in so deep ✴︎ cl16
genre: friends to lovers, charles has a huge crush and is a lovesick bloke, smut, humor, Fluff
word count: 13.1k
It takes you many cities, a botched Halloween costume and a failed break-in to realize how much Charles likes you. It takes Charles several years to realize he doesn’t need to do much to have you like him back. title from this
nsfw warnings under the cut!
18+ because... penetrative sex, praise central, size kink, unprotected sex
auds here… thank u for all ur love during my periods of being awol .... i wrote this over the course of a week and i hope u all like it!!! its very much a self indulgent thing... :P
The first time Charles realized he liked you, you were both posed for a picture.
It happened at a dinner party in London, in late autumn, thrown by you to celebrate your first year on the paddock as a reporter. Few friends had been invited but, with how noisy everyone was and with the ease of conversation, it felt like a houseful of people in your narrow dining area. Lando was in front of the mirror, tipsy, demonstrating his best rendition of an Irish accent to a genuinely interested Alex and Lily.
Max was playing with your pet cat, Gene Kelly, and mentally plotting a heist to sneak him out with Pierre’s help. Your boyfriend, Liam, was making himself a cocktail. And Lewis had been roaming around with a glass of dry wine and his brand new film camera to document the night’s festivities—but the host was nowhere to be found. Unbeknownst to everyone, full off dinner and tipsy off cocktails, you’d ducked into the balcony to find where Charles had run off to for the night.
The music was muffled when you shut the door, leaving it ajar just a little bit. Lissie had played Cocteau Twins and was singing whatever gibberish lyrics played, fully drunk off a bottle of Tito’s. Still laughing over her predicament, you turned to Charles and refocused your attention on him. Is it boring?
What w… what is? He asked, turning to you. Briefly his eyes flitted to your hand, the bracelets clasped onto your wrist. He noticed you held matching bottles of beer but yours remained full, nail tapping idly on the semi-opaque glass.
My party, you responded wryly, cocking your head to the side. A loose tendril of hair fell over your eye and he itched to tuck it back in place, thumb over your ear. You continued, still pressing for an answer. You left to smoke but you didn’t come back.
I like the view. A half-lie but truthful in some way. He squinted to try and make out blurry, faraway signage. I should move here. Monaco makes me sick. He tried to say it jokingly, but was betrayed by the raw tone of his voice. You hummed quietly, to signify you were listening.
So move. Who’s stopping you? You smiled slightly. Aside from your ludicrous career, of course.
You had a natural disposition of—something. He didn’t quite know how to describe it, almost like the rest of him had yet to catch up with something only his heart was already decided on. You spoke and acted with some kind of smoothness that only the most popular kids in secondary school could have reins over, but you always claimed you weren’t very popular in your teenage years. He just knew he liked hearing you talk, watching you smile. He felt something—but he didn’t want to name it even if he knew exactly what it was. Instead he played into your joke. Yeah, I’ve been told I should move to Dubai instead, become a prince.
You laughed aloud. You are terribly unfunny, you know that?
Am I? He asked. Just then, as the cotton of his tee brushed against your bare shoulder, Liam brashly tugged the balcony door open to find you. He had this drunk smile on his face, brushing his blond hair out of the way and raising a Leica to the two of you.
Hey, I got Lewis’ camera. Smile, Liam had said, eyes squinted behind it. You remained still, half-turned to the camera, and Charles gave a smile whereas you remained in a neutral, half-smiling pose. And right there, at that very moment, as a giggle escaped your lips from having to pose so quickly and even awkwardly, Charles realized with a damning force that he had a massive crush on you.
Liam had left shortly after to resume taking pictures, but would later confront you over your “weird, odd, fucking closeness with the Monegasque bloke” that you would vehemently deny despite a gut-churning feeling boiling low in your stomach. But that’s later. Your conversation continued calmly, along the passive whir of London and the streets below. You both people-watched as you thought of things to say—finally Charles said, Are you interviewing me next weekend?
I always try to get out of it when it’s with you. You rolled your eyes, feigning irritance, then smiled to break the illusion. I think so.
I’ll make sure I have good answers. You’re too smart. Hurts to be in the same room.
Like you aren’t, you said back, but the rebuttal is shy in nature, like he struck you with a compliment so high you couldn’t bear to return it. He felt then like this was the kind of moment where you would start holding hands any minute, timid touches between clinks of bottles. He remembered Liam existed and screwed his eyes shut. He wished so hard to be able to kiss you. Abandon all sense and just kiss you.
—
“It’s 2023 and still London has the most rubbish ass, fucking cunt, stupid wanker stoplights,” Lissie huffs beside you, checking her watch. “Right then. We’re going to be late. You know how Lando is when people are late. Especially because this is his event.”
“We’re not people to Lando,” you reason, tapping the steering wheel. The ETA on your navigation app tells you you’re still twenty minutes away. “We’re his best friends. If he can’t forgive us, we should kick him out of the group chat.”
“Ooh, and add Alex,” Lily pipes up from the backseat, where she’s redoing her eyeshadow to pass the time. “I keep telling you guys he’s funnier than Lando.” Both you and Lissie make faint, vague sounds of dissent and she grunts again, deflating.
“No boyfriends in the group chat,” Lissie repeats an age-old rule that’s been around for as long as you three (four, including Lando) have been friends. “Or girlfriends, in Lando’s case, but we haven’t worried about that much, have we?”
You’re all en route to watch Lando crank out a brand-new deejay set, one he’s spent the summer break working on. It’s all house and inspired by beach music, and he’s very proud of it, so of course you’re all showing up to laud him. You’re not the only ones, though, apparently—whoever’s in the city is showing up to show their support, which includes a whole stretch of drivers.
“Oh, my God!” Lily says all of a sudden, eyes wide at something on her phone; you both gesture for her to show you and she does with speed. “Do you guys remember this? God, Instagram archives are a godsend.”
“Your dinner party in Chelsea!” Lissie coos, immediately sidling into a fond awwww! You tap at the story Lily had then posted: a video of everybody eating. You tap again to view the one she posted a few days later, which was a collage of Lewis’ camera scans he’d gotten developed overnight. There in the upper right corner, you almost immediately spot your photo with Charles.
“Oh, Christ, that picture.” Memories of your subsequent arguments with Liam flash past your head. Playfully, all you say is, “And I never had a boyfriend again.”
“Liam was an Irish arse, anyway.” Lissie scoffs. “Nobody liked him. Lewis joked about cleaning his camera after he used it that night. Plus, you actively avoid dating, so don’t complain.”
“Fair,” you say with a slight smile. Your mind lingers on the picture, the imprint of it burned fresh into your mind.
“You—it’s also because you can’t take a hint, babe.” Lily says matter-of-factly. “Who knows how many guys have, you know… fancied, or, like, had crushes on you, and you just never knew?”
“Are you saying somebody fancies me?” You ask, voice whittling out playfully as your eyes count down the seconds to the green light.
Funnily, silence is all that answers. Beside you, Lily and Lissie exchange a look—one that communicates their years-long amusement over your cluelessness. You whirl back to them, eyebrows raised, and double down: “Wait. Does somebody fancy me?”
“No!” Lily ekes out; you don’t miss Lissie’s poorly-hidden laugh. “No. I’m just—it’s just—no.”
Truth is, it truly seems like the only person in the entire paddock (team and Sky Sports staff included) who hasn’t caught on to a certain somebody’s boyish crush is the crush herself, oblivious as ever, even years and years later. One might think you’d have realized eventually, but perhaps owed to your type A personality and immersion with work, and Charles’ pathetic and total inability to express how much he likes you, the crush has always remained just that, despite your two friend groups’ best efforts to hint at it.
It wasn’t to say, though, that you didn’t sometimes entertain the idea of liking him, too. On that one rainy race weekend when he’d brought you a plastic cup of soup, and embarrassed, laughed sheepishly at Lissie’s joking request for one; then returned twenty minutes later with soup for everyone in the media pen. Or that time in Monaco where he’d pretended to be your boyfriend at a bar to ward off a creepo from hitting on you any further. Or another time, in Budapest, when he’d drank half his body weight in jello shots and slurred out a goofy, heavy I’m soooo sorry, baby while you helped him into the passenger seat of his car.
That one, singular time in Cancun you told your friends once and never again.
But those are isolated incidents, you suppose; plus, dating someone you work with has never seemed like a remotely good idea to you, and you don’t think it ever will.
For all your thinking on the topic, you fail to realize that you don’t know much at all—you don’t know the fact that Charles has liked you for years, after getting to know just how charming and funny you were as a friend. You don’t know that he still gets gut-churning butterflies when he sees you, hands shaky and face tinged pink. You miss the fact that he’s not had any long-term partners in the years of his liking you. You don’t know anything.
“Don’t lie.” You narrow your eyes as you rev the car and continue the trip.
“We’re not,” Lily says loudly and a touch too defensively, crossing her fingers. Quietly, she continues, “You should just pay more attention.”
Whatever she meant to say is lost on you as soon as you make a left and spot the club Lando’s at, already teeming with high-profile guests and their high-profile cars. Half an hour later you’re in—valet and being on the guest list effectively cuts your entrance time in half. You separate at the entrance—you, to find Lando; your two girls, to find your reserved table. You find him eventually, busy behind the booth churning out high-frequency tropical music; he pauses for half a beat to flash a huge grin and a thumbs-up before redirecting his attention to the knobs and sliders you can’t seem to guess the functions of.
These kinds of parties are affairs in and of themselves. They mimic the afterparties during the season—nothing if not shows of opulence and networking: champagne paid for by business magnates, yachts that barely make dents in anybody’s wallets, thick CVs, fruity cocktails spilled on pieces of clothing that cost upward of 3000 pounds. You make eye contact with at least seven skeevy businessmen before you spot your friends, but only because you hear them first—by them you mean Lissie, her loud voice raised even more to match the noise at this club.
“I said I didn’t fu—ugh—I don’t want ye fahkin’ champagne,” she slurs out to an old man in a pressed suit, eyebrows knitted angrily. “Got it?!” Behind her, Lily and Alex (who’s arrived now, apparently) watch, concerned and helpless to stop her but equally (perhaps more) entertained.
You step closer and make a move to calm down the exchange taking place, but somebody whispers a “hey” in your ear and startles you. You turn, and come face to face with Charles. His black tee accentuates the breadth of his shoulders, which you connect to his crossed arms; there’s a shy, boyish grin playing on his face. “Oh, Charles!” You smile. “Hey! Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Thanks,” he says with a grin, straining to raise his voice. “You look—you look well. Are you alone?”
“No, I’m—” You turn to your three friends nearby, and to Lissie’s argument heating up. “I actually have to go.” You raise your thumb, jabbing it toward them. “But hi again… again!” You both laugh, but he laughs much louder. “I’ll see you around.”
“I jus—” He says, and you stick around for a second to hear him say what he has to say.
“Yeah?”
He clears his throat and laughs stiffly, abandoning his previous statement in favor of a new one. “I just…. want… to have a great time.”
“Ohhhh,” you holler, nodding, clearly trying to mask your extreme confusion under a polite smile. “Okay, well… go ahead!”
You smooth down your dress and laugh again, evidently more forced but, unfortunately for Charles, not any less pretty.
You carry yourself in a very pretty, graceful way, loud and quiet at the same time, like your confident voice when you’re holding the mic and asking questions or making drivers laugh. He might sound creepy, though, a touch too observant, if he tells you so. He observes you instead, for a second, the low cut of your dress and the way the red overhead light shines on your exposed collarbones—and then you’re leaving. He watches you walk over to hug Lily, realizes how stupid he’s sounded, and smothers a hand over his face, humiliated.
