Chapter Text
Steve made his public debut completely and totally out of the wheelchair in Barcelona a few weeks later, during Winter Testing. He had the cane from Max in hand and had kept his head held high, because even if he wasn’t on the grid this season as a racer, he’d be damned if anyone tried to pity him for it. Plus, Dmitri had unilaterally decided that he’d be keeping him company on the pit wall at whatever races he’d be attending, and Yuri kept asking if he wanted to be Max’s race engineer every once in a while too, give him a break. He never quite sounded like he was joking.
He’d gone back to England at the beginning of February, had hung out with Yuri, Erica, and the engineers down in the garages and labs in between letting Max spin him around the private track nearby in a series of random vehicles. She drove each and every one of them like an absolute lunatic, and Steve just laughed along from the passenger seat. She even got him to take her around once, slower than he’d ever driven before, but his hands steady on the wheel, Max’s gaze warm on the side of his face.
The girls had overrun the townhouse while he was recuperating in Los Angeles but he really only ended up there late at night anyway, just to sleep. He’d spent most evenings at the offices as they reviewed numbers and talked tires, the DRS, new systems, with late night orders from the take away shops sustaining them; or occasionally at Dmitri and Zofia’s dining table, sitting across from Mikhail and making faces at him while his parents rolled their eyes.
One night, after Mikhail had run off to fire up his Nintendo Switch after asking Steve to play some game with him, one that, since it wasn’t MarioKart, the six year old would wipe the floor with him on. He’d said, “I’ll be there in a minute, bud, I just want to talk to your parents for a second.”
Zofia and Dmitri, who’d been about to start clearing the table of their dishes, had exchanged a look.
“If you’re about to try to retire,” Dmitri had said, “I’m not going to accept it. You are young, and your back is healing — all the doctors tell me you’re exceeding all expectations —”
“No,” he’d said. “No, I’m getting back on the grid next season, man, I’m not giving up.”
“Okay?”
“I just. Um.” Steve had drummed his fingers against the table. “I mean, you might want me to after this. But — I wanted to tell you guys something. About me.”
He’d stalled out briefly; Zofia had nodded encouragingly at him.
“I’m gay,” he’d said. It was the fifth time he’d said it aloud to another human. He’d told Robin, years ago, and he’d never had to tell Nancy because he’d told Robin to tell her. He’d told Hopper and Joyce over FaceTime two days after Disney, before sitting El and Will down to tell them (at least, to tell Will officially, after he correctly inferred back when he was a teenager with a broken heart Steve was trying to mend) a few days after that. Number four had been Jonathan, Argyle, and Naomi the day before he’d left for England; he’d tell all the boys after he told Erica and Max, he figured, because Mike and Dustin couldn’t keep a secret worth their fucking lives and if Lucas found out before the girls he’d be murdered, which he figured Lucas would understand. It was getting easier and easier with each passing person, the words less stuck within his throat, though his hands still shook.
Dmitri had cocked his head to the side. “And?”
“Dorogoy,” Zofia had admonished, slapping her husband in a spectacularly ungentle fashion on the bicep. She’d turned a warm smile on Steve and said, “Steve, moy mishka, thank you for telling us. I know how difficult this must be.”
“How long?” Dmitri had asked and had caught another slap.
Steve had just rolled his eyes, and said, somewhat haltingly, “My whole life. I just — the accident — life’s too short, you know? It made me think — it made me realize I was ready for people to know, the people I care about. My family, I mean.”
“Of course,” Zofia’d said. “Well. I just want you to know, I think you’re very brave, and we’re proud of you. Aren’t we?”
Her husband had grunted, and then he’d done a shot of the vodka that was ever present on the table at dinner, then a second. He had looked thoughtful, his pale eyes tracking over Steve’s face. He’d asked, “The long haired kid, the theatrical one — he’s your boyfriend then?”
“No. No boyfriend,” he’d said. “Maybe one day — but not now. Eddie — no boyfriend.”
“Okay.” He’d watched him a moment longer, something heavy in his gaze now, and then stood and finally began clearing their plates. “Because he was kind of scruffy, no? And I think you could do better.”
“More like he could do better than me,” he’d told him.
Dmitri had grunted again, dismissive. It was no wonder he and Hopper had become such fast friends when Steve signed with Mercedes, he thought wryly. Once their loyalty was had, Dmitri and Hopper would go to war for you, no matter how small the battle. He’d said, “You’re a world famous athlete. No one can do better than you. What is it the kids say? He’d be punching up.”
Zofia had pulled the vodka bottle to herself and done her own shot now, rolling her own eyes at Dmitri’s retreating back and saying, “I thought he was handsome. Sweet. He looked at Steve like he was something wonderful at that dinner whenever he thought no one was looking, and I think that counts for quite a lot.”
“He did?”
“Mmm.”
Then, Mikhail had hollered for him and Steve had excused himself to the family room for the game, Zofia’s knowing eyes watching him all the while.
A few days later, the whole Mercedes team packed up for Spain. Max had been officially elevated to the junior seat at the close of last season, when it became apparent Steve still needed more time — there was, however, a sort of unspoken agreement that the minute Steve got medically cleared to race again, he would be returned to his place in the cockpit. He held the private suspicion that, whenever that news came down the pipeline, it would be the news Järvinen was looking for to finally announce his retirement plans, the legacy of the team he’d grown up with secure in the hands of Max and Steve.
Erica hadn’t been elevated alongside Max, which was unsurprising. She was a genius but still young, and having one groundbreaking hire for the new seasons was already difficult for ownership to wrap their minds around. Still, it wouldn’t be long before she bullied her way there, and Dmitri and Yuri had fought for a place for her at the big kids table this season, even if it wasn’t the role she was hungry for. Next year, he thought, that would be her season — maybe it would be the season for both his girls, and him too.
He was so fucking proud of them, either way.
As pre-season testing got underway, between sitting with Dmitri, Yuri, and Alexei on the Mercedes pit wall as Max and Järvinen tore around the circuit that first weekend, he went sight-seeing when he could with Max and Erica, taking little Mikhail with them sometimes too to give his parents and nannies a break. He cooked dinner for them in their bed-stay and he waited for the right moment to tell them. He shot the shit with the engineers and team as well, visited with the other drivers on the grid, had drinks and dinner with them, and wondered what it would be like to tell them too.
After he worked up the courage to tell the girls, they would be next. How would he like to do it? Would he crash a meeting with the drivers as they talked endless shit about the Pirelli tires, and casually announce that he was gay during a lull in conversation? Or would it be better to pull them aside one by one, allow each of them to react in private, ask him whatever questions they had? Should he just do the big coming out story Zofia’d been hinting at since that dinner in England, and let them all read it in their own time, wash his hands of the whole fucking thing?
Requests for interviews had been pouring in since the American Grand Prix, he knew. They had been for quite a while, since the accident, and they’d been putting off each and every one of them (except the contractually obligated Drive To Survive spot that had been mostly painless, if only because they’d let him put it off until January in England, the last thing of the season to be shot, and Zofia and Dmitri had stood off to one side of the room the whole time, eyes like hawks).
But now that he was up and walking — now that his recovery and return to the cockpit was no longer a question of if but when and how — now that he was doing better both physically and mentally — maybe now it was time for him to sit down with someone. Time for him to truly discuss the accident, to discuss the healing journey he’d been on, and the future that was stretching out before him.
And, of course: the other thing.
She’d never brought it up to him directly, just the occasional allusion when she was mentioning the requests, an aside about this magazine or that outlet being an appropriate venue for that story when the time came; and he surprised them both the night before they departed for pre-season testing by asking, “Who would you pick?”
They’d both been killing time in Dmitri’s office before a final team dinner and Zofia had been sitting at her husband's desk, fit kicked up as she ruthlessly dominated someone over with McLaren at Words With Friends.
“Hmm?”
“Who’d you pick,” he’d said, “if I told you I wanted to come out?”
