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STARBOY | COME BACK (2)

There would be no one else for him. Nobody else would do. He’s always been a believer that you have to work to get what you want and Kyle’s clawed his way to where he is, but this…there is something about it that feels preordained. You and him, this thing between you, it’s bigger than the both of you, far larger than he can ever comprehend.

chapter tags: alternate universe - formula 1, fem!reader, possessive kyle garrick, past relationship, original character/reader, dubious morality, infidelity, dubious consent, sexual content | word count: 10170 | definitions at the end of chapter!

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MINORS, BLANK AND AGELESS BLOGS: DO NOT INTERACT

Where does it begin to go wrong?

When all that lays before you is glittering promise, how can one anticipate its sudden ruin? The comfort of stability comes with false oaths, ones Kyle swallows easily, ones that occlude the truth from him: nothing ever lasts forever. Grown used to the routine he has built for himself, the ins and outs of a life he has crafted from the ground up, he’s left dazed when it crumples suddenly. Foundation weaker than he’d believed, he pores obsessively over every single detail like running his tongue against a knitted over wound, an absence where before there’d been abundance. The edges of his memory are fraying from use, time-worn and sun-bleached.

One day, he is 24 and a man on top the world. The trophy in his hands shines his warped reflection back at him, gleaming under the desert sun. Silver and gold wrap around each other. It’s another prize his team will add to the collection he’s earned them over the years, golden boy, winner that he is.

You’d asked him, once, if he hadn’t grown used to the feeling. He’d known it then, that there was no way of explaining it to you. Still, he’d persisted, to translate the force driving him, to make you see that he would push his body every single time to the limit and that its payoff was worth more to him than anything he had ever owned.

Kyle is seven years old the first time he lowers himself into the seat of a kart. A birthday party he hadn’t even wanted to go to, a mother who’d pressed him to go now watching from the sidelines with worry lining her brow; it’s pure luck that throws him onto the course of his fate.

The smell of burnt rubber makes his nose wrinkle but the sound – oh, the sound. The engines, the way the karts seem to go faster than anything he has ever seen, whipping past him so fast it makes the hem of his shirt flutter. Seven years old and nearly pushing the barricade down to get a better look as the karts go by –

“Senna in the making, eh, mate?” one of the employees at the range had said, when he’d climbed out of the kart, whistling low when he’d presented the scores. The birthday boy – a classmate of his who he cannot recall for neither love nor money, only a blur of blonde hair and a fading, grating voice that had been prone to tears – had not been happy at losing out. But Kyle had stared at the slip of paper given to him with his heart in his throat, the thrum of a phantom engine buzzing through him.

– It is the beginning of it all.

He learns about the greats, goes to the library and checks out as many books on racing that the librarian will let him. His aunt is the one that finances it when he expresses a desire to take it up, older than his mother with no kids of her own to dote on, sweet on her only nephew who throws himself at her knees with a delighted yell when they break the news to him.

Senna in the making, perhaps – Kyle finds a hero in Schumacher instead. He remembers the early days, pressing his nose to the screen of his mother’s television set and watching the German driver score win after win that only stokes the embers of the rapidly growing desire within himself.

A winner.

When they ask him at school what he wants to be, amongst the policemen and firefighters, the ballerinas and pilots –

Kyle brings home the piece of paper with its accompanying picture, scrawled by a steady hand: a car, all to be seen of its driver poking out from the top, covered by a colourful helmet.

When I grow up, I want to be: A Formula One Driver

It is a life he claws his way to. Karting brings competitions and as it turns out – Kyle is good. He wins a lot. He loses, sometimes. The shock of it never deters him, only igniting his desire to come back better. Mostly, he wins. Seven, eight, nine, ten – through it all, this remains his steady constant, his faithful companion.

This life opens many doors for him. His mother is, understandably, nervous. Despite the years he’s been at this, it is inarguable that he has chosen a profession with no guarantee of safety. There is little comfort in the thought of her only son racing fast cars down straights, turning sharp around corners while pushing wheel to wheel with another metal beast, his wellbeing contingent on flaky agents – the track, the weather, his ability to react in time – it’s pure luck that keeps him from being flattened beneath the shell of his car.

If it isn’t the car that will claim him, just out of sight, there awaits the danger of vices.

Kyle likes the cameraderie that flows when his team are celebrating a win but he finds himself stepping out earlier than the others tend to. There’s a quality to the world he finds preferable when he’s wandering the streets of whichever city it is he’s found himself in that week. He watches the streetlights soften, listens to the city chatter, casts his eyes up to the sky.

He believes himself unscathed – that grip which has taken ahold of all the drivers in some shape or form, it remains a stranger to him. Sadecki favours his smokes, tobacco and tar clinging heavy to every item of clothing the man wears. Binotto washes his disappointment down with spirits, vodka sharp on his breath in the mornings when they sit through the briefings.

Kyle smokes, occasionally. He drinks in moderation – he’s uninterested in getting caught by the media and painted as sloppy, has no eagerness to partake in some of the drinking games that the crew propose on their nights off. He’s the one that has to drive the car, after all. If he wants to win, he’s got to give it everything he’s got.

And drive he does. Gloves gripping the steering wheel, fabric squeaking beneath his fingers as it tightens over his knuckles, his visor down to shield his eyes from dust and gravel.

But as weaknesses are wont to do, his are inconspicuous in their reveal, subtle in the way they slip his blinders on. So sharp to all that everyone else does, he is ignorant and unassuming, all too open and vulnerable. The perfect host for vice to sink its teeth into him. Sin, pure and unadulterated, comes to him in the kiss of victory; a black and white checkered flag, the thrum of the engine beneath him as it carries him over the finish line, the crackle of a radio and his engineer in his ear –

P-fucking-1, baby.

He’s weakened by the end of the race, significantly lighter than when he’d stepped into the car, but victory throws all of his senses into sharp relief. Colours brighter to his eyes, lights winking. He tastes the metal in the air, keenly aware of the heaviness of his tongue in his mouth.

Binotto takes a single look at him from across the cooldown room, lounging against the chair with his bottle pressed to his mouth, and scoffs knowingly.