—
“I just want to have a great time?” Max’s jaw drops and he shakes his head, disappointed above all else. “Charles, what the actual. Like…. fuck?” They’re all camped out at the latter’s hotel room, around the dining table, in varying states of sober and doing different things to wear off the last hour of the night before they’re all due to train or debrief again in the morning. Charles had relayed the disaster of the night to everyone at some point, but Max is the last to hear of it; this, unfortunately, does not inoculate him from the shock and secondhand embarrassment.
“Pierre told me to—” Charles starts, forlorn.
“Oi, no. I told you to say something like I just wish… I’d seen you sooner,” interjects the Frenchman with a tut. “You know, flirting? Not… whatever the fuck you said.”
“I didn’t—I was—I lost my mind,” he groans, burying his head in his hands. It couldn’t possibly be entirely his fault when you looked so pretty tonight, hair down and a wash of glitter on your eyelids. Just subtle little flecks of them. They brought out your eyes, too. And your blush, the pink flush of it that sat high on your cheekbones.
“…llo? Charles.” He blinks and sees Carlos’ deep eyes, wide and staring right at him, so pointedly he’s genuinely startled.
“Jeeesus fucking Christ. What?” He places a melodramatic hand over his chest. “Yeah?”
“What do you mean with the”—Carlos mimics his confused expression—“I asked you a question, tonto.”
“Don’t bother with him,” chimes in Pierre, half-distracted by his phone. He looks up with a devious smile and continues. “He’s still thinking of Miss Reporter of the Year.” A round of loud, jovial laughter makes its way across the table, a few teasing quips being chimed in here and there.
“I just,” mocks Pierre from across the table, adopting a sing-songy tone as he bumps his shoulder to Carlos’ with a mocking laugh. “Wanna have a great time.” His voice is much higher and more mocking, which is enough to send Charles into a fit of petulant embarrassment.
“This isn’t sixth year,” he grits out quietly, but the blush on his face could just as well be plastered on the cheeks of a twelve-year-old. “Give it a rest.”
“Mate.” Pierre’s voice mellows into something more austere. “You do know she’s leaving the reporters’ job at the end of the season? She’s going to London full-time. No more seeing her all year round. You know this. And I keep telling you. If you are really, and I mean really, interested, I say go for it. C’est la fucking vie, yeah?”
“Plus, if she says no, you can go for pretty much anyone else, anyway,” concludes Max with a convinced smile.
“It’s not the same,” he admits helplessly, smothering his hands over his face in bleak frustration. Behind his eyelids he sees you still, beautiful and smiling and funny—he seriously needs to institutionalise himself before he goes even more mad with the years-long malady he’s called a crush. And seriously, for a twenty-something to have something he calls a crush is despicable in itself. He feels juvenile.
“I can’t tell her. She’s always told people that dating coworkers is a bad idea.”
“You’re not coworkers.”
“We’re—well, we still work closely together. It is the same.” He groans. “It’s just… I’ve said it before. If I admit I like her, things will become awkward. I’d rather we remain friends.”
“Well… see, nobody said you needed to tell her,” begins Pierre schemingly, eyebrows raising. Around them, everybody groans at the birth of another Pierre-brained scheme that will, no doubt, need the enlistment of everyone’s help and will likely end in disaster. “What?! I’m just offering… I’m just saying, mate—you’ve liked her since forever. Why not make a move?”
“—I can’t—”
“Without telling her?”
“Pierre,” groans Carlos, ever the voice of reason, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t—whatever this is you’re planning, it’s going to go to shit. I swear.”
“You are acting like I plan to take somebody hostage.” Pierre shrugs. “You know, girls like when you don’t tell them straight up. You have to show you like them. You know, be interested in the things they’re interested in, compliment them, make them laugh. And then they think, oh, how thoughtful, oh, how adorable, and before you know it, they like you. And you’ve got yourself a girlfriend.”
“Mmm. Uh-uh. Untrue.” Max says decisively, shaking his head. “I told Kelly I liked her.”
“Yeah, sí. I told Isa I liked her, too.”
“Will you two—just—” Pierre gesticulates and makes a funny noise that insinuates just go with it. “Okay?” he points out to the latter, rolling his eyes. He turns back to Charles with a ready, dazzling, so-French-it’s-scary grin and continues. “I suggest you let us be your wingmen and help you charm her.”
“Whoa, whoa, wh—us? You’re on your own here,” Max quips with a laugh. “It’s your stupid idea.”
“It’s not stupid, and it’s going to work. She probably likes you already.” His confidence carries the lie with gusto. “We just need—you just need to show her instead of saying the dumbest shit to her face.” Pierre leans back into his chair and shrugs matter-of-factly. “Max and I will be regular wingmen, but we have a secret weapon.”
“Don’t—” Carlos starts with a sigh.
“Yes. Lando, Lily, and Lissie are all close to her, eh? Well, perfect—Carlos will get information from Lando about things she likes, you gift her those things or talk to her about them, bam she’s in love. It’s literally a perfect plan.”
Maybe it’s worth it. Maybe—
“No.” Charles shakes his head firmly, setting the record straight. “This will not work. Who’s to say she even needs a boyfriend?”
—
Despite what his best and closest friends—on and off the paddock—might have you believe, Charles hasn’t always been so hopeless when it came to trying to catch your heart. His closest call came in Cancun, after a long weekend of racing and a flight to the area, early into the night where he thought he was the only one who decided to opt out of partying.
Your skin’s peeling. You turned from where you sat on a barstool observing the shore, startled, immediately relaxing when you found him standing there eyeing you. Your hair was still damp, crunchy with saltwater, and your skin had tanned considerably, a sunburn sitting on the bridge of your nose. You stuck your tongue out.
I spent the whole day swimming. He observed your bikini, yellow and green contrasting the colour of your skin. He blinked slowly, ordering himself a drink to hopefully pass the thoughts away. His eyes couldn’t stop, though, wandering, the translucent material of the scarf you’d tied loosely around your hips, the tinge of heat on your shoulders and nose. I’m burnt everywhere.
There are remedies for that. He smiled around his glass.
I’m aware, you said lightly, crossing your legs and sliding your finger along the salt rim of yours. But just in case I forgot, maybe you could refresh my memory.
Your voice was so sweet, so low, so tempting. Already he knew he was wrapped around your finger, the same finger picking up grains of salt to press on your tongue peeking between your smiling lips. You brought your glass to your lips. It had been some time since the dinner in London so he pressed, his voice deep and a little rough, Liam can do that for you, I’m sure.
Pity, you said meekly as you set your glass down and looked back at him. He’s not my boyfriend anymore.
Out of eyeline, the bartender’s eyes widened at the exchange he was overhearing.
Is it a pity? He asked, leaning backwards and cocking his head to the side. It’s easy, an easy glide of conversation, flirt, something he’s wanted for a while now. To have you playing into him, and have himself playing into you, just like this. It was naturally easy in a foreign city where nobody knew who either of you were, where you were just two strangers flirting at a beachside bar.
Two strangers laughing while they dug their toes into the sand. Two strangers basking in the water, tinted orange by the sun dipping below the horizon, scarf untied in favor of one last swim before night fell. There was nothing keeping either of you from doing whatever you wanted. Nothing keeping Charles from finally acting on the attraction that honest to God crushed him.
You ended up leaning on the door of your hotel room, keycard fiddled in-between your sandy fingers. You combed a hand through your hair and offered a shy smile. So.
So, he replied, leaning closer. So.
Sooo. You were laughing and your breath smelled like a mint leaf and vodka. You looked up at him, blinking slowly. I have a rule.
What rule is that?
I don’t date coworkers. He wanted to dip down, place a hand on the dip of your waist, and kiss you.
Pity, he said gruffly instead, a smile forming on his face.
Is it a pity? You chewed on your lip and looked at his barely parted ones, pink and pretty. When I’m about to break it? He was about to help you do just that—eyes fluttered shut already—when a crash resounded from down the hall and you both turned to find the culprit. You broke apart and with your separation, whatever atmosphere of tension you’d built up popped, too, leaving you awkwardly standing beside each other.
Oh m… Lissie? You asked, leaning closer as you recognized your friend more and more. You narrowed your eyes, watching the girl crawl her way through the carpeted floor. Oh, Jesus—let’s—get you—
You both hauled her up and wrapped either arm around your shoulders, unlocking her hotel room with great effort and tossing her onto the bed. You stood back and sighed at her half-blacked out state, slightly amused but ultimately relieved she ended her night unscathed.
She pried one eye open and sleepily, she groaned out, what were… you two… doing together outside your room?
Nothing, you said quickly, face warm and eyes wide.
Because you—Lissie raised a lazy finger in your direction—don’t date coworkers.
I wasn’t—it wasn’t—goodnight, you spluttered, eyes refusing to meet Charles’ even as you both exited the room, paying him quiet thanks as he pulled the door back closed.
Sorry, you said, pretty as ever. The light shone on the red splotch on your nose. Goodnight.
And so he went to his room that night, bummed out and still high off your scent.
—
“You’re staring again.”
“I’m not,” he lies through his teeth, averting his eyes away from your figure by the shore. Sue him if he was staring (which he wasn’t… but most definitely was) but he finds you much too pretty. After the disaster that was the Mexican GP, he figures he could use some sort of stress reliever. Apparently he was not alone in thinking this, considering half the paddock hauled ass to Cancun and prompty partied.
Across Charles, Joris and Pierre share a knowing look that doesn’t go unnoticed.
“I said I’m not!”
“So you are not staring at her blue swimsuit then?” Joris tests, mouth twisted into a devious smirk.
“It’s black,” Charles says matter-of-factly before catching sight of his friends’ smug expressions and realizing he’s implicated himself. He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, petulantly almost. “And I wasn’t. Can you fucking—fuck off?”
“Just ask her out already,” Pierre groans, nodding when Joris chimes in with agreement of his own. “I seriously can-not handle another bar of this shit. It’s been years.”
“I don’t know how to,” he laments. “It’s going to be awkward if I do it all formal, and she’s going—she’ll laugh at me, and it’s…” He blows a raspberry. “Non. Pointless.”
“Just kiss her at the party,” reasons Joris with an easy attitude, shrugging.
“Joris! Charles didn’t know about that,” Pierre says, trying to lower his volume, but it’s pointless since they’re barely a metre apart. “Fucking tattletale.”
“Party?!” Charles repeats, eyes wide. “Why don’t I know about a party?!”
“It’s a Halloween party,” Joris says, a wacky grin on his face. “And you said it yourself, didn’t ‘cha? You told us not to tell you if any functions were happening because you’re too tired to go to any. Too… too wrapped up racing.” He laughs. “Or something of the sort.”
“Well the season’s ending,” he huffs, wringing firm fingers over his face, his shut eyes, “and I still fucking haven’t… so I think I’m afforded a party.”
“Alright, then come to the party! Dress code, Halloween. Sexy Halloween.” Pierre wiggles his eyebrows. “You know, speaking of our plan, Carlos overheard Lissie and Lily talking about what your girl’s costume is going to be.” He leans in closer and laces his fingers together. “She’s going as a… Christina.”
“Christina?” The other two echo, confused.
“Christina. I did some digging, and I think it’s this.” Pierre scrolls and dicks around on his phone for a minute before turning it back around to Joris and Charles, who peek with great interest. They seem to be looking at an outdated movie poster of—
“Cas-per the friendly ghost,” Charles reads aloud, trying to get his accent to dissipate. “Huh. What the fuck is that?”
“It’s a movie, idiot.” Pierre shuts his phone off. “Starring who? Christina Ricci.”
“Vraiment? You think his crush is going to show up wearing… a white gown?” Joris asks, his mind stuck on the outfit he’d seen just seconds ago. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Well Carlos and I agreed, so. Two to two. And Carlos says she and her friends always wear silly costumes like these. So if she shows up as Christina, what better way to start conversation than to dress up as Casper?”
