ᵐᵃⁿᵉᵃᵗᵉʳ ━ ⁿᵉˡˡʸ ᶠᵘʳᵗᵃᵈᵒ
ᴠᴏʟᴜᴍᴇ : ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▯

━ 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘺 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘺 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘺 ━

❝ 𝐒𝐡𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐲 𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐞'𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫. 𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐉𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬. ❞

━ ᶠˡᵒʳⁱᵃⁿ ᴶᵃᶜᵏˢᵒⁿ ᵈᵉˢᶜʳⁱᵇⁱⁿᵍ ʰⁱˢ ᵈᵃᵘᵍʰᵗᵉʳ ʷʰᵉⁿ ᵃˢᵏᵉᵈ ᵃᵇᵒᵘᵗ ʰᵉʳ ᵗᵃˡᵉⁿᵗˢ ⁱⁿ ᵐᵒᵗᵒʳˢᵖᵒʳᵗˢ.

"Welcome to the Black Sea Resort of Sochi for the first practice session for the 2020 Russian Grand Prix!" David Croft joyfully announced from the commentators box, "With 2 DRS zones, a 3.6 mile long circuit, 18 corners make up a lap here today with an average race speed of around 130 miles per hour. Let's head down to the pit lane with Ted, there's been some drama down in the Mercedes sides of things hasn't there, Ted?"

"Indeed there has been, Crofty! There was a bit of confusion as to why there was an awful lot of rushing around in Bottas' side of the garage, which was when we discovered that he had an accident this morning and is injured, which means that he unfortunately isn't driving this weekend." The camera panned around in the garage which landed on Reese, who was sitting on a counter on the side of the car with a thick booklet in her hand, chatting to the multiple engineers around her. It then moved to show Bruno sat on the floor with his headphones on and Reese's other hand stroking his neck.

"So, naturally that's where the reserve driver comes in." Ted continued, "But, it turns out that they didn't know that Reese Jackson━Jones, their reserve, was needed until just over an hour ago! Apparently they assumed that Bottas' injury wasn't severe enough for him to not race! Which, evidently, is resulting them panicking a little, as you can see from all the running around."

"How would you say Reese is doing over there? Because I know that if I had not even an hours notice before I had to compete my first Formula One race weekend, I would certainly be feeling a little pale!" Crofty laughed out, still not completely comprehending the entirety of the situation.

"Well, surprisingly, JJ seems to be doing a lot better than most would have thought, she's joking around and just seems all━around chilled out! That's not something you see every week, Crofty ━ let's hope that she can live up to the confident vibes she's giving off."

Martin Brundle put his thoughts into the conversation, "I did manage to have a little chat with JJ earlier on, while she wasn't being swarmed by the Mercedes team. She said she had a little moment where she was nervous, but I mean who wouldn't be! But then she explained that it was more the rushed situation rather than the nervousness of driving the car at the highest level possible with the time she was given. Because you've got to put yourself in her shoes here, Reese is going to be moved up by a lot of stages this weekend. Going from F2 cars to F1 is already hard enough, but to be put in a seven time championship winning car, that's going to be an absolutely massive learning curve ━ for both her and the team."

"I guess we can only wait and see to be able to tell what else is going to unravel this weekend, I do have a feeling it will be an interesting one, Martin!"

"And there she is, giving us a smile and a wave!"

〓 〓 〓 〓 〓

Waving to the many cameras that were situated in front of the garage to get a glimpse of the Mercedes "drama" and giving them a somewhat bright smile, Reese put down the thick folder in her hands onto the counter beneath her that contained all of the race strategies and general information about this weekend that she had been memorising for the past hour.

Truthfully, the whole situation was extensively helped by Reese's need to be overly prepared for almost everything. Which meant that before every F1 race, she had had all the strategies and team notes in her mind on the back burner, just in case she was needed to replace either Valtteri or Lewis.

At least, that way she couldn't be caught out making an idiot of herself by not knowing anything that was going on with the team. And those suckers said she was crazy for being so prepared. For the amount of people that said she was useless and didn't deserve a spot in F1, whether it was from her mum's money from the company or the "favour" she received from her dad winning the world championship six times, she sure as hell set out to prove them wrong, which all started from learning the ins and outs of the team.

