Chapter Sam Campbell #7
It’s Thomas’s turn at the mic, and Sam is relieved to watch him go. Lucas is better to talk to anyways.
“Your front wing broke?” Lucas asks, straining his neck to peek over at Sam’s car.
“Yeah. I tried to keep Big Toe back for you, but he still got away from me.”
“Thanks for trying.”
Sam shuffles closer and places a casual teammate hand on his casual teammate’s waist. “You doin’ anything tonight? I know it’s not a win, but it’s still a double podium.”
“Just dinner with Mama. Want to join us?”
Sam grins. “Should I sign anything for sweet Ingrid? A hat? She could have my gloves—they’re full of sweat.”
“You can sign the check.”
“It’s a date.” Sam punctuates the sentence by dragging his teammate closer until they're attached from their pelvises to their thighs.
They fit so well together—two pieces of the same puzzle. Inseparable.
Sam’s grinning when Lucas says, “You can stop, now. You got what you wanted.”
“What?”
Lucas nods over to Thomas who had apparently finished his interview. His wide-eyed stare is down, fixated on the place where the Red Boar drivers are still connected. He blinks and his eyes snap back up to their faces.
“You are ready?” Thomas walks off, towards the cool down room, without waiting for them.
“Why does your mother let you do these dangerous things?” Lucas’s mother coos. She’s one of Sam’s favorite people in the entire world.
“She just doesn’t love me like you do, Ingrid.”
“You let me do dangerous things,” Lucas says, pointedly.
“But he is just a boy.”
“He is only eight years younger than me.”
“Seven.” Sam wouldn’t usually correct him, but he hates when Lucas tries to widen their age gap.
“Seven!” Lucas says, like it proves his point. “Practically nothing.”
Practically nothing.
Sam wishes he could record that line and play it the next time Lucas wants to talk about their age difference. Instead, he tilts his giant beer back and picks at the carb-heavy food.
“But he is such a good boy,” Ingrid says.
“She’s right, Lucas. I am such a good boy.” Sam wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, but Lucas scoffs.
“Don’t be rude, Lucas,” his mother chastises.
“You know what, Ingrid? We should run away together.” Sam leans forward, wrapping his big, calloused hands around her frail ones. “Let’s leave all of this behind. We can live on a beach somewhere—surf during the day, make love all night.”
A noodle smacks his cheek and sticks there. “Stop trying to run away with my mother.”
“I cannot imagine surfing,” Ingrid answers. “My knees are not so good no more.”
“But you can imagine making love?!” Lucas sputters. He’s so cute when he’s all riled up.
Sam pays for the meal, though Lucas was probably joking when he suggested it. Something instinctive in Sam tells him to provide for his mate, so he does.
It is carnal.
No. Shut up. This is different.
Together, they wait for Ingrid’s rideshare. When it finally arrives, Sam kisses her cheeks.
“Take good care of him,” she says.
“I’m trying.” Harder than he’s ever tried for anyone else before. “But he won’t let me. Your son is very stubborn.”
Sam backs up so Lucas can have his moment with her. They speak in quick German, so they’re either arguing or discussing the weather.
Lucas is somehow even sexier when he speaks German. His voice lowers, the syllables sound more rounded. It makes him seem intelligent in an unreachable way for a single-language guy like Sam.
When Ingrid’s car drives off, Sam says, “Thanks for inviting me out tonight.”
“Not a lot of these nights left until I retire.”
The reminder is an ice dagger to his chest. “Not with you, maybe, but I’ll keep coming back for the race every year. I’ll meet up with Ingrid with or without you.”
“Shut up.” Despite his stern tone, Lucas laughs.
“You need a daddy? I could be that.”
“Shut up!” The best sex starts with laughter.
“We can make you a couple of siblings…”
Lucas nearly trips over himself to cover Sam’s mouth. Unfortunately for him, Sam is a disgusting degenerate who isn’t afraid of germs. He licks Lucas’s palm—slobbering all over it—until the older man yelps and yanks it back.
Lucas wipes his hand on his pants, his face pulled up into a grimace. “You are too much.”
Sam’s heard it a million times before, but this time it kinda smarts. The copper taste of Lucas’s skin lingers in his mouth. His first taste of him. Possibly the only taste he’ll ever have.
“Come back to the hotel with me?” Lucas has his phone out and open to his driver’s contact.
Sam had planned to go out clubbing—Germany is known for it, after all—but the way Lucas is studying him seems almost coy. Almost flirty.
Is he suggesting what Sam thinks he’s suggesting?
He nods, and Lucas turns away to send the text.
Sam wants to ask what Lucas wants from him—his mouth? His cock? Just cuddles?—but this thing between them is fragile. He doesn’t want to apply any additional pressure.
