Page 83 of Broken Breath
Piper and Otis exchange the most annoying look known to man.
“Oh my God.” Piper’s eyes widen. “Has someone finally not fallen for your shit?”
I bite my lip, because, well,yeah.
“Jesus,” Otis breathes. “It’s worse.He likes her.”
“No.”And it’s a him, I correct mentally, then groan into my hands. “It’s not even real.”
Because Petit doesn’t want me back.
“So what is it, then?” Piper asks.
“A disaster,” I say flatly, dropping my hands. “Un petit désastre.”
Otis is slack-jawed for a moment before finding his words. “Fuck, he’s really in love, isn’t he?” He chuckles, making Piper snort.
I’m about to tell them both to go choke on a handlebar when a shadow moves past us on the edge of the setup.
A petite frame and blue hoodie with the hood up, walking fast, like he’s late for something or doesn’t want to be seen.
My pulse skips, then kicks into overdrive, and I place my hand over my heart again. It just won’t calm the fuck down.
“I’ve got something to do,” I say by way of farewell, already moving toward my fixation. Otis yells something after me, but I don’t pay him any attention. I step over cables, dodge a half-built scaffold, and nearly trip on a rogue bottle that skitters across the gravel, but none of it slows me down.
Toulouse squeaks from my sleeve, offended by the motion. “I know,” I mutter. “I’m being pathetic.”
I can be charming and pathetic at the same time. I’mLuc-fucking-Delacroix.
I haven’t seenPetitCrews since the race in Poland or heard his voice since his dreaded rejection, and it’s driving me insane. Following close enough to not be detected, not that he’s paying much attention to his surroundings, I shadow him past the other teams’ pits and to the tree line.
He probably doesn’t want to be my friend because I hurt him, but deciding that just because I had one little fuckup is not fair, and it’s time he hears me out. I clench my fists and increase my speed, closing in on him.
“Bonjour,mon Petit,” I say when I’m close enough. Heactually jumps, and I grin, coming to a stop beside him. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
He turns to look at me, hood still up, eyes narrowed in the opposite of welcome. “What do you want?”
Ouch. That hurt, but still, I want to say, You. And no, I don’t know why.
But all that comes out is, “I haven’t seen you around,” I say it as if my brain hasn’t been short-circuiting for three days straight because of him.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “Took a while to get here.”
I cock my head to the side. “How come?”
“Flat tire.”
My brows pull together. “Are you okay?”
I really take him in then, and my heart squeezes at what I find. He has red-rimmed eyes and is paler than usual. He’s wrecked, and after the first rather rude question, he dropped the comically deep voice he’s always using, like he doesn’t have the energy to maintain it. It’s stripped down and soft now, not forced or armored, just tired.
“Yeah. Finn and Mason’s dad helped.”
I frown. “Theydrove with you?”
“No. Mason and his dad passed by and helped. Finn traveled with us on the bus.”
Finn traveled with us on the bus.
