Page 19 of Retrograde

The team’s trailer had been upgraded this year.

It was now a full-blown motorhome and had gained a whole extra floor, which was no doubt Julien’s doing.

Lucie distinctly remembered a team dinner last season when he’d been moping about Jasmine not being able to come to many races because she needed somewhere quiet to do her schoolwork.

The whole second floor of this trailer was designated to Julien, Jasmine and Faith.

She’d joked earlier that they should have a welcome mat outside with ‘The Jensen-Moretz’s’ written in a fancy font, but of course Jules had taken it seriously and started scouring the internet.

She wondered how much of his own money Julien had offered the team, or how many extra networking events he’d agreed to attend throughout the year, because no other team on the grid had anything remotely like this.

It was extravagant, and the other drivers were loving ripping into Revolution for being so over the top.

They may be the laughing stock of the paddock but drivers had been knocking on their door for ‘tours’ which turned into them asking to use the coffee machine or the gaming consoles.

Eden Racing had spent an entire hour in here at Spa, playing Call of Duty before Esme and her co-worker had to hunt them down to fulfil their press duties.

Lucie was busy looking for her favourite cookies when the door opened.

Despite the trailer being huge, it still shook like it was a fragile little caravan when the door opened and closed.

Brett appeared behind her, his frame filling the doorway.

She turned to see him with his arms crossed, she couldn’t get a read on him at all based on his expression.

He was just studying her in silence and her guilty heart started to pound ferociously.

‘Hi?’ She breathed out.

‘Hey. What ya doing, Sunny?’ He nodded at the open cupboard above her head.

‘Looking for those pistachio cookies I love. I know Jules brought some with him from home, but I can’t see if they’re up there. I’m too short.’ She jutted her bottom lip out.

‘Ah, so you need your knight in shining armour, huh?’ He uncrossed his arms and broke into a smile, discreetly mocking her for her lack of height.

‘You know I’m the last person who needs one of those.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘However, if you’re offering…’ She stepped aside to give him access.

Brett didn’t even have to stretch. He reached up, did a sweep of the cupboard and within seconds, there was the beautiful sound of packaging being rustled. He held them above his head, taunting Lucie until her mouth was practically watering.

‘I know they know.’ He lowered his arm and watched her reaction carefully, but she didn’t give him one. If he was mad about it, she was going to have to stand her ground. She had acted with his best interest at heart, just like she always did.

‘Who knows what?’ she challenged.

‘Mum and Pipes.’ He narrowed his eyes at her, but he wasn’t coming off as angry.

Just mildly disappointed. ‘I had a sickeningly sweet message from Piper, asking me to come over for dinner. She doesn’t do cute messages, she’s all bitching and moaning and memes.

So, I figured she was on to me, texted her to ask if she’d spoken to you, and Mum called me crying. ’

‘Brett, I’m so—’

‘Sorry? Yeah, I should think so. It put me in a really tough position, Luce. They staged a bloody intervention, tried to therapise me. It was extremely awkward and uncomfortable for all three of us, and it wasn’t a conversation I was ready to have.

I need to know I can trust you with my deepest, darkest secrets, you know?

’ He tried to hold her gaze but she looked away.

‘I know nothing I say will make it okay. But just know, I thought I was doing the right thing. For you, that is.’ She swallowed the lump in her throat, hating being called out.

‘I thought about it a lot after they interrogated me. I never should’ve asked you to keep something like this from them. I’m sorry, too. Mum said she debated murdering me when she first got the news, and do you know what I thought?’

‘What?’ Lucie teared up.

‘I thought, sounds like my Luce . You two have always taken care of me in the best way you know how. I don’t want to let either of you down again, or myself, for that matter.

’ Brett took Lucie’s hand in his, giving it a tight squeeze.

‘God forbid my little sister ever found out about this. She’s young, I don’t want her growing up with a big brother who threw his life away for a temporary fix.

Who uses drink to numb his emotions instead of facing them head on. She deserves more from me.’

‘She’s fifteen. She doesn’t need you to be perfect, both she and Piper just need you to be their brother.

Neither of them would think any less of you, they would understand that you have experienced the same loss they have, and you have a lot of stress on your shoulders.

