Chapter 18 Blunder
Faust messages me on the chess app that afternoon after Qualifying, presumably once he’s been released from the hell that is the media pit and team debriefs.
Hey.
We’ve only seen each other in passing since he’s been out of the car—I’d thrown him a tacky Stark-Benzin shirt foisted on us from the higher-ups, he’d been ushered into a chat with the team principal.
There hasn’t been time to discuss last night or outline the parameters of our working agreement.
Which, weirdly, hasn’t freaked me out. We’re both getting something we want out of this. He knows my rules.
And the mental image of him, pacing around some empty hospitality room, trying to figure out what to text me and landing on hey makes me grin at my phone.
Hiiii POLE SITTER
Do you have plans tonight?
I sit, astonished. And now, slightly freaked.
Kind of…
His reply pops up before my pulse has had a chance to slow down.
That’s okay. Have fun.
Have—oh. Shit. He thinks I’m going out with Bernard. Who’d DNF’d in the first Qualifying session today, not that it matters.
I will!! I’m planning your pole position look for tomorrow
Why am I explaining what I’m doing to him? He didn’t ask. Though I don’t want him to think I’m skipping whatever celebrations he had up his sleeve to eat fugu with Bernard; I’d suggested a ramen date before I left town, but he’d gone straight for the previously toxic, very expensive puffer fish.
Biting my lip, I wait for Faust to reply.
Can I help? With the clothing stuff.
Faust.
Yes?
When have you ever wanted to help with “clothing stuff”
quickly
I set my phone down. Drum my fingers on my knees. This is getting dangerously close to territory I don’t really like—though Mei had said it herself. I’ve had an impact on him. And he hasn’t replied yet, so there goes my theory that he’s trying to trick me into spending time with him.
Sorry. I uhhh
My rules haven’t changed.
That was overkill. A nuclear bomb at a knife fight. I quickly add a smiling emoji and a cat emoji and a gray heart emoji, and I don’t know what any of it means, so I hope it confuses him just as much and he forgets what I said.
He doesn’t.
All of them?
Yes.
Another reply lights up my screen.
Thank you for letting me know. I worded that wrong anyway. Do you want my help?
And before I can say I don’t need it, and wouldn’t want someone else in my creative bubble until tomorrow morning, anyway, Faust sends one more text—
Don’t lie. :)
“I’m only doing this because it’s objectively interesting to discuss fashion with men,” I tell him when he opens his hotel room door the next day. “Not because I need your help or think you should be using your brain for this the morning of a race.”
Faust smirks, holding out a coffee and protein bar to me. I take the coffee, disregarding the déjà vu. “I have twenty minutes to spare,” he says.
“Twenty! What the—”
He slips the protein bar into my pocket. “Do you take cream?”
I narrow my eyes. “Yes.”
“Good.”
I glance at the door, closed behind him.
This evil man, in a hoodie that’s absolutely going to mess up his hair when he pulls it off, and a pair of running shorts that show off his long, muscular legs.
Legs I’ve sat on. Twenty minutes. There isn’t time to panic—and goddamn, he did that on purpose, didn’t he?
“Okay, whatever.” I throw back a sip of coffee, and it’s good.
Sweet and flavored and not something I’d order for myself, but would want to.
Fuck. With a huff, I set it down and go to his closet, where I’d had him hang our options up.
“Thanks for pulling these. I’d wanted to discuss with you how you felt about the race, and what everyone’s saying online—the pressure.
If you want to come in like, screw all of you, I’m amazing, or maybe something more understated.
I’d go with the latter, but this is a moment we can really define how you’re going to present your comeback this year. ”
“What comeback?”
I roll my eyes at the closet, my back to him. “So are you feeling screw-you trousers and a ribbed tank, or Levi’s and a shirt from Stark-Benzin’s Hajime Sorayama collab?”
“The silver one?”
“Mmhm.”
A moment passes, and I realize Faust isn’t going to reply.
I turn and find him staring at me from beside his bed.
He isn’t that close to it—just close enough for my breath to catch.
His arms are crossed over his chest, his head tilted slightly to one side, angled as he assesses me.
And he has this look in his eye that’s equal parts exciting and terrifying, like he didn’t invite me here to talk clothes at all.
Warmth twists my stomach. He’d asked me if all my rules were the same, and I’d said yes. “What?” I say, and I sound miserably excited, even to me.
“You don’t have to…” He frowns. “Do you genuinely like fashion?”
I snort, relieved that’s what was on his mind. Mostly relieved. Partly. Some? “You think it’s part of the act.”
“It’s a bit in your face.”