“First win,” the older man murmurs. Kyle drags his gaze to him, sluggish, like he’s moving through water. He blows out a breath, shaking his head, a faraway look settling over his eyes. “Tell you this much, there’s nothing like it.”

Alvarez, beside him, looks up and laughs in agreement. “Make the most of it, rookie. There’s no going back from this.”

Prophet of ill tiding, Binotto’s next words slither over the embankment Kyle has cocooned himself beneath, riding out the best high of his life – “‘S all downhill from here, mate.”

Binotto does not sign on to any teams after the season and his contract concludes, and the words lay stagnating in the thick of Kyle’s memory, buried beneath the recesses of every podium and win he goes on to achieve.

The champagne pours, lights burst in a dazzling display of blue and gold stars, he stands atop a podium and the adrenaline in his veins is a feeling like no other. Kyle’s bummed a dart from a stranger before, watched a mate trip on an acid tab, ecstasy blowing his pupils wide, all with a detached curiosity. He imagines it must’ve felt something like this, sweat soaking through his suit, his heart hummingbird quick in its cage and his head spinning.

You stand in the crowd below, gazing up at him with winking lights in your gaze and he feels it then, really feels it. This is what he was made for. The two of you are scheduled for an early flight in the morning but the celebrations continue well on into the night. Again, and again, and again, he pulls sounds from you until you’re incapable of little else but silent screams, lips parting in mute ecstasy. It’s downright fucking filthy – he feels like pure, uncontrolled energy, a maelstrom of light and electricity having escaped its vessel.

By the time he lays back against the mattress, the sheets are soaked through and the sunlight is creeping through the curtains. Your body lays stretched out beside him, sweaty, sated, a dazed part of your lips and eyelashes fluttering against your cheekbones. He is keenly aware of every inch of his body, aching muscles that twinge with each breath, the pulse of his heart against his chest and the blood that rushes in his ears.

When you ask him, then, whether he’d grown used to it, he opens his mouth to explain. But the words fall short. He can only look at you and shake his head.

Standing on that elevated podium, runners-up on either side, the same scene no matter where they were. Azerbaijan, Monaco, Singapore. Victory tastes just as sweet. Like sweat and champagne, the press of a beautiful woman against him and the clutch of your hips at the end of the night.

He looks around him, at the other drivers around him. Well out of his rookie season, he knows he isn’t new and shiny anymore, that he’ll fall to the wayside soon if he isn’t careful. The threat of it scares him stiff: becoming just another decorated driver fated to never rise beyond the bottom of the grid haunts him. He finds that when he’s known what it’s like to be a winner – records broken, championships collected, pure, unimitable skill – he’ll do anything to stay that way.

So maybe he plays dirty, sometimes. He knows what these guys have to lose, knows how to apply the pressure just right, set the cards up so they’ll fall exactly as he needs them to. Families, wives, children – the others can’t drive as they used to, with reckless abandon and toeing the lines of the rulebook. They’re slowed down, if only by a hair’s breadth. In this sport, every single moment counts, down to the tiniest details. In the minutiae, that is where he strikes. What’s he got to lose?

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t think about it before answering a reporter who asks him if he’s proposed to you – it’s just another rumour, speculation floated by tabloids struggling to gain traffic. He shuts it down with a frank, honest, “No, I’m not.”

There is no elaboration, nothing to bolster the foundation of his long-term relationship, exposed now to the rest of the world. You say very little then. Later, he’ll think that maybe that’s where it began to crumble.

The revelation that he does, indeed, have something to lose stuns him.

Your departure from his life throws him into a tailspin of the worst kind. Confusion and anger are his faithful friends, and he oscillates between the two. How could you go back on all that you’d promised each other? What had driven you to it? Had he been blind to the signs? He can’t break the loop, trapped in his ruthless desire to know why.

Hadn’t you been happy?

He can’t make sense of it when you tell him tearfully, I love you, maybe too much. He arrives to the scene of your exit far too late; this isn’t impulse that drives you to pack your things and book a ticket back home, it’s a decision that you’ve made without him. The betrayal winds him – it is a betrayal, no matter how you spin it, sinking into the mattress and burying your head in your hands, weeping.

“I want a life with you, outside of this,” you get out through hitched breaths, eyes wet and doleful. On the other side of the hotel room, he sits in the chair, staring hard at the contents of your open suitcase.

He looks up at you. “You have one. We have that.”

“No.” You shake your head. “No, what we have is me following you around the world and watching you nearly kill yourself just to win another race.”

Kyle’s brows draw together incredulously. “What are you talking about?”

“You think I haven’t noticed?” you demand, fingers digging into your palms. The urge to reach out and stop you makes his own hands twitch. “You’re so caught up in winning, you don’t care about anything else. Do you know how many collisions you’ve barely walked out of lately, this season alone? You don’t care about us, you don’t care about anyone else on the grid, you don’t even care about yourself.”

He scoffs, defensive anger rising to the surface. “That’s not true.”

You bring a hand to your mouth, trembling, looking away for a moment before you exhale. Another shake of your head. The pit in his stomach is steadily deepening, a slow panic that blooms through him as he realises what’s happening.

He’s prided himself on his ability to read other people. To anticipate their needs and actions. It keeps him sharp on the track. Where you’re concerned, he’s dialled it to eleven, fine-tuned it to a near sixth sense over the years. He knows you intimately, knows the map of your body, knows the meaning behind your every expression, your different smiles. He knows you better than he knows himself, it feels like, somedays. He’d thought he did..

For the first time, he doesn’t know what to do to fix this. It occurs to him that maybe you’re better at keeping things from him than he’d thought.

“You’re going to kill yourself, for another metal cup,” you tell him dully. “And I won’t watch it, Kyle. I won’t. I love you….Maybe too much. Every weekend, I sit there in that garage wondering if this is it, whether today will be the day I watch you die. All I do is worry about you, and I’m tired.”

He doesn’t know what to say. “It’s my job. It’s always going to be risky.”