You basically replaced your dad as the breadwinner when you were eighteen, and as the male role model of the family. ’

‘Exactly, so I should’ve known better. I should’ve been more like him, but I was so busy doing my own thing.

I haven’t been present in the way they needed me.

I haven’t been there to help with homework, uni decisions, life decisions.

I show up to visit and we have a great time, but my head is always somewhere else. ’

‘You’ve been working damn hard for ten years straight, Brett.

Even longer than that. You’ve never taken a substantial break from the intensity of training, dieting, racing, travelling.

You’ve never sought emotional relief, either.

Not from a professional. How many times did you turn down your team psychologists in the early days?

’ She hadn’t intended on mentioning it, but it had slipped out.

‘Like, twelve. They all told me I might regret it, and here we are. I just don’t know why Julien handled his dad’s death so well, and I’ve somehow handled mine worse as the years have passed. It’s embarrassing.’

‘You can’t compare yourself to Jules. Everyone tackles situations differently, and there’s no shame in the way you went about it.

It’s so easy to fall into the habits you did, it could’ve been any of your siblings in your shoes.

Nobody is immune to the risk, in fact. You pass by anyone on the street, and it could easily be them.

Hell, it could be me . Sometimes it doesn’t even take a traumatic event.

Sometimes it just takes a few bad days, of which you have had many , or a certain type of personality, and that’s enough to fall into a cycle.

It doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human. ’

‘You’ve got a lot of sense in that tiny head of yours.’ He tapped the side of her head gently, then finally opened the cookies and helped himself to half the packet.

‘And apparently you’ve got an almighty appetite in that tiny body,’ she smirked.

‘You did not just call my body tiny.’

‘Mm,’ she mumbled through a mouthful. ‘Could be better.’

‘Are you being serious right now? Look at these.’ He flexed his biceps. ‘Moretz and De Luca could only ever dream of having muscles like this. I’m basically Arnold Schwarzenegger.’

‘Oh, come on. You and Jules look almost identical from the neck down. You just have the whole Aussie tan thing going on, which I guess accentuates your muscles a bit.’

‘You’ve been admiring Jules, huh? What would Faith think about that?’ He narrowed his eyes at her in fake suspicion.

‘I’m simply stating facts. And Faith isn’t blind. She knows her husband is nice to look at.’

‘Okay, but this body is the one that absolutely ruined you for all other men. Have you slept with anyone else since Italy? Or do you lie awake at night, reliving every single second like I do?’ Brett spoke with so much confidence that it stunned her into silence.

‘I–’ Lucie stuttered because no, she hadn’t slept with anyone else.

He knew that. She had been with him almost every day since.

She hadn’t necessarily been avoiding all other men, but she hadn’t exactly been putting herself out there.

She’d been too busy dodging Brett’s advances, both the subtle ones and the not-so-subtle ones and pretending she didn’t desperately want a repeat.

‘Exactly what I thought.’

‘It’s hot in here.’ Lucie’s throat was dry.

Brett snorted at her statement. ‘Smooth, Sunny.’

She wasn’t na?ve, she knew he’d been with other women.

Snuck them into his hotel room, disappeared at parties.

She’d even caught him in a bathroom at a restaurant once during a team night out.

That was just who Brett was. Did it bother her?

Yes, but at the same time she didn’t want him.

Well, she did. Just not like– you know what?

Never mind. Lucie had to admit she had been growing more and more confused by her feelings for Brett every year.

Being so close probably didn’t help, but they were attached at the hip.

Living their lives any differently just wouldn’t make sense to them.

This whole situation would be a million times easier if he wasn’t Brett.

If she didn’t know him as well as she did.

She knew everything there was to know. The way his mind worked, how he approached conflict and the problems life threw at him.

Well, aside from indulging in excessive drinking. She’d missed that one.

But most of all, Lucie knew that Brett loved everything about his life.

He lived the kind of lifestyle no man in his right mind would want to give up, and she would never dream of asking him to, but their two wants and needs around a relationship just didn’t match.

Especially not after he’d tried to settle down with Sienna, and that went up in flames. Nothing would sway him into commitment.