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Lando’s thumb hovers over her phone, the blue light casting harsh shadows across her knuckles. The rest of her hotel room is submerged in a dull gloom, only broken by the occasional blur of passing headlights filtering through the window. Her free hand slips lower as her other works the screen with some difficulty.
hes gone btw. Short. Simple. She hits send before she can second-guess it, and barely waits for the text to deliver before tossing the phone aside. It lands at the edge of the bed with a soft thud.
Charles is probably sitting quietly in Sebastian’s hotel room just a few doors down. Bored out of her mind. Waiting, and wanting.
That particular image of Charles is a dangerous one to keep in her mind, dressed to turn heads, taunting and teasing, the curve of her lips daring Lando to make the first move. And Lando—pants halfway down, heat pooling low in her stomach—curses herself for giving in so easily.
But it makes sense, doesn’t it? If they’re both aching like this, both restless and sharp-edged, why not lean into it? Why not cut into it together?
Minutes stretch, filled only with the amplified sound of her pulse in her ears. She still has her hand pressed beneath the damp cotton of her panties, the anticipation leaving her shaky. Just as she begins to think Charles is ignoring her, the knock comes. Two distinct raps, then nothing.
Lando moves fast, yanking her pants halfway up her hips in a scramble. The waistband twists and hangs low on her hips, but she doesn’t bother fixing it, just dragging her legs forward.
Charles stands on the other side of the door, and Lando’s gaze snags immediately on her dress. Baby blue, soft and deliberate in its plainness and leaving very little to the imagination. Charles stands poised, one foot turned slightly inward, her flats unassuming against the carpet. There’s a trace of pink edging its way up her neck, subtle but unmistakable under the glow of the hallway light.
Lando’s hand curls around Charles’ arm to tug her into the room. “Did I interrupt a night out or something?”
Charles lets herself be dragged inside, smiling placidly. “I wasn’t sure if you would be calling for me tonight. Seb is out right now. I told him I would join him… maybe.”
That last word hangs in the air for a beat too long. Charles’ foot edges back to push the door closed behind her with a muted click in the silence.
“Well then,” Lando says, clipped. She watches as Charles bends to slide off her shoes. The flats clatter together where they’re left neatly by the door. Consciously, even, because Lando knows Charles isn’t a neat person by nature.
This part is always a little awkward, these first moments—when neither of them wants to make the first move and words stick between their teeth. Lando gnaws on the inside of her cheek.
It never lasts, though. It never does.
Charles’ gaze flickers downward, catching on the darkened spot at the front of Lando’s pants. “You started without me,” she chides.
“Because you took too long,” Lando says. Her hand ghosts toward the waistband of her pants, but then Charles is closing the distance between them. Fast.
It doesn’t take much at all on Charles’ part. She steps into Lando’s space, forcing her back until the doorknob rattles faintly. The arch of her back is unwilling and sharp, her chest pushed forward and her breathing shallow as she feels Charles’ steady pressure across her body. The cheap white wood shudders underneath their weight behind her.
“I didn’t see your text right away,” Charles grumbles. The words tickle close to Lando’s jaw, and with the proximity comes the faint but unmistakable aroma of her perfume—a deep citrus, sweet in a cloying way that makes Lando’s nose twitch on reflex.
Charles doesn’t pause to check her reaction. Her grip tightens; her fingers, nails painted that obnoxious shade of red, pinch at Lando’s chin.
Lando sees the faint quirk of a smile on Charles’ lips and decides, in an instant, to kill it. Her reaction comes fast and thoughtless in the form of a quick nip to the pads of Charles’ fingers. Charles sucks in a breath through her teeth, and yanks her hand back. It’s her own fault; she should’ve known better than to test Lando like that.
She moves then, pressing their mouths together before Charles can fully retaliate. Lando tongues along the curve of Charles’ bottom lip before dipping deeper, pressing harder. It’s not soft or sweet—not that they ever are.
There’s always a battle in moments like this. Lando won’t cave. Charles won’t yield. Not until the friction between them turns molten.
One of Lando’s hands drops from its place on the door, slow but purposeful, sliding along Charles’ form until it finds the warm skin where her neck slopes into her shoulder. The contact is intentional, weighty enough to draw a small, surprised noise from Charles—not a sound she makes easily.