Charles’ eyes widen with comical horror. “No. No, no, no. Did the ghost and the kid fuck?”
“No!” The two men across him yell in unison.
“Right!” He gesticulates. “So it’s not a couples’ costume!”
“But it’s still—” Pierre pauses. “It still matches. Trust me on this one, mate.” He smiles. “We even brought the supplies.”
—
The party is a hit as soon as Charles and his group enter. The former finds refuge at the table, unwilling to socialize. Pierre roams for a bit and ends up finding you almost immediately—you’re wearing low-waisted pants, a strappy top, and you sport alternating streaks of blond and black in your hair.
“Hey!” He calls, jogging up to you. “I heard you were coming as a Christina. Guess who I am?”
You rake a hand through the streaks in your hair and smile. “Not just any Christina. The artist. Xtina? You know?” You twirl a bit, the dark material of your strappy pants swishing as you go, as if the movement will help Pierre deduce the costume’s identity. “Whatever. You’ll get it. Lando is—we’re matching tonight, but I g—it wouldn’t make any more sense if you don’t understand it.” You sigh a bit and gesture vaguely to the crowd behind you, referring to the Eminem-dressed Lando, who you guess is currently caught in the thick of.
“Xtina?” Iks-tina, he repeats, clearly confused. “I remember hearing… somebody saying you were going as a… a Christina.”
“Chris-tina, Xtina, yeah. Christina Aguilera.” You smile, fingers pinching at the material of your belt. “Anyway—where is everyone? I’ve only seen Daniel’s costume and then yours.” The recent memory of Danny’s neon orange traffic cone costume bumping into everybody flashes in your mind.
“Save yourself,” he huffs, smoothing calloused hands over the denim of his jeans. “Zhou and Esteban came as Bella and Jacob, Max as a Tifosi. Anyway”—he points to his ensemble—“guess yet?”
Your mental images of each cited costume are cut short. “Aha! You’re, um. Yes! You’re Ken from the Barbie movie,” you crack finally, remembering the revealing denim vest and jeans combo from the film you’d watched four times over in theaters a few months ago. “Wow, even your briefs say Ken. Very accurate. Minus the non-bleached hair.”
He tuts and shrugs. “I’m no Alex. What’d he come as?”
“He and Lily matched—Sonny and Cher.”
“Let me guess,” Pierre starts, and already you’re nodding because you can tell he’s going to predict exactly how the night has turned out, “Alex is Cher?”
“Wig and sequined dress and all.” You nod, laughing and squinting; Alex’s tall figure, head clad in a long, fringey, black wig, stands out above the rest. “Oh, I did see Carlos at the bar. Ricky Martin?”
Pierre really laughs at that, a loud, distinctly French guffaw involuntarily forced past his lip glossed mouth. “What the fuck, mate! Ricky Martin?! He’s El Profesor from La Casa de Papel. You know, Money Heist? Bella ciao? Oh, my God, he’s going to fucking freak if he hears—heard you said that.”
“He seriously gave off Ricky Martin vibes,” you defend in-between laughs of your own. “So that’s everyone? Oh—oh. Charles! What did… I never saw him! He kept telling me how excited he was for his costume, too…” Just a few hours ago, at that—a boisterous voice honing into the your voicemail inbox, boasting about a costume while you prepped for the party with Lissie and Lily. Your eyes peruse the room, but the lighting is too dark and vague for you to make out anything you haven’t already seen.
“Oh. Charles?” Pierre’s voice lilts higher. “Um. Yeaaah. Um.”
You, however, are sufficiently distracted by your own search for him, and you fail to notice Pierre’s clear scrambling attempt to stall you. He takes a long swig of beer and clears his throat. “He’s just, well, around. I should actually—excuse me, I need to actually go look for him. I owe him a drink.”
“Oh? Oh, okay. Well—be careful?”
You’re a bit surprised by his sudden, jolted departure, but bid him a rushed goodbye anyway. He waves back vaguely, his eyebrows furrowed into an expression of worry as he shoves his way back into the crowd and toward the area littered with tables. It’s only then that Lissie surfaces from the crowd, scratching absently at her nose as she crashes into you with a floaty giggle.
“Lis, you’re all sticky.” You place two palms flat against her shoulders and push her off. “Are you high?”
“Yes but not drunk.” She giggles again, eyes fluttering.
“Oh—that’s not. Whatever, I guess.” You exhale and cross your arms over your chest. “Who’ve you been with?” She listens, plays with the braid in her hair, matching her getup as Lara Croft.
“Um, the deejay. I gave him my number, but he’s actually pretty fucking weird. Come on, I want to pee.” As always, her speech quickens to something inhuman, an effect elicited by alcohol; giving you essentially zero time to react, she loops a hand around yours and drags you with ferocity to the nearest restroom. She moves so aggressively through the thickly-packed crowd you barely have time to react or say hi to people you’re acquainted with en route.
You whiz by the door, and in the rush, you notice Pierre entering the one adjacent with a worried expression etched onto his face. Just minutes ago you’d been conversing—you wonder why he’s suddenly become privy to worries.
“So the deejay,” says Lissie, effectively distracting you for the time being. You hum to signify you’re listening, fixing bits of your outfit in the mirror as she kicks different stalls open to judge their cleanliness. “One, he was dressed up as James Bond. Which is just about the most fucking pretentious thing ever. Two, all he played was Chainsmokers. You’re telling me this pub—club—whatever—in Mexico could only afford to commission this guy? Three, he was”—she kicks the last door open and a gasp escapes her and morphs into a semi-shriek—“a ghost?!”
“Ghosted you? Already?” Your eyes, focused previously on re-lining your lips, flits to Lissie’s in the reflection. She’s distracted, staring at the contents of a stall with comically wide eyes. “What’s up? S’that a fucking glory hole or something?”
“No!” She yells when you approach, immediately lunging forward to pull it shut. “No. It’s—I saw a roach. Serves us for going to a fucking… pub. Don’t go in there, it’s…” She exhales a long breath. “It was a mama roach and… with eggs.”
“What are you talking about?” This isn’t even a pub, it’s a nightclub—one with a door fee that definitely did not warrant rogue cockroaches in the water closet. “Lis, you’re drunk-hallucinating.” You’re not even sure if that’s a thing, but you shove past her and push the stall door open again, ready to come face-to-face with, maybe, a sleeping Tinkerbell or a puking black cat. Worst case scenario, shit on the floor; worst-er case scenario, Lissie is right and you’ve stepped into a den of roaches.
Weirdest case scenario, though, if that’s an actual thing: Charles Leclerc seated on the closed toilet seat, face painted white, wearing an all-white ensemble of a large white shirt, shorts, high socks, and sneakers. He’s got two hands on either side of the wall, as if he’d been preparing to escape; how or to where, you’re clueless. Why he’s here, you’re even more stumped.
His entire face is a stark white, with black smudges of face paint on his forehead (eyebrows, you’re guessing); his hair’s been curled by the humid air at this club, and he looks like himself in all the ways he totally does not, eyes big and caught when yours click onto them.
Despite confusion, you chalk it up, as one would rationally do at a party, to intoxication. You spend a few bated breaths staring at him staring at you, his face of pure shock and embarrassment enough to sober up a drunk for a few days. “Hi.” You can hear yourself say it, but you’re so caught off-guard and full of confusion it feels alien.
“Hey,” he says, wiping four fingers over his stubborn face paint with a smile. The smile and the paint barely fade. “I’m a ghost.”
“I see. Classic.” You pause. “I’m Chr�� nevermind. Um—are you okay?”
“A bit, uh—a tad bit drunk. I seem to be in the ladies’ room.”
“Yeah, you seem to be,” you recite back to him, amusement quickly overtaking confusion. “I think Pierre was looking for you. Let me go get him. Lis, make sure he doesn’t…” You gesture a puking movement, and the pair watch and listen to your shoes click against the tile, before the door swings open and then shut again.
“Coast is clear.” Lissie’s voice has been lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “I reckon everyone you know is already looking for you?”
“This is a disaster.” He rubs frantically at the face paint, but it’s horribly futile. “You know, I didn’t even realize I was in the ladies’ room until you two came in. She cannot see me like this.”
“She already fucking has, mate.” Lissie sounds exasperated. “Whose idea was this? If you say Pierre I swe—”
“—Pierre—”
“—ar to Jesus fucking Christ, Charles—I can’t keep saving you from Pierre’s antics.” She grumbles out a sigh. “What are you supposed to be, even? Have you—did you see how hot she looks? This is like… you look like a… I can’t—” She lets herself taper off, so disbelievingly shocked at his odd costume.
“I’m Casper the Ghost!” Lissie mentally forms a crude picture of the kid ghost, which looks absolutely nothing like what’s in front of her. “Casper was opposite Christina Ricci. Pierre told me so.”
“That’s the dumbest analogy ever, holy Christ. You look like a poster child for some…” She regards him for a moment. “Anemia advert.”
“Take that back.”
“You don’t really have the upper hand here, Charles,” says Lissie with a grimace. “I’m texting Pierre. Are you—did you even get drunk?”
“No,” he woes. “I am totally sober. I had to lie. Pierre went to the table and told me that my—that the costume we planned—it was wrong, and I just—I ran to the bathroom.” Lissie can’t help but laugh at the story, raising her camera to record the incriminating evidence.
Mid-video, Charles’ white face droops and his painted lips part to ask: “You think she found me cute?”
—
Charles likes finding things about you. He supposes the first time he realized just how much he liked hearing you talk about yourself—which you rarely did—happened in São Paulo. He’d been stressing over a spiel to recite in front of a camera, rewriting over words for hours to make everything sound more natural.
Each margin had been hastily written on with pencil, run-on sentences with semicolons in the place of periods. The team scriptwriter didn’t do much to make his lines sound more natural and less like they’d just been spat out of an online translator. You peeked into the media pen and coughed. You don’t belong here, do you?
Tch, he clicked his tongue, turning to offer a smile. I’m working on a script for Sunday. Portugese stuff.
I can help, you responded, walking slowly over toward him. You smiled quietly, approaching slowly like you were waiting for him to greenlight your offer. He did so by pulling a chair out for you, and once you sat you traced a nail over each line, murmuring them under your breath.
You speak Portugese?
You looked up and gave a half-shrug, laughing like you were amused with yourself. Kind of. It’s not very good, but it’s enough. You resumed your editing and he felt content to stare, admire, watch every movement of your lips align with the syllables of the words. You asked for a pencil and began writing something much cleaner. He couldn’t help but let himself be in awe of your intelligence.
You read over the last few lines and turned to face him. Let me guess, you said. You want to make a pun on Ferrari before you say bye.
Ah, he laughs. Yeah.
See, I know you so well, you half-joked, scrawling idle edits on the margins of his script.
He was already looking at you when you turned back to him, seeking his response, agreement, anything. When your eyes met, something caught at your chest—it tugged, tugged, then tugged again, a dull feeling burrowed deep in you. Words failed to wrench themselves free, but once they did, all you could manage was a faint—What?
Nothing. He smiled and shook his head, like he was waiting for you to figure it out. You know… sometimes, I wish I met you sooner. He does. He wishes he knew you back then, when you first learned Portugese. Or when you were in high school, so you could see just how exponentially awkward he was in his own teenage years. He thinks sometimes that he’s lost too much time, met and liked you too late.
Hm, you breathed out, because you didn't know what else to. I know why—so you could always have me. As a proofreader. Right?
Hah. The tilt of his laugh was high and mocking, and he stuck his tongue out, as if to punctuate that. He looked away then, like he wasn’t ready to say certain things to your face just yet. Quietly he added, Always have you… something like that.
