Page 87 of Full Throttle

He was throwing that shirt in the bin when she left. Or giving it to charity. Because, you know, there was the trees to think about.

“Cap’s on his way,” Juliette announced, returning to the kitchen. “He got the keys from Baz.”

Dominic took the phone. “Did he say when he’d get here?”

“Why? Eager to be rid of me, Hastings?”

Dominic’s smile was grim. Yes, but not for the reasons you think. “Just asking for the purposes of planning.”

“He’s in Stratford.” Juliette hopped up on a barstool. “At some girl’s house party. Should take about an hour.”

Dominic returned to cutting bandages. Which was, he realized, actually very difficult when you were dripping blood all over the counter.

Juliette raised an eyebrow. “Do you want help?”

“I’m good.”

Dominic fumbled the scissors, cursing under his breath as his split knuckles gave a painful throb. Juliette picked up a mug that Liêm had purchased that said, French Men Do It Better, looking amused as she turned it over.

Dominic cut the bandage with a snip. Fat beads of blood ran down his wrist, and Juliette held out a hand.

“Give it here.”

“I can do it.”

“Hastings.” Juliette set down the mug. “This is painful. You’re making a mess of it.”

He couldn’t deny that she was right. “Fine.”

He pushed the supplies across the counter. Juliette took his wrist; her grip was surprisingly firm, her eyes assessing the split knuckles with clinical observation. She cleared her throat, uncapping the antiseptic.

“The tattoo is new.”

Dominic glanced down at his forearm. “It’s a photograph that my mother took. The lavender fields near Gordes. We used to visit every spring.”

She applied antiseptic. “You grew up in Paris, right?”

She already knew that, but Dominic had the sense that she was trying to distract him from the pain, so he humored her. “Yeah. I was—” He hissed out a breath. “I was there until I was eight. Before…”

The onslaught of images came, just as they always did: his mother’s perfume on a silken headscarf; her wheelchair rattling over a sterile hospital floor; his father kneeling by the grave, head bowed, not crying but white-lipped and silent, the damp grass staining his trousers…

“Anyway,” he said, shaking off the memories, “that’s why I keep my flat in Paris. I like to use my French when I can.”

Juliette’s fingers were gentle. “Does your father speak French?”

“He does,” Dominic allowed. “Although he never uses it anymore.”

Not in years.

Not since…

More memories surfaced. Skating across slippery Parisian cobblestones, Dom’s gloved hand in his mother’s mitten; his mother coming in from the opera to kiss him goodnight, smelling of perfume and cigarettes; cooking an omelet in a cast-iron skillet. You must never wash the pan, mon chou, his mother had murmured. That’s where the flavor lives. You must let it develop over time, like a good romance.

His father had been happier in those days. Vance had always been stern, but he’d been softer somehow, like a blade that had been dulled with time. He’d laughed more. Surprised his wife with croissants. Built model cars with his son. It was only after Colette’s death that Vance locked pieces of himself away.

Juliette pulled out a bandage. “We used to go on camper van holidays to France. It was the cheapest holiday you could do with five kids.”

“You’re including Baz in that count?”