Zofia had looked up at him from beneath her eyebrows for a long moment and then put her phone, face down, onto the desk. “Someone serious. Not that Sky or ESPN, SI — not that they aren’t serious — but a story like this, with someone like you. It should be a bigger outlet. One people take very, very seriously. With the kind of integrity that would protect you all the way until print, not leak it, I mean. Again, I’m not saying that someone at SI would. But if we are going to do this right, if you are going to make this kind of history, I’d want a magazine like that.”
“Magazine?” he’d asked. “Not a sit down?”
“Slightly easier to control,” she’d said. “I could be next to you the whole time — I would be next to you the whole time, that would be non-negotiable. And we’d get to look at all the drafts, help craft the story. There are too many variables, in my opinion, for live TV, for something like this. Unless you wanted to do Oprah. I think you’d be very charming on Oprah.”
“Maybe later,” Steve had said. “I could do a magazine. I want to do a magazine.”
“All of it?” Zofia had asked.
“All of it,” he’d told her.
She had smiled warmly at him. “Then we’ll do all of it. I’ll make some calls.”
Now, on the Friday morning of testing, as they moved around each other in companionable silence in the bed-stay before heading to the track, Zofia slid into a seat at the breakfast table between Max and Erica and began to pour herself a glass of orange juice. She snagged a slice of toast from the big plate that Steve had readied for them after he woke up and she announced, “Vanity Fair’s sending a writer and a photographer next weekend. You’ll be the May cover — so, by Portugal, everyone will know. They’re gonna bump some ingenue with a new movie to the June edition. I’ve read stuff by the writer: they’re good. They don’t know exactly what they’re getting, but I hinted with my friend who is friends with a managing editor over there, so they know it’s something that we want handled respectfully and gracefully, and they’re smart — pretty sure they’re putting the pieces together as we speak, hence the unusual rush to get an interview booked and pictures taken, I think.”
Max frowned. Erica didn’t look up from slathering a truly wild amount of Bon Maman on her toast, asking, “Rush? Everyone will know what?”
“Vanity Fair?” asked Max. “Steve, you finally doing a big piece about your recovery?”
Their tiny race engineer scoffed around a mouthful of toast and jam. “Why would that be huge news? Get back to me when he’s in the cockpit again and winning shit.”
“First of all, Sinclair, ouch,” he said. “Second of all, no, it’s — it’s something else. Something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while.”
They both shot him the hairy eyeball. In the middle of them, Zofia smirked and sipped her orange juice. Max said, “Elaborate.”
“Well.” He looked back and forth between his girls, took a breath, and thought, Number six. He said, “I’m gay.”
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: three days out
Steve,
It’s Tuesday, 11.15 pm on the East Coast, and the May issue of Vanity Fair goes to print Friday. Subscribers will begin to get their copies early next week, and newsstands and the digital version will go live on Friday May 1st. And below is the final, final, final draft of the article, the cover story — your story. There might be a few changes, obviously, when they drop it into the layout, but just superficial: pictures, block quotes. But this is it, man.
I know we’ve talked since that weekend in Barcelona. About this, other shit. But I just wanted to say again, here, for the final time, between the two of us: thank you. I know I wasn’t hand-picked for this assignment, by you or your team or by any goddamn one. I got it by the luck of the draw, because your PR team knew someone who knew someone at VF and she thought I’d be a good fit, back when we thought we were just getting Steve Harrington’s healing journey. We got so much more than that.
And I’m so grateful for that — and that you’ve allowed me to tell that journey, and the other side of it. I know how difficult that decision is; I know how big that decision is; especially for someone like you, in a field like yours. It’s huge. It must’ve been so scary, for so long, and I just want you to know that, no matter what happens, I’ve got your back.
I’ve got your back, and every single person on my team has your back. Every single person on your team has your back. And there are going to be so many people who you’ve never met that have your back Monday morning, after, no matter what anyone else is saying. There are going to be so many fucking people in your corner.
You’re so brave. You’re so fucking brave.
Thank you. Thank you for this: for yourself, for me, for the people before us and the people that will come after us. You are changing the face of the sport’s world. You’re a hero. And I hope this article did you justice. I hope my words do you justice.
Let me know what you think.
All my love,
b.n.
Belinda Ng
Vanity Fair
Contributing Editor
She/They
Features
BEYOND THE FINISH LINE.
JUNE 2020 | BELINDA NG
Photographs by BELL HARPERIt’s a beautiful day in Barcelona, and Steve Harrington is leaning over the cockpit of his signature Mercedes, checking Max Mayfield’s harness one last time before she takes it for a spin around the testing track. This is the first time in eleven years that Harrington isn’t the one behind the wheel for F1’s pre-season testing, and it’s almost impossible not to try to study his face, looking for any sign of how he feels about that.
When I got the call to come this weekend, to the final round of testing before the 2020 Formula One season begins, I’d never even really heard of the sport. Oh, I’d known it existed , knew it was big in Europe — but I’ve never been a car person, you know? I like basketball when the Nets are winning and getting drunk at baseball parks with my friends, and that’s pretty much the extent of my forays into athleticism.
I’d known of Harrington, too. Last summer, his name became abruptly hard to avoid: quite literally, his was the car accident that rubbernecked the world, and for days, weeks after the crash at Silverstone, it was all most people could talk about, even the sports uninclined. Just shy of his twenty-eighth birthday, after over a decade as the darling of F1 and motorsports, Harrington’s career suddenly hung in the balance when his car flipped three and a half times while going at nearly 300 km/h and he was taken from the circuit on a stretcher. A few short days later, his private medical information was leaked. His back had been broken in the crash, and no one knew if he would ever walk again, let alone race.
Seven months, nearly to the day, Harrington stands back from the Mercedes and leans his weight jauntily onto his cane, slapping the top of Mayfield’s helmet. She flips him off; he laughs. Then he makes his way back to me in the paddock.
Harrington’s objectively, tremendously handsome — movie star handsome, in fact. His dark hair is always perfectly windswept, even as he’s coming out of the cockpit after a race when by all rights he should be a sweaty mess (believe me, I’ve checked the tapes), and he’s got a sweet, boyish smile under a smattering of freckles and moles. He even manages to pull off the polyester Mercedes polo that he’s donned to fit in amongst his operational brethren today. It’s no surprise: his childhood, and current, best friend is the face of Calvin Klein, and he could very easily be on the billboard’s alongside her if he so chose.
Instead, he’s here, among the heat and gasoline of a Formula One garage, looking perfectly at home.
Steve Harrington began racing at ten, in Italy — go-karts, to be precise — but the moment the request for this interview crossed my desk, I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to discuss with him. It wasn’t what he wanted to discuss with me either, but that I didn’t know until later, even if my gut instinct and his desires lined up perfectly in the end.
His childhood beginnings in Italy as he caught the eye of the Ferrari racing team and his subsequent rise through the world of karting to F2 before it was suddenly paused by the tragic boating death of his parents — all of that has been covered before, dissected and explored. And I wasn’t here to talk shop with him — though of course I did, because Harrington’s obvious joy in watching his young protege break F1’s glass ceiling, and in just watching and experiencing racing in general, is beautiful to behold. That is equal parts mesmerizing and charming, a certain sweetness to it — his pride, his care, his obvious love.
But there was something else here, something in the darkness of what had happened to Harrington that day in England. There was something he had emerged from, like a butterfly in a chrysalis, and even beneath that — there was, is, something with Harrington, and I could feel it even back in New York City when I was doing my first Google search of F1’s two-time champ.
Watching him, listening to him talk to engineers and the team, to his former racing partner, to Mayfield — observing the man in his natural habitat, I know there’s something there. And when he looks at me before he starts trying to explain the difference between hard, medium, and soft tires, I know he knows I do.
We grab dinner, just the two of us, not far from the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. It’s a tiny hole in the wall kind of place, and comes recommended from Harrington’s oldest racing partner, back when he raced F2 as a teenager, with Prema. It’s practically just myself, Harrington, our server, and the grandmother running the kitchen with an iron fist, and I get the impression that this was the point: a certain level of complete and total privacy, with the added veil of a language barrier.
