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Carlos is cutting a tomato in half when the doorbell rings.
In tandem, Carlos drops the knife when the doorbell rings.
The sound it makes against the expensive olive wood of his cutting board is enough to make Calcetines bark, just once, and it startles Carlos as well.
(He shouldn’t have let his niece name the dog, but alas, hindsight is usually 20/20.
When you don’t need reading glasses. Which Carlos doesn’t.
The thought of a Carlos-Sainz-Senior looking above his reading glasses in the mirror would haunt him for life, and he’s not sure if he’s ready for that.)
The doorbell rings again, Calcetines barks and his nails scrape the floors, dios mío, and Carlos looks at his paws (and the invisible lines carved by them) for just a second.
Then, he blinks.
“Arrivo!” [Coming!]
Carlos doesn’t really know who could be ringing his doorbell at the odd hour of ten in the A.M. on a random Sunday in mid September, but he was raised a polite boy, so he won’t pretend he’s not home. Not this time, at least.
Maybe Blanca had delivered something to his address, because she did that often. Just to spite Carlos. Or to avoid the shipping costs of some expensive Italian skincare brand or another to Spain. La tía tacaña.
Then again, maybe it was another birthday present. Those golf clubs Rupert had talked about last week. Training equipment, because he didn’t have enough of that, with chilis all over it — because that’s the thing you wear and use as a respectable forty-year-old. Lando would continue wearing that ugly ass bright yellow-green that made him look like a highlighter until Carlos ended up needing those reading glasses. Why would he be any different, really. Again — he’s polite, he would never say he outgrew the joke at like, twenty-five.
He wipes his hands on a rag that he had diligently folded on the back of a chair last night, and the doorbell goes on for a third time.
Some people should know when to quit. Calcetines is starting to get antsy. Carlos doesn’t want to deal with an antsy, traumatized rescue dog first thing in the morning on a Sunday. Of all days.
Do they even deliver on Sundays? Jesus. God. Capitalism, really.
Carlos finally puts his hand on the handle and pushes down.
It’s not locked, because it never is, so it gives in easily (as easy as a bulletproof door could).
He sees a boy. A man. He sees brown hair first, thin and messy and curling at the ends. He sees a pair of thick eyebrows that fall down on the outer corner in a permanent pitiful look. He sees eyes that are made of the same green glass of Spanish red wine bottles, and the blondish lashes that frame them — he skips those. The nose that follows them is straight, with a slight bump around the middle that betrays the fact that it wasn’t actually sculpted into marble with a million beauty marks, and then the prettiest cupid’s bow. The lips are pink, but Carlos knows that. It doesn’t catch him by surprise. They’re slightly parted. They meet each other when Carlos looks at the chin, stubbly and kind of unkempt, and then the Adam’s apple betrays its owner almost more than his eyes usually do.
It’s been five years. It’s been ten.
“Charles?”
(There’s a lack of use to the name.)
The Adam’s apple goes up-down-up again, and the lips part in another pant.
“Hello.”
He says it like Carlos shouldn’t be surprised that he’s there. That’s who Charles used to be, anyway; imposing now and asking later. Why would he be different nowadays, right?
People don’t change. Hindsight remains 20/20.
Carlos remains silent. Partly because he doesn’t know what the fuck to say — why is he the one expected to talk, anyway? Charles is looking at Carlos like he should be giving a speech right now. Carlos has nothing to say to him. He hadn’t rang any doorbells. He had barely texted, if anything. He hadn’t tried.
So Carlos decides that he’ll hold his own for once and Charles will have to twist the knife all by himself.
He just wishes he’d had breakfast before. Forty years old and all. Turns out one is never ready to get their heart broken.
Turns out neither Charles nor him ever learned to be the bigger person.
Then, Calcetines comes barging in, because he’s nothing if not nosy. Carlos would say he’s just being protective. Calcetines would sell Carlos for jamón ibérico and a scratch behind his floppy ears.
