Chapter Text
The sky was soft with gray. A sheet of cloud rolled low over São Paulo’s edges, muting every color, stretching morning into something quieter. The kind of morning that moved without urgency, slow and thick and half-asleep.
Rubens drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting idly near the gearshift. His fingers tapped now and then, not in rhythm, not for anything in particular. The car was warm, humming along the road in a low purr, tires humming against damp pavement. There were hardly any other cars out this early, just the odd delivery truck, a taxi weaving into a turn, the city blinking into life like a tired eye.
The radio murmured low in the background. Not music, not yet. Just the early morning talk show, easing into the day with the familiar rhythm of idle chatter. A man and a woman, their voices warm and unhurried, traded jokes about the weekend’s football match. Something local, something forgettable. They laughed about soggy jerseys, botched passes, and how the weather always turned sour on a Monday, like clockwork. Their voices were gentle, comforting in their normalcy. Rubens listened without really hearing them, the way one might listen to a lullaby. The words washed over him, easy and irrelevant, filling the quiet of the car like steam fogging a window. Outside, the sky was pale and colorless, just a smear of overcast gray. The road ahead was clear, damp from the night’s rain, lined with trees still slick with dew. Rubens’s hands rested loose on the wheel, steady out of habit more than alertness. His eyes were on the road, but his mind trailed far behind, still somewhere over the Pacific, still packed in the same suitcase as the jet lag and stiff muscles. He blinked slowly. The flight from Japan hadn’t been long, not really, but the time shift had turned everything soft at the edges. The world around him felt muted, like he hadn’t quite arrived in it yet.
His phone rang. The soft trill came through the car speakers, cutting between the hosts’ banter. A glance at the dashboard screen
Silvana.
He picked up.
“Oi, amor.”
“Oi. You’re already on the road?”
“Hmm,” he said, nodding like she could see it. “Almost at Paulista.”
“Did you sleep at all?”
Rubens made a sound that wasn’t quite an answer. His mouth tugged up slightly.
“Rubens,” she said, gently chiding.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Just wanted to check in.”
A pause.
“To see him?”
He shifted in his seat, fingers drumming once against the wheel. “Yeah.”
“Okay.” Her voice dropped a little, softened. “Call me after?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t stay too long, tá?”
He smiled, quiet. “I won’t.”
There was a little silence between them, not heavy. Just the kind that lived in the space between years of marriage and things that didn’t need saying anymore.
“Love you,” she said finally.
“Love you,” he said back, easy. “Te amo.”
“Te amo,” she echoed, almost whispering now.
Rubens stayed on the line a moment longer after she hung up, listening to the silence that followed. Just the faint hum of the car’s engine beneath him and the soft click as the call disconnected. He didn’t move right away, just kept his eyes on the road, one hand resting on the wheel, the other still near the console out of habit. There was something about that little pocket of quiet that felt heavier than it should’ve. Not sad, exactly. Just… full.
Then, gradually, the radio faded back in, as if the world was remembering to resume. The hosts were still talking, their voices a little brighter now. A new topic, a story about a dog that had gone missing and somehow found its way home after three years. The woman called it a miracle. The man agreed. Rubens didn’t disagree either. He didn’t say it out loud, of course, but something in his chest tightened gently, a little smile pressing at the corner of his mouth.
He loved dogs. Always had. Loyal creatures. They remembered. They came back, when they could.
The car turned gently through the familiar curves of the avenue. Early morning haze clung to the corners of buildings, softening hard edges. Streetlights blinked lazily against the dim light.
Then came the billboard.
It rose above the city like a declaration, crimson and gold, impossible to miss. “Per Sempre, Tifosi.” A sleek Ferrari crest, bold against the backdrop of an adoring crowd, painted in soft focus. It was a new one. Someone had freshened up the campaign, something about legacy, passion, the eternal bond.
Rubens’s gaze caught it. Just for a moment longer than needed. He didn’t crane his neck. Didn’t sigh. But his eyes held the red for a beat too long, and something subtle tightened at the corner of his mouth. Not a frown, not quite. A shadow of memory in his expression, quiet and unreadable.
Then he blinked, like shaking something off. Tapped the steering wheel once with two fingers. The motion was automatic, like punctuation on a passing thought he wouldn’t say out loud.
The city faded into the suburb and hospital signage. The streets narrowed, curving toward the hospital tucked into a quieter pocket of town. Rubens turned off the main road and pulled into a parking lot still half empty. He didn’t get out right away.
Instead, he leaned back in the seat for a breath, hands still resting idle. The windshield fogged lightly from his breath. He stared through it for a moment, unfocused, until the shape of the building came into view again.
When he stepped out, the air was cool and damp against his skin.
He crossed the street and paused at a corner shop. Not part of the plan, not even a conscious decision at first. The shopkeeper was just unlocking the door, bleary-eyed, nodding a sleepy bom dia as Rubens slipped inside with a quiet obrigado .
The place smelled like warm bread and cheap coffee. A single refrigerator hummed near the back. Rubens didn’t browse. He knew what he was looking for.
He reached into the cooler, fingers curling around the glass bottle. Not big. Not fancy. Just a coconut water, the same brand he always finds himself buying. Just something small.
Not because Felipe asked. He never asked.
Rubens paid in coins. No fuss. No bag.
The bottle sweated lightly in his palm as he walked toward the hospital doors, his stride unhurried. It wasn’t the first morning like this, and it wouldn’t be the last. He didn’t mind.
There was a rhythm to it now. Not routine, not quite, but something close. A kind of familiarity. Like an old road that knew his car, or a melody that followed him home.
And somewhere behind that quiet ache, behind the passing cars and the billboard and the unopened bottle in his hand, was the shape of a feeling he didn’t name.
By the time Rubens reached the hospital’s third floor, the sun had burned through most of the cloud cover. It left everything in that unforgiving noon clarity; shadows sharper, whites brighter, edges too crisp to ignore.
The hall smelled like antiseptic and old air. Not unpleasant. Just... clean. The kind of clean that made things feel colder than they were.
At the front desk, he gave his name, offered a small, sheepish smile. The nurse—an older woman with reading glasses low on her nose—nodded wordlessly and pointed down the corridor. Room 312. She didn’t ask who he was to the patient. She didn’t need to.
His shoes were too loud on the polished tile, but he didn’t slow down. Didn’t rush either. He just moved. Familiar now, even if he hated that he was.
Room 312 had the door open an inch. Rubens raised his hand to knock, but didn’t. He pushed it open gently and stepped inside.
The room was filled with light. Not the kind from outside, but from those awful overhead fluorescents, harsh and flat and clinical. They buzzed quietly, not enough to notice unless you were trying not to notice anything else.
Felipe was sitting up, if you could call it that. Propped by pillows, bandage above his eyebrow and gauze taped right below and above his eye, like a child’s poor attempt at a Halloween costume. His hair was flat and just slightly greasy at the roots, sticking up wrong in places. He looked like someone who hadn’t slept right in weeks.
He blinked when Rubens entered. His mouth moved first, trying for a smile. It didn’t quite get there.
“You came.”
Rubens smiled back. A lazy one. Warm, slightly crooked. “Of course I did.”
Felipe’s fingers fidgeted with the edge of the blanket. He looked away, just briefly. “You didn’t have to.”