He hooks his cane over the back of his chair with practiced ease and, before we even order says, “Well, we might as well get this over with.”
This?
“This,” Harrington repeats. He leans his chin on his palm, watches me with narrowed, dark eyes. The full force of his attention is intense, to say the least. It’s not hard to imagine this man behind the wheel of a car going over one-fifty miles an hour. “Whatever it is you want to ask, I’m an open book.”
But are you?
“For once,” he says, a hint of laughter in his voice. “Just this once, I’m going to be.”
The server arrives to take our order, which Harrington does in flawless Spanish for the both of us. Usually, when a man tries to order for me, it’s disingenuous, a front, and there is a moment where I begin to resent the presumption of the man across the table but — as I’m beginning to realize — the boyish, effortless charm of Harrington smooths over the spikes in my own nature.
As with the cane, as with his smile, there is something practiced to it but nervous, anxious. Another layer for me to unpeel, I think, another angle to explore. What is happening here? I’m dying to know.
So tell me about the accident, I say, after our server steps away to the kitchen.
“I don’t remember much,” he tells me.”The doctors all told me that was a good thing, you know? Because I’d never have to remember the pain, and apparently I would’ve been in a lot of pain. I was, you know, when I woke up, anyway. But I remember getting ready that day, and I remember the beginning of the race — it just cuts out at some point, in my memory, so what I do know of the accident itself — it’s like it happened to someone else, I guess. That’s what I tell people, anyway.”
Have you seen it?
“Of course. I had to,” Harrington says. “When I woke up, and couldn’t feel my legs — when they told me I might walk again — and listen, it was always a might, it was never a you will, just give it time — my whole life was over. I had to know how it happened. My car flipped three and a half times, and I was pulled out before it fireballed, and there I was, back-braced and stretchered, everything I’d ever worked for in pieces on the track at Silverstone.”
Now?
“What do you mean?”
Now that it’s not over, I say. Your career. Your life.
“I don’t know if I would say that.” He leans back in his chair, and the shadows of the restaurant obscure his face very briefly. “This interview could change that.”
I stare at him. He stares back.
“Ask me about my recovery,” he says.
I’m getting the feeling, I tell him slowly, that you and I have two very different agendas for this interview.
“I don’t think so.” Harrington offers me that sweet little smile of his. “I think maybe I just want to rip the band-aid off more than you. I’ve been waiting a long time, and I’m finally ready.”
Oh, I think. There it is. I see you, Steve Harrington.
“Ask me about my recovery,” he says again.
What if I ask you how long you’ve known you were gay?
He smiles again. It’s shaky, but it looks like relief too, and I’ve never wanted to take an interviewee into my arms as much as I do Harrington, hold him close and thank him for the privilege of this moment, tell him it’s going to be okay.
Our food arrives then and, around mouthfuls of vegetable paella and good wine, he tells me his story. He was seventeen, he says, when he realized, but he imagines he’d known before then, because that was usually the way of these things, right? But seventeen was when he knew without a doubt, and he was twenty-three before he told another person — his best friend, Robin, the model; she’d come out to him years before, he says, and was the launch pad for his own journey of discovery. He says his step-brother probably guessed a few years before that, based on a conversation they’d had, and he suspects his adopted father and step-mother also knew before he’d told them, among a few others; but the next time, he says, he told another person out loud, completely, was in January.
“The accident — my back, my recovery,” he says, “it put a lot into perspective for me. Forced, I should maybe say. Because it’s one thing, you know, to have made a choice when you’re a teenager to hide a part of yourself so you can be something else — and that’s what I did, you know, I decided that I couldn’t be gay and an F1 racer, so I’d just be a F1 racer and table the other thing until I retired. But then it wasn’t retirement I was staring down the barrel of, you know? It wasn’t a thing I chose anymore. It was a thing that happened to me. And suddenly I was just some guy with a broken back who might never walk again, and I’d spent basically, like, my whole life making sacrifices for something I would probably never do again.”
He pushes his paella around his plate briefly, spears a bit of eggplant, pops it into his mouth, then continues, still staring deeply, searchingly into my eyes, “And I thought: what’s the fucking point? What’s the point of facing all this shit, and not being honest with myself? With the world? So I started telling my family and it was — I don’t know if I know the word —”
Revelatory, I supply, thinking, of course, of my own experience, the experience of my friends, of my community — our community.
“Yeah,” Harrington says. “Yeah, that’s a good one. And it was a relief, right? It was a relief. And the more people I told, my parents, my siblings, my friends — I realized, I was finally letting people love the whole of me, I guess, and it made me think, why not everybody else?”
So: me.
“So: you,” he agrees. “I figured, if I can be honest with myself, why can’t I be honest with the world? The price we pay for peace, you know, why’s it so steep? So, fuck it, man. Fuck it. Like, I think I’ll race again. I want to. I’m getting there, like, every day. I don’t completely trust myself behind the wheel yet, but I think at the end of the day it’s more psychological than anything. At least, that’s what my PT and therapist tell me. Still a little numbness occasionally, a, a nerve spasm or whatever, but that’s fading every day, and so as much as I still sort of think it’s never gonna happen for me again — I think it’s more protection than anything.”
Protection?
He hums. “So I don’t get hurt again. But then what’s the point of that too? Sometimes you just gotta fall and get back up again, and, like, I wish this wasn’t what it took for me to realize that, but. Robin told me recently not to give up on myself, and I think that made me also realize I’d been giving up on myself for a really long time, even before this. And I don’t want to do that anymore.”
It’s a very brave thing.
“People keep telling me that,” he says. “I don’t know about that. I think I’ve been a coward, mostly, hiding. Running from the things — the people — I want. Is it brave to stop running?”
I think so.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
What about the future? After this?
“I want to race again,” he says. There is zero hesitation. “I want to race as myself, for once. Who knows if I’ll be any good, but I want that. And I want to, like — this might sound dumb, but I want to like live for myself finally. Stop living for other people, or in the shadows, maybe, is more correct. I wanna have a life that other people can see, and not be ashamed of it — or ashamed isn’t the right word. I was never ashamed, I don’t think.”
You were scared of what it might mean, I say, of what it would do to the things you loved.
“Yes. And I didn’t want to stop loving what I loved, or only love things half way, if that — I don’t know. So the things I want — I didn’t let myself.”
I ask, Is there anyone special in your life? That you want to let yourself love all the way?
For the first time all evening, his eyes slide off me, look to the wall. Before I can retract my question, he sighs. It’s not a sad noise, not exactly: more neutral but with a hint of resignation. As if this is a story that ends satisfactorily, but not happily ever after, as it were.
“There is,” he tells me, then shakes his head. “There was. But, uh, I think maybe I missed my chance.”
I’m sorry. That tends to happen.
Harrington cracks a smile. “It does, doesn’t it? Anyway, I like to think, you know, my heart’s been broken all this time, before, after. So it’s — I’ll be okay. I mean, I never particularly thought of myself as, like, a happy person — or maybe it was just that I was happy but I wasn’t whole, and I didn’t know that sometimes they're mutually exclusive, I guess? Because I was living this, like, parallel life or whatever, if that makes sense? Where I was this thing inside myself, and this other thing to everyone else. And he — the guy, I mean — he didn’t know that, really, only my best friend Robin knew — but I tried to give myself to him, in parts, thinking — you know I still don’t quite know what I was thinking. That maybe I could find happiness there, and I didn’t, because I couldn’t, not, not like that. Because that wasn’t fair to either of us, you know? To us as, like, human beings. I would have given him everything, but I couldn’t, not then — I didn’t know how. And so I just missed my chance.”
Have you told him that?
“If he reads this, yeah.” He laughs. “It’s okay. It’s an old hurt. And I hurt him worse, so. I’ll always — it’s just funny. I told you before, but I really never thought I’d be here.”