“Not like this!” you explode, voice pitching nervously. “You never used to drive like this. Don’t treat me like I’m stupid! How long have we been together? I know how you drive and you’ve never, not ever, been this reckless. You think you’ve got this under control but you don’t and you don’t want to admit that.”

He’s silent. You nod, like you’d expected this, and continue to stuff things into your suitcase. Not once do you look at him, but he can’t tear his gaze from you. Your hands are shaking as you zip it closed, shoulders hunched over, exhausted. He’s frozen, watching you gather the last of your things and leave your key to the room on the bedside table. Only then do you look at him, once, a stricken, troubled set to your mouth before you leave.

Your exit from his life is quiet, so at odds with the way you’d arrived into it; the soft snick of a door and a silent goodbye.

He can’t tell how long he sits in that chair, staring at the dip on the sheets where you’d sat. Minutes, hours, years could have passed, he remains rooted there.

This is a dream, he thinks, wishes, this is just a horrible dream and I’m going to wake up any moment now.

But no matter how long he stays there, he does not wake up. His eyes burn, his body begins to grow stiff and the terrible dream continues on to be. You’re no longer here, you’ve gone and he’s alone in his hotel room. Five years come to an end in a matter of moments and he’s helpless as to how he’ll get himself out of this one.

It’s Price that finds him, all but busting the door down when he doesn’t answer. Watery blue irises regard him thoughtfully, and Kyle, distantly, is grateful for the lack of pity. Price has always managed to level with him. Even in crisis, he’s no different.

“She left?”

He nods, silent.

“What you going to do?” There’s a direction behind the question. He needs to get his head on straight, needs to move. He can’t sit here and do nothing. Price watches him as he cycles through muddy thoughts and stumbles to a realisation.

“I’m going to–” he breathes out, harshly, trying to expel the thought of your tearstained face and the sound of your suitcase wheeling across the room. “I’m going to fix this.”

You’re in a taxi halfway across the city when he leaves the hotel. You haven’t stopped sharing your location with him, likely too preoccupied with the more pressing parts of running away to consider it, something he finds himself thankful for as he gets into a car. His blood is rushing through his ears when the car comes to a stop outside the airport and he all but throws himself out.

He shouldn’t be running in an airport, much less where there are about a thousand eyes on him. But Kyle pushes himself forward, sweat dripping down his brow despite the cool air fanning through the space. He makes to security blindly, muscle memory guiding him through the entry until he spots the large queue. He’s made his way through this airport so many times over the years, never once had he thought he’d be chasing after you, here.

He searches the crowd, heart in his throat. He’s going to fix this, it’ll be alright, but first he has to find you in the dense crowd. Over hats and colourful shirts and businessmen in charcoal suits –

There. Stood between a woman and her children, and an older boy, staring listlessly into the distance while the queue stalls.

His knees nearly give out with the relief and he staggers forward, calling your name. There’s a flash of light in his periphery, a murmur that goes up. He’s more focused on the way you startle, turning around in surprise as if to confirm you’ve heard right.

“Baby,” he breathes out and isn’t it a kick in the gut when he gets closer and sees the sticky trace of tears still lingering on your cheeks? “I’m sorry, alright? You’re right, I’ve been shit lately, I’m going to – I’m gonna fix it. I’m sorry.”

“Kyle,” you say tightly, eyes darting around and he leans forward to cradle your face in his palms. He watches how you flinch at the touch, eyes squeezing shut tightly, a tear slipping down your cheek. He catches it with his thumb, wiping it away. “We’re in public.”

“I don’t care,” he insists. “Let them look.”

“Go home,” you urge and he shakes his head.

“Not without you.”

Your face contracts at that, pained. Still, he pushes on.

“I’m not going without you,” he says, intently. Pleading. “I don’t want to be without you. We’re it, remember?”

“That’s not –” you stutter. Another shutter clicks loudly and you flinch at the sound. “Things have changed.”

“They don’t have to. Come home with me,” he implores. He pulls a hand away then, and rummages through his pocket. Your brow furrows and then your eyes widen when he pulls out a small box. He smiles, rueful.

“I was, um, saving this for after the championship – after the season ended,” he amends, when he sees your face tighten. “But tonight…you’re right. I want a life with you, I’ve wanted a life with you since we were 18 and you talked me out of that stupid tattoo after my first win. It’s only ever going to be you. I’ll fix it, you’ll see, we’ll be alright. Just – come home with me.”

You stare at the ring in quiet astonishment and for a moment he thinks maybe there’s hope. It’s a beautiful thing, glittering as his hand trembles and the light catches on the precious gem. It’s the kind of ring you’d eyed whenever you passed jewellery stores, gaze passing over all the other gaudy options on display to catch on wistfully.

The kind that you’d spoken about once, during one of those times when summer and the break from racing deepened into that gentle, liminal space in which he became near unable to distinguish where he ended and you began, truths free-falling from your lips like water without inhibition–those were his favourite moments, when you’d press under his arm and look up at him with those soft eyes, the kind of look that always came before you revealed a new part of yourself to him. All these years together and he was still discovering shades of you.

Hope flickers faintly in his chest, and it’s agony, waiting for you to answer. The pain nearly blinds him when you drag your stare up to look him with reproach in your eyes, beginning to shake your head.

“I can’t,” you whisper, as though you haven’t struck him through the chest. His fingers spasm around the open box, the diamond catching the light and sending a small shower of sparks into his vision, not unlike when he bottoms out during a race and the underside of the car drags painfully against the track. “You’re not being fair, Kyle. You don’t even – you don’t even want this, not really.”

“I’ve been holding onto this for the last six months, what do you mean I don’t want this?” his voice cracks.

“You’re not ready for this – don’t shake your head at me, you know I’m right,” you whisper sharply. “You’ve got one single commitment and it’s this job. There’s no room in your life for what a life together would bring and I –”

Here, you break off sharply, looking away. So there is more to it, he thinks, bitterness brewing slow in his stomach.

“What,” he grinds out.