—
If you ask Charles what he’s doing hiding in a laundry basket of a luxury hotel in São Paulo, he wouldn’t be able to answer you, either. It’s been some time since the disaster that was Caspergate Cancun 2023, and if he’s perfectly honest, he doesn’t feel like facing you again for the rest of his life. Pierre, of course, has other plans.
All he knows is last night, Pierre suggested he leave a huge vase of roses for you to arrive to in the living room of your hotel; as he planted it in said room, the door’s lock turned, and he sought a hiding place in the adjacent bedroom. Judging by the prevalent scent of Dior Sauvage, this is Lando Norris’ room.
Did u get to escape??? Pierre’s text irritates him. At the same time, the light flips on; Charles curls in on himself, remaining perfectly still. Lando’s voice trills through the room. “I didn’t leave those roses for either of you,” he’s saying to you and Lissie.
Charles hears you hum. “They’re so beautiful.” His heart swells. “I gotta run for a sec, pick up something from Will’s room.” A few seconds pass and the door opens and shuts, which means Charles is currently alone with Lando and Lissie. Which means he needs to plot his escape as soon as he can. Otherwise he’ll be caught in the crossfire and much too embarrassed to—
A foot meets his concealed body and he lets out an oof! as he’s sent flying out of the hamper, along with strewn-around clothes. He keeps his eyes screwed shut, scared shitless and in a fetal position; he only unfurls when a socked foot kicks at his ass. Above him are Lando and Lissie, both extremely confused.
“How did you know I was…?!” He asks, aghast.
“My fucking laundry was breathing, mate, s’not that hard to leave alone,” Lando retorts sharply. “What are you doing?!”
“I left roses for her,” he explains fruitlessly, gesturing to the vase outside. “But you came in, and this was the closest hiding place. I was told this would be a great gesture.”
“Right. Where did you even get that advice?” Lando tries to suppress the critical tone in his voice, but judging by Charles’ embarrassed grimace, he’s failed. Beside him, Lissie makes a hm? noise, goading Charles to answer quicker.
“I got it from.” Charles pauses. “A friend,” he ekes out vaguely.
“No shit. Who?”
“Um—” Charles’ eyes are shut. “Pierre.”
In unison, Lissie and Lando both release incredulous gasps, throwing their hands up in the air. Lissie points at the mess of clothes in the corner of the room to emphasize her point and asks loudly, with comical cynicism: “This seemed like proper romantic advice to you?”
“Scratch that. Pierre’s words seemed like proper romantic advice to you? His girlfriend is—!” Lando places a flat palm a few inches off the floor and shakes it a few times to insinuate Kika’s age, his disbelieving expression growing funnier by the second. “Mate!” His voice cracks mid-syllable, though even this mishap seems to be the least crazy thing about tonight.
Charles, burning with humiliation, releases a shaky sigh. “I know! I know!”
“You don’t know!” They shout simultaneously in response, disappointed if anything. Just then the door opens again and your two best friends hurry to throw assorted pieces of laundry on the lying Charles, exiting to make sure you don’t suspect anything.
“Hey,” you say slowly, because they’re both posed the exact same. “Am I… missing something?”
“A shower, girl,” Lando says, and you flip him off before retreating into your room.
Belatedly you ask, “Did you find out who sent those flowers?”
“Some loser, probably,” he calls right back. Charles emerges to poke him accusatorily, but Lando just shrugs. Charles definitely does not have the upper hand here, anyway.
“Just get out,” Lissie says, completely done with Charles’ antics. “And stop. Listening. To Pierre.”
He rinses the odor of laundry off him once he’s at his room, but thinks, despite himself, that you called the flowers beautiful.
—
Are you—
—no. I’m not. You wiped a hand over your face and caught mascara along with it. I’m fine, it’s fine.
What he said, it wasn’t…
I said, you turned to face him, eyes rimmed and mouth trembling. You didn’t finish your sentence, just tore the microphone off your lapel and buried your face in your hands. There was always going to be a first time. Your first time insulted on a live feed, after the Abu Dhabi weekend, was not any less shocking. You felt small. You felt humiliated.
You didn’t want to show Charles any of it. You moved around the green room, picking up shit to throw into your bag. Thank God the season was fucking over, you kept thinking. I feel so, you said, still failing to finish anything you started to say. You’d been called an annoying bitch by a fan of one of the drivers—to your face, as you exited the paddock.
He moved nearer. Charles, you said, a half-sob, and then you were allowing him to crash, allowing him to hug you. Your arms were weak when they wrapped back around him, linking softly in the small of his back. You sobbed hard into his chest until his grey tee was dark with tears. I want out, I just want out.
You’ll lord your career over that prick when you’ve made a million dollars doing this, he said. You do it too well to want out. You’re too smart. You’re too good. You cried harder, your face hurt and every word felt wrestled unintentionally, like it took too much work to say much at all. I’m sorry, you said. You should go.
No, he said. He held you closer. Not until you feel better.
—
He cries after Abu Dhabi. Bad season, everyone’s said. You snap a few smiling pictures with Max, who wins, and Lily and Lissie and the lot of them, the people who made the year so great. You notice an absence in all the pictures and you find it in a room in the Ferrari motorhome.
You’ve found you both find solace in words. In reassurance. But you’ve also found that your connection enables you both to reassure without having to say anything at all. You sit beside him, lean your head on his shaky shoulder, and wait.
“I was waiting for you to come,” he admits brokenly. “I was just not feeling good.”
“I know,” you respond. “It was a bad race. Shit strat.”
He’s quiet. His breaths are ragged and wet and shaky. “Will you stay? Until I feel better?”
You don’t move. “I’ll stay for longer.”
—
In the kitchen Charles unscrews himself a beer. The sky outside is pink and the sun hides behind faraway mountains, gradually darkening the entire atmosphere, save for the few woolly clouds. He’s by the patio door so he can spot people in the wide yard: Pierre, exchanging a Frisbee with Lando. Max, Alex, and Lissie engaged in an intense match of Uno.
They’re all gathered here in Spain at Carlos’ behest to celebrate the dawn of winter, and the end of the season, Max’s third championship.
He’s yet to spot you—he’d been told earlier you’d be late—but it doesn’t matter. He’s been feeling uncharacteristically himself all day anyway. He wrote that on his notebook this morning, on the flight here, verbatim. Looked up the word to spell it right and everything. He remembers you saying it, that time in London where you and Lando took him around and annihilated Borough Market before lounging on the grassy knoll of a nearby park. I feel so uncharacteristically happy, you’d joked. The syllables were too stunted and too fast for Charles to nail it. But he feels it now. Uncharacteristic.
He tells everyone he’s fine, though, and does a good job of it. Three beers in and he’s beginning to trick himself into thinking he actually is doing fine. Nobody suspects he’s been feeling empty from such a bad finish to the season—the season that was already bad in itself. He hasn’t been feeling his usual drive, his usual appetite. He doesn’t know when it will return.
“Here you are.” Carlos has this goofy smile on his face when he bounds into the kitchen, depositing empty dishes at the sink. “Listen, I have to tell you something.”
Charles and Carlos have always shared an easy dynamic—they’ve both always wanted the same thing. Racing has always been at the forefront of their minds. It makes conversation passionate, easy, fun; it was what helped build their now-natural rapport in the first place. “Yeah?” He prods, leaning against the counter and tipping fizz into his mouth.
“I invited everyone here to announce… something important.” Carlos crosses his arms. “But I wanted you to be the first to know.”
“Me?” Charles knits his eyebrows and smiles. “Wow.” He gulps, cocks his head. “What is it, then? Are you switching teams?”
Carlos’ goofy smile grows. “Isa and I are engaged. I’m retiring next year.”
“You—you’re—” Charles laughs and shuts his eyes all at once. “Oh, my God, mate! Congratulations!” The overload of information isn’t lost on him, but he channels it all into a hug. “Are you really retiring, though? I mean. Wow, this is amazing news—but—”
“I was sure as soon as I asked,” Carlos says squarely, smiling as if he’s conjured an image of Isa’s smiling face (which is likely the case). “As soon as she said yes. As soon as I bought the ring!” He laughs aloud, so overwhelmed with happiness of recalling everything. “I’m so glad you were the first person I told.”
“Besides Lando,” Charles says, because he knows it’s true.
“Besides Lando.” Carlos smiles. “I’m… dios, I’m happy. I always knew I’d have something to look forward to after racing.” They hug again, and then he clambers past Charles and into the patio, where he resumes the façade of being unengaged and still a driver. Left behind, Charles thinks over it himself. What does he have to look forward to after racing? All his life, racing is all that ever existed to him.
The announcement comes eventually—when it’s dark out, intermittent stars white and twinkly against the black above. Charles has once again turned into a blushy mess because you arrived a few hours prior, wearing a lovely dress and with your hair down in messy waves and you said hi to him earlier without him approaching first. They present a stupid, but very Carlos-and-Isa ring-shaped cake to announce it, and somebody queues up music and everyone’s cheering. Of course everyone’s cheering—it’d be impossible for this announcement to not come with bouts of yelling and cheering and goodbyes to Carlos, who accepts them with glee and—dare he say—excitement.
Charles remembers their first year as teammates, the jokes they’d made about needing to beat the other out. For both of them, he recalls, it’s only ever been the drive to race. He didn’t think Carlos would even entertain the idea of retiring yet. He wonders when he will. The thought of it alone is enough to send a well of anxiety run deep into him—which happens after he congratulates the couple, so he excuses himself to the empty outdoors area to get fresh air back into him.
He didn’t mean it, but he finds you already there. “Hi,” you say when he slides the door shut. “You okay?”
“Just… yeah, I’m fine.” You smell faintly like smoke. “It’s crazy, huh. Everyone’s… moving on.”
“So Carlos told everyone, then,” you say, pursing your lips and waiting for his response. He closes his eyes and lets a soft exhale escape him, warm air out and fresh air in, a welcome change from the heady atmosphere in the party. “I knew. I bought that God awful cake. I kept saying get a normal one but they both wanted it to be shaped like a ring.” You punctuate your sentence with a crisp laugh, a stunted exhale of air to break the tension.
You have a natural sway over words, graceful and beautiful and commanding, something he only wishes he could be. For so long he’d been told the feedback loop of one and the same thing: you’re good. You’re the best. You’re going to be the next big thing. And this season had just… aggravated every single insecurity he’s picked up in his years of racing. He wishes sometimes he’d been told something else: you suck. You’re normal. You’re irrelevant. Then at least he wouldn’t exist in some odd panopticon of feeling on top of the world and yet looking at it from the bottom of a pitch black abyss.
“Yeah,” he says instead, wringing his hands. He mimics the wrist movements he’s made to do during gym hours. “It’s wild how—I mean, not really wild, but. I just can’t… even picture my life after racing.”
“You’re young, that’s warranted,” you laugh. “You’re also… I mean, even if you drop out of racing tonight, it’s not like you’re going to become dirt poor or anything. You could become a bloody orthodontist and people will still love you.”
“Will they?”
He didn’t mean to say it aloud but out it comes, garbled and rushed and he’s a bit embarrassed for sounding like a child in front of somebody he finds so beautiful. The silence is suspended and dry, and for a minute all he hears and feels is the slow rise and fall of his chest. To somehow mend the vulnerability, he tries again. “It’s not—I just think I’ll be lonely if I decide to stop racing.”
The fact that Carlos can say with so much ease that he’s willing to drop his career to ensure his pending marriage lasts is almost terrifying, because Charles knows he wants that. He knows—he’s always known—that he wants that intimacy, that realness, but for it to come at the cost of something he’s known for so long is so scary it’s almost a dealbreaker.