Here meaning coming out?
“Yeah.” Harrington nods, tilts his head, puppyish. “The crash was the worst thing that ever happened to me. But I also think maybe it was the best, you know? Because it made me realize: I don’t want to keep living in the shadows of myself. Life is way too short, and you’ve got to take it with both hands, no matter what. Any day could be your last, so you might as well just live it as authentically as you can. Because — all the trophies and championships in the world — if you’re not whole, what’s the fucking point?”
And now? I ask. Are you whole?
“I think maybe I’m getting there,” he says. “I’m getting there.”
When the Vanity Fair article dropped online, Steve was with the rest of the Mercedes team in Portugal. After the interview in Barcelona, he’d traveled with them to Bahrain and then Italy, watching from either the pit wall or the paddock as Max took the season by storm. She’d ended in the points with sixth for Bahrain, and then took P3 in Italy. For the beginning of her first full turn on the grid, she was coming out of the gates strong, and Steve wouldn’t be surprised if she ended the season as one of the top contenders for the Championship.
He tried to focus on her, and the grand prix weekend, as the May issue of Vanity Fair began to make the rounds on the first day of practice. He’d made himself somewhat scarce for the first few days, avoiding reporters where he could and traveling in a group of engineers when he couldn’t. The Netflix cameras trailed after him too, watchful, and he hated that he was upstaging Max’s weekend. She took pole just twenty-four hours after it went online but all everyone wanted to talk to her about was Steve Harrington’s big coming out story.
Somewhat predictably, she’d shut most of the questioning down right at the beginning when someone from Sky asked her for a comment and she’d rolled her eyes and gagged expansively.
“Gross,” she’d said. “I mean, seriously, gag me. How’s that for a comment?”
The reporter had stuttered. “I’m sorry?”
“Steve’s like a brother to me,” she had told them. “I do not care about his personal life: whatever is going on? I don’t wanna hear about it, I don’t wanna know about it — unless he’s embarrassed himself somehow, in which case, yeah, I will need a full report, if only for his monthly roast. Like, I’m proud of him or whatever, it takes a ton of courage, but I knew he had that in spades already and also seriously gross. Anyway, enough about that loser. I got pole position today, ask me about that.”
And, of course, when that soundbite made the rounds on ESPN that night, Steve’s monthly roast came early, and he didn’t hear the fucking end of it until the flag dropped the next day.
In general, the response to the article was better and worse than he could have predicted, he thought.
People were shitty about it. Of course people were shitty about it. He’d known it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. For every person on Twitter or Instagram telling him how much his coming out meant to them, how important it was to see a major athlete come out like this, there was some troll telling him that faggots went to hell, that he wasn’t a real man, that they lost all respect for him as a racer, they were burning their Mercedes merch. Those didn’t hurt so much as they made him sad, that people still thought like that, that someone had to live with that much hate inside themselves.
He was lucky, he knew, to feel that way — to have all the support that he had. Hopper and Joyce had just hugged him tightly when he told them that weekend, wrapped him up in their arms and held him dear. Joyce had kissed his temple, told him how proud she was of him for finding the courage to tell them and later the world; Hopper had just rested his cheek on the top of Steve’s head and told him he loved him. They’d wanted to fly out to Portugal to be there with him when it dropped, but he’d told them it wasn’t necessary; Hopper had still left him a voicemail before the race.
When he told Will and El, side by side on Will’s couch under the guise of a movie night before he left for England, Will had smiled at him, soft, secretive. El had reached out and put both her hands on Steve’s face, nodded once, and that was that. They’d popped in Spy, tucked up close to each, and laughed at Melissa McCarthy and Jason Statham late into the night.
After he’d told Max and Erica, they’d stared at him for a long time before Erica had shrugged, said, “That checks out,” and gone back to her toast. Max had pointed at him and said, “If I ever walk in on anything now that you’re not banging dudes in secret, I will burn the townhouse to the ground.”
“Oh, shit, same,” Erica had agreed.
“I haven’t been banging dudes in secret,” he’d protested.
“Then that’s fucking sad,” Max had said. “Erica, take his phone, we’re gonna download Grindr.”
“Bet.”
“What? No. Hey!”
But she’d already tossed her toast aside and was diving at Steve while Max had shouted, “Daddy up, Harrington, this is for your own good,” and Zofia had held her orange juice to her chest, laughing, as breakfast promptly dissolved into a spirited wrestling match that Steve totally could have won except Erica fought dirty.
He’d told the boys over FaceTime that afternoon, which had been a new circle of hell that honestly he should have seen coming. Dustin had almost immediately begun screaming about being his wingman at Trunks while Mike just repeated, “But you dated Nancy,” in increasingly confused tones. Lucas had taken pity on him, rolled his eyes, ended the call for everyone, and then texted Steve separately to tell him he was happy for him, and also that he should block the others for a few days if he valued his continued mental well being.
Robin and Nancy had of course been among his staunchest supporters as well, both having known the longest out of anyone, with Robin telling him she was preparing several burner Twitter accounts to take care of the trolls. Jon, Argyle, and Naomi had also been in his corner, and Will and El, perfect angels the both of them, had been constantly checking in with him since he’d told them about the interview.
Then there was Mercedes. Dmitri and Zofia had been gimmes, as it were, just like the rest of his family, and so had Alexei and Yuri, who apparently was delighted that this would open up a whole new line of nicknames for him. (Frankly, Steve didn’t know what this meant, and he was too scared to ask, which was probably for the best.) He’d been a little worried about leadership but, when he’d sat them down to tell them, they’d taken it stone-faced before nodding, thanking him, and immediately beginning a media offense for when the article came out, closing ranks around him. A mercurial response if ever there was one, he knew, but business was business after all: the company face had to be a positive one when your breadwinner was making history, he thought, especially if you didn’t want to come out the other side looking like a bigoted piece of fucking shit..
Still, it was support of a kind, support that not every athlete in his shoes might be receiving.
He even got a video message the morning the article hit from Chrissy and Heather. Chrissy had clearly been crying as she’d told Steve how proud she was that he had decided to be public with this part of himself, how much she knew it would mean to little kids across the globe to see someone like him living his authentic life. Heather had been rolling suspiciously red-rimmed eyes herself, and had pointed directly to the camera, saying, “You are now part of the Girls, Gays, Theys, and Dustin West Hollywood Gay Bar Team, Harrington, I’ll expect you at our next event.”
Steve hadn’t heard from Eddie. He didn’t really expect to, even though Dustin of all people had confirmed that he had in fact read the article when they’d gone out to breakfast Saturday morning, the day after the article dropped, and Eddie had asked, off hand, how Steve was doing with the response. This had, in turn, prompted Dustin to ask how he was doing and to announce that every single member of the Party was currently banned from Twitter, alongside El’s and (so far) seven of Robin’s sock-puppet accounts, complete with screenshots of the reasons why each were ultimately banned.
But he’d been radio silent with Steve himself since that evening December, except for a message mid-January telling him that Fellow Travelers: A Hellfire Tale had debuted the evening before on YouTube and their website to a truly fantastic response. He’d thanked him for spending the afternoon with them and issued an open invitation to return if ever the spirit took him.
He didn’t watch the one shot. The memory of it was perfect as it was, and Steve didn’t want to play it back and have reality overwrite what he remembered: that Eddie had smiled and laughed and teased him, and that he had smiled and laughed and teased him right back, and there’d been a minute there where he’d thought, Maybe. Maybe it had meant something. Maybe it had been —
So he didn’t watch it — but he had never been very good at letting go, in the end, and he found himself in the comments now and again, looking at the responses, especially after Dustin had called him up about a week after it went live to inform him that their fans were absolutely obsessed with Steve, and loved how he and Eddie’s characters totally had a thing for each other — he wasn’t looking forward to Dustin ultimately putting that particular math problem together — and that they hoped they’d bring these characters back at some point so they could see if a romance between the Bard Narrow and Heard Brontide, Selkie, would ultimately play out.
