Chapter Matt Hernandez #7
“I dare you to find a courtroom with twelve people who wouldn’t want to punch your face in after hearing you talk for ten minutes.”
“Juries for civil cases don’t need twelve people.”
“How the fuck do you even know that?!”
“Boys!” Sylvain sighs and grips the perfectly straight bridge of his nose. Lucky. “Listen, it’s just easier to fire both of you right now.”
Matt says, “Don’t!” at the same time Robert says, “No!”
Sylvain pauses, studying both drivers. “Here’s what we’ll do—if you want to race, you’ll learn how to get along.”
“But—”
“You can’t really—”
“You either buddy up or you’re fired. That’s it. No more discussion. This has gone on for far too long—and has escalated far too much—for us to ignore any longer.”
“So what?” Robert scoffs. “You want us to hold hands and shit? After he just called me a neanderthal?”
Matt had called his urges neanderthal-like, but the look Sylvain gives Robert probably means his correction wouldn’t be appreciated.
“Every other team on the grid has figured it out, so I don’t see why you can’t. You think those drivers enjoy being strapped to their biggest competitor? You think their friendships are real? That they’re just best friends all the fucking time?”
It sounds an awful lot like Sylvain is calling Robert stupid, and Matt can’t contain the smile tugging at his lips.
“We’ve tried to keep you two separated as much as possible, but since that has obviously failed, we’ll need to change our strategy. Until the end of the season, you will spend more time together. Much more.”
“Wha—”
“But—”
“Every social media video is now both of you. Every team product shoot is now both of you. We’ll reschedule your breaks so you can eat together. Reschedule your rides between hotels and paddocks and airports so you can share. Fuck, we’ll sit the two of you next to each other on the damn plane.”
This is not going how Matt wanted. “Wait.”
“Everything you do is a team sport from here on out. It’s up to both of you to repair Andes’s reputation after you have dragged it through the mud.”
“But, sir,” Matt hesitates. “I don’t think—”
“You don’t think! That’s the problem! If I get asked one more time about this rivalry, you are both gone. You’re going to play nice for the cameras or—so help me, God—I will end your racing careers. Understood?”
Both drivers nod in silence.
“Good. I’ve got to call our lawyers now, thanks to Matthew. You are both dismissed.”
As soon as the door closes behind them, Robert grunts out, “This is all your fault.”
“My—? You think I asked for this?” Matt points to his swollen eye.
Roberts studies him for a moment before smirking. “Yes, actually.”
“You’re so lucky I didn’t go looking for a reporter after it happened. You’re always ‘Howdy, partner’ and ‘Oh, shucks’ to them, but I know who you really are.”
“You know nothing about me. Not anymore.”
They round the corner only to stumble on a couple of photographers. The men do a double-take before raising their cameras.
“You wanted to tell them, so go tell them.” Robert’s voice drops deeper when he says, “But I know the second half of that story. Lemme tell you—me punching you in the face will play out a lot better for me than you getting hard about it.”
Matt grinds his teeth and nods his understanding. “I was just in a car accident. Injuries happen.”
“Yeah. They sure do.”
Robert hooks his arm around Matt’s shoulders in a friendly way and waves to the cameras, prompting Matt to do the same. Robert waves with his bandaged hand, so it’s obvious what happened, but at least he isn’t telling the world about Matt’s dick.
He’ll survive.
“Matthew! What happened to your face?” At least this reporter looks justifiably horrified.
“My face?” Before the meeting, Matt had been given a few lines about brotherly wrestling, but he’s not sure if mentioning Robert would go against Sylvain’s new friendship rules. “Is there something on it?”
“Um, it looks like you have a black eye?”
“Oh, that?” Yes. Obviously that. Matt tries to force a nonchalant laugh. “I was just in a car accident. You might have seen the video—it stopped the race.”
“But we saw you after you left the medical center and you looked fine.”
“Well, yes. Uh…” Matt is fully aware this isn’t going well. “You can’t always see what damage has been done by a car accident. That’s why it’s important to talk to a medical professional.”
He definitely hit his head if he thought that was a good answer
I’d have beaten the shit out of him too if I was Robert
You obviously didn’t watch the race, the crash was Robert’s fault
Yeah, but Matthew just fuckin annoys me
Why isn’t Robert receiving disciplinary action for this? It’s so obvious that Andes is covering it up
“Seriously…” Laurent says, inspecting the damage himself.
Matt hisses as he’s prodded—everyone seems to forget the pretty colors are real bruises.
“I know people. Just say the word and I’ll make the call.”
