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Somewhere during the 2016 Formula One season, Lewis Hamilton starts smoking.
He doesn’t tell anyone. Not his dad, not his trainer, not even Bono. Definitely not Nico. He just steps outside his luxurious hotel room into the frozen twilight air of whichever first-world country that cared to host a Grand Prix that weekend, and lights a cigarette.
Lewis never lets himself have more than one. He’s a Formula One driver, for God’s sake, if Angela ever caught on to his nightly pre-qualifying ritual then surely she would skin him alive and then dump him out onto the track as an example. The dangers of smoking.
When he lit his first one, sometime after the shitshow of the Spanish GP, he was too aware of the possibility of his team discovering it to even smoke on his own balcony. No, instead, he would sneak out – although sneaking out is a silly word to use for a grown adult and 3-time F1 champion – and find a secluded area around the paddock, hundreds of metres away from where the last of the mechanics could be faintly heard milling about, packing up.
Lewis has only been caught once since he started, at Silverstone. Looking back on the incident, he was admittedly less careful to check his surroundings than usual, but who the hell would still be walking around behind the Toro Rosso hospitality at 11:30 at night on a Friday?
Well, Lewis was rudely accosted that day by an awkward teenage boy with an Australian accent and an obnoxious Daniel Ricciardo t-shirt that completely drowned him, asking politely for him to sign his book and also a photo, please, mate, thank you, I’m a big fan, my name is Oscar. I’m going to be a world champion, just like you. In retrospect, the interaction was sweet, but Lewis’ memories are spiked by the feeling of having to subtly stamp out the cigarette he was nursing under his platform boots while trying to focus on the camera being gently shoved into his personal space.
Anyways, the point is, Lewis is currently leaning over the edge of his hotel balcony in the middle of Abu Dhabi, overlooking the fierce circuit in which, tomorrow, he will try and steal the championship lead – and, consequently, the championship – from his former best friend and rival, Nico Rosberg. He can vaguely make out the silhouettes of a couple of mechanics in the pits, but most have packed up and left for the night, in need of a decent night’s sleep before the hustle of race day. Time for Lewis to strike.
He shrugs on a black zip-up hoodie and pushes open the hotel room door, padding along the carpeted corridor and down the three flights of stairs until the exit is finally in sight. The bell above the door tinkles as he leaves.
The good thing about being an F1 driver is that the hotel rooms they stay in are always only a few paces away from the track itself, the teams’ ludicrous budgets allowing them to splash out on premium accommodation for each and every driver.
This fact only encourages Lewis’s emerging habit as he quickly reaches the entrance to the paddock, keeping his head down as he walks against the concentration gradient of stressed office workers returning home from their overtime work. The last of the mechanics are leaving now, some McLaren technician giving Lewis a confused glance as they pass each other through the entrance of the paddock. Lewis avoids eye contact, and he thinks the man gets the message. It’s the night before what could be one of the most important races of his life. What do the mechanics know about pre-race preparation for drivers, anyway?
Surprising even himself, Lewis finds himself walking past the abandoned hospitality buildings of each team – Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Ferrari, Force India – and towards the track. He knows it’s risky. If the wrong person found him, a Formula One driver, a defending World Champion, smoking… he worries about the explosive reaction he would receive from Toto Wolff. They’re already not exactly on easy terms, since Lewis’s relationship with his teammate started to fray, and Lewis stupidly wonders how many wins he needs for a comfortable place at Mercedes. Too many.
Lewis’s legs decide to park themselves in front of the Mercedes garage, his own name faintly illuminated against the far-away fluorescent lights of the track. Nico’s next to him, reminding him that this space is not his alone. Nico Rosberg. Lewis always thought he had a nice name, aurally pleasing and easy to pronounce. A pair of two-syllable words that left a bittersweet taste on your tongue. He has been tasting the bitterness more often than not, lately. He gently pinches himself, remembering the recent pre-race conference where he had naively proclaimed, I like these conferences when it’s just us. A shameful hint to the world, and himself, that he still cared. Lewis doesn’t care.
He wanders over to the dormant cars, squinting halfheartedly against the shadows that engulfed them, and runs a finger over the smooth silver paint covering the chassis. The carbon fiber is deliciously cool against the oppressive Abu Dhabi night, and somehow Lewis can’t imagine any other car being so comforting except his own and the twin Mercedes that slept next to him. He pauses for a moment, taking in the honest silence of an abandoned circuit. Silence. He appreciates it.
Suddenly, his quiet is disturbed by the sound of a door clicking open at the back of the garage. The footsteps sound once, twice, before stopping abruptly.
Lewis’ heart speeds up anticipatorily, inwardly sighing as he prepares to explain to some poor sleepless Mercedes mechanic why he is standing in the middle of the garage, gazing at his and his rival’s cars, at quarter to midnight.
He looks up.
“...Nico.”
Lewis doesn’t know who he expected to meet at Mercedes at this time of night, but it certainly wasn’t Nico. Nico, who is the most meticulous and punctual driver on the grid, and possibly of all time. What was he doing? Surely, an extra hour of sleep would optimise his performance, or whatever he seems to care so much about instead of driving his stupidly quick car. Nico finally responds,
“Do you think this is funny?”
“What?” Lewis almost laughs at the question. “What do you mean?”
“Do you think this is the best you can do, to fuck with my head?” Nico is staring at him, now, with wide eyes. His scleras reflect the white light of the distant floodlights.
“What?” he repeats, rubbing his face tiredly with one hand. He really just wants to take a drag and go home. “Nico, I didn’t know you would be here.”
“Of course you would say that,” Nico replies flatly, taking a step further into the room. Lewis glances down at the carton of milk in his hand. “What are you doing here?”