It’s satisfying in a way that makes Lando grin against her lips. Her voice slurs as she speaks again, the words half-smothered between kisses. “Don’t lie. You’re the most impatient person I know. I bet you were just sitting there, stalling and waiting for me. Weren’t you?”
The flush on Charles’ face darkens a fraction. “And yet you are ten times more wet.”
Not a fair comparison at all. Lando has always been like this: dripping before she’s touched properly, her body betraying her eagerness. Most of the time, she doesn’t even get as far as putting something inside herself before she’s unravelling. Charles, meanwhile, never makes a mess on her own.
She’d recounted as much before, listing the times Sebastian had to prepare her with the careful application of lube. Like even her cunt knows to play coy.
Every other part of her compensates beautifully, however. She doesn’t even have to check for a bra. It’s obvious—the faint rise against the smooth blue fabric of pebbled nipples that strain forward, straining for attention.
Slutty, really, and so perfectly Charles. Lando knows it as well as Charles does: if it wasn’t her here tonight, in this room, backed against this door, then it would be someone else.
She fists into the fabric near Charles’ chest then tries and fails to tug it down far enough to expose what’s underneath. The material resists stubbornly, barely shifting despite her insistent tugs. Frustratingly stiff, just like its wearer.
“You are going to rip it,” Charles scolds. She reaches for the zipper tucked discreetly along the side of her dress and yanks it down. The soft fabric gives immediately, sliding over her hips and pooling in a forgettable heap around her feet.
As the dress falls away, so does the tautness of her chest—the deep inhale she takes is audible as she pulls much-needed air into her lungs. It’s obvious now, finally stripped bare, just how constricting it must have been. Red lines trace angry paths across her skin, evidence of where the dress dug in too tightly. They etch low over her stomach, curling faintly around the curve of her ribcage.
This—this is Charles in a nutshell, though. It’s not like she needed the dress for any of the visual effects it afforded her; her tits, perky and full, certainly don’t need any kind of boost. No, Lando is positive she wears things like this because she believes beauty and perfection demand sacrifice. Good things aren’t just given—they are worked toward, fought for, earned through effort and pain.
It explains far more than the dress, after all. It explains why Charles is standing here, in Lando’s room instead of Sebastian’s. A good thing always has a catch.
“You too,” Charles says suddenly, drawing Lando out of her thoughts. “It’s only fair.”
She tugs, urgent and insistent, dragging Lando closer even though there’s nowhere to go—no space left between them. Her tits are so close that Lando could lean just slightly, barely, and fill her mouth with them.
Not yet, she tells herself. Not yet. She’s not the impatient one.
Charles doesn’t listen. She rarely does when something isn’t her idea. Instead, she takes matters into her own hands, literally. Her fingers fumble against the knot of Lando’s sweatpants, yanking and tugging until the tie comes undone through trial and error. There’s a flash of triumph on her face as she discards the pants with a flick of her hand. A job well done. It’s stupidly cute.
Her hands are immediately on Lando again, palm cupping the wet heat between her legs and stroking over the soaked fabric of her panties. “See? Wet,” she says, as if Lando doesn’t fucking know how wet her own pussy is.
“Thanks for the commentary,” Lando mumbles. The words barely leave her mouth before Charles’ touch shifts, her fingers finding Lando’s clit through the damp cotton and delivering a flick so precise it’s essentially a punishment. Lando’s knees almost buckle beneath her.
“You shouldn’t talk back to the person who is going to make you come,” Charles returns lightly. There’s a tilt to her voice that hovers near teasing, but the smile pulling at her lips is anything but sweet.
Something flares hot and immediate in Lando—pride or annoyance or desire. They’re all tangled up so messily inside her right now that she doesn’t bother parsing them out. She feels it throb at her temple like a warning, and then her body reacts before her thoughts catch up.
She plants her hands firmly on Charles’ shoulders and pushes until Charles stumbles backwards and collapses onto the bed behind her. She lands with a faint bounce, the soft thud swallowed by the springs’ protest.
Lando stands by the edge of the bed, looking down at her. The red glow on Charles’ cheeks, faint but unmistakable, travels downward to her chest as her breathing picks up subtly. Her legs fall apart slightly and her arms stretch out above her head, pushing her tits higher, baring herself entirely to Lando’s gaze without flinching.
Charles looks all too ready for her. It’s not hard to see where Lando fits into this.
She preens under the weight of Lando’s gaze for all of five seconds before her composure cracks. “Well?” she snarls, practically vibrating with impatience.
