Page 68 of Retrograde
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’tsee, 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 onlyhaving 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 paintingsallday. Should just let me paint something. A watercolour of you, naked. You could pose like Rose inTitanic.’ 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.
Lucie usually veered towards a hatred of cities. Not only was the parking a nightmare, but there were too many people. She liked to get away from mass crowds when she wasn’t at the track, not be in the middle of them, getting shoved into left, right and centre. What shedid love about them was the tourist shops. Her nieces and nephews had huge magnet collections, courtesy of her travels. But those tourist shops also had newspapers outside, and her heart skipped a beat when she spotted one with Brett’s face on it, displayed in a rack on the side of the street. To her relief, he failed to notice.
He was too busy on his phone, searching the best places to eat. Looking through Instagram, of course. Because that was what self-titled Foodies did. ‘This looks fancy as fuck, let’s go here.’ He grabbed her hand and pulled her down a side street.
It was cobbled, with the terraced houses towering on either side of them, the sounds of the city quietened by their walls, and it was delightfully empty. Lucie could breathe a sigh of relief to be away from it all.
They walked into the restaurant and Lucie gawked at the interior. Itwasfancy. Not in the nicely decorated, let’s-go-here-for-a-special-occasion kind of way, but in the pretentious, the-likes-of-Lucie-Carolan-can’t-afford-to-eat-here kind of way. Brett fitted right in wearing his Versace shirt, but her unknown brand dress made her feel nervous, as if she might result in them being turned away by the overly friendly waiter heading towards them.
‘Brett Anderson, as I live and breathe!’ His accent wasn’t Italian. Lucie couldn’t place it, but either way, he looked over the moon to see them. ‘Come in, please. It is a pleasure to have you and your guest here, sir. My name is Ilyas.’
‘Hey, Ilyas.’ Brett shook his hand, and he looked like he might faint. ‘This is my… Lucie.’
Had he been about to introduce her to a total stranger as if they were something? It felt like a slip-up of sorts. She just blinked at them both, like a deer caught in headlights.
‘LucieCarolan? You work with Mr Anderson’s racing team, no?’
‘I– I do! Hello.’ Why on God’s green earth was she feeling shy all of a sudden. Lucie didn’t do shy. It was her job to be bubbly and friendly, but she was thrown off.
‘My wife loves your vlogs with Miss Jensen! And that podcast you ladies do! What is it called?Across Finish?’
‘Across The Line.’ Brett corrected him.
