Chapter 13 Unpublished
UNPUBLISHED
“This is Wally Pulaski from Apex. Wally, you know Shep, obviously. This is Nevin, our head mechanic, and Elena, who keeps us all organized.”
Elena was Meridian’s communications director, a sharp woman in her forties who immediately started grilling me about my background and what kind of story I was working on. But she did it with enough charm that it felt like professional curiosity rather than suspicion.
“Apex is serious journalism,” she said, accepting a glass of Cava from the bartender. “Not the usual tabloid nonsense we usually deal with. What’s your angle on Jonathan’s season so far?”
“The long game,” I said, which was true enough. “How a decade of preparation is paying off now that he’s got competitive machinery.”
“Good angle. Most people just see the glamour, not the years of grinding through midfield teams.” Elena nodded approvingly. “You understand the sport.”
Nevin told stories about working on cars that were barely fast enough to qualify. Shep explained the technical challenges of switching from a midfield team’s approach to front-running strategy. Elena shared insights about how driver personalities affected team dynamics.
And Jonathan was perfect. Professional, charming, treating me exactly like any other journalist without a hint of the personal connection between us. If anyone suspected we had history, they gave no sign of it.
But there were moments. His hand brushing mine when he passed me a plate of patatas bravas. The way he caught my eye during Nevin’s story about a disastrous pit stop in Hungary three years ago. Small things that probably looked like polite attention to a casual observer but felt electric to me.
“The thing about Barcelona,” Shep was saying as we shared a plate of grilled octopus, perfectly tender and charred, “is that it’s a complete reset from Monaco. Monaco’s all about precision and nerves. Barcelona’s about pure speed and strategy. If you can win here, you can win anywhere.”
He spoke the way he did in briefings. His words carried the quiet confidence of someone who’d run this circuit a hundred times in his head.
I’d expected him to pivot to Jonathan, but he didn’t.
He kept his focus on the track, on tire windows and overtaking zones, as if the race itself were the only safe subject.
“And for you?” I asked. “Moving up from Formula 2 to Formula 1 with him—does it feel like a reset too?”
For the first time since we’d sat down, Shep hesitated. It was subtle: a pause to sip his water, a glance past me toward the paddock lights. When he looked back, his expression had settled into polite neutrality.
“My job’s the same,” he said. “Make sure the car’s right. Make sure Jonathan’s ready. Everything else is noise.”
He said it lightly, almost with a smile, but the conversation closed like a door. I had the distinct sense I’d stepped up to a boundary he wasn’t interested in crossing. Whatever Barcelona meant to him personally, he folded it neatly out of sight and steered us back to safer ground.
After dinner, Jonathan bid his teammates goodbye and came over to me. “Walk with me?” he asked quietly. “There’s something I want to show you.”
The Gothic Quarter was alive with tourists and locals, the narrow medieval streets filled with the sound of conversation and laughter from dozens of restaurants and bars.
“This way,” Jonathan said, leading me through a maze of stone streets that looked like they hadn’t changed much since Columbus sailed for the Americas.
We emerged into a small plaza dominated by a Gothic cathedral, its spires reaching toward the star-filled sky. A few couples sat on benches around a fountain, and street musicians were playing something classical on a violin and guitar.
“Beautiful,” I said, and meant it.
“I found this place two years ago, when I was driving for that awful team that couldn’t afford decent hotels. I’d come here after bad races, trying to remember why I loved this sport enough to keep torturing myself.”
We sat on one of the benches, close enough that our shoulders touched. The contact was casual, something that could be explained as two friends sharing limited space, but it sent warmth through my entire nervous system.
“And now?”
“Now I come here because it’s beautiful, not because I need reminding.”
I looked at him in the soft light from the streetlamps, seeing the contentment in his expression. “Monaco changed something for you.”
“It changed everything.” He turned to meet my eyes.
“Jonathan…”
“I know we agreed to take this slow, to figure it out as we go. But I need you to know, this isn’t about nostalgia or unfinished business from college. You’re not the same person you were then, and neither am I. But the way I feel when I’m with you, the way you see me… That’s exactly the same.”
The words settled between us, warm and dangerous. I should have said something about professional boundaries, about the complications of dating a driver I was covering. How one rumor in the paddock could cost me access and credibility, maybe ruin my chance at a career beyond local journalism.
Instead, I kissed him.
Even as I did, the risks flashed through me.
It could cost him, too. Formula 1 sold itself on speed and bravado and a certain kind of masculinity; if our relationship became public, Jonathan wouldn’t just be a contender anymore.
He’d be a headline, and headlines were distractions in a sport that punished them.
I kissed him anyway.
It was different from the tentative kisses in Monaco. This was certain, decisive, the kiss of two adults who’d decided to stop overthinking and start feeling. He tasted like the Spanish wine we’d shared at dinner and something that was purely Jonathan, familiar and new at the same time.
When we broke apart, I was breathless.
“Your hotel or mine?” he asked, voice rough with want.
“Mine,” I said without hesitation. “Yours probably has teammates in the next room.”
Jonathan laughed. “You’re learning the logistics of Formula 1 romance.”
“Is that what this is?”
He stood, offering me his hand. “Let’s find out.”
As we walked, I caught sight of my press badge reflected in a shop window, the lanyard tucked into my jacket like a secret. I thought of the press box, the careful neutrality I wore there like armor, and how easily it could crack.
I didn’t stop.
I’d been in many modest hotel rooms, but none had never felt smaller. Jonathan filled the space with his presence. The moment the door closed behind us, he was kissing me again, backing me against the wall with the kind of intensity that made rational thought impossible.