Lando crawls onto the bed, settling on Charles’ thigh. She lets herself grind down once, just once, slow enough to watch how Charles’ expression flickers: impatience morphing into hunger, frustration curling into something softer. Charles, like all humans, is malleable somewhere.
Kissing isn’t really where they’re at anymore, but Lando can’t help herself. Her hands anchor on either side of Charles’ head, palms pressing into the pillow as she leans in.
“Touch me properly,” Charles demands—because it’s not a request. She hooks her leg around Lando’s hips, pulling their bodies closer.
The heat of her voice is maddening, chasing goosebumps down Lando’s back. Her breath lingers on Lando’s lips, pulling her under until her hand moves almost of its own accord, slipping between them to cup one of Charles’ breasts.
Charles’ back arches faintly into the touch, and Lando can feel the brief jerk of her hips beneath her. It’s the reaction that encourages Lando, emboldens her to use her thumb to trace the hard peak of Charles’ nipple before pinching it harshly between thumb and forefinger. Charles’ breath catches audibly, and her nails dig into Lando’s thigh in retaliation. Sharp enough to sting, sharp enough to make Lando grind against her leg again for the sensation alone.
“Lando,” Charles grits out between clenched teeth. Even so, there’s something small and pleading that sneaks through when she adds, “Don’t be mean.”
“I’m not being mean.” If Lando pauses for anything, it’s to marvel at her own handiwork. “You’re asking for it, anyway.”
And she is asking for it—not with words, but with everything else. The stuttered hitch in her breathing, the flush spreading darker across her chest, the way her fingers are growing antsy, tugging at the bedsheets.
There was a time, when they first started this thing between them—whatever this thing is—that Lando thought Charles only ever wanted to see her pliant and compliant, laid out beneath her without question. Back then, Lando had let herself be pushed down and handled, pliant and compliant. She hadn’t hated it. There are far worse fates than to be ravished and wrung out without needing to lift a finger.
But Charles always left angry, quietly fuming in that special way that only she could pull off. She kept tossing passive-aggressive remarks over her shoulder on the way out until Lando got fed up enough to figure out why. It turned out that Charles didn’t want her submission; she wanted tension. A sparring match. Not just the end result but every moment of the struggle leading up to it.
Maybe that’s why Charles is like this, constantly in a state of wanting more, cheating on her beloved boyfriend with a girl she doesn’t even like.
Lando understands because she’s the same. It might be the only thing they have in common. In the end, Lando is tiredly aware that they’re both inherently unsatisfied people.
The flush on Charles’ skin deepens, spreading like spilled wine across her chest and up her neck. Lando watches it bloom as she palms leisurely at Charles’ tits, savouring the way Charles jerks every time her fingers brush over a nipple.
There’s something undeniably arousing about the way irritation sharpens Charles’ features, the way her irritation makes her bite her lip and scowl. Lando imagines Sebastian being too sweet, gentle, accommodating with her—and thinks, not for the first time, that he’s missing out.
“Come here,” Charles says. She sits up abruptly, her hands grabbing at Lando’s face to drag her closer. The angle is awkward, Lando half-leaning over her, but the discomfort is worth it for the sounds that spill from Charles’ mouth. Soft moans and breathy sighs that make Lando’s cunt hurt with how turned on she is. Charles’ lips are wet and messy, smearing drool across the corner of Lando’s mouth. She’s awfully needy today, for some reason.
Lando wonders, briefly, if Charles is like this with other people. This openly wanton—this messy, by her standards. Lando can’t imagine it. She’s only like this because it’s Lando.
And while that’s only because she doesn’t care what Lando thinks, it’s a thought that lingers warm and possessive as she pulls back to finally peel off her underwear. If she wears them for any longer, they’ll be so filthy that no amount of washing will get the scent of sex out.
She manages to kick them off without kneeing Charles in the gut, but not a second later, Charles’ fingers are on her, dipping between her folds with a familiarity that makes Lando’s breath catch. “God, you fucking—” she starts, but the words dissolve into a moan as Charles’ thumb presses against her clit.
“You are taking too long,” Charles complains. There’s almost disbelief in her tone. “I don’t understand how you can be like this when you are actually so desperate. Look.”
Charles gathers the copious evidence of her arousal with a noise that’s far too loud, too obscene for the small room they’re in.
