Page 17

SEVENTEEN

CHARLOTTE

Willow (the best friend EVER)

You better wear something sexy to bed!!

And before you ask, your T-shirt that says I have a P.H.D. (Pretty Huge Dick) does not qualify, although I will admit it’s funny.

Charlotte Walker

I think you’ve been reading one too many of your smutty romances, Wills.

Willow (the best friend EVER)

There’s no such thing as too many smutty romances!!

Charlotte Walker

LOL.

Considering Lucas is a millionaire and has a penthouse, I can’t imagine we’ll be forced to share a bed.

Willow (the best friend EVER)

Hahaha. Fair.

New plan: pretend to get lost on your way back from the bathroom or sleepwalk into his room.

I roll my eyes at her message. Definitely not happening. I’m here because he needs a friend. I was serious when I told him that I’d happily visit Boston while he’s there, but I didn’t think he’d take me up on it. And what I never would have expected? The way he wasted no time in having his assistant book me a first-class train ticket. I haven’t said anything about it to Theo, and to my knowledge, neither has Lucas. It’s not that I’m hiding it from him, but my brother tends to make a mountain out of a molehill. Rather than seeing this for what it is, he’d act like we were going on a couple’s retreat to the Bahamas.

I’m typing back a response when a loud shuffle catches my attention, and when I look up, I come face-to-face with the Adler twins. Though I suppose it’s more like face-to-crotch, since I’m sitting on one of the couches in the VIP lounge in the motorhome.

Finn and Ezra make themselves comfortable across from me, and suddenly, I feel like I’m about to be interviewed on a topic I haven’t been prepped for. It’s painful how attractive they are, though they look nothing alike. Ezra shares Lucas’s blond hair and green eyes, but Finn’s got darker features, like a mini-John Travolta in his Grease era. If Lucas loaned him his signature leather jacket, he’d be golden.

“Hey, Charlotte,” Ezra says with a smile. If Finn’s spice, then his twin is everything nice.

Returning the expression, I tuck my phone back into my bag. “What’s up?”

“My heart rate now that I’m looking at you.” Finn gives me a flirty smirk.

With a groan, I shake my head. “You’re way too cocky for someone who dresses like they’re color blind. ”

Ezra whoops and smacks his twin on the back. “Told you those shoes didn’t go, man.”

The quintessential fuck boy glares at his brother. “Fuck off.”

“You’re wearing so many shades of blue, you look like a quilted baby blanket,” I tell him.

I’m all for team spirit, but Finn’s navy shorts, sky blue Sambas, and cobalt-colored team shirt make him look like Grumpy Care Bear.

“At least I’m wearing color,” Finn says, giving my outfit an exaggerated once-over.

If he expects me to feel self-conscious, he’s got another thing coming. My outfit’s kick-arse. A white Rhode dress with a ruched ruffle accent at the skirt and thrifted Chanel kitten heels. Kyle the photographer—who captures everyone’s outfit—even threw me a compliment, which is as rare as lightning striking twice.

“White contains every hue on the visible light spectrum,” I tell him. “And if you think I’m dressing to impress the likes of you, you’re wrong. There’s a higher chance that the Statue of Liberty will step down off her pedestal and wade through new York Harbor than there is of me dressing to impress a man—or woman.”

“Do you think I should change?” Finn asks, tugging at his shirt, his expression uncertain rather than rakish. “Lucas has a plain black shirt in his room.”

I shake my head, partly to mediate his distress and partly because it’s ridiculous how concerned he is over the outfit now. “No, I think it’s really sweet that you guys are supporting him.”

Yes, the F1 paddock is about the glitz and glamour rather than sporting a baseball cap with a favorite drivers’ number on it, but the Adler family walking around in AlphaVite attire? It’s adorable. Even if Lucas’s dad is rocking cobalt Crocs that make my eyes bleed. And yes, he did offer to buy a pair for me when I’m in Boston, but I politely declined, much to Lucas’s amusement.

“Thanks,” Finn says, puffing out his chest. “Found this bad boy on eBay a few years back.”

“eBay?” I confirm with raised brows.

He nods. “Yeah, it’s an online marketplace where you can sell stuff and then bid?—”

“I know what eBay is,” I tell him. “I’m from Australia, not the lost city of fucking Atlantis. What do you mean you bought it there?”

“For someone who claims to know what eBay is, you certainly don’t understand how it works.”

“I’m a pro at hunting things down online,” I explain, crossing my legs. “I sourced a discontinued Louis Vuitton Pochette Twin GM Monogram crossbody bag for my mum in less than two days. And my ex-boyfriend? I could tell you his aunt’s cousin’s primary school teacher’s address. If there was AlphaVite merch that didn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out with spoons, I would’ve found it.”

He lifts a brow. “This is vintage Alpha Arrow, not AlphaVite.”

“What the fuck’s Alpha Arrow? A superhero?”

Ezra chuckles, but when I only give him a deadpan look, he snaps his mouth shut. Brows furrowed, he says, “You’re F1 royalty, and you don’t know Alpha Arrow?”

“Is my ‘what the bloody fuck are you talking about’ facial expression not explanation enough? No, I have zero idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m just surprised,” Ezra says, holding his hands up. “They’ve been around forever.”

