Chapter Matt Hernandez #10
“You like stupid movies that don’t make any sense—it’s different.”
“If they were stupid movies, maybe they’d make more sense to you.” Matt freezes as soon as it leaves his mouth. That might’ve been a step too far.
“Hey!” Robert sounds more surprised than offended. “Hey!!!” Now he’s offended.
Robert knocks into Matt hard enough for the two to teeter on the edge of his chair, both boys pushing and shoving at each other while trying hard not to fall to the ground.
Wrestling like this feels familiar, like returning home after a long time abroad. Walking through the front door and kicking off his shoes.
Until Robert whispers, “Don’t get hard.”
Matt yelps and retrieves his hands, shoving them under his armpits. He’s not turned on—not even close. It’s such a—a stupid and terrible thing to even suggest.
Robert’s smile is still teasing, but there’s a gleam in his eye Matt hasn’t seen in years. Matt’s cheeks heat as he turns away, back towards the director. “Next question, maybe?”
“Burgers or tacos?”
Matt knows his face is probably red, but still, he points to tacos. He nods with approval when Robert chooses the same.
“Giving gifts or spending time with someone?”
They both choose spending time.
Robert explains, “We don’t get a lot of time off, so time is just more valuable than things are.”
“You guys are agreeing on a lot more than I expected, hang on.” The director pulls out his phone and scrolls. “Let's find one you disagree on. Pop or rock music?”
“Country,” they say, in unison. It was all Mr. Miller played, so their childhood was adapt-or-die.
“Travel back in time or forward?”
“Back,” they both say, but Matt even knows the exact moment he’d return to.
“Wet circuit or dry?”
“Wet.”
“Boobs or bu—no, that’s too raunchy for this.”
“Butts.”
“Cats or dogs?”
Matt hesitates. “I don’t really have a preference, do you?”
Robert shakes his head. “They’re both nice, but I’m gone too long to own pets.”
“Yeah, I could pick one if you need us to say something different from each other?”
The director just groans. “A couple months ago you wouldn’t even talk to each other. Now you can’t disagree on anything? Anything?!”
“I’m cool with dogs?” Robert says.
“Yeah, cats are nice.”
In Bangkok, both drivers are knocked out at the end of Q2, landing Matt in eleventh and Robert in twelfth.
On his springy hotel bed, Matt taps his pencil eraser against the back of the closed laptop. He needs to do something different this weekend. The way they’ve been racing isn’t working for either of them, it’s just keeping both drivers outside of the points.
Well, if Andes is going to make him concede the spot anyway, maybe Matt can just save himself from future frustration and plan his race strategy with that in mind.
Matt powers up his laptop and grabs his notebook, ready to dissect races from the point of view of both his teammate and everyone else starting around them.
It’s a good enough plan in theory, but the more he watches, the more frustrated Matt gets with Robert’s driving. He’s not sure they’re close enough yet for feedback, but since it’ll affect his own race, he takes a leap and texts.
You jump too early when you try to pass in fast turns, losing valuable time and tire deg when you recover.
That’s probably a weird message to receive from an unknown number.
This is Matt, by the way. On the sponsor phone.
There’s nothing but silence for several minutes. Matt tries to tear his eyes away from his phone, to pay attention to the race, but he keeps reversing the footage to replay what he’s missed.
He sees the text as soon as it arrives.
Robert
Which race are you watching?
This one from last year. Also the last several races
Why are you watching my races?
Know thy enemy
There goes our PR friendship, I guess
Matt can’t tell if he’s being serious. Were they back to enemies now? Should Matt explain it was a joke, just in case? Why did he think they were okay enough to joke about it when clearly they weren’t?
He’s in the middle of typing out a long apology text when another message arrives.
Room number?
Matt backspaces everything and answers:
1632
The message hasn’t been read for a full second before there’s a knock on Matt’s door.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he mutters, knocking things over. Where the fuck are his shirts? His jeans?!
Another impatient knock, and Matt decides answering the door is more pressing than what he’s wearing. He opens it just wide enough to stick his face up to, twisting until the rest of his body is out of view. “How’d you get here so fast??”
Robert thumb-points to the door behind him. “I’m your neighbor.”
“Oh.” That makes sense—rooming the drivers together. How had they never run into each other before?
“Are you…” Robert looks down. “Naked?”
The accusation is way worse than what he’s actually wearing. Matt throws the door open, revealing his basketball shorts. “I didn’t have time to grab a shirt.”
