Chapter 222
-CA-
Charlotte did the usual check.
Harness first. The six-point belts that kept a driver in the seat when the car tried to throw him out of it.
She tugged each strap like it would fall apart if her hands were not on it first.
Then the HANS. Head and Neck Support. The collar that clipped to the helmet so a crash would not snap a driver’s neck the way the old days used to. Radio. Visor. The small things she always did before I got in.
Honestly, I believed the car needed her.
And I needed her more than I admitted.
She was the one person who kept me calm.
Today it was different.
Today she was sending my pressure through the roof with that outfit. Short skirt. Crop top with my name on it. Legs I had no right to think about while twenty other cars waited to go out and hunt a lap time.
I was freaking out.
Men were staring.
Everywhere I turned I caught them.
My jaw clenched.
There was no way I could concentrate knowing she was wearing that and they would still be looking when I was gone.
“You’re tight,” she said, tugging a strap.
“I’m fine.”
I was not fine.
“Loosen up,” she muttered. “You have qualifying today. Remember?”
Qualifying. The Saturday session that set the grid for Sunday. Three parts. QI dumped the slowest cars. Q2 cut the field again. Q3 was the shootout for pole.
Start at the front and Sunday was a fight you could win. Start at the back and Sunday was pain. Still a chance to win but so much fucking harder.
My jaw clenched. “I do.”
I got in.
1
14:36 Mon, Sep 28 JM.
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
The world shrank to noise.
elmet. Visor down. The engineer on the radio in my ear, calm and clipped.
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Out lap first. That was the slow lap out of the garage to get heat into the tyres and temperature into the brakes. You did not attack the first corner like you were eager. You built the car underneath you.
I did the job with my hands.
My head stayed in the garage.
QI was clean.
Fast enough.
Through.
The radio said I was safe. I should have felt it. I felt her instead.
Then I remembered everyone staring in the lobby. The man who walked into a luggage cart. The waiter who tripped on a cable. Every pair of eyes that had been on her when I could still stand in front of her like
a wall.
Q2 I was at the top for a minute.
Then I could not concentrate.
Not even for a little.
I kept wanting to look back.
I could not see her. I knew that. The visor showed the track, the wall, the car ahead, the apex I was supposed to hit.
Still I wanted to go back. Make sure no one was close to her. Make sure no man was looking at her. Make sure she was not bending down for no reason and showing off the part of her that had been in my hands nights ago.
“Box this lap if we need a second run,” the radio said.
Box meant pit. Come in. New tyres if we needed another attack.
“Copy.”
I did not box.
I stayed out for another flyer like an idiot who thought speed could outrun my thoughts.
Turn 3 I arrived too deep.
Enough.
Too much speed into the braking zone. The point on the track where you should have already been slowing.
14:36 Mon, Sep 28 JM.
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
The rear stepped out. The back of the car slid like it had decided to leave without me. I caught it late. Hands on the wheel. Throttle. The correction that usually saved me.
Not this time.
The barrier came up like it had been waiting all weekend for this opportunity.
Everything happened before I had chance to blink.
“FUCK!”
The impact hit.
Short.
Violent.
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Not the bad kind that folds a car in half and puts a driver in hospital. The kind that ends a session. Abrupt.
A punch through the chassis and into my spine. The halo that existed so debris and barriers did not take a driver’s head off did its job. The belts bit. The HANS held my neck.
For a second there was only noise and the knowledge that I had just thrown a qualifying car at a wall because my head was stuck on my best friend’s skirt.
I cursed again.
Loud.
Inside the helmet it sounded like I was drowning.
Red flags would follow. I already knew. Red flag meant the session stopped. Cars off the track. Cranes. Marshals. No more timed laps until the wreck was cleared.
I could not remember the last time I had crashed in qualifying. I did not crash like this. I did not throw Saturdays away.
I was fucking pissed.
“Luca. Talk to me.” The engineer’s voice, trying to stay calm. The voice they used when they needed to know if you were still breathing.
“I’m okay. I messed up. Sorry.”
“Stay in until the marshals say. Medical will come to you.”
That was the order.
You do not jump out unless there is fire. Fire is the only excuse. You wait. You stay strapped in a broken car because moving wrong after an impact can turn a scare into something worse.
The extractors showed up. The crew trained to get a driver out without making a neck injury worse. I saw gloves on the halo. A marshal’s face in the visor.
14:36 Mon, Sep 28 JOM.
The Mockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
They reached me first.
Marshals in orange.
55 vouchers
Then the medical car, already rolling the second the crash went on the screens. I saw fingers…lights. Then they asked the same questions they always asked, the ones that told them if your brain was still working how it should.
What is your name?
Where are you?
What happened?
“Luca Vescari. Barcelona. I arrived too deep and lost the rear.”
“Any pain? Neck? Chest? Hands?”
“I’m fine. Barely a scratch.”
They still made me sit.
Protocol.
No one cared that I wanted to get up and walk back to the garage like nothing had happened.
A crash was a crash. They treated it like it could hide something. They always moved this way when a driver had just hit a wall on live television.
Then they helped me out.
The car was against the wall, front right looking ugly. Endplate gone. Nose cracked. A qualifying session sitting in wreckage because I had been thinking about other men staring at a skirt.
I ripped the gloves off and swore at the ground.
I saw the recovery tractor. The yellow flags that had already been waving to warn the others. The red that would kill the rest of Q2 for everyone while they cleaned me off the circuit.
My session was over.
No Q3.
No fight for pole.
Grid at the back on Sunday unless someone else found worse luck.
I kept telling them I was fine.
The medical car took me to the centre anyway.
Straight back to the medical centre. The building that existed so a driver who said I’m fine could be proven wrong or right before he walked back in. Brief check. Blood pressure again. Eyes. A doctor who did not smile. I signed what they put in front of me because I wanted to walk. Because sitting there only gave me
14:36 Mon, Sep 28 JOM.
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
more time to think.
About Charlotte
That skirt.
The garage I had left her in.
55 youthars
I had crashed a qualifying car because I was thinking about other men staring at her while I was gone.
Maybe part of me had even wanted the session over so I could get back to her faster.
Fuck me.
The engineer met me in the lane, face already in damage-control mode.
“You good?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll look at the data. Have some rest until tomorrow.”
I would be starting Sunday from the back.
Damn it.
I looked past him down the lane, pulse still too high, already hunting for the one person I should not have let leave the hotel like that.
I hated myself for losing control.
I hated the wall.
I hated the skirt.
And I still had not found her yet.
Where the fuck was she?
14:36 Mon, Sep 28 JOM.
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
Dex Morgan
Dex works to elevate each story with clean writing, emotional balance, and thoughtful flow for readers.