Oxterionn: Of Love and Fast Cars

Red took a detour as he drove Kat home from school the next week and the two ended up in an unused parking lot. Kat looked around suspiciously and wondered what her new chauffeur was up to. Catching her confused glance, Red turned off the car and handed her the keys.

"You're going to learn how to drive."

She opened her mouth in surprise. "What makes you think I don't already know how to?"

"Firstly, you're from the city. Secondly, you've never had a reason to need a driver's license. Thirdly, you asked me to drive you to a friend's house last week, which is something I thought you would do on your own, normally. Although I did have fun playing with her dog while I waited for you." Red smiled and tried not to look smug, as that was not his intention at all. "And, your dad told me you couldn't drive. At first I thought he meant you were not allowed to drive, but then I realized he meant you actually could not drive."

Kat sighed and tried not to roll her eyes. "Well, he can't either. Lots of people from the city don't drive."

"Actually, I'm from a city; from Boston-"

"I noticed. You don't hide your accent as well as you think." Now it was Kat's turn to tease. Red's freckled cheeks got a little pink and he smiled, whether it was from embarrassment Kat did not know.

"Okay, regardless of where we're from, I think you should know how to drive. In case anything happens." Red steered the conversation back to the issue at hand. "Like, if I got hurt when we were out, or-"

"If you needed me to pick you up from the bar..." Kat smiled again and he tried to ignore this comment.

"Or if you wanted to meet up with a guy. You probably don't want me around for that," Red really did not want to be around for that.

"That's not something we need to worry about." Kat replied flatly.

"Or, a girl?" Red corrected and waited for her response.

"No, I mean I never go out, with anyone. So, I don't really need to drive..." Kat was a little embarrassed, but mostly she was scared of getting behind the wheel of a car.

"Okay, that was just an example, but it's a useful life skill." He looked her in the eyes and tried to look convincing, as if to say 'we are not leaving until you at least try.'

Kat eyed the keys in her hand and felt the cool metal against her now moist palms. The idea of driving honestly scared her. She'd never tried, but perhaps Red was right: it was time she learned.

"Okay." The two switched places and Kat adjusted the seat so she could reach the pedals better. As Red began explaining how the pedals worked and how to use the gear shifter, he was reminded of his first time behind the wheel nearly ten years ago. It was an event he often tried to forget. While he'd enjoyed driving his Grandpa's Oxterionn, the events that followed that first driving lesson still made him feel uneasy. Electing not to explain the details of that event to Kat at this moment, he focused on the task at hand.

"Don't- touch that." He took her hand off the gear shifter. "Only move it if the clutch is all the way in."

"Clutch? It's.... this one, right?"

"I can't see your feet.... but you use your left foot for it, so no." This might take a while, Red sighed. "Okay, let's try starting the car now...."

. . .

"Okay, you've been bailed out so I guess I have to let you go, however," the police officer explained, and Emme could see the small, impatient, jittering team principal of the Formula One team she drove for hovering behind him and mouthing something she could not make out. "We did that DNA test like you asked. It ain't your kid."

Her boss froze and for once ceased his fidgeting. He knew Emme had a temper, and that she was not afraid of verbally berating a police officer (or worse). But there was nothing. She remained slumped against the back wall of her cell and lowered her gaze to the floor. She closed her eyes for a moment before getting up, adjusting her shirt, and carefully walking past the police officer she so wished to spit on, or trip, or yell a long string of profanities at. Even though that was one of her favorite things to do, she could not find it in her to even give him an eye roll or sarcastic remark.

Jacques hovered by her side as they exited the station through the back exit. He gave Emme her usual large sunglasses to hide behind in the likely case that there were cameras waiting for them, as there were this dull Tuesday morning. He knew better than to say anything to her until they were safely in his car (which he insisted on driving, even though she always offered to drive) however this time he did not even know what to say.

"Your car has been impounded, if you would like to pick it up I could take you..." He started.

"I want to go home." She said without much emotion in her tone.

"Are you sure that's the best idea right now?" Her house was no doubt surrounded with paparazzi, but inside was most likely something she wished to avoid even more. The last nine months they had been preparing for this and their house had been transformed once again into a baby-friendly home. Their toddler was being watched by the grandparents while her husband was most likely at the hospital with the surrogate holding their newborn daughter in his arms. Or, what should have been her newborn daughter.

"No, I mean I want to go home. To my parents."

Jacques shifted in his seat. Emme's family terrified him. Just the thought of what they could do made his kneecaps scream. She had renounced them publicly several years ago, but he knew they still kept in touch. "Right, I'll bring you to the airport."

She looked at him through her dark glasses and he could see the deathly emotionless stare that had often turned his blood to ice. Like that time he said they may not be able to renew her contract at the end of the season, and he suggested she 'take some time off to spend with her family' instead. Now she was regretting her decision to keep driving for one more year. At 33, maybe she really should consider retiring.

But she could not stop racing now, not after she had worked so hard to get where she was. Emme first entered Formula 1 in a pay-to-drive kind of situation. Her family had money and everyone knew where it came from, though no one would admit it. The only teams that would sign her were the ones that needed her money. Despite this, she did have skill, and teams started to take interest in her for something other than her money.

Currently she was with in her third year with Jacques at Velorica, and halfway through the season, it was looking like it was going to be her last. Jacques could not work up the nerve to tell her, especially not after what she had just gone through, so he quietly drove her to the airport and tried to decide which intern would have to deliver the final blow to .

* * *

Katherine rushed through her last exam of the semester, eager to get out of the hot, stuffy classroom she and her classmates were in. As she walked to the front of the room to hand in her test, she glanced out the window and tried to find the familiar black car waiting for her, like it had been the past few weeks. She smiled when she did not see it; 'Red,' she thought to herself and shook her head; he had been on time ever since that first day. They got along a lot better than she and her last driver had, who had been more of a fatherly—no, grandfatherly—figure to her. Red was kind of like that boy next door, that friend you could get into all sorts of shenanigans with; Kat had never had anyone like that before.

