Page 1 of Drive Me Wild (Drive Me #2)
ONE
JOSIE
I’m surrounded by balls. Big balls, tiny balls, oddly shaped balls. White balls, orange balls, dark brown balls. So many bloody balls. Even when I was in a relationship, I never had so many goddamn balls around me. Two balls are more than enough… this is overkill.
Turning to my best friend, I shoot her a panicked look. When I asked her boyfriend to pick up a few props for our photoshoot, I didn’t think he’d buy an entire sporting goods store. What does he possibly think I’m going to do with an athletic cup meant to protect a man’s groin?
“Do you think it’s enough?” Blake asks, running a hand through his tousled hair. “Or should I get more?”
Ella and I both give him a resounding, “No!”
I kick a basketball out of my way, so I don’t trip and accidentally break something. I’ve been assisting Ella while she restarts her podcast, and I can’t exactly sue for worker’s comp for simply helping a friend.
“This is more than enough,” I quickly reassure him. “Thank you, babes.”
Glancing around the photo studio Ella rented, I start mapping out a game plan. A white backdrop covers one wall while exposed brick makes up the others. A few windows close to the ceiling let in gorgeous natural light that will be great for what I have in mind for her podcast cover and promo photos.
I hand Blake a white ceramic mug featuring the Coffee with Champions logo emblazoned on the front. “Do you mind filling this up with some coffee? There should be some in the kitchen area. I want to get some photos of El holding it.”
Plus, I could use another cup.
He shrugs. “Yeah, sure.”
McAllister is one of the top Formula 1 teams and, as part of their marketing team, I’ve learned a lot. Not only do I know how to engage an audience and capture someone’s attention with a thirty-second video, but I also know that Blake—the driver who does not like being told what to do—will happily jump through any hoop if it involves his girlfriend.
He leans down to kiss Ella like I’m not in the room—an intimate moment I’m awkwardly included in simply because of proximity. Ugh. The two of them are great together, but I’m a freshly single woman, and their lovey-dovey cuteness is a constant reminder of that. Of Andrew. Of the lease I just re-signed on my one-bedroom flat after backing out of moving into Andrew’s place.
Nope . Not going there today. Or ever.
I pull out my phone and connect it to Bluetooth so we can listen to some music while we work. I’m the de facto DJ and the automatic aux holder because, objectively, I have the best taste in music.
I’m not sure where my love for music comes from. Definitely not from my parents, who think Justin Bieber was in One Direction. Maybe from one of my birth parents, although I’ll never know for certain. Fun perk of being adopted, I suppose; my past is just as mysterious as my future. Which is also probably why I used to be obsessed with astrology—it gave me a frame of reference for my quirks and preferences my parents can’t take credit for. Scorpios like music that makes them feel deeply and connects them to their emotions: check.
I click on my playlist titled “cigarettes and sex.” It’s filled with angsty songs that you want to scream along to at the top of your lungs. The kind of songs that let you get out your energy when you feel like a badass. Also, the kind of songs that will force apart a couple who are kissing in front of you.
Joan Jett and The Blackheart’s “Bad Reputation” does its job, and Ella and Blake finally stop kissing. Her cheeks are completely flushed, although I’m not sure if it’s from desire or embarrassment. If you had told me a year ago that this Formula 1 fuckboy would now be the king of PDA, I would’ve thought you were high.
“Great song choice, Jos,” Ella compliments me, her cheeks still pink. “I swear you’re a musical savant or something.”
I throw her a quick thanks before turning to Blake with a wide smile. “Coffee?”
He rubs the back of his neck guiltily before disappearing from the room. Ella and I begin setting up the sports equipment, rearranging and taking test shots to see what looks best. Unlike the McAllister drivers, Ella listens when I give her simple directions—no eye rolling, mumbling under her breath, or flat out refusing. Cough, cough, Blake .
“Remi texted me again,” Ella says casually. “About getting your mom on her podcast.”
I swallow back a groan. Remi Baxter is the host of my favorite podcast , Dating and Dildos, and is now Ella’s mentor in the indie podcasting world. When Ella told her my mum is the Caroline Bancroft, London’s leading sex therapist, she nearly had a heart attack.
There’s a reason my mum has a seven-month long waiting list just for a consultation—she’s the best in the field. That doesn’t mean I want her spouting sex advice to millions of people, especially because she tends to “anonymously” use me as an example. God knows why. Most of the sex I’ve had is… vanilla. Not bad by any means, but it certainly wouldn’t be featured in the Kama Sutra. I’ve never had sex in a position called the Himalayan Hump, or anything elusive and bendy like that.