Charles looks down. Calcetines’ tail starts going like a torpedo and Carlos holds onto his collar.
“Oh,” Charles kneels, just like that, in Carlos’ entrance, jeans fully in contact with the probably dirty stone, and puts his hands right on Calcetines’ cheeks. The dog pants, tongue out, and the tail starts hitting Carlos’ thigh like something out of a comic book. “Hi, girl.”
Carlos grinds his teeth together.
“He’s a boy.”
“Oh,” Charles repeats. His eyes search for Carlos from under his lashes like that’s not going to do anything to him, and then they go back to the dog. “He’s cute.”
It feels like a hidden camera joke at this point. Mattia Binotto is going to come out from behind a bush and yell gotcha! And Carlos’ face of pure shock is going to be all over La Gazzetta dello Sport. And Lando will cover his walls with it.
Lando should find himself a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a hobby and leave Carlos alone.
The dog pants a bit more and Charles has a slight smile in the corners of his lips, and Carlos fears that he might end up punching his ex-teammate. So he breaks. He’s sure Charles is secretly celebrating it. Because he’s mysterious, imposing and a bit of an asshole.
He’s always been.
Carlos liked him that way. Because if Carlos stung he had to be stabbed back, or he wouldn’t have it. And Charles had always twisted the knife so good, smile full of dimples and shiny eyes, that Carlos might have felt enamored at some point.
Maybe Carlos had also needed better hobbies, something other than golfing with Zak Brown.
So he folds in the end, again, you win Charles, is that what you want to hear, Mr World Champion?
“Charles.”
The aforementioned looks up once again and stands up against Calcetines’ better judgement. He lightly dusts his knees and looks at Carlos again — like he’ll disappear if he averts his eyes for too long.
Carlos thinks he’s not the one to be known to do that.
They stare at each other long enough that the dog stomps his front paws and pulls at the collar that Carlos is still holding between two fingers.
“Can I come in?”
And Carlos stands up a bit straighter, the sun hits his forehead, and he frowns, because he hadn’t even thought about offering. That’s how strange it is that Charles is here. All the people that visit Carlos he can count on the fingers of one hand, and they all know where he stores the little spoons without even asking.
No one asks Carlos for permission to enter.
(He doesn’t think about the implications of that, because that’s one for another story.)
Charles is looking above Carlos’ shoulder, then back at his face, like if Carlos lets him he’s going to be privy to a secret of sorts. Charles looks like someone who would be addicted to HGTV.
“Of course.”
He doesn’t mean to make it sound like it’s a given, because it makes him sound weak, and that would mean Charles is the one with the upper hand again.
But, of course, Charles.
Charles imposes, Carlos leaves a space for him without even noticing.
He steps into the soft, light wooden floors in worn-out sneakers, and looks around with eager eyes looking like he’s discovering holy ground.
Sucks for him, really, because Carlos has a couple of Maison du Monde pieces of furniture, an open-concept kitchen with a tomato cut in half leaving a stain on his fancy cutting board and some type of art that’s much more expensive than the ones at Ikea but holds the same meaning to him, that he never really approved of, hanging on the walls.
He doesn’t even know what to do with the extra bedrooms he doesn’t sleep in.
Charles doesn’t need to know that, lips lifting into the crevices of his dimples — they’re deeper than they once were, but Carlos won’t comment on it. Either that, or they’ve made a permanent indentation into the milky skin. Carlos won’t comment on it.
“It’s very nice.”
The polite words, Carlos is sure, escape Charles’ mouth without an afterthought, because that’s who he is. He’s seen barely one room (two if they count the kitchen). His eyes stop at the tomato for a single second, then go back to Carlos.
Waiting for him to speak. Again.
“Thank you.”
