The Paddock Pact

Chapter 7: The Architecture of Safety

POV: Anya

“Because," Mateo said, his voice getting very low and full of sadness so that it was almost not heard over the noise of the street. "If you do not come to Austria and act like my assistant, they will fire me."

I looked at him, keeping my face still. Not even a small movement, not a little raise of my eyebrows, nothing. In my head I was already thinking about everything.

The famous boy from Formula One, the one in all the advertisements, was standing on a dirty street under a light that kept going on and off. He was looking at me with big scared eyes like everything he knew was ending. I think he hoped I would be surprised or feel sorry for him or help him fix his problems. Like I was a character in his movie.

Honestly? I just felt nothing.

"That sounds like a you problem, Mateo," I said, my voice calm and not showing any emotion the same way I talk when I tell a customer their insurance does not cover something. “As a person who works with insurance, I deal with things people could have avoided every single day. People drive fast. They ignore warning lights. They make choices. You made a mistake and your team lied to cover it up. Now it is causing a big problem. That is an issue, Mr. Alvarez. But it’s your issue. Not mine."

Mateo blinked, taking a step back like I had hurt him. "Anya, please... I know I was an asshole. I know I did everything wrong… But it is my life. It is everything I worked for since I was a kid. If the sponsors leave, the team will fire me before the summer's over—"

"Then you have to deal with the results of your own choices," I said, taking a step back to keep some space between his messy life and mine. "I do not pretend, I do not sign fake papers and I certainly do not fix things for big boys. Good luck with your job, Alvarez. My answer is still no."

I walked toward the bus that was coming, my shoes making a loud sound on the ground. I could feel him looking at me—very surprised that someone said no to him—but I did not look back. I got on the bus, used my card and sat by the window. I watched the lights and shops pass by as the bus moved through the traffic taking me back to my empty, very controlled home.

---

By Thursday the first anger was gone, replaced by something heavier and harder to move away from.

Silence.

For the six months since my marriage ended I had made my life into a very careful routine. No risk, no surprises, no problems. I woke up at 6:30 every morning. I got my oatmilk latte from the barista who never asked me anything. I spent eight hours working on things like buildings, broken cars and numbers that showed that people made mistakes. At 5:15 I went home to a place where nothing changed unless I made it change.

I had told myself that this total control was what I needed to get better. After ten years of a marriage that slowly stopped being happy I just wanted to feel safe. I wanted a life where no one could surprise me again.

On Friday afternoon the person from HR gave me a work card to replace the one I had lost in Barcelona. It looked the same as the one Mateo tried to give back. It was a piece of plastic with a strip on it with a red mark in the corner. Boring. Safe. A small piece of plastic that said I was allowed to do the same thing every day.

I sat at my desk. I looked at my photo on the card. I looked neat, professional and calm.

And completely dead inside.

The woman in the picture looked like a professional but she also looked like a ghost wearing a nice suit.

Mark came over to my desk around four o'clock holding a stapler. "Hey, Anya, you okay? You have been looking at the wall for twenty minutes."

"I am fine, Mark. I was just thinking about the weekend,” I said, putting the card into my drawer.

"Right. Have a good time reading on the couch," he said, not knowing how sad that sounded.

That night I did my routine. I cooked dinner for myself—salmon and vegetables. I did not burn anything, I did not spill anything on the clean counter. Everything was exactly as it should be, like every other night of my carefully planned life.

Sitting on the couch in the room, listening to the quiet sound of the clock on the wall a sad thought hit me like a big stone.

I was not getting better. I was just hiding.

I had made a wall around myself. Called it peace but it was really just a place where I could not move. No risks, no changes, no people who could make me feel uncomfortable or mess things up. I had made my world very small because I had told myself that surviving was the same as living.

I stood up, walked to the hallway and reached into my bag on the table. Deep inside, my fingers touched a crumpled piece of paper.

It was the note Mateo had put in my pocket on Tuesday before I walked away to catch the bus.

I spread it out on the kitchen counter under the light. His phone number was written in fast handwriting with a country code. The letters were wild and different from my clean writing.

I looked at the numbers. Did I care about his racing? No, not really. If he lost his job he would still be rich, famous and just okay. He could race elsewhere outside of Formula One or find another team to sign with.

He would be okay.

But did I really want to spend the rest of this summer—or my whole life—looking at these plain boring walls pretending that being safe was the same as being happy? Was being completely safe worth feeling this empty?

The race in Austria is coming up next week. The mountains, the engines, the bright lights, the big event of top racing. A world that had nothing to do with mine. It was crazy. It was risky. It went against everything I used in my job every day.

My finger was over my phone screen. Two choices were in front of me: keep staying in this boring planned life... Or take a big silly chance on a messy problem named Mateo Alvarez.

One tap would change my life completely.

I took a breath, closed my eyes for a second and pressed the call button.

Ringing…