“Nope,” I confirm. “The reason I love her show so much is so I can hear someone other than my mother talk about sex and dating. And if there’s even the slightest chance the word dick comes out of her mouth, I’m vetoing it. On the list of things I hope to never experience, that’s in the top five. Top three, if we’re being completely honest.”
I love my mum. I really, truly do. But sex to her is a normal dinner conversation. Please pass the rolls, darling. Oh! And by the way, have you had an orgasm today? When other kids were learning about the birds and bees, I was learning about breast cancer screenings and boundaries. I’m grateful she’s open about these types of things, but it can be a lot sometimes. I still have post-traumatic stress from when she taught a safe sex class at my school and demonstrated how to properly put on a condom using a banana. She kept repeating that it wasn’t an accurate representation of a man’s size, and I still can’t eat the yellow fruit to this day.
“Can I at least tell her you’ll think about it?” Ella asks, picking up a stray tennis ball. “Pretty please?”
I start singing the chorus of Megan Trainor’s “NO” in response. There’s no way in hell I need my mum making it anymore obvious to the world that her love language is vibrators.
I only stop my private concert when a brilliant idea strikes like lightning. “El, let’s do a test shot of footballs and American footballs. I think it’d be a cute double entendre to have both.”
Her eyes light up with excitement at my suggestion. “Don’t tell Blake I said this,” she lowers her voice conspiratorially, “but your talents are seriously being wasted at McAllister, Jos.”
Shrugging in response, I grab a ball and position it by the chair Ella will be sitting in. She’s not wrong; I can do my job in my sleep at this point. McAllister isn’t the most creative when it comes to their marketing, but leaving my position isn’t part of the plan. I may be restless at work, but a breakup is enough upheaval for the foreseeable future. My only plan right now is to focus on myself. Figure out who the hell I am outside of a relationship.
I shoot her a pointed look. “Who else would put up with your boyfriend if I left?”
She laughs and lightly tosses a rugby ball at me. “He’s been on his best behavior lately.”
Blake’s the greatest Formula 1 driver the sport’s ever seen, but his grumpy—and sometimes hostile—attitude is notorious. Ella softens his tough exterior and makes him much more amenable, though, and everyone and their mother is thankful for that.
“I know, I know.” Taking a deep breath, I quickly admit, “I talked to Rhys about possibly implementing an influencer program.”
I went through my eighteen-slide presentation with my boss in a conference room called Supportive , ironically enough. McAllister’s meeting rooms—both in the paddock and our offices outside of London—are all named positive adjectives that are supposed to “inspire and motivate” us. Teamwork. Apathy. Agility. Flexibility . It’s eyeroll-inducing to say the least.
Ella drops a ping-pong ball. Why the hell did Blake get ping-pong balls? “Look at you, you little confrontational… lady. Wait, that sounds weird. Assertive boss bitch…? Yeah. I like that.”
“Hardly a confrontation,” I admit. A mouse scares me more than McAllister’s director of marketing does. “And all he said was that he’d think about it.”
“Hey, that’s better than when he flat-out rejected your ‘fan-in-the-stand’ takeover idea,” Ella reminds me. “If anyone can pull this off, it’s you, Jos. You single-handedly made McAllister blow up on TikTok last year. That takes talent.”
I blush from the compliment. “We’ll see. Not getting my hopes up. Can you pass me the football behind your left foot, please?”
Ella grins at me, her dimple popping. “You mean the soccer ball?”
I slap my hands over my ears. “Blasphemous!”
Blake bursts through the door, an overflowing cup of coffee in one hand, his phone in the other. I expect to receive third-degree burns from him handing me the mug, but instead, he slips his phone into my open palm. “For you.” He rolls his dark eyes. “An emergency .”
There’s only one person who’d be calling Blake simply to talk to me: McAllister’s other driver, Theo Walker. He’s the sunshine to Blake’s moonlight, and I mean that in the most bromantic way possible.
I walk to the other side of the room so I can hear him over Blake’s deep voice telling Ella something he learned about coffee beans from a BBC documentary.