“So much of the last year has shown me that there’s no room for me in this life,” you say quietly. “I’m your girlfriend before I’m a person. I go where you do and it’s your name that everyone says when they talk about me. You win, and I’m meant to be another trophy for you to show off, you lose and people start pointing fingers, you won’t even look at me because you get so caught up in it. Sometimes I wonder if I even exist to you unless there’s a cup in your hand. I don’t know who I am, anymore, Kyle. I can’t remember the last time I did something for myself, by myself. This isn’t – we can’t keep going on like this.”

“We’ll fix it, then,” he tries, one last time, but you only let out a soft sniffle, shaking your head.

“I love you,” you tell him, eyes pooling with tears once more. He stands there, hands limp by his sides, blood roaring in his ears. “I love you so much. But we can’t go on like this anymore. It’s not – it isn’t healthy.”

This time, he’s the one that steps away.

“I think you’re wrong,” he tells you, plainly, lowering his voice. “I think you’re wrong and I think maybe I’m the only one right now who believes in us, but if this is what you need to do, then fine.”

By now, the rest of the people in the crowd have begun to recognise who he is and more than half have their phones held up. He knows his publicist is going to be furious when the tabloids come out in the morning with this news. But he finds himself exhausted, too selfish to care.

“Just know that with or without that championship, you were going to walk out with a ring on your finger,” he says, jaw ticking with the restraint it takes to keep his voice level, to keep himself from lunging at the guy whose phone is pointing directly at him while his world comes down around him. “I’ve been confused about a lot of things in my life but you – never. It’s always been you. It’s always going to be you.”

Your lips form the shape of his name and he steps away, clutching the velvet box in his hands, snapping it shut. Even with the noise of the airport, it seems to echo.

In the years that have passed, he’s adjusted to your absence. The season had demanded his attention in the fresh aftermath of your breakup. He’d been grateful for the distraction, even if it had only half-managed to divert his thoughts from you. The silence in every hotel room had been deafening at first, the absence when he reached out in the mornings unstitching the hurt anew.

Worse had been the off-season when, with little outside of training to fill his time, it had been much harder to ignore the pressing difference in his life. There’d been no lingering perfume to greet him in his London flat when he’d arrived. His coffee table had been absent of the memoir that had taken residence there over the last year, bookmarked halfway through and untouched. Gone were the coats and blouses that had hung in his wardrobe, gone was the toothbrush in his bathroom, the pots and tubes of skin products. Gone, gone, gone.

It’s hard, when he turns at a function to whisper in an ear that is no longer turned to him. In fact, you’ve all but vanished, it seems. There are no whispers of your presence in any rooms he walks into, only lanyards from different agencies and always, always, somebody pressing for his attention. London is no maze, but you have hidden yourself away entirely from him.

By and large, you are no longer someone he knows.

It doesn’t stop him from remembering. The years pass, the season turns over into itself and the trophies are doled out. He wins, he loses, he and Price take on a newer team – 1-4-1, of which Price assumes the position of team principal, no longer simply his chief engineer. He drops a few places in a championship, his winning streak is doused by a newer, better driver. Still, he remembers.

He can’t help it. He can’t.

Over and over, he traces the memory of you. The curve of your mouth, the flicker of a smile, shy, secretive. The laugh he’d swallowed, one night on the terrace of your stay in Monaco, kissing you in the balmy air. The way you’d cut your hair when you were 18. The day he’d known for sure – it would be this, or it would be nothing.

Running, rain soaked through the back streets and calling out for the orange cat that had slipped through the open door. A neighbour’s, temporarily your responsibility during their visit out of town. A single moment, a blur shooting through the crack in the door and between his legs. He’d been just a few months shy of 21, then, he thinks.

An hour, you’d spent, calling for the thing, before the skies had opened up and the rain had started to pour. Light, at first, a mist drifting down before the drops had grown bigger and you’d been caught in the downpour. In an instant, he’d watched your clothes darken, water bleeding into every fiber until there wasn’t a centimetre of dry cotton on you. His own clothes had submitted to the same fate. Still, on you’d searched.

Caught under a streetlight, he’d been struck by the sudden knowing – there wouldn’t ever be anything else like this, not with anyone else, not ever.

And when a moment later you’d darted across the street, almost veering into the path of an oncoming car, to wrangle a sopping mess of orange fur, looking up at him with a relieved smile and the furball in your arms, that had settled it for him.

There would be no one else for him. Nobody else would do. He’s always been a believer that you have to work to get what you want and Kyle’s clawed his way to where he is, but this…there is something about it that feels preordained. You and him, this thing between you, it’s bigger than the both of you, far larger than he can ever comprehend.

If there could be anything he could trust in to be certain, he would have said this. Sunday mornings on the off season spent intending to sleeping in but waking up early anyway, making breakfast and returning to you with fresh fruit he’d end up tasting on your tongue. Running out to get errands done and knowing no matter how far you wandered off, you’d eventually bump back into him again with a surprised giggle and your hands full of knick knacks he’d sigh at but ultimately agree would look good for the place. When you tell him you can’t go on any longer, he’ll admit there’s a moment where his faith wavers. It’s a loss he’d never once expected.

But it’s only a moment, before he’s brought back to that day, that evening in the rain. He’s young, still, but the thought of a life without you makes him restless. It’s so deeply wrong, he knows at once it can’t be true forever. So he waits. There’s so much, too much that intertwines his life with yours for it to be left open.

It isn’t over. This, he knows.

The years pass and he learns to stop reaching across the side of his bed. He no longer turns to a phantom beside him in a crowd, no longer holds his hand behind him in a dense crowd to guide a lover that’s not there.

But he waits. He bides his time, goes over what went wrong like an old, broken record.

His patience is rewarded when he least expects it, five years after you’d blinked out of existence. The start of the new season is hot – much hotter than London, this time of year. He’s in the paddock ahead of his appearance at the fan forum, talking to Simon when Soap returns, eyes wide and out of breath bearing the news he’s been waiting for.

The weight of five years apart bears down on him as he ascends to the lounge, teeth digging into the meat of his cheek. Someone says something to him as he enters, another person sidles up to him. He has only one object on his mind as he scans the room.

You’re as lovely – if not more – as the day you’d left. A little older, standing taller by the back of the lounge. His throat dries the moment your eyes meet and finally, after so long, he feels like he can breathe right.