“Because I don’t have Cocomelon brain,” Lando snaps back, batting Charles’ hand aside. She clenches down the urge threatening to topple her over. She’s not going to come first.
“What the fuck is Cocomelon?” Charles asks, seeming genuinely confused.
Lando is too horny to deal with Charles’ chronic offlineness. She tucks her own hand between Charles’ legs, fingers brushing against the slick seam of her cunt.
“You’re pretty wet,” she comments. Wet enough that, when Lando prods at her entrance with one finger, she doesn’t have to fight for it. Normally, it’s more of a battle to get her body to cooperate.
Charles’ legs twitch, then widen slightly. “And?” she counters, lifting her chin in defiance. Her attempt to look haughty is ruined by the groan that escapes her as Lando begins rubbing circles around her clit. It’s swollen under her touch, the skin hot and sensitive.
“And nothing. It was an observation, that’s all,” Lando says, pressing down hard on Charles’ clit. The pressure would have been too much for her, leaving her oversensitive and squirming, but Charles is different. She needs more to get off, as greedy and insatiable as she is.
“Oh—” The sound spills from Charles unexpectedly, a weak, cut-off cry as her knees lift, heels digging into the mattress in a reflexive attempt to curl inward. Lando’s free hand tightens its grasp on Charles’ breast, holding her in place. The green of Charles’ eyes is barely visible now, lost beneath her dilated pupils. “Put your fingers in. I know you want to feel it. Let me—ah, feel you too.”
She’s such a babbler during sex. Unfortunately, Lando is very much into it.
Lando doesn’t waste any time, shoving two fingers inside Charles at once. The action is more necessity than finesse. She needs to get Charles off so that she can too; the coil of want in her stomach is tightening beyond reason.
Charles stretches around her with ease, once past the initial intrusion. She’s always so fucking loose. Loose enough that Lando wonders how Sebastian hasn’t put two and two together. Lando’s ignorance of anatomy aside, she’s positive that this kind of easy acceptance isn’t natural. Charles’ body isn’t born for this. Surely no one’s is; it’s been trained to be.
“Lando-o,” Charles moans, her voice trembling.
It earns a glance, but not much more. Lando keeps her eyes fixed on Charles’ cunt instead, watching the way it swallows her fingers—tight at the entrance, but so pliable inside. “What?”
“Lando—”
She shakes her head, and then tries, bumbling and a little awkward, to drag Lando’s hips toward her. Her efforts jerk Lando forward, and for a moment, her knuckles catch at just the right angle against her own clit.
It forces a bolt of pleasure to radiate out from her lower belly, a sensation she isn’t quite ready for. She has to grit her teeth against it, her jaw going so tense it begins to ache.
“Like this,” Charles murmurs. Her lashes flutter briefly, like she’s pretending to be shy now. Lando doesn’t buy it.
She doesn’t stop moving, not her hand or her grinding, because any hesitation now would tip the scales. Charles’ free hand shoots up to cup her stomach anyway, firm enough to make sure she doesn’t move away. The gesture makes something bitter curl in Lando’s chest. It feels less like affection and more like a threat.
“Fucking—fine,” Lando growls. She presses herself back down, letting Charles maneuver their bodies together in that clumsy way that irritates and arouses her in equal measure. “We can do it your way. God forbid you ever compromise.” She knows Charles won’t let go until she gets what she wants, and at this point, it’s a matter of who can hold off longest. Considering Lando’s still got two fingers buried inside Charles, she’s at least at an advantage.
Charles doesn’t respond. She never dignifies victories with gloating. But the smile that ghosts across her lips, fleeting as it is, says everything.
“Don’t complain to me if you’re too tired or whatever tomorrow,” she adds, and then feels a little too transparent for it.
Last time, Lando was the fool. She went straight from the frenzy of Charles’ mouth to her post-race interviews, walking stiff-legged with her own slick drying sticky between her thighs and soaking into the lining of her suit.
No one else knew, but that didn’t matter. She had known. Enough to leave her spiralling, cheeks hot during every single press question. It made the entire Internet think she was embarrassed about her performance when she was mostly just trying not to come in her pants to the memory.
She’s not letting that happen again. Not without returning the favour. Charles’ walk of shame won’t carry the same stakes—her room’s only a few steps away—but that’s not the point. It’s a matter of principle. Lando is owed this, and she’ll take it.
