Page 48

“Huh?”

“If you can’t sleep. Works better for me than counting sheep. Something about the bouncing. It’s calming.”

She lifts a brow but doesn’t respond.

We get through ten minutes before she shifts in the chair and pushes her hair behind her shoulder. Behind her, students pass, a few bearing pennants they made for the driver series.

“This whole race series is a stunt,” she says under her breath. “Luca must realize you and Theo are his sons and not his PR spectacle.”

“I’m not sure he does.” The words slip out, and it’s too late to take them back when she raises a brow.

“Come on. You’re practically his mini me.”

The comparison makes me wince. My father was a hell of a driver, and I intend to surpass his accomplishments on the track. But there are reasons to hope some of his wiring didn’t get passed on to me.

He doesn’t advertise the part of his story where his team tried to phase him out of racing at the end of his driving career, saying he wasn’t as sharp as he used to be, and he responded by buying the company.

Or the part where he slept with different women every year that Theo and I were kids, causing shouting matches that echoed in the halls of our enormous house until he eventually paid them to leave. Or how he only took an interest in my younger brother when he could be used to make me better.

Luca would call himself strategic, but there are other words for it.

“I always looked up to him,” I say finally, “but he used to say I took too much after my mother.”

I expect that to end this conversation but instead, Townie leans in. “What’s she like?”

I frown, remembering that her experience of family is probably even more limited than mine.

“Kind,” I say at last.

“She doesn’t live with you.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Sorry.” She turns the page of my textbook.

I know her history. It’s not a huge risk if she knows a piece of mine. “My father wasn’t faithful. She loved him, but eventually realized there was nothing there to love, so she left.”

The look on Shay’s face has me regretting the admission.

“It’s fine, Townie. I’ll drown myself in Cristal if I’m feeling sentimental. Jump off that bridge you mentioned. Besides, you had it worse.”

“Pain isn’t a contest.”

I cock my head. “Everything is.”

We go to work for a bit, me quizzing her. She knows more than she let on to Vogel. Either she studied up for this or she really wasn’t at her best the other day.

“This isn’t enough.” She leans back in her chair, stretching her arms overhead. “I can’t win the internship by studying hard. There are hundreds of engineers.”

“So, what’s your plan?”

The little groan she makes as her shirt rides up her stomach is particularly distracting, and I force my attention up to her face.

Shay folds her arms and turns toward me. “The drivers are all distinct. Everyone knows who you are. I have to set myself apart.”

“But your work is distinctive,” I counter. “When I get into the Porsche, I know it was you.”

“Not like all the other girls who fuck with your car?”