The two of you had been too young to get it right the first time. Standing in front of you then, it’s clear that this time he won’t make the same mistakes. Racing has lost that veneer of gold that he’d clung to so desperately in his younger twenties. He knows what’s important – she’s shifting on her feet in front of him, unable to meet his gaze.

Niki, though, is a wrench in what had before seemed so simple and reliable. The expectation for you to join him once more in the 1-4-1 garage is spoiled when the other man cuts in.

He’s not above admitting that it rattles him enough to retreat. As long as he’d known you, all you had ever been was his. His to touch, his to take care of. Niki’s hand on your back, the tenderness in his eyes as he passes you a bottle of water – he wouldn’t begrudge the man if it were anyone else but the woman he’s staring at has long since been claimed, no matter the years that stretch that band thin.

It’s a bitter move, necessary as it is. He knows he can’t strike – not here, and with the pressure of his race weekend schedule pressing on him, certainly not now. To rush would be to lead himself into certain ruin and Kyle has had enough losses lately. This one would outweigh them all.

It is only through steeled self-discipline that he doesn’t return to the Williams garage where he knows you – and Niki, though he marvels at how the third rate driver managed to score a contract with them – will be. There is much to be done and though he longs to shirk it all – what was one instance of disobedience if it would bring you back to him? – a quelling look from Price calls him, begrudgingly, to heel.

He cannot act in anger, cannot execute a plan in a passion. Blue eyes strike though him, laser cutting steel to impress upon him – bide your time. Wait…

He crosses the finish line in fourth place, tires nearly giving out when the team fucks up their pit stop strategy – the heat gets to everyone, it seems, but he finds himself doubly unforgiving when he knows that you’re somewhere amongst the crowd in the lounge, watching your boyfriend cut in front of him at the last possible moment.

Observe…

Niki, on the podium, gleams under the Australian sun and you’re in the crowd amongst his mechanics looking dazed, suddenly pushed forward by rough, joking hands as he surges forward to swoop you up in a kiss. Your mouth slides against his and Kyle, handing his balaclava to an intern, watches with burning eyes, sweat dripping from his hairline and collecting in his lashes. When you part from the man, your lips gleam, gloss smudged around the edges of your mouth and your eyes flutter a little.

You do the same in Shanghai, folded within the cluster of Niki’s team and consoling him on fourth place when he exits the car at the end of the race. Kyle, who’d pushed through to second, feels his stomach curdle when he straightens up from receiving his medal, the metal heavy around his neck. When he looks down to the crowd, you’ve got your fingers in Niki’s hair, head bent close to his and nodding at something he says with that soft, sympathetic turn to your mouth that he remembers used to be reserved solely for him, once.

He can’t resist it in Suzuka, not when he spots you alone while your boyfriend makes a mess of himself. Even though there aren’t any journalists at the party, Niki could stand to be more composed. Kyle has already spotted three phones out, knows that sooner or later – for better or worse – the images of the driver will make their way out to the internet for the masses to dissect. You stand on the sidelines, watching with a little gleam in your eyes that he wants to steal for himself.

Is it stealing, really, if he’s only taking back what was already his?

And he’ll make it easy for you, precious, beautiful thing that you are. He knows he fucked it up last time, knows you deserve nothing but the best and Niki is…decidedly not that. There’s nobody better suited for the role than Kyle – he’s spent a near decade in the car, a decade spent amassing more trophies than he knows what to do with. He’s got the money to make sure you’d never want for anything in your life, the influence to get the two of you where you need to be. He knows every inch of your body.

It’s been five years, but he’d know you at your barest, still, how could he ever scrub that from his memory, it’s written in his hardwire – he was fashioned for you, as you were for him, be it by invisible hands, the cosmos or evolution itself. All that has happened since the dawn of time, every decision he’s ever made in his life, every burst of wind, every drop of water that has swelled and receded – all roads lead to you.

So he’ll make it easy.

All you have to do is agree.

He’s so lost in righteous belief that the possibility of anything else evades him. You’re standing there, in that dress, eyes on someone else and you’re…

You’re shrinking. From him.

More, you’re stepping towards the fool on the other side of the room, arms coming around his flushed neck and bringing his mouth down to yours – yet it’s Kyle you’re looking at, eyes half lidded as you slide your mouth against your boyfriend’s, anger burning low in your irises.

Hm. So that’s how you want to play it.

He brings his drink to his mouth, tipping it ever so slightly in your direction before letting the alcohol stream down his throat.

He won’t begrudge you your games. Kyle’s always been the better strategist of you both, anyway. But he has very little intention of making it easy on you.

and then… strike.

You think you might’ve made a mistake.

Taunting Kyle had never gone over well historically, fool were you to think he wouldn’t rise to your provocation just because the two of you had grown a little older. Still, you blame it on him – it’s easy to convince yourself that you might have kept a level head had he just left you alone. But that was never in the cards and you know it, had known it from the moment he’d walked through that crowd of people in Melbourne to your side, even if you were unwilling to admit it to yourself.

Maybe you’re just as bad as he is.

When he begins to show his face around the paddock even more, gaze sliding to yours over the shoulder of an intern and greeting you with a subtle, mocking smile, you realise what you’ve just done. Instead of getting him to back off, you’ve only triggered that prey drive, that ruthless unforgiving chase in him, honing his attention to you.

It’ll be a miracle if you get out of this unscathed.

Miami brings an easterly wind that ruffles the hem of your skirt, a tailspin in the last lap of the race that leaves Niki tense, and the team a place lower in the championship. You’re barely able to exit the team’s hospitality suite to meet him before the sounds from the 1-4-1 garage, next door to Williams’, erupt and you spot that same smug, self-effacing smile that’s been plaguing you for the better part of a month.

Kyle vaults out of the car as soon as he’s able to, launching himself into his teammate Alex’s arms. The two of them are quick to turn to their team, Alex diving over a barrier into the arms of the 1-4-1’s mechanics and strategists, Kyle laughing wildly as Soap squeezes his waist, bellowing in congratulation.

First and second place respectively.