“I’ve been thinking about this since Monaco,” he said against my neck, his hands finding the hem of my shirt. “Since I saw you in the paddock, actually.”
“That’s very unprofessional of you,” I managed, even as I was pulling his shirt over his head.
“Extremely unprofessional,” he agreed, lifting me easily and carrying me the few steps to the narrow hotel bed.
Making love with Jonathan again was like remembering a language I’d once been fluent in but hadn’t spoken in years. What followed was fierce and overwhelming, ten years of hunger and hurt boiled down into desperate kisses and rough, clinging touches.
We moved together with the raw urgency of men who had waited far too long, yet beneath the frenzy was the familiar cadence of bodies that had once known every secret of each other’s pleasure.
His mouth tasted like wine and memory, his skin slick with sweat as my hands mapped out the planes I used to know by heart.
Jonathan shoved me back onto the bed and stripped me with shaking hands, his mouth never leaving mine for long. When he finally pulled back, his eyes were wild. “God, Waldo…I thought I’d forgotten. But I didn’t. Not one fucking thing.”
“Show me,” I whispered, already hard and aching.
He slid down and took me into his mouth in one long swallow that made me cry out.
The shock of heat, the pull of his throat, it was exactly as I remembered, only hungrier, dirtier.
I tangled my hands in his hair and bucked up, shameless.
He gagged, then laughed against me, eyes glittering as he let me go with a wet pop.
“Still so easy to make you beg,” he teased, stroking me slick with his fist.
“Then stop teasing,” I gasped, yanking him up for another kiss.
Clothes scattered fast after that. His cock slapped heavy against my thigh, leaking already, and the sight alone made my stomach clench.
I rolled him onto his back and slid down to return the favor, licking and sucking him until he was moaning, fists knotted in the sheets.
The taste of him hit the back of my throat, bitter-salt and familiar, and the sound he made when I swallowed had my own cock throbbing against the mattress.
“Condoms,” he panted.
My hands shook as I tore one open, rolling it down over him, slicking him with lube. He kissed me hard, breathless, and then turned me under him, his body heavy and solid against mine.
“You sure?” he whispered, forehead pressed to mine.
“Ten years sure,” I said, and pushed back into him as he slid inside.
The stretch burned and thrilled all at once, my body clenching around him, dragging a guttural groan from his chest. He moved slowly at first, shallow thrusts that made me squirm and beg, until the rhythm took over, deep, hard, relentless, driving us both to the edge.
The slap of skin, the creak of the bed, his teeth on my neck, it was raw and consuming, like reclaiming something we’d both lost and never thought we’d find again.
When I came, it was sudden and brutal, spurting between us with a cry that was half relief, half surrender. Jonathan followed me down seconds later, burying himself deep and shuddering hard, muffling his moans against my shoulder.
For a long moment we just clung there, sweaty and shaking, trying to breathe. Then he kissed me again, slow this time, reverent. “Never again,” he whispered. “I’m not losing you again.”
Afterward, we lay tangled together in the too-narrow bed, Barcelona’s distant traffic humming through the thin windows.
“This is going to be complicated,” I said, tracing patterns on his chest.
“Probably,” Jonathan agreed, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “But we’re both adults. We can handle complicated.”
“Can we? You’re about to spend the next months traveling the world, fighting for championships. I’m going to be following you around, writing about your every move. There’s going to be scrutiny, questions about objectivity, people who’ll assume I’m writing puff pieces because we’re involved.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Going to write puff pieces because we’re involved?”
I lifted my head to look at him. “If you drive badly, I’ll write that you drove badly. If you make mistakes, I’ll analyze them. If you win races, I’ll explain why you deserved to win them.”
“Good. That’s all I ask.”
“Is it really that simple for you?”
Jonathan was quiet for a moment, his fingers combing through my hair.
“Waldo, I’ve spent ten years proving myself to people who thought I was just a rich kid playing with daddy’s money.
My racing speaks for itself now. Your writing will speak for itself too.
People who want to find problems will find them regardless of what we do.
I’d rather deal with that than spend another decade wondering what might have been. ”
I settled back against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay, we’ll be complicated together. But I want to set some ground rules.”
“Such as?”
“No inside information. I don’t want to know about team strategy, driver politics, anything that would give me an unfair advantage over other journalists.”
“Agreed.”
“No preferential access. I interview you when everyone else does, not before.”
“That might be tricky, given that we’re sharing a bed.”
“We’ll figure it out. What else… no public displays of affection in the paddock. I don’t need to give people more ammunition than they’ll already have.”
“Can I still look at you like I want to take you and do wonderful things to you?”
I laughed despite myself. “You can look. Just be subtle about it.”
“I’m always subtle.”
“Jonathan, you once ordered fifteen pizzas for a student group without asking anyone first.”
“That was different. That was enthusiasm.”
We talked until nearly 2 AM, setting boundaries and making plans and occasionally getting distracted by the fact that we were naked in bed together for the first time in ten years.
When Jonathan finally fell asleep, his arm around my waist and his breathing deep and even, I lay awake for a while longer.
This was insane. Professionally risky, personally complicated, and the kind of decision my practical twenty-one-year-old self would have talked me out of in about thirty seconds.
But watching Jonathan sleep, his face peaceful, younger in the dim light from the window, I realized I didn’t care about practical anymore. I’d spent ten years being practical, being responsible, making safe choices.
I didn’t move away.
I didn’t pull back.
I stayed.