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The sun dips below the horizon but the muggy heat sticks around, the last plumes of smoke from the barbecue dwindling up into the night. Pierre sits on his hands, waiting to be excused. Esteban scrapes up the last of his mashed potatoes, and pretends to chew slowly to dodge the stiff warnings from his Maman about eating too fast.
“Ah,” Esteban’s mother warns, as she wrangles an arm around him to wipe at the side of Esteban’s mouth with a napkin, “No playing until you have digested your food.” It’s too dark to play now anyways, the low, yellow lamplight only reaching so far into the small stretch of garden, but there’s lots to discuss, last details to confirm.
A sprite of laughter tumbles out of their parents’ mouths when Este lets out a groan that’s bigger than his body. The drone of cicadas sounds like a clock ticking down. Pierre tries not to think about how tomorrow he is moving to Rouen.
He’d overheard his mother saying that he’s been such a big boy about it, which had made him feel good and it really is just the smoke in his eyes that are making them watery, even if he is a touch antsy.
They’ll still see each other lots, and they have a multi-year plan that accounts for the different directions their careers could go. The closing slate has them hoisting a first place trophy in the middle of their first year in Formula 1, glory turning their blood gold.
Secretly, Pierre knows he’ll do this regardless of whether Este is beside him. It doesn’t plague him, because he knows just as well that Este thinks the same. They wouldn’t be best friends if it were any different.
They play footsies under the table, a respite to the adult conversation going on right now. Pierre enjoys being looped in to holiday plans and work dramas, and can often keep up very well — but it seems juvenile in comparison to the future Este and him have been writing up together.
When they’re finally excused, they sprint up the stairs two at a time and belly-flop onto the bed, Pierre’s duvet pillowing around them. He reaches over Este to pluck his notebook from the side-table.
It's a scrawl only legible to them, a chart with all the Minime dates. They'll be together in Septfontaine in less than a month.
Este's cheek is smushed against the blanket, teeth protruding through pouted lips.
"Are you going to be there in the morning, or are you staying the night before? I think we are getting a hotel, so you can stay with me if you want." Pierre asks, seriously, wanting to add it to the notebook even though a pen is nowhere in sight.
Este shrugs and his shoulders stay drooping and despondent.
"Either is good. We can meet in the morning if not." Pierre says, suddenly embarassed by his intensity.
"Sure." Este says and it's clear that he's in a strop.
Sometimes, Pierre gets these moments when he knows he's meant to be someone. "We'll still see each other loads."
"I know that." Este huffs.
"Well then why is your face so sour?" Pierre counters.
Este shrugs again. "Cos. I'm going to miss you." He mumbles, under his breath.
If this was any other day but the last, Pierre would tease Este about it until he went beet red and told him that he takes it back and that he actually doesn't care if he lives or dies.
"I'm moving, I'm not leaving." Pierre looks at him meaningfully. Este looks back.
"But that’s not true,” Esteban interjects, curt but not unkind. His lips are pulled tight as he wrangles the words lodged in his throat into something more palatable. "Rumours.” It sails out of him with a charming smile and the topic is put to rest. Podcasters, more than the general run-of-the-mill journalists, front with a stance like they’ll ask anything, probing at the personal with irreverence — but when push comes to shove, a glance from his PR officer backs them into a corner.
Esteban has seen Pierre’s interviews where he’s asked about their relationship, and has tried to take tips from it. Pierre speaks his mind as though he’s never had any reason not to trust it, figures it out in real-time, an almost-invitation for the recipient to dip their toes in what they are, what went down, what shifted between them. Maybe Pierre finds an ounce more clarity in every interview he does. Esteban mulls every answer over in his head and contemplates seventy different ways to say the same thing: We’re okay, completely fine. It makes him feel a little bit emotional.