Charles nods politely and balances himself on the balls of his feet, face unreadable. He looks out of place the way you wouldn’t put a Bernini sculpture in the middle of a prison. Calcetines leaves them, tail swishing around, absolutely ignorant to Carlos’ heart galloping like a horse in a way it hasn’t for years.
Then, the Monégasque sniffles a bit, brushes a finger against his nose, and looks again.
Carlos stands stock still, arms on each side of his body — the way that makes him look like an action figure, Lando says. Like Ben10, or whatever the fuck people who were born in 1999 watched.
Charles’ eyes wander for a second time, and Carlos knows what he’s looking for.
Everyone had expected Carlos to do something else when he retired, thirty-five, barely an adult, all the hunger he’d had (the one he’d talked about) still burning his insides. Maybe because his dad had been sixty and still doing, winning Dakars. And Fernando had raced, retired, raced, unretired, raced, retired, and raced some more. And Max Verstappen, who had been bored of the whole circus but lived and breathed cars and asphalt, had gone straight into endurance like a beast looking for new challenges. Hell, Romain had had an almost fatal accident and had jumped straight into a car like a minute later. Robert Kubica had gone back to F1 with half an arm. He’d won Le Mans, too.
But then, Carlos Sainz, thirty-five, barely an adult and not that hungry anymore, had retired and hadn’t gone into rallying, like everyone expected him to. He was healthy, he was young, he always talked about wanting to be World Champion so one would assume he was eager to get something, to an extent, and he was a clever guy. No one really retires from something like driving a Formula One car, that’s what everyone always says.
(The hunger, the hunger, the hunger. The one that he talked about, and talked and talked. The one that was really never there, never in his eyes, barely in his actions, not at all in his soft hands.)
But then, Carlos Sainz, thirty-five and barely an adult, had started living like one of those Germans who retire to the Costa Dorada; he’d gotten a condo, adopted a dog and cut tomatoes that he got from a very nice neighbor for breakfast.
And Carlos can see it in Charles’ eyes now, that he sort of pities him, because he looks around for two long minutes and his shoulders drop a fraction. Carlos notices, because he’s always considered himself an expert in all-things-Charles-Leclerc.
Carlos has always found it difficult to read Charles. He usually has this blank face on — and it’s beautiful, really, a thing of expertise that looks like it was designed in an atélier (save for the nose, because it’s waaaaaay too pointy and it gives him the aura of a Christmas elf, as Lando once put it) — something he has trained his features into, and something that Carlos cannot really digest. It’s a shame, that’s what he’s always thought.
It’s a shame, but Charles doesn’t look like that now. He looks — different, for lack of a better word.
Carlos hasn’t seen Charles like this, or in a while. It makes him swallow, against his better judgement, and he’s not sure he likes the taste.
The already-slanted eyebrows go up in the inner corners, down in the outer, and his shiny eyes resemble those of a fawn. It’s very subtle, but Carlos sees it. Pity and second-hand sadness. Poor Carlos.
Coincidentally, it’s at that moment that he realizes that, yeah, it’s mid September, which means Monza was like a week or two ago. Charles is here, for some reason, when he is supposed to be getting ready for Zandvoort or Hungary or Madrid or whatever they’ve done with the calendar nowadays — but Carlos’ house isn’t a super long drive away from Maranello either, so alas. Sort of checks out, he can breathe again. He’s old enough to escape Andrea’s claws now, but he wouldn’t probably catch a flight for this, miss training for this.
It’s difficult to remember what goes on anymore because Carlos didn’t watch the race. He doesn’t really care — he tells himself that, but the truth is that it hurts, kinda. Because he recognizes most names. Because he doesn’t recognize others. Because he’s raced alongside some of them, and some others he’ll never race with. Pepe has taken the role of the token Spaniard on the grid. He’s a good guy, a better driver than that. He smiles big from podiums, Carlos has seen in passing, dark skin and darker hair dressed in the blue-red-yellow colors that didn’t like Carlos that much. He looks like a taller mock-up design of the son of a Rally Champion. Carlos hopes no one has ever thought of it.
