Chapter 11 Sebastian
Sebastian
Istretched out like a cat in my bed as I came to wakefulness. I always slept well at home, and despite my love for racing, had never acclimatised to the constant moving around and sleeping in hotels, no matter how comfortable or luxurious they might be.
I rolled out of bed and opened the shutters, not caring about my nudity and semi-perked up morning wood when I was so far away from the nearest other people. Acres of olives and grapes separated me from the nearest other cortijo way out here in the south of Spain. And no one could clap eyes on me.
“Put some bloody clothes on!” someone shouted.
I looked wildly around for the source of the sound, and there was Theo, lying on the edge of my pool and looking through the open-plan living area to my bedroom…
and directly at me. He was making a square with his hands.
“On second thoughts, let me save this to my mental library. Maybe one day when they invent mind probes, I’ll sell the picture for millions and retire! ”
I let one hand drop in front of my cock to cover my modesty, though Theo had seen most of it before. “Are you an early bird?” I grumbled. “Makes sense.”
Theo grinned up at me, the sparkle of white teeth evident even from so far away. “Of course. Come on over, I couldn’t work your coffee machine.”
As it turned out, couldn’t work was doing a lot of heavy lifting.
When I made my way into the kitchen five minutes later, now decked in shorts, there was a bag of coffee grounds split and spilled all over the counter-top next to my gleaming machine, which was making an alarming noise.
I switched it all off and beckoned Theo through the window.
He slunk in sheepishly, cheeks pink and hair damp from his time in the pool.
“I tried to clean up, I promise. It’s just they wouldn’t stick to the cloth no matter how much I wet it, and then they made a mess of the sink. They wouldn’t dissolve like hotel room coffee!”
“Little rich boy who’s never done anything for yourself, let me show you how it’s done.” I swept the coffee grounds off the counter with one hand and into the other, then dumped them in the bin before cleaning up the sparse remainder with the cloth.
“I meant to throw these out,” I said. “These are not good coffee. These were a gift from a sponsor.”
“They look pretty nice,” he said.
“They’re ground already. Coffee grounds never last. Now beans, they last a long time.”
I opened up the cupboard that I dedicated exclusively to coffee and carefully measured out beans on a scale for both of us. To his credit, Theo watched attentively as I pulled out my handheld grinder and worked them until they were the right consistency.
“Now we use the coffee machine,” I said.
“That’s a lot of work for one coffee,” said Theo.
“Everything that has any worth is hard work. Neither of us is going to win a championship without hard work. No coffee is good without hard work going into it.”
I extracted us each a double espresso. “Do you take milk and sugar, Teodoro?”
“Normally I have a creamy cookie Frappuccino with extra vanilla syrup,” he said.
“Get out of my house.” I pushed his shoulder. “Go on. Go, and never darken my door again.”
He laughed. “Gimme that.” He took the cup from the counter and gave it a tentative sniff. “Smells bitter.”
“Bitter is best,” I said. I took a sip from my cup and sighed as the flavours hit my tongue. “A morning is not started until I’ve had my first espresso of the day.”
“Sure,” said Theo, wrinkling his nose as he took a sip. “Blegh.”
I deftly took the tiny espresso cup from his hands, grabbed a larger cup from one of the cupboards, poured a little milk and cold water into it and then added a spoonful of sugar. “Espresso is an acquired taste. Let’s get you off the Frappuccinos first and work you towards it.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” said Theo, but he smiled as he sipped from the coffee cup.
As if without thinking, he wandered out into the sunlight again and I followed him.
We sat together on the terrace and finished off our coffees.
Theo’s eyes almost never opened as he lay out in the sun.
His skin wasn’t as pale as it had been recently.
He seemed to be taking on a little of the sun’s golden glow, and his hair looked almost bleached.
“What would you like to do today?” I asked. “You can just relax, or we could go out on the quad bikes.”
“Quad bikes sound like a good idea, but I warn you my racing manager will murder you if any injury comes to me.”
“You better be a good driver then,” I grinned.
“I’ve crashed out less than you this season,” Theo teased back.
“Yeah?” I stood over Theo, making sure to shadow him. “I guarantee I close the points gap between us by the end of the season. You’ll be sorry then.”
