Page 109 of Tailwind

I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me. ‘Yeah.’

‘So you can actually fly now? You don’t suck anymore?’ His energy was back, insulting me a surefire way for him to cheer himself up.

Relief flooded through me. I buttoned up the next set of matte-black trousers and reopened the curtain. The long-sleeved silk shirt was clingy and flowed nicely over my arm muscles. It clung to my other curves too. But I was more concerned about looking like I could take someone in a fight than to bed. Though with my new plan in mind, it didn’t hurt that I looked like I could do both.

Theo stared at me, looking me up and down. His shoulders tensed, like he was bracing himself.

‘I thought this would be a good combination,’ I said, sulking at the lack of immediate approval.

He blinked a few times, his brown eyes clearing. ‘It is.’

My eyes rolled of their own accord. ‘Then why does your face look like it’s just been slapped?’

‘No, it doesn’t.’ He rolled his shoulders and ran a hand into his hair.

‘Yes it d—’

He pushed me back into the dressing room. His hands were sweaty from being stuffed in his pockets. ‘You look fine. We’ll buy them. Get back into your raggedy old clothes so we can move on.’

‘All right, calm down.’ I wasn’t going to argue if it meant the end of shopping. Whatever stick had lodged itself in Theo’s ass was none of my business, not if it worked in my favour.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

‘What happened?’ Josie stared me down across the table we were sharing.

The library at the ranch was long and narrow with windows all along one side, facing into the jungle. There was a heavy desk, fabric armchairs and two tables, the smaller of which we chose for the strategy lessons. Maybe it was habit after only having had small spaces to study in previously, or maybe I felt that Josie could better protect me from all the formidable-looking books that stared at me from the other three walls, but Josie had me move the desk next to the double doors that led to the porch outside. She said the fresh air stimulated my brain.

‘Hm?’ I carried on looking over the sheet Josie had given me – a map of one of the earlier circuits I’d missed racing on this season. The most efficient path – the racing line – had been highlighted, along with minimum and maximum speeds. There were a lot of annotations in Josie’s neat but tiny handwriting.

‘Lena, it took me less than ten minutes of knowing you to realize you hate reading, so stop faking. You’ve not even asked about Gottyk yet today. I would have assumed you were sick, but every time you hear Theo’s name you look like you need to use the bathroom. So I’m theorizing that something happened.’

My forehead hit the dark wood tabletop, ripping through the paper I hadn’t been studying. ‘Ugh.’

Silence, but I could feel the hair on the back of my neck prickle, the telltale sign that my strategist, friend and all around know-it-all was still waiting for her answer.

I lifted myself up, barely, slumped on my elbows and half-sprawled across the study material. ‘There was a weird moment.’

Josie’s eyes narrowed, creasing in the corners as she let herself indulge in a tight smile. ‘Tell me.’

The edges of the ripped paper fluttered as I sighed heavily. ‘I don’t know. While we’ve been hanging out it’s been—’ I waved a hand in the air. ‘Different. I’m just very aware of … how aware I am. Of him.’

Her slender brows rose.

‘No!’ I shot back at her. ‘Stop taking flying leaps. There’s nowhere for you to go. He’s a flirt … whatever. He gets into my personal space all the time. The weirdness is that for a split second,’ – I pinched my finger and thumb together, trying desperately to emphasize how fleeting the feelings had been. – ‘I didn’t hate it.’

Josie tossed her glossy straight hair over a shoulder. ‘Congratulations, Lena, you’re human like the rest of us. An attractive person showed you some attention and it stirred up your loins.’

I recoiled. ‘Don’t say loins.’

‘But you don’t have a problem with acknowledging Theo is attractive? This is more serious than I thought.’ She neatened her own notes, keeping them away from me.

Josie may have been a fast thinker, but she was too slow to dodge the ball of paper I threw at her head. It bounced off on to the floor, never to be studied again.

‘I thought the purpose of having a friend was to have her be nice to me.’ I grimaced, wallowing in self-pity.

‘We’re past that stage now,’ she said, completely unbothered. ‘Now we’re committed to this friendship there’s an open licence on mocking each other mercilessly. Feel free to do it back – you’ll just have to find a flaw to make fun of first. Good luck.’

That’s why she’d had no problem embarrassing me in front of Bach over drinks the other night then. My mouth opened and hung there in the breeze while my brain tried to rake up any dirt on Josie in return. Nothing came to mind, so I just groaned instead. ‘You’re so frustrating.’