It sucks. DAZN called. He’d said no. So Carlos doesn’t watch the races, in general.
And as much as Charles’ eyes look for trophies around him, Singapore-Silverstone-Grill the Grid 2023-Etcetera, he won’t find them. It seems to upset him even more. And, yeah, he’s probably sad for Carlos. Something terrible must have happened, the poor thing. Good for nothing, always trying to match his footsteps while wearing his father’s too-big shoes. Retired with nothing to show to his name, not too different from Checo (who at some point had even been in Championship contention, tell that to everyone else), maybe a couple of pictures in the walls of Maranello of the guy with the big nose that was never supposed to be more than a second driver, oh.
Charles is probably sad for Carlos.
He doesn’t have the right, really. Carlos doesn’t have the fight in him. So he intends to ask.
“What—”
“I have stopped.”
The words leave Charles’ mouth, this time like a freight train going through a building. He misses the h in have, and Carlos, in all of his forty-year-old-glory, wants to coo.
He tilts his head, instead.
“I quit.” Charles goes again, full force on the throttle, and then swallows. Up-down-up. “Racing.”
Huh.
Carlos doesn’t know how to feel about that, so he doesn’t feel anything.
The Monégasque is never one to let bygones be bygones, however, so he opens his mouth again because he must think that Carlos hit his head too hard when he crashed into a wall in Canada, all those years ago, and he hasn’t understood what he means.
Maybe Charles never really learned how to let silences be silences.
“This is my last year.”
This time, it chokes Carlos up (he’s surprised it does, too), because Charles is speaking with that voice he used during engineer meetings (all confident, whether he knew what he was talking about or he was just spewing bullshit that Carlos could see through) — mostly because his hands come together, and the long fingers try to tear the skin around the bitten nails apart with shaky but practiced movements.
You know, Carlos does get the mouse allegations. Hindsight and all.
He takes a step back, recoiling like Charles has just punched him in the face, and the word that comes out of his mouth is stupid and confused.
“What?”
Charles breathes out of his nose, nostrils flaring like a bull’s for a second, then pants and blinks.
“Yeah.”
Carlos can see it, all in black over a red background, making it so bold and bright it almost hurts the eyes to try and read it: Charles Leclerc to retire after Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. All framing a picture of Charles wearing the infamous rosso corsa that had made Carlos’ heart throb, a dimpled smile without any teeth because it makes him look adorable and it’s easier, eyes not all the way there but who cares, and a thumbs up.
It was meant to happen at some point, right? It’s what happens with everyone. Max Verstappen retired a five-time World Champion because he “liked the odd number”, and it had also felt like the end of an era. But Max had been happy. Max had looked complete, not as tired, shoulders not as close to his ears.
Carlos often thinks that it was Jos’ hands not pushing down, down, down anymore. He’ll never ask. His own shoulders go up like mountains and create a valley around his neck, and he believes he’ll never know anything else.
Max had done what he had to do, and then more, and then he’d eloped to Brazil with his now-wife, a million cats and two kids that were his own versions of Disney princesses.
He was done with F1. Not racing as a whole — just with his own big, white whale. He’d given the all-demanding car whatever it had wanted and Max had taken whatever he had needed. The whale had been killed all those years ago. Carlos could see it in the wrinkles that framed his eyes, the ones that were there from laughing too much.
The thing is to say, Charles doesn’t look happy.
It’s something else than the sadness for Carlos, who has brushed that part of himself aside. It’s worse than the time he’d lost the 2022 Championship — the time he’d lost the 2025 one on month two. Carlos thinks it’s too much brain power to try to figure Charles out, because all the times he used to try he ended up worse for wear.
Charles, now looking small and rumpled, fidgets with one of his rings, so Carlos waits for him to speak.
He says it for a third time, picking his words carefully.
“I retired.”
