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—
Nico thought he was a decent enough person.
He made good money, his husband rarely complained about him — beyond the cursory, ingenuine grousing that everyone did. Nico did the same, when he spoke about Jenson — and he donated annually, to various charities that were all-too-happy to get his attention and a fraction of his money.
He could not have children, but that did not mean he was a bad person.
He hadn’t even wanted children, until a few years ago. That had no relation to why he did not have children now, when he’d tried so hard with Jenson.
It did not make him an abomination. It did not make him an example, unlike what one of his aunts liked to say.
(Safe to say, Nico had had words with his mother, and the aunt in question had never been invited back into his home.)
—
His name was Lando.
He was twelve years old, though he looked closer to seven, and he was comfortable enough in the presence of strangers to beam up at Nico — a hand extended comically high.
Nico, helpless, shook his hand.
He was so blithe about it as well. That his parents had died — “A long time ago, Mr. Rosberg — can I call you Nico instead? Or Mr. Nico? Mr. Rosberg sounds so formal.” — and then Fernando, alone and apologetic, had been unable to take care of him with his schedule.
Hadn’t wanted to relegate the child to a cluster of nannies and tutors.
Had taken a sleepless night to think things over, and sent him back to the ex-boyfriend that he’d planned to adopt the child with in the first place.
But Jenson, clueless Jenson, was on a business trip to New York of all places for the foreseeable future.
Nico thought he was a decent enough person, but he resisted the urge to throttle the image of Fernando in his head with shaking hands.
“So yeah,” the boy said, cheerful. “That’s me! What about you?”
—
Jenson and Nico had met in Switzerland, of all places, on the slopes of Aspen.
Nico was twenty; Jenson was a few years older.
Jenson was friends with caustic, unhappy Mark — the son of his father’s friend — and Mark was Nico’s student mentor in university.
Mark called him Britney. Jenson thought it was hilarious.
There wasn’t much more to say.
—
In the end, Nico did not throttle Fernando.
No. Instead, like a good, calm, composed person, Nico phoned Jenson. He shrugged off Jenson’s confusion at the unexpected call, told him off (with the mildest of affection) when Jenson insinuated that the call was because Nico missed him, in both the normal and… carnal… senses, and informed him that there was now a child in their house.
With Jenson’s name on his adoption papers.
“Oh,” Jenson said, sheepish. “Bureaucracy, huh?”
—
The adoption had been meant to be finalized years ago. Specifically four years ago: the year that Nico had returned to dreary England from sunny Monaco, and Jenson’s failing relationship with Fernando — who still hadn’t wanted to settle, even when his career in driving sports cars was waning — had finally reached the metaphorical checkered flag.
Or perhaps a more suitable word would be lapped. Jenson's desire for a family, for steadiness, had been lapped by Fernando’s desire for more — more greatness, more trophies to add to his shelf and more achievements to add onto his autobiography — and had fallen behind in the distance while Fernando surged to victory.
Nico recalled thinking it was horseshit.
“Maybe it’s a sign,” Jenson joked. Nico could picture him in his hotel room, suit jacket unbuttoned, hand on his hip as he paced in front of the window.
“We’ve been talking about having kids so much that Fernando dropped one into our laps, huh?”
It wasn’t funny. Nico didn’t find it funny.
There was a child sleeping in one of the guest rooms, blanket tucked to his chin despite his protestations that he wasn’t a baby anymore, but thank you Mr. Rosberg.
“Sorry,” Jenson muttered, clearing his throat.
Nico waved it off.
He didn’t like thinking about how he now had two of Fernando’s hand-me-downs. First his boyfriend, then their child — their planned child; the one they’d waited for years to adopt.
And Fernando was crude enough, and disliked Nico enough — didn’t like that Jenson had gotten with Nico so soon, after the embers had finally fizzled out and Jenson’s things were no longer in the flat that he kept in London — that he would bring it up the next time they saw each other.
“It’s fine,” Nico responded at last. He exhaled heavily, clutched the back of his head, palmed his thinning hair. He was thirty-three years old, now, with a child in his custody.
His hair was going to get thinner. He was going to be bald.
“Stop that,” Jenson chided from over the phone. “You’re going to pull out your hair one of these days, and then your Mum’s going to laugh at you and I’m gonna laugh with her.”
In a rare moment of vulnerability, Nico admitted it: “I don’t know what to do.”
His husband sputtered. It was so obviously theatrical, as if he knew that Nico needed a reason to cringe at the dramatics of it all.
“You’re Nico fucking Rosberg,” he said.
“Nico fucking Rosberg- Button.”
“Yeah, yeah — you didn’t get any of that competency from me, I tell you.” Jenson’s voice softened, his next words quieter. “You’ve got this. Just — I’ll try to cut the trip short, yeah? You’ve got this.”
—
Nico had never imagined any child of his ever disliking fish.
There was lots of seafood in Monaco, and he’d grown up digging his forks into filets as waiters assured his parents that yes — the chef had taken all the bones out of the flesh. Nico would not choke. They’d checked thrice.
“‘s the smell,” Lando explained earnestly. “Can’t have it — might be allergic too, honestly.”