Charles hums under her breath, the sound rising as she shifts her weight. A hand presses firmly on Lando’s shoulder, leveraging herself as she starts to grind upward. Their bodies fold together tightly, and the movement squeezes Lando’s fingers out of her cunt momentarily. It takes a moment for her to readjust, angling her digits to slip back inside.
“Fucking, shit—” Charles stumbles over the words. That flutter, those minute contractions around Lando, tell her everything she needs to know. That’s the spot. “Oh, Lando—”
Lando’s own cunt throbs in response, an ache that’s growing into something unbearable. Each pull of her fingers out of Charles brushes the pads of her knuckles against her own clit. There’s nowhere else for them to go. Her palm slaps down against the mattress for stability; without it, she’d be a fucking wreck already.
Charles’ small sounds do nothing to help. They’re quieter than they have any right to be. Soft, breathless noises that would trick anyone who didn’t have the context of sight. If someone heard only the sounds she made, they might think she was a sweet girl hiding herself for propriety. If they couldn’t see the reality of how she looked right now—the way her mouth hangs open, glossy with spit that dribbles freely down her chin; the heavy bounce of her tits as she arches up to meet every thrust; the way her hair clings to her damp cheeks like unwoven threads.
And no one else deserves to see this. Nobody else has worked as hard for it as she does. Not whatever random hookups Charles sneaks out for, and especially not her clueless boyfriend. Sebastian might be sweet and kind with Charles, but there’s no way he knows how to pull this out of her—the feral, flushed creature currently sprawled beneath Lando.
Lando picks up the pace and rubs herself unabashedly against Charles’ leg. Sweat rolls down from her nape, and her mouth is dry, parched from effort, but she doesn’t stop. She needs Charles to come already because she needs to come already.
She leans forward, and for one stupid moment, Charles’ lips part as if she’s expecting a kiss. She should know better by now.
Lando doesn’t kiss her, of course. Her mouth finds the curve of Charles’ breast, and she barely grazes the nipple there with her teeth before Charles jerks under her and lets out a squeal. She sounds like a pig.
Her hand tangles in Lando’s hair, fingers curling to grip hard at the roots and pull. A small lick of pain shoots a shiver from Lando’s scalp, pooling lower until she presses her thighs tightly together just to keep herself in check.
“I’m gonna come,” Charles moans, a drawn-out confession that escapes her lips over and over. “Yes. Yes, yes.”
The sound of it is obscene. Pornographic in its sheer intensity.
“Come on already,” Lando snaps, sharper than intended. There’s impatience there, but more than that, it’s desperation. “Just—do it. Charles—” The last word is muffled as her face presses harder into the sticky cushion of Charles’ chest.
She braces for Charles to lose herself, to seize up and maybe even grip Lando so tight it leaves scratches. And that does happen—sort of. But then Charles moves, lifting her knee and forcing it between Lando’s thighs.
The jolt of the pressure catches Lando off guard entirely. Her body reacts faster than her brain can process, and in an instant, it’s all over. The heat pooling in her stomach bursts wide open, uncontrollable. Her orgasm hits her like a rolling wave that drags everything out of her. All she can do is curse into Charles’ shoulder as her movements cease.
She’s only distantly aware of how Charles is still grinding against her, drawing out the high in messy movements that do nothing to quiet the swelling irritation pounding inside her skull.
“Fuck,” Lando swears, yanking her hand back more forcefully than she means to. Her breaths come out shallow, too fast to catch properly.
All that work. All the effort, the fucking patience, and this is what sends her over the edge. Her stupid, sensitive body undone by a fucking knee. God, fuck her.
“You’re so—” She doesn’t know what word she’s looking for. Her temples sting, and her hand suddenly feels gross and wrinkly.
Charles, on the other hand, stretches out lazily against the sheets like a well-fed cat. Her limbs go slack, the tension melting from her frame as she basks in whatever high she’s riding.
“It’s not my fault you’re so sensitive,” she says, sounding far too smug for someone so clearly freshly fucked. Her fingers wander across her stomach, smearing Lando’s slick over her skin before dipping lower to press some of it back into her cunt. Lando’s juices, into her.
Jesus.
“That was nice,” she adds, dreamily.
She loops her arms around Lando’s shoulders and rolls them over. Her movements are graceful in theory but clumsy in execution; they almost tumble off the bed entirely if not for Charles’ foot catching the mattress at the last second, stopping them just shy of disaster. Despite being taller and broader than Lando in every way, Charles manages to curl up against her like she’s folding herself into a smaller shape.
