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In life Pierre generally tried to avoid cliches. But this one rang true—New York, it’s a hell of a town.
On multiple occasions he had told people that he’d like to try it some day, after racing, after fashion or whatever came next. The energy, the vibe, it suited him, or at least he thought it did. Once Lewis said he could stay at his condo and check it out for more than a weekend but for one reason or another that never happened.
The car ride from the airport over to midtown took forever but that’s because it was America. Some things were blindingly fast - food orders and shipping from amazon - and other things like public transportation seemed as inefficient as possible. Not that Pierre took public transportation, but he had heard. And he could.
The sky was grey and the buildings were so tall, glass and steel that reached the sky. The cars wove and honked and people moved in throngs on the sidewalks, in the crosswalks. Pierre rested his head against the leather seat in the car but kept his eyes open so he could see the endless roads, elevated and bursting with cars and passengers, wind into the city.
“You’re here for a movie you said?” the driver asked.
Pierre nodded and leaned forward. “Yes. Brad Pitt is in it.”
He drove Formula 1 cars around tracks in Melbourne and Singapore at 300 kilometers per hour every weekend for a living and he hated that uptick of pride in his voice at mentioning to a New York City cabbie that he was in a Hollywood movie where Brad Pitt just played at his dream.
The driver seemed impressed. “Alright,” he whistled as the car hit a bump and the silver rosary wrapped around the mirror clanked. “Maybe I’ll check it out.”
“You should,” Pierre told him. He sat back and crossed his arms.
The driver added, “And when I see you I’ll tell everybody there’s that French guy that I drove!” and Pierre laughed.
“There’s more than one French guy.”
“Well you’re the best I’m sure.” The driver looked in his rear view and winked quickly.
“Sure I am,” Pierre said and laughed again.
Of course the first people that he saw in the hotel was the team from Haas. The photos from the plane were already all over social media, with Lando making all the baby rookies laugh like he was actually funny. Somewhere further back, Ayao and Esteban had been stretched out with buckets of popcorn and fountain drinks like they were at a multiplex instead of business class from Montreal on a barely ninety minute flight.
He checked his phone as he walked through, pretending to be busy with the slim slippery brick in his hand. Charles still hadn’t texted him back to confirm their post-premiere plans.
Hoisting his suit bag over his shoulder, the one from Louis Vuitton, he crossed the crowded lobby, stepping around velvety sofas and strangers’ splayed out legs. “See you tonight,” Pierre said and held out his fist for Esteban to bump as he passed him. There was no getting around the tallest pair on the grid and their tiny team principal bunched up in the area in front of the concierge desks. He meant to smile but it felt like his face was wearing a perpetual frown suddenly.
Esteban looked up and smiled and his looked real. Pierre would know, since he had been subjected to every smile of Este’s under the sun—the joyous ones from when they were children and the painful ones from two years at Alpine.
“Yeah, see you!” he said back and bumped with the briefest brush of knuckles against Pierre before going back to talking with Ollie. Their bodies looked so gangly and awkward, folded up and adorning the posh sofas like those pretzels on every street corner here.
The elevators took forever and the suit bag was heavier by the minute, weighing down his wrist. He switched hands, rolled out his fingers. The elevator dinged and the doors opened, a small gaggle of people who didn’t care that he was a millionaire driver in motorsports came waddling out. He stood alone and pressed the button for his floor, and saw Esteban watching him.
Este waved quickly and Pierre tried to smile again but the doors, brushed and matted gold, slid shut.
Ready? Pierre texted Charles. He abandoned the Louis Vuitton that he had been so pumped about, barely hanging it on one of those puffy soft hangers in a pastel color in the closet. He changed, now wearing a linen tshirt, a satiny baseball jacket that looked vintage and oozed cool, baggy jeans, perfect white sneakers. His notes app had three recommendations for bars in the area that Tony Parker sent him. And he needed a fucking drink after this long-ass week from hell.
Nothing against Lewis, but he wasn’t sure how many more times he could sit through the movie. Even if he liked Brad Pitt.
Charles called. “I am soooo sorry but I can’t right now. Something has come up,” Charles pleaded in a way that was anything but convincing. It was not a good sign that, when Pierre truly thought about it, he couldn’t remember the last time Charles was actually sorry for anything.
“I swear to god, Charles, if this is some stupid crisis about -” Pierre began but was cut off with a loud “Non!” from Charles.
“No, no, no, it’s not about that and it’s not a crisis!”
“Okay that is not super convincing.”
On the other end of the phone, in a hotel room somewhere else in Manhattan because only the midfield teams seemed to be at this one, Charles was shuffling around, doing a thousand other things. His thoughts were far away, back in Monaco or who the fuck knew where, on someone else and not on his abandonment of Pierre at all. “I can see if George wants to do something with you?” he offered and Pierre scoffed.
Right. That was all he needed, sitting in a cool bar with mind-blowing cocktails with a guy who said “Crikey!” as a regular word.
“Well, there’s Yuki?” Charles tried again.
“Yuki already told me he’s going with Christian and Geri and Red Bull to some famous sushi place.” Pierre folded his free hand into his armpit and paced. The room felt too hot—he should’ve ditched the fucking jacket.