“Didn’t say I had to.” Rubens dragged the visitor’s chair closer. It scraped lightly across the floor, and Felipe winced at the sound. “I wanted to.”
The room settled into quiet again. Not silence—hospitals never offered true silence—but a kind of stillness, soft around the edges. The faint murmur of footsteps padded down the corridor, and somewhere, a nurse laughed under her breath, the sound muffled by distance and linoleum. A monitor in a nearby room let out a rhythmic beep, steady and unbothered, like a ticking clock no one was paying attention to.
Outside the window, overcast light pooled dimly through the glass, cool and gray. A small bird fluttered down onto the narrow ledge, its claws clicking softly against the sill. It paused for half a heartbeat, head cocked, feathers puffed against the morning chill. Then, just as quickly, it startled—perhaps at its own reflection, or maybe at nothing at all—and vanished into the air with a flick of its wings, leaving only a smudge of fogged breath behind.
The moment passed. The room held its breath, then exhaled again into the waiting quiet.
Felipe shifted, then sucked in a breath. The movement had clearly pulled at something sore.
Rubens leaned forward, elbows on his knees, watching him. Not hovering, never hovering. Just there.
“I brought coconut water,” he said. “It’s warm, though. It was in the car.”
Felipe let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh. “Thanks.”
Rubens tilted his head, like he was trying to read more than what was being said.
“The lights bother you?”
Felipe blinked slowly, then nodded. “Everything’s too... white.”
Rubens hummed, soft and noncommittal. “You want me to turn them off?”
Felipe hesitated. “No. It’s fine.”
Rubens didn’t move, didn’t reach for the switch. He just stayed where he was, watching, that same dopey smile still tugging at the corner of his mouth like he didn’t know anything was wrong. Like everything wasn’t.
Felipe hated how that made his chest hurt.
“You jet-lagged?” he asked instead, voice low.
Rubens shrugged. “Slept on the plane. Mostly. Might fall asleep right here if I sit still long enough.”
Felipe tried to smile again. It was closer this time. “That chair’s awful.”
Rubens nodded solemnly. “Like sitting on a concrete step.”
A pause. Then:
“You win in Japan?”
Rubens wrinkled his nose. “Of course not.”
“You were ahead of me.”
“You weren’t even there.”
Felipe made a noise, short and bitter. “Still counts. You beat Jenson, at least.”
Rubens chuckled. Light, warm, familiar to the younger man. Like Felipe had just said something incredibly charming.
“I didn’t watch,” Felipe added, a bit more quietly. “Didn’t want to.”
“Yeah,” Rubens said. “I get it.”
Another silence. Not awkward, but weighted.
Felipe glanced down at his own hands. His fingers looked pale, thinner than usual. “They say I’ll be fine.”
“I know.”
“They say I was lucky.”
Rubens didn’t answer that right away.
Then: “They always say that.”
Felipe swallowed. His throat clicked audibly. “Rubinho.”
Rubens’s gaze flicked up. His whole body did that thing again, relaxing without moving.
Felipe opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. His fingers curled again in the blanket.
“I look awful.”
Rubens smiled. “You always do.”
That earned him a proper huff. Weak, but real.
“You’re an ass.”
“Yeah,” Rubens said. “But you’re pretty.”
Felipe flushed, then grimaced at himself. His neck shifted against the pillow, turning away just slightly.
Rubens didn’t laugh. He didn’t double down or tease. He just sat back, arms loose over his knees again, like this was nothing. Like he hadn’t just said something that made Felipe feel fifteen and exposed.
Felipe cleared his throat, quietly. “You always listen like that?”
Rubens raised a brow. “Like what?”
“Like everything matters.”
Rubens tilted his head again, thinking. “Doesn’t it?”
Felipe looked at him. Really looked , not just a glance, but the kind that lingered. The kind that took its time. His gaze moved over the soft eyes, the lines etched at the corners from too many years spent squinting into the sun, laughing in it, living under it. There was something familiar there. Something steady. Rubens always carried the sun with him, somehow, even in shadow.
The faint scent of coffee still clung to his clothes, warm and bitter and grounding. It wasn’t fresh, not anymore, but it was there. Like everything else about him… quiet, subtle, lasting.
Felipe didn’t say anything else.
He just looked. Let himself stay there, in the silence. Let himself feel whatever it was blooming in his chest, slow and strange and a little too close to tender.
Rubens reached over, slow and without purpose, and adjusted the corner of the blanket that had slipped off Felipe’s knee. Just a quick gesture. No reason. No comment.
“Want me to shut up?” he asked.
“No,” Felipe murmured. “Just... stay.”
Rubens nodded.
And he did.
At some point, Rubens moved from the chair to the edge of the bed. He didn’t ask. Didn’t say anything about it. He just shifted his weight forward, stood for a second to roll the tightness from his shoulders, and sat back down again; not into that stiff vinyl seat, but on the edge of the mattress, like he’d done it a thousand times. Like he belonged there. Maybe he really did.
The nurses didn’t stop him. No one poked in to scold or shoo. The hall had quieted even more, lunch trays being shuffled elsewhere. The room felt smaller now, warmer, less like a hospital and more like a held breath.
“Qualifying?
Rubens sighed, just a little. “I didn’t do horrible, ” he said, tone light and resigned. “P5. Could’ve been worse.”
Felipe gave him a sideways look. “Did you crash again?”
Rubens grinned. “You sound disappointed.”
“Just unsurprised.”
Rubens laughed. A bright, sharp sound that cracked the quiet. It was unguarded, sudden. Felipe flinched, but not from the volume. His eyes darted away.
It was the sound that did it. Not the joke. Not the memory. That laugh. High, and real, and easy. Something about it stuck in his chest, lit a little fire in his cheeks. He looked back down at the blanket, cleared his throat. It made him uncomfortable
Rubens kept going, oblivious in the most charming way.
“Anyway,” he said, waving a hand, “Jenson got seventh, so I’ve still got that over him.”
Felipe rolled his eyes. “Congratulations.”
Rubens gave him a regal little nod. “Thank you.”
“And the penalty?”
Rubens groaned. “ All of us in the naughty corner this time. Me, Fernando, Adrian, Jenson, five place drops each. Speeding under yellows. I didn’t even see the damn flag.”
Felipe arched a brow. “Sure.”
“I’m serious!” Rubens tapped his own temple. “We were all too busy trying to out-brake each other, and next thing I know, the stewards are lining us up like schoolboys. ‘You, five places back. You, five back. You, five back.’ Like musical chairs but worse.”
Felipe let out a soft snort, but it turned into a wince. He adjusted his arm in the sling.
Rubens saw it, but didn’t point it out. Just kept the conversation moving, voice light, rhythm steady. Filling the air without crowding it.
“Oh, and Sebastian—Buemi, not Vettel—five-place drop for impeding. Drove all over the pit lane with half a car, basically. I don’t know how the hell he made it to the pit lane in the first place.”
Felipe blinked slowly. “That bad?”
“Worse. They’ll be finding carbon fiber in the gravel traps next season.”
Felipe made a small, involuntary sound. Half-laugh, half-breath. He didn’t try to hide the way he leaned in slightly. His shoulder tilted, just enough to feel the shift of weight on the bed where Rubens sat.
Rubens glanced at him and smiled again, then added, “Heikki and Tonio got drops too. Gearbox changes.”
Felipe’s mouth pulled into a lazy smirk. “You keeping a list?”