“Lonely?” You echo, voice tinged with concern. “Charles—”
“Lonely.”
He says it with an edge to his voice, so final, so steadfast. Loneliness is what he’s always feared and he knows, with a deep drawling punch to his gut, that loneliness is what will come if he decides to stop racing. Even if he’s tired. Even if he’s so pent up with frustration and loss and anger. Racing is all he’s ever known, it’s all he is—when he’s not tied to it, who is he? “Like no one… like I’m just standing in front of what I’m supposed to be, and when people see me, that’s all they see—what’s behind me. Right through me.”
“Well, you’re off racing right now,” you respond, trodding carefully. “So, well. Do you feel that way?”
He knows what you mean: it’s winter break, so he’s not driving or doing some form of it every single day. And he knows in turn what to answer: no, not really, he doesn’t really feel detached from it because there’s a low anticipation in his belly that tells him he’ll be doing it all again soon. But he chooses to interpret it differently; differently, but not falsely.
“I th… I don’t feel lonely,” he says, “when I talk to you. You see me.”
Your stomach drops and your heart begins to pulse a mile a minute, knuckles tightening where they’ve gripped onto the wooden post of the patio. You can feel the air in your lungs pass through every divot of your body as it escapes and arrives in long, shaky breaths. He’s looking at you, his eyebrows knitted like he wants—needs an answer, if you’d be kind enough to please give him one.
“I…” You bite your lip, every thought in your head at odds with the other.
Time feels like rubber, like it’s been stretched and manipulated and Carlos is ducking out to announce that it’s time to blow out candles on the stupid ring-shaped cake and you’ve taken too long to respond and your body feels too heavy but your heart feels too light and your eyes are blinking, open and shut and open again, and you feel like the wind could honestly blow you away now because Charles has given you a neutral nod and left you alone again, to contemplate the weight of what he’s finally, finally admitted, tonight here under the sky of Spain.
You move a hand over your hair, watch him walk away. The words lodge themselves in your throat, but they’re there.
—
One minute after you realized you liked Charles, you swallowed the feelings until they were barely decipherable.
In happened in Dublin, at a pub on St. Paddy’s Day, when you’d emerged fresh out of a breakup with the most arseholic Irishman you’d ever had the displeasure of meeting. And funnily enough, it happened without Charles’ presence. You’d spent the day at Liam’s, hours of fighting over so many things—the growth of your career and the decimation of his, where your relationship had soured, why you never came to visit him, Charles, the sodding bloke you like so much—until finally, you took your things and left.
Wise, because you might’ve honestly gone insane if you stayed a minute longer, attuning your ears to the deafening feedback loop of his voice. Also decidedly unwise, because you had a piece of luggage and barely any battery, in a full city of people you didn’t know at all.
There was no chance Liam would let you return, and no chance you wanted to, for that matter—the fact still stood, though, that you needed to kill the night before your flight to France left at 6AM. You entered the first pub you heard, deposited your bag at the coat check for an extra couple of euros, and accepted the first pint thrust into your hand and first leprechaun hat plopped atop your head.
In between watching people compare how they poured Guinness pints, Sinead O’Connor songs, and exchanging headdresses with a random stranger, you found yourself impressingly drunk. The Irish did it too well.
A university student stumbled past your stool, tears in her eyes; she stopped to steal a shot of whiskey lying unattended on the bar. You looped a hand around her wrist and stared at her menacingly. Manners?!
Fuck manners, she said wetly, wrenching every word out with great effort. Nobody paid either of you any attention. I just caught my best friend and boyfriend kissing. Her accent was unmistakably Irish and was stronger with the tears.
Oh, you said, loosening your threatening grip. Sorry.
Don’t be. I’m sorry I could ever be so stupid, she said, aghast, before finally stalking outside the pub. Half an hour later, you wound up at a table of thirty-somethings, all belting along to a folky sounding song.
Drunkenly you slurred out, I thought it was a stereotype.
What was, love? One of them paused her singing, dipping down to listen to you properly. Your cheek was smushed against the varnished wood, moving with every syllable you eked out.
The songs. You sound like… you belong in the 19th century.
She laughed at that, surfacing and yelling something to the band onstage you couldn’t quite decipher. The song reached its peak, loud and getting the whole crowd singing along, before fading into a familiar opening. S’this better? She asked, her voice slightly raised above the guitar.
You looked up. I liked the other one too, to be fair. M’not a fucking anti-Irish.
Nobody said that, love. Come sing. She hauled you upward, exaggerating her arm swinging in the air so you’d follow suit, which you did. You hummed the opening, eyes fluttering open and closed. You imagined opening them again and finding Charles across the room, already looking, with the same charming, boyish smile on his face that came to you as comfort.
You thought back to the dinner in London, the feeling of his shirt against your shoulder, the way he’d gotten you so easy and laughing and babbly, something you never got with Liam. You squeezed your eyes shut and exhaled raggedly. Fuck.
Linger’ll do that to you, your companion mused. Around you, the entire pub sang along to the song that served as the backdrop to your all-encompassing romantic epiphany. Missing a lover, huh?
No, just… You opened your eyes, watched the band sing out the rest of the prechorus before they slid into the next verse. A new kind of air had crept over the pub, one that exemplified just how much this song could mean to anyone, no matter who. You shut them again and saw Charles. The green of his eyes, mossy on some days and bright on others. The moles on his face. The grooves of his hand, the way it wrapped around things like pens, mics, bottles, your fingers. His voice, how he curved around words. He always knew exactly what you meant even if it took you ages to get to the point, even if you felt like you didn’t know what you meant exactly.
You opened your eyes. Suddenly fights with Liam didn’t matter. Whatever little sympathy you had left evaporated as you listened to the lyrics and realized, with a damning force, that you were thinking of Charles. And this was not weak, this was not vague, this was a strong thing that took you off your feet like a gust of wind, hurtling you out of the pub. You thought of every time your eyes met his, both of you already laughing at something else present. Every time he saw you at the end of a busy work day and asked if you were doing alright.
Just this guy, I suppose. His name’s… yeah. We’ve been friends for ages. He’s really very talented. Very kind. Your voice was drowned out by the music but you didn’t intend for anything to be heard, anyway. And he’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. He always knows what to say. He’s not in Dublin tonight, not even in Ireland, for God’s sake.
He’s your boyfriend, then?
You closed them slowly. No. T’wouldn’t be very smart to date him.
Is he an arse?
No either. It’s just too late.
I’m sorry, love.
Don’t be, you mused, eyes still shut as Linger came to a close. I’m sorry I could ever be so stupid.
—
Charles should be in Monaco. You should be in London. But at four-thirty PM, leaning against the counter of a tiny café in Dublin, you cross paths for the first time in weeks, and everything tilts on its axis.
He notices you first, because he hears you thank the barista quietly. It’s not your reporter voice, not the one you put one when you’re interviewing him or his teammate or his fellow athletes. But it’s your real one, and it’s the one he thinks he could hear through a snowstorm.
A tuxedo-clad man exits and suddenly you’re there. You’re wearing a white top, low neck and thin straps covered by a cardigan. You’re sliding coins into the pocket of your jeans and he watches your hand freeze, drags his eyes back up to you, finds you’re already looking.
You look beautiful, he thinks. You put on a lot of makeup for the cameras, and you looked gorgeous, but seeing you like this—caught, almost, in a moment you didn’t expect to see him—you look unbelievably beautiful. He aches with it.
“You look well,” he says first when he opens the café door for you. “What’s your business in Ireland?”
“Acquainting myself with my new coworker.” You wait for him to follow and squint when the sun hits your eye. “We’ve been here three weeks, fly back to London next Monday. You?”
“It does seem weird for me to be here,” he observes absently. “I needed a change of pace, I think. Gear up for the season.” He shakes his half-full cup of coffee. “Where are you staying?”
“Just up ahead.” A slow silence overcomes you both. “Come over. I have beer. I know you can’t be fucked to have coffee.” He laughs and nods, following you through the road and up into a flat—a BNB, if he’s guessing. There’s a tiny landing and then stairs to a wider living area, where you proceed to unwrap the croissant you’d gotten a few minutes earlier. You chuck it into the fridge and produce two bottles of beer in one go.
“Sit,” you gesture to the spot beside you, and he sits himself there. “We can talk. We should.”
You’ve shrugged your cardigan off, and he observes every detail of your exposed skin, the way your hair layers atop it. Right as he opens his mouth to respond, a blond girl enters, rings of mascara caking her eyes and a wine glass twiddled in-between thumbs. She’s talking her head off and only pauses when she spots Charles.
“Hhhh…iiii.”
“Salut.”
“You’re Charles?” She notices how close the two of you are seated together.
“Yes,” he says.
“Charles, this is Robyn—my coworker’s friend. And by extension my friend.” You pat her knee and point to Charles to get them properly introduced. “She leeches off the apartment.”
“You love me,” she retorts, mockingly—but sweetly. “Anyway, sorry to intrude. I was just on the phone with my situationship.” She rolls her eyes. “Does he think I give two shits about goodnight texts? It feels impossible to be romantically satisfied these days.”
Charles grunts. “I hear that,” he says, just to make Robyn feel less excluded. You get up then, to fuck around at the kitchen sink—he suspects you’re not actually doing chores—but you come back with wet hands and you sit yourself across Charles, on the loveseat, instead of next to him.
“The thing is, right,” she gulps wine, “there’s such a thing with dating now,” Robyn says, not missing a beat, her Geordie accent curving round the syllables with a distinctive twang. She stares at the opaque red liquid in her glass, like that will supplement her with more words. “Like a deal. A big deal. Everyone’s making this huge thing out of it, and it’s like, can’t we be in our twenties and fuck around occasionally?” She laughs, a high-pitched, tapered noise.
You shift from where you’re seated, buried into the material of the seat. It’s quiet and beginning to touch awkward, so you speak in a rough voice: “I dunno, I kind of… get it.”
“Oh do you, now,” she responds, voice saturated with wine. “No, it’s—I was joking. Of course you would, you’re absolutely fucking gorgeous, is all.”
Suddenly you feel all too seen and inclined to touch a fingertip to your cheek, feather light. You blink so you won’t feel tempted to meet Charles’ eyes, because you feel them on you. “It’s—thank you, I mean. It’s nothing to do with that. I just always feel it’s impossible to find someone who loves you. I feel like I’m not very lovable.”
“You? You’re bloody fucking likable!” Robyn’s laugh is so disbelieving you find yourself semi-convinced. “You’re a bit intimidating, yeah, but you’re lovable as fuck, babe.”
You double down anyway, voice thin. “Right. I don’t think I’m very good at being… affectionate.”
“Hah. Bull. You’re affectionate with… with Charles! I’ve heard you talk about him to Jane.”
She turns to Charles before you have the chance to defend yourself. To him she asks: “Is she affectionate with you?”
But it’s basically rhetorical. Everyone speculates, sees the way you two bend the line between friendship and romance, the care with which you treat Charles, the way you two understand each other in ways impossible for anyone else in your orbit. Fuck if it’s not overtly physical. Robyn’s known you three weeks and has never even met Charles until seven minutes ago and already she’s sensed the energy, the difference, even if she hasn’t seen you do so much as embrace.
“It’s—” You say and say too quickly. You wind up slowing your speech so you don’t sound too defiant and lean backwards, willing yourself to relax. “It’s… different with Charles.”
“Different?” She repeats, miming every dip and rise of your voice. “Why?”
“We’re close.” You refuse to meet his eyes. “Be—because we’re good friends. I feel… things are… just. They’re different. That’s all, really.” Barely satisfied with the answer you eked out, you cross your arms over your torso like it’ll help shield you from the interrogation going on. Briefly you let your eyes fall on Charles; he’s reclined, eyes all over the place, blinking in quick flashes.
