Page 80 of Green Flag
Her voice was casual when it finally came. “Only turns out now?”
I leaned against the wall, sipping my water. “I’m a slow learner.”
She didn’t laugh, not really. But she didn’t look away either.
And I was so completely fucked.
17
Chapter 17
Luca
Portugal was one of my favourite race tracks. The Algarve was somewhere I could happily stay forever. Every time I came back, there was something new for me to do: kayaking, caving, and swimming with dolphins.
My dates with Everly were the thrill of my week. Everything in her presence became fun. Whether it was watching Marco train her at the gym or ending up side by side celebrating on a Sunday night, everything with her felt easy — even when it was for show. My arm around her shoulders had been something I’d only dreamed of when her photos came up on my feed over the last few years, and yet… here I was, having to rein in my excitement. Even not pretending and just being in her presence was thrilling. Breaking into one of the trailers for her missingsunglasses gave me a new kind of adrenaline rush — not from the risk, but from being the one she turned to.
She disarmed me without even trying.
And when she couldn’t find them, pouting her lips in frustration, I wanted to buy her a new pair on the spot.
Cris didn’t want to show he cared about Everly’s new ‘relationship’, but he did. It was obvious in the looks he gave her.
Besides our conversation in the meeting room, he hadn’t spoken to me about Everly.
For the next two races, we spoke only of the sport.
“We’ve got to go bigger,” Everly said one morning in my trailer, legs crossed on my bed, looking at a picture a tabloid had posted of us on a night out for her birthday in Amsterdam. She’d shown me earlier, zooming in on how her very bare thighs were on my lap in the club. I’d had to turn back to my game before I remembered just how I’d ended that night, standing outside of her hotel room door, desperate to knock. “We need to really push him if he’s going to consider letting you go.”
“How?” I asked, playing on the new StormSprint PlayStation game. It was coming out in December for Christmas, but we’d been given the beta version to promote.
I was just as shit at it as I was at actually racing.
At least I was better than Nix. He was in the same game as me, chuckling in my headphones to himself, arrogant that though he was awful at the game, he was the best in real life.
Everly, however, was becoming a natural with the games we played most afternoons in our —my— trailer as we plotted.
“What if the music video for the StormSprint song was a bit… spicy?”
My frown was deeper as my bike veered around the corner. I checked I was on mute so Nix wouldn’t overhear. “I’m not really a model, Everly.”
She scoffed. “Now you’re just being modest.”
For a few minutes, she was silent, flicking through her book. But the topic was still on her mind. “An interview? With a photoshoot?”
Immediately, my mind went to Nix’s interview with his fake girlfriend, Clara, a few months ago and I shook my head at how completely awkward that had been.
Not just because Livie was also in the room, but because it seemed obvious they weren’t together.
“Wouldn’t want that to expose us.”
“But we need exposure.”
She did have a point. If I wanted to piss off her dad, we were going to have to make our ‘love’ more pronounced. I hated the pressure of pretending around her, because being with her felt so real, it almost convinced me it was.
“My mum always said to fake it until you make it,” I told her as my bike crashed. I’d have to practice two sports now. Hopefully, it wasn’t a sign of how this afternoon’s qualifying would go.
“My mum always says if you want to do it, you’ve got to put all your effort in.”
