Page 78 of Drive Me Wild
She chuckles and ruffles my hair. “And next time, come talk to me instead of bottling it all up, okay? This is a weird transition for all of us, but we’ll get through it together.”
“It’s weird for you, too?”
“Absolutely.” She laughs and pats my cheek. “Living with someone new aftertwenty-sevenyears of marriage is a huge adjustment. Did you know Richard likes his dishes to soak overnight before putting them in the washer?”
She throws me a pointed look, which makes me laugh. One of my dad’s biggest pet peeves was when one of us left our dirty dishes in the sink. We always happened to forget, and he got stuck either hand-cleaning them or placing them in the dishwasher.
“Dad’s probably rolling in his grave right now.” I chuckle. “He’d hate that.”
“Probably,” she agrees with a laugh. “And we do talk about your dad, honey. You’re not in Melbourne to hear it, but I promise, we do because he’s a part of us all.”
He’s also part of McAllister.
“And he’d be very proud of you, Theo. We all are.”
Taking a deep breath, I lean back into the couch. “I haven’t re-signed my contract yet.”
My mum raises her hands to her cheek in mock surprise. “I gathered that from your zero to one hundred behavior last night.”
Embarrassment floods my cheeks, although I know she’s teasing me. “Things are complicated. There are some clauses I don’t agree with, and McAllister’s being difficult.”
“Ah, is that thelegal jargonJosie was referring to?”
“Something like that.” I sigh. Jos was only trying to save Richard from my wrath and stop me from losing it, but she knows nothing about contract negotiations.
“Are they not offering you enough?”
She’s not being malicious, but her words sting more than they should. I could quit racing tomorrow and still be set for life. I’ve been smart with my money and I have invested wisely. I do splurge on certain things like my travel sheets and private plane,but those are necessary for my mental health. “C’mon, you know I don’t care about that, Mum.”
“Then what is it?”
I run my hands over my face. The last thing I want to do is open Pandora’s box before a race. Quite frankly, Pandora needs to suck a dick and fade into obscurity. I’d like things nice, neat, and clean with no dramatic blow ups, thank you very much.
“Don’t worry about it,” I reassure her. “Everything will sort itself out.”
I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Or ever, for that matter. Flashing my signature carefree smile, I pray she believes me. God knows I don’t believe myself.
TWENTY-EIGHT
JOSIE
Looking around Gemini,I try to remember how it looked when I first stepped foot inside—dusty, dim, and sparse. Now it’s the perfect mix of comfort and classic. Ambient twinkle lights glisten off the mirrored wall behind the long oak bar, and bottles of fancy wine, local craft beers, and every whiskey brand known to mankind line the shelves. Tufted leather booths line the exposed brick walls and mismatched light fixtures hang from the high ceiling: a vintage Busch beer chandelier next to a gold starburst pendant.
“We don’t need the bang bang shrimpandthe shrimp tacos,” Kelsey muses aloud. “What do you think?”
I glance down at my notebook—the pages are smudged with oil and aioli. “I think I’m going to need to be rolled out of here. Any way I could get a free membership to that gym of yours?”
Leaning back into the booth, Kelsey lets out a low laugh. He knows I’m right, considering we just ate a week’s worth of meals in three hours. Jamie made us full-sized plates of every bar bite imaginable. A queso dip with salted fingerling potatoes. Mussels and frites. Chipotle mac & cheese. Smoked apricot barbecue wings. And Jamie’s take on fish and chips? Tempura-battered cod and sweet potato fries with a spicy wasabi tartare dippingsauce. How do you not eat all of that? You have to. Honestly, it’d be rude to leave any morsels left on the plate.
Thankfully, my sweater is long enough to cover the fact that my jeans have been unbuttoned for the past thirty minutes. “I say we do the bang bang shrimp,” I add. “If I were religious, I’d want to be baptized in that sauce.”
Kelsey grins at me. “Bang bang it is.”
I shoot him finger guns.Bang bang.The corner of his mouth quirks up as he closes his own grease-stained notebook.
A text from Theo pops up on my screen and momentarily distracts me. There’s only an hour time difference between Zandvoort and London, but based on our constant game of text tag and missed calls, it seems like a much larger gap.
Theo Walker