Rubens pointed at his own temple again. “All in here.”
“I should’ve brought a notebook.”
“You can borrow mine,” Rubens offered, tone mock-sincere. “It’s got cartoons in the margins.”
Felipe shook his head, slow and a little dazed, like he was trying to shake something loose. That strange warmth was creeping under his skin again, not sudden, but steady, familiar in a way he hated noticing. It curled in his chest like a hand resting there, light but insistent, and he didn’t know what to do with it. Didn’t know if he wanted to brush it away or hold it closer. Every joke Rubens made, every little grin that broke across his face without effort, only made it worse. Or maybe better. Felipe couldn’t decide. It all settled somewhere deep, somewhere tender, and left him aching in a way that felt both old and brand new, like a bruise he kept pressing, just to be sure it was still there.
And then Rubens reached out.
It wasn’t a gesture, not really. Just his fingers brushing lightly at Felipe’s shoulder, plucking away a bit of lint or maybe a tiny crumb from the hospital food tray. Something barely there.
His knuckles grazed the fabric. His palm hovered only a breath away.
Felipe went still.
The touch wasn’t hard. Wasn’t long. But it landed like a drop of ink on water, spreading slowly and impossible to ignore.
Rubens didn’t notice. Or if he did, he didn’t show it. He flicked the lint away and settled back again, still talking. Something about how the grid felt cursed that weekend, how even Timo had wrecked and sliced his leg open in qualifying.
But Felipe couldn’t focus on the words anymore. He just stared down at the spot Rubens had touched, where the warmth hadn’t left.
Rubens’s phone buzzed.
The sound cut through the moment like a bell. He blinked, startled by it, and dug into his back pocket with an apologetic noise.
“Ay,” he muttered, glancing at the screen. “Sil.”
Felipe looked away quickly, gaze fixed on a wrinkle in the sheet.
Rubens answered with a sheepish smile already on his face. “Oi, amor.”
He stood as he spoke, voice soft and casual. “No, I’m still here. He’s—yeah, he’s alright. Tired, mostly. You know.”
A pause. He laughed. “I know. I said I’d only be a minute. I’ll be home soon.”
Felipe didn’t move. He kept his face neutral, unreadable.
Rubens hung up with a quiet beijo, te amo, and slid the phone back into his pocket. When he looked at Felipe again, his smile returned, undented. “I’ll come by tomorrow morning.”
Felipe blinked. “You don’t have to.”
“I know.” Rubens tilted his head slightly. “But I will.”
He reached for the chair again, straightened the blanket where he’d wrinkled it with his weight. The gesture was unconscious, careful. Then he met Felipe’s gaze again and said, “You’ll be sick of me soon.”
Felipe’s answer came too fast: “I won’t.”
Rubens grinned. “We’ll see.”
He gave the edge of the bed one last pat, not at Felipe, not near him, just a small tap, like closing a book, and turned for the door.
The room felt quieter when he left, even though nothing had changed.
Evening fell slowly, as if reluctant to intrude. The sky beyond the narrow hospital window had turned from blue to pewter, then to deep violet, a soft, reverent dark. No stars yet. Just the slow creep of night and the hum of the overhead lights, still too bright, still unmerciful.
Felipe lay still in the bed. His body ached, but quietly now, dulled by time and medicine. What lingered was worse. Not pain, but thought.
The Bible rested in his lap, worn leather cover cracked at the corners, spine softened by years of use. Anna had brought it from home. It still smelled faintly like the house, like furniture polish and old linen.
He held it with both hands. Not tightly. Just enough to know it was there.
His thumb slid along the edge of the pages, letting them fan like feathers. The motion was slow, familiar. He landed in Corinthians. Not by choice, exactly, but by instinct. The kind of passage his eyes always found when everything else seemed out of reach.
He skimmed.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud..."
The words settled into him like warm milk. He breathed out through his nose. His fingers curled slightly against the paper.
"It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs..."
He read slowly. Carefully. Like maybe, if he read them the right way, the ache inside him would quiet.
"Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth..."
That’s where the words caught.
He stared at that line for a long time.
It rejoices with the truth.
His eyes moved down the page, but his thoughts stayed stuck. A stone in the stream.
Truth.
The truth curled under his ribs like a serpent. Coiled tight and hot and impossible to ignore. It made his palms sweat, made his jaw tighten.
He thought of Rubens.
Not the version anyone else saw—not the public man, the teammate, the old friend. But his Rubens. The one who laughed without apology. Who smiled like he knew Felipe’s heart better than Felipe did. The one who touched him without fear, without hesitation. Who made everything seem so easy .
He thought of Rubens sitting on the edge of the bed, bare inches away. That laugh… that sharp, ridiculous, open laugh. And then the hand brushing something from his shirt. A bit of lint. A nothing gesture.
But Felipe had felt it. Still felt it. Like it had burned through the fabric and branded his skin.
And it wasn’t just that. It was everything. Every joke, every visit, every soft reply. The way Rubens always looked at him like he’d never looked away.
Felipe turned the page.
"Flee from sexual immorality..."
He stared.
"...your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit..."
His stomach twisted.
"You are not your own; you were bought at a price."
His grip on the book tightened.
Sin.
He knew the word too well. It was carved into the back of his mind in every sermon, every childhood prayer. It was what you turned from. What you repented. What you burned away with confession and restraint.
But what if it didn’t feel wicked?
What if it felt beautiful ?
He’d never been tempted by women other than Anna. Never strayed. Never even wanted to. He loved her. He knew he did. She was light and warmth and goodness, the mother of his children, the keeper of his better years.
But Rubens made his heart move differently. Not faster. Not louder. Just… deeper. Like someone had found a hidden chamber and lit a match inside it.
He looked down at the verses. Lines of holy words that seemed to be glaring at him and his sin. He laid it gently back in his lap, palm resting over it as if that might quiet the tremble in his chest.
Then the phone rang.
Its soft buzz startled him more than it should’ve. He fumbled for it, thumb clumsy on the screen.
“Oi.”
“Hi,” Anna said, warm but tired. Her voice a comfort and a curse. “Did I wake you?”
“No,” he said, throat dry. “Just reading.”
“Still hurting?”
“A little.”
She exhaled. “I wish I could be there.”
“I know.”
“Your son was asking about you,” she added. “Felipinho said he wants to bring you a drawing tomorrow.”
Felipe smiled faintly. “Tell him I want one of a rocket ship.”
Anna laughed, soft and sleepy. “He’s already drawing a car.”
“Of course he is.”
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was just the quiet between two people who’d shared a home for a long time.
“You’re coming home soon,” she said. “They said maybe in two weeks.”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” A pause. “I miss you.”
He closed his eyes. “I miss you too.”
Another breath. Then:
“I love you.”
His lips parted. The words didn’t come.
His chest tightened. Not from guilt. Not from shame. Just from the deep, bone-deep confusion of a man who no longer understood his own heart.
“I…” he began.
He swallowed.
“I love you too.”
The words left him dry. He meant them. Of course he meant them. But something about saying them felt harder than it should’ve been.
They said their goodnights.
When the call ended, the silence rushed back in like a tide. Sudden, full, almost too much. It filled the corners of the room, crept into the space behind his ribs. He could hear his own breath again—soft and uneven—and the low, mechanical hum of the machines that kept their patient rhythm beside him. Down the hallway, a cart wheel let out a single, tired squeak, then rolled on, swallowed by distance.
