35. TIAGO
TIAGO
Itry to focus on our neighbourhood speeding past but it’s proving nearly impossible because Isa’s gaze is searing into the side of my head. ‘Quit looking at me like that,’ I snarl without turning around.
‘How would you know where I’m looking? You haven’t made eye contact with me since last night.’
Since Jules’ taxi, specifically.
‘Because you did it all last night, and all this morning. Just like mom. Just like Maleja. Just like Espy. Just like—’
‘I think we have a right to know, Tiago, why Jules left so suddenly, and why you’ve been this moody, silent… pain in the ass. And I especially have a right to know why you cut my vacation week short and forced us to go to Belgium early. What the hell happened on that boat?’
I rest my chin on my balled-up fist. ‘Nada.’ Nothing I’m going to share with you and your big mouth, that’s for sure.
‘What did you do?’
I point my angriest glare at her and she doesn’t wince. ‘Why would you assume I did something?’
She folds her arms and gives me a look that says, Yeah, right.
I didn’t—
Well, maybe a little.
Urgh, Jules just makes me so crazy! I was upset and I pushed her too far and it all spilled out and now…
Now I feel like my insides are shredded to pieces. There’s an ache in my chest that’s making it hard to breathe. I’m living in the third person, my one hour of sleep dulling all five senses.
Why did I have to force her into the What are we talk? What made me think it’d go down remotely well? She’s still hellbent on cuffing Tom. There’s no room for feelings in her relationships. Stupid, idiot, fool.
What if this is it? What if she never speaks to me again? This the longest we’ve ever gone without some form of communication. Even in the early days, we’d send voice notes about work. Knowing her name might never pop up on my screen again makes me feel… completely lost.
I dig my fingers into my eye sockets. ‘Isa, I don’t know what to do.’
And it all spills out.
As I come to the end of my story, Isa ejects out of her seat, trapped in place only by her safety belt. ‘You compared her to the Great Wall of China?’
‘Don’t say it like that!’
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘She won’t let me in! She likes me back, I know she does, but she won’t say it. Do you know how frustrating that is? What am I supposed to do?’
‘Why are you so incapable of keeping your feelings to yourself, Santiago? You don’t need to tell everyone everything all the time.’
‘I did! I think I’ve shown remarkable restraint. I knew I liked her in Spain. That’s nearly two whole months ago! That date was by far the best date of my life.’
‘You know the other person has to know it’s a date for it to be a date. Consent and all that.’
‘Shut up.’ I sigh and rub my forehead. ‘Also, how does Jules know about me going cold turkey?’ I scowl at her; this has chatty little sister written all over it.
‘Are you kidding me? It’s not like it’s a secret. It’s all the paddock could talk about in spring. The gossip accounts have resorted to making up rumours about Jack and Minnie being on the rocks.’
I guess that makes sense. Why didn’t Jules bring it up before? The idea that I’ll never know because I might never speak to her again spears me like a red-hot poker.
How do I make things right? She’ll be back in London by now but I doubt she’d pick up my call. It’s not like we’ll bump into each other in Belgium – I have a fixed, well-documented schedule. If she wanted to avoid me, she easily could.
I don’t even know what I’d say if I saw her. My feelings are out in the ether; it’s not like I can claw them back. I can only apologise for how I hurled them at her. Oh, and for calling her untouchable. And comparing her to an ancient wall. Isa’s right, I’d have slapped me too.
‘So you wanna, like, date Jules then?’ asks Isa, scooping her hair into a ponytail.
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!’
‘Like, really? You want her to be your girlfriend?’
‘This isn’t pre-school, Isa. I’m not going to pick a flower and draw her a picture.’
‘This is huge. I’ve never heard you say that about anyone.’
‘Well… Jules is special.’ I don’t need to tell her that.
‘In that case, just be yourself. It’s worked so far.’
I think it over for a nanosecond. ‘No it hasn’t.’
‘Be you when you’re not comparing her to a fortification. Some people find you charming. Hey, you two argue all the time. This’ll blow over.’
‘Not like this.’ I chew my thumbnail and look out the window. ‘What do you know? When was your last relationship?’
‘Actually… I’m in a similar situation myself.’
I try to temper my shock. ‘Oh really?’
‘Stop looking so shocked, it’s insulting.’
‘Lemme guess. You called Nyla the Berlin Wall.’
She tries to cover a laugh and hits me in the stomach with the back of her hand. ‘Shut up.’
‘So, what, Nyla hasn’t come out yet?’
‘Hasn’t come out yet? I don’t think she knows what “out” means. She’s so far in the closet, she’s found jackets from 2003.’
I snort. ‘Ah, ya.’
‘But I think she likes me.’
‘Oh, she definitely likes you. No one brings coffee to a friend every time they see them.’
Isa thinks this over. ‘She’s like that, though. She’s really sweet and helpful. It’s hard to distinguish the two, you know?’
‘Yeah,’ I sigh. ‘Look at us. Couple of lovesick dweebs.’
‘At least your girl likes men. I have to convince mine to like a whole gender as well as me.’