He thinks if they were going to figure it out, they would’ve. But the years elapsed with the stretch of stale gum rather than the elastic of a rubber band, no rising tension, no anticipation of a sound snap. Nothing breaks, the flavour just goes. Esteban never spits it out. He's done a hundred chews with nothing new.
Even then. “Gum takes seven years to digest.” Mick chides, looking disgusted at Esteban’s glug-like swallow of his gum, exaggerated on purpose because it freaks him out.
"That’s a myth. If it were true my belly would be as big as a pregnant lady.” He grins, delighting in the image Mick must be conjuring — Esteban might even celebrate the extra weight.
Mick gives him a knit-browed, judgy sort of look that he loves so much that it makes him think it might be love. Esteban slings his arm around him, which forces Mick to fumble closer as he adjusts his stride. He doesn’t do it because Pierre is walking his way, but having the extra weight at his flank is somewhat comforting.
Pierre glares at Esteban the same way sunlight does, unintentional and warm. He squints, even under the shade of his cap and gives an acknowledging nod in his direction. When he swallows, he swears he’s still chewing gum, hit by a whip of crisp peppermint that cuts him to the core.
Sweat-flecked and cheeks ruddy, Mick and Esteban slide into the reserved booth in the corner of the lounge. The tufted leather takes the blow of their exhausted bodies with ease, the table tempting them with a bottle of champagne. Disco lights reflect in the pearls of condensation that drip down the neck of the bottle. Mick wears the sheen better, the air punched out of his lungs from a set that they danced the entire way through.
Mick watches as Esteban laughs with abandon, for no other reason than that he’s super drunk and happy right now. When the adrenaline keeping him upright starts to settle, he lets himself fall against Esteban, and drapes his hand home over his thigh.
Is this complimentary? Fernando asks.
Mick hadn't even seen him walking to the table. A smile graces his face. The paddock - fans, engineers and industry professionals seem to delight in his presence but Mick has never quite understood the appeal.
Mick shrugs. All three of them have both been in this rodeo long enough to know that it is.
Esteban straightens up a bit and peels himself from Mick's shoulder. He's become quite attuned to Esteban's callous gestures.
As you were, Fernando says. To Mick, Fernando's smile is slightly mocking. I didn't know you two were —-
We're not, Mick interjects.
It pierces through the low thump of bass blaring through the speakers above them.
Fucking, Esteban says, as if it were some needed clarification. Mick looks at him briefly, scrolling across his features for something he can read. Esteban's already looking at him when he does, pointedly.
Not anymore, no. Mick adds on, to make it seem like it wasn't a one-sided decision even though it was.
He doesn't care to track when it went from Esteban pulling him close when Pierre was close-by to Mick wishing Pierre was in the room so that he would be touched obviously and shown off as his. Then, sometime too late to be considered respectable, he had felt he needed to have a bit more self-respect, and had decided he would have a conversation with Esteban about it. Though when he did, Esteban had something that he'd needed to say first, and that something entailed Mick being broken up with.
Fernando's brows shot up comically. Ah, but you still finish each other's sentences.
Fernando looks good, unbuttoned — his white collar shirt flayed open, his chest exposed, a thin brush of curls dusted over the crevice between. His heart on display because he knows no one would have the stomach to take it.
He watches as Fernando dips down, watches as he draws his nose up against the immaculate marble countertop. Esteban averts his gaze when he comes back up again.
"Let go, Esteban. You'll be better for it." Fernando scoffs, offended that Esteban would have the audacity to afford him any modesty.
Fernando couldn't convince him to do a line of coke if he got down on his knees and begged, but he's not talking about the coke.
"Better than who? You?" Esteban scoffs through a Cheshire cat grin.
"You're quite obsessed with beating me. It doesn't have to be better than who. You can just be better." Fernando shrugs. He's bored of the conversation, waiting impatiently for Esteban to give him a reason to stay. His expression is illuminated under the swathe of fluorescent light that bounces off the borders of ornate mirrors and gilded taps. Is that a swan? It sets them both out of place, to be talking about racing when all this luxe is meant to distance them from it.
