Page 89 of Last Breath

‘She deserves to be happy.’ Daisy’s smile wasn’t sad; she seemed genuine. ‘Nella gave me a shot when she didn’t have to. There were tonnes of applicants for the paralegal position who had better grades and more experience than me, but she gave me a shot because I was a kid from a rural town, raised by a single mum on Centrelink, and I had something to prove. She said that meant I’d worked twice as hard to get where I was and wouldn’t shy away from all the hard work she’d need me to do.’

‘You must have reminded her of herself,’ Jett said without thinking.

‘I wish I was half as incredible as her.’

‘Daisy, youareincredible.’

She gave him a tight smile. ‘Maybe. But I’m not her.’

Jett sighed. ‘No matter what I say to convince you otherwise, you’re still going to keep pulling at that thread, huh?’

She smiled.

‘You’re wrong,’ he said.

Daisy stared at him with an odd expression he couldn’t decipher, like it was in another language. She tilted her head towards the door of the room she was sharing with Ariana. ‘I better check she hasn’t choked on her own vomit. Though that would at least solve one of Nella’s problems.’

He nodded tightly, the tendons in his neck like barbed wire as he let himself out. Jett had always known when it was his time to go.

New mothers’ hearing adjusts so they can hear their newborns’ cries; they can hear decibels that normal ears can’t – it’s some sort of evolutionary thing. Similarly, Jett’s hearing was adjusted to hear the tiniest sound of an engine. And currently, the noise he was hearing as he tried to fall asleep on the lumpy hotel pillow was the distinctive roar of someone stealing a 1973 Lamborghini Espada.

He didn’t have time to put a shirt on, running out of the hotel lobby barefoot into the icy cobblestoned streets of Lake Orta, following the roar and the alarming spluttering like a police hound dog. Feet screaming with cold, he rounded the corner into the dark alley that his hotel window looked out onto. The Espada was still there, headlights blinding him.

‘Hey! HEY!’ He slammed his palm against the bonnet, flinging open the driver’s door ready to tackle a teenage delinquent to the ground. ‘Get the fuck out of my ...Nella?’

29

Nella

‘Oh. Hello.’ His navel was at her eye level – that V-shape that ripped guys had, to be exact. Which was something she should just clock as an observation, like the colour of someone’s hair or their height.

Jett is ripped. The sky is blue. This car is old.

It didn’t need to be a thing. It shouldn’t have this hold on her. He was herfriend. Friends didn’t ogle or leer or fantasise about running their tongue along the divots of muscle before—

Look up. Look the fuckup.

‘Oh. Hello?What the hell are you doing?’

‘Driving.’ She tapped the steering wheel. ‘The accelerator doesn’t work.’ She revved the engine and the noise broke Jett’s face.

‘The handbrake’s on.’ He ran around the front of the car and threw himself into the passenger side, his bare chest rising and falling rapidly.

She released the handbrake. As the car jolted forward, they both lurched towards the windscreen.

‘It’smanual.’ His voice was strained like she was ripping his fingernails off one by one. ‘You need to put the clutch in ... NOT THAT ONE ... Yeah ... then the gear ... FIRST! First gear, Nella!’

‘Why are you helping me escape?’ She fixated on the little blue flashing light on the black box above the rear-vision mirror. ‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing. ‘You never taught me about that.’

‘Dash cam. It’s only for people who care about their cars. How exactly were you planning on escaping when you still don’t know the difference between first and third gear?’

She tried to breathe without inhaling him. When she didn’t answer, he sighed, a deep, pit of exhaustion sigh.

‘Where were you planning on escaping to at a pace of four bunny hops per hour?’ He made a primal, animal roar as the gears ground mechanically. ‘Stop. STOP. For the love of God, Nella!’

His hand reached for her leg, which was trying to find the right pedal to stop that awful grinding sound. The firm pressure of his palm pushed it back into the seat, his fingers grazing the inside of her thigh, and all the blood in her body rushed to that very spot. Oxygen levels in brain: zero. All she was, all she could feel, was the pressure of his hand.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked again.