Plus, the joke's on them ━ she's prepared as hell.

Currently, there were 10 minutes until FP1 which meant that she was getting ready to move and get seated in the car. The black, sleek, scrumdiddlyumptious looking car was sitting just over a metre away from her ━ that for whatever reason, she decided was fit to name Walter.

And oh boy was she excited to drive it.

This was like early Christmas for her. Being given the opportunity to be able to drive this car, in an actual formula one race no less, was surreal. It wasn't one of those races that her and her dad had for fun where he would always win, where he never went easy, not matter how much the child version of her pouted and complained how much it was unfair ━ it was real and this was her chance. She often found herself pinching her arm slightly every couple of minutes to make sure she wasn't hallucinating from a lack of sleep.

Which wasn't completely unrealistic ━ although, she was totally hopped up in coffee, so perhaps she was having a caffeine overdose. Were those even possible?

Reese shakes herself out of her thoughts, getting back on track, "Hey Aidan, can you take Bruno to the famous people section for me in a minute, please?" She crouched down in front of her beloved golden retriever and held his head in her hands, kissing his head and hugging his body, as best one could with a dog. He always did love cuddles with his owner.

"Ya, i've gotta head over there for a quick sec anyway."

"See you in a quick minute, buddy. Be nice to the Irishman." She pointed a finger in his face as she got up from her crouched position and he barked a sound that resembled mild offence to her statement.

"It'll be fine, he loves me more than he does you!" Aidan commented as he walked past her, with Bruno just starting to follow behind.

Reese zipped up her new, obsidian Mercedes race suit, walking over to where her helmet and balaclava where stored in a little cubby in the wall. Addelyne almost silently creeped up beside her, resting her arm on the wall beside them and faced Reese, looking at her scrutinisingly as if she was looking for something on Reese's face.

The sixteen year old only looked up at the older, blonde woman and raised her eyebrows, waiting for her to finally say something, but when Addelyne was yet to do so, she squirmed slightly under her analysing gaze, "Can I help you with something, my dearest Addelyne?"

"Mhm." That wasn't really the response Reese was looking for.

"Care to tell me what with . . . ?" The younger girl reached into her helmet, pulling out her balaclava. Addelyne moved to behind Reese to help with putting it on, as she always did.

"I know you're not nervous ━ and that's good, don't me wrong! But I also know you better than you do yourself, so please, just promise me you won't get too cocky out there and do anything too risky." As they talked, they both fiddle with Reese's hair so that it would be neatly tucked underneath the edge of her race suit and the balaclava.

"Addie, darling? Going out there right now with no practice is risky. This whole sport is risky. And anyway ━ it's just free practice, not the actual race or qualifying, so it's not like I'll be trying to overtake anyone or pull any fancy moves."

"Perhaps not ━ but that won't stop you from trying to show off though, will it?"

They both departed from the job of doing Reese's hair, it hidden underneath the balaclava which was now over her face and head, and she pulled an overly innocent face at her statement, "I have no idea what you are talking about! No idea, none. At. All!" She started to walk away from her performance coach and personal trainer and headed towards Walter, the W11.

"Really? I find that hard to believe. You don't recall any memories from last year when you ━ "

"Lalalaa i'm busy doing adult stuff, fast cars going broom broom, too noisy, I can't hear you!" Reese was extravagantly waving her hand next to the side of her head, pretending that she couldn't hear the woman, not particularly wanting her to bring up some of her most embarrassing moments over the years in front of a team that she desperately needed to impress.

While carrying her helmet and gloves, she decided to talk to her new engineer, Avery Torres, before she got into the car so that they could go over the plan for the session once more before she was let out of the garage in the car.

"Hey, so run me through the plan once more?" Reese asked the American woman when she reached where Avery was stationed, though her words were slightly muffled from the balaclava over her head and face.

"We plan on sending you out first ━ if everything goes to plan ━ just so you can get a better feel of the car before we have to do any real test runs or anything. We also aren't expecting to do much this morning, the goal is mainly just for you to get comfortable in the car and with the track, so don't put too much pressure on yourself if the times don't really compare to the others', okay?" Avery's words were slightly fast paced, and she was shuffling on her feet as she talked, Reese noticed. She was nervous.