It seems to do the trick this time. They’re both silent, oh, and even Calcetines has stopped making noise in another room. Charles stops fidgeting too, stock still like an action figure himself, and Carlos forgets to blink for a measly half-a-minute. The tips of his fingers feel like they have ants walking on them, so he presses on each fingertip with his thumb and tries to kill them, kill them.
His ex-teammate’s ears are further away from his shoulders than they were before.
Charles doesn’t look happy, but he doesn’t look that far from relieved, either.
(Maybe that’s what’s making him unhappy, Carlos reckons. Formula One is a tricky thing. Alas, so is falling in love with your teammate at a team that you were just warming the seat in.
What a looooooser.)
“You retired.”
Charles nods and swallows, up-down-up, but this time it’s an ugly thing like he’s going to start crying.
“I did.” He takes a deep breath, and maybe smells the tomato Carlos was cutting and anti-hairloss shampoo. “I told them — I said it before Monza.”
Oh, Jesus Christ. They announced it after Monza, then. Carlos wonders if Charles won. If he got a 1-2 with Ollie, if either of them had gotten pole that weekend. Then he hears the roar of the crowd chanting his name like a deafening sound in his eardrum, louder than the Dutch anthem — it hurts, and he doesn’t wonder anymore.
Carlos doesn’t know if he should ask Charles how he’s feeling. If he needs to talk— you know I’m here for you, right?
Sounds stupid for someone who had gotten an Instagram post ten years ago, “It’s been a pleasure, mate. Good luck ❤️”.
Even more stupid for someone who had gotten something even shorter, sadder, more devoid of sentiment, five years ago. “We’ll miss you, Chili”. He probably hadn’t typed it himself, the whole four words — someone from PR had issued a post because Carlos Sainz, ex-Ferrari failure and teammate, had announced he was retiring.
It had been accompanied by a picture of the two of them walking to a debrief or to record a challenge or something, many years ago, tinted slightly blue-ish like they used to edit their pictures. Carlos laughed and talked and moved one of his hands, trying to get Charles’ attention (how come?), and Charles was looking right at the camera with a slight smile that made him look pretty. He was aware that they were taking the picture. Carlos wasn’t. It looked impersonal. And Carlos didn’t even look good in the picture. It was a bit pixelated, if you really looked at it. Carlos had. Then, he’d closed the app, and had swallowed a nest of wasps down to try and get the ugly feeling out of his body.
He hadn’t driven for Ferrari in a while when it was posted. It was weird, seeing himself in red, like a nightmare come to life. Lando had said it’d made him cocky, and that dark blue humbled him down again. Lando was jealous. And Lando wears dark blue now, too, in the most non-humble way — a different shade from Carlos’, red and yellow overpowering it as well. So he should shut up.
Lando wears dark blue with tall pseudo-Carlos with a better accent and he wonders if it makes his stomach twist, too.
But anyways, the picture had come after a long line of awkwardness. Some would even call it indifference. They supposedly didn’t have the best relationship at the end of their stint, Carlos and Charles, according to whoever. A series of unfortunate comments here and there, some mean words said over the radio, avoiding congratulating one another for podiums, you name it.
(But of course Carlos had been the one who had asked about it. Of course, Carlos, whose fingertips yearned to touch the unreachable, the golden and red that was Charles, had to respond for the both of them.
I would’ve been teammates forever.
Then, Charles — the same Charles that had said all those things over the radio that people asked Carlos about, the Charles that still had to record PR videos with Carlos — had smiled at him at the motorhome in Abu Dhabi. He’d walked right past, brushed his shoulder against Carlos’ like a reluctantly affectionate cat would.
Carlos, who was stupid, had stood there like an idiot until his coffee had turned to ice and he’d had to dump it down the drain.)