Sam’s good at going with the flow. He can go with so many flows. Different types, different speeds, different depths.
Though the streets are full, Wayne must’ve parked nearby. It isn’t long before a black SUV with its hazards on pulls up to the curve.
“Have a nice time?” Wayne rounds the front of the car and opens the door for them, eyeing Sam with distrust.
“Yes, thank you.” Lucas climbs in first and Sam shamelessly watches his ass as he shimmies over to the furthest seat.
Wayne's voice is gruff when he prods, “Samuel?”
“Yup, me too.”
Sam hops up and almost loses an arm when Wayne slams the door behind him. For some big, burly guy, he can be a little bitch.
Sam shoots off a text to his own driver, cancelling their original plan for the night, and settles back against the leather seat.
When they park in front of the hotel, Wayne opens Lucas’s door. Sam has to fumble his way over the seats and he stumbles away from the SUV when he miscalculates his footing.
Lucas hides a chuckle, but Sam’s alright with that. Clumsiness can be sexy if he laughs it off well enough.
Hotel guards at the front entrance keep the rabid fans back behind ropes, but heads still turn as the drivers stroll through the lobby together.
“I should thank you.”
Sam scoffs. “For dinner? It was nothing.” Well, not nothing, but ‘a pleasure’ sounds weird to say out loud.
“For racing so hard without your front wing. For trying to help me win.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Sam lies. He turns away to press the elevator button.
“Yes, well.” Lucas smiles and it’s sultry, despite his words. “It did not matter in the end, but I appreciate the thought.”
The elevator doors shut out the world and the clatter of the lobby abruptly stops. The instant silence is deafening.
Suddenly, they’re alone. In a small space. Together.
Should they start here? Necking in the lift, even if they could be stopped on any floor and get caught? Or should they wait until they can close the world out with a lock, when they can get straight to business?
Lucas presses the button for the sixteenth floor and turns to Sam, expectation in his eyes. Elevator it is. “What floor are you on?”
Sam deflates as the elevator rises. A beep at every floor mocks him as he realizes he was just projecting. Again.
He doesn’t remember his room number, but he doesn’t want to look complacent in front of Lucas. The beeps continue and Sam reaches forward to jam the next button in the sequence. Ten, apparently. Whatever, he just wants to get off as soon as possible.
“This is me!” Sam says as the doors open. He doesn’t even stop to look behind him, just waves over his shoulder. “See you tomorrow!”
He bolts before Lucas can reply. He speed-walks down the hallway, pretending like he’s on the way to his room, until the elevator finally closes again. Once it leaves, Sam stops dead in his tracks and takes a deep breath.
It’s fine. He’s fine.
It was a misunderstanding. He just got his hopes up.
Breathe.
He digs his room key out of his pocket and laughs. Apparently he’s also on the sixteenth floor. It makes sense to keep the drivers’ accommodations close to each other.
They were so close.
Sam presses the up button on the elevator and pulls out his phone. Is midnight too late to get ready for a club night? He hates being the sober one when everyone else has been drinking—it makes him feel responsible for them.
Still, he could change and head back out. He’s already in the mood for sex—might as well quench that thirst now before he has to prep for another race week.
At the same time, leaving the hotel when there’s a nice, warm bed waiting for him sounds tiring. He could raid the mini fridge, jerk off, and fall asleep. That sounds like enough effort for the night.
Fuck, he almost had Lucas, though. He was so close.
He quick-scrolls through a bunch of club addresses until he sees unread texts from Thomas.
Room 1936
Tell me if you are not interested
I understand
Or Sam could go with Plan C.
Why didn't he consider it before? It's perfect. Thomas is perfect—it's exactly what he needs.
The elevator pings open and Sam hits the button for the nineteenth floor repeatedly, hurrying the elevator along. When it opens again, he almost jogs down the hallway, his eyes scanning the door numbers.
He finds the right room and knocks quickly. Impatience thrums through his body from the knuckles against the wood all the way down to his foot, tapping the carpet. He knocks again. Then again.
What the fuck is taking Thomas so long?
The door finally, finally opens and the Frenchman stares bleary eyed up at him. “It is so late.”
“It’s only midnight,” Sam scoffs. “You won a race today—where’s your excitement?”
“Mid—? Mon dieu, I was sleeping.” Thomas yawns for extra effect.
Oh no, not when Sam is already here and so, so ready.
“I just got back from dinner with Lucas and his mother. We had German food, even though it sits way too heavy on my stomach and makes me all bloated and crap. I won't shit for days now. Ingrid loves me, by the way.”
“Ingrid?”
“Lucas’s mother. Keep up.”