JC’s firmly back in work mode when we get to the jet. He’s in his usual spot, laptop open, pressed shirt, frown in place. He has the calm, clean, unbothered look of someone who lives by himself, and not with our omnipresent, intrusive, harassing family. Man, I need to move out.
He places a hand on the seat next to him. ‘Tiago, sit here for take-off.’ It’s gruff. A command. I don’t have a good feeling about this but I obey anyway because I’m a mindless little brother.
I pass the spot where Jules sat when we flew to New York and feel a pang of sadness. God I wish she was here now. I hope she was ok on her flight home, and listened to the playlist I made for her. She probably didn’t. She’d rather take a terrifying flight back by herself than be with me. Awesome.
‘What’s up?’ I ask as cabin crew seal the doors.
‘I know what you’re doing with Jules.’
Argh. Shit. Fuck.
This conversation is the absolute last thing I need right now. ‘Dude, not now.’
‘Yes, now. We have eleven hours until we land in Brussels and I have things to talk to you about.’
Greeeeat.
‘Two months ago,’ he starts, all obnoxious sounding like Master Shifu, ‘I took a meeting with San Pellegrino about you promoting their new sports soda, and they mentioned a marketing consultant. I thought she was talking about someone from Leone so I ignored it. I trusted you.
‘Then you start acting different, dressing different, saying shit like you’re “proud of the team”.
And Garmin are calling me? Under Armour?
Brunello Cucinelli? Do you think I’m a Class A idiot and wouldn’t notice?
After months of trying to convince low-level brands to look twice at you, suddenly the biggest brands in the world are in my fucking inbox? ’
‘I…’ He makes a fair point.
‘Then an FIA comms person emailed me last week saying I’d need to check with Jules about your availability for press.’
Oh shit.
‘Do you seriously think you could hire a marketing consultant and your own manager wouldn’t find out? Are you that stupid?’
‘I—’
‘Not only are you undermining your family – which we’ll get to later…’ Excellent, there’s a later. Can’t wait. ‘But you’re trying to repair your image by associating yourself with a chick who’s publicly linked to another driver!’
‘We’re not publicly anything!’
‘You’re having sex with her!’
‘Nobody knows that!’
‘She came to our sister’s party!’
‘It wasn’t public!’
‘We made sure no one posted anything with Jules on social media,’ Isa chips in from the front.
‘Don’t even get me started on you.’ JC points a loaded finger at her. ‘I know you were in on it.’
She shrinks down in her seat.
‘Calm the heck down,’ I say. ‘Your hair’s receding as we speak.’
‘Do not joke with me, Santiago. I have a right to be pissed.’
‘I don’t just want to sleep with her. I want to… I think we could be more. I want to be more.’
JC deadpans, ‘You really are stupid. She serially dates athletes for a living. Newsflash: she’s not with you for your sparkling sense of humour.’ Ouch. ‘Do you understand the paddock politics if this gets back to Tom? Need I remind you Martinelli own Leone.’
‘It’s not like that, alright? They’re not in a real relationship.’
He crosses his arms. ‘Oh, so Tom knows this?’
‘Well… no.’
‘So she’s a gold digger,’ he decides flatly.
‘Don’t talk about her like that. She’s not a gold digger. Also, need I remind you Mom was a gold digger?’
His face darkens. ‘?No hables así de nuestra mama!’
‘I’m not saying it like it’s a bad thing! You don’t understand. It’s a complicated situation.’
‘Like hell it is. Was this all just an elaborate ploy to have sex with her? Because this is low, even for you.’
What does that mean?
‘No! I hated her in the beginning.’
His expression softens from anger to… oh god, hurt. ‘Anything’s better than your own brother, right?’
‘What? No! Of course n—’
‘Where we come from, family is everything.’
‘Don’t pull that shit with me. I love having you as my manager, you know that, but we’d never dealt with a change like that before. I thought we needed specialist damage control.’
‘Behind my back?’
‘I thought you’d be mad,’ I mumble.
‘I am mad!’
Obviously this is what I was trying to avoid.
‘You’re a coward, Santiago,’ he spits. Literally. On my leg.
‘How does sparing my brother this misunderstanding make me a cow—’
‘Because it’s not a misunderstanding. You’re exactly the person you were at the start of this year. You don’t take responsibility. You don’t think of anyone but yourself—’
‘Hey! I—’
‘—you’re immature and careless, and you’re going to trash all of our careers.’
‘Yo!’
‘But, worse than that, you betrayed your own family. You chose a pair of tits who don’t even like you back over me.’
Pair of tits? Don’t even like me back? ‘Wait a minute, I—’
‘I would never have done that to you,’ he says, and it’s such a punch in the gut because I know he wouldn’t. ‘And I’ll never forgive you.’
His words clank around my head. This isn’t like the time I told a girl he was gay so she’d choose me. Or the time I stole his car and scratched it. This is different. But all brothers fight, right?
I reach out for him. ‘Juanca—’
He pulls back like my fingers are on fire. ‘Fuck you.’