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Esteban wanted to ask Mick to stop looking at him. He felt his stare on him, bearing down hot and heavy. It felt like being exposed, stripped paint off a carbon fibre body. He didn't want to be fragile underneath, driving with a shucked out sidepod on display. He'd done it twice already. It was better not to say anything, and have what is said, count. He wouldn’t dare give Mick a PR answer, and that was the problem. Right now, everything was a bit shit, and he was upset. Mick would end up in the middle of the crossfire if he were to reconcile with it now.
He turned his head, and looked out of the window. The sun had set hours ago and the streetlamps streaked yellow in a hazy daze across his eyeline. For a second, he thought his eyes had welled with tears, but he brought a knuckle to the inside corner and didn’t feel anything. Only tiredness. It was true that he hadn’t slept as well as he usually did, worried about the state of his car at the end of the Sprint. The flames and all that smoke.
But the race today had gone well and important points for the team had been secured. He’d played the team game, the one where the team had won and he had lost. That wasn’t right. He was genuinely happy for the team. He was part of the team. Mega. Mick might not be here next year.
“It’s impolite to stare.” Esteban said, wobbly. The sentiment was a cheaply costumed joke. His lips were pressed into a tight line. He was still staring out of the window.
Swallowed pride came up like bile in his throat. He didn’t mind a fight, not really. Mick should know that much. Fernando’s strategy should have been his. If Esteban had pitted with the safety car instead of before, maybe he’d have had a better shot.
“Don’t be a dick.” Mick replied. Esteban looked over at him, his expression steeled.
Mick didn’t look at him in any particular way, but whatever Esteban was going to say (something mean, with teeth, braced with a smile to soften the bite), receded back to wherever all the cruel, unsaid things go.
He was never concerned with being good, because he’d sacrificed too much for that. He might not be either, good, that is. His teammates, past and present, certainly didn't think so. Esteban held little weight to their opinions, which might have been indicative of that too. But when Mick looked at him like that and tiptoed his hand across the middle seat to lay his palm flat across his thigh, he had felt the same twinge of desperation he had when they had first met. Of wanting to be around him all the time and of wanting Mick to want the exact same thing. To be worthy of it.
“We would have been good teammates. I know we would have worked together well.” Esteban stated. He stared at him like it was a challenge, made him play chicken. He was sure that Mick’s hesitance would simmer to the surface of his features. A frown would precede a slightly agape mouth that proved that Mick found it impossible to agree with without lying.
Esteban believed what he said, or he wouldn’t have said it. This wasn’t unique to Mick, even though he loved Mick. He believed it with Checo and Fernando.
He acquiesced to the media, then stood his ground in the briefings. He fought hard, but left racing room. He followed team orders even if he didn’t agree with them. He enjoyed himself and smiled when none of it was enjoyable. He looked up to Fernando still, despite it all.
He tried to get on, but it always ended the same way: What didn’t work felt fundamental. Immutable. Like the only option was for one of them to change beyond comprehension. Of course it wouldn’t be Fernando, but why did it have to be him?
Somewhere along the line feelings that were hard became hard feelings. The type that snapped clean in half. It was easy work to put them back together again, but the faultline was visible, it would stay like a scar. The man-made fracture sometimes felt like a mark of failure.
“I know that.” Mick said, sure of it.
The certainty of it wasn’t up for debate. Esteban blinked. It was only now that he settled, that his body stopped pulsing like one anxious throb. He cupped his hand over Mick’s and drew long strokes over the plane of his thumb.
Esteban cared deeply, too much maybe, about what Mick thought of him. He thought now, as he treaded the waters of his own misery, that Mick must have thought that he was a very self-absorbed person. That it bordered on repulsive when the person sitting next to him was someone who may not have a seat next year.
He turned his head back in front of him and closed his eyes. The full force of the race began to catch up to him. The fatigue seeped into his bones and made them ache. The same way a day of boating left him rocking in bed, he still felt the weight of the last straight, uphill, heavy on his chest. He thought about if he went flat-out early enough, then thought about whether Mick would still have the neurotic, heart-wrenching, privilege to think about these things come next week.
He heard Mick’s seatbelt unlatch. The corners of his lips tweaked. “I’m sleepy.” Esteban protested half-heartedly.
“No, you’re not.” Mick replied. Esteban opened one eye, then closed it again and grinned more as he got caught in the act. Mick was planted in the middle seat now, his body turned towards him.
Mick turned his palm over so that their fingers could lace together. The first time they held hands was a couple of days after the first time they had slept together. Esteban didn’t say then that it would be harder to get rid of him now, with their hands entwined.
Now they held hands all the time, and Esteban never thought anymore that Mick was willingly walking into a bear trap, the pointy kind with the rusted metal prongs.
Esteban squirmed when Mick pressed a kiss just below his jaw. He kept his eyes closed and focused on the sensation, the slow climb to his jaw. Mick grazed his teeth at bone, as if trying to find the parts of him that would let him in more readily. Mick liked to kiss his cheeks, over and over, his lips pillowed against the warm flesh until his cheekbone was dusted scarlet from the attention.
Even with his eyes closed he thought about what Mick looked like. His immediate, first thought when he had first seen him had been: Perfect. The ugly feeling that came after, fleeting but no less defensible was resentment. That he was only handsome in a conventional way, generic even.
His skin was clear, his teeth one straight line of white. Every feature was pronounced, but not overbearing. A strong jaw, but not cutting. His eyes, blue, blue, blue, erred on intimidating, but were equally as inquisitive if Mick gave the time to let you look long enough. He always did.
He realized after, that the little pearl of resentment was borne out of thinking he couldn’t have it for himself. Any of the handsomeness, any of Mick. That he would never be able to touch the deep sideways score that connected his two brows, or put his mouth on his chest and close his lips around his nipples and suck on them over his thin, white fireproofs until the fabric was translucent.
Which was silly. He’d done all that and much more now, because he got everything he wanted. Eventually. Esteban opened his eyes. His lids were heavy but the tired was now something pleasant. It felt like morning, before the sun drew past the horizon, waking with Mick beside him.
Esteban kissed back when Mick reached his lips. He leaned forward from the seat and toward him but the seatbelt confined him in place. All he could do was turn his neck, let himself kiss and be kissed, deep and slow and warm and wet.
Eventually the car rolled to a stop.
“We can continue this in the plane.” Esteban said, a bit out of breath. His mouth was raw, chapped lips blood-rushed. In this light and every other, Mick was the most handsome man in the world.
“I thought you were sleepy.” Mick retorted. Esteban watched as he tried to curb a smile, and his heart did somersaults.
Mick’s eyes glinted like something out of a fairytale, as he waited for Esteban to say something smart. Esteban wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to worry. Mick will be here next year, because that’s what he wanted and he always got what he wanted, eventually.
“I’m not anymore.” He’d said instead, obvious-like, his smile toothy and real.