Page 51 of Retrograde

Bea’s sofa had been replaced with Faith and Julien’s.

Realising that Lucie was here to stay, Julien was in the process of transforming the office into a guest room so they could have their living room back.

They had insisted that she wasn’t going back to Italy where she had so many fresh memories of Brett, and she didn’t really know where else to go.

Lucie had turned their expensive leather couch into her new and improved depression pit, this time enjoying views of lush, green fields instead of the busy streets of Paris.

In her first week here, Jules had gone out and got all her favourite snacks and ingredients to cook her comfort meals, quickly hiding the pistachio cookies when Lucie had burst into tears at the sight of them.

Three months in, and she was finding her feet.

She’d been on daily walks and bike rides, regularly had lunch near the waterfalls in Coo, held video meetings poolside.

She loved being able to explore Malmedy like it was home and forget that there was hell coming.

They had crossed the Silverstone race off their list, and Fuji, and Shanghai.

Girls Off Track had skyrocketed. Their partnership with the Formula Voltz team had been secured, and Jasper had the go-ahead for a second car and was allowing them to advertise the academy and the podcast on its livery next season, for no cost. Everything in Lucie’s life was going great, except for her relationship with Brett.

She would be so lost without her friends.

Her team. But even as they’d rallied around her, she wondered what the future of this friendship circle would look like.

She and Brett had made things monumentally awkward for them, but none of them were going to let him leave Revolution Racing and drive for a different team, or leave the IEC.

Lucie wasn’t going to be forced to find new friends either, but it was going to be a long time before she and Brett could be in the same room comfortably.

‘Your bed is coming today. Tracking just got updated,’ Julien shouted across the room from the kitchen. ‘Want to help me put it together?’

‘Sure. Bet you’re itching to get your sofa back, huh?’

‘At least you’ve actually moved from this one,’ Julien smirked.

‘I was on Bea’s for a week , Jules. I was hardly going to lay motionless on your sofa and cry for months on end, was I?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Also, you chose to buy a stupidly overpriced bed which took eight weeks to arrive and wouldn’t let me sleep on the office floor.’

‘Only the highest quality for you, Luce,’ Julien grinned, biting into an apple as Faith walked in.

‘She told you she was happy with an IKEA bed, Jules. You just have expensive taste in furniture.’ Faith raised an eyebrow, gesturing around the room.

It was immaculate, and he hadn’t even hired an interior designer.

He hadn’t needed to change a thing when they’d started dating and Faith had moved in.

‘I’m wearing jeans from a supermarket,’ Julien frowned.

‘Twenty-euro jeans versus a six-thousand-euro bed frame… it’s all about balance, huh?’

Julien scoffed and took one of Lucie’s favourite chocolate bars out of the cupboard along with a bag of Faith’s favourite crisps, backing out of the room. ‘I’m going to lay out by the pool and eat these. They’re the last of each. Serves you two right for picking on me.’

‘It’s freezing out there!’ Faith yelled as he reached the back door.

‘I’m a racing driver, I’m fearless!’ he yelled back.

Faith shook her head in amusement. ‘He’s so embarrassing. Now Jasmine is older, it’s like he’s made it his mission to crack out every dad joke in the book and make a fool of himself at every given opportunity.’

‘He’s completely transformed over the last couple of years. I think he just feels more comfortable with where he’s at in life, now he has no secrets. You and Jasmine bring out the best in him, make him feel more like himself.’

‘Mmhmm,’ she murmured, focused on cutting sandwiches for Jasmine, who was upstairs with her tutor. ‘It’s good to have someone like that.’

Lucie glared her down, half-joking, half-wishing everyone would just shut up trying to convince her to reach out to him. Brett hadn’t contacted her. He didn’t care. That much had been clear when he hadn’t followed her out of the club. ‘You got lucky.’

‘Love is a choice, Luce. It’s not all about luck.’

‘Faith.’

‘Lucie.’

‘He made his choice.’

‘Well …’

‘He did! He kissed her. He fled the country and went straight into the arms of the first woman who broke him.’