While I know all the current Formula 1 teams and drivers, and a bit of McAllister history, since both my dad and Theo drove for them, I’m not a fucking F1 history book.

“ViteRomeo, too,” Finn adds .

Ezra snaps his fingers, his eyes lighting up. “I forgot about that. They were both on the starting grid, right?”

“ViteRomeo sounds like the name of an Italian mobster from the ’80s,” I say. “Now what does any of that have to do with your shirt?”

Finn shoots me a salacious grin. “What will I get in return if I tell you?”

“I won’t smack you so hard, you forget your favorite color,” I say, pasting on a saccharine smile.

He coughs out a surprised laugh at that and lurches forward on the couch. “Don’t bully me, Charlotte. It’ll only make me fall in love with you.”

I look to Ezra for an answer because my already limited patience is reaching its limit.

He doesn’t disappoint. “Both teams have been around since day one, but Alpha Arrow’s team ownership changed in the mid-’90s due to a shitty track record. That’s when they dropped Arrow and became Alpha Racing. Similar thing happened with ViteRomeo. The team came under new leadership and changed their name to Vite Racing, and the two teams eventually joined and renamed themselves AlphaVite.”

“Did you really not know this?” Finn asks, his brow furrowed.

“Do I need to rent an airplane and write no in the sky for you?” I huff, crossing my arms over my chest. “Why do you know all this?”

“Our hometown bar hosts F1 trivia night when Lucas is in town for Thanksgiving every year,” Ezra explains, his cheeks flushing. “It’d be super embarrassingif we lost, so we study. The team color for both Alpha Arrow and ViteRomeo was blue, though different shades. So AlphaVite’s is a combination of the two.”

A bolt of excitement courses through me as an idea hits. I slam my hand against the arm of the couch, my spine snapping straight. My takeaway from this history lesson? There’s an entire untapped marketplace of AlphaVite-adjacent clothing out there.

“Everything good?” Lucas asks, sauntering into the lounge area. He’s holding Madison in his arms, and her face is buried in the crook of his neck.

This is her first race, and she’s not a fan of loud noises, including my brother, which he’s taking extreme personal offense to. I don’t particularly care whether people like me. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion—even if it’s wrong—but Theo’s lifelong mission is to win over everyone he meets.

“Finn tried flirting with Charlotte, but she told him he looks colorblind,” Ezra replies.

“I wasn’t flirting.” Finn glares daggers at his twin. “It’s called having a conversation.”

“A conversation where you make more eye contact with her tits than her?—”

“Dude,” Lucas hisses. He shifts Madison from the right side of his body to the left. “Little ears listening.”

“Big ears,” Madison mumbles.

Lucas tucks his chin and regards her. “Hmm?”

She lifts her head, her brown eyes wide as she takes in the space. “Mommy said I have big ears.”

“That just means you like to listen to grown-up conversation when you’re not supposed to,” Lucas explains, his voice teasing. “She doesn’t think you look like Dumbo.”

“You’re silly, Uncle Lulu,” Madison giggles, her round cheeks plumping up in a smile.

Her adorable nickname for Lucas melts my heart into a puddle, but Ezra and Finn snicker into their hands.

“Do you want to say hi to Charlotte?” Lucas points to me. “Remember what I told you?”

I smile and wave and leave my greeting at that. While I’ve never considered myself an intimidating person, I am loud, which very well may be too much for a shy child.And yes, I do want her to like me. Sue me .

She turns to him and cups a hand over his ear but doesn’t lower her voice as she asks, “Is she the one who plays dress-up? Like a Barbie doll?”

“Mm-hmm,” Lucas confirms, his eyes dancing as they zero in on me.

I’m not nearly as smooth or proportionate as a Barbie doll, but I’ll take the compliment. “You like playing dress-up, too?”

She nods emphatically, then she wiggles in Lucas’s arms in a nonverbal bid to be put down. The moment her tiny pink sneakers hit the ground, she swallows the distance between us and climbs into the open spot to my right.

“What about butterflies?” she asks, her hands clasped like she’s begging for my answer to be yes . “Do you like them?”

“I do,” I confirm with a nod. “Did you know that they taste with their feet?”

She looks down at her shirt, which is covered in rainbow butterflies, and pets them as if they’re her friends rather than sparkly embellishments. Since I shared a secret butterfly fact with her, she takes it upon herself to tell Finn, Ezra, Lucas, and me all about what she learned at the butterfly museum yesterday. The kid’s got to be a genius. That’s the only reasonable explanation for why she recalls that butterflies have a long tube-like tongue called a proboscis that allows them to soak up their food rather than sip it. Gross .

As Madison chatters on, my vision starts to blur, and a wave of dizziness washes over me. And on cue, my glucose sensor beeps, telling me what my body has already recognized: my blood sugar is dropping. Shit . I’ve been ignoring my monitor all morning because I felt fine. Though I did have a headache when I woke up—a classic symptom—I figured that was from the rain .

“Are you a robot?” Madison asks with all the innocence in the world. “You beeped.”