Nico bit back a sigh, but signalled the waiter to call for a plate of something else.
The things he did for this child.
—
He didn’t like thinking about Lando as his child.
Or maybe he did, but it made him feel strange when he thought about it. He could have his own children, through some miracle of human evolution that had mutated his genes and given him the ability — but then it turned out he was infertile , and he’d relinquished the idea of biological children then and there.
Having a child in his otherwise pristine house was a novel experience.
They’d skipped the infantile and toddler stages, and moved directly onto the beginnings of teenage rebellion.
Lando wanted to stay up to watch the television past ten o’clock when he knew he would feel tired the next morning. Lando did not want to take walks in the morning when he could have been asleep and in bed, and —
“I was never like this, was I?” Nico asked his mother, head pillowed in her lap.
Sina chuckled, running her hands through her son’s hair.
“You were worse,” she said teasingly. “So stubborn, too. At least your boy has the sense to be apologetic when he does something you don’t want him to.”
She hummed for a moment, as if in thought.
At last, she said: “I wonder if he gets it from Jenson. God knows he didn’t get it from you.”
—
Jenson couldn’t leave his business trip because of some trouble with his father’s American branch of the business.
It had been four months. Surely there were other people who could handle the problem?
“That’s stupid,” Lando grumbled, smushing his face into one of Nico’s pillows as he said what Nico had been thinking. His voice came out muffled, but the petulance was clear.
Nico had to fight back the urge to laugh.
There was a birthday party to attend in the morning. One of his cousin’s children was turning nine years old, and Lando had been invited.
He didn’t say it, but Nico could see now that he was nervous about it. Absent-mindedly, he smoothed a gentle hand over Lando’s hair.
“I know, I know,” Jenson cajoled him, “but I’ll be back as soon as I can. Promise.”
Lando’s head shot up, his eyes narrowing. Such lovely eyes, Nico thought.
“Promise?” He asked, unsure.
His head pushed back a little, as Nico rubbed the nape of his neck.
Jenson, voice tinny over the phone, promised.
—
Heidi was a sweet girl.
She was turning nine years old, and as the oldest of the children from Sina Rosberg’s side of the family, had decided that children — the ones younger than her — were ultimately useless.
She was delighted when she found out Lando was older, though her enthusiasm was dimmed by the fact that she was taller than Lando.
“But that’s okay!” She said brightly. “I like being tall, and I won’t make fun of you for being short! Come on —”
She took Lando’s hand, pulling him along. Nico waved at the both of them, and went to find Heidi’s mother.
—
He should have been more wary, Nico thought.
Heidi’s grandmother’s sister-in-law was the aunt that Nico did not speak to anymore. A beady-eyed hawk of a woman, with a sharp beak and insufferable voice.
As the children congregated in the back garden, basking in the sunshine, he heard her speak.
He wished he hadn’t.
“Whose child is that?” She asked his cousin’s husband. Her finger was pointed, accusing, in Lando’s direction, and her mouth was twisted in thought.
“Oh that,” the birthday girl’s father chuckled. “That’s Lando — Nico’s son —”
Not really his son, but Nico didn’t want to correct him.
His aunt sputtered. “What do you mean Nico’s son? Nico can’t have children — What are you going on about?”
Her voice was loud enough that the adults’ heads craned towards her, and the children stopped playing. Their feet ceased to stomp, and their laughter had gone quiet.
In the midst of them, with a ball in his hands: Lando.
Nico had to go to him.
“It’s Nico’s son,” his cousin’s husband explained once again, foolishly naive. “His and Jenson’s — didn’t you know?”
The old harridan cackled. Nico hurried over to Lando; didn’t forget to murmur an apology to Heidi as he side-stepped her.
“Come on,” he told Lando, noticing the way his eyes had begun to water. “We’re going home.”
“What home?”
Oh Nico could have killed her.
“What home?” She said again. “The orphanage?”
—
Nico did not remember what he said, then.
He’d never been one to mince his words, and it was something his mother had fruitlessly tried to control as he grew older — strong enough to start physically fighting people.
He must have said something. His throat hurt, and Lando was crying in his lap as his cousin frantically offered to get them anything — anything at all? There should be some sherbet in the fridge? Lando, darling, do you want ice cream? Ice cream always makes me feel better.
Nico cradled his son in his lap, much like his mother did to him, and closed his eyes.
God, he thought, as he felt the first pressure of the teardrops falling against his face. He missed Jenson.
—
Jenson had had a stepmother.
She was one of the loveliest women he could remember: blonde hair and blue eyes, with bracelets stacked against her wrists and her favourite yellow jumper — the colour of a child’s idea of a duckling — laying against her shoulders or wrapped around her waist.
She’d smelt like vanilla and lillies, and she always had a toffee ready for him in her pocket when Jenson went to stay with his father.
He was reminded of her when he saw Nico, resplendent in the bright August sunshine. Sunglasses perched on his nose, tailored pants, a jumper the colour of his stepmother’s from memory artfully draped over his shoulders.
Lando was clinging onto his hand.
He must have been Lando — with the little gap between his upper teeth when he grinned.
Lando waved.
Jenson, helpless, waved back.