The ghost of a hand on Carlos’ back, that’s all it was, in the end. The way Charles had grabbed at the back of his race suit in Abu Dhabi, in that last podium together — Carlos had hated every ounce of fabric between them, or the thickness of it, because he’d barely felt it. He’d seen it later, on Instagram, everywhere, Charles’ knuckles going white, and he’d wished that had been his skin he was leaving dents on.
Carlos, nonetheless, looks at Charles like he’s seeing a wounded animal in front of him right now. Charles lets it slip, the vulnerability, like he’s opened a jar that he’s been storing for years and years and years, and he actually seems distressed.
He sounds like he hadn’t said the harsh words out loud until the very moment. I retired. Carlos knows the feelings. He hates that he does — that he’s the one expected to.
“I didn’t know what to do,” He continues, still out of breath — had the man ran all the way from Maranello? “It was hard.”
Why did you do it, then? Carlos has to swallow the bile down again. Up-down-up. Why didn’t you stay with them, Mr World Champion?
Charles goes on and on and on. Nevermind letting a silence being a silence. “Lando gave me your address.”
The conniving bastard. You’d think he’d send Carlos a text. Hey, Charles Leclerc asked me for your address. Remember the guy? The one in red that made you insufferable. That dude. Anyway, I just gave it to him. Tooddles!
Carlos doesn’t respond, because he doesn’t know how to. He has nothing to do with Charles. He was two Instagram posts and zero contact.
Charles hasn’t been anywhere in his life in… ages. The people who really know him know where he stores his little spoons.
They would also use one to stab him in the eye, apparently.
He must look confused (his mouth is starting to get dry from how it hangs open, and maybe he’s frowning at this point), so Charles continues.
“I didn’t know who to talk to about this. And then I thought of you.”
He stomps over Carlos’ heart’s remains like nobody’s business.
Carlos thinks he hears himself humming.
“Does it stop?”
Carlos wants to ask what, genuinely.
If he means the pain, it doesn’t.
If he means the anger, well, it’s not supposed to, is it?
If he means the ugly feeling at the base of his stomach, well, Carlos would be none the wiser. He feels like something that wasn’t entirely Formula One or the lack of it had taken a seat there, so many years ago in Australia, and it just wouldn’t leave.
Charles still looks like a pitiful creature, lines etched a bit deeper into his features, and Carlos still wants to keep him.
Carlos lies. “Yes.” He clears his throat, and changes his weigh from one foot to another. “With time.”
His former teammate nods, not looking convinced at all, and looks around. His hands go to his hips as if he was waiting around in the media pen for his turn on the mic. Carlos has seen it once too many times. The light colors of his clothes and the faded fabric of his jeans doesn’t stand out in his house, he supposes — all warm-toned wood and greens.
The air is starting to smell like something close to rotten tomato.
“Were you in Maranello?” One action figure asks the other, because Carlos truly doesn’t know how to go around this.
Having conversations with him was easy, a long time ago. How was your weekend? Any plans with your girlfriend? What about the dog, any new pictures? I went cycling. Oh, with Teto and Guzmán. Yeah, you should definitely try it. Wanna race?
They haven’t been around each other for too long, as it stands. Carlos doesn’t even know what Arthur is doing these days. He doesn’t know who Charles is dating at the moment. Lando would say he must have already ran out of brunette girls in Monaco, then look mischievously at Carlos until he let out a forced chuckle.
“No.” Charles brings his stance to his other leg, then rubs a bit at the unruly beard at the sides of his lips. The parts that would leave his skin all irritated every time he shaved them. Carlos wondered if he’d grown out of that. “Well, yes. Close.” He clears his throat, fleety eyes looking somewhere behind Carlos, then back on his. “I was in the area.”
Carlos moves his head and purses his lips, even though he doesn’t really get it. Maybe he should tell Charles the trophies and pictures he’s looking for are at his parents’ house, back in Madrid, in a room he doesn’t sleep in anymore — he makes sure to book a hotel and blames it on comfort and convenience.