He looked down.
The Bible was still open across his lap, right where he’d left it. One hand rested lightly on the thin page, not turning it, not moving, just there. The gold-leafed edges shimmered faintly in the dim light, a dull glow against the sterile white sheets. The words on the page blurred slightly, small and tightly printed, their meaning slipping away as soon as his eyes brushed over them.
He didn’t read. Didn’t even try. He just stared at it, as if willing the scripture to seep into him through skin and bone. Maybe, if he left it open long enough, the words would take root again. Maybe they'd find a way to crawl back into the hollow spaces, dig through the grief, and stitch something whole.
Maybe the aching thing inside him would finally shrivel. Die. Be made clean again.
Purified.
He closed his eyes.
He did not sleep.
Yet across town, an apartment much warmer than the hospital hums with life.
Rubens kicks off his shoes by the door and kisses his wife before she can finish her sentence. One hand rests briefly on the curve of her hip, the kind of touch born of a decade together, casual but intentional. She rolls her eyes but smiles, always smiling. He smells like soap and aftershave and a long day. She smells like dinner and home.
From down the hallway, there's a shout: “Papai!!”
He barely has time to answer before little feet barrel toward him. Fernando—Fefo—is first, a flash of curls and cartoon pajamas, arms thrown up like he’s going to leap into orbit. Rubens catches him with a grunt, hoists him high with exaggerated effort.
“Oh meu Deus,” he says, staggering. “What do you eat, Fefo? Rocks?”
Fefo shrieks with laughter.
Eduardo, Dudu, isn’t far behind, quieter but with that same look of giddy relief, like everything’s better now that Daddy is home. Rubens ruffles his hair with his free hand and presses a kiss to his forehead.
“Did you brush already?” he asks.
Fefo makes a face. “No!”
“Then what are you doing out here? Go, go!” He sets the boy down with a gentle bounce.
There’s an instant scramble, bodies crashing around the corner. Rubens follows at a slower pace, stretching his arms overhead with a yawn. His wife chuckles, returning to the kitchen, and the apartment settles into its evening rhythm. Warm light, soft noises, familiar footsteps.
In the bathroom, Rubens supervises like a seasoned coach. Toothpaste wars are a real threat. Fefo always wants to use Dudu’s superhero paste, and Dudu insists on just the right amount of water on the brush or else he’ll start over. Rubens doesn’t mind. He sits on the edge of the tub, legs stretched out, watching them argue like tiny lawyers.
“Fefo, that’s not yours. What did we say about sharing?”
“He said I could!!”
“Dudu, did you say that?”
“No! I just didn’t want to fight!”
“Hmm,” Rubens says gravely. “Sounds like a diplomatic crisis.”
Eventually, teeth are brushed, faces washed, and both boys are marched to their room, still squabbling. Rubens pretends to be strict: hands on his hips, serious expression.
“Okay, enough,” he says. “Time for the bedtime story.”
The story is nonsense, as always. Something about a dragon who can’t breathe fire and becomes a chef instead. Fefo interrupts constantly, and Dudu tries to predict the ending. Rubens performs different voices, badly, but the kids laugh anyway.
By the end, they’re curled under the covers, Fefo clutching a worn stuffed rabbit, Dudu tucked behind him like a shadow. Rubens kisses each of them in turn.
“Boa noite, filhotes.”
“Can I sleep in your bed?” Dudu asks, voice muffled by the blanket.
“You always say that,” Rubens says, grinning.
“Please?”
He sighs dramatically. “Okay, just tonight. But no kicking.”
Dudu beams.
Rubens lifts the boy gently, careful not to jostle him too much. The boy, just lets out a soft, contented breath and tucks his head against Rubens’s shoulder, his small hands curled loosely against his chest. He’s already half-asleep, heavy with that warm, trusting weight children get when they’re too tired to hold themselves up.
The hallway is dim and quiet, lit only by the soft glow spilling from the bedroom. Rubens walks slowly, steady and sure, his hand splayed protectively against Dudu’s back. The boy’s breathing is deepening already, lashes fluttering faintly against his cheek.
When they reach the bedroom, Rubens lowers him carefully onto the bed, movements practiced and full of care. He smooths the covers over the boy’s small frame, then climbs in beside him, pulling the blanket up to his own chest as well. Dudu shifts just enough to find him again, pressing close without waking.
Across the bed, his wife glances up from her book. She’s propped against the pillows, glasses low on her nose, a finger still holding her place. Her eyes meet his, and she smiles, soft and knowing, a little tired, but full of love.
Rubens smiles back, and exhales.
The day could end like this. It would be enough.
“You’re getting soft.”
“He knows how to work me,” Rubens says, lowering himself beside the boy. “Learned from the best.”
She laughs quietly and sets the book down. Rubens turns to kiss her again, slower this time. He lingers just a second longer than usual, hand brushing hers beneath the sheets.
“How’s Felipe?” she asks softly.
Rubens sighs. “Still sore, but alright. I’ll check in again tomorrow.”
She nods. “I’m glad he’s okay.”
Rubens doesn’t say anything else. He just lies there a moment longer, watching the rise and fall of Dudu’s breathing. The room is dim, peaceful, full of shared air and old love.
Eventually, he slides out from under the covers. Dudu doesn’t stir.
Rubens pads barefoot to the balcony, phone in hand. The night air is cooler than he expected. He leans on the railing and scrolls through his contacts until he finds the name: Felipe .
He hesitates for just a moment before pressing call .
The line rings once. Twice. Three times. He knows Felipe’s awake. The guy never sleeps right after hospital stays. Rubens has learned that over the years. But still, no answer. Just that quiet, stubborn silence.
Rubens exhales through his nose. Waits for the beep.
“E aí, Lipe…” he says, his voice low, casual. “Só queria dar boa noite.”
He runs a hand through his hair. “Hope the pain’s not too bad tonight. Just… rest up, okay? I’ll swing by in the morning like I promised.”
There’s a pause. A beat of hesitation, where something else almost comes out.
“Sleep tight.”
Longer pause.
“Tchau, cara. Keeping you in my prayers.”
He hangs up, but doesn’t move right away. Just stands there, the phone still cradled loosely in his hand, his fingers curled around it like he might lift it again, like there was something else he should’ve said. His head tilts back, slow and tired, and his eyes drift upward.
The stars are out tonight. Faint, scattered pinpricks behind the warm haze of city light. Not many. Not enough to trace constellations. Just a quiet handful, barely visible, like a secret the sky was still keeping.
He doesn’t count them.
He doesn’t wish on them.
He just breathes.
Lets the stillness wrap around him like a blanket worn soft at the edges. The night air is cool against his skin, quiet in his lungs. Everything feels suspended. The call, the ache in his chest, the day that clings to his shoulders like dust. For a moment, there’s nothing but now. Just him, and the stars, and the silence that doesn’t ask anything of him..
When he finally steps back inside, his wife has fallen asleep. Dudu’s arm is flopped across her stomach. Rubens smiles to himself, slides under the covers, and kisses them both goodnight.
Tomorrow, he’ll see Felipe again.
But tonight, for now, this is enough
Felipe wakes early.
The hospital room is dim, the air tinged blue with the heavy gray of pre-dawn. Machines click and hum around him, slow and steady, their rhythms just familiar enough to lull him back into stillness. But he doesn’t close his eyes again. Something in his chest is wide awake.
