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Carlos was raised to be a gentleman.
Open the car door. Get her flowers. Pull out her chair. Offer to pay first. Get her home before 9. His parents raised him with manners.
Now, though, here he was, standing in front of a flower shop, the rain hammering down on him, umbrella awkwardly tilted to shield himself. The florist stared at him from inside, eyeing him like he was either a lost cause or an idiot, probably both, but she didn't have the patience to wait him out. After ten minutes of standing there in the rain like an idiot, he still hadn't made up his mind.
Dating a girl was easier, Carlos thought. He knew what was expected of him, what he should traditionally do. This was his first date with a guy. He didn’t have a clue on what to do. He didn’t even know if Oscar liked flowers.
The rain didn’t relent. He decided to come into the shop. It was better to do too much than to do too little, he thought. The florist greeted him with a reserved smile, asking him what he was searching for. Carlos pulled out his reference picture from Pinterest.
🌙
Since Oscar wasn’t too familiar with Barcelona, they’d agreed that Carlos would pick him up from the hotel. The McLaren’s were staying at the Hilton, while Williams were staying at the Grand Hyatt. It was a half-hour drive, but Carlos had already been planning the evening for days ever since that one drunken night in Monaco.
He gingerly placed the bouquet—orange daylilies, pink spray roses, and white dianthuses—on the boot of his rental. He wasn’t sure if Oscar would think it was too girly , but maybe he’d at least appreciate the gesture. Carlos hoped, at the very least.
By the time Carlos arrived in front of the hotel, his palms were already gross and clammy. Nevertheless, he stepped out of his rental and approached Oscar. The Australian was sitting in the lobby, looking like he hadn’t a care in the world. The moment he spotted Carlos, he straightened up like a puppy at the sound of its name.
“Hi, Carlos,” Oscar greeted, standing up and following him.
“You look good,” Carlos said, before he could stop himself. His eyes landed on the black suit, the messy bowtie. It was all wrong, but in the most perfect way. It made his breath hitch. “I like the suit.”
A rosy blush crept up Oscar’s cheeks. He thanked him sheepishly, hiding his face away from Carlos. His heart definitely did not do three and a half somersaults.
Once they reached the car, Carlos reached for the door handle. So did Oscar. Their fingers brushed only momentarily. Oscar’s fingers were smooth.
A pause, neither of them saying anything. “Let me get this for you,” Carlos said finally, trying to sound casual but absolutely failing. He reached for the door once again and held it open. Oscar hummed appreciatively, stepping inside the car.
Carlos walked around the car through the back, opening the boot to grab the bouquet. He’d considered giving it to Oscar in the hotel lobby, but he knew the Australian didn’t like to raise attention to himself or cause a scene. At least, he didn’t seem like the type to.
Patting the bouquet and fixing the wrapping, he hid them behind his back. He slid into the car and, after a moment, nervously held the flowers out.
“I— I got you this,” His voice caught, hesitantly handing the bouquet to Oscar while scanning his reaction. “Ah, if you don’t like it, it’s fine.” He added as an afterthought. Oscar’s expression grew wary.
Tentatively, Oscar took the flowers. Brought them close to his face, orange reflecting off his skin, and took a long whiff. The car smelled like fresh spring and rain. Oscar’s face was… unreadable. Carlos couldn’t tell like from dislike.
Oscar’s mouth opened, then closed again. Carlos’s palm grew clammy. This was a bad idea. “If you don’t want it, I can always—“
“I like it, Carlos.” Oscar finally stated, with a sense of resoluteness. “Thank you for buying it,” he said, quieter this time.
Carlos let out a breath he didn’t know he held, a weight on his shoulder instantly lifted. He said nothing in return, starting the engine up.
The drive to the restaurant was silent, but not uncomfortably so. Soft music was playing from the radio, a mix of Western Pop and Spanish music alternating. The rain still drummed heavily above them, akin to a hundred tiny mice marching. The place was not far away, being in the same general area as the Hilton.
When they arrived, Carlos handed the valet his keys with more confidence than he felt. It was quite a fancy place—fancy enough that he could trust them with his car—but Carlos liked their pasta. Pasta, that’s a normal first-date option, right? Everyone likes pasta. They made their way into the restaurant.
Except... Oscar was still holding the flowers. So, of course, Carlos had to run after his Mercedes, storing the bouquet in the back.
The host ushered them to a secluded table. Carlos had requested the most private spot in the house, and they’d complied. The waitress gave a polite, disinterested smile and handed them the menus, telling them to press the button when they were ready to order.
Both Carlos and Oscar reached to grab the same chair, pulling it out simultaneously.
“Please, I insist,” Carlos said quickly, motioning for Oscar to sit.
“No, no, you sit,” Oscar insisted, already pulling the chair out.
