Phobic (Phoebe Reede: The Untold Story #2)

by Michelle Irwin

  While we ate, I told him the least pathetic version I could. A version where I was in the States because of the challenge of stock car racing, and not because I’d come chasing after Beau.

  After I’d finished my story, Xavier rested his hand on mine. “If you ever need a friend, I’m here for you.”

  I squeezed his fingers. “Thank you.”

  IT WAS ALMOST a week before I had all the parts for the bike. During that time, Xavier and I spoke almost daily. At first, it was to confirm what parts Bee had and what parts he could order in, then Xavier would call as each item came in. As we spoke though, we developed an easy friendship. At least so long as we avoided the topic of sex before marriage, Beau, and religion.

  The idea of getting the bike back on the road in one piece was almost as exciting to him as it was to me. Only almost though, because I was in desperate need of a long ride to blow the cobwebs from my head—and to shake Beau from my brain.

  Once everything had come in, I headed back in to Richards Racing to start piecing everything back together. Xavier found me during his lunch break and helped with some of it. Despite his more conservative world view, he was actually a pretty cool kid.

  For the next three days, I worked on the bike. Mostly, I did it alone, but Xavier would join me every lunch break and after he’d clocked off. Each night, Xavier and I would walk down to Duke’s for dinner. I was happy to learn they did more than just burgers and fries and was slowly working my way through their menu.

  Thankfully, I didn’t encounter Beau on any of the days I was at Richards Racing. I figured one more day and I’d be ready to take my bike home. I’d already cancelled the hire car contract and Xavier had offered to collect me from the depot and take me to the track the following day for testing before heading into work to collect my bike once we finished.

  Unfortunately, the whole team was lined up and ready to watch my debut in the car. No doubt waiting to watch me fail. Of all people, Beau stood at Jase’s side. Every time I so much as glanced in their direction, I caught them both shooting daggers at me.

  “What’s his problem?” Xavier asked as he glanced around me to take in Beau’s scowl.

  I rested my hand on Xavier’s chest. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “The guy broke your heart and yet he’s glaring at you as if you’re doing something wrong.”

  My teeth found the inside of my cheek. “Just ignore him. Trust me, it’s easier.”

  “You should say something to Mr Richards.”

  I offered Xavier a soft smile. He may have been a year older than me, but he was far more naive in some respects, especially considering Mr Richards was his uncle. He still lived in a world where the people in authority looked out for the best interests of those under them. I’d learned the hard way that it wasn’t always the case, and had been reminded of that when I’d seen Mr Richards about Jase.

  After all, Jase was still there and my complaints against him were far more substantial than any issue I had with Beau. “It’s not worth it. There’s only one place I can earn Beau’s respect, and the respect of all these people, and that’s out there.” I nodded toward the test track.

  Before long, I was ready to get on the track. I slid into the car and took a moment to get used to the set-up. Everything was in reverse from what I was used to. Some of the gauges were set up a little different to the ones I’d stared at for years back home.

  Jase leaned into the window and ran me through the basics. The basic basics. I bit my tongue at his patronising tone as he showed me the purpose of every single switch and dial. As if I hadn’t taken the time to learn the details before getting in the car. Anyone listening in probably would have thought I’d never even seen a regular street car before, let alone won races back home.

  “Yeah, I got it!” I snapped after he started going over the switches again.

  “Just trying to make sure you don’t destroy my car.”

  My fingers tightened around the steering wheel as I swallowed down the growl I wanted to issue.

  “Let’s see what you’ve got then, princess.” As he pulled out of the window, his arm grazed my breast. I would have thought it was an accident if it wasn’t for the fact that he made contact from elbow to fingertip and his gaze followed the path.

  I suppressed the shudder that threatened to rush through me and as soon as he was out of the car, I put the car into gear and headed out for my first lap.

  For the first couple of laps, I took it slow. Easy. There was no point pushing the car until I was comfortable. Especially when everything was arse-about compared to what I was used to.