You barely manage to hold back the shudder that rolls through you when you emerge from the garage through to the pit lane, conscious of the media milling around. Niki’s car hasn’t yet been brought back to the garage and he’s nowhere to be seen. One of the mechanics mutters something about him having taken off and is quickly shushed by another, furtive glances thrown your way, where Niki’s manager stands with her phone pressed to her ear.

It’s interesting, how quickly your boy has begun to metamorphosise. How the taste of accomplishment goes straight to his head, plants itself firmly there until all you find in his eyes is a scheming to get it back. More, all it does it make him want it more. It’s a look that troubles you, one you’ve seen the beginning, middle and end of and not once had it ever meant anything but a herald of your undoing, fated from the first pour, that heavy metal around your lover’s neck destined to be your noose.

The Miami sun is weak today, filtering through a thick cloud cover, but it does little to dampen the spirits of the winners. When you turn your head back to the parc fermé, Kyle has unlatched himself from Soap’s bear grip, flushed with triumph as he steps closer in range to the scale the racing directors have brought on. As he steps on, his head tips up and your breath catches in your throat when his eyes meet yours.

That look.

How you’d ever managed to forget that look is beyond you, but standing in its path you feel rather like you’ve been caught. The world around you seems to hollow out, and even from this distance you can almost see the dilation of his pupils, hear the rapid beat of his heart. Blood, your own or his, you can’t be sure, roars in your ears. Salt drips down from his temples, lashes fluttering with every slow, heavy blink. Pure, distilled hunger etches itself across his face. Unthinkingly, your tongue ventures forward to press against your lips, saliva gathering in your mouth.

When Kyle steps off the scale, for a second he jerks one way, as if to hunt you down and momentarily, traitorously, you forget just why it would be a terrible thing. Something like electricity zips down your spine, invisible fingers pressing bruises into your hips, and you stiffen. In an instant you’re back to the way it was, twenty one and brimming with the anticipation of what that look promised you, what it always delivered –

Fogged glass panels in the shower, champagne soaked memories and boneless limbs collapsing, face-first into twisted hotel bedsheets. Sticky skin and ruined underwear that never survived the night, only scraps of shredded lace littering your hotel floor by the time dawn broke. Your thighs squeeze together and his gaze narrows, knowingly. There are only a few strides between the two of you

– A hand claps down on your shoulder suddenly and you startle, blinking rapidly up at the face in front of you.

Niki. He’s red faced, brow drawn taught as he looks down at you expectantly. Faint tear tracks stain his cheeks, and his eyes are a little red. Guilt whittles you down to the core, your embarrassment levelling his own as you let him lead you back into the confines of the garage where the cameras can’t follow. It’s mortifying, the amount of energy it takes you to keep your eyes ahead of you instead of looking back, where you know Kyle remains, his stare burning against your neck.

“You okay?” you dare to whisper, later, when you’ve climbed into the back of a car en route to your hotel. Niki, next to you, sighs and you bite your lip. The traitorous desire that had begun to simmer cools now, discomfort of another kind taking form as you watch his jaw tick in disappointment.

“I almost had it,” he says quietly, fingers forming a fist against his thigh. Your question opens the floodgates, it seems, because he begins to mutter, more to himself than anything. You wonder for a moment, when the thought crosses your mind as you watch him grow redder and redder, that you wish you hadn’t asked, and then you wonder just when you got so selfish. “I was so…fucking close. I told the team, you know, I told them there was something wrong with the car, knew it after Jeddah…”

When the car pulls up to the hotel, Niki’s woes have lapsed into a thick silence and your skin crawls in the quiet. No stranger to post-race disappointment, you’re reaching for the door handle and exiting silently. Had you been a half decade younger, you might have tottered after Niki and latched onto his arm, reached for every method of comfort you had at your disposal in a paltry effort to soothe his wounds.

But you do not. Something uncaring, something selfish and unwilling keeps you a few paces behind him, fiddling with the latch of your purse to occupy your hands. You can see it clear as day, can remember the post-loss ritual you’d whittled down to an exact science, ever doting girlfriend meant to keep his spirits up, to make sure he’s in the right frame of mind before the next race. Though you would never step foot in that garage as part of the team, you still had a duty to them. And yet something stops you every time you open your mouth, a block wedged in your throat, the only emotion you can muster a faint exhaustion that somehow once more, you’ve found yourself back here again, and you aren’t sure it’s worth it.

You’re keenly aware of the role you’re meant to be playing right now. Sitting across from Niki in an upscale restaurant, the soft lighting brings out the shadowed moue on his face, the distracted air about him as he rattles off an order for the both of you when the waiter comes around. You’re meant to cushion this fall right now, to cup his trouble in your hands and bear it for the both of you so that he might return to the track next weekend in full form raring to go.

You can’t bring yourself to.

Every time you open your mouth, there’s a weight that stays your tongue. Part of you thinks it might be an adamant refusal to fall into old habits – habits you’d picked up during your time with Kyle – that had only led you down the spiral of your identity crisis, that had only taken and taken and taken pieces of you until there was little else left but the hollow smile of a supportive girlfriend.

The part of you that knows better, the part of you that had felt your stomach flutter earlier this afternoon, pressed her legs together under the lion’s eye to savour that feeling – she knows it’s only a feeble excuse.

The real reason for your distraction, the object of your frustration, sits at a table not too far away and though there’s about three people around him, his eyes remain solely on you. Lids heavy, arm bent at the elbow with his hand over his chin deliberatively, he watches you unabashedly with no care for the conversation going on at his table; it’s a rousing one, too, if the way Alex Keller rears back in his seat is anything to go by, but Kyle has no care for any of it.

It had taken you by surprise when you’d looked over Niki’s shoulder to see him. Yet for all you’d frowned at him Kyle had only tilted his head just so, a small smile tugging at his lips. Unwittingly, you’d walked right into yet another snare, unable to look away from him for too long. That damn gravitational pull, that cursed magnetism, you’re pulled back to him every minute as if some unknown thread pulls your attention to make sure he hasn’t disappeared. He doesn’t let you ignore him, does not let up at all.