For a moment, they just stood there, staring at each other, neither willing to relent.
“I’ll take the other one,” Oscar finally said with a small smile, pulling out the second chair and sitting down with a resigned sigh.
Carlos sat too, but now a feeling of regret settled over him. The flowers. The door. The chair. The whole night felt like a clumsy series of mistakes. It wasn’t going how he’d imagined at all.
It’s just… he didn’t know how to romance someone other than that. He wanted Oscar to enjoy this night, maybe even go on a second date with him, but both those seem quite impossible at the moment.
Carlos looked up at Oscar’s face, scanning it to see some form of displeasure. Oscar’s always been expressive when he wants to be, only juxtaposed by blank faces every so often that people write him off as being emotionless. Carlos knew he was not, he made silly faces and folded in half laughing too many times for him to be truly emotionless.
Oscar was looking down, scanning the menu. His face was… shockingly bland. Carlos tried to look for anything: a furrow between the eyebrows, a slight pout in the bottom lip, a scrunch of the nose… there was nothing. But that didn’t mean Oscar liked the date. Maybe that meant he didn’t dislike it. Or he had a good poker face.
“Mate, do you mind?” Oscar piped up, looking up from his menu. His brows drew, and he had a cute pout, and it was very adorable. “Trying to… order here. Stop— stop staring at me.”
Oh, Carlos was going to have fun with this. “Why, does it make you nervous?” he smirked, leaning on his arm.
Oscar rolled his eyes, focusing back on the menu book. Carlos kept staring at him, purely to annoy him now.
“I’m done. We can order now.” Oscar declared, pressing the button before Carlos could get to it.
The Australian ordered an arugula salad, pappardelle pesto, and coke. That made sense to Carlos, he looked like the type of guy to order soda at a fancy restaurant. This guy .
As for himself, he ordered an piatto di salumi, penne arrabiata, and red wine. The waitress nodded, and the place was fancy enough for the staff not to jot down orders. She arrived with the drinks a couple of minutes after.
They made small talk, like where are you going for the summer break, and have you ever been here before, and do you think the Williams will perform well here.
That last one made Carlos scrunch his nose. “Let’s keep the shop talk out of here, ey?”
“I’m sorry, it’s just…” Oscar started, scratching his nape, “It’s just that I only know you from Formula 1, you know?”
Carlos was starting to regret asking Oscar out. Of course, he only perceived Carlos as a coworker. Or a friend of a friend. And nothing more. Like, nothing platonically or romantically more.
Oscar was peculiar. He was the only one to truly tick Carlos. And outrage him in the most mundane ways. But also, the only one to get him flustered. Carlos Sainz did not get flustered.
“Right, of course,” Carlos said after some time, quieter.
”But I’m glad you asked me out,” he admitted.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Even though I thought you were pranking me, it’s… nice.” he said.
“When I asked you while I was shit-faced, it was nice?” Carlos reiterated.
“Not the most romantic way, but I’m here now, aren’t I?”
Their appetisers arrived, Oscar’s salad and Carlos’s meat platter. Conversation was easy, Carlos started talking about his sisters and Oscar replied with stories of his own.
“Can I try your… thing?”
Carlos chuckled, “My piatto di salumi? Only if I can try your salad.”
Oscar scoffed, “Snob,” before swapping their plates.
Once they were done with their appetisers, the waitress brought out their pastas. Oscar’s was in a parmigiano reggiano wheel, because he unwittingly ordered the most expensive pasta on the menu. This guy.
When they ran out of small talk, it was natural for the conversation to turn more personal.
“When did you discover that you were— that you liked men?” Oscar asked.
Carlos hummed, placing his fork down. “Well, when my dad took me to meet Mikel Arteta and Xabi Alonso and Pep Guardiola. You should see what they looked like when they were young. Anyway, that was how I found out I was bi.”
“But have you ever… dated a guy?” Oscar asked, somewhat apprehensive.
“Not, like, properly. Some hookups here and there. But then Formula 1 happened, and… you know.” Carlos explained, his voice getting slower. “But anyways, what about you? How did you find out you liked men?”
“Mate, I went to boarding school.” Fair. That made sense.
Oscar twirled his pasta. Carlos stabbed his penne. “Have you ever?” dated a man, was what Carlos wanted to say, but his words were stuck in his throat.
Oscar shoved the pappardelle into his mouth. “Nope,” and he popped the P, “Had a singular crush back in F3 and then no one caught my eye.”
“Yeah?” Carlos smiled, a small little thing.
Oscar chuckled. “Yep, until… hmm… May 2024.”
Carlos smirked. “Oh yeah? Why’s that?” he asked, more rhetorical than anything.
“Y’know, just… someone said something stupid. Something about magnets, can’t remember really.” The little shit.