The noises my continuous glucose monitor makes are relatively quiet, but she said it herself—she has big ears. Finn and Ezra look at the two of us blankly, but Lucas, who’s perched on the arm of the couch, considers me with an expression full of understanding. He turns toward Madison and then me, as if he can’t decide whether he’s more embarrassed by what his niece insinuated or worried about my blood sugar.

“I’m a type 1 diabetic,” I tell her, opening my purse up so I can find my glucose tablets. “So I have a robot part that helps me stay healthy.”

She nods, her lips pressed together in a line, as if that makes all the sense in the world. “Oh. That’s cool. Uncle Jesse was a robot for Halloween last year and had buttons that light up. Do you have those?”

“No buttons,” I tell her with an exaggerated pout.

“Maybe he’ll let you borrow some of his.”

That’s all she has to say on the matter before she’s back on butterflies and how they can see ultraviolet light. Her reaction is refreshing. When most people discover that I’m diabetic, they suddenly treat me like I’m on the brink of a health crisis all the time. It’s frustrating because it feels like they’re questioning my ability to manage my own health, and I live a fairly healthy lifestyle, thank you very much. Well, I’m not very active, but that’s due to my dislike of sweating rather than any physical limitation.

Lucas, who’s been stationed like a sentry on the arm of the couch, stands up and casually crouches in front of me. His moves are smooth and understated, drawing little attention, which I’m appreciative of.

In a low tone, he asks, “What do you need?”

“A new pancreas,” I joke as I pop another tablet into my mouth. Ugh . It’s my least favorite flavor, but the local pharmacy only had cherry-pineapple, and beggars can’t be choosers.

“I’ll start scouring the black market,” he teases. He gives my knee a light squeeze, and all I can think is thank God I shaved my legs today . “Anything in the meantime?”

“Orange juice,” I suggest. “Or a lemonade?”

“You got it,” he says, unfolding himself and looming over me.

He strides away, so I focus on chewing my glucose tablets and listening to Madison rattle off butterfly facts, her enthusiasm never waning, while I wait for a glass of orange juice.

It doesn’t come.

Nope.

When Lucas appears, he’s holding two jugs of Tropicana orange juice like they’re dumbbells.

“What is that?” I ask, my jaw dropping.

“Orange juice.”

I cough out a laugh. “Yeah, and if you found a couple of bottles of champagne, you could make mimosas for the whole team.”

“Now we know what to do with the leftovers,” he says. Sitting beside me, his thigh touching mine, he unscrews the cap of one jug. “Drink up.”

“I’m not going to chug it,” I warn, because the way he’s waiting with the other jug ready to go has me thinking he’s expecting exactly that.

He snorts and waves in a way that signals that I should get on with it. Rolling my eyes, I take the juice and lean forward to take a sip so I don’t spill OJ on my cream-colored dress. Twenty minutes, three glucose tablets, and a quarter of a jug of orange juice later, my blood sugar’s back to normal. Well, normal for me.

“Now we can focus on more important things,” I say, screwing the top back on the juice. “Like butterflies. ”

Madison is still spitting out facts like she has a doctorate degree in entomology.

Lucas’s relieved smile drops into a frown. “There’s nothing more important than you, Charlotte.”

I’m so used to hearing him call me Roo that I get caught up on the use of my name. Unable to form a verbal response, I tap the butterfly tattoo on his forearm. I don’t have all his tattoos memorized, I swear. And even if I did, there are probably several I don’t even know about—possible dick tattoo included—but the simplistic butterfly is inked next to the delicate bouquet of tulips on his arm. Since they’re my favorite flower, my attention tends to stray there, and muscular forearms are apparently a turn-on for me. Who knew?

Lucas’s phone buzzes with a text, and when he glances at it, his jaw clenches. With a long exhale, he tilts the screen in my direction. Considering I’ve had boyfriends who guarded their phones like medieval knights, the ease with which he just shows me is surprising.

Jesse Adler

Good luck later today. See you soon, bro!

I crinkle my nose. The text reads more like a message a person would send to an acquaintance than their brother. Not liking the tension bracketing Lucas’s lips, I once again offer to punch Jesse in the dick. “It’s a big offer, considering I’ll probably break my hand and a few nails in the process.”

The frown lines framing his mouth relax. “Let’s keep that off the itinerary for now.”

“Itinerary?” I ask, blinking in surprise.

He chuckles. “Yeah, I’m making an itinerary, scheduling activities for us while you’re in Boston.”

Did you hear that? No? Oh, well, it was the sound of my heart exploding .

“You don’t have to do that,” I tell him. “I don’t want to be a bother.”

“It’s no bother.” He shrugs, his lips quirking up on one side. “I like making schedules.”

“You like making schedules,” I repeat slowly.

He presses his leg farther into mine as he tosses his head back and lets out a hearty laugh. “Maybe say that again but try not to make it sound like I just told you I have an incurable rash.”

I grimace, because yup, that’s exactly how I said it. “As you know, I have the time-management skills of the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland , so schedules aren’t really my thing, but I appreciate the thought. And the orange juice.”

I always thought my love language was words of affirmation, but I’m starting to think I’ve been wrong all along, and it’s actually acts of service.