Lucas kept practicing with Brad at the Thermal Club for days, and over time the two of them grew close as co-stars.
Although Brad had originally wanted to show off the riding and driving skills he'd picked up shooting Maverick, getting blown away on Lucas's very first day kind of knocked the wind out of that plan. He stopped pushing it.
His initial idea had been to take a "veteran" approach with Lucas — a younger actor who happened to be pulling a bigger paycheck than him on this project.
That didn't mean he gave up on being the older figure on set entirely.
On day six of their thermal session, he rolled into the club on his own bike. The whole paddock turned its head.
It was a Roughchild-built BMW R80.
"Hoho, look at that baby." Joseph let out a slow whistle and walked around to get a side view.
Brad swung off and pulled his helmet free, hair flat from the foam liner. "Hehe, what do you guys think? My pride and joy right here."
Lucas walked over. Having done Ghost Rider, he knew bikes well enough to recognize what he was looking at — and roughly what it cost.
Roughchild Moto Division was a small, almost mythic shop out of Los Angeles, started by Christian Sosa.
They took classic BMW airheads — usually the R-series boxers from the late seventies and early eighties — and rebuilt them from the frame up. Every nut, every bolt.
The R80 base in front of him was vintage 1984, but the bike had been stripped to bare metal, polished, rewired, and given an upgraded suspension and brake setup. Bespoke leather seat, hand-stitched.
The paint was a dark oxblood that looked almost black until the sun caught it. Sixty grand on a slow day, easily six figures with a custom commission. There was a waitlist that ran years deep.
"What brings you here with that?" Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Are we doing MotoGP on the side of F1?"
Luciano snorted, and Craig had to look away to hide his grin.
Brad smiled. "Came in with this to show you guys my riding chops. Figured I was losing some credibility around here, getting smoked by a rookie in a race car."
A round of laughter went through the group. Everyone there knew "rookie" meant Lucas — who, for a man with no real seat time before this project, drove like a professional. Not on Luciano or Craig's level, but the gap between him and a normal first-timer was almost indecent.
"How about we put you on a bike, Lucas?" Brad clapped him once on the shoulder. "I want to see what you've got. You did Superman on the Tonight Show. National TV. I've been thinking about that footage for weeks."
Lucas tipped his head, easy. "Sure. You loaning me one out of your collection?"
Getting closer to a veteran like Brad wasn't something he was going to turn down.
He could also see, plain as day, how it had sat with Brad — having a younger actor outpace him in a sports car after Brad had logged real seat time on Maverick. Made sense. Pride was pride.
"Came prepared." Brad jerked his thumb toward the side of the lot. "My guy's bringing in a Roughchild R90/S for you."
A second rider was already pulling in, killing the engine and walking the bike forward by the bars. Lucas's eyes swept over it.
'Brad's actually serious about this. Can't blame him. The Mind Workshop is broken in ways even I don't fully like to think about.'
He approached the R90/S, swung a leg over to feel the weight, and thumbed the starter. The boxer engine coughed to life with a deep, throaty note that rolled across the asphalt and bounced off the pit wall.
'He wants to see my riding firsthand. For a motorcycle guy, watching the Ghost Rider stunts back then was just a teaser. He's been waiting to see the real thing in person.'
He nodded slowly, letting the engine settle into idle. No wonder Brad and half the famous men in this industry kept coming back to bikes — the thing under him felt like a small living animal you'd convinced to behave.
"Not bad, right?" Brad watched him with a hand resting on his hip. "How's it stack up against your personal collection?"
Lucas killed the throttle and looked up. "Honestly? I don't have a collection. I don't even own a bike."
Brad's eyebrows climbed. "Wait. You don't have one bike?"
"Does that surprise you?" Lucas laughed under his breath.
"I mean — yeah. Yeah it does." Brad shook his head and looked him up and down like he was double-checking this was the same person. "I was at least expecting the Ghost Rider bike. The one from the film. That thing was a piece of art. I'm actually planning a custom build to match it."
"Danny Ketch edition?" Jerry pushed into the conversation from the edge of the group. "I've got one in my garage."
"Same." Neil raised a finger from where he was leaning against the railing.
Then Jack admitted he had one. Then Simon. Then Shawn, half-sheepish, said his was on order from a shop in Burbank.
