Japanese Grand Prix #7
Rafael presses closer until his face is fully in the frame. He’d be cheek-to-cheek if the headphones weren’t so large. “Tell them I say hello.”
“We can hear him.”
“Great.” At least that’s one part of the process down.
“What’d they say?”
“Okay, I’m not doing this for the next hour.” Julien looks back at the Ferraro leadership, but they seem engrossed in their own conversation. He disconnects his headphones and turns the volume down. “Now you should be able to hear it too.”
“How’s the arm, Rafael? Getting better?”
“It’s my collarbone that broke.” Though everyone is well-aware by now, Rafael leans further into Julien’s space and taps it to demonstrate. “I’m working with my trainer to get my strength back, but it’s sore right now. I, uh, slept bad.”
Slept bad? Or they fucked too hard after Rafael specifically said they needed to be careful with it?
Julien ducks his head and chooses the German circuit while everyone else is distracted.
“By the way, good job on the podium, Julien.”
Julien scoffs. “Coulda been one step better.”
“See?” Mick says. “We were arguing last night over whether that move was strategy or racing.”
“It was racing, but there were some shady strategies involved.” And not from Julien’s side.
“Julien.” Rafael’s voice has the rumble of a warning, but whatever.
“What? I’d say it to his face.” Julien leans past his computer screen and faces his sleeping brother directly. “That was some shady-ass strategy. It was pathetic and weak and you don’t even care.”
Thomas didn’t order a replica trophy. That’s how little the win meant to him. He doesn’t even want to remember it.
“What’s happening right now?”
“Thomas is here too.” Julien nods to the curled-up driver, though the camera can’t see him. “Instead of racing me like a man, he played mind games and won. Sucks, but that’s what it takes to be a champion, I guess.”
Again, Rafael hits him with a “Julien.”
“What?” Julien is the last to pick a car and he chooses an Andes just to spice things up. “This is a private conversation between my friends and I and whoa—” And thousands more viewers than normal. “It’s fine.”
“You know we’re gonna ask—”
“What did he say?!”
“What could Thomas say that’s worse than the shit we say?”
Julien snorts. “No way. You guys’ll ride my ass for being such a fuckin’ sap.”
“You’ve always been a sap, Romeo.”
“Touché.” Julien sighs as he oversteers the very first turn. Guess the lap is scrapped. He wasn’t paying attention anyway. “He said no reserve driver has ever won before—that it was my record to beat. Told me he was proud of me. Fucking stupid.”
“Doesn’t sound stupid to me.”
Julien startles and has to drag the car out of the grass. He already forgot Rafael can hear him.
“It’s stupid that I fell for it,” Julien amends. “You specifically told me he’d say something, and I still fell for it. That’s what I regret.”
“Well, get over it.”
Julien barks out a laugh. “Yeah, okay. Done.”
“I’m serious. Andes is bad, but you’re not even on the track anymore.”
“This is just practice!” As he gestures to the screen, Julien forgets to let up on the gas. He hits a gravel trap and beaches the car.
Maybe Wilhelms would be better.
“I doubt your laps went like that before this weekend.” Rafael knocks into him with a sway, pressing his good shoulder against Julien’s.
“If you keep looking back and replaying the mistakes and the ‘what if’s, then you’ll never beat Thomas.
You have three more chances, so get over it and focus on what’s next. ”
When he says it so simply it makes sense, but it’s hard to just get over it. It’s hard to ignore the betrayal.
Julien doesn’t have an answer, so he just stares at Rafael until the Brazilian smiles.
“Rafael Souza, life coach.”
Julien’s attention snaps back to the stream, where thousands of people are watching them.
“No, seriously, how do I get Rafael Souza to give me a pep talk?”
Julien picks up his controller again and resets the lap. He can do this—he has three more chances. “You got girl problems again, John?”
“What do you mean again?!”
“When have you ever had a girl without problems?”
“Stop embarrassing me in front of Rafael Souza!”
Julien ignores them for the most part, since this lap is going much better than the last. Still, he can’t not comment on John’s love life—it’s his favorite topic. “Well, you already know my advice.”
Turn, turn, straight, turn. There’s a pause in the conversation and Julien’s eyes flick up to catch the other guys grimacing. “What’s wrong? It’s a solid lap.”
“Are we supposed to talk about—?” Mick nods his head forward, like he expects Julien to know what he’s inferring.
“What topic has ever been off limits between us?”
The guys are silent again until Kevin asks, “What advice would you give John?”
Julien grins. “Suck cock, get good.”
Rafael stiffens against his arm, but he doesn’t pull away.
