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A commotion from down the hall is what gets Trinity's attention. This floor of the motorhome is usually quiet, no hospitality staff buzzing around or engineers going over data, just offices and driver rooms. She's in Whitaker' room right now, the door open, bouncing a tennis ball against the wall while she waits for him to return with their snacks. The noise, though, pulls her out of the hypnotic motion of the exercise: floor, wall, hand, floor, wall, hand.
There's some frantic footsteps, a thump, and then silence. Odd. She gets up to investigate, ball in hand, and finds Robby's office door cracked open, and through the windowed walls she sees the man himself. He's crumpled against the wall, shaking and humming, not even acknowledging her as she walks in. She walks over carefully, determining if this is just some emotional upheaval—maybe he just found out his dog died—or if it's something deeper.
"Robby? Hey, can you hear me?" she asks. He doesn't respond, and when she catches his eyes they're unfocused, brimming with tears and confusion and staring right past her, definitely something deeper.
The sight of her team principle having what she now presumes is a panic attack unsettles her. He's usually the picture of confidence, calm and steady at every race, every meeting, every interview. But here, now, he's small and scared.
They've gotten to know each other a lot better in the last year, now in her second season racing for Red Bull. Which isn't to say they're close, but certainly more comfortable than last year when she was an overeager rookie. They've built a rapport, a trust: she tries to get the gossip from him about other team principles, he doesn't take the bait, instead distracting her with crumbs of information about himself or redirecting and asking about herself. While she doesn't have the whole picture, she has enough to know that he does have someone, and it's this that she remembers when searching for his phone and calling the emergency contact number from the lock screen, hoping whoever picks up knows what to do.
As the phone rings she sits in front of Robby trying to decide if touching or moving him would make the situation better or worse.
Finally, someone picks up, "Hey, I'm in a meeting. What's up?"
"Hello?"
"You're not Robby," it's a man's voice. Maybe his brother, does he have a brother?
"No, hi sorry you're his emergency contact? He's my boss I guess…well I know," she fumbles for the right words. "Sorry, anyway, I'm with him right now. I think he's having a panic attack and I don't know what to do. Do you know what helps? Please?"
"Trinity is that you? Where are you?" the man asks. She hears a rustle on the other end of the line, a quick exchange of words she can't make out.
"I'm in his office with him."
"I'll be there in a minute. Just, stay there and make sure he stays upright. If you can get him to focus on something, an object, that sometimes helps."
"Wait. You'll be here in a minute? You're here? At the track?"
A second later she spots Whitaker through the glass, walking down the hall looking for her.
"Yea I'm at the track." He sounds gruff, concern laced with annoyance, "Could you get someone to let me in the door at the back? I don't have the badge for that."
"Yea I can— what do you mean aren't you Robby's guest why wouldn't you have the badge?"
"Would you please just get someone to let me in?" he asks, definitely annoyed now.
As she's trying to get Robby to hold the tennis ball she still has with one hand, she waves down Whitaker with the other. This is all becoming more of an effort in coordinating people than calming down Robby.
Whitaker finally spots her and runs over, worry clear across his face, "What the hell is—"
"Go to the back door, I need you to let someone in," she interrupts him.
"Who?"
A great question. Who is she talking to?
"What's your name? So we know who to let in?"
"Jack," the man says before hanging up. She repeats it to Whitaker who gives a funny look before he runs off toward the rear stairs.
Trinity puts all her focus back on Robby. He still hasn't taken the tennis ball so she just starts rubbing it across the back of his hand, hoping the sensation might distract him. At some point during her phone call the shaking turned completely, eerily still and the building tears were now fully spilling over.
"You can go. I'm…okay," Robby manages to choke out. His breathing stutters with the words and Trinity's heart wrenches in her chest.
Thankfully, not ten seconds later she hears footsteps and turns to see Whitaker and Jack Abbot come through the door. She does a double take, shocked to see the Toro Rosso team principle walk in, not expecting him to be the Jack on the other end of the phone.
Whitaker looks just as baffled as she feels, his hands up, shaking his head in confusion when she looks to him in silent question. Her brain wants to put the pieces together but there's too much going on.
She scooches out of the way, looking to Jack as he takes her place in front of Robby. Under all of the concern and worry, there's a fondness in how Jack looks at Robby. There's a familiarity in how he moves around and touches him.
He gently grabs Robby's hand, moving it to his own chest, "Hey Michael, I'm here. It's Jack," he narrates, "Just breathe, yea? Just follow my breathing. Focus on that."
