Faster Dirtier (Take Me...#5) (A Team Ferrelli Novel) (2 page)

Chapter Two

FullSpeed Racing Test
Track

New York City, USA

One Week Earlier

The sweet, familiar smell of singed rubber cuts through the
sunny afternoon air as I lift the helmet off of my head, shaking out my long
reddish hair. A dozen hands are at the ready to help me out of the various
buckles and braces that hold me lashed to the single seat of my car. I blink up
into the bright light, hoping for good news.

“So, how’d I do?” I call to my team manager, Bruno Martinez.

The surly fifty-something man gives me a rare nod of
approval, clutching his stop watch as if it were an Olympic gold medal.

“You beat your record by a full second,” he crows, his
heavily lined face as happy as I’ve ever seen it. Which is not saying much, but
still—I’ll take it.

“Hell yes!” I cry, slamming my palms against the steering
wheel and leaping out of my car, free at last from the tight restraints. My
adrenaline is always dialed up to ten after I step out of my car, but I think
it just went to eleven. I throw open my arms, going to hug my cantankerous
manager, but he dodges my attempted embrace in his usual prickly fashion.

“Don’t go getting a big head on me, now,” he cautions,
shoving a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “You’ve still got plenty of
competition out there, Ace.”

“Come on, Bruno,” I groan, “Let me have three seconds of
triumph before you ruin it all with stats and figures.”

“Three...two...one,” he counts down sarcastically, a smirk
plastered across his face.

“Hilarious,” I mutter, unzipping my jumpsuit an inch or two
and tying my hair into a low ponytail. Bruno has never once let me enjoy my own
success as a driver. He’s always afraid I’ll get too cocky. As one of the very
few female F3 drivers the world over, cockiness is the last thing I have to
worry about. Pun absolutely intended.

“Do you think a full second off my best time will be enough
to impress the owners?” I ask, “I could really use some more time behind the
wheel this season.”

Bruno’s expression clouds over at once. “What did I just
say?” he snaps. “You’re not the only driver on this team, Ace. The owners have
already picked out the boys they want front and center this year. Eddie is
gonna be our lead driver. You know this.”

“Eddie?!” I exclaim indignantly, “But my times are just as
good as his. If not better. What the hell gives?”

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Bruno grumbles. “We’re a new
team, Ace. We’ve got to come out strong this year. We can’t go rocking the boat
by pushing a female driver right out the gate. That’s just bad business.”

“I haven’t been working my ass off for the better part of a
decade to be the token girl on some no-name team, Bruno,” I shoot back
heatedly.

“Should have picked a girl’s sport then,” he shrugs, stalking
away from me. There’s the Bruno I know—and sometimes tolerate. I force myself
to take a deep breath, though I can practically feel steam pouring out of my
ears. No use losing my shit in front of everybody, no matter how aggravated I
happen to be.

I check in with my pit crew as they diligently tune up my
royal blue one-seater. This car has been my faithful companion since I joined
up with FullSpeed Racing last year. As a female driver, I don’t exactly have my
pick of the litter, where teams are concerned. But even
I
have to admit that FullSpeed isn’t exactly
an ideal roster to be on these days.

The team was founded by two American businessmen who wanted
desperately to get into the European racing scene, Formula One in particular.
What NASCAR is to America, Formula One is to the rest of the world. But seeing
as F1 is incredibly exclusive, downright impenetrable to wannabes, the founders
of FullSpeed decided to set their sights on one of the European junior leagues
instead. Specifically, F3. They even built their own training course just
outside of New York City—the town where I was born and raised—and recruited a
bunch of American drivers to train.

Though F3 isn’t a direct pipeline to F1, most junior league
drivers are wishing and hoping and praying to advance to the latter, more
prestigious league. Plenty of F1 drivers start out in F3 before being scouted
by more established teams. When I was just getting started in racing, I
harbored my own dreams about ascending to glory as an F1 driver. That is, until
I started making the rounds, and realized right quick what a boys club racing
really is.

In the entire history of F1, there have only been a handful
of women who have been allowed to participate, even peripherally. Certainly,
there have been no female world champions. Things are a little better down here
in F3, but the sport still has a long way to go, gender equality-wise. It’s
easy to feel jaded about the current situation, but even if my own racing
career only amounts to a slight nudge in the right direction, I’ll be content.
No matter how much of a long shot it may seem some days, I still have my dreams
of racing glory. If I can ever get on a decent team to be scouted from, that
is.

“Ace! Hey, Ace!” I hear a welcome, familiar voice shout my
nickname from the stands.

Squinting into the high noon sun, I spot the smiling face of
my older brother, Alec. We share the same freckled complexion and red-tinged
blonde hair—but though I’m built like a featherweight, he’s built like a tank.
The quintessential watchdog big brother. Alec’s beaming down at me from the
bleachers, looking proud as hell. It’s the same way he’s looked at me since I
was twelve years old and racing boxcars, but I’ll never stop being grateful for
his undying support. I bound up into the stands and let my brother hoist me up
into a celebratory hug.

“I love you bro, but you’re gonna break a rib if you keep
this up,” I laugh, extricating myself from him enthusiastic embrace.

“I’m just excited for you,” he grins, ruffling my hair. “A
whole second off your personal record? By the time next season rolls around,
there won’t be a driver out there who can hold a candle to you.”

“You might be putting the racecar in front of the horse
there, bro,” I reply.