The truth is it makes for a quick escape, and he doesn’t have to look at pre-pubescent, acne-ridden Carlos and Max (World Champion), the big smiles and his arm around the neck of a semi-reluctant Lando (World Champion) and his own hand grabbing chunks of the red race suit of Charles (World Champion). The truth is that way he doesn’t have to keep waking up because the lights of a car passing by the highway reflect on the big, shiny plate that was the Australian trophy, and he refuses to leave the blinds down.
There’s a faint pitter-patter from Calcetines’ nails hitting the hardwood floors somewhere else in a room at the back of the hallway. A car — old-sounding, probably from the mid-90s. It reminded Carlos of a Seat Panda — drives past the house.
Carlos makes a gesture towards the coffee machine that rests on top of the counter. He doesn’t look away from Charles, his eyes fleeting over his figure haphazardly.
“Do you want a—“
“I’m not here for that.”
That’s Charles for you; always mysterious, always imposing, and always a bit of an asshole. The green eyes blink twice, and Carlos wishes he could hear the sound of the blondish eyelashes cutting into the air.
“No?” Carlos asks, albeit a bit stupidly. At least his voice doesn’t break. At least his hands don’t shake.
The worst part — the part he hates the most — is that heart is going fast.
Hello, mate, the water ebbing and flowing without any real waves, deep green and an annoying laughter, pale skin on dark, someone else’s eyes always adding a kilo or two to shoulders, inner jokes, constant seeking like the fake ebb and flow, pent-up anger, misplaced affection and matching colors.
One post, two posts, stolen glances over red shoulders, some comments to the press, the sight of dimples and grandeur on a big screen on the way to the wrongly-colored motorhome, a smile here and there without any teeth, running to the door and ringing the doorbell.
“No.”
Carlos swallows. It hurts like sandpaper on flesh.
Charles continues. “But you know that.” He mimics the movement of Carlos’ throat, up-down-up, and from the way he’s been panting it’s only fair that it hurts him as well. Carlos hopes it does. “Carlos. You know that.”
And it’s always been Cahlos so this time it’s not any different — the word leaves Charles’ mouth and he has an accent now, or less of an accent, maybe, but it comes out just the same as it did when Carlos’ hair wasn’t graying and he didn’t slice tomatoes on Sundays.
It doesn’t mean anything that would have his fingers tremble quietly, and yet.
Charles always makes things sound so easy — ridiculous, even. He used to do the same thing with the car when they were teammates. He’d tilt his head a bit and blink slowly, like a cat, and make non-committal sounds when Carlos would complain it was too oversteery, or that his front right tyre was degrading way more than the other three. He’d stare at Carlos for a bit too long, maybe wondering if too much exposure to the sun and gazpacho could kill your brain cells.
He’s staring at him the same way, all these years later.
Carlos Sainz stands there, forty-years-old, definitely an adult and on both sides of the arrow.
“I don’t.”
He doesn’t mean for it to come out angry— or offended, really, but he feels like he must be frowning. He licks his own chapped lips, contrarian.
“Ah,” Charles says, in the same way he always did when he figured out the most stupid thing during a challenge. Ah, in a big comical sound, mouth opening like a cartoon drawing and making the dimples momentarily appear.
Then, Charles takes one step. Then, another. His old Converse are probably leaving muddly streaks on the floor. Carlos doesn’t care.
And then, Charles’ lips are on Carlos’, and he doesn’t know when he closed his eyes, but he’s seeing red.
(He’s never been kissed by Charles Leclerc. It’s been a long while since he’s been kissed at all. It wouldn’t matter, because it’s never felt like this.)
Carlos realizes he’s been standing there for a while, seeing red and with tingling everything, when there’s something he recognizes as calloused fingertips (because he can tell them from his own, which have turned softer over time; not as exposed to extreme temperatures or the rough material of anything else than gardening gloves) grazing his jawline.
When he opens his eyes, he sees white spots the same way he used to do coming out of the tunnel in Monaco.