Feeling like she's intruding Trinity pivots to Whitaker, ready to leave. Jack turns to them, though, asks if they can bring over Robby's backpack and some water. With a new, clear goal she sets off with Dennis. They find the backpack on the other side of his desk and she runs to fill up the water bottle from the side pocket. Along the way she has to turn around a few wanderers, making a mental note to apologize for her abrasiveness later.
When she returns, Whitaker's figured out how to close the blinds to the room and is now helping Jack move Robby onto the couch. With Robby situated on the couch, Jack begins rummaging through the backpack, pulling out a small pouch and dumping its contents beside himself. What looks to be a pill bottle and a mentos tim spill out among other items and Trinity hands him the water bottle.
She's again ready to leave when Jack asks, "Were you here when it started? Do you know what he was doing?"
"No, sorry. I just heard him run in here and I guess drop to the ground. I was down the hall, sorry."
"No, that's…that's okay. Sometimes it just helps to know. Thank you far calling," he says to her, his intense eye contact is both reassuring and incredibly uncomfortable. Taking that as her final cue to leave she grabs Whitaker and pulls him out the door.
"Call if you need something. I'm in Robby's phone and right down the hall," she says before gently shutting the door.
Blessedly, they've both already done their videos for the social media team for the day so she herds them into Whitaker's room to debrief.
"Did you know about them?" she whispers.
"No, why would I know about them? You've been here a year longer than me you're the most likely to know!" he whisper yells back.
"Yea well," Trinity thinks for a moment, "you were with Toro Rosso last year so you know them both now. Nothing that came up while you were there?"
Dennis seems to actually think about this for moment. "Well what if. What is they're just really good friends you know? Sister teams, team principles are best friends, it makes sense?"
"Whitaker, no one looks at someone like that when they're just best friends."
"Yea you're probably right." Trinity elbows him, "Definitely right," he relents.
An hour later, Trinity still hasn't heard a peep from the office down the hall. No voices, no footsteps, no door opening. Out of both concern for her boss and her innate need to be nosy, but mostly concern, she decides to check on the two men.
Knocking lightly, she cracks the door open with the intent of announcing herself before entering. Instead, in the crack she's made, she locks eyes with Jack who stares frozen on the couch. Fear is plain across his face before he registers it's Trinity and slumps back again. Looking down, she that Robby is laid asleep across the couch, head in Jack's lap.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," she whispers, "I just wanted to check in and…see if you need anything or…" she realizes she's never really spoken to Jack before and isn't sure what to expect from him.
He surprises her when he waves her into the room with a soft smile.
"I brought some more water. And this granola bar," she manages to stutter out. Jack takes the items.
"Thank you. And thanks for calling, it's good that you did." He looks at her intently, keeping eye contact the entire time. It's a little unnerving, even with the kind words.
"Yea, yea, it's no problem. Thanks for coming…" not sure what else to say she heads back to the door, figuring she'll just leave them be and talk to Robby later. She's not sure if she can handle Jack looking at her like that any longer.
Talking to Robby the next day manages to be a lot harder than she anticipated. Even though she managed to get to the track early, he was already surrounded by the team and working with the engineers. To be fair it is Saturday, so it's a lot busier, but by the time free practice is over Trinity still hasn't gotten to talk to Robby about anything other than the car, the track, or strategy details. Even when they're mostly sequestered off on their own he refuses to look her in the eye.
She supposes he's trying to act like it never happened. He's continued to be his charming self to both her and Whitaker all day, not mentioning a thing about the day before. She can go along with it for now, but she refuses to pretend forever. She's not even sure she can pretend for the rest of the day.
It's about 30 minutes before qualifying when Trinity sees an opening. She's skipping rope between buildings and catches Robby walking by, "Hey boss, you got a minute?"
"Oh for you, I always have a minute," he says casually, "walk with me."
"Oh well I was actually hoping to…" she tries to stop him, to have this conversation in the privacy of the alleyway —as exposed as it is, it's better than nothing—but he's already walking away, waving a hand over his shoulder for her to follow.
He leads them along the main breezeway, people in all colors of team gear getting ready for qualifying. "I just wanted to check in," she says once she catches up, quietly, a little out of breath.
Robby glances over at her, "Oh yea, you know me. I always get a little antsy on quali day, too many red bulls, not enough sleep." A smile strains across his face but doesn't reach his eyes.