He moves carefully, sitting up with a wince. The motion pulls at the bruises down his side, the tight ache in his ribs. The IV tube tugs lightly at his arm. He presses the heel of one hand to his temple, as if that might ease the persistent throb behind his eye.
His other hand finds his phone.
One new voicemail.
He hesitates only a moment before pressing play. The voice that fills the room is low and quiet, as if spoken from a car seat, late at night. Felipe knows the cadence, the hush. Knows Rubens too well not to picture the hand half-covering the mic, the familiar slope of his shoulder curled against the door.
“E aí, Lipe… só queria dar boa noite. Hope the pain’s not too bad tonight. Just… rest up, okay? I’ll swing by in the morning like I promised.”
Felipe doesn’t move. His thumb still rests over the screen, trembling just slightly from the pressure of holding too still.
“Sleep tight.”
There’s a pause. Not a silence, but the kind of pause that holds breath, thought, feeling.
“Tchau, cara. Keeping you in my prayers.”
Felipe exhales like the wind’s been knocked out of him. Not with force, with shame . A soft, inward collapse.
He doesn’t replay the message. He just sits there, phone in his lap, head bowed. The words echo louder in memory than they did aloud. Keeping you in my prayers. He swallows hard. His fingers twitch against the bedsheets.
The light changes slowly. Pale streaks of sun climb the far wall, creeping in through the thin plastic blinds. It stains the room golden-gray, too beautiful to feel sterile, too soft to blame. It slips across his blanket, up the arc of his knee, over the hand that now rests lightly at the center of his chest, as if he could hold something in.
He feels, absurdly, like he’s glowing.
But it’s not warmth. It’s not comfort.
It’s the brightness of being seen , too clearly. The harsh light of awareness. Of longing he can’t name and prayers he doesn’t dare answer.
He doesn’t cry. He just sits, knees drawn up, posture tight and inward. And in the glow of morning, he feels like a cathedral full of hollow ache.
By the time Rubens arrives, the room is full of day.
The door opens with a creak, soft and careful, but not hesitant. Felipe doesn’t look up at first. He knows it’s him from the sound of his steps, the way he balances a tray and a paper bag and still manages to close the door quietly behind him.
“Bom dia,” Rubens says, with that same voice from the voicemail. Casual, easy, and kind . He lifts the tray just slightly. “I brought the good stuff. Coffee and carbs. No offense to hospital toast.”
The smell is the first thing to reach Felipe. Pão de queijo and espresso. Familiar. Home.
“I should’ve smuggled in coxinhas too, but I figured we’d get yelled at.” He’s talking to fill the room, like always. “You would’ve eaten the whole tray anyway and then blamed me.”
That earns a breath of a laugh from Felipe, the kind that feels like it might break on the way out.
Rubens grins, triumphant, and sets the food down. “See? That’s the sound of recovery. Laughter. Or at least derision.”
He opens the blinds a little more. The light stretches long across the bed now, bright and warm. He talks about the next race, how the weather’s been strange, how he hopes the home race brings good luck this year, how he swears the new upgrades are actually doing something for once.
Felipe listens. Doesn’t say much. He can’t bring himself to interrupt the sound of Rubens being Rubens.
Eventually, Rubens sits beside him again, the same as yesterday. Same little tilt in the mattress, same closeness. Like muscle memory. He unwraps a napkin, passes over a piece of cheese bread without looking. Casual, natural, domestic in the strangest of places.
His hand finds Felipe’s wrist.
Barely a touch. A brush. A silent hello. His thumb almost rests there, not holding, just near enough to feel the pulse.
It’s enough to undo everything.
Felipe jerks.
The flinch is small but sharp. His shoulders rise, and his breath hitches, and for a moment his whole face crumples like a page torn from the middle of a book.
Rubens pulls back instantly, expression flashing from easy to worried. “Lipe?”
Felipe turns his head away, toward the window. The sun hits his cheek, and he looks half-lit, like a painting of a saint caught mid-fall.
“Don’t,” he whispers.
Rubens is still. Doesn’t speak.
“Please,” Felipe says again, more quietly.
There’s something so fragile in it. Not anger. Not even fear. Just the soft, overwhelmed kind of pain, like grace pressed against raw skin.
Rubens pulls back slowly. His hands rise in a soft gesture of surrender, like he’s standing at the edge of something sacred and already crumbling.
“You okay?” he asks, quiet as breath.
Felipe nods, too fast, too hard. The motion jerks through his body like a reflex, not a thought. His posture is tight now, drawn in. He’s sitting upright, cross-legged atop the thin hospital blanket, shoulders rigid and jaw locked as if by force. His hands press into his thighs, fingers curled, knuckles pale with tension.
He looks like he’s trying not to cry. No—like he’s trying not to break open .
And Rubens can’t unsee it.
That recoil. That flinch.
It replays behind his eyes, burned into the backs of his lids like afterimages from a camera flash. He hadn’t meant to cross a line—hadn’t even known one was there—but now he sees it, bright and red and bleeding.
Shit.
Rubens pulls his hands into his lap. His fingers knot together. He doesn’t reach for his coffee. Doesn’t reach for anything. The warm ceramic cup sits untouched on the tray, steam curling in the sunlight, abandoned.
His presence feels like an intrusion now. The silence is weighty, awkward, but Rubens doesn’t dare speak first. Not yet. Felipe’s the one who does, too loud, too fast, too fake.
“I saw all the promotions for Brasil,” he says, voice a little too bright. “Guess everyone’s trying to hype it up more than normal since I won't be there, huh? Gotta keep the chaos going while I’m out.”
Rubens blinks.
“They said someone cut the chicane in practice like it owed them money,” Felipe adds with a shaky grin, gesturing vaguely with one hand. “Maybe next time I’ll just show up in a golf cart, make it easier on the marshals.”
It’s not funny. Not really. But Rubens smiles anyway, thin and automatic, but still carrying that signature warmth that always lit a fire in Felipe’s heart. The most sinful things are always so sweet.
Felipe keeps talking. Jokes about penalties, steward decisions, the latest drama with the FIA, anything to fill the space, to drown out the echo of his own heartbeat and the memory of that gentle touch on his wrist. The words tumble out like stones over water: fast, flat, skipping without sinking.
But every time he risks a glance at Rubens’s face—that open, worried look, the line between his brows, the way his hands haven’t moved from his lap—Felipe’s heart knocks painfully in his chest.
Why does he care so much?
He can’t stop thinking about it. Rubens, who’s still suiting up every weekend, still carrying the team through every practice and quali and god knows what else. Rubens, who’s juggling sponsors and interviews and tire strategies, and still manages to check in, still finds time to bring him breakfast .
About him?
And not just worried. Not just checking in. Tender . Gentle. So careful it had made his skin burn. That thumb at his wrist, like a question whispered at the door of a church.
Felipe feels sick with it.
Because it’s not just that Rubens cares, it’s that Felipe wants him to. Desperately. Shamefully.
Wants it so badly it feels like another sin staining his chest.
He glances away. His hands are shaking. He curls them into fists and hides them under the blanket, hoping Rubens won’t notice. (He will. He always does.)
“So, uh,” Felipe mutters, eyes fixed on the window now, “if we were both at Interlagos, I’d just try not to crash into you again.”
