ALICE Ch 303

Alice is in a bath after a workout, Facetiming with Faye.

“I don’t know. Some movie star,” she says. “She’s a big deal. I know I’ve seen her in stuff.”

“You mean Vivien Corbin,” Faye says excitedly. “Look!” She holds up her hand and wiggles her fingers. Her other hand is still messed up, but the less damaged of the two is much more functional. “I can feed and dress myself now. This is changing my whole outlook on people who live with disabilities.”

Only Faye can say something like that as though she’s reporting that world peace has been achieved. Alice tries to take in as much of that positivity as she can through a phone screen.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. How can you not remember Vivien Corbin’s name? She’s in all the films, but then everyone’s always on about her being with younger women and so on.”

Alice likes hot actresses as much as anyone else, but she’s more attentive to the ones with big boobs. “I’ll get you her autograph.”

“Would you?” Faye looks delighted.

“Sure. Whatever you want.”

“How’s my mum?”

“She’s good. She’s handling business,” Alice says.

Faye glows with pride.

FF1

The crew finishes the drill and steps back. Engines and machinery roar; there’s a ton of F2 stuff going on outside the garage.

“OK,” Colby says, her eyes on her tablet. “That’s three-tenths of a second faster. Good job, guys.”

The crew cheers.

Ingrid throws up a fist. Lotte tosses her hair and does a weird little victory sashay, almost striking a pose. Riley leaps into Adella’s arms and kisses her on the lips; Adella holds her up and kisses her back hard. Aki just looks at her phone, but even Julieta looks quietly pleased.

Colby refuses to cry. It’s true that they’re getting better, but they’re still taking more than twice as long as the amazons and the other teams. She realizes that they aren’t alone.

Mio lurks in the doorway, her eyes on Ingrid. It’s all Colby can do not to throw her iPad. She snatches up a wrench and points it at Mio.

Mio looks annoyed and leaves. Colby puts the wrench down and shakes her head.

“OK, guys. Let’s call it a day. We’re going to make some stops during practice tomorrow. We’ll just have Mio and Alice bring it in a few times. I don’t care what it costs. We’re gonna do some tires live. So rest up. No drinking. Go to bed early.”

“God, it’s like being at FUTA again,” Riley says, wiping sweaty bangs out of her eyes.

“This is FUTA,” Lotte reminds her.

“I guess it is. It’s weird to be doing FUTA and be all covered up,” Riley replies, gesturing at her suit. There’s a murmur of agreement from the other women. Of course, Lotte wears her jumpsuit unzipped to the waist with what appears to be nothing underneath, like she’s in an old spy movie, and Adella has the sleeves rolled up to show off her forearms even though the sleeves are long for a pretty good fucking reason.

Colby’s eye twitches as she sees Adella’s hand slide down Riley’s back to grasp her buttock.

“Mmm.” Riley looks up at her with an unmistakable light in her eye.

“Jesus Christ. Kill me,” Colby says.

“I’m sorry?” Ingrid says, cocking her head.

“Nothing. Get out of here. All of you.”