“But you admit it, at least?” She smiles. “That you’re affectionate, I mean.”
“Only with…” you taper off, unwanting to dig yourself a deeper hole. “Right. Sure, yeah.”
“Well then,” she says, eyebrows raising as she dows the rest of her glass. She sets it down on the low wooden table with a clink. “I’ll get going. Don’t let me keep you two from shagging or whatever.”
“We don’t f—shag,” you interrupt, voice sharp. “And you’re not keeping us at all. Me, at all.”
Us sounds so exclusive, you realize as it leaves your lips. Us. It tastes like sour cherries on your tongue, bleeds all over. Robyn gives you a look. In response, you insist on seeing her out, leaving Charles at the sofa, elbows on his knees, hands toying with the neck of the beer bottle. He can make out faint words but he doesn’t try translating or deciphering them, just listens to your muffled voice peek through every few words. You sound amused, also accused, also endeared—a bit irritated. You end it with a laugh.
You clamber back in after a few minutes and find him at the top of the stairs.
“Sorry,” you wave off, rolling your eyes to fend Robyn’s earlier interrogation efforts of. “She’s very strong-willed.” You climb the stairs, your striped linen shorts folding with every movement of your legs. Finally you make it to the top, on the second-to-the-last stair, staring up at him.
“You know,” he says, watching you ascend to the top finally, but you’re still staring upward. “You should know.”
“Should know what?”
“I missed you.”
You inhale and are grateful to find the air is all him. “I missed you, too.”
“In a different way.”
“Me, too,” you echo again, voice quiet. “I missed you. It feels like I’ve missed you all my life.”
He can hear your still, controlled breathing. “Thank you for seeing me. Even when, you know, it’s… hard. You know what I mean.”
“I do,” you say. “It’s never difficult, not…” With you.
He leans down and captures your mouth in his then, like it’s a thirst he’s always needed quenched. You allow it, kiss him back like you’ve needed this your entire life. His lips are chapped, but you don’t mind—Dublin’s cold. He kisses like he’s smiling, like he’s happy, and you think maybe that’s not far off. He moves downward, to your jaw; lower, along the column of your throat, around your collarbones, cornering you against the wall, letting you lean against it.
Charles’ kisses are light and soft, but also heavy, like he’s trying to waste as little time as possible. You sigh, feeling light, feeling ecstatic. He puts two hands on either side of your face, presses your foreheads together, and shuts his eyes.
You feel the divots of his fingers on your hip, your waist, places he’s never touched before. “I’m sorry I left,” you breathe into him. “Back in Spain. In Madrid. I wanted to think about it. About what you said. About everything, about you.”
“I’m glad I found you here, then.”
You tiptoe to kiss him again, because now that you’ve had it once you’re terrified you won’t have it again. In-between kisses he picks you up, cages you fully against the wall, and you breathe shaky little exhales. It builds up quicker and harder; you feel his cock at your hip and shiver, eyelashes fluttering. “Upstairs,” you say breathlessly.
He likes knowing you want this, because he’ll give you whatever you want. He’d fuck you for hours. Have you shaking, eking out moans of his name. He’d whisper praise up and down your ear. He wants this just as much, if not more.
“I want you, so much,” you exhale when he lies you both down on your bed. “So much.”
He tugs your shorts off, then your panties. He doesn’t usually lack self-restraint, but he thinks he’s never felt this much temptation in his life. He’s so hard. He brings one hand to his thigh and squeezes his dick through his pants, but it doesn’t provide him with any kind of relief. You’re needy already, whimpering, mind dizzy. He slides a finger up your slit and watches you screw your eyes shut.
Slowly he sinks in, watches you accustom to the stretch. “Wanted this,” you breathe out.
He thrusts in further, feels your warm cunt stretch around him, feels your breaths get hotter and quicker against his lips. But he takes it nice and slow, so he can feel every little ridge inside of you as you take all of him. “You like it?”
You nod, too dumbed down to speak. “Good girl. Pretty, pretty girl.”
He’s wanted this for so long, fucking you deep and slow and desperate. He thrusts harder, watches you unravel and your hot breaths pick up in pace. He reaches down, smears wetness around your clit as your thighs begin to shake. Your pretty, flushed face is enough to send him into overdrive, your eyes rolling back as he goads you into orgasm.
You’re still cumming around him when he takes a shaky breath, pulls you tightly back against him, and lets the pleasure take over. He fucks you full, rides his orgasm out while you ride yours out—buries his dick all the way inside, so each spurt fills your contracting pussy up.
He pulls out and collapses beside you, pressing his lips to your shoulder before lying on his back. “I’ll clean you up in a minute.” It’s quiet for a second, just you two breathing.
Then: “I did, I did think about it,” you say, voice reedy. “I thought about you.”
“Yeah?” He watches you blink at the ceiling, lets you clasp your hands onto his.
“About me, too.” You open your eyes and stare into the green.
“D’you want this?”
“Believe me,” you say, threading your fingers into his tightly. Your hair’s fussed from the sex. “I do. But—”
His heart drops.
“I don’t want to… I want you to not…” You sigh. “You know, I like seeing you. I like being that. I like knowing I make you feel good. And I want you to know you… you make me feel amazing. Like you and I… we understand each other.” You pause. “Sometimes I feel like you’re the only person who understands every inch of me.”
“Ditto,” he says, and you smile.
“I look up to you, you know? I don’t want you to anchor yourself onto me. I want you to realize that on your own. You’re smart. You’re a great driver with a shitty fucking team I hated reporting on last season.” He laughs shakily. “You know I look up to you. You know… you know I love you.”
“I do. I love you.”
“I always have. It wasn’t… it didn’t always make itself clear, but I always have. And I know I always will.” You smile. “We’ll be in different cities, in separate timezones, but if we survived the years of not telling each other how bloody fucking much we liked each other, this is nothing. When we’ve sorted ourselves out, we’ll know the right time to finally call this what it is.”
He’s never thought of himself as a writer, but his notebooks might beg to differ. Many times you’ve told him yourself that he has an affinity for describing things, especially when he lets go of language as a limitation. He wonders what you’d say if you knew the amount of times he’s tried to write about you. Careful letters or typefaces, in an effort to form a coherent picture of you, the way he sees you, the way he loves you. But he’s so scared he tears the pages off before they get too intimate, too personal, crossing the border from having a crush on you to being in love with you.
For once he’s not. He nods. It’s bittersweet, but it’s a segue to a better ending. He moves a hand over your hair and holds you close.
“You could never be unlovable,” he says, pressing a kiss to your forehead because finally, he can. “I mean it.”
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| This is why the earth eats the dead |
⁂
Pairing: Rafa Caro Quintero x María Elvira
For @narcolini - Narcos fanfic exchange 2022
Word count: 6K
TWs: Canon-typical violence, major character death, descriptions of violence
No, those days were the best because when my swollen eyelids slid back, I saw the sun and the sky and a girl I knew from way-back-when. That girl stood over me with tears in her eyes and a look on her face I’d been chasing my whole life.
Betrayed by his bestest good primo, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, and captured in Costa Rica by a one DILF, Guillermo Calderoni, instead of being taken to prison, Rafa Caro Quintero is taken back Mexico to be tortured, dragged by a pickup truck down a back alley road in Sinaloa, and left for dead … on the front porch of the house owned by Miguel’s ex-wife, María. Still fuming after Miguel kicked her to the curb and told her he was staying in Guadalajara to bang barely legal chicks he met at a museum, María’s further devastated by her ex-husband’s descent into assholery when she finds Rafa’s nearly lifeless body. So, the question remains: she can nurse him back to health, but can she fix him?
⁂
✴︎ Cómo me has engañado, mi hermano! Si me ha dicho lo que ibas a hacer, nunca habríamos venido. ✴︎
A conveyor belt of sky rushed above me. Chaotic streaks of what should have been full, puffy white clouds cut across waves of light blue. Or maybe those were just the stars I was seeing after hitting too many potholes headfirst.
But with the sky up there, rushing like that, the earth against my back like steel wool at seventy kilometers an hour, and the rope embedded in the skin of my ankles with the full force of the pickup truck they were tied to, I kept thinking about la Bribri historia de la creación del mundo.** I had heard it from one of the old ladies in the cathedral once. We liked to tell stories while we waited for the fire bombing in the fields to stop y esos shingadamadre chotas to get in their tanks and fuck off again, until next time.
The story went something like this.
The great creator god Sibú was having a hard time. He needed a place to put his creations but could find nothing suitable to make it with. You’d think since he created life, he could make a place for it too, but it seems even gods have their limits. So, when a bat, flying by, happened to shit soil from which all kinds of marvelous plants grew, naturally Sibú had to know his secret. (Creation myths, right? Fucking trippy.)
The bat, who Sibú called tío even though they weren’t related (which never made any sense to me), told him he’d been feeding on the blood of Iriria, the newborn Earth. And wasn’t this great news for Sibú because Iriria happened to be the child of his sister, Tapir. Except, Sibú no era su tío and she wasn’t his niece (which never made sense to me either but maybe it was different for gods that way.)
Anyway, Sibú hatched an elaborate plan. To lure Tapir and Iriria from where they’d been staying in the underworld, he invited them to a grand festival and asked them to put on a show, dancing the Sorbón dance for the attending lower gods, demons, and spirits. So, they did. They went and they danced. But something happened when Tapir and Iriria danced and it changed everything. The young girl tripped and fell, and all according to Sibú’s plan, in the furor and excitement of the Sorbón, the demons and spirits couldn’t see her. So they kept on dancing. Stomping on poor, helpless Iriria.
Over. And over. And over.
Until all that was left of her was trampled earth, from which Sibú made, well, the Earth. Seeing her daughter’s demolished remains, Tapir seethed with rage:
How, my brother, you have betrayed me! If you had told me what you were going to do, we would never have come.
So it’s said today, for the sacrifice of her daughter, tapirs are sacred animals not to be hunted for food or sport. And as atonement for Sibú’s betrayal and the wounds inflicted on her by his creations, all life, this is why we bury the dead. Return them to Earth for her to consume.**
𐮛
I thought about Sibú a lot when I worked in the greenhouse. When I finally had it, mi sinsemilla, primo declared me a genius. María joked that I was a regular mad scientist. But all I could think about was Sibú. About how his curiosity yielded the universe’s great masterpieces at the expense of those around him.
But thinking about it just now, sky rushing up above and the steel-wool-earth against my back, seventy kilometers an hour, I couldn’t stop laughing. It was fucking hilarious.
Because I realized it wasn’t really me who was Sibú, after all.
𐮛
Those early days were the best. Well, maybe not the first few. Definitely not the first one, when I woke up in a cold sweat, hands and ankles tied together, blood-soaked shirt, now dried, fusing me to wood slats of her front porch. Maybe I’d been her front porch all along. Why else would they leave me here? I couldn’t remember them, the “they” that left me. I couldn’t remember me. The pain in my shoulder was too much. I couldn’t remember why.
No, those days were the best because when my swollen eyelids slid back, I saw the sun and the sky and a girl I knew from way-back-when. We raced dirt bikes in the town square. She let me sleep on her couch when I’d been out too long in the field, then the greenhouse. I used to call her the brains of the operation - ‘No se la llevaron toda, compa.' - because she saved mi sinsemilla, then me. That girl stood over me with tears in her eyes and a look on her face I’d been chasing my whole life. Looking at me like I always wished she would. Only this time, I didn’t have to feel guilty.
She shouted for help, wild, brown hair whipping in the wind while she demanded answers from the nothing and nobody that left me there. In all my dreams before, she wasn’t so sorry for me. But who was I anyway? No matter. I didn’t need to remember to know who she was.
