ALICE Ch 227

“I thought we’d spend more time together if I, you know, ditched my whole life to travel with you,” Meri says, perfectly deadpan.

“We are together,” Colby replies distractedly.

They’re in their hotel room, and they are together. Sort of. Colby’s at the little desk, hunched over her computer, still wearing her work clothes.

Meri lounges on the bed, halfway finished with her fourth glass of wine. She wears a light robe over some cute lingerie. She’s being considerate by covering up; the night before a race is not the time to be a nuisance to one of the most important people on the team. Meri is only speaking up because she’s known Colby for a long time. It’s late, she’s tired, and the work that she does is extremely precise. Pushing it when she’s exhausted will lead to mistakes.

“Baby. Are you alert enough to do what you’re doing correctly?”

Colby takes a deep breath. “No,” she admits.

“Set the alarm. Do it tomorrow.”

“It’ll be tight.”

“It’ll be tight no matter what. It’s Formula One,” Meri reminds her. “Want to tell me what this is about?”

“Besides the car being fucked?” Colby spins the chair around and puts her face in her hands, rubbing tiredly.

“What, exactly, is the problem?”

“If we knew that, we wouldn’t be here. I guess the real answer is that we had a screwup in the very beginning and had to change vendors on the exhaust, but it wasn’t to spec, so we had to find something else. That meant that Patricia had to make changes to the MGU-H, and it’s like little dominos of problems. We started it and now we can’t stop it. This could have been avoided, but we would have forfeited the first three races. Zero points. Glynda couldn’t do that. And now… well, let’s not get into that.” Colby gets to her feet. “I’m gross. You’re right. I’ll deal with it in the morning. It’s bad enough that if my crew doesn’t nail the timing on a tire change, we can actually dislodge the… never mind.” She pads dejectedly into the bathroom.

Meri watches her go sympathetically, then gets to her feet and a little grumpily sheds her robe and lingerie. She picked out this cute bra specially for tonight, and now it’s off before anything interesting even happens. She waits a polite minute, then follows Colby in and joins her in the shower.

“I thought resting was the plan,” Colby says without looking back as Meri hugs her from behind. “Making out is not resting.”

“Who’s making out?” Meri slides her hands over Colby’s soapy body. “Which is more likely? That I’m sabotaging you on purpose by making sure that you’re sleep-deprived on race day? Or that I’m doing you a favor.” She squeezes Colby’s soft breasts and kisses her neck. “And I know the quickest way to get you to relax and pass out because it isn’t my first day?”