After the third attempt at an apology and offer to pawn him off on another driver’s social plans, Charles hung up because he convinced himself that he did have some sort of emergent drama to attend to. Maybe it was not related to anyone in particular, anyone who was here in New York or pointedly not here, maybe it was just a regular Charles meltdown about Fred or Lewis or the team or his thinning hairline or an imminent breakout on his forehead. Sometimes, and he would never say it, but Pierre failed to see how someone with things set to be so perfect could experience the world ending twice a week.
Charles’ perpetual mode was to be in crisis.
Pierre understood that crises weren’t things to make up. They were things that actually happened. Like being in a piece of shit car with Flavio breathing down his neck. Eleven measly points in ten races and his second teammate on the verge of being replaced. It’s like he blinked and he was back at Red Bull in 2019.
The maps app said the first place on the list was a few blocks south and a few blocks to the east. New York was a place to be bold, to be confident. His eye twitched a little at the thought of going alone.
His notifications made a ding sound and a message came through over WhatsApp.
Great view of the park! It was from Esteban. I saw your post - we must be only a few rooms apart!
Do you have a dinner with the team? he said into the phone and pressed send.
The instant response surprised Pierre. No i’m in the lobby but was about to get some food.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Pierre dictated I’ve got somewhere we could go and swiped out of the app.
“Hi!” Esteban sounded excited when Pierre approached. He was leaning against a marble pillar in the lobby, his body folded at the waist like he often did, never comfortable with his height even now. It didn’t work to make him appear smaller; only made him look like he had a stomach ache and could barely stand up. He was still wearing his suit jacket and pants from the premiere, just a plain white undershirt on underneath instead of his bowtie and tuxedo shirt.
“You could have changed,” Pierre pointed out instead of saying hi. “There was no rush.”
Esteban looked down at his pants and then back at Pierre. “I was just gonna wear this. It’s okay, right?”
Pierre blinked. “Yeah. Of course.” He started to walk to the doors and let Esteban go through first when the doorman held it open for them.
“Well you didn’t say where we were going so I was not sure of the vibe,” Esteban said with a little laugh as they stepped out onto 59th Street, the park looking verdant even in the grey evening across from them. “This looks cool though.” He touched the satiny fabric of Pierre’s jacket and then pulled his hand quickly back, like his brain had blanked and he had forgotten who they were momentarily.
“I got it in Japan,” Pierre answered with a nod and started to round the corner to walk south. “And I thought you didn’t like my fashion sense.”
“Ah in my book you’re many things but just not best dressed.”
Pierre snorted and said, “Sure,” and kept walking.
Esteban dodged a few people on the sidewalk and caught back up. “We’re not taking a cab?” he asked.
Pierre shrugged and tugged at Esteban’s elbow for him to keep up. “It’s not very far. I think it’s okay to walk?”
“Okay.” Esteban had his head down and a smile on his face. “I didn’t know if you were taking me somewhere far away or super secretive and cool.”
“No, just a place I heard about,” he explained and walked quicker to make it across the next crosswalk.
Esteban raised his eyebrows and laughed, “Mysterious,” and followed. Pierre stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets, fists balled, to not reach back and grab Este’s hand so not to lose him in the amoeba of people, the swirl of traffic and tourists. Always have an exit buddy, their parents used to say, and they would lock their tiny hands together and giggle uncontrollably.
It felt far away, a world where Esteban was his uncomplicated best friend, even though he was here, within an arm’s grasp, even still. Even now.
Tony had not been wrong about the restaurant—it was the kind of place Pierre adored. There were multiple levels but the main bar was down a set of stairs with a curved wood and wrought iron bannister, the steps lit from underneath, glowing a soothing gold. The wall of bottles, liquors of all types but especially gin, was backlit in that same color of a sunset.
Pierre pulled out a leather barstool the color of caramel for himself and for Esteban.
“Thanks,” Esteban said, hitching up his skinny trousers as he sat down. He wasn’t wearing any socks, or maybe they were the no-show ones, and his ankles looked pale against the dark fabric. “This place is very nice.”
The bartender, with rolled up sleeves and an intricate rose tattoo visible, put down a bar napkin for each of them. “Do you have any questions about the drink menu?” she asked. “We have lots of gin, or if you don’t like gin we could make some other recommendations.”
“He likes gin.” Esteban knocked his hand against Pierre. “Let’s do our thing.” And before Pierre could say anything back Esteban pointed out something in the menu and said, “He’ll have that.”
“What the fuck,” Pierre muttered and scanned the mocktails menu to pick something for Esteban. “This is not nearly as fun when you don’t drink,” he complained.
Laughing, Esteban’s body shook. “I’m sorry that you’re still so unhealthy!”
“Fuck off,” Pierre told him, but he suppressed a smile.
Back when they were kids, going together from track to track far away from Normandy, there were an endless number of stops at petrol stations and off-the-beaten path restaurants and cafes. It had morphed from an accident, one time when Este had ordered a croque monsieur and the waiter had given it to Pierre instead and Pierre mouthed Thanks! and ate it with a grin, to a challenge when they became teenagers, ordering the wildest, the most bizarre-sounding items for each other.
