Chapter 36 Back to Reality
BACK TO REALITY
Amsterdam Airport - Arrivals Hall
The flight from Mykonos to Amsterdam felt like a hangover.
The sky outside the window had traded brilliant Greek blue for a flat, damp gray, the kind that promised rain.
Jonathan slept most of the way, baseball cap pulled low, earbuds in, while I stared at the clouds and tried not to think about how fast everything was moving again.
We touched down, taxied forever, then finally reached the gate.
As soon as I switched my phone back on, it lit up like a pinball machine.
Texts, missed calls, and notifications rained in so fast I couldn’t keep up.
Jonathan stirred beside me, frowning as his phone buzzed to life with the same relentless chorus.
“What the hell?” he muttered, thumb scrolling, then freezing. His jaw tightened. He shoved the phone at me.
It was us.
The photos were everywhere, grainy but unmistakable. Jonathan’s hands on my ass, my legs wrapped around his waist, our mouths locked together in the Aegean. Headlines in English, Greek, Dutch, French. Paparazzi gold, spread across every feed.
My stomach dropped.
By the time we were through passport control, my phone was still vibrating with new messages. One from Thea, in all caps: CALL ME NOW. Another from Michael: Need to discuss damage control ASAP.
Jonathan was getting the same treatment, his screen full of texts from his father, his manager, even the team principal. A string of increasingly sharp ones from Shep, each less polite than the last.
He swore under his breath, stuffed the phone in his pocket, and slung an arm around my shoulders as we pushed into the arrivals hall.
That’s when I saw the newspaper stand.
The vendor, a weathered Dutch man in his sixties, was arranging the morning papers with practiced efficiency. But it was the tabloid headlines that made my blood freeze:
DE TELEGRAAF: “F1’S FIRST GAY LOVE AFFAIR - American Driver Jonathan Hirsch Caught in Passionate Embrace”
THE SUN: “RAINBOW RACING - Meridian’s Million-Dollar Man Goes Public with Poolside Passion”
BILD: “Schwul und Schnell - Formula 1’s Homosexual Champion Candidate”
Jonathan stopped walking, following my gaze to the newsstand. His face went pale as he took in the lurid headlines, the blown-up photos of us in the water, the inevitable rainbow graphics and double entendres that tabloids loved.
The vendor looked up at us, recognition dawning in his eyes. Then he looked back at the papers, then at us again, his expression shifting from curiosity to something like excitement.
“Excuse me,” he said in accented English, pointing at the Sun headline. “You are?”
“We need to go,” Jonathan said quietly, taking my arm and steering me toward the taxi queue.
But I couldn’t stop staring at the headlines. This wasn’t just about our relationship anymore. This was about Jonathan becoming the first openly gay Formula 1 driver, whether he’d intended to or not. The sporting world’s newest barrier, broken by accident in the Aegean Sea.
“Guess vacation’s over,” Jonathan said grimly as we reached the taxi stand.
I couldn’t argue. The real world had found us, dragged us back, and hung our private moment on every newsstand in Europe.
Jonathan rented a car and drove us to Zandvoort. My hotel was two blocks from his, a four-story building with a peaked roof and ornamental railings.
I slipped into my room before calling Thea. It felt safer, as if four walls and a locked door could protect me from whatever was about to come through the line.
She picked up on the first ring. “Jesus, Wally. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” I admitted, my voice small.
“That much is clear. Do you know how many calls I’ve fielded today? Editors, sponsors, PR people. Half of them sniffing for blood, the other half asking if you can still be trusted to cover the damn sport. And you’re not even on staff yet.”
My chest tightened.
“The offer is on hold,” she snapped. “Until after Monza. I can’t risk hiring you full-time while you’re splashed across the tabloids as Formula 1’s first gay driver’s boyfriend.
” Her voice grew sharper. “And it’s not just the relationship angle, Wally.
Some readers will no longer trust you because of your orientation.
One of our advertisers doesn’t want their ads near your copy.
Said something about ‘brand alignment’ and ‘target demographics.’”
The words hit like a physical blow. Heat flamed in my face, part anger, part shame.
“You want to be taken seriously? Then you need to start acting like it,” she continued.
“You don’t get caught by paparazzi like some lovesick tourist. You don’t make yourself the story.
And you sure as hell don’t let your personal life compromise your professional credibility.
Especially when that personal life is going to make half your potential audience uncomfortable. ”
“Thea.”
