their machines faster and faster, ignoring the extreme danger, until either their car or their body faltered, maybe only for a moment, and that moment was their last.

I shook my head, making all these bad thoughts vanish from my mind before I curled my hand in a tight fist and knocked on the door of his suite.

A long minute later, the door opened and there he was, in his shining glory.

He just pulled a T-shirt over his head, purposely in slow motion and flexing all his core muscles. His golden hair was glistening with water and tousled from the towel he rubbed all over his head.

He appeared like I would have interrupted his nighttime routine. Or a quickie.

I knew he was only testing me, so I kept my gaze on his face, keeping eye contact.

"We need to talk," I figured there is no need to fuck around and just cut to the chase. I had to get these thoughts off my chest and dump it all on him before I burst. Maybe he would finally wake up and actually start what he was contracted to do.

"About?" a condescending grin appeared on Carter's face as he leaned on the half-open door. My presence annoyed the heck out of him, I knew that.

Too bad I didn't care.

"Strategies," I replied simply, waving my iPad screen at him, so he could see all the graphs I drew and all the data I gathered, from his previous test results with Furia Motorsport. But he stayed just negligent. So I tried a more persuasive tone of voice."For the testing and the first race."

"Oh!" Carter's gaze dropped to my hands, to my screen. Staying just as condescending. I don't know what he expected when he saw me in front of his door. Maybe not exactly discussing strategies. But my face remained unshaken. So he just chuckled and then dropped his wet towel off the table next to the door. "Well, do not repair what is not broken. We just keep doing what we did now. Toodaloo."

And just like that, he tried to shut the door on me after waving his fingers. All while wearing a huge smile on his stupid face. I wanted to wipe that smile off his face. And slap him. Hard. Maybe that would put some sense into him.

"Wait, stop!" I shouted after a millisecond of shock and pressed my toe in the gap before the door could close on me. Thank God for my reflexes. I worked with race car drivers. I had to keep up. He just sighed after his try to keep me off his back, failed. "This doesn't work like that."

Carter just looked at me again, with a meaning I understood immediately.

Furia did work like that. He had free will there, they let him do anything and everything as long as he delivered the results. I knew Furia was liberal like that. And yes, for some drivers, this ideology worked.

But knowing Carter Agliardi's archetype, he would have burned out at Furia in one or two seasons with that strategy.

"We are not working like that." I continued to stay firm and unshaken, but I could barely stop myself from gritting my teeth. Stay unphased, he is a fucking untamed lion.

And I was a tamed one.

But Lord save him if he dares to step on my wrong foot. My lion would come out roaring.

And he was bloody close to letting out the lion.

"Chill up, Meier!" he just rolled his eyes and scratched his forehead with an almost tired movement. "It's not like we are talking about your life here."

Oh, so he is aware that he is playing with literal lives here. Good. He should be. That's a plus.

All we did was pray for fucking cars. Nothing was given, nothing was certain. It was only half exact science. The other half was luck and skills.

And strategies bring you closer to the exact science. Bring you closer to exit the car safe and sound. Alive. And not crashing into the walls with such luck.

"I don't care how you did things with Furia but those days are over!" I tried to keep my composure, but I couldn't help, I let my anger slip out. "You are with Degrassi now. You are a Degrassi now. And you and I, we are a team."

That was the first and foremost he had to accept in his hard head. Everything else comes after that.

"You look just as happy about it as me," Carter Agliardi did not have to be an oracle to see through me that much. It was pretty clear I was far away from happy or even content.

"That doesn't matter." I shook my head after pronouncing every single word with a hard undertone. Every word slapped. "If I lose a point because you..."

"If you lose a point?" He interrupted me, putting his hand up, stopping my litany. "What happened with the team?"

He dared to pout at me.

Fucking pout!

"I've made a plan. A plan that works, according to your capabilities and the track. It's all here." I lifted my tablet so he could see my diagrams. But he didn't even care about the work I put into it. As much as I tried to convince him, he didn't care. He didn't even give a fuck. And that made me mad to my core. "If you don't want to collaborate with me, fine. Be a dick about it. But pay attention. There is a team behind you that worked their ass off for your car."

I figured that was only in my principles, being a team player, seeing the sport as a team effort and not just one man's ego that barely fit in that tiny car. Apparently, these were not what they taught over at Furia. Or AVAX, for that matter.

But at Degrassi... Our team was everything. If we don't work together, the whole system crumbles down and we lose everything. And that didn't go through to Carter's brain. No matter how hard I tried.

So I just sighed after I lost my last breath and he just kept grinning.

"Trust me, dorogaya, this is not my first rodeo," and the asshole dared to wink at me once again. "Just like riding a bike. I'm crazy good at that."

If only I could wipe off his cocky smile.

I didn't wish for him to fail. Because if he fails, my career does too. I couldn't take that. But I wished for him to... Get some sense.

"I don't need your strategies or data or your mumbling about team virtue or whatever." Carter shrugged. I bit my lower lip and my hand started to shake around my tablet. "I can get on the podium myself, and you don't even need to lift one of your manicured fingers. And I promise we'll call it a team win."

Asshole.

"Oh, fuck off!" As much as I tried to regulate myself, that exclamation was the first I could press out of myself. I lost my equanimity. He made me... A hysterical little girl. The thing I avoided being. For a reason.

All for... Carter motherfucking Agliardi.

"Maybe you already fucking me, I'm just fucking you back." He winked again, and my knees trembled.

But before he could close his door in my face, I squeezed one last sentence out of me. Grabbing one last chance to change his mind.

"If you want to perform in F1, you need to have one leader in the team and one single route to work on," I said. "If you have two different visions then the result is that the work inside the team is... slow. As do the lap times."

That was the equivalent of wishing his penis shrunk and fell off.

hello hello and welcome to the fourth chapter!

It's a great super short one, but I wanted to put out a quick update so we won't get stuck here. But I hope you enjoyed this little banger between our two champs.

what do we think?

stay frosty!