"Have a nice summer Miss Brice," her professor said quietly, smiling up at her from his desk.

"I told you, please call me Kat," she whispered back.

"I'm sorry, but your father doesn't want me to," he whispered, thinking of the new 'Brice Hall of Engineering' being built after a generous donation from Albert.

"Whatever," Kat sighed and put her test on his desk and got out of the classroom as fast as she could. She rushed down the stairs and opened the door to the sunshine. Kat skipped down the last few steps to the sidewalk and was about to sit down on the steps to wait for her driver when she saw him step out of a sleek black car.

"What is that?" Kat asked and her mouth dropped open in shocked amusement.

"It's an Oxterionn," Red replied smugly with the smile of a kid who's been given whatever he wanted in a candy shop. Oxterionn was the oldest sports car company in the United States and had quite a reputation for being fast yet classy. "Isn't she beautiful?"

Kat walked over to the car and ran her hand along the edge of it. "Does my dad know you have this?"

Red chuckled. "Yes, he paid for it. I told him I needed a faster car to get you around. And, you might have worn out the clutch in the old car after our first driving lesson. I didn't mention that part to him though..."

Kat stared back at him in shock. "My father bought this?"

"Yeah, he said the old Lincoln needed to be replaced anyway, so he let me pick the car. I was kind of joking when I showed him this one, but he liked it." He smiled and looked back at the car to admire its sleek black curves.

Slowly, a smile spread across Kat's face that almost matched Red's. "How fast does it go?"

Red smiled mischievously and bit his lip. "Want to see?"

After nearly getting whiplash several times, Kat was glad when Red pulled the car to a stop on the side of the road. It took her a few minutes to catch her breath after the exhilarating ride and her driver watched her carefully. Mostly, he was concerned that he'd scared her, but he was also worried that she'd get sick—and that was not happening in this brand-new car!

"Too fast? Too many corners? What's wrong?" His native Boston accent dropping the 'r's' as he rapidly questioned Kat. Red turned to face her, trying to judge her reaction, but her face was unreadable.

"Well, Redington, first I have to say that this is the first time I've ridden in the front seat with my driver," Kat looked at him with a hint of a smile until they both started laughing, and glanced back at the lack of back seat in the small two-seat car. "However, that was also probably the fastest I've ever been in a car; that was almost like a rollercoaster."

"I'll take that as a compliment." Red glanced at his watch. "I should probably get you home. You have to be somewhere at 8:00 tonight."

"Ugh, don't remind me of that. I hate going to these stupid 'charity dinner' things!" Kat pushed herself back in her seat more and braced herself as the car started moving again.

Seeing this, Red laughed. "Don't worry, I'll drive a little more carefully. And what do you hate about it? I thought girls liked getting dressed up."

"It's not that, though that does get annoying after a while. It's because I, um," Kat paused. "I never have a date."

"What? Why not? A pretty girl like you can't get a date?"

"I'm not allowed to," Kat rolled her eyes and Red glanced at her as he slowed to pull in to the gated driveway. He stopped long enough to type in the gate code before accelerating thought the barely open gates. "Dad's really strict about that kind of stuff. He always sets me up with some diplomat's son, or the grandson of one of the Kennedy's, or the nephew of a Duke or an Earl ... people I'm not at all interested in."

"He's just trying to protect you," Red replied with no enthusiasm behind his words. As much as he wanted to do whatever his new employer wished, he did not exactly understand why a 21-year-old girl was not allowed to date.

"It doesn't really matter; I'm focusing on my studies instead." Kat had given that excuse the many times she was asked why she did not have a boyfriend, and it was starting to get old. "Will you be driving me tonight?"

"Yes, but probably not in this," he pointed toward the Oxterionn, which they were still sitting in, engine idling in the driveway. "Whatever I'm driving, I'll be here at 7:30."

Kat waved goodbye and skipped up the marble steps that led to the front door. Before she could get her keys out to unlock it, the heavy oak door swung open.

"Miss Katherine, your father is waiting for you in the study," Gibbons, an impossibly uptight British butler, announced in his impeccable accent. Gibbons had come stateside with Kat's father in the 1980s when he moved his international corporation to New York City from London, and Kat has tried countless times to make him smile, or break his stoic but kindly countenance somehow. But he was always that same calm, polite, gentleman who attended to his employer's every need.

"There you are Katherine," her father said in his slightly less impeccable accent. He was from a different part of London than Gibbons, or maybe Gibbons had learned the proper upper class British accent in 'Butler School' or wherever he came from. Kat's father had what is commonly called a cockney accent, and his background matched the traits most associated with it (i.e. lower class), and this was something he reminded Kat of every chance he got.

"What's up?" Kat sat in the seat across from him at his desk and slouched back against the chair's soft cushioned back.

"Sit up, it's bad for your spine to sit like that. I just wanted to ask if you would mind being the date of one of the European diplomat's sons tonight," he asked casually, as if it was not a big deal. And to Kat, it was not, since she'd done this a dozen times before.

"Do I really have a choice?" Kat asked, looking up from her phone.

"You always have a choice, Katherine, but he really is a fine young gentleman; I don't see why you would object," her father gave her one of those looks that said 'you're doing this,' and she sighed.

"Oh, he's young this time? As in, younger than you?" She knew she would not get a response other than a reproachful stare, so she agreed. "Fine," she rolled out of the chair she was slumped in and started to leave the study.

"Mlle. Charlotte will be here soon to do your hair, so go take a shower," her father called after her as if she were still a child.