Lucas turned his head slowly, taking in the lineup of grown men nodding along like he'd missed a meeting they'd all attended.
Brad caught the look and ran with it. "Well, damn. Everybody and their cousin owns a Danny Ketch tribute except the guy who actually played Danny Ketch."
"Why does anyone even have one?" Lucas spread a hand. "Why is that a thing now?"
"Hahaha, you really don't know?" Craig shook his head, grinning. "It's a wave, man. The bike's a great machine on its own — but the film pushed it over the edge. People want one because the design is killer, and because you rode it. Both."
Heads bobbed all around. Nobody disagreed.
Lucas had nothing to say to that.
Brad seemed to enjoy the silence and let it stretch a beat before adding, "Your pull isn't a small thing, Lucas. The reason Paramount wanted me on Maverick with Tom in the first place? They were chasing your numbers at the box office. Tom felt the pressure too. That's why they put two names that size in one film instead of letting him carry it alone."
"That's true." Joseph crossed his arms. "And the numbers landed. We pulled the kind of weekend the studio wanted because we were stacking ourselves against the Hollywood Golden Boy."
Neil rubbed his jaw. He'd been hearing whispers about that for a couple of years now — that Paramount, and even Tom, had been keeping one eye on Lucas while putting Maverick together — and he'd brushed it off as gossip you weren't supposed to repeat. Hearing it confirmed by two of the people actually in the room made it feel less like a rumor and more like a quiet, settled fact.
Lucas absorbed it without changing his expression.
'I figured Brad ended up in Maverick because this timeline runs different from the one I came from. I didn't think it ran different because of me. That's…'
He let the thought trail off.
"You ready?" Brad asked, kicking his stand up and swinging a leg over.
Lucas pulled his helmet on and dropped the visor. "Whenever you are."
The two bikes idled side by side at the edge of the practice strip. Brad shot him a grin through his visor, the kind a guy throws right before he expects to win something. He twisted the throttle once, just enough to bark the exhaust off the pit wall.
'He thinks he's got this in the bag. Fair. He probably should.'
Lucas rolled his wrist. The R90/S answered with a low growling intake that climbed up through his chest. Around them, the others moved back to give the two of them space.
A short burst from a marshal's whistle, and they were off.
Brad cleared the line first. Clean launch, body tucked, weight forward — the polish of a man who'd ridden long before Maverick and had drilled it harder since. The R80 pulled ahead by half a length and held the gap into the first sweeping right.
Both of them rode careful. Neither one wanted to be the headline that night.
Lucas didn't push the first lap. He read Brad's body instead — the way he set his line into a corner, the way he rolled off the throttle a beat too early before the apex, the way he favored the right side of the bike on left-handers. By the second corner of the second lap, Lucas had it. He shifted his weight, leaned through a long left, and slid past on the outside in a way that looked almost lazy.
Brad's helmet snapped sideways.
Through the next chicane, Lucas found a line that shouldn't have worked and made it work anyway. He didn't pull away. He let Brad chase him, kept the gap tight on purpose — close enough that Brad could feel the back wheel right there, far enough that it was never actually within reach.
By the end of the first full lap, Lucas was clean ahead. By the end of the second, Brad wasn't trying to close the gap anymore; he was just trying not to drop the bike taking the line Lucas had taken before him.
They rolled into the pit together. Brad killed his engine and sat there for a beat with both hands still resting on the bars. He pulled his helmet off slowly. His hair was matted flat against his forehead, and he stared at Lucas without saying anything for a long moment. Just looked.
Whatever quiet fantasy he'd carried into this ride about reclaiming his mentor stripes had walked out the back door somewhere around the second lap.
"…You really don't own a bike?" he said finally.
Lucas pulled off his own helmet, shook out his hair, and gave a small, apologetic shrug.
Joseph, Luciano, Craig, Jerry, Neil, Jack, Simon, Shawn — every one of them had the same expression on their face. Some of them were already half-laughing, shaking their heads.
Brad let out a long, slow breath, ran a hand back through his hair, and despite himself, started laughing too.
"Guess I owe you an apology, Lucas." Brad said it out of nowhere, and Lucas turned his head.
"For what?"
