Page 77 of Full Throttle

She exhaled. “Thank you.” She released the doorknob. “I’ll see you later?”

Dominic gave her a half smile. “Later.”

Juliette slipped into the corridor, ignoring the outraged look from the male student who had been rattling the door. He looked about fourteen or fifteen. Too young to be friends with anyone she knew. She couldn’t deny that the thought brought a pinch of relief, along with something else. Trepidation, maybe.

She exhaled.

Could she really hide a relationship with Dominic Hastings? The most promising young racer in a century? The paparazzi had been camped outside the academy for weeks. Hell, they’d found a journalist with a camera lying in the bottom of a wine crate the other day. It felt like impossible odds.

And maybe that was because it was.

Chapter 25

Spare Part

Now

Of all the ways to die, Juliette thought, being stabbed by a dart in a grimy English pub was low on the list. Above being burned alive, for example, but certainly below drowning in a sea of kittens.

She leaned back, narrowly avoiding the sticky projectile. Cap was waving the dart in question while arguing with Baz. Well, Cap was arguing; Baz was patting Clyde and giving the occasional exasperated nod, looking entirely prepared to back down if it meant avoiding an hour-long rant.

“Dios mío,” Baz muttered. “Let’s have a redo then. To decide the game.”

Cap frowned. “I don’t need to. I’ve won.”

“If you say so.”

“Fine.” Cap held out the dart. “You go first.”

Baz ruffled the dog’s fur. “If I get this,” he said, preparing to fire, “you both owe me a beer in Belgium.”

Juliette rolled her eyes. The six races in June and July had passed quickly, although summer break had felt agonizingly slow; she’d spent the four weeks training in the gym and stitching Shakespearean theater costumes for her parents and generally avoiding thinking about anything stressful. Like that ill-advised night in the garage with Dominic. Or the imminent threat to her position on the team. Or both.

Still.

She was desperate to get into her race car again. Even spending a few days without it felt like hacking off a limb.

“You hate Belgian beer,” Juliette said. “You think it tastes like warm tar.”

Baz fired. The shot rebounded off the sticky pub wall, and Baz knelt, hastily grabbing Clyde’s collar before the dog could race to retrieve it. “I don’t hate it.”

“You do.”

Baz released Clyde’s collar. “Hate is a very strong word. I hate littering, or butter that won’t spread. But I don’t hate Belgian beer.” He paused. “I can’t even think of a single person that I hate.”

Juliette pursed her lips. “Lucky you.”

Cap and Baz exchanged a look. It was the do-we-ask-about-that-crash-in-Monaco-or-do-we-pretend-it-never-happened look. They’d been exchanging it throughout August.

“I could slash Hastings’s tires,” Cap volunteered, at the same time that Baz said, “You want to talk about it?”

Something warmed Juliette’s chest. It was always nice, she thought, when people offered to commit a minor criminal offense on your behalf. “I don’t want to talk about it. Anyway, Hastings is in France, so that would be an international felony.”

She was still avoiding social media, although she’d looked yesterday, only to discover that Liêm had posted a story on a yacht in Cannes. Dominic had been sitting in the driver’s seat, wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses; a redheaded woman had been leaning playfully over his shoulder.

Which was fine.

They’d agreed not to continue things. Hastings could do what he liked. And if he wanted to squander his summer break on women and booze while she trained to take his seat, fine. On his head be it.