Page 43 of Retrograde

It had been two weeks since the race at Le Mans, and Lucie had noticed Brett’s gradual transition into a ray of human sunshine.

He seemed back to his old self. The night terrors had stopped, there had been no tears unless she counted the time he cried at an ad for rescue dogs, and he had upped the ante with flirting again.

But there was a new, emotional layer to their relationship. As he had completed more therapy sessions and had more breakthroughs, he had been much more open with Lucie about his past. Just… not about them.

Since the dinner at Le Mans and his family’s return to Australia, they had settled back into their daily routine and Brett had completed the living room and the master bedroom.

The rough, cracked terracotta walls were now a smooth, bright white, the floorboards had been stripped, sanded down and varnished, and the furniture had been built.

Lucie had put down her laptop for a few hours a day and her parents had left them to their own devices, trusting their daughter’s interior décor talents despite the fact she had never decorated a room in her life.

Her childhood bedroom back in LA had been plain and boring with a couple of framed posters and some polaroids.

That was the extent of her experience. This time around, she’d scoured hundreds of inspiration photos online, relying on Pinterest to make her look like she knew what she was doing.

It helped that they wanted a minimal aesthetic.

She could work with minimal, but she still wanted to make sure that the farmhouse felt like a home, not like the house they had left behind in the States.

She had ordered a new rug to go under the wooden coffee table, which was a slice of tree trunk from an oak tree Mateo had chopped down at the edge of the property, and today’s mission was to find artwork.

They were in Italy. It should be easy to find something unique, hopefully directly from an artist’s studio.

Lucie headed into the kitchen where Brett and her parents were gathered at the breakfast bar, redesigning the chicken coop for a third time. ‘Morning, everyone.’

‘Good morning, love. Would you like something to eat? We have croissants. Homemade. Brett helped me whip them up.’ Rosa fussed over her, pulling out her chair and pouring her a coffee.

‘Thanks, Mum. What are your plans today?’

‘Your dad and I are going next door for lunch with Giada and Stefano. We’re teaching them English, so we’ll be gone all afternoon. They’re not exactly, shall we say, easy to teach.’

Lucie laughed, remembering when they had collectively tried to teach Isabella to speak Italian.

By that point, they were speaking English at home, and being the youngest, she struggled to keep up when they switched to their parents’ native language.

‘Well, in that case, Anderson, want to take a road trip? I’m on a mission to find some art for that huge, empty wall in the living room.

Need something colourful. Plus, you’re already running out of clothes since our last shopping spree, almost all your tops have stains on. ’

‘Oh, um, I promised I’d prepare the veggies for dinner,’ Brett grimaced, looking like he was afraid of getting a telling-off. He was the perfect house guest as always, doing everything he could to help; the result of being raised by a woman like Maggie.

Rosa just tutted at him. ‘Nonsense! You’re free to go with Lucie. Getting away from the farm for a while will do you the world of good.’

‘Thanks, Mama C. You’re a star.’ He squeezed Rosa’s shoulder. ‘Eat up, Carolan. We’ve got a busy day ahead.’ He began helping to clear the table, gesturing for Lucie to eat faster.

She rolled her eyes as he whisked the croissants out of reach, handing them to Mateo to package up for later. ‘Give me a minute!’ she mumbled through a mouthful of pastry.

‘You can borrow my work van, if you want,’ Mateo suggested.

They met out at the van, both out of their haphazard, paint-covered DIY outfits and in clothing that was more suitable to wear in public. Brett, of course, had broken out the Versace, while Lucie had gone for a lilac floral midi dress she’d not yet had a chance to wear.

‘Lilac is your colour, Sunny. Complements your complexion.’ He looked her up and down and that warm and fuzzy feeling travelled up her whole body, right up to her cheeks.

‘Thank you. Versace is so your brand,’ she countered to him, knowing it was his most beloved.

‘Can I drive?’ Brett asked, already reaching out for the keys.

She threw them at him, Revolution Racing keyring smacking him in the chest, grateful not to have to navigate the roads again. They were long, windy, and some weren’t even tarmacked. ‘If you actually listen to my directions, sure.’

‘Are you serious, Sunny?’ he scoffed as they clambered into the van. ‘Need I remind you of that time we drove from LA to Nashville? Two thousand miles and I can’t even count how many times you got us lost. Surprised we didn’t get stranded on the side of the road, murdered by some hillbilly.’