There’d been tons of comments below the video about how much fun everyone was clearly having, praising Will’s turn as the GM, the storyline, the way it left it open for more, and discussing how Eddie and Steve had killer chemistry, as both their characters and as people. There was a comment near the top from an account called TripleH-olloway that said, more fun than a boy can have with his clothes off i mean jesus get a fucking room losers, which then began a thread of people shouting “Heather Holloway ships it!” into the YouTube void, with more people piling on about how cute a couple they would make.
Some people accused them of queer baiting, which, like, kill him, and others said they were just two bros being dudes. But now there was a whole thing happening now since Steve’s coming out, and he couldn’t help himself, he couldn’t, he had to look at those too, dissect and analyze and bear the burden of his mistakes as someone asked, Has anyone read the Vanity Fair article on Harrington yet? Because I know we joke but he just came out, and Eddie really should ask that nice jock out on a date if he hasn’t already.
He’d closed out of the video after reading that one, and had gone to make himself useful in the paddock.
It was fine. It was good. Steve was fine. He was good. He wasn’t waiting for anything. He wasn’t. He never had been. It wasn’t his to wait for.
Shortly after the boys, around Bahrain, Steve had started telling the other drivers, one by one, and they’d all be overwhelmingly supportive as well. Sure, the roasts came from all sides there as well, with constant ribbing about how he didn’t have a boyfriend yet, and he was young, hot, and famous, so what was up with that, Harrington? But he didn’t mind. It was actually kind of nice, to watch them all make the conscious shift towards teasing that included knowing the whole of him.
They’d closed ranks around him too as the article dropped especially, and had apparently collectively decided to add pride flags to their coveralls for the grand prix, which had honestly made him a little misty eyed.
Steve wondered at it, this feeling of inclusivity, of finally, finally being known. It made the entire nerve wracking, anxiety-ridden experience — made the last twelve years as he’d worked every day to hide himself — made even the terrible things he’d done in the name of self protection — made even the shittiest of the shitty parts —
The way he felt now, surrounded by the love of the people he loved, knowing that they had all of him now — it made it so much better than he expected.
In the end, against the backdrop of Steve, Max took P1 in Portugal. He screamed himself hoarse when she did, Erica at his shoulders shaking him until his teeth rattled and screaming fit to deafen him. They threw themselves at her as soon as she was out of the cockpit and Max wrapped herself around him like a barnacle. He carried her shakily through their laughing crew, held her through her first interview while they both laughed hysterically and Dmitri kept both of his hands on their bodies, paternal, and she still didn’t let go as they started trying to drag her up to the platform for the ceremony. Dmitri just shoved them both up there, telling Steve to take the Constructors on behalf of Mercedes, and so he did. He hoisted it to cheers and screams and tears, and he was crying too, just for a split second, before Max sprayed him directly in the face with her champagne bottle as she laughed maniacally and encouraged Vettel and Ricciardo to do the same, and Steve thought that finally, finally —
He was enough.
There was still work to be done, PT to go to, and doctors appointments to be had, so Steve left the Mercedes team to pack up and head to Spain, and he went back to LA. He’d skip Monaco too, he thought, probably join back up in Azerbaijan; Zofia told him a couple of different outlets wanted some facetime with him to talk about being a gay man in sports, and he was ever entertaining a few — especially that Letterman vehicle, the one on Netflix, he’d seen episodes from the first two seasons, and they’d been pretty good. He didn’t think he’d mind doing that.
He flew commercial back from Portugal this time, as stretched out and comfortable as he could in first class with his cane. The attendants were extra nice to him, he thought, and Steve allowed himself to finally, openly flirt outrageously with the head steward, Luis. He even pocketed the number he’d passed him on a cocktail napkin on the way out; he probably wouldn’t call — he wasn’t ready for that yet — but it filled him with a certain sense of pride.
As he cut his way through Arrivals at LAX, dressed in what Robin had referred to once as farmer’s market himbo chic with an oversized yellow sweater and baggy jeans, a flannel tied around his waist, penny loafers without socks, and an A’s cap pulled down low over his eyes because if, he got papped and Hop saw him in it, he always got a mean voicemail about how he was betraying the family and Steve thought it was funny, he dodged families and tourists. He pulled his phone out and started checking Uber times, and thought about stopping at the Starbucks kiosk before he went out to the cab line because he was starting to get a caffeine headache, before he found himself pulled up short in baggage claim.
Because there at the carousel, dressed similarly incognito with his hands in his sweatpant pockets, Ray-Bans on even though it was overcast outside with June gloom arriving early in May this year, and a beanie shoved over his distinctive curls, was Eddie.
“Hey, Steve,” he called. “Need a ride?”
When all he could do was stare, he said in explanation, “Dustin mentioned you were coming back for a few weeks, so I asked Robin about your flight. I was hoping — I was hoping you and I could maybe talk?”
“Sure,” said Steve at length. Something in Eddie’s face both cleared and tensed all at the same time, and he wordlessly scooped his bag from the carousel when it came round before taking him out to short term parking. His little pretentious electric Chevy sat parked amongst a bevy of even more pretentious, and infinitely more douchey, Teslas.
They drove the hour from LAX to the Canyon, to Eddie’s, in near silence, his weird German hard rock station turned down low. Eddie pulled into the garage, grabbed his bag from the car, and took it into the house. The ramp was still there and Steve swallowed hard as he ascended it on relatively steady feet, cane in hand.
“You hungry?” Eddie asked. “How long is the flight from —?”
“Lisbon,” he supplied. “Four hour drive from the circuit. Fifteen hours once you board. Layover in Frankfurt this time.”
“Long day,” he said.
“Long day. Used to always go to the place in Italy or England, if I wasn’t going straight to the next race.”
“I can order tacos or something, if you want?” he offered. “You can shower while we wait?”
Eddie wouldn’t quite look at him, and Steve didn’t know what to say, so he shrugged and said, “Sure.”
He stepped away to order without asking him what he wanted. He heard him, in rapid fire Spanish, order Steve’s usual from Pinche’s. He closed his eyes, counted to ten, and slipped into the bathroom to take a quick spin in the shower. The hand rails were still there, and the no slip grip on the bottom of the tub too, and he wondered what made him think it’d be gone by now, all the evidence that he’d ever spent any time there.
Steve thought about going into the guest room after he showered but he didn’t think his heart could take whatever he found there.
Instead, he sat in the living room, redressed in his travel clothes, Smeagol immediately coming to make her presence known to him as she butted up against his legs and purred like the engine of his Mercedes. Eddie puttered about the kitchen, clanging bottles together and muttering indecipherably to himself. Steve sat on his hands and stared at the wall.
Eventually, their food arrived, and they ate side by side but so, so far apart on Eddie’s green velvet sofa, tacos and Mexican Cokes and, fuck, Peronis for the both of them too. He wondered if they’d been at the back of his fridge since Steve left, unearthed to be finished off while he was here, and about ten minutes in he just couldn’t take it anymore, any of it, so he pushed his nopal tacos and potato and cheese flautas into the center of the coffee table.
He said, voice cracking just so, “Hey, man, listen, you’re the one who wanted to talk, so.”
“Yeah, I, uh,” said Eddie, around a mouthful of asada sopes. “I did, didn’t I?”
“Yep.”
They stared at each other.
“Dude —”
“Was it me?” he asked, eyes huge.
“What?”
“Was it me?” he said again. He winced slightly. “In the, in the article — you said there was someone special but you, you missed your chance, and shit. Fuck. Fuck . As soon as I said it out loud, fuck, that was super self-absorbed, to, to, to think that — I’m, I mean you’re you, right, you’re Steve fucking Harrington, and I’m, like, me , and you never — you weren’t, when I woke up, you weren’t. Why would you? Fuck. Just like, shit, I’m sorry, fucking ignore me, I’m — this was so stupid, I’m so sorry —”
“No,” said Steve. “No, I can’t. I won’t.”