It was the most fun for Pierre, though, when he could pick exactly what Esteban wanted, no matter what place they went. To have a little telepathic ticket right to Esteban’s brain was his favorite thing.
The bartender set the drink that Esteban had ordered gingerly down in front of Pierre. It was pretty and looked light and but when he took a sip, it tasted deeper than he expected on his tongue. It was full-bodied, like red wine and herbs and a frothy soda mixed in. He licked his lips and nodded and when he looked up, Esteban was watching him closely. His dark eyes were wide and piqued.
“Yeah, it’s good.” He took another sip for something to do. “Good choice.”
“It’s called Crossroads,” Esteban pointed to the menu and Pierre set the drink down, afraid he was going to pound it in a few gulps. That would not be cool.
Pierre pushed the non-alcoholic drink towards Esteban. “Your turn,” he said.
“Delicious,” proclaimed Esteban after taking a sip, the long column of his throat visible as he tipped his head back a little. “You still know what I like.”
“I don’t know about that.” Pierre turned to cough to hide his blush. It wasn’t complicated—the drink had lime, soda, muddled pineapple—everyone liked that. “So no dinner with Ayao and your rookie?” He changed the subject quickly.
Esteban shook his head and fiddled with the stem of his drink glass. “No, he doesn’t want to hang out with an old guy like me. I’m guessing he went to hang out with your rookie. Half-rookie.”
“Yeah, no I guess we’re both not cool enough these days.”
Esteban hummed. “I expected you to be out with friends or something.” He didn’t say Charles but it was understood.
Pierre shrugged. “Charles is skulking.”
“You mean sulking?”
“No, skulking.” Did he mean sulking? Pierre sighed and there was no one else there to say anything about it to, so he revealed, “There are a lot of complaints anyway. I don’t even know what about really.” He had some idea but didn’t feel like sharing right now.
“We all have complaints,” Esteban agreed and clinked his glass against Pierre’s for a toast.
He laughed and shuffled over when a couple came to sit next to him on the other side. “Oh, thank you!” the woman gushed a bit, setting down her turquoise handbag and fluffing out a glittery skirt before she sat down.
“Of course, no problem.” She beamed at his accent and Esteban rolled his eyes when he looked over.
“What?” Pierre asked.
“You,” Esteban smiled. “Charming people in New York just by talking.”
“Shut up,” he said back, with way too much warmth and not enough prickly heat.
Eventually they both felt hungry and split a plate of fried calamari, with Esteban dousing the crispy battered squid with as much lemon juice as possible. He wiped down his long fingers with the napkin and then sighed. “I think I need to wash my hands.” He slid off the stool and squeezed Pierre’s shoulder, close to his neck. “Be right back,” he promised, and disappeared down to the other end of the bar, into the dark hallway, his shoulders confident and pushed back, not caved in like usual.
Pierre watched him go and then dragged a piece of the appetizer through the spicy cocktail sauce, thinking how New York suited both of them somehow.
Pierre had two more cocktails. One was called Identity Crisis which made both of them crack up. “It’s strong,” he admitted, coughing a bit as Esteban slapped him across the back. Their bar chairs were facing each other now. Their knees had touched no less than five times, although it could have been more. Pierre was losing count.
When Pierre had finished the rest of his drink and half a glass of water, Esteban stood and stretched and loosely tucked his suit jacket over his arm “Let’s get out of here,” he said, leaning close so Pierre could feel the puff of warm breath against his cheek. And he hated cliches, so he didn’t think anything ridiculous like how after three drinks Esteban seemed good looking, or better looking than his usual nerdy self. He seemed sort of hot, with endless length in his legs and wicked humor in his crinkly eyes.
“Do you want me to pick?” He waved his phone with the list from Tony.
They were on the street and the light was all the way gone now, the city awash in the nighttime colors that Pierre loved. Dark blue sky and bright white from every building and headlight. Someone was beating on plastic buckets while a song from the 80s played on a real boombox. It was a joyous symphony of noise, New York at night. He snapped a selfie when Esteban had his head down, his nose buried in his own phone, and sent it to Charles.
Wait is that Este bestie?
Pierre sent a shrug emoji and looked up when Esteban called his name. He had already started walking.
“There’s a place nearby!” Esteban shouted over the sounds of the street. “You’ll come with me?” He clapped a hand across Pierre’s back and Pierre wriggled away a little bit, everything joyous and hot in his body.
Esteban’s bar of choice was a fucking dive. “Mate,” said Pierre with a disapproving look at the giant pig painted pink as the antacid tablet he would need after they got done with this place. Inside it was dark and crowded, a series of tiffany style lamps hanging over the bar, no embedded lighting or soft instagrammable aura to be found. There was a hockey game on the tiny television hanging at a diagonal in the corner over the bar.
“We’ll just have one drink,” assured Este and Pierre wrinkled his nose. He’d have one beer unless Esteban suddenly decided he drank between the two blocks that now felt worlds apart from the quiet luxury of where they had just been.
Pierre tried to order while the bartender looked at them impatiently. “You can’t get a Stella! Get one of their beers!” Esteban pushed him out of the way and interrupted, “He’ll have the dark lager, please. And soda water for me!”
When their drinks arrived they clinked the glasses together. “It’s good,” Pierre had to admit after half a sip. “I didn’t think it would be.”
