Page 13 of Drive Me Wild (Drive Me #2)
THIRTEEN
JOSIE
A swirling layer of clouds interrupts the sunny weather of Marseilles, France. I slip my sunglasses onto my head, the glaring sun no longer making me squint. It’s a few hours away from qualifying, but I cross my fingers that any undesirable weather stays away so McAllister has a successful qualifier. The Circuit Paul Ricard has traditionally been a McAllister stronghold, with Blake and Theo taking first and second place victories in each edition the past few years. But this year, Harry Thompson’s impressive practices have spectators pegging him to take pole, so the pressure is on.
I’m up on the rooftop of the motorhome finishing some work when my phone rings. I groan when I see it’s my mum calling because I really don’t want to talk about my cancelled trip to Le Mans. Does it suck that I was finally doing something for myself, only for it to tatter quicker than an old blanket? Yes. But the race happens every year. I’ll go next year. Maybe.
Knowing she’ll phone the police if I don’t get pick up or call her back in the next hour or so, I bite the bullet and answer. Her sing-song voice greets me almost immediately.
“Hello, my darling. How’s Marseille?” She pronounces the city name in a near-perfect French accent. A perk of being bilingual and having lived in Paris for a bit. “ Beau et étonnant?”
I laugh. “Speaking to me in French is not going to make me magically understand it.”
We all have our strengths, but learning languages is not one of mine. I accepted this years ago, although it seems my mother has not, as she still insists on sneaking in French phrases here or there to see if I’ve miraculously become fluent.
“Context clues, Josephine,” she clucks jokingly. I cringe at her use of my full name. Josephine Violet Bancroft. It sounds hoity-toity, like it should belong to a long-dead poet who wrote about her adulteress husband or one of Marie Antoinette’s ladies-in-waiting. It’s the reason I exclusively go by Josie. According to my mum, if she wanted to call me Josie, she would have put that on my birth certificate instead of Josephine.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mumble. “Marseille is good, though. Did Dad watch the practice earlier?”
My dad may not understand what I do for a living—I’m pretty sure he thinks I just scroll through Instagram all day—but he’s insanely proud, nonetheless. He watches every practice, qualifying round, and race, not because he loves Formula 1, but so he can try to spot me anywhere in the background. He’s managed to locate me a few times and then proceeds to text his friends to brag.
“He hasn’t left the recliner all morning,” she tells me.
I chuckle. “Tell him I’m in a white McAllister shirt and flower-patterned skirt.”
“I’ll let him know. And I’m sorry about Le Mans, love,” my mum says, her voice softening. “Maybe we’ll go on a family trip there over the summer?”
If you go to Le Mans, you go for the 24 Heures du Mans endurance race. The city is great, but if you can be there during what’s considered one of the world’s most prestigious races, you do. No questions asked.
“It’s okay, Mum. Really,” I reassure her. “I appreciate it, but honestly, it’s not that big of a deal.”
It’s not that I want to go alone, but I also don’t want to make my parents uncomfortable. They’re the most important people in my life, and the last thing I want is for them to feel as if I’m going there to look for something they couldn’t provide.
She sighs as if she doesn’t quite believe me, but lets it go. We catch up for a few more minutes with my mum telling me about a seminar she’s attending in Brugge next week. It’s called “Sexual Health is Mental Health,” and there’s supposed to be some new exfoliating lube—whatever that means—in the welcome bags. Never fear, she’s more than happy to pass it along to me so I can “experiment.”
Ending the call, I head down to the pit garage to get some action shots of the drivers preparing for qualifying round. The rest of the afternoon is a swirl of commotion and camaraderie with Blake and Theo maintaining McAllister’s streak of placing pole and second on the grid, respectively.
On race day, I wake up early so I can grab breakfast at the motorhome before I start my day. I’m scrolling through Instagram and eating a buttered croissant when Theo bursts into the cafeteria. The energy of the room is sleepy until his arrival. For someone who doesn’t drink coffee very often, Theo always has an abundance of energy. I need at least half of a latte in the morning to even understand the English language, and I need a full latte to speak it.
“I have exciting news,” he announces. Placing himself in the seat next to me, he turns his body so our knees are touching.
My entire body flushes at the minute contact. What is this physical response I have to him? His proximity reminds my body of each day I haven’t had his hands, breath, lips, on it. It’s obnoxious how good-looking he is. Really fucking obnoxious. “You won a lot of points at Call of Duty ?”
Theo groans loudly, the sound sending heatwaves from my nipples to my other erogenous zones. What is wrong with me? Clearly my lady parts are not on the same wavelength as my brain. I need to have a team meeting so my body stops this insane urge to jump Theo’s bones whenever he’s within a meter of me. Thank God he was gentlemanly enough not to sleep with me when I drunkenly threw myself at him. I’m like a cat in heat with this ridiculous urge to rub my body all over him. Is it normal to react to someone like this? Simply from being in the same space as them?
“You don’t win points at COD, princess,” he explains slowly. “Well, you do, but it’s a currency, not indicating that you’re winning or whatever.”
I roll my eyes. “Just be happy I know the names of some of your favorite games, babes.”
“Name a few.”
Well, shit. I didn’t think he was going to call me out like that. Um. “ World of War … or whatever, something like that. Super Mario Kart , Minecraft … um, Halo? ”
“Who needs porn when I can just record you saying, ‘ World of War whatever?’” Theo laughs.
