Page 27 of Retrograde
‘Are you sure? It’s only been two weeks, you were supposed to have six weeks off.’ She looked at him hesitantly, not sure whether to trust him. She shouldn’t, considering he was doing something he had never done before, he was lying straight to her face.
‘One hundred and ten per cent. You’re not mad?’ He had braced himself for a major freak-out and a whole lot of hostility, but instead she just looked kind of broken.
‘No. Not right at this second, anyway.’ She was still eyeing him cautiously.
‘Can you stop being so scared I might break and put your arms around me? I missed you.’
She nodded slowly and wrapped her arms around his waist. Brett had forgotten how to live a life without Lucie Carolan, and he didn’t ever want to remember.
She was going to murder him. Verbally. Actually, no, she wasn’t. She was going to stay cool, calm and collected. She was just going to run this week like a military operation and keep a very close eye on his behaviour. If he slipped up even once, or showed any minor indication that he wasn’t okay, she was taking charge of the private jet and sending him back to Sydney. Verbally assaulting him and voicing her frustrations would do nothing except push him away.
Brett wasn’t the kind of person who took well to criticism, and if he knew how furious she was, he might act out and turn to alcohol. Because let’s face it, two weeks was nowhere near enough time to kick an addiction issue and treat ten-plus years’ worth of deep, emotional trauma.
‘Lucie!’ Faith ran after her, an iced coffee in each hand. ‘Take this.’ She held out the creamy brown liquid, ice cubes rattling against each other.
‘Oh, thank God.’ Lucie heaved a sigh of relief, her eyes practically rolling back in her head as she took a long sip. Caffeine was her guilty pleasure, and it always calmed her down on particularly stressful days.
‘Tell me I didn’t just see Brett?’ Faith’s blue eyes were wide, Lucie’s own concern reflected in them.
‘If I told you that, I’d be lying.’
‘Is he okay?’
‘That’s the thing, I don’t know. I’m not going to know until something happens, and then it will be too late. I know Brett like the back of my own hand, but even I can’t work out if he genuinely believes he doesn’t need more time and more help, or if he’s lying to me so I let him stay without ratting him out.’
‘Is Jasper annoyed, do you think?’ Faith glanced at the team’s mobile HQ where Jasper was having a lunch meeting with Julien.
‘Well, he did have a reserve on standby… but he said weeks ago that if Brett wanted to race and he showed up sober and with his head in the game, the seat was his. Brett is an idiot sometimes, but he’s not that stupid. He would never put lives at risk on the track.’
‘No, of course not. If there was even the slightest doubt in Jasper’s mind that Brett was incapable of keeping himself, the car, and everyone else safe, he would be cut from the team. Immediately. Any of the boys would be.’
‘Yep. So, I guess we just have to believe that Brett knows what he’s doing.’
‘So, here’s what we do know. Let’s talk it out. He’s sober right now, there have been no stories in the press of him out drinking in Sydney, and he’s told you he feels fine. So as far as he’s concerned, and as far as we are concerned, he’s fit to race. At least this week. We’ll monitor the situation for each race going forward.’
‘I guess.’ Lucie bit her lip.
‘He’s got this, Luce.’ Faith placed a reassuring hand on her arm. ‘Just don’t yell at him.’
‘Ha!’ Lucie heaved out a laugh. ‘Trust me, I want to. He’s lucky all I could do was stand and gawk at him.’
‘He does have that effect on women.’ Faith shrugged and was immediately met with narrowed eyes. ‘Okay, okay. Not you, obviously.’ She raised an eyebrow, knowing full well that Lucie definitelydidfall into that category.
‘How likely do you think it is that I could convince him to speak to the team psychologist?’ Lucie bit her lip, already knowing it wouldn’t go down well.
‘I say we leave that to Jasper.’
When they rounded the corner, Jasper was embracing Brett in a tight hug. Their boss didn’t dish out hugs often, and he tended to save them for when a member of his team was going through a hard time. He was always there when you really needed him. ‘Ladies! Can we make sure we shoot some content with Anderson, today? Maybe copy some video trends or something, keep it light.’
‘Oh, sure,’ Faith agreed.
‘We haven’t announced Woods as the reserve yet, so we won’t have to clarify anything on social media. He’s here at the track, hovering in the background, but he won’t be featured in any content. We need to write Anderson into the schedule for the rest of the week. Now we’ve got our guy back, I also want a vlog of him and the boys. Second race of the season, team! Let’s get on it!’ Jasper clapped his hand on Brett’s back and smiled at them.
So that was it, then? It was business as usual at Revolution Racing.
12
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.