“Pierre,” Esteban lamented with a soft click of his tongue against those rabbit-teeth. “You never used to be such a snob.”
“I’m not a snob!”
“You used to drink whatever disgusting shit we could get our hands on!”
“Well that was fifteen years ago and I have different standards now.” Then they burst out laughing because that sounded like the definition of a snob and Esteban didn’t even have to say it.
The crowd was different here too, no ladies with Prada or Cartier, at least from what he could tell. People brushed up against him with no apologies and no fanfare and Pierre found himself so far over in Esteban’s space that he was practically in his lap.
“Where did you find this place?” he finally asked just to say something, leaning in close to be heard over the din of the catchy pop songs and ardent conversation and occasional cheers at the game, at the same time Esteban marveled, “We were just in Canada but truly I don’t get hockey.”
Then Este laughed at their crossed communication and put his hand on Pierre’s arm. “Mick told me about it.”
Pierre nodded. “I forgot you were friends with just random people.”
“Mick isn’t a random person. He’s just a person. Like you are friends with people.” Esteban gave him a glance with something bubbling underneath it and pulled at his straw with his teeth. “I would never call you being friends with Charles random. He’s just your friend.”
“Right but Charles is -” Pierre stopped himself. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say. Charles was a friend of both of them whereas Mick was somehow just Esteban’s? Was that what made it random? They met Charles when they were kids but only knew Mick from the grid? “You’re right.” He was being snobby again. He took another sip of his beer and asked, “How did Mick feel about LeMans?”
“Good I think! Although, you know, I’m sure he wishes he were still racing with us.”
“Of course.” Pierre nodded. “And other people wish they were endurance racing like him.” When Esteban raised his eyebrow Pierre continued, “You know, lots of people do. Charles has said. Max for sure.”
“Oh well, Max. Max wants to do every series. Even now. With all his commitments.”
Pierre downed the rest of his beer and looked up at the television where the red team had scored a goal. Some guy behind them yelled out “shit!” and knocked a bowl of nuts to the ground. “He’s testing at Spa while we are all here,” he revealed without thinking.
“Oh I thought he was going home like he said in the press conference.” Esteban’s face was neutral, truly showing nothing.
“He was. But then - never mind. Someone said.” Pierre figured Esteban could guess easily enough who said what and whether he was happy about it, or unhappy as the case was. The whole world would find out soon enough that Max blew off the F1 movie premiere just like he did for the first one back in Monaco, that he ditched the suit-wearing and the ass-kissing in Times Square, proving once again to everyone that all he really cared about was the racing, bottom line.
“Well I would do it,” Esteban was saying. “We’re French, we grew up watching that race. It’s our destiny. And hey, maybe one day they’ll let us back into a team together.”
“Yeah, together, for Alpine,” Pierre laughed. That would be the day. He felt good and loose and ordered another beer. Next to him Esteban was relaxed too, his face tilted up, a half smile around his mouth, like he was thinking good things and Pierre was suddenly filled with the desire to know them all.
“I shouldn’t have said what I said, about Max and Charles complaining,” said Pierre quietly and Esteban waved his hand.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m the last person to have any opinions about that.” He smiled at Pierre. “You know?”
In front of him the bartender filled his pint glass from the tap and Pierre watched the deep brown liquid rise to the top. The feeling of loyalty was strange—to have been ill at ease with Este every moment for almost two years, or even longer, and also to never have trusted anyone more. “I know,” he confirmed, and picked up his beer. From behind the bar, or underneath it, or from some secret space, the bartender placed a plain hot dog, nestled inside a white paper tray, in front of Pierre too.
“Do I not get a hot dog?” Esteban asked the bartender, leaning in too close to Pierre.
Pierre could see where the stubble from his patchy goatee didn’t meet the hair above his lip. His arm was pressed against Pierre, his bicep curved with his tshirt riding up now that he had removed the suit jacket. He could smell the scent of whatever cologne he had chosen, like the fresh sea-salt air and raw surf near their hometowns, and had to look away.
“You have to order a drink,” the bartender was saying and Esteban sat back, looking disappointed.
“I thought you didn’t eat pork?” Pierre commented.
“I do. Although maybe not a hot dog usually.” Esteban eyed the plain wrinkled hot dog on a white bun.
“No, I mean, just for that Alpine challenge where we had to eat the British foods. You only ate the egg and the sweet things. You didn’t eat the pork pie.” Pierre drank again, willed himself to stop talking. He was the dictionary definition of a pathetic loser right now.
“No, you’re right, that time I didn’t,” Esteban said slowly, like new facts were forming in his brain and he was struggling to put them together. He had another weird look on his face, one of the many that Pierre didn’t know now.
Maybe once, when they were little and all they cared about was racing in karts and eating orange slices that Esteban’s mom cut up for them, Pierre might’ve had him figured out. Maybe back then he knew everything there was to know about Esteban. He was pretty sure he did.
“I’ll share it with you,” he said, suddenly deciding. He bit into an end and held it up to Esteban, who took a huge bite without taking it from Pierre. “We used to like the same things,” Pierre murmured and watched Esteban’s mouth as he chewed.
