Page 41 of Double Apex

“I’ve made a misstep with someone I care about deeply. Phaedra Morgan, my race engineer.”

Brook chuckles. “Haven’t met her, but I’m a fan since the thing last year with that clueless old scrotum who owns Team Coraggio. Don’t know if you heard about their online pissing match. He said snarky shit about ‘lady engineers’ and she fired back that he should stick to what he understands, ‘like tax evasion and horsie-tail butt plugs.’ Y’know—because of that leaked video of him at the sex party.”

“Beautiful,” I say with a laugh. “That’s my fierce girl.”

“Isshe your girl?”

The smile fades from my lips. “Likely not.”

“That’s why you’ve got ‘a face like a slapped arse,’ as Owen says.”

“Yes.” Quiet descends, the only sound the drone of the video game Owen is playing in the living room. I peek at Brook. “I ended up in bed with her.”

“Uh-oh.”

“She hasn’t spoken with me since.”

“Oof.” Brook waits a beat. “Are you in love?”

I sigh. “There’s a saying: Ma faci sa visez în culori—‘You make me dream in colors.’ It’s how she makes me feel.”

Brook takes from her pocket a tin of the anise candies to which she is almost addicted, chooses one, and pops it into her mouth. “You should tell her.”

“I don’t have confidence such a thing would be well received.”

“Why? Because she’s a badass, you think she doesn’t wantto hear schmaltz like that? Lemme tell you a secret: I’d rather get dental surgery than watchThe Notebook, but I still swoon when Owen says romantic shit.” She leans toward me and drops her voice. “None of us is immune.Tell her.Say it in Romanian, an inch from her ear.”

“Hm.”

“But if she doesn’t feel the same way about you, obviously don’t mug yourself.”

I think of Phaedra’s demeanor on the boat. She was businesslike when she got up to wash the bedspread, and insisted I go up on deck and pretend to have fallen asleep in a lounge chair. When the group returned and we went back to the marina, she retreated into her novel. On the shuttle bus to the hotel, she ignored me.

I assumed this was a temporary but necessary deception, especially when I caught her sneaking a sorrowful look at me in the hotel lobby as we all crossed to the elevators.

Now I’m not so sure. Eight days of silence seems to tell a different story.

Wednesday afternoon, I take a chance on going to the hotel where Phaedra and a few others on the team have rooms. Much of the reason I’m staying with Owen and Brooklyn is that I told Reece I would avoid Phaedra in nonwork environments. In exchange, she agreed to drop the issue and say nothing to Klaus.

But I can’t endure another sleepless night picturing Phaedra,remembering her scent, her moans and whispered urgings, those hypnotic green eyes.

I have to see her.

After I knock at her suite, there’s a minute of silence before the door opens. Phaedra’s auburn waves are piled on her head, and she’s wearing a thick hotel bathrobe too long for her short frame. Her lips part. She wrings a handful of the robe’s fabric closed at the neck—likely bare underneath. The scent of lavender and mint swirls around her.

I lean against the doorframe. “May I come in?”

“No.” Her bare feet shift on the champagne-colored carpet, one resting atop the other. “I was taking a bath.” She points a thumb over her shoulder. “Gonna get back to it. I’ll see you at the paddock in the morning.”

Her eyes drift over me, then snap away as if she’s caught herself. I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing I am—remembering what I look like without clothes.

“Draga mea,” I say quietly, “I’m not of the opinion that men are owed an explanation when women spurn them.” I spread my hands. “Still, I would ask.”

“Don’t be Captain Melodrama. You’re notspurned. I’m just avoiding you. And we both know why, so there’s your Scooby-Doo mystery solved.”

“What is ‘scoopy do’?”

She rolls her eyes. “Romania stopped being communist before you were born. You’re telling me they didn’t let you have Scooby-Doo?” She crosses her arms. “It’s an old cartoon about a stupid talking dog and a hippie. Like, fighting crime and shit.”

---