“You won’t?”
Heart in his throat again, his mouth filled with saliva and cactus and potato and the bitter, familiar taste of adrenaline, he said, “Of course it was you. Of course it was you. How could it not be you?”
“Well, I think there’s, like, plenty of reasons, considering you left me alone in my hotel room that morning,” Eddie said, though there was no particular bite to it. His eyes were still enormous, shiny. “And you never — I mean, you never made it seem like I was someone you’d, you were always so — so I’d walked away, I told you it was fine, it was a mistake, and it was but not because it was you — or it was, but it also wasn’t, because it was me — and then I fucking took advantage of you when you were, when you were going through something no one should ever have to go through and you were in a really shitty headspace and I just — you looked at me, you were in my arms again, and you felt, and I thought, I thought — and then I bailed on you like a piece of shit —”
“I think maybe that one was on both of us,” said Steve, “and if anyone’s a piece of shit, that night, at the wedding, when I just — I left you —”
“No,” he said. He shook his head somewhat emphatically. “Um, no, listen, that night, that night wasn’t like anyone’s finest moment, we were drunk, and like — listen, I should’ve known, Steve, I did fucking know, what it meant to you — what, what we did meant, I’m not stupid, I’m actually kind of a student of human behavior, and I know, okay, I know what that meant and I shouldn’t have — I shouldn’t have waited to let you come to me, and I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did, and — you said you hurt me worse? You said, but you didn’t, you didn’t, how could you? I hurt me, I took too much, I wanted too much, and — and, and —”
“No,” Steve said now, “no, no, Eddie that’s — I wanted to give that to you, I trusted you, it’s not your fault I’m a fucking headcase, and I’ve spent all my life as half of something else’s and I didn’t know how to be anything outside it. I wanted you to be the first person that ever knew me like that, and fuck I should have asked, should have said, but I was so worried you’d say no, you wouldn’t want me if you knew —”
“Steve, wait,” he said, spinning on the couch so that his body was turned fully to him. He grasped at his hands and truly looked like he might cry. “What are you? Wait, did you never — person? Had, had you never —”
He blinked. “No? I’d — I’d given a guy a handjob before?”
“But women?”
“I never. No. I think I always sort of. No. It’s just that people like to talk, and — no. No. Eddie, what did you think I meant?”
“Oh, fuck me,” he breathed. “I thought you just hadn’t been — not all the way, maybe but — you’d never? I was your? Fuck, I’m a, a monster, I’m —”
“Eddie, Eddie, no, what? That’s insane, you’re not a — I told you, I wanted you to —”
He dropped Steve’s hands so that he could bury his own in his hair, gripping his curls tight at the roots.
“Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I — I wanted all these things from you, and I was so fucking pissed about it, I was so mad at you and I was mad at me, more, because I knew you couldn’t, all these things that I knew you couldn’t give me, because you didn’t want the same things, and I just wanted so fucking much from you anyway, because, god, you, you, and it turns out you gave me everything, and shit, shit. I should’ve — I should’ve known, I knew, I did, I did. I took all that out on you when I said — I can’t ever — I’m so sorry, Steve, I’m sorry, you’ll never know how sorry I am.”
Steve was hung up somewhere in the middle there. Eddie had wanted —? He said, “Wait, what is happening?”
But he was still on a roll, hunched over with his hands tangled in his hair, eyes squeezed shut, and addressing his knees, on the edge of hysteria, saying, “I knew you weren’t ready. I knew you wouldn’t — I knew I shouldn’t have said yes, but I did anyway, because I thought it was better than nothing, and I did it, and fuck, I’m always taking advantage of you —”
“I took advantage of you,” he said.
“I don’t see how that’s possible but okay.”
“You were drunk —”
“We were both drunk, and that’s my whole point, Steve! I fucking knew better! You’d never —”
“Then we both should have known better, okay! And just because I’d never — don’t make it out to be some — don’t take my choice away from me!”
“Baby, I’m not taking your choice away from you —”
“Then what are you doing?”
“I’m trying to apologize for taking advantage of you!”
“You didn’t! You didn’t! I wanted it!”
“A drunk yes is a sober maybe —”
“I wasn’t that fucking drunk!”
“And neither was I!”
“Okay, so? So? Because I wanted it, Eddie. I wanted it, and I wanted it from you , and, and you can beat yourself up about it all you fucking want, but it’s on me, okay? At the end of the day. At the end of the day, I’m the one — listen — listen, asshole, shut the fuck up, this is on me, because you were only doing what I asked you to do, and I didn’t give you all the facts, so I’m the monster, here, if anyone is — because it was me who walked out that morning because I couldn’t handle the fact that I was falling in love with you, I was in love with you, and I didn’t know how to be who I am and love you like that at the same time —”
Eddie’s hands dropped back to his lap. His big eyes had grown, impossibly, even larger but his face was curiously still, almost empty as he asked, “You’re in love with me?”
“Um,” said Steve. He blew out a gusty breath. He hadn’t really meant to say that out loud, but in for a penny, he thought. He told him, “I am. Have been for a while. Sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” A smile was beginning to break across his face now. Steve was so confused. “Why would you be sorry about that?”
“Because I never wanted to fuck up whatever friendship we sort of had?” he said. “And just because — I mean, just because you slept with me doesn’t mean — I mean, how could you want the same things as me? And after all this, why would you? Why would you?”
“Why?” asked Eddie. “Because you’re fucking wonderful and I’ve been totally gone for you practically since the first time I met you, and you fully bitched me out in Italian over MarioKart even though I had no idea what was happening and it was like the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m so into you it’s crazy.”
“Why?” he said again.
“Seriously, is this a trick question?” Eddie grabbed at his hands again, held them up to his chest, near his heart. “Am I being Punk’d? Why wouldn’t I be completely ass over tea kettle in love with you? Have you met you? You’re beautiful and funny and talented and way smarter than anyone ever gives you credit for, and mean and kind, so kind, and you’re fucking brave — you’re the strongest person I have ever fucking met, and I’m in love with you, Steve Harrington, even when you’re breaking my heart because your parents — I don’t know, I mean, I’m assuming your parents — and probably like the whole vaguely homophobic sport’s world have you so convinced you’re undeserving of it, because you have the audacity to be who you are doing what you do, that you ask for scraps instead of a meal. I’m in love with you because you’re you, and all the rest of it is just — it’s you.”
Steve stared at him. “Are you — does this make you the meal?”
“Babylove,” he said, slow as anything. He kissed the knuckles of Steve’s left hand, then his right. “Babylove, for you, I’ll be a full course dinner.”
“That was the cheesiest shit I’ve ever heard,” he told him.
“You’re into it.”
“No, I’m not. Dork.”
“I mean, you’re the one who’s blushing, so.”
“Shut the fuck up. I’m not.”
“Your ears are, like, super red. It’s cute as fuck.”
“Oh my god, would you just kiss me already?”
Not letting go of his hands, Eddie leaned in. His eyes were wide open as their mouths met and Steve desperately wanted to keep his own open, to stare into the beloved darkness of him forever and ever and ever, but the slick, plush warmth of him had his eyelids fluttering closed of their own volition. He wanted to live here too, in this moment, in his hands and mouth, in his home, in Eddie’s home, and never leave.
”You’re perfect too,” he told him, eyes shut, mouths sliding together. “Eddie, you’re perfect too. I’ve wanted you so much, for so long, and I didn’t think — you’re sweet and funny and weird and I’ve wanted you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”
“Steve. Fuck, baby.” He bit Steve’s lower lip and then soothed it with his tongue, before saying, their mouths hot and wet against each other, “I know we’ve probably got a lot of talking still to do, but I think I’ll die if I don’t take you to bed right now.”
“Your bed?” he asked. He pulled back just slightly, eyes opening again, and stared at Eddie’s flushed, dear face. “Will you — your bed?”
“My bed,” he agreed. His pupils were blown so, so wide. “Let me take you to my bed. Let me do this right. This time, let me do this right.”