"I'd convinced myself the Superman bit you did on the Tonight Show was cut together in post. Studio polish. Editors smoothing out the rough takes so the kid actor came out looking like an action lead." Brad's smile was a little rueful now. "After today, that theory doesn't hold up. I'm starting to wonder if you're actually a human being. You beat me at my own game. I've been on bikes my whole adult life, and you still came out the front of that."
Lucas just smiled. "Can't really blame you for thinking the Tonight Show stunt was cut. Anyone watching it on TV would assume the same thing. A young actor pulling that live on a talk show is the kind of thing that breaks people's category for what's possible."
Brad let out a small laugh. Then his face shifted into something more deliberate. "Since you beat me fair and square, the bike's yours."
The pit went quiet.
It caught everyone off guard. Brad was a serious enthusiast, the kind who didn't loan his bikes out, let alone hand one over. Even being Lucas didn't usually warrant that.
"Are you serious?" Lucas looked at him steadily. "I can see you've kept that thing in immaculate shape. That's not a bike a guy gives away."
"I'm serious." Brad nodded. "It's a pity for someone with skills like yours not to own one."
He added, with a half-shrug, "Besides, if you've got a bike, that gives us an excuse to ride together sometime. You can teach me a thing or two."
Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Is that your real angle here? You wanted a riding buddy?"
"Maybe." Brad's grin came back, easy.
Lucas accepted the keys with both hands. He took them gracefully — the way you accept something from a man who'd be insulted if you tried to argue him out of it.
He gave the bike one more look.
He knew what it was worth. A Roughchild build at this spec didn't move for under a hundred thousand in a private sale, and that was before the provenance got factored in. Brad Pitt's personal R90/S, with garage photos and a chain of custody, would clear two hundred at auction without breaking a sweat.
The kind of bike you could trade for a small condo in a respectable neighborhood. And here it was, casually handed across the asphalt because of a friendly race.
---
After being given the bike, Lucas had it parked in the Thermal Club's secure garage for the time being. He didn't have a clear spot for it yet — the Bel Air house had storage, but he wanted to clear proper space before bringing it in. A truck could run out and pick it up whenever he was ready.
They left the bike there and headed back to the hotel for the night.
The trouble was that for the past few days, their doors had been getting knocks at all hours.
Jack and Simon had taken to posting themselves out in the hallway. When the latest knock came, Jack stood up from the chair beside the suite door and opened it.
"What is it?"
The man on the other side was in his thirties, charcoal jacket, polite practiced smile. He held a business card out. He introduced himself as a regional staffer working with one of the campaigns on the right, and asked if he could have just five minutes with Mr. Knight's manager about "an opportunity that mutually benefits both parties involved."
Jack didn't take the card. "Mr. Knight and his team are occupied this evening. Have a good night."
He shut the door before the man could get to his second sentence.
Neil glanced up from the couch. "That them again?"
"Yeah. Right side this time." Jack sat back down.
Neil pinched the bridge of his nose. "We've turned them down on the phone, turned them down in email, and now they're working us by hotel floor. They really don't take a no."
Lucas, on the other end of the couch with a glass of water in his hand, sighed. "Looks like we're moving hotels again. Yesterday it was the Democrats. Today the other side. Tomorrow it'll be a third party I've never heard of."
Neil snorted at that, but the laugh didn't quite make it to his eyes. They both knew this would keep happening as long as they were sitting still.
A few minutes later, another knock. Three deliberate taps in a measured rhythm.
Neil stood up. "Let me take this one."
He walked to the door himself with Jack and Simon falling in a step behind him, and opened it.
The man in the hallway this time was older. Mid-fifties, grey threaded through his temples, the kind of bearing that came from running rooms instead of standing in them. The suit was understated and expensive. He introduced himself by name and title, named the campaign he was there on behalf of, and offered Neil a small, even smile.
"Mr. Lamb. I'll be brief out of respect for everyone's time. I'd like to put a serious offer on the table. If Mr. Knight would consider lending his public voice — even tacitly — to our side ahead of the election, we're prepared to be substantially useful in return." He let that hang for a second. "His ongoing civil matter against Mr. Eckstein, first of all. There's public attention and political weight we can bring to bear. Hearings, op-eds, the right people speaking on the record. We can keep that story where it needs to be."
Neil's expression didn't move. The older man continued.
"And more broadly — a man of Mr. Knight's profile runs into political friction at every level. State, federal, local. That friction doesn't have to land on his desk. We have friends on the committees that matter, and those are the kind of friends worth having."