  “Well, if she keeps going like this, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Jase’s voice squawked in my ear, obviously talking to Beau. He laughed at some reply. “Things must be slower down under if she’s supposed to be one of the best.”

  Trying to get his words out of my head, I bit the inside of my mouth and pressed my foot further to the floor. In my peripheral vision, I saw the tacho lights lighting up one after the other, signalling that it was almost time to change up, but I wanted to push the car a little further. Test her legs, so to speak.

  I revved her out, changing gears at the last second and upping the speed.

  “Be careful out there, sweetheart. Don’t want to have to call home for more money if you damage any of the panels before you’ve had a single race.”

  “Relax. I’m only giving her a run. Weren’t you just complaining that I was going too slow?” I used the words to let him know I’d heard his side of his discussion with Beau.

  “I’m just trying to be helpful, sweetheart.”

  “Well, you know what would be real fucking helpful? If you could stop calling me sweetheart.”

  “No need to be so difficult.”

  “I’m not trying to be difficult,” I said through my teeth. “I’m trying to get a feel for the car.” Because of my rising frustration, I short-shifted on the corner and flicked the tail out a little too far.

  “Watch yourself!”

  “Fuck off,” I muttered under my breath. I tried to go up through the gears, but hit the rev limiter when I instinctively reached out my left hand and hit the door. The more I spoke to Jase, the more wound up I got, and the more mistakes I made. “Just . . . Give me some radio silence, will you?”

  The next few corners, I made mistake after mistake—letting the engine rev too high, shifting too soon, oversteering. It was ridiculous.

  Come on, Phoebe, you’re better than this!

  “Relax, darlin’.” It was Beau’s voice that echoed through my headset. “Ya gotta find the sweet spot. Find your rhythm.”

  “I do know what I’m doing,” I snapped.

  “You could have fooled us.” It was Jase again.

  “Jase, lay off her for a moment. Phoebe, listen to me, just breathe. Relax. Feel the car. And the track beyond.”

  Despite the fact that Beau could wind me up in knots like no one else, listening to his calming words actually helped. The next few shifts were perfectly timed. I got a few extra miles per hour out of the car.

  “Ya got this,” Beau breathed through the radio.

  “I’ve got this,” I repeated under my breath, feeling the renewed confidence in me echoing out into the car.

  “That’s the way.” His words were whispered, as though he was talking to himself.

  After a few more laps, I noticed an odd vibration through the steering wheel. At first, I thought it could have been because I wasn’t used to the car, but it continued. As I took a corner, it got worse.

  “There’s something up with the steering,” I said, reporting back to Jase.

  “Just because you’re not used to the car, doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong.”

  I frowned at his dismissive tone. “Trust me. There’s something wrong.”

  “I’m telling you, we tested the car this morning and it was fine.”

  The more in tune with the car I felt, the more obvious the shudder became. “A
nd I’m telling you I can feel a shudder. I think it’s in the front right.”

  “Sure thing, sweetheart, we’ll get right on it.” The instant the words were out of Jase’s mouth, he was chatting with someone else. He’d moved the mic away from his mouth, but I could still hear him joking about my lack of knowledge and confidence.

  Fucking arsehole. There was something wrong with the car. I was the one in control. I might not have been as comfortable in it as I would have been in my own production series car, but I was confident enough to know something wasn’t right.

  Easing off the accelerator, I slowed the car down and brought it into the pits.

  “You’re going to need to pick up the pace under race conditions.” They were Jase’s first words to me as I climbed from the car.

  So much for fucking teamwork and support. “Good thing there’s a few months before the first race then, I guess. It’ll give you time to fix the steering too.”

  “Sure thing, sweetheart.”

  “Stop. Calling. Me. Sweetheart.”

  He just gave me a stupid grin.