Rubens doesn’t laugh. Not even a chuckle.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “That’d be good.”
Felipe winces. The ache curls tighter under his ribs.
Rubens stands a few minutes later. Not with irritation, not with haste. Just with that same gentleness he walked in with, like he’s afraid of leaving too big a footprint.
“I’ll stop by tomorrow, okay?” he says, voice still low. Still careful.
Felipe doesn’t answer. He nods once, but his gaze stays fixed on a spot near Rubens’s elbow, somewhere between looking and hiding. His face is flushed. He doesn’t know why his throat is tight, only that if he speaks, something awful will fall out.
Rubens lingers by the door for half a second more. He looks like he might say something else, maybe reach again, or smile, or try to leave it better than this.
But he doesn’t. He just gives a soft “tchau,” and slips out.
The room is quiet again.
Felipe stares at the door long after it shuts. His face is still pink, ears burning, lips pressed tight together like a seal on a wound.
He breathes out, shaky.
His shoulders drop slowly, as if deflating.
And then he groans , flopping backward into the hospital bed with all the grace of a felled tree. “ Idiota, ” he mutters, dragging both hands over his face. “Stupid, stupid, idiota. ”
He scrubs at his eyes like it might rub the moment out of his memory. Like maybe if he tries hard enough, he can forget how Rubens looked at him.
But he can’t.
He remembers every second of it. The warmth in Rubens’s voice, the shape of his concern, the careful way his fingers had barely brushed his skin as if he mattered .
Felipe rolls onto his side and pulls the thin blanket up over his head, like that might make the world go away.
His heart is pounding . Fast. Hard. Ridiculous.
He’s twenty-eight years old. He’s been through high-speed crashes that left him rattled for weeks. He’s survived endless strategy meetings that ran past midnight, the kind where no one raised their voice but everything felt like it might collapse anyway. He’s faced press interviews with a practiced smile, shaking hands, and giving quotes even when all he wanted was to disappear. He’s a professional. He’s a grown man.
And here he is.
Curled beneath stiff hospital linens like a child, heart pounding because Rubens touched his wrist, not even for long, and looked at him like he was something precious. Like he was something worth mourning.
Not a driver out of commission.
Not a body wrapped in gauze and quiet.
Something human.
And the worst part?
It felt good.
It felt so damn good.
Just for a second—no longer than a breath, really—he hadn’t felt like a wreck. Not like a broken thing taking up space in a beige room that reeked of antiseptic and half-wilted flowers, where even the air felt borrowed. Not like a punishment God had forgotten to finish dealing with, left waiting in the margins of some divine plan gone quiet. In that fleeting moment, he hadn’t felt like someone to pity, or manage, or pray for. He’d felt… held. Not physically, not even entirely emotionally, but in that rare, aching way someone can be held just by being seen, truly seen . Not turned away from. Not flinched at. Just looked at and accepted. Like something precious, not broken. Like something with weight and worth. Like someone who still had a place in the world, even if he didn’t know what it was yet.
Like maybe— maybe —there was still grace in him. Still, something was left that hadn’t broken.
And that’s what ruins it.
He buries his face in the pillow and wants to scream.
Wants to let it out, all of it. The confusion, the shame, the too-big thing sitting in his chest like it’s trying to claw its way out. He wants to let it loose in one raw, broken sound that might finally shake something free.
But he doesn’t.
His jaw locks tight, muscles straining with the effort. His teeth press hard behind closed lips, like maybe he can hold himself together that way, just with force. Just with silence. The scream curls up in his throat, sharp and alive, and then dies there. Choked down, swallowed like every other feeling he’s been too afraid to name.
It burns on the way down.
He stays like that, face pressed deep into the pillow, breath catching, body trembling ever so slightly with the tension of not falling apart. Of refusing to. The room around him is too still, too small, like it’s watching. Like it knows.
He doesn’t cry.
He doesn’t move.
But inside, something cracks.
And it’s silent.
And it hurts.
His heart won’t slow down. It thuds painfully in his chest, loud enough he can feel it in his fingertips. His hands tremble slightly where they clutch at the edge of the blanket, knuckles white.
His eyes sting.
He blinks fast against it, stubborn, like maybe he can outlast the feeling. Like if he just stays still long enough, it’ll pass. The heat in his face, the tightness in his chest, the thing twisting deep inside him that won’t come out as words.
He doesn’t know how to live with this.
With wanting .
Not just the flicker of it, but the full weight, the ache that sits heavy in his chest and refuses to be reasoned away. The way it tangles up with everything else: the guilt, the heat, the strange and tender comfort. It shouldn’t feel like this. It shouldn’t feel good. But it does.
And God, that’s the worst part.
He can still hear Rubens’s voice in the dark, soft and unguarded, saying “I’m keeping you in my prayers.” The memory of it folds into him, quiet and impossibly gentle, like a balm he doesn’t feel worthy of.
The hush clings to the walls like smoke. The click of the door lingers long after the hinges settle, and Felipe is left staring at the pale shape of the IV drip beside his bed. Each drop lands with an almost imperceptible plink, steady as a metronome, as if counting down the seconds of his own undoing.
He reaches for the line, fiddles with it. Watches the tube sway.
His wrist still remembers it.
The touch hadn’t even lasted a full second. Barely there, more suggestion than contact, but his skin still holds the imprint. Rubens’s thumb, warm and careful, had pressed just lightly enough to feel like it might not have happened at all. And yet it lingers. Not just the pressure, but the way of it. The intention.
There had been no urgency, no hesitation. Just reverence. Like he was handling something breakable. Like Felipe wasn’t a wreck in a hospital bed, wasn’t full of doubt and fear and things he couldn’t say out loud.
Like he was something sacred.
Like, just for that moment, Rubens believed he was worth holding.
It makes his skin burn.
He closes his eyes, tries to think of something else. But the memory is there again, vivid and warm: Rubens’ smile, the way he always sees him, not like a teammate or a patient, but as something more. As someone worth worrying over. Someone worth praying for.
Felipe’s breath hitches. That’s the worst of it, he thinks. The part he can’t scrub clean.
Because Rubens is praying for him.
And Felipe is not worthy of that.
His thoughts drift, unwillingly, to Anna. Her voice, soft, unhurried, always kind, even when she was worried out of her mind. The woman who sat at his bedside those first terrifying days after the accident, who held his hand and read the Psalms when he couldn’t keep his eyes open.
She left him the Bible. And the rosary.
He turns to the bedside table. The beads are there, coiled in a neat little spiral like a resting serpent. Felipe reaches for them, hands trembling. They’re smooth in his palm, familiar. Anchoring.
His knees creak as he slides off the bed, letting his legs fold beneath him. It takes effort. His head aches, his body still mildly sore, but he endures it. He wants to feel it. He wants it to cost him.
He bows his head against the edge of the mattress and wraps the rosary around his fingers. The crucifix presses against his thumb, cool and small and holy. He rubs it in circles, harder and harder, until the shape starts to leave an imprint in his skin.
“Please,” he whispers. His voice breaks on the first syllable. “Please take it away. I love her. I love her. I love her.”
The words are salt in an open wound. He repeats them like penance, like incantation. Like if he says it enough, God will believe him.
He bites his lip and presses his forehead into the blanket, breathing hard through the ache in his chest. It rises like a tide. Shame. Guilt. Something darker he can’t name.