His eyes snapped open, and I saw the challenge in them. “Is that a bet? For the whole season?”
“No bets right now, Theodore Tyler. This is my promise.”
Theo stood then, and got so close to me we could kiss.
I wanted to, desperately. Instead, I grasped him by both arms. His breathing hitched, and I wondered for the millionth time if he felt the same way as I did about him.
“I will beat you,” I said. “And you will be happy for me. Because that’s what friends do. ”
“Oh, no,” said Theo, grabbing my arms back, so we stood locked with one another.
“If you somehow claw back the massive points gap between us, I will be the biggest spoilt brat in the world. I will throw tantrums. I will trash-talk you in the press. And you will put up with all of it with a smile, because if you win, you should have enough goodwill to let me be as much of a spoilt brat as I want to be. And you know why that doesn’t matter? Because I’m going to win.”
The tension between us was almost painful, and his trash-talk was doing unfortunate things to me.
I could feel my cock starting to tent in my shorts, and I knew I had to keep Theo locked in place, so as to avoid his eyes on my body until I could get it under control.
But then holding him wouldn’t help with the situation. There was only one thing for it.
I made sure I was holding on tight, and then took a sideways step. Right toward the pool.
“No, no-” Theo hardly got any words out before I’d dragged us both into the deep end of the pool. I let go of him as we hit the water, and for a second I was submerged. When I surfaced, Theo was already up and glaring at me. “No fair,” he said. “You have a size advantage.”
“You really did save a mental picture of me naked then,” I laughed.
“You know I meant your height, stupid. Anyway, I saw you earlier from the pool. Didn’t look all that big to me.”
“Maybe you were just too far away,” I leered at him. Fuck, this isn’t helping. I was tenting so hard in my shorts it was painful.
“Maybe…we’ll never know,” said Theo. “But I seem to remember you having a tattoo that proves I’m bigger than you.”
“You have a tattoo that claims it with no evidence, Teodoro. I am happy to give you evidence if you wish.”
I paddled closer to him, feeling daring, but Theo just splashed water in my face and paddled away from me.
“Charming, boy!” I called as Theo got out of the pool with his back to me and grabbed a towel to wrap around his waist.
He turned, but only halfway, to grin back at me. “Quad biking, yeah? I wonder how many bets you’ll be willing to make on the outcome of that race.”
“You’re on,” I grinned. I breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped into my house, even though I knew he would be dripping water on my lovely shiny tiles. It would give me a chance to cool off and deflate without having my eyes drawn to that delectable body.
I submerged my head under the water and held my breath for as long as I could. Having Theo stay with me for a whole week would be the death of me.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“Born ready,” replied Theo. I grabbed a helmet from the hanger on the wall and handed it to him.
As he pulled it over his head and covered his face, I almost lost his smile.
But his eyes were so expressive that I could see he was grinning anyway.
I was used to seeing those eyes through the visor of a helmet.
But I wasn’t used to seeing him like this. In contrast to the usual racing overalls, Theo was decked out in an old t-shirt and a pair of my oldest drawstring shorts, as he had worried about ruining his more expensive pairs.
“I told you, I didn’t pack for racing,” said Theo through the helmet. I looked up and met his eyes, determined not to be embarrassed that he had obviously caught me looking.
“Racing? Who said we would be racing, Teodoro?” I asked, raising one eyebrow in challenge.
“You put me on four wheels and we’re racing, Seb. So what’s the bet this time?”
I tapped the remote and brought the garage down door behind us as he swung one leg over his quad bike and revved the engine. I mounted my quad bike and revved too, aiming to be just that little bit louder. Theo was totally right. Put either of us on four wheels and we were completely insufferable.
“I won’t bet you because I know the land, but follow me. Get a little familiar with where we’re going, and I will consider a bet.”
I buckled my helmet under my chin and slipped the plastic visor down, and kicked at the throttle.
I shot off from the paved driveway onto the dry dirt tracks that ran between the olive trees, and I could hear Theo’s engine running close enough behind that I knew he was keeping up.
The air was warm but dry, and I knew we were both getting covered in dust. I didn’t care.
I had always had a need for speed, ever since the days of go-karting as a kid.
And now it earned me more money than I knew what to do with.