Sunday, June 25, 2023
🌈Sunday's Sport Stats🌈: Team Orders by RJ Scott
Lights Out #1
When tragedy strikes and team orders are called for, will Archie and Noah’s love survive the fallout?
Noah is devastated when his best friend is badly hurt in a fiery crash, and shocked when the team’s rookie steps up to take Augusto’s place. Not only is Archie inexperienced on the track, but he’s a threat to Noah’s heart when giving in to lust and passion could only end badly. Caught in the chaos of Formula 1, and despite being terrified of losing everything, Noah falls for Archie one passionate but secret moment at a time.
In his rookie F1 season as Deacon-Graaf’s reserve driver, Archie is called up to cover for an injured driver. He’s determined to earn a permanent place in a team, but for now he’s thrilled that he’s driving alongside his idol, Noah. Falling for his teammate is as simple as breathing, but their romance threatens to expose them to a media frenzy, leaving Archie facing a stark choice — love or career.
This M/M romance from RJ Scott features teammates, a secret affair, hurt/comfort, and is set in the high octane world of Formula 1 featuring fast cars, driving at the limit, spectacular crashes, heated rivalries, and of course, a HEA.
Each book in the Lights Out collection is a standalone story, and the books can be read in any order.
I'm just going to jump right out of the gate with this: I consider myself a sports fan but I know and/or think about car racing even less than I do hockey. So why did I read Team Orders by RJ Scott, you might ask? Well that right there is the answer: RJ Scott. It was her words(Texas series) that introduced and completely hooked me on MM romance genre nearly 10 years ago and her writing has never let me down.
She didn't drop the ball or let me down here either.
Onto Team Orders.
Team is the first entry in a new multi-author series, Lights Out, centered around the world of Formula One racing, or F1 for any newbies out there. As I said above, I'm not a racing fan but I don't detest it either so I'm not entirely unfamiliar with some of the lingo. As I'm not a fan I can honestly, 150% attest to the fact that you don't need to be immersed in that sporting world to enjoy this story. I have yet to read any of the other entries but I am familiar with the authors and I highly suspect their brilliance as well and though it may not work out to fall in line with my 2023 summer reading "schedule" I do intend and look forward to check them all out.
I got temporarily sidetracked there so now I really am going to talk about Team Orders😉.
We've all seen the racing crashes that make the national news, from miraculously walking away unscathed to those who never walk away and all layers of injured in between which makes Augusto's crash not unseeable in our minds eye(and no that's not a spoiler because the author clearly states it in the blurb) but being able to vividly imagine it doesn't make it any less heartbreaking. There's no way one doesn't feel for Augusto, his family, Noah, and the whole Deacon-Graaf team. You can't help but want to wrap Noah up in a huge Mama Bear hug and though I could understand the underlying emotions that flames his treatment towards Archie early on I still wanted to smack him with an iron skillet to the back of the head a time or two😉.
Talking about Archie, the rush of emotions of being the new guy to the team would be life-changing enough but then to be thrust into the injured Augusto's place? That is a whole new level of "HOLY CRAP! How do I not screw this up?" that deserves Mama Bear hugs tenfold. I may not have wanted to take an iron skillet to his head like Noah but there were definitely a few times I wanted to shake him, screaming "By GOD don't put up with his crap!" but like Noah, I could empathize with the emotional wringer they've been squeezed through so I can cut the men some slack😉.
The pacing of Team Orders is a well balanced meal of drama, friendship, romance, and push-and-pull slow burn. There's enough racing info to heighten the experience for those unfamiliar with the sport and yet not so much that it's weighted down with terminology and definition. Really in a way it's paced like a race itself. Fast start, slowing in the turns so as not to go careening into the wall, opening lanes for your teammates as well as attempting to protect said openings from opponents interference, and the last ditch push to reach the finish line. Obvious chemistry in the beginning, pulling back on said chemistry to remain hidden and career-safe, making inroads towards happiness yet stepping back as to not fully open the closet door, and then of course the always present RJ Scott HEA.
So much goodness, multiple character hits for the other Lights Out entries to wet the appetite, romance, friendships heat, family, enough sport lingo to fully appreciate everything the men face on and off the track, but most importantly: heart. You may not always like Noah but I think you can understand his pain(not an excuse just a statement of observation) so for this reader it's all good.
RATING:
Chapter One
ARCHIE
Italy, September last year
The Hotel de la Ville— walking distance to the Monza racetrack— was secure and closed off for Formula One drivers and teams, which meant that Formula Two drivers like me, the ones trying our hardest to join the big boys, weren’t allowed in.
