For us.
Twenty Two
“You can run your whole life but not go anywhere.” - Social Distortion - Ball and Chain
Mallory
“As long as you aren’t hurt, I won’t care.”
“Don’t you have one that’s self-driving? Those are meant for people like me.” On our last day in Scotland, Lennox is forcing me to drive a black and orange McLaren up and down the tiny road in front of his home. There are no neighbors near us but if another vehicle comes onto the road, I’m convinced I will panic and launch his million dollar car straight into it.
“People don’t need cars in New York City,” I argue, going so slow down the road that the car is just idling along.
“Still something you should be able to do, just in case.”
I feel a little paranoid when he says things like this, it’s happened a few times in recent days. Like he’s preparing me for an eventuality no one can stop, or a zombie apocalypse. We have been watching a lot of horror movies…
In an about-face, Lennox brought me to his parent’s house, his childhood home, the day after we fought. His ‘Mum and Pop,’ as he calls them, are the parents I’ve dreamed of since I was a little girl. They’re humble, warm, and the pride in their eyes for their sons is so bright it could fuel the entire east coast power grid. Lennox adores them, and I understand why.
While Pop—I was immediately instructed that I am to call them Mum and Pop ‘like everyone else’—has an accent so thick I missed half of his words, they welcomed me. Part of me felt like one of the strays everyone says Lennox is forever bringing home, but in a good way. He gets that from his parents, who took in both Matty and Jack, and others when they needed help. The modest three-bedroom house they refuse to move from is a wayward home for anyone needing unconditional love, support, and a home-cooked meal.
Bram didn’t stay long, he had pressing girlfriend matters to attend to. He’s a spitting image of a younger Lennox so it’s easy to imagine the trouble he’s getting into with girls now that he’s sixteen. He idolizes his big brother and now, more than ever, I understand why Lennox is so conflicted about his advancements in karting and path to the junior Formula series.
We traverse the island several times over when it’s not raining. By my request, Lennox took me around on the motorcycle several more times. Not only is it a great way to see the beauty of this land, but I felt free on the back of his bike. Worries disappeared for those moments in time. And, in all honesty, it was an excuse to have my arms around him all day.
He drove past the marina where Pop worked from the time he was a kid until he was forced into retirement when Lennox started pro racing. Apparently, tourists, media, and well-intentioned but overstepping fans started turning up more than paying customers and disrupted the business more than the owner could tolerate. Pop maintains Lennox’s home and estate while he’s away, saying it gives him something to do, allows him to ‘earn his keep.’ Like his oldest son, who has m
y heart, sarcasm laced with a bit of truth runs deep in the older generation.
The distillery where Mum worked is the oldest on the island and we had a private tour. Lennox schooled me on the differences between whiskey, bourbon, and scotch. Mum took a job here when he was just a kid because karting is hella expensive. They each took several jobs to afford Lennox his dream that started when he was just three years old and Pop made him that first homemade, tiny kart that still hangs on the garage wall.
Mum showed me pictures of him as a kid at the kart tracks all over Europe and when she pointed to other kids in the photos, snarling words at a few of them in Gaelic, Lennox set back and let her tell the story. They were a poor, working-class family, there’s no two ways about it. Good, honest people that Lydia and Robert Mitchell would look down upon. Karting and the path to F1 is rife with money, it’s the playground for the ultra-wealthy. Until Lennox got picked up by sponsors, Pop couldn’t afford professional gear or mechanics so Lennox turned up in homemade, old beat up karts, used race suits and hand-me-down helmets. The privileged junior Digby DuPont’s of the world terrorized him. They’d break parts of his kart so he couldn’t race, they called his dad a pauper.
But he showed up week after week and outraced them.
Unlike mine which live inside my heart and stay hidden by my image-obsessed family, Lennox’s scars and perceived failures have all been public. From the loathsome way Kate humiliated him to Celeritas debilitating him on track every Sunday. Having to work alongside Digby every single day after what he did, what he continues to do. The way people in my own industry have exploited him, even I tagged a scarlet A on his chest without knowing the whole story. I hope my guilt over that will fade, in time, and that he truly does forgive me.
The weight that must be on his shoulders devastates me. I want to take it all away. The man he is here, on this island, is miles away from all of that stress and pain. I never want to leave here. I want to stay hidden in this fortress with him where we are free of my parents, Celeritas, Digby, Kate, and even the media that has rubbed salt in every wound of his life. I never want him to know that pain again.
I can’t point to the day or time on this island that I fell in love with him. His walls have all come down, he’s let me in and allowed me to see the real man. The one no one else is lucky enough to see. Maybe I loved him even before we landed here, but I can’t deny it anymore. There have been moments where I’m looking into his eyes and it almost leaves my mouth, and I think he’s pondering the same words, but there’s something stuck in my throat that won’t let it come out.
Fear.
This is all so new, so fast. What happens when the season ends and I go back to New York? Do I want to go back to New York? I’d rather stay here but that’s a bit premature and I scold myself for the naive fantasy. What happens if Dickby, Celeritas, or even my father ruin it all before then? That’s far more probable. Lennox has his dream and I have mine, if both don’t get crushed before the season ends and send us each our own separate ways. We’re too new to survive that and we’ve made no promises for what happens after the last race in Abu Dhabi.
But for now, I’ve pushed it all out of my mind as much as possible and have spent this time relishing in his company. I haven’t even replaced my phone yet. When we’re curled up on the couch in his barren living room watching black and white monster movies, or sitting beside the bonfire he makes every night, I almost forget who he is.
Until his eyes light with fire, his words get filthy, and he issues me sexy commands. Then I very much remember the competitive, bossy, powerful asshole he is.
And I absolutely love it.
For all the jackass things he does during the day, sabotaging his own interviews and letting his false playboy persona run wild, when he takes my clothes off, he makes me feel comfortable, special.
Twenty Three
Headline: Your Barcelona Driver of the Day - Lennox Gibbes
Blog: While the Uber Wealthy Party in Monaco, Lennox Gibbes… Shops at a Bookstore? Wherefore Art Thou, Paddock Playboy?