‘Oh my God. Lucie!’ Faith threw her arms out. ‘He doesn’t know you’re in love with him because you let him go without telling him! How can you be mad about it? You two need to sit down and talk this out. Soon.’

Lucie crossed her arms like a petulant child, but only because she knew her best friend was right. ‘Well, it won’t be next week. That’s a work event.’

‘A work event where you have to work together. You have to film with him, Luce,’ she sighed like a disapproving parent.

‘You can do the filming,’ Lucie suggested. It was the perfect solution. Faith could film and Lucie could sweet-talk sponsors and edit the content.

Faith tutted disapprovingly. ‘You’re a big girl.’

‘A broken-hearted big girl.’ She tried to copy the puppy-dog eyes that Marco did when he wanted them to use his ideas for videos.

‘Fine, but you must promise me you’ll speak to him before Christmas.’ Faith pointed at her menacingly. ‘It’s almost December already, you’d better get it together ASAP. You can’t be miserable at Christmas; I won’t allow it.’

Lucie had known about this event since way before she and Brett had gone their separate ways.

It was an annual Christmas fundraiser for the IEC, where all the teams got together and invited their sponsors and partners of the organisation to raise money for charity.

She loved it. There was no content schedule although Revolution Racing and the IEC both expected photos and videos to be posted, so it was an opportunity to mingle and enjoy being part of the motorsport world.

But this year would be different. She knew Brett was coming, it was his big test. His welcome back to team duties after months and months away.

Marco had come and found her in the hotel and told her his flight had landed, and then he’d sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed while she’d held in her tears and tried not to cry her makeup off.

Tonight was the first time she would have any interaction with Brett since she saw him in Sydney.

She’d spent weeks going back and forth with the idea of reaching out to smooth things over, but it wasn’t a conversation to be had over text.

She had muted him on social media, so she no longer had to see what he was doing every time she opened the app, but prior to doing that a month ago, she knew he’d just been hanging out with his family every day.

There had been no sightings of Sienna, although she couldn’t imagine he would want to make that public.

Marco tapped on the bathroom door. ‘Lucie? You ready?’ he called through.

Having a date to this event wasn’t a thing, especially not for IEC staff, but her team didn’t want her walking in alone.

Julien and Faith would be arm in arm, and Marco wasn’t about to let Lucie go solo and come face to face with Brett without emotional support.

Besides, Brett would probably walk in with Elliot from Havelin Racing or Lucas from Talos Sport, all of them, including him, oblivious to the war raging inside her.

‘I feel sick, Mars,’ Lucie murmured, as he led her to the stairs. The fundraiser was being held in the ballroom of a hotel by Lake Geneva, and it was by far the most beautiful venue she’d ever visited for work.

She should be feeling confident. Her makeup had been salvaged and looked as flawless as it had earlier this afternoon, her hair was in loose waves, and she wore a deep red satin ballgown which accentuated her figure perfectly.

Highlighted those curves a certain someone adored.

If she homed in on the way her friends had gasped and spun her round, she did feel confident.

But it was all torn down the second Brett came to mind.

‘Anderson incoming in four, three, two…’ Marco warned, but no amount of time could have prepared her. Not the months of no contact she’d had, holed up in Belgium. Not the seconds it took them to reach the bottom of the stairs, where Brett stood waiting.

He looked good. Healthy. And Lucie’s heart shattered for the millionth time.

He didn’t need her any more, and while that should be a good thing, it made her feel worse.

She wanted him to need her, and it wasn’t because of her ego.

The look he gave her was no longer one of desire.

It was pain. The look of someone who had once known all the right things to say to her, and now couldn’t muster up a single word.

Marco simply nodded at him, an indication that they would talk later, and hurried Lucie towards the crowd.

But as she took a step past him, the hem of her gown sweeping over his shoes, she was so in her own head, she almost missed it.

His hand, brushing ever so slightly against hers.

And when she glanced back at him and his brown eyes softened, she knew it had been deliberate.

‘Thanks, Mars.’ Lucie heaved a sigh of relief when they got to the bar.

‘You’ll get there.’ Marco handed her a double rum and coke.