Steve had to kiss him again. He had to, so he did. Into his mouth, he said, “It was right the first time. It was perfect.”
“But I didn’t make love to you,” Eddie said. “I fucked you, but I didn’t make love to you, not the way I should have, not the way you deserve, and I need to make love to you, Steve Harrington. I need you in my bed, in my house, with me, loved by me.”
“Oh.”
He stood, their hands still clasped together. “C’mon, babylove.”
Together, they made their way from the living room to the hallway and Eddie pushed open the door to his bedroom so Steve could see it for the first time. Like the rest of his house, his bedroom was dark and moody. The walls were painted a sort of faded black, like iron almost, and bookshelves built into the walls bracketed the king sized mattress, which rested on a series of shipping pallets rather than a bed frame and a shag carpet spilling out from below. The bed was piled with fluffy, washed gray linens, a small spot of brightness, and one bedside table boasted a record player while the other held a vintage gold reading lamp, a precarious stack of books. The jungle of plants every room required lived on the dresser, surrounding a small flat screen TV, and a massive steer skull hung above that. There were no windows in this bedroom, and the only light came from a pink neon sign that read NO VACANCY above the bed.
Eddie stepped into the room but instead of reaching for the lights, he reached for the record player. He dropped the needle and almost immediately Hope Sandoval’s voice filled the room, singing, “I wanna hold the hand inside you; I wanna take the breath that’s true.”
“Mazzy Star?” he asked.
He shot him a wry little smile. “Well, babe, I’m unashamed to tell you, I’ve sort of been going through it, the past few days, months.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He returned to him, in the semi darkness of the room, and cupped one hand around Steve’s jaw. Eddie said again, “Let me do this right this time. Let me take you to bed.”
”I told you then: you can take me anywhere.”
”Anywhere?”
Breathless, he said, “Anywhere, Eddie. Anywhere.”
They undressed each other slowly beneath the neon light, their hands reverent and slow as they peeled each other from their clothes. Eddie’s fingers kept stuttering to a halt on Steve’s moles, as they were revealed, and in turn he stared, unabashedly, at the tattoos that painted Eddie’s lithe body as he took from him his sweatshirt, the hot pink singlet underneath. He’d seen them before, touched them before, but they felt new like this, in this place, an undiscovered country. He wanted to taste them, all of Eddie, with a hunger that startled him — he’d known what he’d had before hadn’t been enough, and yet he was arrested by the need in him now.
He’d wanted, he wanted — before, now, forever —
A full course meal, he thought.
“Is it okay for me to touch your back?” Eddie was asking quietly, his fingertips skimming the hem of the thin t-shirt he had on beneath his sweater, now tossed to some corner of the bedroom.
Steve thought of the twin white scars that ran up the sides of his spine like street dividers. He said, “I think you’re the only person who I want touching me. I mean, always. What difference do they make?”
“Oh, Steve,” he whispered. He ducked close, kissed a line up his neck, and one hand slid from a cluster of freckles beneath his right pec to rest, infinitely gentle, on his scars. “They mean you survived, honey. They mean you’re here now, that you’re here to be with me now.”
On the edge of tears and laughter too, inexplicable, Steve said, “I love you. I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” he said. “Christ, Steve, you’re everything to me.”
Half undressed, they tangled together to kiss again, hot and hard and heavy. Eddie slid his thigh between Steve’s own, pressed upward into him, and he could die like this, happily, just doing this, just kissing. But he wanted more too, wanted the whole of him, just like he wanted to give the whole of himself to Eddie, finally, truthfully. He thought he would burn up with desire again, too much and too fast. He wouldn’t mind.
How had he ever allowed fear to press him to give this up? How had he had this and then decided he could live without it? How, how, how?
“Do you think maybe I could give you that blow job this time?” he asked, already working on dropping to his knees, pulling Eddie’s bougie but threadbare Lululemon joggers down as he went. “It’s only that I’ve kind of wanted to forever.”
“It might kill me,” he said, “but, baby, what a way to go. Are you sure?”
He pressed his face into Eddie’s dark boxer briefs, into the hard, warm length of him, mouthing at the salty wet spot he found there. Above him, there was a prolonged groan, and he told him, “I’m sure.”
“Okay, okay, my sweet boy, okay.”
So Steve pulled down the boxers too and set to work. It was unpracticed but eager, probably a little too wet and definitely with too many teeth at the beginning, and his jaw hurt almost immediately because Eddie was big and long and so fucking hard for him; but his hands were mapping the shape of his skull, his face, the whole time, cradling him close, holding him dear. He pet his hair and twined the fingers of his left hand in the soft hair at the base of Steve’s skull as his other ran under the soft skin below his eye, thumbed at the hollow of his cheek to feel the weight of himself there as he fucked slowly in and out of his mouth.
“You’re so beautiful like this,” he was saying. Steve looked up at him from beneath his lashes, eyes watery at the strain of it all, and Eddie was staring down at him in wonder. “You’re always so beautiful, but, Jesus Christ, Steve, honey, look at you. I wish you could see yourself like this, on your knees for me. You’re so good, baby, is this what you wanted? Is this what you needed? I’ll give it to you, whatever you need, whatever, whatever.”
He closed his eyes and let the sensation, Eddie’s salty skin and sweet voice, wash over him like a balm. The head of his cock was hard at the back of his throat, his soft belly pressed into his nose. This, he thought, indistinct, this.
After forever, suddenly, he was being gently pulled off and he whined somewhat embarrassingly as Eddie’s hard dick was taken from the cavern of his wanting mouth. Eyes still closed, he chased briefly after it only to feel Eddie’s hands hold his face in place, feeling him drop to his knees too. He leaned in, kissed that sound from Steve’s red, swollen mouth messily, and asked, “Can you look at me, baby?”
Blinking, he did, and Eddie smiled at him, thumbs at the corner of his mouth.
“That was so good, babylove,” he told him. “But I kind of desperately need to be inside you, okay?”
“Okay,” he said.
Eddie guided him shakily to his feet, stepping out of the sweats that had become pooled around his ankles as he went, and pulled Steve from his own as they rose. He took him to his bed, pulled a bottle of KY from the bedside table, and, still only illuminated by pink neon, took him apart inch by beautiful inch.
It was excruciatingly slow, Eddie fingering him open. He didn’t use his mouth this time, he told him, because he wanted to be looking into his eyes as he got him ready for him, wanted to be able to talk to him, whisper in his ear. Still, he had an oral fixation a mile wide and in between praise and questions and asking if it was good for Steve, if he could make it better, what he wanted, what he could give to him — in between, he sucked a ring of bruises around the column of Steve’s throat, over the furry skin of his pectorals, worried at his nipples until he was writhing.
He bore down on the two fingers within him, begged for a third, and Eddie obliged, saying, “Slowly, baby, slowly. I don’t want to hurt you again.”
“Eddie,” he chanted. “Eddie. You never, you never —”
“Next time,” he said, his three fingers twisting rhythmically, maddeningly inside him. “Next time, I want you, okay? I want to watch you finger me open like this, talk you through it. Next time, those callouses from the steering wheel, stroking inside me, they feel so good, I need to know what that’s like. Next time, I want to take you inside me until we're so close no one can tell us apart. Next time, I want you to ride you like one of your fast cars, baby, want you to take me fast and hard, put me away wet. Would you like that? Would you want that? I wanna give you another first, I wanna be your first forever.”
“Yes,” said Steve. “Baby, you’re my only. You’re my only.”
“Fuck.” He dropped his head into Steve’s shoulder, groaning. “Fuck.”
“Is that okay? Do you want that?”
“Yes,” he told him. “Yes, how could you — baby, I want you.”
“No condom,” he said, as Eddie pulled his fingers from Steve’s body. “Is that — I’m clean, you know I’ve never — I want to feel all of you.”
“I’m clean too,” Eddie said. “I haven’t — I haven’t been with anyone since you.”
He stared, wide-eyed. “Eddie.”