“As evil? Frivolous? Hannibal Lecter, Lestat.” I pause, dropping my voice. “French tailoring?”
He laughs, then goes contemplative, walking closer to me. “I was just curious. I could’ve talked to Mei, if it was. Keep you here for the next three races.”
I’m already shaking my head. “No, I, no. I want to do the Day Gala. I really do. I’m not happy about—”
I’m cut off. By a kiss. Faust’s lips, ghosting over mine, here and then gone. He leans back, a crease already dug between his eyebrows. “Sorry. I just—really wanted to do that. Keep going.”
“Oh. I, um.” My lips press together, tingling, and I don’t want to smile like an idiot from one little kiss. But I might need to. “Lost my train of thought.”
Faust’s worry relaxes. His eyes dip to my lips as he lifts his hand to my jaw.
When our lips meet again, he’s smiling, the last rumble of a laugh buried in his throat.
“Keep talking.” He cups my face, thumb tucked beneath my chin, and I think I love when he holds me like this.
Like he’s going to tell me where to look. “Could listen to you forever.”
“But… I talk so much.”
“Not enough.”
My eyes slip shut when he kisses my jaw, harder and less chaste than a moment ago. It’s enough to make me forget about that word—forever. “What did I say?” he murmurs, and his breath is so hot against my neck that he could melt me down if he wanted, down to nothing at all. “Let me hear you.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
He’s right. This is like sex. I’m thrumming like I’ve been soaked in gasoline and he’s the match, and all he’s done is kiss me and chide me and override my can’t with his can. I whimper, my arms sliding around his shoulders for stability as he kisses a slow path to my ear. “Faust.”
“Hm?”
“The race.”
“Ten more minutes.”
“You need to—” Teeth scrape against my skin, and my voice chokes into an embarrassing moan, my body arching into him. “You need to get dressed.”
“I will,” he says, and there’s so much easy confidence in his voice that I feel my pulse between my legs.
I feel him, too. He’s a wall of muscle; pure, unmoving, unyielding friction.
His thighs are solid against mine, his chest, his hips, and I shiver from the sudden comet crash of an epiphany that Faust would let me do anything to him, with him.
I might have to ask for it, beg for it, wait for it, but nothing is off the table with him.
Not if this is how he kisses. I could ask for him to slot his leg between mine and he’d stand here, holding me, while I let this heat crash over me.
Knowing what he’s into, he’d probably thank me afterward.
I’m the one who’s saying no to that.
I pull away, my mind a blur of all the things we could do before anyone found us together. A single syllable is all I can manage at the moment. “Clothes.”
But it works. We stop, Faust’s hands falling, red flags waved.
And then I make a mistake—I look at him.
His hair is finger-messy, his eyes black and hungry.
I must’ve accidentally yanked his hoodie down his neck, revealing a vein I’ve never noticed running up the side of his flushed throat.
The only sound is him breathing, a soft noise in the quiet, and he rolls his jaw to one side. Nods. “Okay.”
He’s back to cool Faust. Detached. Pulling away, because he clearly thinks pushing in hurt me. My heart burns. I need to explain that he hasn’t jumped my boundaries—that the problem is that I like this too much.
Instead, I turn to face the wall so that he can change. As if I wasn’t pressed against him moments ago.
I listen to him standing there, no doubt dumbfounded by my stupidity, then the stilted swishing of fabric.
Embarrassment makes it difficult to swallow.
Oh my god. Every second that goes by is worse, a new nightmare where he doesn’t hurt me, but I hurt him.
“I’m sorry. I don’t do this.” I take a breath.
“I’ve never… this is new for me. And I, I like you, as a person, and I want you to do as well as possible today, without me making you late or screwing up your schedule.
Because I’m really looking forward to watching you, even more after—after kissing you. ”
That might be the first time I’ve really acknowledged what we’ve done out loud. Behind me, Faust exhales, surprised by it, too.
“I act like I know what I’m doing, and I usually do,” I admit. “But I don’t think I know like you do. You’re so… you. So please just—if I seem like, whoa, she’s not cool—that’s because I’m not. I’m not cool at all.”
About you, I add silently.
I hold my breath. Wait for him to thank me for apologizing. Soft footsteps thump against the floor behind me, and then Faust is clearing his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“No, please don’t—”
“I have a new rule.”
Instantly, I’m perking up. Back to our game, where things are chaotic, but they’re safe. “Yeah?”
“Two, actually.”
“I’m ready.”
“If you ever change your mind about what you want to do with me, you have to tell me when we aren’t together.”
When we aren’t… oh. In the same room. “But I liked what we were doing.”