‘Maybe.’

Now seated at the Revolution table waiting for their meal to be served, Lucie could feel his eyes on her.

He was unrelenting, but every time she dared to glance in his direction, he looked away.

It was awkward. They had never done awkward.

They had worked so well as friends because conversation flowed, they could flirt and joke around without consequence, and after the hiking trip they had been able to brush it under the rug.

This was new and abnormal, and she didn’t know how to approach it. How to approach him. So she wouldn’t.

‘How’s Belgium been treating you?’ Brett spoke across the table so out of the blue that she hadn’t realised he’d been talking to her. The first words out of his mouth in so long, and they weren’t words of anger. It was a start.

‘Um, yeah. Good, thanks.’ Was that all she could manage? ‘How’s Australia?’ She didn’t want the answer unless Sienna was excluded from the narrative.

‘Decent. Been with the fam. Lots of smoothies and cordial.’ He looked at his glass, drawing her attention to it. He’d ordered fruit juice, at a Michelin-star-catered five-course meal. It tugged at her heartstrings.

Lucie couldn’t give him anything more than a smile as her first course was presented to her, and when she was faced with the food, her appetite vanished along with the strength she had mustered moments ago. She needed to get away from this table. Away from him.

She excused herself and walked as fast as she could to the restrooms in the hotel lobby, only relaxing when she was around the corner and could take a deep breath away from all the prying eyes.

Brett hated this. He just wanted to hold her in his arms and tell her how beautiful she looked, all the things he wanted to do to her.

It just wasn’t his place any more. Truthfully, it had never been his place.

He’d always called her his Lucie, his sunshine girl, but she’d never been his.

In his own heart, yes, but not really. He had walked away because she’d hurt him when she hadn’t told him she felt the same, and now she seemed to be hurting twice as much as he ever had been.

Surely that must mean part of her did feel something too?

If Sienna hadn’t been at the club the night Lucie came looking for him, they might have stood a chance. He’d have forgiven her in a heartbeat, having realised he had no right to be hurt.

He so badly wanted to prove himself to her.

To prove he was so far detached from the person she thought he was, the guy who slept with random women in restrooms and flirted with anyone and everyone.

He hadn’t been that Brett since the hiking trip.

He didn’t know why he’d kissed Sienna. She was there and Lucie wasn’t.

If Lucie had been, it would’ve been her. If she’d let him.

And now he doubted he would ever get the chance again.

He’d been fighting his feelings all evening, desperate to tell her he missed her.

Desperate to know if at least that feeling was mutual.

He had managed a few sentences before she’d walked away, and he felt like an idiot.

He should’ve gone after her. He just didn’t know if he was ready. Or her for that matter.

Alcohol hadn’t even been a temptation over the last few months.

He’d found a genuine love for trying non-alcoholic versions of his favourite beers, and all the different flavoured soft drinks on offer.

He didn’t want it. He’d been working so hard, doing therapy once a week and doing all the exercises and workshops that had been suggested to him.

His racing sim at his apartment had been waiting for him when he got home, updated and ready to go, and he’d thrown himself into it.

He’d been rethinking his entire life plan, and he hadn’t come up with anything that didn’t include Lucie.

‘How has she been?’ he asked Julien, careful not to be so loud that anyone else heard them. Faith may be one of his closest friends, but he was pretty sure she’d chop off one of his favourite body parts given half the chance.

‘Honestly? Pretty decent. She’s taken herself off on a few adventures around the area, thrown herself into work, as she does. The crying has died down in front of an audience, but I don’t know what she’s been like behind closed doors.’

‘Do you think I could come and visit soon?’ he asked.

Julien nodded, quite enthusiastically all things considered. ‘Why don’t you come for Christmas? Marco’s coming and Lucie is still staying with us, it wouldn’t feel right not to have you there.’

‘I don’t know…’ He thought about it.

‘Faith has it in her head that everything’s going to work out, because Christmas is a magical time and all that crap.’

‘I’m in,’ Brett agreed, hoping he hadn’t just committed to making yet another terrible mistake. ‘And Jules? Your wife had better be right.’