You learn very quickly that there is a thin demarcation between frustration and desire. All too soon you’re pulled back to the same heat of the earlier afternoon, shifting in your seat uncomfortably under his stare and giving Niki clipped, distracted answers when he speaks to you.

Your drinks arrive at the same time that Kyle’s does and you’re keenly aware of the way he peers over the rim of his glass, amber liquid swishing within its container as he brings it to his mouth. Your own dries, watching his throat bob, watching the way his tongue darts out to catch a droplet that clings to his lip.

Standing suddenly, you push your napkin onto the table.

“I need the bathroom,” you mutter to Niki, stalking away before he can respond. You don’t see the derisive laugh Kyle lets out behind him, or the shake of his head before he makes an excuse of his own.

No, you’re not outrunning him now.

The lights in the bathroom illuminate every inch of the space, a spotlight on your guilt from the moment your heels click against the tiled floor that gives you nowhere to hide. You’re grateful there isn’t an attendant inside to witness your unravelling. Your brow is beginning to perspire, cheeks already flushed with heat as you set your purse against the counter-top and press your palms into the cool stone. In the mirror, your reflection eyes you uncomfortably.

“Fuck.” Hissing the profanity out doesn’t lessen the tight feeling in your stomach any, and you frown hard at yourself, smacking your palm down into the counter. “Fuck.”

You reach out to turn the tap on, running your fingers underneath the steady stream of cold water when a knock sounds against the door.

“Occupied,” you call back weakly, swallowing when your voice crumbles a little over the syllables. Your reflection eyes you dubiously, lips turning down in derision.

Look at you. What a mess you’ve made of things, huh?

Whoever is on the other side of the door doesn’t seem to care for your butchered response, knocking again a little more intently. It sparks your already fraying nerves.

“There’s someone in here!” You call back, unable to keep the irritation out of your voice, but all you receive in response is another series of raps at the door.

“Asshole,” you curse under your breath, only barely resisting the urge to stomp your foot.

With a scoff, you turn the tap off and clutch your purse, damp fingertips pressing blooming waterlilies into its satin skin. Whirling on your feet, you stalk towards the door and pull it open, preparing to push past whoever’s in such dire need for the bathroom and return to the hotseat.

You don’t get a chance to even cross the threshold after the door opens before you’re being corralled back inside. Honey eyes and a taunting glare push you backwards, Kyle’s hand on your hips steering you where he wants.

Your heart lurches violently at the press of his chest against yours and you’re unable to contain the startled gasp that punches out of your lungs.

“Kyle, you –” you sputter, your nerves kicking into overdrive as you glare up at him. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

“Just came to check on you, love,” he says, affecting an innocence that is wholly betrayed by the glint in his eyes, the way he draws his bottom lip into his mouth as he looks you up and down. “You left the table in such a rush, thought something happened.”

You stare up at him, hyperaware of the little distance between the two of you. Your chest heaves with your breaths, heart fluttering hummingbird-like in its cavity. Rage and desire war within you under his narrowed gaze, honey eyes now abyssal dark with want.

“I’m fine,” you manage to bite out, at last. Beneath the fabric of your dress, your stomach has begun to tighten, heat simmering in your navel and diffusing through to your thighs.

“You sure?” You dip your head in a stiff nod when he asks you, voice dipping in faux, saccharine, concern and go to take a step back. Only, there’s a hand around your wrist that tugs you right back into his orbit, stumbling into his chest. “You look a little flustered to me.”

“I’m not flustered.”

His gaze gets even sharper at that and you begin to realise that for all your protesting, you’ve walked right into the trap he’d set up. Anticipation makes your limbs tremble under his grip when his head tilts, brow raising in perfunctory acquiescence.

“No?” he questions and you shake your head. “Hm. Guess I must’ve read you wrong.”

“You did,” you can’t help but spit the words at him. “Will you let go now?”

“It makes sense, it’s been so long,” he muses thoughtfully, gaze somewhere over your shoulder and continuing as if you haven’t spoken. Still, his fingers remain wrapped around your wrist, warm, pulsing over your throbbing veins. Then, he looks down at you and smiles slightly. It isn’t a nice thing, too much teeth and far too sharp around the edges to bring you any comfort. Your pulse quickens under his fingers. “I probably don’t know you as well as I used to.”

“Kyle,” you stress, tugging your wrist. He doesn’t let go, only bringing his other hand to your hip and nudging you back against the counter until the ledge meets your back.

“Just…humour me for a second, babe,” he says lightly, as if he hasn’t got you pressed up against the bathroom mirror with your boyfriend waiting in the restaurant outside, probably wondering what’s taking you so long. As if you can’t feel the tent in his slacks pressing against your hip and making your head spin at the unignorable evidence of his desire, flush against you, separated only by a few layers of fabric. You draw in a shaky breath and he smiles, a soft, dangerous thing. “You remember how it was before, right? Thought I could read your mind for a moment, there, didn’t we?”

“That was well over half a decade ago,” you defend and he hums in passive agreement.

“Yeah. Could just tell by looking at you, couldn’t I? Knew what you were thinking without you having to say it. Knew where to touch, where you wanted it, how you wanted it,” He sighs a little, as if reminiscing. “You remember Monza, don’t you? Know I do.”

Your traitorous body flushes with heat at the mention of that summer. How he’d mapped every inch of you into the early hours of the morning after his victory, keen eyes cataloguing your every expression and movement after your voice had given out on you – a long weekend of cheering him on, a longer night of crying out under the ministrations of his mouth, his fingers, his cock, all bringing you to finish over and over again.

It’s true. At one point, he’d been so attuned to your behaviour the two of you had barely needed to exchange words. It had only made the inattention that brought about the end of your relationship all the more bitter.

You can’t help yourself, heat extinguished by the sour reminder. The words fly out your mouth before you can contain them, a dagger piercing the thick haze. “Didn’t notice much towards our last few months, though, did you.”

His smile stiffens, then, and you feel the hair on the back of your neck stand on end as the temperature in the room seems to drop several degrees. “Guess not.”