He shakes his head, dispelling my pragmatism. Nothing will
ever convince my brother that I am anything short of the best F3 driver on the
planet. At 34, Alec is a good eight years older than I am, so our relationship
hasn’t really suffered from the usual sibling rivalry. We’re the only two
children of our late parents, Mary and Robert Vaughn. They moved from Scotland
to New York City when they were newlyweds. My dad was an English professor, and
my mother was a librarian. When they weren’t working hard to support their
fledgling family, they loved nothing more than spending time in New York’s fine
art museums, going to the theater and the ballet, even the opera when they were
feeling really fancy. Imagine their surprise when their two children ended up
being sports-loving, roughhousing rug rats. They never begrudged us our
interests and ambitions, only supported us the best they could.

That is, until they were killed by a drunk driver while
heading home from a weekend away in the Adirondacks. It was a hit and run
accident, the other driver was never caught. I was only seventeen when it
happened, Alec was twenty-six. He had already enlisted in the Army by then, and
even served two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he took me in without
question when Mom and Dad passed away.

I’d already become obsessed with racing before my parents
were taken from us. From the age of ten, I couldn’t get enough of NASCAR,
IndyCar, and even the European leagues. And strangely enough, the fact that my
parents were killed in a car crash only made me more eager to devote my life to
racing. Maybe I’m trying to reclaim something through my sport, or demystify
the very machine that killed them all those years ago.

Or maybe I just love it, psychobabble aside.

Alec and I rest our elbows on the railing, looking out
across the FullSpeed test track. The place is hopping with energy as other
drivers get ready to take their wheels out for a spin. I’ve always adored the
atmosphere of a race track—be it as a spectator or a driver. But Bruno’s
dismissal has left me stinging, and more than a little frustrated. I refuse to
give up racing just because it happens to be inhospitable to women, but the
constant rejection and belittling can really take a toll after a while. Being
talked at by middle aged dudes has never been my favorite part of this profession.

“What’s the matter, Ace?” Alec asks, nudging me. He came up
with that nickname himself, when I was still zooming around in my Big Wheel.
Even though “Ainsley” is technically a unisex name, he said I needed something
tougher still. It stuck, and my friends all call me “Ace” to this day. I think
it suits me pretty well.

“Just wondering when I’m gonna catch a break is all,” I
sigh, watching as my teammate Eddie—the prince of FullSpeed Racing, and nephew
of one of the owners—climbs into his car. “This whole paying-my-dues thing is
getting old.”

“That’s kinda the whole point of paying dues, right?” Alec
laughs, crossing his heavily-inked arms. “You work, and work, and work, and
then one day something just...falls out of the sky. Just like—
Hey
!”

I look up in surprise as a big red bouncy ball collides with
Alec’s head, dropping off into the pit below us. My brother and I glance
around, searching for the owner of the lost ball. It isn’t until I feel a tug
on my sleeve that I look down and find a two-year-old boy staring back up at
me. My biological clock has yet to start ticking in earnest, but even I have to
admit that this kid is absolutely adorable. He’s got a mop of dirty blonde
curls, a warm, olive complexion, and the most dazzling blue eyes I’ve ever
seen. His white sneakers are scuffed and muddy, and he’s even wearing a tiny
racing jacket. For a second, it’s all I can do to stare at him. Toddlers aren't
exactly a common sight around here.

“My ball,” he finally says in a tiny voice, his baby blues wide
and serious. “That’s my ball!”

“Looks like your ball is long gone, little guy,” Alec says
gruffly, rubbing his temple where the rubber sphere struck him.

“But...that’s my
ball
,”
the kid sniffs, looking heartbroken as hell. Big, round tears well up in his
eyes and his lower lips sets to quivering.

“Stay right here,” I tell him, laying a hand on his tiny
shoulder, “I’ll grab it for you.”

I vault over the railing and chase down the bouncy ball from
where it’s rolled under my car. The pit crew looks at me curiously as I lower
myself onto the pavement and snatch the toy out from beneath the undercarriage.
With those gorgeous blue eyes, I bet that little boy has no trouble getting
people to help him out. But I don’t mind being counted among that number.

My fingers finally close around the ball, and I pull myself
back to my feet, eager to return the prize to my new little friend. But as I
straighten up, I see that the members of my pit crew are all staring,
gobsmacked, back toward the stands. I follow their collective gaze to where I
left Alec standing with the little boy, and see for myself that they’ve been
joined by a third figure. A woman. A stunning, statuesque woman who’s scooping
the two-year-old up into her arms. Even my unflappable brother is staring at
her, unabashed. The sight of a woman other than me around the track is an event
in and of itself, it would seem. Let alone a woman as beautiful as the one
who’s appeared this afternoon.

I jog back to the bleachers, holding the red ball out to the
toddler. His tiny face breaks into a huge grin as he happily reclaims the toy
from my hands.

“There you go, buddy,” I say warmly.

“Thanks for that,” says the woman holding him, a smile
curving her full lips. “He loves that thing.”

“No problem,” I tell her, brushing a loose lock of hair from
my grease-smudged forehead. “Is this little one yours?”

“Sure is,” she smiles, planting a kiss on the top of his
head. “Say hello to the nice lady who rescued your ball, Alfie.”

“Hello,” he mumbles, bashful all of a sudden.

“Hi there, Alfie,” I reply, leaning down toward him. “My
name is Ace. That big lug you hit with your ball is my brother, Alec.”

“Who’re you calling a big lug?” Alec says gruffly, finally
snapping back to attention.

“My real name is Ainsley. Ainsley Vaughn,” I say to the
boy’s mother. “I’m one of the FullSpeed drivers.”

“I know who you are, Ainsley,” she says, her grin widening
as she looks me over.

“Oh. Are you guys with one of the other drivers or
something?” I ask, puzzled as to why this goddess would know who I am. She does
look vaguely familiar, but I’m sure I would have remembered meeting her in
person. Huge sunglasses obscure her face, so I can’t quite place her.