Then, Charles, way closer than he’s ever seen him. There are lines at the corners of his pretty eyes and his cheeks are a bit sunken in, but they always used to be. He has freckles scattered all over his pointy elf-like nose, and Carlos wonders if some of them will still be there come winter — actual sun spots from not putting on sunscreen on his morning runs along the Monaco bay. His beard still grows in the same uneven pattern. Carlos had just felt it against his chin.
“Hey.” Charles’ voice comes out gentle. It’s a tone he doesn’t think he’s heard him use often. It makes him feel a little bit giddy. “I missed you.”
Carlos lets a million complains die on the tip of his tongue. They all sound vaguely of you could have called, or Lando has had my phone number all this time, or why do you still make me feel the same way I felt the first time I drove the SF21 or when I met you or when you found me in a pool in Singapore. He doesn’t think Charles would have the answer to even half of them but he would pretend he does. He would’ve cocked his hip like he did in the media pen and giggled a little — or maybe he would’ve scratched at the five o’clock shadow on his cheek, vague French-sounding noises filling the silence — unknowing of Carlos cutting up tomatoes on Sundays and turning off the TV at the right times and walking around with a gaping hole in his chest for years.
He doesn’t allow the feeling to eat at him. Charles still has his rough fingers on his jaw, the pretty eyes are finally on his and the hot pants that the Mónegasque is letting out are hitting his lips. Carlos hums a little and Charles eyes flee to his throat for the smallest fraction of a second.
So he kisses Charles, because apparently he’s allowed to.
Some time later, the loud generic iPhone song will make them separate. Charles will jump and bite Carlos’ lip, and he will mask a giggle with a groan and take his hands from under his ex-teammate’s soft polo so he can answer the phone with an apologetic smile and ruddy cheeks.
Charles Leclerc will have a conversation in rapid-fire Italian with Antonio Coletta, and he won’t look away from Carlos Sainz during the two minutes and forty-two seconds the call lasts. Carlos Sainz will wipe his sweaty hands on his striped pijama pants and Calcetines will bark.
Later, Charles will announce between pecks that he actually needs to leave to Maranello and Carlos will make him admit that he wasn’t around the area, and they will laugh about it like teenagers.
Charles will try to make his own hair look nice again before leaving, and then he will turn and for the first time in years, or the first time Carlos has seen him, he will seem hesitant.
“Will you come to Madrid?”
Carlos will think about the hotel room; about his old room, with all the pictures and the trophies that don’t let him sleep. But maybe the pictures will make Charles laugh. But maybe the trophies will make them remember stupid stories from back in the day.
“I will think about it.”
And they will kiss again, because there are many things they haven’t said yet, but for now they have this, until Charles is finally walking reluctantly to the heavy door.
“Hey. I’ll come back in December.” He won’t ask, because then again he never has. But then, he will slide the worn-out sole of his forest green Converse against the floor in a smooth movement that won’t look like anything to someone who hasn’t been observing Charles Leclerc for the past twenty years. “Yeah?”
In December. When the season is over, is what he’ll mean. After Abu Dhabi, give or take, podiums or wins or not. Carlos doesn’t even know how Charles is doing — how high up he is in the Championship. If he’s a contender to win his second title. If he’s already won it. He won’t ask — not now, at least.
“Of course. I will wait.”
Of course, Charles.
Charles will walk to his car, a shiny black LaFerrari that looks absolutely out of place in the quaint neighborhood. Before taking a seat on the low car, something that would definitely make Carlos’ knees hurt, he’ll turn for a second.
“Oh, and— sorry it took me so long.”
That night, the house will still smell like on-the-way-to-rotting-tomato and Carlos will get a text from Lando. It will say, hey sharl lecllelrrr asked me 4 ur address. whats up w that lol. Carlos will snort so hard it will wake up the dog, and it’ll take them a while to fall asleep again.