He can see the etched lines on his forehead and the peppered ends of his sideburns. Old people are impatient and Esteban feels rushed from just looking at him. Now, he seems to demand of him. Esteban finds himself uncharacteristically hurried. "I'm not obsessed with beating you."
"Maybe you are just obsessed with me then." His brows jump, taunting. "Are you?"
Esteban doesn't have time to react before a hand is brandished against the back of his neck. It doesn't snake so much as clutch. Esteban can feel the give of his own flesh, the indentation of Fernando's fingertips, like he wants to scoop out a part of him. His breath catches, a hiccup he tries to disguise with a heavy stare that comes off more heady. Fernando continues to talk. “He's a legend. Over and over. You can't come up with anything more creative?"
Esteban tells himself that he's letting it happen, that he's still in control. With his skull cradled in the palm of his hand, the push forward.
"It is the truth." Esteban says, disappointed in his own sincerity.
He doesn't know how to process it, an absent gaze given to the horizon of journalists asking what happened. The television in the debrief room flaunts Fernando's smile. Pierre's talking about his confidence in the car, his impressive recovery from P20 to P9. Esteban attempts to puncture through the haze with his own questions that just sound like why, why, why. When the meeting ends he beelines straight to his camper, aching for a moment of solitude to settle his thoughts. He's barely closed his eyes when he hears a knock.
Pierre, probably. It's easier to be kind on the back of a good race. And Esteban will take it with grace, a staunch politeness that puts him at arms length. Even with history, it doesn't entitle Pierre to more. Not anymore.
"Come in." Esteban says, and it's Fernando who bounds through the door, with an opened bottle of champagne in his hand, the one from the podium maybe.
He doesn't like Fernando anymore, he hates him right now.
"Congratulations, mate." His lips press into a tight line.
It's important to be gracious.
"Even when no one is looking?" Fernando had asked, back when he was still composing his blueprint of Esteban, who had mistaken it for interest.
"Even then. You never know who is watching." He had felt mature for saying this, aware of the extent to which they were thrusted under the limelight. Then again, Fernando had never paid much attention to any of that.
Fernando had circled him like an eagle descending and Esteban had stood a little straighter. "But if you knew for sure, that no one was watching then what would you say?"
Esteban had mulled over this, with a blooming grin, still knee deep in the tide of affection for Fernando. "With you, it's always the truth."
"Bullshit."
He hadn’t tried to convince him of it. They’ll both believe what they want to believe.
There’s a knock at the door and he knows it’s Lance because Lance never waits for a response before sauntering inside. His brows shoot up, genuinely surprised but not bothered by Fernando's presence. A broad grin curls the corners of his lips. “Come to rub it in?” Lance directs his question to Fernando, who shrugs with an impish air.
Esteban watches as Lance sidles up next to Fernando. He watches as Fernando digs his fingers into the meat of his shoulder, and tries not wince.
“Come on man, you don’t kick a dog when it’s down. It’s like, unbecoming.” Lance admonishes, with his signature lackadaisical drawl that blunts the edges of anything he says. Esteban blanches at being likened to a kicked dog, before the colour rushes back to him, the apples of his cheeks pinched pink. “Dad wants to talk. Congratulate you.”
Esteban sees it then, the barely perceptible shift in Fernando’s back, straighter, stiffer. Woof.
“Sure, sure.” Fernando nods.
“We party after, yeah?” Lance calls out, when Fernando’s has a foot out of the door.
Lance looks at him, like he’s about to say something more, then flops next to him on the sofa.
Esteban lets out a pent-up breath, and slinks down the cushion so he can rest his head on Lance's shoulder.
“There, there.” Lance says, not meanly, patting his thigh. “You good man?”
“Mega.” It’s not much different to when he was twelve, watching everyone move and no one leave.