I’d never imagined for one moment I’d be here with an invite to a team event. I’d imagined, or at least hoped, to one day drive for Deacon-Graaf with a top tier F1 seat, but there were only ten teams with two seats each, and those twenty seats were the pinnacle. I wasn’t there just yet. Although, with the F2 championship under my belt as of two days ago, I’d officially been invited to take up a spot in the F1 world, and even though the F2 season hadn’t finished yet, Deacon-Graaf had made it public that they were putting their money behind me as their reserve driver, and according to the pundits it was a coup for any team to tie me up now.
If only they could see the panic inside me, they might rethink that.
“You nervous?” Lennox Bradley asked as I hovered outside security. A fellow F2 racer, he was here to see his brother, had walked with me from the circuit, and he’d done so in silence, for which I was thankful. Everything had moved so fast, one minute I was lining up to race here in an F2 race, the next I’d won, and it was mathematically impossible for anyone to catch me for the F2 championship.
I’d won this year’s Formula 2 championship by a big margin. I was overwhelmed with adrenalin, excitement and now, since I’d gotten a call offering me a new role, a cold, nervous fear.
“I’m good,” I lied. “It’s what I’ve worked for all this time.”
“You want my advice?” Lennox placed a hand on my arm. One of the good guys in the paddock, he was the youngest member of a racing dynasty, and I wanted to hear how he could make this all better. He’d been in the pressure cooker world of F1 for so long he had to know.
“Please.”
“Imagine them all naked,” he said with a smirk.
I shook my hand free. “Wanker,” I muttered.
He rolled his eyes at me. “You’re letting your Brit show.” He grinned, and then he side-hugged me. “It’s all good. Okay?”
I opened my mouth to ask another question— this one way more important, and then shut it just as fast.
There was no way I was asking anyone on any grid anywhere advice about my love life, or lack thereof given I was way way back in the closet.
Noah Fournier, the number one driver for Deacon-Graaf Formula 1 Racing would be at this event, and I was going to be a mess when he talked to me. I’d spent so long watching him from afar that my closeted heart had once supposed it was in love with him— that was how bad things had gotten. He was a stone-faced master of the track, all intensity and focus, and he was the sexiest man I’d ever seen, or dreamed about.
And now I would be working with him— and the rest of the team of course— but it was being anywhere near Noah that worried me.
“You earned this place.” Lennox slapped me on the back. “You’re done with F2 now you’re the champion, and we all knew you’d end up in F1.”
All the training, the psychology of racing, the friends I’d made, the accidents, the poles, the finishes, had all culminated in Sunday’s win with me becoming F2 Champion and earning my invite to join the Deacon-Graaf Racing Team as their reserve driver for next year’s F1 calendar.
Great and all.
Everything I’d wished for, racing for a team I was proud to be part of and which I’d followed as long as I could remember.
Where Deacon-Graaf was my favorite team, Noah was my favorite driver, and I was half in love with the notion of him turning to me and realizing that he too was gay, and he’d lusted after me as badly as I lusted after him. I doubted he had a poster of me on his wall, though.
“I’m only a reserve driver—”
Lennox poked my chest. “There’s no such thing as only a reserve driver, it’s the first step to a full seat. Archie, you belong in F1, you deserve this chance and now you just have to prove yourself and get a full-time seat. Yeah?”
“Same for you.” Lennox was coming up to F1 as a reserve the same as me, to his father’s team, a shoo-in, but deserving it just as much as any of us.
Lennox huffed. “You want it more than I do,” he said, but he bit his lip, as if he’d told me too much of what was in his head, and then with a wave, he disappeared past security and down the side of the hotel. Security knew Lennox Bradley— everyone knew Team Bradley— but what about me? Would anyone know Archie Harris? Shoulders back, I stepped up to the two big guys and showed my pass. They checked a list, no scanning here, very old school, and then with a nod one of them let me in.
I felt as if I’d passed my first test, had somehow made it onto the accepted list, and as I entered the cool interior of the hotel I had no idea where to go so I headed for reception.
The man behind the counter— Paolo, according to his name badge— smiled. “Welcome to Hotel de Ville, how can I help you?”
“Archie Harris,” I blurted, having lost all my cool on the ten-minute walk from the track to here.
Paolo smiled at me. “The Deacon-Graaf racing event is in the Arazzi suite.”
“How did you know that I…”
His lip twitched as he checked out my shirt and raised an eyebrow. I followed his glance to the big Deacon-Graaf logo sitting right there front and center, the stylized golden Deacon-Graaf with the outline of a racing car at its center was probably the biggest giveaway of which team I was here for.