The conversation flowed until both their pasta disappeared as well as the Masseto 2021 bottle Carlos ordered. Oscar took one glass, then another, and only on the third glass did he decide that he didn’t like the aftertaste. The tipsy blush he had on quickly drained after Carlos told him it was a £900 bottle of wine.
“Bill, please,” Carlos asked the waitress, and she nodded obligingly. This resulted in both of them scrambling for their wallets.
“Please, let me pay for this one,” said Oscar.
Carlos scoffed. “I was the one who asked you out.”
“My pasta was expensive.”
“So was my wine.”
“Mate, my coke costs 20 euros a can. If anything, you got more bang for your buck.”
At the end, the waitress appeared at their table through Carlos’s side which resulted in him being able to slap his credit card first.
“Better luck next time, cariño,” The word slipped out, but he hoped Oscar wouldn’t be able to understand and would forget about it.
“Presumptuous.” Oscar commented, a smile plastered on his face.
“I’m always up for it, cabron, just name a time and place.”
The flush on Oscar’s pale skin was unmistakable by now.
🌙
Before the evening ended, they took a stroll at a nearby park. It was devoid of people save for them, the cool evening breeze running past them in a flurry. This caused Carlos, in a dress shirt with a button off, to noticeably shudder. Oscar offered his suit jacket.
“No, but you’ll get cold.” Carlos whined, shrugging the coat off.
“Not if you stay close to me. You’re, like, a human space heater.” Oscar stated, holding the jacket firm on Carlos’s shoulders to render his efforts futile. He sighed acceptingly, nuzzling into Oscar’s embrace.
A few minutes later, Oscar sneezed. And it was nothing like Carlos expected. It was a soft and soundless sneeze, save for a tiny squeak, but Oscar’s scrunched up expression made it look so endearing.
“Tonto, this guy,” Carlos commented, getting out of Oscar’s embrace to take the suit jacket off and place it on his shoulders. “Here, have it back.”
They found a neat little bench secluded by a horseshoe of trees. Oscar took a seat first before patting to Carlos the other one.
Carlos wanted to say… something . Something along the lines of I apologise if this wasn’t a good date. Something like I’m sorry if I made it awkward.
“I’m sorry.” he blurted out. He didn’t mean for that to get out.
Oscar blinked slowly. “What?”
“If you didn’t enjoy tonight.” he recovered quickly. He tried his hardest to avoid Oscar’s eye contact.
Oscar crossed his arm in front of his chest, defensive. “And what made you think that?”
“Just the whole… chair thing, and the door, and the bouquets. I just… just don’t know how to do this whole ‘dating a guy’ thing right.” Carlos explained.
“Carlos…” Oscar said, as if his tongue was lathed in nectar, “If you’re doing it wrong, then everyone else is doing it…” A pause, he was scrambling, ”—whatever is worse than wrong. My point is, there’s no doing this, whatever this is, right or wrong.”
Oscar added on, laying his head on Carlos’s shoulder, “Sure, I’ve never been romanced before. Surely not the Carlos Sainz style of romance. But it doesn’t mean I don’t like it. And then I’ll romance you as well, in my own unique way. We don’t follow some concrete set of rules, we figure our own in each step of the way.”
Carlos’s eyes were glassy, but he didn’t want to admit it. Oscar Piastri was giving him a big romantic pep talk. The same Oscar Piastri who dried his clothes with an oven and the same Oscar Piastri who wrote that infamous tweet back in 2022. All versions of the same guy. The same guy that Carlos liked.
At that point, however, they had enough of their late night excursion and went back to the car. This time, not only did Oscar get to open his own door but also Carlos’s door before he could. Carlos didn’t mind, opting instead to head to the back of the car to retrieve Oscar’s bouquet.
“I believe this is yours, m’lady,” he offered the flowers while bowing at a right angle. When he didn’t receive so much as a scoff, he looked up at Oscar. The Australian had an unreadable look on his face, akin to the one earlier that night.
“Ah— sorry, is there something wrong? Do you not like them?” Carlos asked, his voice small.
Oscar mumbled something that Carlos couldn’t quite catch.
“What?”
An uncomfortable beat. “I said, ‘m not a lady.”
“Of course you’re not, you’re a guy. A guy that I like very much.”
A grin bloomed on Oscar’s lips. “Yeah?”
Carlos nodded fervently.
“Well, this guy likes you too.”
When they kissed, it didn’t feel like anything mind-breaking or fireworks-igniting. It felt life-changing to Carlos, though, feeling Oscar’s sideburns brush his pinky and Oscar’s little vampire-y fangs prod his tongue. Like he didn’t know how he survived to nearly thirty without Oscar.
Oh, and, he got him home by 9.