"That's not really what I meant. You know, just, after yester—"
"Robby!" One of their press officers interrupts, jogging over. "There you are. Sky had to move a few things so they want you in five, are you good to do that?"
Robby practically sighs in relief to be leaving their conversation. "No that's perfect, Trinity and I were just finished," he gives her a tight smile and moves away. Well, there goes that attempt, she thinks.
They don't get a chance to talk again until after qualifying. After the media pen interviews. After she's done her own quali debrief video with their marketing team. It's been a long day, and she just wants to take a shower and eat dinner and go to bed, but she peeps Robby alone in his office and knows now might be her only shot for the rest of the weekend.
She walks into his office, knocking on the door as she opens it and goes straight to the couch. The one she saw him asleep on the day before, tucked neatly into Jack Abbot's lap. It's not something she thought she'd ever see in her life. Two F1 team bosses dating. Two anyone in F1 dating.
Robby scrubs his hand across his face, also clearly tired and turns to her but stays quiet.
They sit in silence for a full minute.
"So. Abbot, huh?" She figures she might as well get right to it.
Robby lets out a dry laugh and moves to sit with her. He looks like he's might to say something but he just sits there, elbows on knees, rubbing his hands together like he's gotten too much hand sanitizer.
"I'm not going to say anything to anyone," she reassures, "Whitaker won't either."
"I…that's not…thank you," he gets out, stopping his fiddling. "I wasn't worried you were going to out me. I trust you're both better people than that."
"I just. You were kind of avoiding me today so I wasn't sure what you thought."
"That's fair. I guess, first I want to apologize for maybe scaring you yesterday. Sometimes I have panic attacks and my meds usually help but I switched recently…" he rambles on, "you don't need to know all that, sorry, anyway… and second, thanks for calling Jack. That was good thinking."
Robby is pink down to his neck. He's embarrassed, she realizes. He's possibly more embarrassed that she saw him panicking than he is worried she knows he's dating Jack. What a weird guy.
"Well, apology accepted. You can freak out in front of me as much as you want," she says.
Robby laughs for real this time, eyes crinkling.
Deciding she may as well see exactly how much he's willing to share today she asks, "How long have you guys been dating?"
"Dating? Trinity, we're married."
Trinity is visibly stunned, eliciting an amused smile from Robby.
"But you don't wear a ring?" she points out, indignant.
Robby pulls out a necklace she's only ever seen the chain of. On the end is the Star of David and looped through the chain is a gold wedding band.
"Oh. Okay but what about Jack?"
"He literally wears his ring. On his ring finger. The black one? It's extremely visible at all times?"
"You know you make a great point," she concedes, "I suppose I never considered that he could be married to a man. How'd you pull him anyway?"
It's Robby's turn to sound indignant. "What do you mean how did I pull him?"
"Well, ya know he's all hot and muscular and intense."
"What are you trying to say about me? I'm not hot? You think I don't have game?"
"First, ew no I am not calling my boss hot. Barf. And second, actually I don't have a second thing and I think I regret bringing this up," she giggles despite herself. They sit quietly for a bit, comfortable.
Finally, Robby knocks his knee into hers. "Thanks," he says quietly. "For all of that. It's actually kind of nice someone else on the team knows."
"No one else knows?"
"Not here. Just you, and Whitaker I guess. Our families know, and friends from home. But no one in the sport. Maybe some people suspect or know and have just kept quiet. You can see why we might want to keep it under wraps."
And she does understand. The sport is performatively inclusive at best, and usually they're not at their best. Bringing more women into the sport has been an ongoing challenge, she wouldn't let people know if she was gay either. She doesn't let people know she is gay. Though, she has any inkling it would over go a lot smoother with fans than if it was Robby, or a male driver.
"Yea no I get it," she winks at him, hoping to clue him in. "For what it's worth, you two are really cute."
He shoots her a curious look.
"I came in yesterday to check on you, after you knocked out. You were curled up asleep and Jack looked so…" she tries to think of the right word. "Fond," she decides on. Robby goes completely red again, hiding his face.
She manages to get a few more details out of Robby about him and Jack before he's kicking her out for the night.
"Alright you," he finally gets up, "you have a race to win tomorrow and I have meetings to attend so that we can help you win that race. So go on now, git." He shoos her out of his office, faux-annoyed.
Trinity catches Whitaker on her way out of the paddock, "Hey, you free for dinner tonight?"
"Yea, I'm good for food. What's up?"
"You're not going to believe this…well, actually you probably will," she smiles at him, leading him to their cars.