Wiping his mouth with a napkin, Esteban swallowed, even though the weird look was still there, and replied, “I think we still do.” His eyes were so dark as he looked up and met Pierre’s, something needy and promising in that gaze. Pierre felt a jolt of electricity from that look, something that began as a fizzle and worked its way down, curling expectantly in his stomach and settling between his wide open thighs. Even though his jeans were baggy, they suddenly felt a little bit too tight.
There was heat. He was getting hard watching Esteban eat a fucking hot dog in a dive bar.
New York had been a weird mix of anticipation and disappointment so far—the sheer thrill of being here coupled with the burdens of filming bullshit for F1, getting ditched by Charles and then this funny, fun, out of the blue evening with his old rival and best friend. None of this was any excuse. He was about to go to the bathroom and take five minutes to get his life together when Esteban leaned in and put his hand high on Pierre’s thigh.
“That half a hot dog isn’t going to cut it for dinner,” Esteban said, looking at Pierre through his lashes again. “You could come back to my room?”
“What about -” Pierre wasn’t even sure what he was asking about.
“No,” Esteban told him, shaking his head. “This isn’t a problem for me when it’s you.”
“All right,” said Pierre, and he paid for his beers while Esteban was the one to go do god knew what in the bathroom.
They left the bar together and Pierre trailed behind Esteban whose long legs carried him further faster. He had his suit jacket slung over his shoulder with just a finger, the way people in movies about New York did, like when they were coming home from a gala, unhurried in the romance of a summer night in the city. Esteban looked at ease like that now, Pierre watching the tall figure of the guy from his childhood cut through the busy streets in the city he always thought he loved.
In Esteban’s room he unlaced his shoes and left them by the door, and then thought for a second before removing his socks too. The room was neater than Pierre’s—he had left it uncharacteristically a disaster zone—but Esteban didn’t have F1 filming him get ready. He didn’t have a team of people trying to make his hair look decent and spritzing stuff in his face and cooing over his fucking Louis Vuitton suit.
“Do you want something to drink? There’s the mini bar but I haven’t even looked in it.” Esteban deposited his suit jacket on the same little satin lined hanger that Pierre had down the hall and now that he was wearing just the white undershirt, in the yellowy lights of the hotel bulbs, he looked ordinary and uncool.
He was the kid who stood in Pierre’s bedroom ready for a sleepover, asking him if he could have the extra blanket because he had grown fourteen centimeters in one year and his toes stuck out of the bottom of the sleeping bag. The guy who sat next to him, rigid and weird, with awkward jokes that still forced laughs out of Pierre against his will, as they filmed promos and videos for Alpine.
Just the tall curly-haired dork that Pierre had known and followed for a lifetime, from the karting track to this very hotel room.
“Pierre?” Esteban asked, stepping forward, looking unsure.
Pierre shook it off, that feeling of being so close but not ever knowing. “I’m good,” he said. “I don’t need a drink.”
Esteban chewed on his lip, looking like he didn’t know what came next. Like he got his crush all the way up to his fancy hotel room overlooking Central Park and didn’t know what to do with him. “Do you want to watch something?” he asked.
It annoyed Pierre endlessly when they were at Alpine, how Esteban had the talent of making something already awkward more awkward. You could see it in every moment, every struggle to make something land, his cringe falling outside his body as if it were a living thing.
Maybe Pierre had distance. Maybe he had gained perspective after the podium in Brazil or after Alpine cut Este loose for Jack at the end. He had wanted to fall through the floor while they shared apple flavored KitKats and made burgers for Jack, Esteban fighting with him for every inch of attention and praise. It had been so embarrassing to sit through, to participate in.
He was just being kind though, here, to try to make Pierre comfortable. Pierre, always having to hide so much of himself, never made it easy.
So Pierre stepped forward then, to reach up and cup Esteban’s face in his hands. He rubbed his thumb against the soft stubble of his beard where it was growing in along his jaw. Esteban’s face had always been so soft. He wasn’t sure what it meant that he still knew that, that he remembered that of all things.
“We don’t have to, you know.”
Esteban’s voice was quiet and too caring and then Pierre was on him, pulling him in and crashing their mouths together inelegantly. Esteban made a sound like he’d been punched and Pierre used that opening, to push his way in with his tongue, and then it was all heat and wet mouths, Esteban’s soft face and even softer lips, just like it used to be.
In a second, Esteban was pulling off the tshirt and unclasping his suit trousers. Pierre shrugged off his jacket and fell to the bed, kicking off his jeans frantically, glad that he already removed his socks. He started to laugh.
“What?” Esteban gave him a look but was laughing too, his arms shaking as he held himself above Pierre.
“No, just, come here,” Pierre cut him off and kissed him quickly before reaching down to pull off Esteban’s black socks. They were the no-show kind after all. “It’s just a pet peeve of mine. It seems really unsexy to keep socks on while you fuck.”
“Oh, okay,” said Esteban, nodding with that strange smile he sometimes got, like he wasn’t sure Pierre was fucking with him and had to hide his disappointment with something likeable. “I don’t want to be unsexy.”
“You’re sexy,” he assured in a fit of honesty, maybe because he was the reason Esteban even had that hesitant, unsure kind of smile and it hurt him, just a little bit.