Lando lies there beneath her now, still trembling, her heart pounding against her ribs like she’s just finished a race. The rage and arousal and exhaustion are all indistinguishable to her.
This is the Charles everyone else knows. Sweet in a sickly sort of way, unbearably affectionate, demanding in the softest tone so you can’t refuse. And it’s so much worse right now when Lando still kind of wants to kiss her, even if she knows better and nausea churns low in her gut.
“Not when we’re all sticky and gross,” she forces out.
Charles sighs, but she rolls off Lando with little protest. Mercifully, though not entirely altruistically, since Lando is now saddled with the unenviable job of actually having to stand up.
Her legs feel about as steady as wet paper, but she meanders to the bathroom without making a scene out of it.
When she returns with a damp towel in hand, Charles is no longer limp across the bed. She sits upright now, running her fingers through her hair. The motions seem futile; her usually neat, shiny hair looks like it’s been put through a blender tonight.
Lando eyes the slight shake in Charles’ hands as she threads them through the tangles. It’s tempting, if she wanted to be petty, to needle her about it. But it’s a weak weapon, and Lando’s too tired to start a fight. Everyone is rattled by a good orgasm—it’s hardly a unique trait. She lets it lie.
Charles glances up when Lando tosses her the towel. “Thank you,” she says.
Lando tries not to watch as Charles uses it to clean herself up. Unsuccessfully. The way she wipes down her chest, her tits now gleaming with dampness from the towel and the remaining sweat, is infuriatingly difficult to ignore. Probably on purpose, knowing her.
After Charles is finished with her legs, she stands straight and asks, “When will he be back?”
Lando frowns, caught off guard. “Who, Max?” Not tonight. He has this innate way of knowing when she needs to be left alone—or at least, when she doesn’t want to deal with him. “Why? You want to go for another round or something?”
“No,” Charles says simply, the flat answer followed by a shrug. “I was just curious.”
That’s all she says. It’s not enough to satisfy, but Charles doesn’t care about satisfying anything other than her own urges. She tosses the towel back to Lando unceremoniously, shifts to her knees, and starts searching for her dress.
Lando watches her for a moment longer, unsure whether to be annoyed or fascinated by her ability to compartmentalize so cleanly. Charles finds her underwear, and Lando snaps back to reality enough to begin pulling on her own discarded clothes.
It’s not like she needs to get dressed. This is her hotel room, and she isn’t going anywhere after Charles leaves. But standing around naked while Charles sorts herself out feels… weird. Especially in this mood.
Charles takes a steady inhale before zipping her dress up in one smooth motion. The stupid thing looks as intentionally provocative as it did before—no, worse now, knowing what lies under it.
Then Charles just stands there, fidgeting slightly, her arms loose at her sides. There’s an awkwardness to her posture that doesn’t suit her at all. And it doesn’t go unnoticed.
It’s suspicious, frankly.
“Do you need my permission to leave?” Lando huffs. She just wants to go to bed now, exhaustion settling deep into her bones. Whatever game Charles is trying to play can wait until the next weekend they see each other. “Go, if you want. Or stay. I don’t care.”
Charles exhales almost wearily.
“I am going. But there’s something I need to tell you first, because you will probably be hearing about it soon.”
The hairs on Lando’s nape stand up. That phrasing could mean a million things—about her, about Sebastian, about this whole messy affair sitting between them. She studies the slight downturn of Charles’ mouth and how she toys with her nails like she’s working through some heavy mental calculus. Grim. Definitely grim.
“You and Seb broke up?” Lando ventures.
Charles’ head jerks up, her brows furrowing as though Lando accused her of something sacrilegious. “What? No. We’re getting married.”
For a moment, Lando’s pulse stops beating in her ear.
“You’re getting married,” she repeats dumbly.
She heard Charles clearly, but there’s something unreconcilable about it—those words paired with her standing in Lando’s hotel room, in her wrinkled slutty dress with her hair still sticking to her face.
Charles brushes an invisible speck of dust off her dress. “He proposed in Monaco. I said yes, of course.”
“In Monaco,” Lando echoes in disbelief. The facts are processing slowly. “After he DNFed? That’s romantic.”
Charles, predictably, bristles. Her arms cross over her chest, and her lip curls faintly in displeasure when her eyes land on Lando.
