Page 101 of Double Apex

Thankfully thesqueeeeee!shriek warns me a second before impact or I’d think I was being attacked and give Brooklyn a defensive punch in the tit.

She spins me around by the shoulders, and the guy in front of us in line scowls. Sometimes I really hate Abu Dhabi because of the glares I see men deliver to women when they “act up”—as in, make their presence discernible on any level.

This works in Brooklyn’s favor, because my normal impulse would be to respond to her effusiveness in typical deadpan fashion, but to send a nicefuck you, buddyto the douche in front of us, I fling my arms around her and loudly exclaim back.

“Soooo nice to see you!”

Social merriment is so unlike me that I’m worried I’ll sound sarcastic, but she makes a happy groaning noise andsqueezes me. The dickhead in front of us moves off to collect his coffee, and I’m about to put in my order when Brooklyn stops me.

“Don’t get the shitty coffee here. There’s a place a cab ride away that you have to try. We can catch up!”

Technically “catching up” implies a history, but I don’t bother pointing this out. The cashier clears his throat, taking exception to Brooklyn’s valuation of the coffee.

“Don’t hate me!” she begs him, digging in her purse. Whipping a twenty-euro note out, she plants it in the tip jar before manacling my arm and dragging me away.

She practically frog-marches me into a cab—the casual observer might be concerned I’m being kidnapped. After giving me a playful hip check, she slides into the back seat and directs our driver to wherever the hell we’re off to.

“So, what’s the verdict?” she asks. “Are you going to the race? I’m gonna head to the paddock after lunch.”

“Meh. Things are weird—I feel out of place. I don’t know how to do this without Mo.”

“Hmm, yeah.” She pulls a tin of pastilles from her bag. “Doesn’t help that you and Cozzy are on the outs. Is that a real deal, or one of those things where you pretend to be mad and it turns into hot make-up sex?”

I hum a grim note of laughter. “Ha, no.”

“Oh God, Peach was such a brat on Friday when we saw you.”

I pretend to examine a building we’re passing. “Can’t say I noticed.”

“I’d have told Owen to turn her over his knee, but they’d both love it. Not much of a punishment.”

I respond with an ambiguous chuckle that works whether she’s serious or joking.

“She’s been such a sassy britches lately,” Brooklyn adds with a sigh.

Super terrif. I’ll bet she’s all kinds of spicy in the sack, I mentally sulk. A younger, more fun version of me—the bitchy banter, minus the pesky intellect and existential angst.

“Between you and me? It’s this,” Brooklyn goes on, thrusting her left hand out to display a pink diamond engagement ring that’d easily cost as much as a McLaren 720S if it’s real. “Owen proposed in Brazil. I told him to get Peach something too so she wouldn’t pout—he bought her a pair of honkin’ big Tahitian pearl and diamond Tiffany earrings.”

“Clever lad. Never hurts to throw Tiffany at the problem.”

“But then she goes, ‘Shouldn’t we all three handfast?’ And I’m likeexcuse me? That’s hippie crap. I love the girl—I do. But we arenotthrouple-marrying. This puppy is gonna be legally binding standard issue.”

She digs a smooth candy from the tin.

“Can you imagine the press if Owen were a polygamist?” She pops the pastille into her mouth. “Like something from one of my dad’s TV shows. Peach and I go way back, so she forgets that even though she’s been my friend since boarding school, she’s the extra where Owen and I are concerned—the bar in the letterA, you might say. Sometimesliterally. There’s a ‘modified Eiffel Tower’ sort of thing we…”

She trails off, because I think there’s a weird expression on my face at the surprising news—I hope it resembles the confusion it is, rather than judgment.

The emoji is dating Brooklyn and Owen, not Cosmin?

Huh.

“T-M-I?” she asks, wincing at my long pause. “Or wait, do you not know what I mean? The sex act, not the landmark.”

“I’m notthatold, for fuck’s sake. Yes, I know you mean the sex act.” I give her a bland smirk. “Does it make me sound like a size queen that when I first saw the Eiffel Tower, it was way smaller than I expected? Unimpressed.”

She cracks up, flinging an arm around me. “You shouldliveon social media—I mean it, girl.”

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