Throttled: Dirty Air (Book 1)(28)

“Am I missing out on different types?” Not exactly connecting the dots here.

“I’m going on a double date. And you’re coming with me.” Her small hands grip my arms.

“What! No way,” I sputter.

She’s crazy. The last thing I want to do is go on a double date with them. Talk about awkward. Sophie and Liam have enough sexual tension between the two of them to make me sweat. And I highly doubt Liam wants a double date to start with, seeing as he salivates when Sophie gets close.

“It’ll be us, Liam, and Jax. You remember him, right? British, hot, looks like he wants you to call him daddy in bed. It’s a win-win for us.” She gives me a sickly-sweet smile.

I burst out laughing. “Where do you even come up with this stuff?”

“I’m full of ideas. Will you do it for me? Your only friend here?” Sophie clasps her hands together and rocks back and forth on her feet. She plays the innocent card well. I grimace at how it works on me, a sucker for helping others no matter how bad the idea sounds.

“I’m game. But I’m only doing this for you. When is it?”

“Tonight! Before they get busy with the pre-racing stuff.” Sophie rubs her necklace. She throws this on me in the same day, how thoughtful.

Lovely. I’m bursting with excitement here.

“My brother is going to kill me,” I mutter.

“Oh, nonsense. He hooks up with a few ladies on the side anyway. He gets it.”

Who the hell says things like that? She should count herself lucky that I like her and she’s one of my only friends here.

“Ugh, come on. Get a filter. Gross.” I stick my tongue out at her. That’s absolutely the last thing I want to hear about, like ever. Right up there with hearing how my parents still have sex together.

“We better go pick out our outfits. We should look our best.” She grips my hand in hers, demonstrating a shocking amount of strength for a tiny person.

The whole thing may be a terrible idea, but at least I can look good while doing it.

We end up going shopping together around the streets of Barcelona. I don’t mind because I love feeling surrounded by my type of people for the first time in months. Hearing others speak Spanish and smelling fresh food from different restaurants makes me feel at home.

Sophie and I grab lunch together at one of the local spots. We chat while stuffing our faces with tapas, draining the contents of our sangria glasses. Home sweet home.

Sophie’s cheeks flush, alcohol getting to her head, as she admits a fascinating tidbit of information to me.

“One of the reasons I’m stuck going on this date isn’t only because of the bet.” She lets out a deep breath.

My eyebrows draw up. I keep quiet, not wanting to interrupt and make her lose her nerve. Call me curious to get more information about her and Liam.

Sophie rattles on. “I created a Fuck It list for my time traveling with Bandini. Basically, it’s a mix of different things I googled, from normal bucket list stuff to sexy items.”

I choke on my drink. “Did sweet Sophie come up with a naughty bucket list? How bold of you.” I waggle my brows at her. She snorts, not holding back.

“I was tired of living the perfect life my dad wanted. So I decided to create a list before I came here.” She pulls out a small laminated square from her purse, unfolding the page so it becomes the size of a standard piece of paper. I have no clue how she did that.

I check out the different items, my eyebrows rising at a few of them.

“Then what’s the connection to Liam?”

“Well…remember the time we sang karaoke in Shanghai?”

I nod my head.

She swallows a gulp of sangria before continuing. “The list fell out of my bag and Liam grabbed it. He knows about it and added, ‘Go on a date with a bad boy.’ See?”

Black scrawl mars the bottom of the page, messing up her perfectly color-coded list of items. Dots connect in my head.

“Oh my God, he offered to help with these?”

Red flush crawls from Sophie’s neck to her cheeks.

“I only agreed to this one date. That’s it, no others because I don’t want his help. No matter how hard he tries. But I wanted to tell you because we’re friends and all, which means we share everything together.” Her honesty fills me with happiness because our friendship has reached a new level of trust.



My brother did, in fact, disagree with the date. Not a shocker.

He paces the floor of my room while I finish getting ready, his feet dragging across the carpet while he mumbles to himself. I snicker as he runs a hand down his face for the fourth time today.

“You’re going to give yourself wrinkles by thirty if you keep that up.” I point to his face with my mascara wand. He crosses his arms against his chest and scowls at me.

“Why Jax and Liam? Seriously, it couldn’t be anyone besides them?”

I give him a pointed look. Yeah, right. Imagine if I had said Noah asked me on a date.

“What about the nice guy you talked to at the press conference last week? Nerdy, has a combover, but can ask a decent question?”

If the combover isn’t enough to ward me away, the suspenders are a hard no.

I shake my head at him and exhale. “It’s a favor for Sophie. She begged me to join her because she didn’t want to go alone with Liam. So here I am. No need to freak out about it.”