“I don’t know why you are getting so upset. It doesn’t affect you.” Somehow, impossibly, it sounds like she actually believes that. “I’m only telling you so that you don’t hear it from—”
“How does it not affect me? We’re literally—”
The word sticks in her throat. Her voice cuts off abruptly, lips pressing into a tight line as she reconsiders finishing the sentence.
It’s not that she cares about Charles, or that she thinks they’re emotionally involved. She just doesn’t understand the cognitive dissonance. Dating is one thing, being married to your childhood hero is another.
“You want to keep doing this,” Lando finishes, swallowing.
Charles tilts her head. “You are looking guilty, suddenly. But Seb and I have been together for many years, so I don’t know why you’re only bothered now.”
“I’m not—I don’t feel guilty,” Lando bites out. The response comes too quickly, shrill at the edges, and she knows how it sounds. Defensive in a way Charles will latch onto like the predator she is.
But Lando isn’t guilty. Really. She’s just—not understanding.
“You look it,” Charles presses.
Her tone is soft, but that makes it worse somehow. It’s not tenderness. It’s the deliberate placement of a scalpel, testing the wound, opening it up wider to see what spills out.
Lando stuffs her hands into the pockets of her sweats. “I don’t know what you’re even saying I feel guilty about. You’re the one who’s going to be cheating on your husband.”
She feels like she’s just made a mistake, even though her words are objectively true. That same nauseating pit yawns open in her stomach, the one she felt after Monaco, walking around like everyone could see the stain of Charles still clinging to her.
Lando has seen them together. Charles bounding across the garage floor after a podium to throw her arms around Sebastian’s neck, her face lighting up with a big smile. Or the two of them tucked into the corner of some dumb party George probably dragged her along to, Sebastian’s arm slung casually around her shoulders while he whispers something that has her giggling into her glass.
She knew—or she thought she knew, at least—that Charles really did love Sebastian. Just not in a way that felt mutually exclusive to all of this. The way Lando loves Max, for instance. Sincerely, deeply, in a way that feels eternal, but with an ugly part she keeps carefully tucked away.
That’s why she has Charles. To let the ugly part breathe.
But marriage is different. There’s something about it that takes things from abstract to concrete, turning love into a kind of promise. It’s sacred or some shit. You’re supposed to let your guard down with your husband, you’re supposed to share everything with them—the good, the bad, the parts of you that you can’t show anyone else. Either that, or you’re supposed to get rid of them entirely. Isn’t that the point? To either bare or better yourself for them?
That’s why Lando won’t ever do it. She won’t get married and then crawl into someone else’s bed. It’s… wrong. Max knows her feelings about marriage, anyway. They came to an agreement there long ago.
“I’m not guilty,” Lando says again. She exhales slowly, trying to release some of the heat burning her lungs. “I’m just saying I don’t get it. Why you’d want to marry him if you’re just going to keep doing this.”
“Because I love him,” Charles answers.
Of course it’s so simple for her, Lando thinks bitterly, feeling a little like she just got punched in the gut. Things don’t splinter or fracture for Charles; they fit neatly into place like a puzzle with their own self-serving logic.
She rubs the heel of her palm over her face. “So what’s your deal then? You just keep doing this—sneaking around—and what? Pray that Seb never figures it out?”
Charles’ gaze flickers faintly with something that looks like genuine anger before her expression smooths over again. “Seb will not figure it out.” Her voice hardens just slightly. “You are not going to tell him. This is about you. Not me. Not us.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Lando snaps, dropping her hand. “If you think I’m the one with the problem here—”
“You are,” Charles interrupts. “You think I am being selfish, but you know what’s funny? The only person I see upset is you.”
Lando flinches, but the sting fades as fast as it comes. She retreats into her own anger, the safest ground she has. “What does that even mean?”
“You don’t need to be a bitch to me because you are realising something about yourself that you don’t like,” Charles says as she steps toward the door, hand closing around the knob. She always has to get the last word in. “We are in the same situation, you know.”
A retort nearly leaves Lando, but she manages to bite it back—literally, with blood on her tongue. She doesn’t have anything to counter with that won’t sound hypocritical, even though they both know it’s not the same.
“Fuck off, Charles,” Lando mutters. But she can already feel herself losing steam, seeing the curve of Charles’ ass disappear behind the doorway. Ultimately, this won’t mean shit. By next weekend, they’ll be here again, playing out the same stupid scene all over again.