“Oh good.” Esteban smiled differently than before and he started sucking a small bruise in the soft flesh of Pierre’s thigh, at the juncture of his balls and his rock-hard cock.
Unable to help himself, Pierre moaned loudly at the feeling and then managed to whisper, “Oh fuck,” as Esteban licked a long stripe along the vein from the bottom to the tip of Pierre’s cock. “Este, please,” he said, and threaded his fingers into Esteban’s hair as he sank down.
When Esteban wrapped his hand around the base and started jacking him in short strokes in time with his mouth, Pierre was ready to burst. Everything inside him was lighting up just from the wet suck of Esteban’s hollowed out cheeks, the movement of the tight ring made by his fingers wrapped around Pierre’s length. “Fuck, fuck,” he cried out right before he started coming in thick spurts with no warning.
Somehow Esteban was able to swallow most of it. Only a tiny bit remained on his chin and lips as he bent down to kiss Pierre. It was messy and dirty, and he shamelessly sucked on Esteban’s tongue, tasting himself in Este’s mouth.
“I’m sorry,” he choked, once they broke apart for air.
Esteban wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sat up, still straddling Pierre’s thighs. “No, don’t be. I’ve always loved that about you.”
“What the hell?” Pierre gasped and covered his eyes with his forearm. He never even knew that Esteban noticed how quickly he came.
“You always lose it so fast when I blow you. It’s so hot, especially that I can do that to you.” Smiling, Esteban leaned down and ran a hand across Pierre’s jaw. It was tender, not more than what Pierre thought it was going to be.
“I’m sorry. Do you want me to do you? Or?” Pierre asked, filled with awkwardness and transported to when they were fifteen again. In a little bedroom with curtains that had faded from blue to grey, over a bustling garage, neither of them knew what they were doing or what they were asking for back then. “Did you want to fuck me?”
The look on Esteban’s face showed that he didn’t know or expect that to be on offer tonight. “Do you want me to? Pierre, after all this time?”
He wasn’t sure what it said about him that he felt more embarrassed for asking about them fucking than for coming down Esteban’s throat after getting his dick sucked for a minute. Without thinking he said, “It’s you.”
Esteban lay on top of him and kissed him softly, tiny little movements of their lips against each other. They breathed together quietly, completely, before Esteban asked, “Can you just keep kissing me?”
Pierre ran his hands through Esteban’s hair again while Este jerked himself off. He placed kisses everywhere he could, whispering “Este, yes, Este, come on,” into the tender skin of his neck and shoulder. And finally, when Esteban was in the shell of his ear, the most familiar voice of his life telling him he was going to come, Pierre linked their hands to pull pleasure out of Esteban.
“Ah fuck, Pierre,” Esteban swore as he came all over Pierre’s tightened abs and chest.
Pierre felt bad that he felt a little gross and waited a respectable minute or so before surreptitiously wiping off Esteban’s jizz with the bottom of the sheet.
“Oh my god, that was good,” Esteban sighed, unmoving with his head on the duvet next to Pierre’s hip. When Pierre carded his hand through his hair again, his lips curled into a smile into Pierre’s skin. “You love my hair now I see.”
“You look good with it curly like this.” Pierre didn’t want to deny it.
“This hair is actually like you remember. Back when we were kids it was curly.”
“It was,” said Pierre. “But if they ask me on Grill the Grid who has the best hair I’m never gonna say you.”
“Just don’t say George,” Esteban laughed into Pierre’s side again.
Eventually they made a call to room service which had been the auspices of this part of the night to begin with. Esteban took a shower and Pierre felt a little too sober, sitting in the hotel bed in one of those fluffy robes with the hotel name stitched above his heart, with the sheet pulled up to his waist.
“Bon soir,” he greeted Charles over facetime when he finally retrieved his phone from the jacket pocket and saw three missed calls.
“Look I’m sorry about before and cancelling our plans.” Charles launched into it without preamble, with no sense of awareness of how the evening had unexpectedly gone for Pierre. “And I shouldn’t have been so upset about Spa because I knew of course, about going home and not coming here. It doesn’t matter either way. It is what it is.”
Pierre nodded but said, “If you’re unhappy then you’re unhappy. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk to me.”
Charles sighed and stopped pacing. He ran his hand through his hair. “Yes but it’s not a crisis, as you like to say.”
“It’s not. But you can talk about it. I’m just saying have some perspective or something. You have a pretty nice life so maybe don’t always say how much it sucks because you’re disappointed about one thing.”
Charles shrugged. “It’s okay. Things are fine now. We talked about it.”
Esteban came out of the bathroom with a cloud of steam, wearing worn in joggers and a plain black tshirt. “Oops sorry!” he cried out, realizing Pierre was on a call.
Pierre waved his hand. “It’s just Charles.”
“Hello Esteban!” Charles said brightly, but was clearly only half interested in seeing his best friend on the grid and his best friend’s ex of every kind in a hotel room together. “Anyway, it’s late and I should get going. What are you two going to do?”
“We’re getting room service,” Pierre said, and Esteban nodded and grinned at him. “We’re starving.”
“Yeah, sounds good!” Charles sounded proper distracted now, wherever he was. He pulled the phone away from his face and announced, “I should take this call, it’s morning in Monaco now,” and he waved again before hanging up with Pierre.