On the stream, there’s a chorus of relieved sighs.
“So the gay thing is fine?”
“Yeah? I think?” Julien forgot to mention the sex stuff to Ferraro PR. Oops. “I mean, you guys give me shit for it on every stream. There’s hours of replays anyone could sift through for dirt on me. What’s the point of stopping now?”
“Fair enough.”
When Hugo leaked the Romeo thing, Julien only cared about how the guys would react. Who cares if the world knows his personal business? He’s gay and he isn’t exactly shy about it.
Oh, that’s right. “Hugo watches this stream, by the way.”
“Tremblay?”
“The McLean rookie?” Rafael asks.
“Since when?!”
Julien shrugs. “He helped me create my account, so… I dunno, a couple of years now?” Since before Julien won the Formation 2 Championship. Before—
“Jesus fuck.”
“But he’s a Form 1 driver.”
“Years?” Rafael repeats. “How do you know Hugo?”
“We raced together. And roomed together.” Julien crosses the finish line and finally knocks Mick out of pole position.
“Are there any other Formation 1 drivers watching the stream?”
“We should probably talk less shit about them.”
Still, Rafael pushes. “You lived together?”
“We went to the same boarding school.” The race starts and Julien locks in. “I didn’t know a lot of English, but Hugo speaks French, so I kept close to him. Plus we both—”
Oops, not that. He’s so used to racing and talking that it almost tumbled out.
It’s fine for Julien to talk about his own sexuality, but he can’t go around outing other drivers.
“Hugo speaks French? I thought he was Canadian.”
“He’s French Canadian.”
“He speaks Canadian French. Hon hon maple syrup.”
“You both what?”
“Uh, karted.” Good save. “We were the foreign weirdos with the same hobby, so it made sense for us to stick together.”
Rafael nods and leans back against his seat, out of frame. “I didn’t know you were close. Makes sense, since he dropped the impeding penalty. I wouldn’t do that for just anyone.”
Well, he probably wouldn’t have outed Julien’s secret eRacing persona either. “Yeah.”
“Haven’t seen you talk to each other, so I thought it was odd.”
Thomas chooses that moment to shift in his chair and readjust the arm pillowing his face. “Julien is still mad at Hugo for taking the open McLean seat.”
“Was that Thomas?”
“What did he say?”
“Go back to sleep.” Julien mutes his microphone, just in case his brother decides to spill anything else in front of thousands of people.
Thomas peeks an eye open. “Hugo probably does not like you either. You have already showed the world that McLean is wrong for choosing him.”
Literally nobody asked. “Why the fuck do you care about Hugo and I anyway?”
“It is important to know the competition.”
“So you can take advantage of their weaknesses?”
“Julien,” Rafael warns again.
Always with the Julien, Julien, Julien. It's never Shut up, Thomas.
Thomas shrugs. He doesn’t even care that he’s so smarmy. “In a championship, every win counts.”
“And in a career? What then? What did you do to my chances of finding a seat for next year?”
“A podium finish is still good. You cannot expect to be handed a victory for your third-ever race. You have to earn it.”
“I didn’t want anything to be handed to me!” Julien slams his laptop shut, though that probably isn’t good for it. “I wanted a fair chance at fighting for the win, and you blindsided me before the race even started.”
Rafael raises his hands between the brothers, blocking their eyeline. “Let’s stop this here.”
Julien leans around the hands to look his calculating, manipulative brother in the eye. “If you were a better driver than me, you wouldn’t need your little mind games. You’d out-race me on the track.”
Thomas unfolds his legs and sits straighter. “The entire weekend is the track. Media day to podium celebration—anything is fair game. Everything is strategy.”
“But I’m your brother!” Apparently that doesn’t matter. Who needs love when winning exists? “You didn’t have to trick me—to embarrass me in front of the other teams.”
Thomas rolls his eyes. “You were not embarrassed. Podiums are not embarrassing—trophies are not embarrassing.”
“Everyone thinks I can’t race you and you proved them right!”
It’s pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. No remorse, no shame. Thomas is proud of how he acted and who he is as a person. He loves winning more than family, more than his pride—hell, even more than his own morality.
It’s disgusting. “When you’re old and alone, surrounded by nothing but cold, lifeless trophies, I want you to remember this moment.”
“Hey!” Rafael changes tactics and nudges at Julien’s shoulder instead. “I need the bathroom. Why don’t you let me up, then we can watch the stream again?”
He pushes Julien until the smaller driver practically falls into the aisle of the plane. After he lets Rafael through, Julien turns back to his brother, but Thomas is curled up in his chair again, his eyes closed like he’s already fast asleep.