𐮛
I thought one of my fractured ribs might’ve punctured a lung because it took days for me to stop coughing up blood. Weeks to stop screaming out in the night. For Sofia. Sometimes Miguel. Mostly María. Because I knew who she was and she looked at me like that and I didn’t have to feel guilty. Except, it took a few more weeks to remember why.
It came together in the kitchen one morning, when she was making breakfast. Easy as always, the smell of cafe con leche, bacon, tortilla chips, soon-to-be migas sizzling in the pan. She sang softly con Los Zafiros. ‘El gringo, Rafa. Adónde se lo llevaron?’
The eggs she cracked against the edge of the bowl buckled my shoulder. Sofia screamed in the steam of the kettle going off. Then that face from the edges of the darkness behind my eyelids - eso hijo de la shingada chota con su bigote negro and those beady little eyes.
'Sabes que me gusta mucha acerca del hombro, Rafa? Cuánto duele cuando lo sacas de su articulación. Duele igual. Cada vez. El dolor te rompe el alma mucho antes de que se rompan los huesos.'
El dolor te rompe el alma, no mames. Mi alma ya se rompió when the first gunshot exploded the glass and I knew what mi primo did to me. If that fat bastard hadn’t been so sweaty when I spat in his face, it might’ve made a difference. Maybe not, since he never missed a beat and the cracking never stopped. The bones of my shoulder in and out of its socket, cartilage stripping like threads of a screw.
My head swam, my mouth tasted like iron, my throat was numb, I felt cold. Was this finally my time? Qué lástima sería. I just got her, just got here. Were there tiny needles swimming in my bloodstream? Cortisol. Adrenaline. Like high, but none of the flavor, none of the fun. She caught me just before my face smacked the table.
I came to with my head in her lap, mumbling, “Lo huevo– vas a quemar los huevos.”
“Qué?”
“Huevos. Pa’ las migas.”
She shook her head, “Ay, Rafa. Qué voy a hacer contigo?” and smiled my favorite smile.
My lips felt like rubber but I beamed back up at her anyway. “Ocuperás de mí?”
It took a few weeks for her to stop sobbing when she sat by my bed and watched me sleep. I didn’t know who I was, so she knew it was bad. Without a clue how, I still wanted to comfort her. I guess I did in a way, since she only ever stopped when she got up to place her finger under my nose.
If I’d been awake and remembered who I was, I would’ve told her I deserved it por todo lo que hice. Even if he deserved worse but wouldn’t get it. That old house, piles of leaves in the empty swimming pool. 881 Lope de Vega. I heard from someone later on that they’d drilled into his hands at the end, demanding to know the nothing and nobody he knew.
So, it seemed only fair they’d dragged me down some backwoods dirt road. Seventy kilometers an hour never felt so fast and took so long. I hadn’t met the man, but they said he’d had a family. My whole foolish life, I wondered what it was like to be missed by so many that much. Of course, that wasn’t why I did it. I did it to remind him I was flesh-and-blood real, standing right there. And yet when it was all over, cold, calculating, with eyes as old as time, mi primo still didn’t see me.
I probably would’ve told her too that I was far from the boy she raced dirt bikes with. But that other boy we knew from way back when? The thoughtful one with eyes as old as time, that boy was lost altogether.
And if I’d been awake and remembered who I was, I would’ve wept right along with her because that’s how much I missed him.
𐮛
When I could finally walk without getting dizzy, she took my hand and led me out into the backyard, my favorite smile blooming with the flowers on her red dress.
“Where are we going?”
“Tranquilita, mi Rafa. Vas a ver.”
Mi Rafa. I couldn’t remember when she started calling me that. But to belong in such a way? It hurt how much I never knew.
We continued past the yard, onto a dirt trail that led downhill until we came to the edge of a great, big, empty field. She glowed when she told me it was all mine.
“What’s this?”
“Es tuyo para hacerlo como que tu quieras.”
“No me chingues pues. Toda esta madre?”
She nodded, soft lips in a soft smile. And I couldn’t help but pick her up and swing her around, even as my shoulder screamed. She screamed too, like we were kids.
I set her back on the ground with a wince. “Ya tengo un plan.” When I put my arms down, the right one bent awkwardly to ease the throbbing in my shoulder. She took it, splinting my elbow against hers between us, and put her other arm around my waist. I grumbled but she shot me a familiar look that assassinated any and all will to resist.
“Leave it to you to overdo it after being out here no more than five minutes.”
I laughed. “You know me better than almost anyone. When have I ever made things easy for myself.”
“Sí, sí, Rafael Caro Quintero. A man of great passion, no sense, and odd enthusiasms. Like swinging grown women around with a shoulder no sturdier than ground beef.”
“Aahh, no me digas. You love it.”
“Entonces, cuál es tu plan?”
“Pues por supuesto, I’ll build a greenhouse. And when that’s done, I’ll start with sinsemilla.”
She smiled wryly, “Claaaro qué si. Because it hasn’t caused you enough trouble.”
“And then, I was thinking we could sell it.” She cocked an eyebrow up and pursed her lips, a look that said she thought I’d lost it. Again. “But instead of competing with the other plazas, we unite them, create una grande federación, controlando todo el mercado de mota.”
Her face relaxed and she chuckled darkly, elbowing me in the ribs.
“Ay, ya basta. I’m still fragile.”
“If that really is your plan, pues voy a romper tu otro hombro, hombre.”
I looked out at the black hills on the horizon, seeing María’s face in place of eso pendejo Calderoni. Savage brown eyes, enraged, beads of sweat dotting her perfect forehead.
“Si ese chota hubiera sido tan hermosa como tu?” I looked down at her and winked. “El dolor? No me valía madre. I wouldn’t felt a thing.”
She elbowed me again. “Ay, pinshe bruja, no mames.” No loyalty left to dam the tide, it was hard not to get carried away ‘cause I adored her more than the world.
“No mames tu, cabrón. So, c’mon. Let’s hear it. The real plan.”
“Sí, sí, bien.” With my arm still propped against hers, we started walking slowly along the edge of the field. “Esos manos,” I wagged my hands, “fueron hechas para cultivar sinsemilla, pues sí? Pero quien sabe pues? I can grow other things, coffee beans, cacao. Algo así.”
Maria looked down at the ground and shook her head. “Appropriately indulgent.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Chocolate, coffee, little addictions. Una sombra de las drogas, sí but always indulgent.”
“Pues sí, pues. Qué dijiste de mi? A man of odd enthusiasms.”
She leaned her head into the crook of my neck and squeezed me tight. I didn’t have to feel guilty. Sometimes I did anyway. Instincts of self-preservation were hard-earned-hard-lost in my line of work.
𐮛
She stopped crying at my bedside while I slept but sometimes, she still cried in the middle of the night. A vision in a white caftan, sleeveless shirt, linen pants. Chain-smoking La Llorona, haunting the steps of her own front porch. She usually sat in the spot where they left me that first day. We tried so hard to get the bloodstains off the wood but they’d have to be sanded and revarnished, which I promised I’d do. Except I hadn’t yet because I was scared when I did, I’d lose me for good.
My room was at the front of the house, so sometimes I’d turn over in bed, close my eyes, and listen while she swallowed the sadness back so hard, she could barely breathe. That conveyor belt of blue sky would pop in my head with her sobs like a soundtrack. The more nights we played out this routine, the more I knew we— she couldn’t go on like this. Too great a toll, pretending she wasn’t living with a dead man, hiding me from him and the whole world. None of it was any of mine, anyway.
So, it was the weirdest thing. When I’d finally decided to leave, that’s when it happened.
I went out and sat with her, which I never did. But it this time it was raining and she couldn’t catch her breath and I got scared. You could call it inconsolable but that’s too small. She didn’t stir when the screen door slammed or rush to hide the evidence. No doubt she knew the angry red splotches on her cheeks gave everything away.
I didn’t know what to do. But then I remembered what someone told me once: how comfort is like a kiss. No rulebook, but instinct. So, I did what I felt. I sat on the steps next to her, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee like we were two sides of the same seam because it seemed the thing to do. Splinting her to me to ease the pain like she did with mine.
We sat there like that. For a time.
I took a joint from my pocket and held out my hand. “Encendador, amor.”
Her hands were so cold, I nearly jumped when she passed it to me. She didn’t seem to notice as we sewed back together again, this time with her head on my shoulder. I lit up and tried to blink away the dark spot in my vision left by the hot embers at the end of the joint. Because it made me think of the metal rods they’d used. Hands tied up and hanging. Glowing red tips pressed to my sides.
I inhaled, then breathed her name out with smoke, “María.”
She sniffled, “Sí.”
Looking down next to me, I studied the bloodstains that dotted the wood, tracing them with my finger. “I’ll take care of these in the morning,” I said, dusting them. “Then I think I’ll go.”
In the crook of my neck, I felt her stiffen. “So that's how you’d repay me, then. Just leave.”
“I thought you’d be relieved.”
We sat there like that. Some more.
Until she jerked her head off my shoulder and looked at me, not bothering to wipe the new tears rimming her eyes. Her caftan slid off her shoulder. I pulled it back up and watched goosebumps spread across her collarbone, up her neck. On my hand, up my wrist, I got them too like they were contagious.
“Querida.” Confused, I swiped a tear from her cheek and held my thumb up, “No se trata de eso, o qué?”
She cocked her jaw to to one side, then looked away and scoffed. I loved the way she looked when she did that and hated when she did it to me.
“A día de hoy, estás una de las chingas personas más listos que he conocido en toda vida, mi Rafa. But sometimes.” She turned to look at me through half-lidded eyes, exhausted all of a sudden, “Sometimes you still see the world through the eyes of a boy I knew from way back when.”
Before I could ask what she meant or if she’d been reading my mind, her lips were on mine. And every nerve from my scalp to the heels of my feet detonated. My whole life flashed before my eyes. What I wanted most in the world, that I never had, because none of it was any of mine, anyway. That’s what she was supposed to be until I ended up in an early grave, right? Oh, right. Funny, since I actually had died. In a way.
Her cold hand wrapped around the back of my neck, lips and tongues ebbing, flowing against each other. My brain like it was knocking against my skull, mind screaming at me to stop and still I found my hand sliding around her waist. Perilous, rigid edge of her teeth on my lower lip made me hitch my breath, to prepare me for— She bit down hard. Hard enough to snap gravity and I dug the pads of my fingers into the small of her back to ground myself without it. Then I caught her lip in my teeth and nipped back. Two sides of the same seam. So, it must’ve been insanity itself that brought my hand to that satisfying spot where her neck met her jawline. And ripped it. Like an idiot.
And all I could choke out was, “Not … this … way.”
She was alert suddenly, startled by what I’d said. Or maybe the way I said it. Maybe trying to piece out the truth from the lie. Since I didn’t mean it really. Except I really did. With all of me. I wondered if she could see my mind vibrating, violently searching for an explanation, and that’s why she waited. Waiting while I malfunctioned.
“I can’t— the— why, how— please don’t— don’t make me what you use to get back at him.”
Her lips pursed and she furrowed her brow. Looking at the little lines that creased her forehead and between her eyebrows, I wanted to take it all back, grab her, crush her into me. Probably before I was insane, I would’ve. But sanity got burnt up at seventy kilometers an hour and all that was left was the echo not like this, not like this, not like this over and over.
There was a look of awe on her face. And it gave me the strangest, most painful feeling. Like I wished a hole would rip open in the Earth, so we could jump in and entomb ourselves there for forever. Scar-tissue-thoughts I called those ‘cause they reminded me how my mind would probably never be like it was before. I tried not to get lost in that one like I did sometimes.