In the group of them that had grown up together—Alex, George, Pierre, Esteban, Charles, Max, always Max—competing and forming different offshoots of rivalries and friendships and destinies, he was the one who was Charles’ actual friend. He listened to the endless bitching from Monaco to Milan and let the sun burn bright on his skin only to peel it all away in Ibiza and St. Tropez. All of it was barely suffering now even though Pierre knew they both had. They both did.
But he wasn’t the person who lived rent free in Charles’ head. And Charles wasn’t that person for him either. Still, he resented Max somehow. He was sure Charles never cared when it was the other way around. When Pierre had his own childhood rival that made his life confusing and frustrating as hell.
“All seems good?” Esteban’s tone was hopeful even though he had never had a thought about anyone skipping a movie premiere, testing at Spa before this. “For Charles?”
“It’s settled now, I guess.” Pierre looked at Esteban and made a shrugging motion with his shoulders. “I don’t get them.”
Esteban walked towards the door to bring in the room service trays that had arrived. “They probably don’t get us either,” he said, talking over his shoulder. “If they even think about us at all.”
“I don’t know that there’s anything to think about,” Pierre mused, not meaning to sound insulting. He was thinking like Charles, like Max. “There isn’t anything to get.”
“That’s fair.” Esteban sat next to Pierre again on the bed, moving the trays to the mattress where they shook and bounced against the wobbly springs and pressure from the bodies.
Apparently Esteban was not worried about the possible mess on the sheets or the smell of food enveloping him as he slept. He started to eat his Caesar salad, dipping his salt and pepper fries into the small boat of extra dressing.
“I always loved how much effort you give to everything. But we don’t have to understand what they have and they don’t have to even think about us and that’s okay. We’re our own thing.” Esteban found Pierre’s hand and slotted them together in the space between them on the bed. He took the silver lid off Pierre’s plate with a stupid flourish and then laughed at his own silliness. “Cheer up. You have this excellent room service burger that I got you. It cost 38 American dollars.”
Objectivity was not a word in Pierre’s vocabulary. For most racers it realistically couldn’t be - not when giving in meant giving up. Esteban was objectively handsome, he could be genuinely funny, he was generous and quick to laugh. It was so hard to admit, this attraction to Esteban, this lingering feeling that would travel with him through life and Pierre started to hate why.
He knew he had always been too impressed. Had tried too hard to make it look like he wasn’t trying hard. Esteban wanted to be liked. And Pierre wanted to seem to be liked.
Maybe Charles drove for Ferrari and Lando drove a rocketship and Max could fuck off to Spa. But Pierre had someone sitting next to him still, who ordered food and shared his shitty hot dog and made him come his brains out and didn’t let him apologize for being who he was even when he still wasn’t doing anything right.
He leaned over and kissed Esteban quickly, hard, to punctuate it. The burger teetered precariously on the tray in his lap. Esteban ignored it and grabbed his jaw, deepened the kiss, tasting like the garlicky tang of his ridiculous dressing, the salt and brine of the handful of fries. Pierre pulled away and took a huge bite of the burger, let the juice seep out down his hand and onto the tray. The cheese felt stuck in his teeth but he smiled anyway and accepted the napkin Esteban held out.
They ate quietly, tearing through their food, covering the napkins with grease and sauce. While the second episode of SVU began, they traded kisses back and forth, Pierre’s tongue sliding against Esteban’s tasting the sweetness of Esteban’s coke. And it was nice, exactly what he wanted.
“This is the best meal I’ve had in my life,” Esteban sighed when he had cleaned the plate of fries. He continued to stab the romaine with his fork while his other hand held onto Pierre’s lightly.
“For me too, I think,” he agreed quickly. “Or at least better than the hot dog.”
Esteban snickered and stole another fry off of Pierre’s plate. “We definitely still like the same things.”
I still like you, he thought. After all this time, I still like you. But that was a sobering thought for a different city, a different meal, or a different moment. He was so tired now. And it was late. So late and Pierre had already started to dress when Esteban got out of bed to use the toilet.
“You can stay if you want,” Esteban offered as he moved from the bathroom with his toothbrush and a cloud of bright blue toothpaste on it. “It’s just you and me.”
Pierre looked up as he struggled with his shoes. “I can’t,” and before Esteban could react at all, with disappointment or nonchalance, he added, “They’re filming me in the morning to go get a New York bagel.”
“Oh that’s awesome!” Esteban spit his toothpaste in the sink and emerged again, this time rubbing some moisturizer into his face. It made him look shiny and young.
“Yeah,” Pierre shrugged. “I don’t know why I’m doing all the content this weekend,” he pretended to complain. They probably had asked George or Lando first anyway and George had made some stupid joke about not eating something called cream cheese, Lando had asked what’s a bagel like an idiot.
“I’ll watch it for sure.”
“Cool,” said Pierre. He put on his jacket without knowing why. He was just going down a floor or two, walking past door after door until he found his own chilly dark room, no smells of greasy fries and a burger, of sex and Esteban’s cologne that smelled like home. Sterile and cleaned by the housekeeping staff, nothing complicated or messy in sight, the way Pierre had always liked it.
