I hide behind another sip of my drink, holding back my next snarky comment. The doorbell rings, and down the hall I hear the guest room door slam—Priya barricading herself until she gets her shit together.
“Can you grab that?” Mom asks. “My hands are all gloopy.”
I gulp down the rest of the White Russian and smack the glass on the counter before taking my sweet time sauntering to the front door. When I open it, Julian is scowling, phone pressed to his ear.
“Paz,” he says with a world-weary sigh. “Paz, stop.I can’t talk right now. Can we finish this later? Christ almighty. I’ll—” He cuts off and looks at the phone. “Great. Perfect.” Finally acknowledging me standing there, he offers a feeble smile. “She hung up.”
“Trouble in paradise?” I stand back to let him in, and when he walks through the doorway, he tries for a one-arm hug. I ward him off by raising one fist for a fist bump instead. “Yeah,no.”
He barely touches my hand with the side of his, then adjusts his duffel bag on one broad shoulder and pockets his phone before raking his overly long hair out of his sorta Hemsworth Brother–ish face. “House smells great,” he tells me as I close the door behind him.
“Definitely smells better than you.”
He dumps his bag at my feet. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and carry this?”
“Get bent. Carry your own shit.”
My father’s voice comes from the living room. “Stop squabbling, you two. Can we have a few minutes before the war kicks off?”
My brother goes in to greet Dad, and they walk together to the kitchen where my mom mops off her hands and flings her arms around her adored firstborn. I lean in the doorway on the other side of the living room, watching them. I know my bickering and distance with Jules doesn’t help in a family with parents who are already frosty with each other.
Priya comes up behind me and rests her chin on my shoulder. “Julian’s here already?” she says innocently.
“As if you wouldn’t sense that guy like a shark smelling a nosebleed a mile off. Sounds like he and the most recent girlfriend are on the outs, so here’s your chance, babes. Can’t say much for your taste, though.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m not his type at all.”
“Yeah, well… that fuckup is definitelyyourtype—‘tall, dark, and disastrous.’” I reach back and pat her cheek. “Take my advice and steer clear. Remember when you didn’t listen to me and got ringworm from that box full of stray kittens?”
“Oh my God, Sage. We were eleven years old.”
“My point exactly. You still can’t resist a cuddly catastrophe.”
She hugs my shoulders, teasing, “That’s why I put up withyou.”
It’s two in the morning, but I can’t sleep. There’s so much on my mind.
I escaped the post-dinner chitchat tonight with the excuse that I need to sleep before a long day of travel tomorrow. But really I was getting too much in my head, worrying about the upcoming season.
Everyone thinks I’m confident all the time, but… the weight of being a woman in a position this visible, of being “an inspiration” to a new generation of girls in motorsport, it’sheavy. Sometimes it feels like I’m not allowed to have needs.
Sick of tossing and turning, I get up and head for the kitchen to snag another one of the éclairs my mom made. The kitchen light is on. Julian stands near the sink with his back to me, shirtless, fiddling with something on the counter. He sniffles.
What the hell? Is he crying?
His head dips. Another sniff, followed by a tapping sound. He turns and spots me in the archway, his fingertip in his mouth… and suddenly I realize what he’s doing.
“What the fuck are you putting up your nose, you degenerate?”
He wipes his hand off on his plaid pajama bottoms. “Just… medicine.”
“Bullshit.” I cross the kitchen and snatch the orange pill bottle off the counter, but he grabs it back before I can read it. “Are those oxys?” I demand. “Fuck, Jules!Still?”
“It’s for my back! Because of the surgery after my fall at Tahquitz.”
“Oh, of course,” I say acidly. “I’m sure the bottle says to crush ’em up and snort rails—that’s the recommended method, right?”
He rakes a hand through his messy hair. “Can you crawl outta my ass? I just… sometimes I need it to kick in faster.”