  A stream of abuse was on the tip of my tongue when Beau found his way over to us. He nodded at me in greeting.

  “Thank you for talking me through the start of the session,” I said, somewhat grudgingly.

  “It’s what any teammate would do,” he said as his gaze locked with mine. “That’s all we are, right? Teammates and track rivals, wasn’t it?” He gave me one of his slow smiles and I had to break eye contact to stop my eyes from flooding with the memories that the shape of his lips brought to my mind.

  Swallowing down the emotions that threatened to burst from me, I nodded. “That’s right.”

  Xavier came to my side and pulled me straight into a celebratory embrace. He spun me in a circle before planting me on my feet. “You did great out there for your first time in a stock car.”

  I grinned at him as I pulled away. “Thanks.”

  “You ready to head off?”

  It was impossible to miss the weight of Beau’s gaze resting on me as Xavier asked the question. I spared a quick glance in Beau’s direction and caught his eye. When I did, he frowned and spun away from me. “Yeah, let’s go.”

  Xavier slung his arm over my shoulder and tucked me into his side. “You should see the look on his face right now,” he said with a laugh.

  I wanted to look, but I couldn’t risk another glance. Not without looking like I was far too interested. Instead, I just ducked my head and picked up my pace.

  Xavier drove me straight to Richards Racing. I practically raced to my bike, filling it up with fuel and getting ready to start her up.

  “The moment of truth,” I said as Xavier stood a few steps away from me and the bike. I pushed the ignition starter and the motor purred to life.

  “She sounds good,” he said.

  “Doesn’t she? God, I can’t wait to stretch her legs.”

  As I’d grown accustomed to, he frowned at my blasphemy, but was soon smiling again as I gave the engine a sharp rev.

  “Thank you for all your help getting her done, Xavier. I really appreciate it.”

  Moving closer to me, he ran his fingers over the grip on the handlebars. “It’s really nothing. I enjoyed it.”

  He slid his hand along the grip until it covered mine.

  Before I could pull my hand away, he curled his fingers around mine.

  “Uh—” I started, but cut off when Xavier stepped closer to me and rested his other hand on the seat, just behind my arse. The position left me unable to back away or move.

  “I was thinking . . .,” Xavier started before drawing in a calming breath. “Maybe we could head out for dinner.”

  “Oh. Umm . . .”

  “Not just as friends either. I was wondering whether maybe I could take you out . . . like on a date.” As he spoke, he trailed his hand up my body until it was resting against my nape.

  “I—I don’t think that’d be a good idea.”

  In a heartbeat, he stepped away as if I’d slapped him.

  I killed the engine and climbed off the bike. “It’s not that I don’t think you’re great. I do. Really. It’s just that I’m not in a place where I can even consider dating again.”

  “It’s okay. I get it.” Despite his words, it didn’t look like he actually got it. In fact, he seemed crestfallen and like he was taking it as a personal slight against him. The words he’d said on the night we’d met, about me being out of his league, came back to me. I didn’t want him to think I couldn’t like him.

  I followed his retreat and reached for his hand. “Xavier, really, I like you. And you’re very sweet. Under different circumstances . . . In a different time . . . You’d probably be exactly the sort of guy I’d date.”

  None of the words were a lie. If I’d met him in Australia before my trip to the States, things might have been incredibly different. He was the sort of guy I might have gone for if I hadn’t already given my heart to Beau.

  He hung his head and I reached up to cup his cheek.

  I gave him the best smile I had to offer. “You’d be exactly the sort of guy my dad would like me to date too.”

  He yanked his face away from my hold. “Don’t worry about it. Forget I asked. I don’t wanna ruin the friendship we’ve started.”

  “Neither do I. And it doesn’t have to. Maybe instead of a no, I should give you a ‘not right now.’ In a couple more months, who knows?” I didn’t want to give him false hope, but there was some truth in my words.

  Maybe in time, I would be able to unwind the barbed wire Beau had left coiled around my heart and Xavier could find a way in.