I lower my voice to what I hope is a sultry tone. “Can I interest you in a game of Mario Party ?”
Theo clutches his sides as he laughs. I swear I’d do cartwheels in my knickers to keep hearing that chuckle. “You trying to seduce me again, Bancroft?”
The emphasis he puts on again is not lost on me. “Why do you think I’m trying to seduce you? Because I want to play with your joystick?”
I watch as the pupils of his expressive blue eyes expand ever so slightly, indicating the effect my words have on him. Shit . Why did I have to say something like that? I am not this openly flirtatious, especially not with someone whose joystick is something I’ve been trying to purposefully not play with.
Grabbing my coffee from the table, I take a large sip. It’s still burning hot, scalding off at least one layer of taste buds, but I need something to cover my lips so he can’t see the look of pure horror I’m struggling to contain.
“I’m kidding, Theo,” I reassure him moments later when he’s still staring at me with undisguised lust. “Drunkenly seducing you in Monaco was a moment of weakness.”
A moment of weakness where I told Theo I wanted to suck him like a Tootsie Pop.
He leans his head down, the smell of his cologne invading my personal space, swirling around me in an intoxicating cloak. “Are you saying I’m your weakness, Bancroft?”
“No,” I say. Liar, liar, pants on fire. “You’re… a devil on my shoulder.”
“I may be a devil,” his lips brush against my ear, his hot breath sending a shiver up my spine, “but you’re an angel who so desperately wants to sin.”
My chest swells with desire, each breath I take aching independently of the other. I want to taste his lips, swirl my tongue around his mouth, and suck the air right out of his lungs. But that’s not something friends do. “So, what’s the exciting news you have?”
Theo leans back, a smile still playing on his face. He slams papers down on the table, causing my coffee to slosh over the rim of my travel mug. The edges of the papers get stained by the spilled drink, so I quickly pick them up.
“Wait!” He grabs the papers from my hands, clutching them to his chest like I’m going to snatch them away. “Don’t. No touching!”
He taps his fingers against the table, taking his sweet time. I roll my eyes at his theatrical performance to build up tension. “Oh, go on then, Walker. No need for dramatics.”
Theo sets the papers down once again, but this time, motions for me to pick them up. The first page is a booking confirmation for a four-day stay at a Le Mans hotel with a fancy French name. The second page is an email from Martin with details about a trackside suite to watch the 24 Hueres du Mans. The final few pages are articles on the top sites to see and the best restaurants the city has to offer.
Once I’ve shuffled through the pages no less than four times, I put them down and fix my eyes on Theo, my eyes widening in confusion. “What is this?”
“We’re going to Le Mans.”
“I don’t understand.” My voice is coated in astounded disbelief and the frequency of my blinks makes me feel like I’m twitching. “How?”
“I made it happen. I’m a smarty pants, Bancroft.” He flashes me a smile that melts my insides like ice cream on a summer day. “Didn’t you know?”
“You thought the phrase was ‘the ghost is clear’ instead of ‘the coast is clear’ up until last year.” Toying with the wispy tendrils of my hair, I shoot him a skeptical look. “And still can’t correctly pronounce gnocchi .”
He ignores me, continuing to smile adorably. “You can’t say no because I already got your time off approved.”
“You what ?”
“I told Rhys I needed social media assistance and asked if he could spare you,” he says coolly. “You’re good to go.”
“And he said yes?” My boss usually requires at least two weeks’ notice for any time off to make sure the team has proper coverage. “He believed you?”
Theo tilts his head and grins. “You do realize I make McAllister millions every year, right? Of course he said yes.”
“But I'm not going to be working,” I point out. “Won’t they know?”
“Are you going to narc on yourself?” Theo laughs. “It’s okay to break the rules occasionally, angel. We can take some photos at the race if it’ll make you feel better.”
I nod in awestruck wonder, too overwhelmed to get out a word. The most illegal thing I’ve ever done is park my car in a fifteen-minute spot for over an hour, so it does indeed make me feel better.
Theo drums his fingers against the table, completely unfazed by my silence. “I made you a playlist, by the way. I’ll text it over in a bit.”
He says something else, but I’m lost in my own thoughts. I’m going to Le Mans. With Theo. Oh my God. I’m only aware of him departing because he buries his lips on the top of head. The lyrics of Taylor Swift’s song “Don’t Blame Me” float through my head. If Theo’s a drug, I’m about ready to open my own damn pharmacy.
A few minutes later, my phone buzzes with a text from Theo. I immediately open it, curious to see what songs he chose for a playlist. He doesn’t have bad taste in music, but he tends to gravitate strictly to classic rock and R&B.
It takes me a moment to realize the song titles spell out a message. I suck in air through my teeth, feeling warmth between my legs. I’m an adult, right? I know how to draw boundaries, don’t I? Theo is walking, talking sex, so I should be able to enjoy that without letting it affect our friendship, right? Before I can second guess myself, I quickly put together a playlist for him, choosing the songs so easily, it’s like my mind already knew what it wanted to say. I can picture Theo, wherever he is, getting flustered by my response. And God, it turns me on.
Making playlists has always been my way to capture what I’m feeling: sad, happy, confused, angry, betrayed, content. I’ve never made one for this feeling, though, this out-of-body experience of aching for someone to the point where my core is pulsating without any direct physical contact. It’s a new feeling, and I’m not sure if I want to kick myself or dive headfirst and let it consume me.