“No. You listen. You’re a good writer, Wally.
You’ve got instincts. That’s why I pushed for you.
But this? This is amateur-hour bullshit with real-world consequences I didn’t sign up for.
Did I get a message from you telling me you and Hirsch were shacking up on Mykonos?
No, even though I told you I wanted to know everything.
Instead, I get blindsided by advertisers. ”
She hardly took a breath. “You understand that the only reason this isn’t over is because Jonathan Hirsch doesn’t talk to anyone the way he talks to you.
I need clean copy from you the rest of this week.
No fluff, no slip-ups, and absolutely nothing that reads like you’re Jonathan’s PR arm.
If you can prove you’ve got professional distance, if you can keep it in your pants, I’ll revisit the job offer after Monza.
Until then, you’re on probation. Understood? ”
“Yes,” I said, the word tasting like ash.
She hung up without saying goodbye.
I sat on the edge of the bed, phone slack in my hand, the silence pressing in.
A few weeks ago I’d thought I was stepping into my dream job.
Now it felt like sand slipping between my fingers, and not just because of journalistic ethics.
But because of who I was, who Jonathan was, and how the world still reacted to that fundamental fact.
The afternoon crawled. I opened my laptop, stared at half-finished drafts, closed them again.
Thea’s words replayed in my head with brutal clarity: Some readers will no longer trust you because of your orientation.
It wasn’t the ethics that scared me most. It was how quickly professionalism had turned conditional.
I checked the news once, then immediately regretted it. One headline burned itself into my brain: “F1’s First Gay Driver Sparks Sponsorship Backlash.” Not relationship. Not privacy. Backlash.
My phone finally buzzed at 6:45 PM with a text: Team meetings ran late. Dad flew in. Can I come over?
Yes, I typed back immediately. Room 237. I spent the next ten minutes straightening the room and checking my appearance in the mirror like Jonathan hadn’t seen me at my worst a hundred times.
The knock came twenty minutes later, soft, almost tentative.
Jonathan looked tired but not wrecked. He kicked off his shoes, dropped onto the bed, and leaned back against the headboard.
“My dad’s furious,” he said, though his tone was closer to exasperated than afraid.
“Thinks the whole thing makes me look unserious. Shep said the same. Image, focus, blah blah blah. They don’t want me to lose momentum.
But honestly? It’s not that bad. No one’s threatening to pull the car out from under me. ”
I stared at him. His world shook but didn’t crack. Mine felt like it was crumbling.
He reached for my hand, lacing our fingers together. “We’ll get through it,” he said.
I wanted to believe him. I wanted his certainty. But all I could feel was Thea’s voice in my head, sharp as broken glass: keep your dick in your pants.
Jonathan ran a hand through his hair, studying my expression. “You know what the strangest part is? I never actually came out. Not officially. I just got photographed being happy with someone I care about, and suddenly I’m ‘F1’s first openly gay driver.’”
“Is that how you see yourself now?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t hidden who I am since I was a teenager. But I never made an announcement either. My family knows, my close friends know. But now it’s this… label. This historic first that I never asked for.” He looked at me directly. “Do you think that changes anything? For us?”
“Everything’s already changed,” I said quietly. “The question is whether we can handle what comes next.”
Before I could elaborate, Jonathan’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen and his expression tightened.
“My father,” he said, answering. “Dad?”
I could hear Michael Hirsch’s voice through the phone, crisp and urgent, though I couldn’t make out the words.
“You’re here already?” Jonathan said. “I thought you weren’t arriving until tomorrow.” A pause. “Where do you want to meet?”
Jonathan caught my eye and held up a finger, asking me to wait.
“Should I bring Wally?” he asked, and I heard the hope in his voice.
The silence that followed felt endless. Then Jonathan’s face fell slightly.
“I understand,” he said. “Give me twenty minutes.”
He hung up and looked at me with an expression that mixed apology with resignation.
“He’s at the Beachhouse Hotel. Wants to discuss ‘damage control’ before the media gets wind that he’s here.” Jonathan stood, reaching for his shoes. “I asked if you should come.”
“I heard you.”
“He thinks it’s better if we talk privately first. Father-son conversation about handling the situation.” Jonathan’s voice carried a note of disappointment that he was trying to hide. “I’m sorry, Waldo. I know this isn’t what we planned.”
“It’s fine,” I said, though it wasn’t. “You need to deal with your family. I need to figure out what’s left of my career.”