Page 13 of Full Throttle 2
“He didn’t tell you?”
“Not yet.”
“Levenson fell through.”
Lila was genuinely disappointed for them. She knew how important that deal was. “Damn.”
“Exactly. I’m so over it.” Colby glanced around the now mostly empty room to ensure she wasn’t overheard. “We need an infusion of cash.”
“You’ll get another sponsorship. An even better one.”
Colby hoped Lila was right. “Racing shouldn’t require all of this. How many top ten drivers have the same worries? Like, why am I in a tire commercial, but that same company won’t sponsor my team?”
Lila wrinkled up her nose. “Sounds like a bad agent/manager to me. Why wasn’t the deal reciprocal? Take less money up front for a sponsorship?”
“That’s a good question. I can’t be in all the rooms all the time.” Colby rolled her head around her shoulders to loosen up her muscles. “Why don’tyourepresent me?”
Lila laughed. “Because I don’t know anything about this kind of thing. I don’t have the relationships your management team has, and I’m still trying to figure out my own life. More importantly, I don’t want to hang from my cousin’s coattails.”
“That’s silly talk. You would be working, not mooching.” Colby was serious, even if Lila thought she wasn’t. “Can you at least talk to my business manager?”
“That’s Mark Kelp, right?”
Colby nodded. “Yeah, him. I swear I don’t have space in my head for the business stuff.”
“What questions would I even ask? Mark knows the industry. I’m sure whatever questions I put to him would be stupid. What about Liam? Why doesn’t he advise you? He’s pretty savvy.”
“He’s busy running his own businesses and already bailed us out once. I don’t want that to become a habit, and neither does Brian. Plus, Liam is the one who suggested Mark in the first place. Liam says he is one of the best.”
Lila had a flashback to the crisis PR guru, Brandy Coles, whom Liam hired before Colby’s first race. She was good at her job, just not good at managing Colby or Black people in general. That required a special finesse. “Hmm. You’re a unicorn. You’re occupying space that’s technically not meant for you. So, I would think you would need someone who is not just good at their job but understands the delicate nature of what’s happening.”
Colby almost burst out of her skin. “See! That’s why you need to be in the room. You understand the situation perfectly and could represent that missing piece!”
Lila stood up and waved her off. “I don’t even have my degree.”
“Neither do most of the smartest people I know, but you have something even better...my trust.”
Lila tried to smile at her cousin’s compliment, but not having her degree was a sore spot for her. She’d quit college after that horrendous incident with Anthony Luccesse.
Lila had been so traumatized that she couldn’t face anyone on campus, especially Brian. The more Lila thought about it, the more she knew that was the exact moment her life changed and began its downward spiral into chaos.
She couldn’t believe it had taken years and another equally crazy moment to knock some sense into her. She was just grateful Uncle Cyrus let her come back to the only place she’d known as home to lick her wounds and heal. Now that she had been home for a little while, she had enough time to catch her breath and reevaluate her life, and Lila wanted more for herself. Shedeservedmore. But that meant she had to own up to her shitty decisions after shitty decisions and stop blaming her mother for being a shiny example of what not to do. Lila was a grown woman. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but her own that she’d screwed up her life so drastically.
She was trying to take full responsibility as she worked to put the pieces back together, which began with finishing her degree.
Lila had been working on that and had enrolled in online courses at U of I. It was an accelerated program, and if all went well, she would have her degree by the end of fall.
Lila wished she could help Colby but, honestly, didn’t think she had much to offer. At least not yet. “I think you’re in good hands with Mark. Just communicate with him a little more to make sure he understands where you’re coming from.”
For the second time, Lila changed the subject to something else that had been bothering her. “When was the last time you ate?”
Colby half-shrugged. “I had something earlier.” She couldn’t remember. “Honestly, I’m not hungry.”
Lila didn’t like that answer. Colby was a foodie. She was always on the smaller side but never this rail thin. She was getting too skinny. Colby drove cars for a living. She was not a model and shouldn’t look like one.
“I thought I was the professional model, well, ex-model anyway.”
Colby admired how unbothered Lila always seemed when it came to her physical appearance. She wished she could have an ounce of Lila’s confidence in that area. “Nobody would ever guess that you weren’t still in the game. You always looked good on the runway, on your magazine covers, and in person. My ass gotta work at it.”