Page 64 of Full Throttle

He was distracted as they stood for the national anthem, his mind racing as he climbed into his car. He hadn’t even slept with that girl. He’d brought her back to the hotel, and then he had—for the first time—experienced a wave of something that could only be described as complete apathy. I don’t want this, he’d thought, and the realization had rattled him more than he cared to admit.

So Dominic had sent her home in a taxi.

And now…

He drew a deep breath. Focus, he told himself sternly. Hand to steering wheel, foot to pedals. Punch the correct buttons. It was a routine he’d been doing for years. He knew it better than brushing his own teeth.

His speaker crackled. “Hastings?”

“Hi, Blake.”

The race engineer slurped something. Sweet tea, no doubt. He drank the stuff by the gallon. “Are you ready?”

Dominic strapped himself in. Was he ready? Difficult to say. What he knew was that he didn’t have a choice. “Let’s go.”

A light flickered overhead.

Two.

Three.

Sinclair’s lights glowed red. Twin monstrous eyes. Dominic bit down until his teeth ached.

Four.

Dominic could see Juliette’s car behind him. He closed his eyes. Please, for the love of god, say she didn’t go home with him.

Five.

Briefly, Dominic wondered if she was nervous for her first race in Monaco, then dismissed the idea. Juliette held the world in her palm, examining it as if it were an apple that she intended to eat. She wasn’t scared of anything.

Lights out.

And away they went.

Dominic slammed on the gas. But Juliette was faster, shooting past him on the first turn, and he cursed under his breath.

This was where distractions got you.

He barreled into the second turn. Monaco was one of the hardest tracks of the season. Everything’s designed to kill you, his father used to say. The narrow track, the hairpin turns, the other drivers…It was a miracle if you overtook another driver in Monaco. An even bigger miracle if you did it in one piece.

“Careful into turn five,” Blake warned.

Dom turned the wheel, and the car jerked, half sliding across the track. Blood pounded in his ears. “Where are we?”

More radio crackling. “P6.”

Dom whipped around the fifth corner, taking a hairpin turn into the next. His neck ached with the effort of keeping his head up. The force of the acceleration pinned his body to the seat, and he could feel every bump on the road. Every twist and turn. You are the car, his father used to say. The car is you.

“How’s the balance?” Blake asked.

“Not bad.” It was bad. Worse than any other car he’d driven, by far. “I’ve got some understeer around the corners.”

“Noted.”

Dominic took a hairpin turn. Pink buildings and terra-cotta tiles whizzed by in a symphony of color. Monaco had been his mother’s favorite city to photograph; a picture of the Port de Fontvieille had hung in their living room. The first photograph that his father had pointed out when he’d stepped into her gallery, according to his mother. “I like the way the sun’s hitting the water,” Vance had said. “It reminds me of a song.” Even now, Dominic had difficulty imagining his father speaking so poetically. His mother, on the other hand, had spoken about everything as if it were poetry. An apple was a fallen star. A washed-up boat was the skeleton of some great animal. She’d sit in her darkroom, holding up photographs. Look at the light, mon cher. Do you see how it drapes over the table?

Sinclair’s lights glowed ahead. His radio crackled.