“What’s going on, Walker?” I ask as his face comes into focus. If Adonis and Casanova somehow reproduced, Theo Walker would be their love child. He’s objectively gorgeous with his navy-blue eyes surrounded by dark, curling lashes women pay to replicate, espresso-colored hair, and a jawline that’s always covered in stubble. And don’t even get me started on his abs… They’re so defined, you could grate cheese on them. “Blake said it’s an emergency.”
My tone is teasing instead of worried. Theo’s emergencies are not real emergencies. They’re usually him asking which photo of himself he should post on social media or whether eating a family-sized bag of crisps in one sitting will make him sick.
He sticks out his lower lip into a pout. “It is! And you’ve been neglecting me.”
“I’ve been a little busy to answer your five million texts.” I pan the phone over to where Blake and Ella are huddled in the middle of the set with balls surrounding their feet. “You’re quite needy. You know that, right?”
He shrugs as if this isn’t new information. “Tell Blakey Blake I always knew he liked playing with other people’s balls.”
I wait a moment before turning the camera back on my face so he doesn’t see me swallow back a laugh. “You have five seconds to tell me this so-called emergency before I hang up on you.”
“Do you know how to delete a text?”
I crinkle my brows together. “You’ve never deleted a text?”
“No, I have,” he reassures me with nod. “But can you delete one once you’ve sent it? Like how you showed me that unsend feature on Gmail?”
“No, not if it’s already delivered.”
Theo tips his head back and releases a string of swear words—some of which are Australian slang I’m unfamiliar with. “You’re supposed to know how to do this shit, Jos.”
Apparently, being an Adobe Photoshop wiz translates to anything and everything technological. “Texting isn’t the same as the social media algorithm, babes.”
“You’re a millennial, though,” he argues with a groan.
“You’re a millennial, too!”
This makes him pause. “I’m actually a Sagittarius.”
A smile breaks across my face. Theo’s only a few years older than me, but maturity-wise, he’s a lot younger. “Why do you need to delete a text?”
“I accidentally sent Andreas a rather… risqué photo of myself,” Theo mumbles just loud enough for me to hear. I throw my head back as I laugh. Theo’s done a lot of idiotic things, but sending McAllister’s team principal a dick pic tops them all.
“How do you accidentally do that?” I howl, clutching my stomach.
He huffs loudly and narrows his eyes at me. “In my defense, Andrea and Andreas are only a letter off. I obviously didn’t mean to send it to him .”
I usually don’t bother learning the names of Theo’s “women,” because by the time I do, he’s already moved onto someone else. The only way to tell his revolving door of lady friends apart is by which flat tummy tea or hair vitamin they’re promoting on the internet.
“Wow,” I say, shaking my head. “You continue to surprise me, Walker.”
His deep chuckle reverberates through the speaker on Blake’s phone. “I like to keep you on your toes, Bancroft. What’d you do last night? Get wild and crazy at a pub? Didn’t see any stories on Instagram.”
“Probably because all I did was order in sushi, drink wine, and binge-watch MasterChef . Did you know that you can use Coke in a marinade? I guess the acidity tenderizes the meat or something.”
“They televise that? It feels illegal…”
It takes me a minute to catch onto where his head is at. “Not the drug, you bloody idiot. The fizzy drink! Coca Cola. Pepsi. Christ, Walker.”
He shrugs his broad shoulders. “Sounds just as illegal. Why are you staying in on a Saturday night? You’re freshly single, Jos. You’re supposed to be living it up, not acting like a fifty-five-year-old divorcee, watching cooking shows to impress your dinner guests.”
I stick my tongue out. “I’ll have you know that I?—”
“And by living it up, I meant getting laid, princess,” he clarifies, cutting me off. “Dicks galore and all that. There are plenty of fish in the sea, myself included.”
“Sushi is technically fish,” I remind him, grinning at my cleverness. “Now, was that it? I’ve got people to see and things to do.”
Things that don’t involve discussing my sex life, or lack of one .
His lips curl like flames. “When I get back to London, can I be one of the things you do?”
“Absolutely not.”
Before he can see the smile tugging at my lips, I end the call. I’d like to say I’m completely immune to Theo’s charm, but who am I kidding? We’ve always enjoyed a flirtatious friendship under the keen awareness that it’ll never go further than that. I set boundaries when we first met, and Theo’s respected them for the past few years. I’ve always had a boyfriend, and he’s always had, well, like two to five women at a time.
I don’t want him to read into any suggestive banter with my newfound single status. Now is the time for me to fall back in love with myself, not a man. That means no bananas for me—metaphorical or not.