I tugged the top down a little and I swear my cheeks must’ve been scarlet. “… of course,” I murmured.
“Also, I’m a fan,” the man said, and leaned toward me over the counter, “I’m not supposed to say this, but Deacon-Graaf is the team I follow, and I’m glad you’re on board and hope one day when Noah or Augusto go, it will be you in the seat.”
Oh god, I’m probably scarlet.
“Thank you.”
He stepped back, and tapped something on his screen then passed me a plastic card. “Straight to the end here, and then elevator to the fourth floor, and you’ll see a sign for the Arazzi suite— the card will get you in. Good luck, Mr. Harris.”
“Archie,” I corrected him, then wondered if I should have done that? Was it team protocol for informality in F1? Why was I even second-guessing myself? I was a good guy, friendly, approachable, but I refused to be called Mr. Harris because that was my dad who wouldn’t cross the road to talk to me, so yeah, I was Archie, and I always would be.
“Good luck, Archie, and congratulations on the win.”
“Thank you.”
Buoyed by Paolo’s enthusiasm I headed for the elevator, and stepped out on the correct floor, finding the room, and then hovering there staring at the card reader. One swipe and I would be taking a step into what I’d fought so hard for. The Deacon-Graaf team principal— Billy Deacon— had asked me to attend this event, a celebration of some sort, saying he wanted a chance for me to meet the team properly. Multi-millionaire tech god Billy Deacon wasn’t the kind to take no for an answer, and at first I’d been excited to go— after all I was the biggest Deacon-Graaf nerd out there, and as for their number one driver. But then it hit me I’d be seeing Noah freaking Fournier and how I felt about him would probably show on my face the moment he spoke to me.
I’m a Formula 1 driver. I am fast. I am skilled. I work hard.
I will not go fuck this up and turn purple.
I could handle one event, maybe hang to the side, meet the people I wanted to meet, like the engineers, mechanics, and technicians I’d be working with in my new role. It wasn’t as if I was going to be the center of attention. With a cleansing breath I scanned my card and stepped inside, immediately lost in a sea of Deacon-Graaf navy and gold.
“Here he is!” Billy announced from my left. “The man himself!”
I glanced his way, as everyone in the room turned to look at me, and then I saw over his head. Congratulations Archie, F2 Champion, on a huge banner.
So much for not being the center of attention.
I waved.
Fuck. I waved.
Billy was at my side in an instant, and then it was a blur. A mess of questions and congratulations, of never quite finishing my orange juice because I didn’t even have time to drink, and of people sizing me up in one way or another. Figuratively, in the sense I was going to be the reserve, which meant I’d be working closer with the simulation team, and the engineers and mechanics for both drivers. But also, literally, in that I was the same size as both drivers and wasn’t that handy when it came to fitting into the car’s cockpit for practice.
“And last but by no means least, here we have the stars of the show, I give you Grumpy and Sunshine,” Billy said, and slumped into a seat at a small table, waving for me to sit in the only empty chair, opposite Noah Fournier, and next to Augusto Romero, the other Deacon-Graaf driver. Sitting there, I was just one more person in Deacon-Graaf navy and gold and it was almost as if I belonged.
“Hi,” I said, then coughed to clear my throat. I’d met both men before, but never as an equal, always as a student. Although as reserve driver and a rookie to boot, I would still be a student.
Whatever. I do belong here.
“Archie, you know Augusto, he’s our sunshine.”
“Congrats to champion of F2, Archie!” Augusto blurted, and raised his drink in salute, followed by the rest of the team, including the man I could see in my peripheral vision, but I hadn’t been able to look at yet— Noah.
“And that’s Noah, our resident grump.”
“Ha fucking ha.” Noah sighed with added drama, then offered me a smile and we shook hands. “Welcome to the team, Archie.” I was determined to be controlled and all business, but something went terribly wrong, and in a split second my brain disconnected from my mouth.
“I have a photo with you, from my twenty-first birthday party, you probably don’t remember even being there, but you were. I also had this huge poster on my wall. I’m your biggest fan.”
Shit.
Shit.
Writing love stories with a happy ever after – cowboys, heroes, family, hockey, single dads, bodyguards
USA Today bestselling author RJ Scott has written over one hundred romance books. Emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, single dads, hockey players, millionaires, princes, bodyguards, Navy SEALs, soldiers, doctors, paramedics, firefighters, cops, and the men who get mixed up in their lives, always with a happy ever after.
She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn’t with family either reading or writing. The last time she had a week’s break from writing, she didn’t like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a box of chocolates she couldn’t defeat.
Team Orders #1
Lights Out Series
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