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In the days before the race weekend kicked off, Niki managed to show James a few more Viennese sights. He dragged him to the park for a picnic, just because they probably needed some oxygen before they raced, and to another art museum, but with no particular urgency. James had cancelled his flight home and planned to stay in Vienna til it was time to leave for Monza in three weeks. So there was no hurry to see anything, with gorgeous empty weeks ahead of them to explore the city and each other. Apart from an incredibly misguided decision to bring James to the Museum of Military History, which ended with Niki doing something he had never expected to do in a public bathroom, they had a few blissful days alone before facing the F1 circus. James booked a hotel for them both on the Saturday night, to save the long trek back to Vienna between quali and the race, and Niki booked a few days in Salzburg the following week, so James could see where Niki hoped to buy a second home in the next year or two.
But mostly they stayed in bed, and didn't think about the future. It was easy to ignore the future, when the present had James Hunt in it.
Niki waited til they were leaving his apartment on Thursday to head to the circuit. He picked up his jacket and said “so how do we do this?”
James stopped halfway through putting his jacket on. “I mean, mine's half on, so I don't think I need any advice, Nik.”
James had taken to calling him Nik this week. Niki hoped he would eventually stop getting weak at the knees every time. “You know what I mean. Do we arrive and leave together? Do I drop you outside the circuit and let you walk the rest of the way? Do we admit you've been visiting Vienna?”
“I think we admit I've been visiting,” James said. “Hesketh aren't near enough challenging Ferrari for anyone to care if we're friends. And I'll need to explain why I'm not in England to work on the car as much as usual for the next three weeks.”
“Do Hesketh work on their car between races?” Niki asked, wide-eyed. “I thought they just put some more glue on it and said some prayers.”
“Prayers don't say themselves, Niki,” James chided. “They need me to lead the congregation.”
“In what?” Niki mumbled, but James heard and grabbed him from behind.
“My cheeky little rat,” James whispered into Niki's ear. Niki went soft all over and yielded into James's arms.
“Whose rat?” he asked.
“Mine.” James kissed the back of his neck. “Mine.” Another kiss. “Mine.” He tickled Niki under his chin. “My perfect little rat. What was I saying?”
“We were deciding how to handle the paddock, now that we're...whatever we are.” Niki spun in James's arms, but not enough to break free.
“A disgustingly boring committed couple, that's what we are.” James's grin did not suggest he thought anything in his life was disgusting or boring. He kissed Niki's nose. “Bringing home the bacon. Gardening on the weekends. Pipe and slippers every night.”
“Please stop listening to When I'm Sixty-Four. Nothing we did in the museum bathroom yesterday was boring.”
“You must have suspected that would happen when you brought me there.”
“I thought we'd make it home!” Niki rolled his eyes. “Anyway. Paddock. How are we supposed to handle this?”
“Well, you're the one with the worries,” James said. Serious James was annoyingly sexy, Niki had discovered, so he struggled a little to keep focus when James actually spoke and listened. “Hesketh will make fun of me but won't actually sack me, but Ferrari...you've said the Old Man is difficult.”
“He is.” Niki sighed. “Most of the guys on the team I think are OK, but it's a lot to ask them to keep secret. I think I want my team to not know.”
“OK. So no Ferrari, and that means no media, and also no Hesketh, because none of that crew can be trusted to keep things to themselves after a few drinks. And they've always had a few drinks.”
“I would like to tell Luca, though,” Niki said. “He will be fine.” Niki looked down at James's chest, unable to meet his eyes. “I need someone to know. I hate that we have to hide.”
“I know, rat.” James drew Niki closer and patted his shoulder. “I know.”
“I would tell Clay, but then I would be asking him to lie to the team.”
“I suspect Clay knows, actually,” James said, sheepishly.
“What? How?”
“After you fainted in the pit lane, and I brought you back to the hotel... the next race, he took me aside and said you were his good friend and I'd better be nice to you.”
“Oh, fuck. What did you say?”
“Well, it was after the blankets incident, so I told him you were a nasty little bastard sneak who nailed my blankets to the ceiling and didn't deserve any protection.” James swallowed. “Sorry about that.”
Niki shook his head. “The pair of you, honestly. Who do you want to tell?”
“I'll only consider this if you agree.” James paused. “Ronnie is probably my closest pal outside the team. But he's your friend too, so...”
“No, no, that's fine. Ronnie. And Luca. One friend each.”
“And...could I tell Lella? She'll understand.”
“Oh." Understanding dawned on Niki. "Her friend...”
“Yep.”
“Oh. Good. I'm glad she has someone.” Niki nodded. “Tough season for her this year.”
“And she's good. Matched me when we drove together.”
“She didn't have any romance novels, though,” Niki said thoughtlessly.
“What?”
“We have to leave, James.”
“We can leave,” James said, releasing Niki from his arms. “But you need to tell me what you mean.”