“But you grabbed shorts?” Robert’s wearing that teasing smile again. “You watch my races naked?”
Matt’s face is on fire. “Are you here just to make fun of me?”
“Obviously not, I didn’t know you’d be naked.”
“I wasn’t—”
“I wanted to see what you meant with your critique. If you can't back it up with examples and solutions, then why did you text me?”
Fair point. “Okay. Let me just grab a—”
Robert pushes the door open before Matt can close it on him. “C’mon, you’ve got nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Robert helps himself to the room, sitting cross-legged on Matt’s bed in front of his laptop. He pulls the device closer before looking back up at Matt and patting the space next to him.
It would be weird for Matt to dig through his luggage while Robert was waiting, right? He hesitates before joining him on the bed.
Robert’s wearing a threadbare blue shirt with a faded racing logo. There’s a hole in the pits, visible even with his arms down. His long legs are bare between his red plaid boxers and white socks—the blond leg hair catching the light at certain angles.
He looks soft. Comfortable in a way Matt had taken for granted so many years ago. Domestic, even.
“You cold?” Robert asks, flicking Matt’s nipple.
He squawks in surprise. Nope. Fuck that. Matt jumps from the bed and searches through his luggage for a shirt suitable for sleeping in.
“Sorry.” Robert doesn’t sound sorry at all. “I’m too tired for manners.”
Once Matt wrestles a black tank top on, he feels much less exposed. “Okay.” Climbing back onto the bed, he pulls the laptop closer to himself and hovers the cursor around to find the specific parts of the race he wants to review.
The bed shifts with the weight of Robert leaning in closer. That doesn’t matter. Matt doesn’t even notice it.
They watch several examples and, to Robert’s credit, it looks like he’s taking it in. He asks good questions, wants to replay moves again. Matt finds other drivers who have successfully overtaken on the same corners he has difficulty with, and Robert stares unblinkingly at the screen.
Matt stumbles over a sentence as he takes it all in—Robert in his bed, the two of them discussing race strategies—it’s almost like what they used to do. It gives him a sliver of hope that what they had—the friendship, at least—could be repaired one day.
Robert lifts an eyebrow, encouraging him to continue, but Matt has completely lost what he was going to say.
“Never mind,” he says hastily, directing his attention back to the screen.
“We haven’t done this in a bit, have we?” Robert rubs his eyes. It’s getting late. “Imagine if we were able to replay our races like this back in karting. We’d be unstoppable.”
“We’d be insufferable,” Matt automatically corrects. “Your dad was annoyed enough already with us demanding a lap-by-lap breakdown of both of our cars.”
“Well, ‘good rest is the best strategy’, right?” Robert stands up and stretches his back out. “I think I’ll call it a night.”
What is Matt supposed to do now? Is he supposed to walk him to the door? Or is that weird? The room isn’t large, the door is visible from the bed, but isn’t it weirder just to sit in bed while someone walks away?
He doesn’t have a good reference to pull from. Any other time they talked about racing strategy, they fell asleep together.
Matt decides to stand up, because sitting on the bed does seem strange after all. Did he ever walk Laurent out? He can’t remember the last time Laurent came over. Did Laurent ever walk him out?
Somehow he finds himself in front of the door when Robert stops in the doorway.
“Hey, why were you watching my races anyways?”
“Didn’t you ask that already?” Matt’s pretty sure he remembers the text.
“I didn’t like the answer.”
“Um, well, since the team will probably make me give up my position, it’s in both of our best interests if you overtake well.” Matt crosses his arms for something to look at. “Just selfish reasons, I promise. Nothing weird.”
“You don’t have to give me your position.” Despite how well they’ve been doing, there’s a hint of something negative in the reply. Anger? Frustration? “I can pass you myself.”
Matt has a bump in his nose that says otherwise, but he doesn’t want to kill the vibe when they’re only just starting to get along again. Instead, he says, “Not if you try to overtake on those fast corners too early.”
Robert smirks. “We’ll see.” He steps into the hallway, allowing the door to swing shut behind him. It almost sounds like he says, “Goodnight, Teo.”
Matt probably just imagined it, though.
“Goodnight, Bobby,” he says to the closed door.
The orders come through on Lap 15.
Matt’s pleasantly surprised he’s managed to hold on so long when they started so close to each other.
“Switch positions.”
“Yep, okay,” he replies, diving off the race line.
“I know you don’t want to, but you need to consider the team.”
“I said okay,” Matt huffs. “Look, I’m already off the race line.”