She cupped my face with one hand, and pulled my arm around her waist with the other, placing it in the same spot as before. Except for her hands, she felt warm against my chest in a way that made my stomach drop. The clouds parted a little, so I saw her eyes in the light of the moon. They looked lit with it, from the inside.
“What makes you think this is about him at all?” Then she kissed me again, and again.
We both knew it was a lie. But on nights like those and many others, nights when we got tangled like that, nights when we were both sides of the same seam, we pretended it wasn’t.
I had to stop pretending when she started taking his calls again.
𐮛
I don’t know how long it was. It must’ve been months, a year, maybe more. Long enough for me to forget I was dead. Time didn’t pass for me how it did before. No, that’s right. It must’ve been years because it was sometime around the election. I only knew he got into trouble with that old bat in Matamoros and in trouble with the politics. Again. Only this time he had no one else to feed the machine when it was done and they got what they needed. Yeah. That was it. Because he came back to Badiraguato, back home to lay low.
That was when he started showing up everywhere. He even came by the house one time.
There was something satisfying about the squeaking sound the hinges made when the backyard gate door swung open and closed. I liked to pull extra hard just to hear it and that day was no different. Nothing different about the way I skipped up the steps to the patio either. Or how I wiped my boots on the rug outside before I stepped in the house.
Before I could smell the food, I heard them in the kitchen, María chiding Abril.
“No, no, no, no. Nada de dulces antes de cenar.”
“Pero tengo haaaambre.”
“Después de tu tarea. Ándale. Dile a tu hermano también.”
I walked through the dining room to the kitchen and set a pile of herbs on the counter.
She smiled slyly at me, “Nunca paran de tragar.” Her face lit up when she saw the herbs. “Ah, fresh from the greenhouse. Didn’t think you’d have them this time.”
I caught her arm as she reached for them, and pulled her in for a kiss. She deepened it, sliding her hands from my forearms to my shoulders. She always held on longer than I expected. I’d never gotten used to it.
She pulled back and smiled. “After I add these, dinner’ll be ready.”
“Ah, for you, amor. I’ll wait forever.”
Her hands still around my neck, she threw her head back and rocked me forward a little. “If it weren’t for that diabolical smile of yours, that would be the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard.”
“No te preocupes, mija.” I winked. “It’s the cheesiest I’ve ever used.”
She fiddled with the buttons at the top of my shirt, “Given what I know of your history, chulo,” then let go and turned to the stove, “that’s saying something.”
I grinned as I walked away, “What history?”
I headed to my bedroom to find her father looking out the window. He tried not to look embarrassed when I knocked on the open door.
“Lo siento, Rafa. I was just—” When he couldn’t find a proper excuse, he just sighed and raked his hand over is face, motioning out the window.
That’s when I saw his blue Buick idle up the driveway and park at the big metal gate. He didn’t get out right away. Just sort of sat there. So, her father and I just watched him, watching.
“Papá, ya quieres tu café? Papá!”
Neither of us answered her.
“Qué pasa?” Her determined footsteps got louder and louder, until she breezed into the room.
I didn’t bother trying to lie but he attempted a too-rushed, “Nada. No pasa nada.”
The joy of intrigue wiped from María’s face and now she just looked wary. “Qué estás mirando, entonces?”
Incredible how little I felt, holding back that curtain, staring at the outline of the man responsible for my death, while he sat in the driver’s seat of mi primo’s blue car. For a split second and all at once, I hated him because I missed him. It hurt how much I missed him. Then I hated me for missing him. And then it emptied to nothing. The oddest thing. Pretty fucking dumb too. I should’ve been afraid at least, considering what would happen if he or anyone knew I was alive. Back in that room with the metal prods, pain, shoulder popping, in-and-out, in-and-out, pain, dry mouth, wet concrete tongue dragging across the roof of it, pain and too much more.
I didn’t know how I felt, so I didn’t know how I wanted her to respond because it never mattered so much what I wanted. But there was no denying my heart seized up in my chest, the arteries all throttled, when I saw how hard her jaw clenched and watched her rage nearly warp the air around her. I supposed she’d have to have been hit in the head as many times as me, to feel the nothing I did.
The three of us stood motionless for a moment, until she sighed, turned around to look at the bedroom doorway, then back again to the window, before making a break for the front door. As she dashed down the still-stained front steps and marched across the courtyard to meet him at the gate, it hit me. He’d just got there. Hundreds of feet from us and not even out of the car yet, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. And even though I stood right there, next to her, she never once looked at me. Before walking out the door.
That was the end of pretending.
𐮛
I was putting up the fence around the greenhouse, hammering posts on the north side of the field, when she brought out iced tea and empañadas. It hadn’t happened in a long time but I kept seeing them today. Flashes of dirt road in the wood grain of the posts, rushing, dragging beneath me. I had to stop now-and-again to wipe them from my eyes. She told me I looked tired. When she could tell I was tired, she liked to give me things to dream about. Maybe that’s why she asked.
“Quieres venganza?”
I stopped hammering and stood up straight.
“Qué?”
“Supongo— lo que quieres decir es si piensas en la venganza?”
I swung the mallet over to rest on my good shoulder and looked out onto the horizon. Something about these sunsets at home made me want to hold her. And the wanting but not, made me want too much at once.
“Claro que no, querida. I'm just happy I’m not dead.”
She looked at me quizzically as she walked over. She set the cup and plate on the empty wood barrel next to me and picked a piece of hay from my hair.
What was she asking? And why? And why now? Too many tangled up questions and the words came tumbling out. No amount of grabbing empty air would shut them back up into the leaky box, my mind, where they belonged.
“Why? Do you?” Because I had stopped pretending but I didn’t know if I was I ready for her to. “Is that what this is?”
She leaned her head against one of the posts. Looking out into the red-orange sky, no hesitation, crisp like glass, “A veces.”
I suppose I knew. It never made sense for her to love me all of a sudden and for no good reason except I just showed up one day and needed her.
“But not usually.”
Windswept hair and brown eyes lit red by the horizon, downright dangerous was how she looked. The sky looked like hell and she looked at it like it was hers. María at her most dangerous gave El Jefe de Jefes a run for his money. I always figured that’s why he sent her away. And yet, just like me, she felt so much more for him than he deserved. How could she not, padre de sus hijos. And how could I expect her to let go when I couldn’t. Still, being reduced to a weapon was a familiar disappointment. It meant, like him, she couldn’t see me just then.
I grabbed an empañada and shoved it in my mouth, too fast, so she couldn’t see how hard my jaw was clenched. It burned my tongue and nearly cooked the back of my throat as I swallowed. Maybe this was my sign to run, take advantage of being dead, leave the boy and the girl I knew from way-back-when for good.
My throat, still with that numb, burnt feeling made my voice thick, so I didn’t sound so wounded. “Given the look on your face, I see you have.”
When she closed her eyes, I realized she was crying. I always thought it was weird how that happened sometimes when she was angry.
“He’s their father. But with how they left you, Rafa–” She pulled in a deep, shaky breath like preparing for confession, “I— I don’t know where to put it. All this rage.” Her hands balled into fists and she turned to look at me. “Did you know, when I can’t sleep, sometimes I count the ways he’s hurt us like counting sheep.”
Those few solitary tears sliding down her cheeks, catching at her chin, dripping off the edge of her jaw onto the collar of her shirt, I felt the urge to bottle them up and take them with me everywhere. Scar-tissue-thoughts. I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood there, waiting to follow her lead. Just as I had in all things.
“And that’s when I think, yes. He was their father. But now? Ya no más que una puta infección, un enfermedad de la verga, polluting everything he touches.”
“Do you feel polluted?”
“Qué?” She gave me that look again, eyebrow cocked, like I was nuts.
I dropped the mallet, and walked over. Arms crossed, I rested them on the finished part of the fence and propped my chin up to look at her.
“It’s just what I said. ‘Cause well,” I tapped my temple with my finger, “I have some screws loose and– how did you put it? Ground beef for a shoulder?”
She cracked a small smile. Success.
“So, we both know I’m polluted. Owe that to myself more than anyone, most likely. But not all of it, true. So, do you feel he’s polluted you?” Then I jutted my chin up toward the house, “Them?”
She was quiet for a long time, long enough for the sun to slide behind the hilltops, casting her in new shades of purple. I was trying hard not to disappear like I did sometimes. She fixed her eyes on me just in time, swiping her cheeks quickly. “Ah, mi Rafa. It’s just what I said. Everything he touches.”
I asked it with no anger, no jealousy. That wasn’t what this was about. “So why go, then?”
We’d never talked about it but she knew what I meant. She never lied to me, so wasn’t some big secret. She didn’t even try to hide the invitation. To some political three-ringed circus to celebrate the election. He was sending a private jet for her and everything. It was a big deal.
She considered the question for a long time, before whispering, “I have to know for sure.”
“Know what?”
“That I’m right to believe he can’t change.” She stepped away from the post and walked down the length of the fence, grazing her hand along it until it came to rest on my arm. Then she leaned in and kissed me. It didn’t feel like goodbye just yet. But we were getting there.
Then we stayed like that for a little while, forehead to forehead, eyes closed. In my head, I got the sensation like I was falling.
“And what more is there to lose when the damage is done, when we’re polluted already.”
I watched her disappear up the hill heading back to the house. I should’ve said it even if I knew it wouldn’t have made a difference. Unless you were dead, he’d find something to take. Because he only saw the world in terms of “more.” He polluted you with the prospect of “more.” It’s what made him so brilliant. And why he was all alone.
I grabbed the mallet to get to work again. But I was seeing the road in the grain of the wood still. It was coming at me, faster this time. Not flashes. I was there again. It had been a while but actually, I’d been back a few times since it happened.
In the beginning, I couldn’t stop living there. That’s why she started climbing into bed with me. To remind me I wasn’t there because I couldn’t be because no one could be in two places at once. She’d put her arm around me and I’d lean against her, unable to move except to jolt every time a rock kicked up and seared the back of my neck, gouged another welt in my shoulder blade, cracked against one of my elbows. My hands were always the worst, no circulation, bound numb and twisted in the ropes, mangled by the friction of the gravel they slid over. Before I blacked out, I was curious every time. How’d I get here? The answer in his voice, always so calm, and filled with love lost and sadness. Which made sense since he knew I was a lost cause.
Ya tienes más de que lo necesitas. Ya dejar de soñar, Rafael.
And maybe that was the whole problem.
𐮛
After that, I didn’t wait too much longer, a few weeks maybe. Then one morning, I got up at dawn and crept around the house, collecting my things. If I waited to say goodbye, I'd never leave. Because she wouldn’t want me to and it still wouldn’t be enough. She gave me plenty to dream about and I loved her for it and I loved her.
But I was awake now.
I was holding too much stuff, so I swung the door open too hard. Caught just before it slammed, and I sighed, chest full with disappointment and relief. I guided it gently to a close, then strode across the porch to the steps where I stopped short to look down at the clean, newly varnished planks where my blood used to be. It happened just like I thought. I lost me. I was gone. For some reason I thought of the story again, about how the world was made.**
On that back alley dirt road, laughing into the sky like I wasn’t dying, I’d finally worked out that I wasn’t Sibú, but I never decided who I was instead.
Was I the chorus of trampling demons and spirits? Was I Tapir? Or the trodden Earth Iriria? Or maybe, since I’d sort of died, I was thousands now buried, recompense, fodder in the machine of their vengeance. Or maybe I was nothing at all.
My heel hit the first step. I guess I had time now and the whole world to figure it out.
𐮛
And that's a wrrrrap! Sorry for all the Spanish. I was going to make a glossary but I already wrote the thing and it's 6,000 words give or take, so just gonna have to give it a good ole Goog. Thanks for reading.
**See here if you're interested in learning more about mesoamerican myths and legends or about the bribri tribe specifically, this is where I found the story.
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