Niki sighed. “On the way.”
On the walk to the helipad, Niki recounted his trip to Ronnie and Barbro's room, Barbro phoning around the women, explaining repeatedly that Niki didn't want the books in place of porn. James started out giggling, then broke into proper laughter when Niki told him that he'd had to invent a crush to explain away his quest, and finally into silent, racking gasps when Niki explained how he'd gotten caught buying the books by a fan, and had to invent a girlfriend and sign a race ticket.
“You went up to the reception desk and said, excuse me, I need vintage English text erotica, my good sir, could you kindly direct me to the nearest purveyor of same?”
“No, I said 'is there a good used bookshop in town that might have some books in English, please?'”
When James had regained control of himself – which took a few tries – he said, “five?”
“Shit.” Niki rolled his eyes. “Shouldn't have told you how many I have.”
“And I've only gotten near two of them. You mean, hoarding little rat.” James didn't sound like he thought this was a bad thing. He said it like he longed to wheedle everything from his rat, and spank him afterwards for being bad. Niki shivered, and after the tremble had left his body, he remained hyper-sensitive, somehow both ashamed and helplessly aroused at how badly he wanted James to tease him.
“What do you do to mean, hoarding little rats?” Niki asked, before he could stop himself. To his own ears, his voice sounded too low.
“Oh, terrible things, Niki. Truly terrible things.” James's face lit up. “I invade their bedrooms. Sing along with their music. Steal their blankets at night. Race them super-hard on the track and never yield an inch.”
“Unprecedented horrors.” Niki glanced at his watch. “However, speaking of the track...”
“OK, I'll stop dawdling. Don't want you to punish me later.”
“Don't you?” Niki asked archly.
“Oh. I hadn't realised that was an option.”
“Everything is an option.” Niki shrugged. “Unless Luca kills me for being late. Then nothing is.”
“Alright, point taken.”
After quali, Niki checked into the hotel James had booked. He was finished long before James, who had some things to go over with the team, and he was curious – maybe even a bit excited – about what taking a hotel together, as a couple, might feel like.
“We've noted your special request, Mr. Lauda.”
“Thank you.” Niki took his key.
He opened the door, and was instantly disappointed. A room with a connecting door, no surprises, nothing unexpected. Just a room with a connecting door.
He supposed they had been fun so far, but he wanted something different. Something to mark how things had changed.
He sat on the bed and felt something crinkle beneath him.
He pulled out the source of the crinkle.
A note.
N,
Too chicken for the honeymoon suite. Too devoted for separate rooms.
Your move,
James
Niki remembered joking about booking the honeymoon suite, months and months ago. He remembered James's splutters and silence, one of the times Niki knew he had surprised him. “You always surprise me,” James had said to him in various states of undress since Monday. Niki hoped this would always be true. He didn't know how else to keep the heart of someone as wild as James.
Too chicken for the honeymoon suite. Too devoted for separate rooms.
Your move.
No Mr. Lauda anymore. That made Niki smile.
And as usual, when he thought about James and hotel rooms, an idea began to form.
But he would have to move fast.
Niki was on his bed reading Trapped Until Midnight when he heard James open the door of the adjoining room. They had dinner plans – Ronnie, Barbro, Lella and Fiorenza – in a good restaurant where Niki knew the owner, and they planned to break the news when everyone was well fed. James had left just about enough time for a shower and change of clothes, and maybe fifteen minutes more, if he was lucky. Niki hoped they had a few minutes. He didn't want to be dizzy with want all through dinner, and he also didn't want to break the news to their friends by standing up as soon as the plates were cleared and announcing that he and James were headed back to the hotel right now.
“Honey, I'm home!” James called out from his room.
“Good day at the office, darling?” Niki called back.
He heard James put his key down. He heard slow steps, puzzled, and then fast running across the carpet.
James came through the doorways.
“Niki. Where did you put the doors?”
“They're in your bathroom. We won't be needing two bathrooms, surely.”
“You...you took them down.”
“Yes.”
“You removed the two fucking doors.”
“Yes.” Niki nodded slowly, like he was explaining something to a child. “Power tools, James, have non-destructive uses too. Remember how you drilled a hole in the door? I just went a step further.”
“And the doors are in my bathroom.”
“Yes. We can put them back up before we leave. No harm done.” Niki checked his watch. “If you want to shower, you may wish to hurry up.”
“I want to...” James came over to the bed, looming over Niki. “I want to take that book out of your hands – temporarily, you understand – and fuck you up against the doorframe. I can't believe you removed the actual doors.”
Niki shrugged. “Best compromise I could find between the honeymoon suite and separate rooms. You give me a problem, I fix it. It's why I'm a better racer than you.”
“Oh, you awful little rat.” James flopped down on the bed beside Niki. “And why did you bother carting the doors into the bathroom? You could have just left them on the bed in my room. We certainly won't be using it for anything else.”