‘Hey, this is Europe. We’re driving for two hours, no freeways.

Just country roads. You try driving on a cross-country road trip in the US.

Oh wait, you never will, because you prefer to sleep, mess around with the radio stations, stuff your face with snacks and whine until we pull over at diners so you can get the all-American experience. ’

Brett looked her up and down as he pulled off the dirt track leading from the farm and onto the road, and it made her feel giddy. ‘I get the all-American experience every time I get you out of your clothes, Sunny.’

‘Oh my God.’ She blushed profusely. ‘Focus on driving.’

‘Kind of hard when the slit in your dress shows off your thigh like that.’

‘Anderson, come on. We don’t have time for your flirting.’

‘Do you even know me at all?’ He glanced at her in mock horror. ‘I will always squeeze in time for flirting. I’ll squeeze in time for anything as long as it’s with you.’

It made her uneasy how right he was, as she remembered all the times that statement had rung true.

Before every race, he wouldn’t get in the car until he’d hugged her.

And it was the same each time he got out.

He always searched for Lucie first amongst the sea of people, and he clung to her like he’d been afraid he would never see her again.

He always chose her. And she would always choose him, it just wasn’t enough to throw away ten years of friendship for a future that would end in tears. She couldn’t change who he was fundamentally, and she wouldn’t break her own heart trying.

‘Left!’ Lucie screamed at him as they almost missed their turning, snapping out of her daydream. Not that it was much of a dream. She spent most of her time avoiding the realities of her feelings until rationality took control and brought her back to the cold, hard truth.

‘Bloody hell, Sunny! Give a man a heart attack, why don’t you!’

‘Sorry,’ she grimaced. ‘Didn’t want you to miss it.’

‘U-turns exist for people who are friends with people like you.’

There was that word again. Friends . It would always apply to them, and it stung.

Two hours later, after twenty-six radio station changes, and one stop on the side of the road so Lucie could straddle Brett’s lap and kiss the hell out of him to shut him up, they made it to Parma.

His hand was still on her leg, approaching dangerous territory as he drove further into the city and his hand travelled further up her thigh.

‘Stop it.’ She swatted his hand away. ‘We’re already in a rust bucket of a van which sounds like it’s going to fall apart every time you brake, we have enough attention on us without you doing that.’

‘People can’t see , Lucie.’

She gestured at an elderly lady, who was scowling at them through the windscreen as she crossed the road in front of them. ‘Why does she look so angry, then?’

‘Probably thought, “Oh, it’s world-renowned racing driver Brett Anderson, is he about to run me over?” She’s too short to see what my hand is doing all the way up here.’

‘Your hand,’ she removed it completely, ‘is going to stay firmly on the steering wheel. Don’t you remember the traffic in Milan? Or by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris? It’s manic. Europeans have no concern for road safety.’

‘I’m about to have no concern for road safety if I don’t get to eat something,’ he sighed, and Lucie looked away shyly. ‘For once, I wasn’t being sexual. I meant actual food, Sunny. I’m bloody starving over here. Didn’t you hear my stomach grumbling?’

‘Not over the noise of Shakira, no.’ She frowned at his latest music choice. ‘We’re supposed to be having a massive dinner later, remember? Mum and Dad are only having a small lunch at Giada and Stefano’s. Save space for a barbeque.’

‘I’m a growing man, and I worked up quite the appetite this morning.’ He referenced their shower antics. ‘Besides, I want to try some proper Parmigiano Reggiano.’ He pinched his fingers together, mocking every Italian in history.

Lucie laughed at the ridiculous accent he put on. ‘That was super stereotypical of you, Anderson. But fine, we’ll find food. And then we have six art galleries to go to.’

‘Six?!’ he choked out. ‘I was hoping we’d have time to sunbathe by the pool later, but not if you’re dragging me to look at a bunch of paintings all day.

Should just let me paint something. A watercolour of you, naked.

You could pose like Rose in Titanic .’ He put on a high-pitched voice.

‘ Paint me like one of your French girls .’

‘I think Kate Winslet would be severely offended if she heard your impression,’ she winced. ‘Not too sure how my parents would feel about your choice of artwork hanging on their living room wall, either.’

After driving around for twenty minutes, they found a parking space big enough to get the van in and out of, that wasn’t too far from the galleries Lucie had already scouted out online.