HELL NO
BILLY
“Was it that bad?” Clara asks me as I walk back into the hotel room. Like the perfect personal assistant she is, Clara already has my bag and hers packed and waiting at the door. She’s in a charcoal gray tracksuit, her hair pulled up in another tight, high ponytail. “Your face doesn’t look happy.”
“She basically acted like I didn’t exist,” I reply and fight the scowl that wants to dominate my face. I know if I act too upset about this, Clara will ping like an Apple Alert on my watch. She was up my ass when I got back to my suite. I don’t know what about my face said ‘I just tasted heaven’ but something did because she kept asking questions. And then I had to kick her out, and wouldn’t tell her why I was doing that, so she was really annoyed. The fact is, I had to jerk off but telling her that was off the table, obviously.
“So she ignored the drivers?”
“Not the drivers. The driver. Me.” I interrupt before Clara can find the right insult for Frankie’s behavior. “She talked to Antonio but she couldn’t even be bothered to lean across the table to greet me properly.”
Clara’s wide, dark eyebrows shoot up. “She ghosted you. How horrible.”
Her tone is deadpan. She’s mocking me. Because I treated Frankie like that, and Clara knows it. Clara knows everything. So my response is equally deadpan. “Ha. Ha. I wish I wasn’t so loose lipped with you.”
“But you are.” She smiles. “That’s what sisters are for.”
I grumble and there’s a knock at the door that I almost don’t hear because Clara is laughing. Cackling actually. I stomp over to the door, expecting the bellhop who has come to collect our luggage. We have a flight to Barcelona in a little over an hour. But instead, I’m greeted by Bash filling the doorway. He’s smiling sympathetically. “My boy! Do you have a moment?”
I nod and glance over my shoulder at Clara. She walks over and pulls up the handles on both our bags. “I’ll bring these down to the lobby myself and wait for you there.”
Bash gives her shoulder a squeeze as she passes him and she smiles. Then he marches past me into my suite. He walks right over to the window and stares out at the ocean view, smiling. I close the door behind Clara and wait for him to speak. After exhaling a deep breath, he turns to me. “Frankie will come around.”
I try not to react. I am afraid any facial expression I give him will scream ‘I had sexual relations with your daughter.’ Instead, I avert my eyes to the blue waves just beyond his shoulder and I shrug. “It is what it is.”
“Look, I don’t know why you two have never gotten along, but she knows you’re our best driver. She’s told me flat-out in the past,” Bash says and crosses the distance between us. “She’ll come around, and if she doesn’t, I’ll talk to her. Frankie is passionate and a bit outlandish at times, but when it comes to this sport, she’s beyond capable and has impeccable instincts. If she could have been a driver, she’d have been better than me.”
“But she didn’t want to drive. She wanted to manage?” I question and Bash looks conflicted.
“It’s a long story,” he mutters and waves a hand in the air but says nothing else.
“Okay. Well, for the record I don’t hate her or anything. I’ve never had an issue with her. I just…”
“You keep yourself walled off from everyone because of the secrets you’re keeping for your mom,” Bash nails it. “I think Frankie knows you’re keeping something from her… from the world, and she’s leery of you.”
I shrug again. He’s sort of right. I know that Frankie is mad because I ghosted her when we were kids and I haven’t been completely honest about that. But I thought after last night she had enough of an answer that I wouldn’t need to explaineverythingto her. “Well, Bash, respectfully, I have a right to a private life.”
“Yes, but you confided in me that Clara was your sister,” Bash reminds me.
“Because I knew you were watching me, looking to put me on your team, and I was going to have to skip races,” I explain and try not to sound short, but I hate talking about the past. All of it but especially this part. “And I knew you’d see through bullshit, so I had to tell you my mom tried to take her own life when she found out my dad had a love child with another woman and that he wanted to leave the love child half his estate.”
Bash’s eyes, the same amber fleckedcafe au laitcolor as his eldest daughter, grow soft. “I always hoped you’d be able to talk about it with less venom by now.”
“I don’t think that will ever change, Bash,” I reply and hate that it feels like I’m disappointing him. He’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a father. He was the dad that Tommy James could never be, at least not to me. Clara has much fonder memories. “And I don’t think I can tell Frankie. At least I’m not ready to right now.”
“Even if it improves your relationship?”
I just shake my head and run a guilty hand through my hair. Bash blinks and nods, accepting my answer even if he doesn’t agree with it. God, I love this man. “Please don’t take this as a reflection of my thoughts on your business decision because it’s not. I’m sure Frankie will do great once her feet are under her. But… I’m going to miss you in the pit and you know, around.”
Bash smiles deeply, causing creases by his eyes, and he yanks me into a hug. He slaps my back lovingly. “I’ll always be there in the stands and you can call or text anytime. You know you’re not getting rid of me.”
“Good!” I grin as we break the hug.
He claps my shoulder. “You know, people are sending her flowers and gifts to wish her luck and congratulate her. Maybe a small token from you will smooth things over a bit?”
I thought the orgasm I gave her did that, but okay. “I’ll try and send her a little something.”
“Good. Well, whether you decide to tell Frankie or not, I know you two will sort it out. I have faith in you both.”