He let the offer settle.
Neil kept his face still, but inside, the offer landed harder than he wanted to admit. He'd been managing Lucas long enough to know what doors that kind of help could open.
The case against Geoffrey especially was a knife fight, and any hand offered on it was tempting to take.
"I'll relay it to Mr. Knight," he said evenly. "Thank you for being direct."
"That's all I ask." The older man inclined his head. "Take your time."
Neil closed the door. He stood there for a beat, then walked back into the suite.
Lucas had been half-listening from the couch. He raised his eyebrows. Neil walked him through the offer word for word, watching for any sign that Lucas was weighing it.
There wasn't any. Lucas heard him out, set his glass down on the end table, and shook his head once.
"Turn it down."
"Lucas — hold on a second. Before you call it, I should put something in front of you. There's been chatter the last few weeks. Big money's getting unusually active this cycle. Tech, the hedge fund crowd, a couple of the bigger family offices. If even half of what people are saying turns out to be true, the campaigns they're backing are going to come in significantly stronger this time. Walking past their offer isn't a small thing. You sure?"
Lucas just shook his head, calm. "Then they come in stronger without me. I'm not in the wave business."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure. Geoffrey and Myla are going to jail with or without their help. We've got the evidence, we've got the timing, and we've got the team to run it. I'm not trading my voice for a result we're going to get either way."
He picked his glass back up and took a sip. "And if I'm putting my weight behind anything political this cycle, it's going to be RepresentUs. That's where my hand belongs."
Neil's eyebrows went up. "RepresentUs?"
"Cleanest play available." Lucas set the glass back down. "They're not red and they're not blue. They work on the rules everyone has to play by. Anti-corruption work. Ranked choice voting in the places that want it. Cleaning up the worst of the gerrymandering. The kind of stuff that helps whichever side ends up with the better argument, not whoever shouts louder."
He spread a hand.
"I'd rather stand outside the game as a referee than inside it as one more player. Nobody on either side can credibly call me partisan for backing a referee."
Neil sat with that. He couldn't really argue with it.
"And one more thing." Lucas leaned forward a fraction. "The day I endorse a side, I lose half my audience overnight, and I lose the ability to speak to the other half at all. The work doesn't survive that. Daciana's adoption doesn't survive that. The hospital outreach doesn't survive that. Half the kids walking into LK Hospital don't care about parties, and their parents shouldn't have to either. It's a bad trade for a short-term win."
Neil nodded slowly. "I'll take care of it."
He went back to the door, stepped into the hallway, and gave the campaign chief a respectful but firm refusal. No, Mr. Knight wouldn't be lending his public voice in either direction. No, a follow-up wasn't necessary.
The older man took it well. He'd clearly built room into his expectations for a possible no — he was too experienced not to have. He only asked one follow-up question, soft and casual.
"Is Mr. Knight planning to back the other side instead? Tacit or otherwise?"
"No," Neil said. "He isn't backing anyone."
The man studied his face for half a second, satisfied himself with what he saw, nodded, and walked off down the hallway.
Both sides wanted the same thing from Lucas, and it wasn't his money.
It was his pull.
By this point in his career, Lucas's reach over public opinion was an outright force. He had taken Geoffrey Eckstein — a man with money, lawyers, and entire networks insulating him — and turned him into a household villain across the country.
Across the world, in some places. He'd built a movement around that story without ever needing to formally organize one. He'd done it through a handful of films, a handful of public statements, and the way people watched him.
That kind of cultural weight cut both ways.
It was extraordinary in what it could move. It was also the kind of thing that, used wrong, broke whatever it touched. Lucas, more than most, was aware of both edges.
It was something money couldn't actually buy, either. Billionaires had tried. Tech CEOs with platforms and bottomless ad budgets had tried. None of them moved people the way a popular face the public actually trusted did.
Which was exactly why both campaigns were knocking. If they could secure his endorsement — even a quiet one, even a hand on a shoulder at a fundraiser — they'd buy themselves a lane to a kind of voter no campaign could engineer on its own.
And it was also exactly why the campaign chief had asked the question he'd asked before leaving. If Lucas wasn't going to back them, the next-best outcome from their side was making sure he didn't back the other side either.
Neutrality, in that sense, was its own kind of win.