“Senhor,” he croaks, barely above a whisper, “eu… eu pequei. Even just thinking it, it’s wrong. I know it’s wrong. But it’s there, and I—”
He stops. Can’t go on. The tears slip from his eyes and land on the blanket.
“Have mercy,” he murmurs. “Have mercy on me.”
The words fall out of him in a hush, like they’ve been waiting all day for a crack to escape through. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this. I didn’t mean it.”
He presses the crucifix to his lips.
“Take it from me,” he begs, voice cracking again. “I can’t—I can’t love him. Not like this. Please, God. You see me. You see my heart. You know I love her. You know she’s good, she’s faithful. You gave her to me, and I said yes in Your name. I made vows. I meant them.”
His breath comes in ragged sobs now, but still quiet. Still desperate to remain unseen. As if being caught crying like this might damn him further.
“I thought the temptation would pass,” he says. “Like the others. I thought it would dry up and die like a weed. But it didn’t. It won’t. It’s—it’s wrapped around me. It’s choking me.”
His fingers dig into the beads. “It’s not just his hand. It’s him. The way he looks at me. The way he knows me. I never… I never let myself think about it before. Not like this. But now I can’t stop.”
He lets the words hang there, poisonous and bare.
“I’m afraid,” he admits, hoarsely. “Not of what people will think. Not even of what he’ll say. I’m afraid of what it means about me. I thought I was a good man. I thought I was a good husband. I thought I was walking the path You set for me.”
He closes his eyes.
His breath stutters in his chest, shallow and uneven, like it’s catching on something sharp inside him.
“Why did You let him hold me like that?”
The words come out low and shaking, barely louder than a whisper, but they crack open something in him the moment they leave his mouth. His hands tremble harder now, clasped too tightly, knuckles bone-white. The small crucifix rattles faintly against the palm of his hand—his sinful hand—the metal cold and trembling with him.
“Why did You make his hands so gentle?” His voice breaks on the question, jagged and aching. “Why did You let it feel like grace? Like I was being seen for the first time and forgiven in the same breath?”
There’s no answer, of course. Just the hush of the room, the steady tick of the IV, the whisper of morning light crawling across the floor.
His chest pulls tight. Too tight. And he feels the sob before it even escapes, feels it bloom deep in his throat, sharp and hollow, like it’s tearing its way out from the center of him. When it breaks free, it’s not loud. It doesn’t need to be. It’s small and wounded and real.
And he hates it.
And he needs it.
“I want to be good,” he pleads. “I want to love rightly. I do love rightly. I love her. I love my children. I give everything I have to them.”
Another beat. Another wave.
“But I’m full of shadows,” he chokes. “I keep them locked away and they keep finding cracks to pour through. And he—he sees them. He sees the worst of me and still…”
He trails off. Can’t say it. Can’t finish the thought.
Felipe clutches the rosary to his chest, pressing it hard into the bone as if trying to drive the sin out from within.
“I don’t want this cross,” he whispers. “I don’t want this temptation. You said the burden would be light. Please, make it lighter. Make me clean. Make me Yours again.”
The silence swells.
He rocks forward a little, forehead now fully resting on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. ” He says it until the words stop sounding like language and start to taste like blood in his mouth.
And then, quieter still, “Don’t let me love him.”
He stays like tha for a few more momentst, kneeling and trembling, shoulders bowed beneath the weight of something too big to name. Behind him, the IV ticks on in steady rhythm, quiet but insistent, a reminder of time passing even when everything feels frozen. The hospital room begins to shift around him as noon takes hold, light seeping slowly through the thin curtains, warm and pale. The sun bleeds in gentle shafts across the tile floor, stretching long shadows that crawl toward him like reaching hands. It catches on the crucifix nailed high on the wall, and for a moment, the polished gold gleams. A single glint finds his chest, small and bright, like a blessing he doesn’t know how to receive.
He doesn’t move.
He just breathes.
And weeps.
And prays
The light creeping in from the closed blinds feels more like an accusation than a blessing. It touches his back, warm and quiet, and Felipe stays kneeling long past the point of comfort. His knees throb against the hard floor. His fingers have gone slack around the rosary, though it still rests in his palm like a question he doesn't know how to answer.
He slowly shifts, careful not to jostle the IV line. His legs don’t want to move. He forces them to. Bit by bit, he lowers himself until he’s sitting, knees bent, back curled forward as he slumps against the side of the bed. The floor is cold through his sweatpants. The seams dig into his calves. He welcomes it.
He toys with the cords of the waistband, knotting them, unknotting them. One loop, two. Pull. Tighten. Let go.
The quietness in the room felt like it was staring him down, shaming him, reminding him. Not the kind of silence that feels peaceful. The kind that comes after shouting, after confessions. The kind that lingers in churches after the final hymn, after the priest has stepped down from the pulpit, and all that’s left is the echo of your own sins pressing in from the rafters. There was no comfort or calmness from the lack of noise. Felipe wished for something, anything , to fill it.
He stares down at the rosary. His thumb slides over the small grooves of the crucifix, then up to the bead just above it. It’s worn smooth. Familiar. He doesn't say a prayer this time. He just holds it.
He rubs his thumb over the inside of his wrist. The exact place Rubens touched him.
He doesn’t want to remember it. And yet. His body betrays him.
He remembers it anyway.
Rubens' hand had been steady. Careful. No pressure, just presence. Just warmth. A kind of stillness that had nothing to do with physical movement and everything to do with how the world slowed down when it happened. Like time had made room for that moment and refused to be rushed.
Felipe rubs the same spot again. Imagines brushing it all away. But it lingers. It lingers in the blood beneath the skin.
He tells himself he isn’t thinking about Rubens. Not really.
He’s thinking about what Rubens touched.
That part of him, his wrist, yes, but not just that. Something else. Something deeper. Something Felipe thought belonged to someone else entirely.
He thought it belonged to Anna.
He wants it to still belong to Anna.
He shuts his eyes and calls her to mind. Her wedding dress. Her hands when she laughed. The slightly-too-loud joy in her voice when she talked about having a baby. The tiny house with the slanted porch roof they agreed on after walking through the neighborhood five times just to be sure. Her head on his shoulder while they picked paint colors. Her faith. Her grace. The way she looked at him like he was the best version of himself. The only version.
He wants that. Still. All of it.
So why does this ache feel like truth?
Why does it settle so cleanly in his chest?
He presses a fist against his sternum, as if he can force it out through sheer pressure. But it doesn’t move. It doesn’t crack. It doesn’t dissolve.
It just sits there. Solid and undeniable.
He doesn’t cry this time. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t ask for mercy again. He thinks he might have used up all his words.
Instead, he sits with the ache. He lets it rot in his chest like spoiled fruit. Lets it bruise everything inside him.
The feeling isn’t new. That’s what scares him most.
He knows this ache. He’s lived with it before. Long before Rubens ever touched his wrist.
When he was younger. Before Anna. Before racing made him more than a boy with too much devotion and too little discipline. He remembers the hunger he used to press down, the thoughts he wouldn’t name. The feelings he dragged to the altar again and again, asking God to make him normal. To make him right .
It passed, mostly. Or he thought it had.
And then Rubens. Rubens with his quiet jokes and his steady hands and the way he always noticed when Felipe wasn’t quite okay, even when nobody else did. Rubens, who held him like someone made of breath and glass, as if he touched too hard, something sacred might break.