Esteban leaned against the doorframe as he said goodbye, his hair unstyled and fluffy on top, his eyes tired but so happy. They kissed gently, just a soft tug of lips and shared breath. He tasted minty, made new by a quick scrub, a swish of mouthwash, as if this night never happened
The social media team from F1 already had a bagel place picked out for him in the morning. The sign outside advertised one that was braided in rainbow stripes and Pierre wondered if that was even edible.
“I’ll get a bagel everything,” he decided after considering at least twenty-five types. “Everything bagel.” He was about to get just plain cream cheese when the guy at the shop offered him the scallion type on the end of a little wooden stick.
The flavor was pungent and zippy, smooth cream cheese decked with bright strips of green. “That’s actually very good! I’ll take that!” He watched the guy wrap his bagel in wax paper, slippery to the touch, and cut it in half with a long serrated knife. The shop was packed with a line out the door and it wasn’t the kind of place where you lingered to eat.
Back at the hotel, in his room, he gave it a thumbs up. “9.5! Or 9.9!” he proclaimed to the crew and someone said, “I can smell the scallions!” Someone else joked that Pierre wouldn’t get a lot of kisses that night and Pierre laughed as he zipped his suit into the heavy bag and scooped his toiletries from the bathroom counter into his suitcase, thinking about making out for hours while having a meal from room service.
He was early to the lobby. The team from Haas was there waiting for their transportation too. Esteban was laughing at something Ollie said, his arms crossed casually across his chest and his head thrown back. He was wearing the same black joggers that he had slept in last night and Pierre felt a flip in his stomach that he knew that. He knew what Esteban had worn to bed and it was making him completely insane.
Ollie waved happily and Esteban raised his hand too. The car was still fifteen minutes away according to his text updates.
“Come on,” he said, walking up to the Haas group with a determined sort of confidence. Pierre tugged at the hem of Esteban’s tshirt and quickly crossed the middle of the lobby without looking back, trusting that Este was following. Curly haired Ollie, so tall like he was on stilts, stared at them, bug-eyed and naive, and Pierre ignored it, head down, mind focused on only one thing. He pushed through a set of heavy velvet drapes by the bar in a very dark hallway and opened the door to the men’s room.
“What’s up?” asked Esteban once they were in the bathroom, as if he regularly got pulled into restrooms all the time for chats about the weather. His voice was warm though and his eyes were crinkly the way they got when he was happy.
Pierre groaned and pushed him into the largest stall and kicked the door closed and locked it with a click. Esteban’s eyes went wide as Pierre shoved him against the wall and grabbed him by the back of the neck to kiss him.
“Oh,” Este managed to say, sounding slow and shocked. He bent down and kissed Pierre back, sweet and easy, like nothing else in Pierre’s life.
Pierre pushed his thigh in between Esteban’s legs and rolled his hips a little. He wasn’t yet hard but the friction still felt good, felt grounding because his brain felt fuzzy. His head felt crazy.
“I haven’t thought about you for more than a second,” he growled against Esteban’s neck, his hand wrapped loosely around Esteban’s throat. “In seven months I haven’t filmed a single thing with you or been asked stupid ridiculous questions on the fan stage. We were over.” He traced the stubble above Esteban’s adam’s apple with his thumb. “And now I don’t think I’m gonna stop thinking about you.”
“Oh Pierre.” Esteban sighed into Pierre’s hair. He nosed along the soft skin below his ear and wrapped his long arm around Pierre’s shoulder to draw him close. They were hugging. “It’s okay. We just got lost in it. It’ll go back to the way it was.”
“Will we?”
“If you want to.”
“Okay,” said Pierre as he left a mark with his mouth on Esteban’s skin. He stepped back and his head hit the door, making it rattle loudly in the empty bathroom. It cleared out his brain. “We’ll see.”
Esteban leaned in though, and kissed him again, gently this time, the emotion written on his face in the way that he stared at Pierre when he finally pulled away.
“I’ll see you soon,” he said quietly.
“Yeah. In Austria,” Pierre whispered. “I’ll see you,” and he opened the door to go.
The car was there and someone from Alpine was helping with his luggage that he had dumped at the desk. He fist bumped Ollie and clapped his hand on Ayao’s back before walking out, not looking around for whether Esteban had come out of the bathroom yet.
“Did you have a good trip to New York?” his driver asked as the car pulled away from the curb, joining the line of traffic that was making its way across town.
Pierre looked up from his phone and nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Do anything fun?”
“I went out with my friend,” he said. “We went to some bars and tried some drinks and it was cool. We kind of just got lost in it, in the city, and yeah.” Pierre trailed off and looked out the tinted window, realizing he could have simply said he went to a movie premiere and got his picture taken with Brad Pitt.
The driver hummed in agreement. “It’s a great city for that.”
“I ate a really good bagel,” Pierre told him with a smile. He kissed someone in a hotel bathroom who didn’t mind that he tasted of cream cheese and coffee even after he brushed his teeth, someone who chose to get lost with him in their evening of New York moments.
The driver laughed. “Seems like you enjoyed yourself,” he said, sincere, and Pierre never understood the reputation of everyone here being an asshole.
“I did,” Pierre answered, and let his eyes slip closed. “I love New York.”