“Why do you have a carton of milk?”
“Lewis, what are you doing here?”
“I’m…” he trails off. Because he can’t really tell his teammate, his rival, the one person most likely to rat him out to the entire team and initiate the previously mentioned skinning-and-dumping punishment Lewis imagines, that he smokes before races. “I smoke.”
He can.
Nico continues staring at him for a moment, his expression shifting rapidly between annoyance, realisation, and something else that Lewis can’t place, before Nico finally drops eye contact and walks over to place his carton of milk onto the stainless steel countertop.
Resolving to ignore him, Lewis turns away from the man, pushes down the miscellaneous lump starting to form in his throat before he has time to analyse its origin, and fumbles around in his hoodie pocket for the comforting card pack.
The pale blue design of the pack of Marlboro Silvers is almost a perfect match to the palette of the Mercedes team, Lewis suddenly notices as he retrieves the box and studies it momentarily. A colour combination completely devoid of warmth. Even McLaren had a burning red to complement its own shade of silver.
Lewis tries to ignore the clinking of silver steel behind him as he shakily pulls out a cigarette from the pack and fires up the old lighter he found three months ago down the side of the seat of an aeroplane.
He sighs in relief before taking his first drag, fingers finally stilling as they find work to do instead of anxiously twitching at his sides. He savours the inhale, holding the smoke in his lungs for a moment after pulling the cigarette away from his lips. The exhale is slow and measured, expelling itself in a slow stream into the warm twilight air, and Lewis closes his eyes to savour the serenity for a moment before he has to choose whether to acknowledge the warm body a few metres away. A few beats pass and he breathes oxygen again, before finally looking at Nico.
Nico, who has a bowl in his hand.
“Nico—”
“Lewis—” They both stop, waiting for the other to start speaking again. The silence stretches for years.
“Nico,” Lewis tries again. “What… What is that?” Nico’s hard look softens slightly as if he wasn’t expecting the question.
“...Frosties.”
Oh.
A myriad of memories suddenly start to flush pink Lewis’s heart as he hears the name of the unassuming cereal, and he wonders if Nico remembers. Sitting on the tire walls lining whichever go kart track they had raced at, a box of Frosties between them, and a European sunset behind them as they talked about everything and then a little more. Wrestling matches in victimised hotel rooms throughout their F3 careers, ending in a pseudo-romantic dinner of the cereal served with a side of milk and a terrible city view.
“Oh, I, uhm,” Lewis stumbles. “I, I like Frosties—”
“I know,” Nico cuts in. He looks down again, into his bowl, and carefully stirs the cereal. “I remember.”
“Oh,” is all Lewis can muster, secretly considering putting out his cigarette on his skin as a desperate attempt to distract him from the emotion prickling the corners of his soul. “Me too.”
All of a sudden, Nico is pushing himself off the counter that he was leaning on, and walking towards Lewis. The air is static as he approaches, and Lewis can’t process a single thought ripping across his mind until Nico has already lifted a spoonful of cereal up to him. Not until Lewis has already leant down to the spoon, and wrapped his mouth around the cold silver, until he has pulled the cereal into his mouth, drawing back to a slightly uncertain Nico.
And at the point of realisation, Lewis only maintains his eye contact as he slowly chews, the sugary taste infecting his throat with that lump that just won’t go away.
“Nico…” he begins after swallowing the last crumbs of cereal, licking at the space between his teeth and gums to collect the last distant memories of the flavour. “I don’t know if… I don’t…”
“You don’t have to,” Nico interrupts quietly. “Don’t have to know. I know.”
He seems to hesitate slightly, casting a glance out towards the track before crouching down to balance his bowl precariously on top of Lewis’s car. Then, he returns to Lewis and raises his free hand up to rest on top of Lewis’s shoulder, nudging the zip-up slightly and slipping his hand underneath. Nico’s palms could warm his silver interior through the thin nylon of his Mercedes polo. Lewis shivers.
“Nico…”
“I don’t want you to know.”
And then Nico gives a calculating scan of Lewis’s lips before gently bringing his other hand up to push forward Lewis’s neck.
The kiss is brief in the history of kisses that Lewis has received. Just a simple connection of mouths, almost clinical in the way that Nico had demonstrated countlessly since his teammate became a three-time champion.
As a teenager, Lewis would often wonder what it would be like to kiss his best friend. He would listen to Nico drone on for hours about a beautiful girl he had glimpsed amidst the spectators as he sped past on a flying lap, and ogle at the ladies in the magazines they used to steal from hospitality, but secretly, Lewis wondered. Because in reality, he never had time for a girl, not when his life was wholly consumed by racing and Nico in equal parts. He dismissed the fantasies as a teenage phase. Pushed down the desire as his friend graduated to Formula One. Ignored the pull on his heart when Nico got his first win. Extinguished it like an abandoned cigarette as soon as they started to fight for the championship.
But now, as Nico pulls back, he leaves a burning red warmth against the frigidity of Mercedes. His eyes are wild, a far cry from the mathematical focus Lewis had seen all season. He looks younger. Nico picks up his bowl of Frosties once again, and Lewis barely registers him approaching again before he feels Nico’s forehead warm against his bare throat. The man vibrates against Lewis’s jugular as he speaks.
“I’m going to win the championship tomorrow,” Nico whispers. “I know.”
“Yeah,” Lewis murmurs in response. He shouldn’t be accepting his fate in such a way.
“But you can win the rest. You can win them all,” Nico moves away slightly to look up at Lewis, centimetres away, “I know you can.”
“Okay.”
When Nico leaves the garage to go to sleep, Lewis quietly drinks the leftover milk in his bowl of Frosties.