Matt nods in reply, but he’s not exactly sure where Lucas is. “When does it stop burning?”
“A couple of days, max.”
After a whirlwind of press and media duties, Matt hauls the champagne bottle back to the garage nearly full. Drunk on the excitement of the day, he encourages absolutely everyone to take a drink from it.
Robert winks before he upends the bottle and leans back with it. His throat works to gulp the bubbling liquid, every pull another bobbing motion.
Matt’s mouth hangs open as his eyes trace a rogue drop trailing from the slicked mouth down his neck.
Robert gasps when he launches himself back upright. “Fuck, itburns.”
Champagne bubbles have nothing on the fire sparking in Matt’s stomach, threatening to claw its way out.
No. Stop. They’re just friends.
“Picture time!”
The team gathers around outside, but Matt pauses when he walks past the sign. “Why is Robert not on this?”
“Robert didn’t podium.” Sylvain appears from behind him and lays heavy claw-like hands on Matt’s shoulders. “This is a big day for Andes.”
That’s not a good enough answer. Matt ducks his shoulders, maneuvering himself out of Sylvain’s grasp, and waves to his mechanics. “Hey guys? Can we get Robert on here?”
“It’s just sixth,” Robert says, knocking into his side.
“You wanna take eight tequila shots and run that by me again?” Matt relaxes when the sign is picked up and takensomewhere to be modified. “Sixth is better than we've done for the whole rest of the season.”
“It’s not a podium.”
“Maybe not, but I wouldn’t have a podium either, if it wasn’t for you.”
Robert scoffs with disbelief. “It really wasn’t that big of a tow.”
“Not the tow.” The sign returns and Matt nods his approval. “If you fought me instead of steppin’ aside, I would’a been a lot more than five seconds behind Santiago.”
“Oh.” Robert blinks a couple of times. “Wow. Yeah, probably. Geeze.”
“So you gotta be on the board.” Matt shoulders him back a little rougher than he intended to. “Cause they wouldn’t let me bring you up on the stage. Look at us, being good teammates.”
“Who’da thunk it?”
They join the crew, both drivers bookending the board. Matt's gaze wanders over to the other side, but every time he looks, Robert is already staring back.
There are more purple-vested photographers gathered for the picture than anyone on Andes is used to. So many that Matt doesn’t know where to look.
For a moment, it almost feels like they’re on a real Formation 1 team. A team people care enough about to photograph.
They smile, smile, pose, smile. Then Matt’s hit in the face with champagne again.
Laurent
I’m just saying, you should've invited me
It was a team dinner
At least tell me it sucked
It sucked