  “I can definitely give you a few months,” he said, grabbing my hands between his own. “And you’d be worth the wait.”

  I flushed at his words. It was that sort of statement that would have seen me falling for him if I weren’t tangled in the twisted veins of Beau’s deception. “Thank you,” I said, stepping closer and wrapping my arms around him. After holding him just long enough to be friendly, I kissed him on the cheek before drawing back.

  The sound of something clattering to the ground rang out from across the garage. I spun to see what it was, and spotted Beau standing in the doorway staring at Xavier and me. The scowl on his face was crystal clear, and it pissed me off. I could practically feel the judgement oozing off him as he watched me. As if he had any right to be annoyed by me moving on when he was shacked up with someone else himself.

  Without thinking it through, I turned and pressed my lips to Xavier’s. If Beau was going to watch me, I would give him a show. And if he was going to judge my choices when he was the one who’d ended things—when he’d been the one to juggle at least two of us at once—I wanted to give him something worthy of judgement.

  Xavier’s mouth opened in surprise, but I didn’t take the opportunity to explore with my tongue. It wasn’t about him; it was about Beau. It wasn’t desire that burned me and moved my lips; it was anger.

  “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” I said as realisation of what I was doing seeped through the blinding rage.

  “Talk about mixed signals,” Xavier said, before attempting a laugh.

  I moved away from him as my cheeks burned. “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t . . . I’m sorry.”

  “I ain’t complaining,” he said.

  Before I could stumble over any more words or make a bigger fool of myself, I rushed to my bike and got the fuck out of Dodge.

  As I eased the bike out onto the road, I knew I wouldn’t be heading back to my apartment for a long time. I needed to hit the open road and go as far as the fuel in the tank would take me. Then maybe, I’d call Dad and he could help me get my head back in the racing game.

  I just kept fucking everything up.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up ready to face the world. The talk I had with Dad had cleared my head like I’d known it would.

  He’d assured me I was doing everything I needed to be doing
to get to know the car as best as I could hope. It’d been the reminder I needed that I wouldn’t get enough time out on the track due to the testing restrictions in place by the governing body—restrictions we had permission to flout on just a handful of occasions and only then because of the unique circumstances of me getting in a back-to-front car.

  He also reminded me to look at getting a proper simulator set-up at home. To anyone else, it would look like I was just playing computer games, but with the new graphics and tech, it was as close as anyone could get to being in the car—especially with a proper steering wheel and pedals.

  Even though it had been the last thing I wanted to do when I’d left the evening before, I headed back into Richards Racing ready to take on anyone who stood in my way. Despite my desire to avoid the people I was sure to encounter, I needed to know what they’d discovered about the suspension and steering, and what they’d done to fix it.

  When I arrived, I was told that the guys had done the standard checks and found nothing wrong. I ran through a list of things that could have been causing the issue, but no one could tell me if those specific things had been checked. It soon became pretty clear that my concerns had been swept under the rug.

  The worst part was for insurance reasons, I wasn’t allowed to work on the car—I wasn’t qualified yet nor was I under any traineeship in the States. I was just a driver. Ignoring Jase’s decision to forget about my worries, I called the team working on the car together.

  “There is something wrong with the right-hand steering on this thing,” I said, “and I’ll personally give a thousand dollars to the one who finds out what.”

  Within thirty minutes, one of the crew found the issue. He whispered to me that the tie rod end was worn and ready to break. I promised him his money, demanded the part, and issued an order for everyone to follow me to the meeting room. When Jase didn’t move from his office, I simply stared him down from the doorway and barked out, “Now!”

  Feeling every eye on me, from every corner in the garage, I marched toward the meeting room with the hunk of metal in my hand.

  I waited at the front of the room with my arms crossed as everyone filed in. The smaller space meant I could ensure I had everyone’s attention. It was exactly what I wanted.