Reese was so never going to let this down.

Nodding along when Avery was speaking, she looked playfully offended at the last part of her mini ━ speech.

"I am affronted that you think so low of me!" Reese bantered with the woman, hoping to ease the nerves that Avery was trying ━ and failing ━ to hide.

"Where on earth did you learn that word?" Avery asked incredulously, "Does that word even make sense in that sentence? I mean, you would know right? You're in ━ what, year six now ━ still learning how to spell and use words, that's an impressive word for you."

"Oh, Hah. Hah. Yes! Let's bully the one person who's about to make you legendary ━ and I mean legendary!" Reese grabbed the woman's shoulders and lightly shook her body as if the emphasise the importance of what she was saying. "And I may or may not have stolen the thesaurus━dictionary━thing from Jimmy's office." She relented, but then continued shaking her engineer's shoulders, "But ━ that's not important right now!"

"I have to agree with JJ, here." Toto interrupted from where he was standing just two metres away from them. He had originally been coming over to get a feel as to how Reese was feeling before practice, but obviously she appeared to be doing just fine. "How are you feeling? Nervous?"

"Nope. Really excited though, I've always enjoyed adapting to a new car, so this'll be fun for me."

"Oh, well, best of luck today ━ and just so you know, the whole of Mercedes is watching for future drivers and talent at all times. Also, Ola Källenius is flying in tomorrow so, a piece of manager━ly advice? Don't cock it up. You never know what doing well this weekend might mean for your future."

Toto gave a Reese a pat on the shoulder and a friendly wink, before walking off over to his section in the garage.

"Did he just ━ "

"Tell you that the Boss of Mercedes is coming tomorrow and then proceed to potentially offer you a future seat? I ━ I think so."

" . . . Oh." Reese nodded blankly, "Cool. Anyway! No time for distractions, future deals or nervousness! Those are for the weak. And we ━ are most certainly not weak." She gestured wildly to herself and Avery.

After the two had finished their conversation with her other engineers that came along to discuss optimising her performance just before she got out on track, she moved her way to the side of the car and swiftly hopped inside. When she she was seated inside the car she gave her body a quick wiggle to see how much room she had inside.

As it was expected ━ not very much.

She placed the earphones inside her ears, which muffled the sound around her slightly. One of the people to her left also handed Reese her helmet and attached HANS device over the halo of the car and she grabbed it by either side of the opening before pulling it over her head. She had already put her retainers in earlier on and she bit down slightly on her teeth to push them all the way back down.

Once the wires leading out from the helmet and drink tube were organised and untangled, she connected them all up to the car and before she knew it the slightly staticky voice of Avery filled her ears.

"Loud and clear?" Avery's American accent came into her ears through her earphones.

"Loud and clear." Reese affirmed back into the radio.

"Oh and JJ?"

"Yuh huh?"

"Thank you." Avery had just taken notice of what Reese had done ━ used the comedic side of her personality to keep her calm. Even if Reese should've been the one that was nervous, here she was helping Avery not be anxious as this was Avery's first race with a driver that wasn't Bottas and although both women adapted to change quite easily, Avery always struggled with working through anxiety that came with it.

So, she was immensely grateful for Reese and her acts of secretive kindness.

"Anytime, sweet cheeks."

"No, never mind ━ forget what I said, I take it back, I hate you."

The engine roared to life and she pressed her food down on the accelerator pedal, hearing the engine respond back. Reese pulled a face of pure satisfaction after feeling the car rumble underneath her body and in her grip where her hands were holding the steering wheel. The car had yet to move out of the garage, the tyre warmers still on and the car in neutral.

"Mhm, sure you do. How long until I'm going out?"

"About ten more seconds, then you'll be good."

Reese looked frontwards and saw one of the team members with his arms up facing her. The tyre coverings were lifted and the mechanics stepped away from the car, when the guy in front of the car slowly walked backwards and gestured her to roll out of the garage.

To which she complied and did with no hesitation.

Oh boy was this gonna be fun.  

━━ 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨 ━━

i don't really have anything to say other than . . .

hey besties <3 <3

kinda another filler, but next chapter is gonna be more eventful hopefully 🤞

are there any particular scenarios you want to see in this book? let me know if you have any ideas !