When he leans in closer, nose brushing against yours, you hold your breath. All around you is him, the scent of his cologne, the breadth of his shoulders filling your field of vision, the warmth radiating from him. Inescapable, and you, the poor animal in his sights.

You realise, horrified: You’re not entirely certain you want to escape him.

“But I learn from my mistakes, you know. Be hard pressed to fail like that again.”

“I have to go,” you say, weakly and he only smiles, letting go of your wrist.

“You know, you’re just as easy to read now as you were then,” he tells you quietly, just as you go to move out from where he’s got you pinned. The crackling heat in his voice stops you in your tracks, a low, burning fire that warms you inside out and snaps your gaze back to him. His mouth quirks up in a wry, crooked slant and he leans in a little, peering at you through heavy eyelids. Desire swallows the honey brown of his irises and your breath quickens. “You can lie to yourself all you want but I know you.”

His hand comes up to trace the curve of your neck, curled fingers skimming down over your bare shoulder and eliciting an unintentional shiver from you. The notes of his drink tickle your nose when he speaks, your lips parting as he comes in close.

“You tell me you’re fine, but I bet if I reached under that dress of yours I’d find you fucking dripping, wouldn’t I?” He laughs a little, and you inhale shakily, unable to protest because of course he’s right. The underwear you’d slipped on after your shower is sodden between your legs, thighs sliding against each other with the traces of your arousal. “Course I would. Think I’ve forgotten how to read you just because it’s been a while? You’re not as subtle as you think, love. Think the entire room could tell, the way you’ve been squirming in your seat all evening.”

The though sends a bolt of electricity down your spine, back tensing against the counter at the thought of all the eyes in the restaurant knowing. At the thought that you hadn’t hidden yourself away as much as you’d thought. Kyle’s hand hovers over your waist, fingers ghosting against your navel and making you suck in a breath.

“I could help,” he offers, casually. “I’d make it quick. You always liked my fingers, didn’t you, baby?”

The silence that follows his words stretches on far too long to be appropriate, the protest that should come glaringly absent on your tongue as you stare up at him through wide eyes. Suggestion gives way to imagination, your mind betraying you to conjure up the memory of a fullness you’d not been able to replicate, the stretch and slide of fingers bigger than yours stroking at your most sensitive spots with an agility that could only come with intimate familiarity.

“You want me to,” he breathes out, amazed. Delighted, he laughs. “How long’s he had you unsatisfied like this, darling? Fuck, I bet you’re dying for it, aren’t you? You want me to make you come and send you out to your little boyfriend after.”

It’s the reminder of who’s sitting outside, of Niki, that makes you jolt where you stand, ice water dousing over you in a frigid recollection of where you are. You push Kyle off you, hands landing a blow against his chest with all the strength you can muster behind it, and he retreats easily, a laugh echoing in the empty bathroom as he takes a few steps back.

That damning smirk haunts you on your way out.

Kyle leans against the wall, watching you undo the lock on the door with a sense of satisfaction. Your fingers fumble with the latch, trembling in your haste to get away from him. Yet when you pull the door open, he straightens, for the little look you dart over your shoulder at him before you all but run away, unable to hide the dilation of your pupils from him, or the way you bite your lip, your fist clenching at your side like you’re afraid you’ll reach out for him if you stay too long.

He waits a few minutes before he returns to his own table, aware he can’t go back out there in such a state. He might as well put up a sign letting the establishment know he’s open for business if he does.

The feel of you against him again had done little to convince him that he should let you go. In fact, he’d been a hair away from dropping to his knees and rucking your dress up to get a taste of the desire you’d seemed so adamant about denying, had been halfway into making the fantasy of making your eyes roll with his mouth on you again when you’d startled and run away.

When he steps outside the bathroom, he’s only a little glad there’s nobody waiting outside for him. Less chance of being spotted that way. Still, he can’t help but to amuse himself with the thought of Niki finding out just what a mess he’d made of his girl.

His girl. The claim the man has on you is laughable. Even now, when Kyle turns his head to look, he’s still sulking about the loss with his eyes on his plate. You’re sitting across from him with your lips pressed tightly together, fiddling with your cutlery and staunchly avoiding looking in Kyle’s direction.

Anyone could spirit you away and he wouldn’t even notice.

Which is exactly what he plans on doing. In his defence, he’d never taken to being spurned well.

i hope you guys all had such a wonderful week and enjoyed this chapter!! my brain is a little bit mush from the week i've had LARPING as a corporate girl (!!) but i will return at some point to go over this and smooth out anything that i missed when i was re-drafting. i will say this though my highlight of the week was getting to go to lunch and seeing so many men in businesswear smoking and eating lunch. gaze was extremely lustful i'm so sorry guys…#thatshot

anyway i really enjoyed writing gaz being more manipulative (sue me) because i think he's such a sneaky little shit and it was fun to explore that side of him. yes, your boyfriend is right outside, no he doesn't have any shame about cornering you in the bathroom and reminding you just how good he was at pleasing you.

DEFINITIONS

SENNA, SCHUMACHER: famous f1 drivers

COOL DOWN ROOM: a post-race area where the top three drivers wait before the podium, allowing fans to see their real, often candid interactions, from tense rivalries to funny moments, showcasing human connection beyond the race

TEAM PRINCIPAL: An F1 Team Principal is the ultimate leader, CEO, and public face of a Formula 1 racing team, responsible for overseeing all technical, operational, commercial, and human resources aspects of the ~1,200-person organization. They make crucial high-level decisions, manage budgets, and handle team orders.

CHIEF ENGINEER: A Formula 1 Chief Engineer (often titled Trackside Chief Engineer or similar) is a senior, top-level engineer responsible for leading the trackside technical team to maximize car performance and reliability throughout a race weekend. They oversee the engineering department, bridge the gap between trackside personnel and factory management, and coordinate all technical operations.

HOSPITALITY SUITE: An F1 hospitality suite is a premium, catered, and often climate-controlled viewing area, typically located directly above team garages or along prime straightaways. It offers VIPs, corporate guests, and fans a luxurious experience with fine dining, open bars,, and exclusive, unparalleled views of the race track, including start/finish lines.

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