Felipe stares at the floor.
It’s not just temptation, he thinks. Not anymore. Not when it hurts like this. Not when the thought of losing Rubens makes something crack open in his ribcage.
He breathes in, slow. Lets it fill the hollow space.
Anna deserves more than this. She deserves all of him. The best of him. The part that doesn’t doubt.
But right now, he doesn’t know where that part went.
He remembers how it felt to fall in love with her. Soft and sudden, like stepping into sunlight after a long rain. It had been so easy. So obvious. The right choice. The right life .
He loved her then. He loves her now.
But this?
This isn’t about love. Or maybe it is. Maybe that’s the problem.
He thinks of Rubens again. Not his hand. Not the wrist. Just his face. The crease between his brows when he’s worried. The way his mouth twitches to the side before he says something stupid just to make Felipe laugh. The way he listens with his whole body. The way he never looks away.
He presses the rosary against his lips again, but it doesn’t feel like protection this time. It feels like a wall he’s already halfway through.
He remembers the way Rubens said his name in the voicemail. The tremble in it. The quiet plea underneath.
He hadn’t deleted it.
He could listen to it again. Right now. He could lie back, close his eyes, and let Rubens’ voice curl around the raw edges of his doubt.
But he doesn’t.
Because he knows it would feel like a kind of comfort he hasn’t earned.
He shifts, pulling his knees up to his chest, the rosary still clutched in one hand. He rests his forehead against his knees. The pain in his ribs flares up, sharp and bright.
He welcomes that, too.
Because at least it’s real. At least it makes sense.
Everything else is too much. Too heavy.
The ache. The want. The confusion.
The love.
It’s all sitting inside him now, thick and unmoving.
He closes his eyes and sits in it. Still and small.
He doesn't know if this is what surrender feels like.
But it might be.
The drive home is quick. Quiet. The traffic thins out just after the hospital, and Rubens lets the car coast down the familiar streets of his neighborhood with barely a thought. He knows every curve, every bump in the pavement. The sun slants low and golden through the windshield. It is just past four in the afternoon.
When he pulls into the driveway, he barely has time to take the key out of the ignition before the front door bursts open.
“Papai!” comes the chorus.
Two small bodies launch themselves at him, and Rubens opens his arms just in time to catch them both. Dudu barrels into his left side, Fefo into his right. Their laughter rings out across the quiet street. He lifts them without effort, one arm under each boy, and carries them toward the house while they babble about what they built with their Legos, what snack they had, who cheated in their game of tag.
“Did you bring us anything?” Dudu asks, wriggling in his grip.
Rubens kisses the top of his head. “I brought my arms, so I could hug you. Is that not enough?”
Fefo giggles and squeezes his father’s neck. “You’re squishing me, papai!”
“You’re squishing me first,” Rubens replies, grinning.
Inside, the house is warm and smells faintly of garlic and basil. Silvana stands in the kitchen with a towel slung over her shoulder, her dark hair pulled back and her face turned toward them with that same soft smile that always makes his heart ache a little. She is beautiful in a way that never needs to be spoken. Familiar. Solid. The kind of beauty you return to, like the front steps of your childhood home.
She tilts her head, eyes scanning his face.
“How is he?”
Rubens hesitates. It is only for a second, but he sees the flicker of concern in her expression.
“He’s better,” he lies. “Strong.”
Silvana nods, wiping her hands on the towel. She does not ask more. Maybe she knows better. Maybe she understands that whatever truth sits behind Rubens’s eyes right now is not ready to be spoken aloud.
The evening moves gently. Dinner is pasta, simple and filling. The boys slurp their noodles too loudly, and Silvana tells them to chew with their mouths closed, which only makes them laugh harder. Rubens plays along, pretending to be scandalized. He offers Fefo a breadstick and pretends to snatch it away when he reaches for it, just to hear him squeal. Dudu tries to flick water at his brother and gets a stern look from his mother.
It feels normal. Happy, even.
After dinner, Rubens helps clean up. The boys disappear outside, trailing sticky fingerprints and unfinished sentences about worms in the backyard. Silvana hums softly as she rinses the dishes. Her hip brushes against his when she passes behind him. They do not say much. They do not need to.
Later, after the bath and the pajamas and the kisses on the forehead, after Fefo begs for five more minutes and Dudu wants a bedtime story he already knows by heart, Rubens finally retreats to the bedroom. The house has quieted. Only the muffled hum of the television from the living room remains, and even that fades as Silvana slips into the bathroom to shower.
He kneels on the rug beside the bed. It is habit more than ceremony. His hands come together, fingers interlocked. His eyes close.
He prays.
Not loudly. Not in the desperate way Felipe does, not clutching at rosaries or trembling under the weight of guilt. Rubens prays like he breathes. Quiet. Familiar. Steady.
God is not something he bargains with. God is someone he speaks to.
Please, he thinks. Let him heal. Let him sleep through the night without pain. Let the scans come back clean. Let the doctors stop speaking in careful, cautious voices.
He bows his head lower. The room smells like warm towels and lavender soap. He can hear the gentle rush of water from the bathroom, the comforting domesticity of it. His wife’s shampoo. The steam curling under the door. The sound of something stable.
Let him be okay, Rubens thinks. Let Felipe be okay.
He does not ask for much. He never has. And he is not asking now for anything extravagant. He is not asking for love returned, not for confessions or stolen kisses or miracles.
He just wants a little more time.
He wants to keep sitting by that hospital bed. Wants to bring coffee in the mornings, even if Felipe never drinks it. Wants to brush the hair from his forehead and pretend it is nothing.
He wants to keep holding that soft, stunned look on Felipe’s face in his hands. Not physically, not really. But in memory. In spirit.
He wants to keep caring for him. Even if it never becomes more than that. Even if it should not.
Rubens breathes in slowly. His lips part.
“I’m not asking for forever,” he whispers.
The words barely leave his mouth. They come like fog over glass. Gentle. Without pain. Without demand.
“Just… a little bit. Please.”
His fingers curl slightly into the rug. His eyes remain closed. The warmth of the room sinks into his shoulders, his spine, his chest.
The difference between them is not in how they feel. It is in how they hold it.
Felipe treats his feelings like a sickness. Like a rot behind his ribs that needs cutting out. He kneels with the rosary like it is a shield, a ward, a punishment. His love is a curse to be battled.
But Rubens holds his love the way he holds his children. The way he carries Fefo on one hip and Dudu on the other, both arms full and aching and grateful.
He loves like it is something born from years of small kindnesses. From shared podiums and late-night flights and hospital visits. From remembering how Felipe likes his coffee and noticing when he is pretending to be okay.
He does not think it is wrong. Not really.
Maybe inconvenient. Maybe dangerous. But not wrong.
He keeps his head bowed until the shower stops running. Then he rises slowly and presses a kiss to the headboard, a habit from childhood, something silly his grandmother taught him. A blessing. A bit of protection. A thank you.
He slides under the covers and waits for Silvana to come join him. When she does, he smiles at her and means it. She nestles into his side, her fingers resting against his chest. He tucks her in without a second thought.
He will not dream of Felipe tonight. He does not need to. The feeling is already with him. Quiet. Tucked under his ribs.
Not a curse.
Not a sin.
Just something tender. Something true. Something worth holding for a little bit longer.