“I couldn’t,” he said. His voice sounded tight. “I couldn’t. I told you that night: you ruined me.”
“You ruined me too,” said Steve. Now, and even then, he thought it sounded like I love you. He asked, “Ruin me again?”
“I’ll ruin you forever,” he said. He kissed the corner of his mouth. “I’ll ruin you as many times as you want, as long as you want. I love you.”
“Please.”
Then, in his bed with Steve on his back below him and his legs around his waist, Eddie pushed his way inside with nothing between them. It was so slow, so perfect, Eddie above him and his hair hanging down, their hands clasped together above Steve’s head, so fucking hot and slick and hard within him, naked and bare. The angle wasn’t the greatest, Eddie struggled for leverage like this, but Steve wouldn’t have wanted it any other way: their hot, sweaty bodies flush and grinding, undulating against each other, Steve’s hard dick trapped between their writhing torsos, their heartbeats pressed close. Steve bit his lip, watching Eddie move above him, slow as molasses and just as sweet and dark as he built his body a harbor between Steve’s thighs.
“How does it feel?” he asked, cock pressing harder and deeper with each grind of his hips. He could feel him in his teeth. “Babylove, is it good?”
“It’s perfect,” Steve told him. He was already so on edge, but it was Eddie — again, finally, it was Eddie, on top of him, in him, part of him, and he was going to keep it all this time. He twined his ankles over the dip of his lower back, arched his own as he ground upwards. “It’s so perfect. Sweetheart, dearheart —”
His hips stuttered.
“Dearheart,” he said again. “Dearheart, you feel so good inside me. Are you close? I’m so close already. Fuck. Fuck. You feel so fucking good in me. Are you gonna come inside me? You know I’ve never — I wanna feel it inside me. Your come. You. Inside me, dearheart, I want to feel your come inside me. It’ll be so good. I want to know what it’s like. It’ll be — no one’s ever marked me like that, and you’re the only person who ever will. Brand me. Ruin me. Make me yours — make love to me, make love to me.”
“Steve,” said Eddie, helpless. “Steve, baby, I’m close. I’m too close. I’m sorry, I —”
“C’mon, then, baby, just like this,” he said. “C’mon, dearheart. I want it just like this. I’m so close too. Make me yours. Come inside me.”
“You first, you first. Touch yourself for me. Touch yourself while I make love to you.”
He shook his head, tightened his fingers around Eddie’s. He said, “No. No, I’ve — I’ve imagined this. I can, I can come like this. From you. Please. Eddie. Eddie, dearheart, my love, be good for me, and come inside me.”
With a startled noise, his eyes wide open and looking at Steve’s, he did. His cock stiffened as he ground one final time into him, and then a hot, wet warmth began to pool somewhere below Steve’s navel, inside. His own hips twitched, bore down, and he moaned at the filthy, beautiful feeling of him leaking out of his body around his hard dick, and Eddie said, wonderingly, “Babylove.”
Eyes rolling back in his head, Steve came in the tight, humid darkness between their flushed bodies, Eddie’s name a whine on his tongue, babylove echoing in his ears and Mazzy Star quietly playing on under their matched, uneven breathing.
They stayed like that, pressed sticky and hot and wonderful, for a long time.
Steve didn’t remember falling asleep. He thought he vaguely recalled Eddie pulling out of him, padding softly into the en suite of his bedroom, and gathering a warm washcloth to clean him up. He thought maybe he took the needle of the silently spinning record, and he crawled back into bed after, tucking himself and Steve under the covers and then pulling him close. He thought he remembered his thin, cool hands cupping the ridges of Steve’s repaired spine, running his long fingers up and down his surgical scars, whispering something in his ear.
And now, in the morning or whatever time it was, they had rolled apart in their sleep again, and Steve found himself staring at the line of Eddie’s strong shoulders once more, rising and falling with gentle, sleepy breaths. He counted to ten, and slowly inched himself forward until he fit his knees behind Eddie’s and his face in the space between his shoulder blades. He breathed and slipped back under.
When he woke again, he was on his back, Eddie was lying with his head on Steve’s chest, and his hair was in his mouth. It should’ve been gross, but Steve only found contentment in it. One of Eddie’s hands was idly tracing up and down the muscle of his bare forearm, connecting the moles and freckles and making them into nameless, strange constellations. He lay there, basking in the sensation, until he said quietly, “You’re still here.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t be?” Steve asked. It was understandable but it still hurt. He thought these would be fears they dealt with for a long time
“Not totally,” said Eddie. He sat up slightly, propped himself up on one elbow while his other hand kept stroking Steve’s arm, and regarded him through the sleepy snarl of his hair. “I just — that night, I thought I’d gotten a piece of something I’d wanted so terribly, you know? And when I woke up, you were gone, and I thought, Oh, oh okay. It was only a piece, and I made that okay within myself, eventually. You said it in the article: it’s protection, right? I’ve spent a lot of time protecting my heart, trying to protect it, so then — and last night, now, I mean, I think I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. So even after you told me that you loved me — well.”
He shrugged. Steve stared up at him, heart breaking, and said, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It kind of is.”
“Not this shit again,” he said with a thin but genuine smile. “We can play the blame game for the rest of our lives, Steve, but I’m trying here to — listen, for a long time — I’ve been on my own. And I’m used to being on my own, is the thing. For a really, really long time the only person I could trust was me, because I grew up in a war zone: I had this shitty fucking dad, who hated me, for a lot of reasons, most of them because he looked at me and saw my dead mom. He used to beat the shit out of me — at least, when he was sober enough to remember I was around. And then it was me and Wayne, my uncle, and it was us against the world, and I’ve done a lot of growing up since then, right? I’ve matured, I’ve become a bigger person, but, like, deep inside me, you know, I don’t know if I’ve ever stopped being the hurt, angry kid I was back then, you know? Because I still feel all the same stuff he did: I’m still scared of all the same things. So, then, when there was you, standing in front of me, and you were beautiful and mean and kind, in a mean way, and perfect and I told you already — I couldn't understand how you wanted to pick me. Me, and the hurt, angry, jealous kid inside me. But you did, and then you actually hadn’t, because you weren’t there when I woke up the next morning, and I thought, Well that tracks, that makes sense, because the only person who’d ever really wanted me in my life was Wayne — and so I just tried to keep my heart safe.”
“Eddie,” said Steve quietly.
He could feel tears on his face, hot and unstoppable, and he reached for him, wanted to take him in his arms, but Eddie smiled wider at him, wiped them away with the edge of his thumb, and he was maybe crying too, continuing, “It’s okay. It’s okay, babylove, just — see, it turns out I didn’t do a very good job at it, keeping my heart safe, because I just don’t have it anymore. I gave it to you, Steve. I don’t know when, exactly, only that I did, but you have it, in your hands, and you have the power to break it, you know? And it’s a big thing, trusting someone with your heart, and I just — I just want you so much, I love you so much, and it feels — babylove, I love you with the vastness of the sky, with the endurance of earth, and it’s terrifying.”
“Eddie,” he said again.
“So maybe there was a part of me,” he told him, “this morning, that was just waiting for you to not be here because it’s easier that way, in a lot of respects. But I read that article front to back so many times, Steve, and I thought, even if I’m reading too much into it — what’s the risk? You already had my heart, and I’d never dream of asking for it back. So I thought: let’s do the hard thing, the scary thing, just this once. And I’m so fucking glad I did. Because here you are.”
Steve reached up and drew a finger along the delicate curve of Eddie’s cheekbone, the damp swell of his cheek as his smile stretched his face, and said, “Yeah, I am. There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Good,” he said. “So maybe we can get to work on that happiness thing next.”
“I’d like that,” said Steve.
“Breakfast first though. It’s the most important meal of the day, after all,” Eddie said. With a wink, he began to make his way down his body, the cloud of his hair disappearing beneath the sheets as, tears giving way to laughter, fondness and love, to happiness, Steve watched him go.