Matt huffs as he leans away. “I can’t tell if you mean lawyers or hit men.”
“You know what I mean.” Laurent looks almost pitying as he studies his face. “Also, plastic surgeons, in case that doesn’t heal straight.”
“The doctor seemed hopeful. Said it wasn’t too bad, considering.”
“It’s fucked that they’re letting him race next weekend. No points on his license or anything?”
Matt shakes his head. “Andes wants us to pretend to be friends. Like, Sylvain is actually ordering us to be. He threatened to terminate both our contracts.”
“Andes can’t survive without Robert’s sponsors, they’d be shooting themselves in the foot.”
“Right.” Matt needs more sponsors. “So guess who’s actually going to suffer if we can’t sell a fake friendship?”
“Ah. I’m sure that’ll go well.”
Matt hasn’t filmed with social media all year, so it’s a little surprising to see how much of his schedule for Hungary is set aside for marketing.
“Shouldn’t we wait until this clears up?” Matt asks, gesturing to his still-bruised eye and swollen nose bridge.
“Honestly, we can’t.” At least the social media guy looks a little sympathetic. “We have a bunch of banked Robert content, but now that everything needs both of you in it, we have to make up for lost time.”
“Oh.” So Matt has to play best buddies with Robert even while sporting the black eye he gave him. Perfect. “Of course.”
Maybe Matt can keep to the background. Robert can do his little “look at me” thing, and Matt’s arm or foot can be in the frame. Easy way to say they’re both involved without people staring at his eye. A win for everyone.
He probably should’ve floated the idea past someone. When Matt opens the door to the room they’ve commandeered into a makeshift set, there’s a camera on a tripod pointing to two empty chairs.
Matt’s pointed to his seat—the one on the right—by an excitable man with flailing hands who explains the concept of the video. He switches on a couple of lights that point directly at Matt’s face and the driver is temporarily blinded.
When Robert finally graces them with his presence, the content director hands them whiteboards and markers and explains the concept again.
“Can you introduce the game for the audience?” he asks Robert before disappearing behind the still camera. The social guy holds a second camera off to the side and focuses on Robert.
Matt wants to be annoyed, but his entire plan was to keep a low profile, to fade into the background.
“Sure. Ready?” Robert looks between both cameras, and the men nod. “Alright, so today, Matt and I’ll be answering some of the questions y’all’ve sent in. One of us’ll answer, and the other’ll try’n guess the answer. The first question—”
Robert stops talking, mid-sentence and looks up for direction.
“That was perfect. Once more, just in case, and we’ll move on.”
Robert repeats the same lines, almost verbatim, and Matt searches the blank wall for a script.
“Um, Matthew?” the director asks. “Can you not make that face? The camera is picking up on it.”
“Oh, yeah.” Matt didn’t realize he was still in the frame. “Sorry.”
“Maybe that’s just his face.” Robert’s southern twang is long gone now that the cameras have stopped recording.
“Maybe I should rearrange your face, see how you like it.”
“Doubt I’d like it as much as you did.”
“Hey! Right here!” The director claps his hands and waves them above his head erratically. He must have been some sort of child photographer in another life. It’s almost frustrating that the distraction actually works. “Okay, you know what? That first take was good. Let's just move on.”
“What is my favorite color?” Matt reads off the provided card.
Robert starts writing immediately.
Matt holds his pen to his board, but he doesn’t actually have a favorite color, so he needs to think first.
The obvious answers for a man would be blue or green, so there’s a fifty-fifty chance that’s what Robert has guessed. Matt could be edgy, try to pick something else like pink, but he’d be made fun of for it incessantly. Black is an option, so is red, but both seem too loud, too aggressive.
He scribbles something fast and looks up.
“Gray.”
“You—?” Matt turns his board around, showing it to the camera. “How did you guess that?”
How could he possibly—?
Robert laughs. “You’re so fuckin’ predictable, Jesus.”
Matt is many things, but predictable? He’s not predictable. He scrubs at his board almost violently, erasing any trace of the stupid answer.
“What is my favorite food?” Robert reads. “Wait, are we talking about in-season? Or off?”
“Off season,” the director answers.
“What is my favorite food to eat during the off-season?” Robert repeats. Lower, he laughs and says, “You’re never gonna guess this.”
“How do we know he’s not lying?” Matt asks, raising his marker for attention. “What’s stopping him from giving fake answers to throw me off?”
“Cause I’m not a whiny lil piss baby who needs to win some meaningless social media video to feel good about himself.” Robert writes for a decent amount of time before he looks up. “Go on. Guess.”