Drive to Survive

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Dylan sat defeated, staring at the wall as the slam of the door echoed in her mind. Max had barked a torrent of insults at her, dismissing her ability to do her job and making it explicitly clear that he wanted her nowhere near him. After he shredded her peace offering, he'd stormed out of the room yet again. That seemed to be a habitual action for him but it only further added to Dylan's bewilderment. 

By the time she'd picked herself up and made her way towards the rest of the media team huddled around in the garage, she was thoroughly confused and upset. But while Max may refuse to act professional, she certainly had to, which is why she took a deep breath, pushed a smile on her face, and pretended all was fine. 

"Hi!" She greeted Greg, who looked down at her and smiled widely. 

At least someone in a Red Bull shirt was happy to see her. 

"Hello Dylan, how's your morning been?"

"Oh, lovely, thank you." She smiled kindly and lied, trying to inject some believable enthusiasm into her voice.

"Oh yes, absolutely lovely!" Hunter mocked her accent, trying - and failing - to speak in a high pitched tone. 

"Pipe down you." Dylan chastised, falling into the seat next to him, "Don't be jealous because I can speak properly."

"I can speak proper too, doll. You just sound like Hermione out of Harry Potter or something. Can't expect me not to make fun, it's just too darn cute." He shrugged.

Greg laughed at the two bickering in front of him. 

"Okay kids, there's two practice sessions today and one tomorrow. We need some good footage to put out across socials that shows a strong start to the season. Andy's our internal social media manager so you'll be working closely with him as well as your Netflix stuff." He gestured over to the dark-haired man sat at a table with his head buried in a laptop, "We'll review what can be posted before quali tomorrow. All good?"

"All good." The pair confirmed. 

As Greg walked away, Hunter and Dylan wandered over towards the table where Andy was. 

"Was everything alright after I left?" He muttered quietly.

Dylan sighed, "I don't know."

"What's happened? Did you have an argument when we were at the motorhome earlier?"

"Honestly, I have no idea. He's just decided that he doesn't like me."

Hunter threw his arm around her shoulder and gave her a supportive squeeze. They wrapped up their conversation pretty quickly as they came into earshot of Andy and he looked up from his laptop, smiling widely at them. 

"Hello! It's fantastic to have you here."

"Happy to be here." Hunter replied as they both sat down.

It turned out that Andy was a complete delight and both Hunter and Dylan warmed up to him immediately. He was in his early 30s and had been running the majority of the social media by himself. They could see on his face how grateful he was to now have a team beneath him. 

He talked them through the branding guidelines they'd been perusing earlier and then helped them to get the official Red Bull colours set up in their software. It was a pain importing all the colour codes into each programme but he was very patient as they figured everything out.

"How long have you worked here?" Dylan asked curiously.

"About four years? I moved to England from Puerto Rico, worked a couple years in broadcast and then came into marketing when I needed a change. It's a good team environment here so I've stayed."