By the time they get to the golf course, Lando is useless. He's vibrating like he's hopped up on sugar, head on a swivel as if he might recognize a car, catch sight of someone from his list. Steve is about to reach over and scruff him like a kitten. He's fairly confident it would work, is the thing, has thought about it more than once. He pictures Lando going slack and compliant under his hand, and. Well. There are reasons he hasn't tried it yet.
Lando shakes his head when Steve asks if he wants to know who's coming, and Steve is almost concerned when he says he wants it to be a surprise instead of making a bad joke about coming.
"It's a good list, though, yeah?" Lando asks, tearing his gaze away from the window to look at Steve.
Steve nods. "Yeah," he says.
"Good," Lando says. Something flickers through his eyes, a melancholy Steve has never understood that settles over Lando from time to time. "Do ya think..." he trails off.
If Steve were sitting closer, he'd bump him with his shoulder, try to shake the words loose. Instead he waits.
Lando doesn't finish the thought, chews at his thumb for a moment before catching himself and shoving his hands under his thighs.
"You'll have the place all to yourself," Steve says, even though Lando knows the arrangement already.
"You'll be there the whole time?" Lando asks.
Steve shoots him a sharp look, but there's no mischievous tilt to the question. Lando looks up from his phone when Steve doesn't answer immediately.
"As close as you want me to be," Steve says. "I planned to be outside the tent."
Lando tips his head up in acknowledgement but doesn't reply. It seems like there's something else he wants to say, but he holds back.
Steve wonders, but he doesn't press. He's told Lando he can ask for anything, it's Steve's job to tell him no when he needs to. Still, he finds Lando biting his tongue, assuming an ask is too much, that it might be a line Steve doesn't want to cross.
Steve remembers the handoff meeting with Rich, the hangdog look. It isn't Steve's place to judge, but his opinion has always been nobody can force you across a line you aren't already willing to cross. He thinks about the set-up of the afternoon - an invitation at once shockingly intimate and carefully impersonal. People driving to a golf course in the middle of nowhere just for Lando.
"Max is busy," Lando had said. How many of his closest relationships were with people who felt like they owed him something?
Beside him in the car, Lando’s knee is bouncing non-stop.
"Anything you don't want today?" Steve asks. The people on the list know the rules, but he's more than willing to make modifications.
"Anything you do want?" Steve prods, half teasing.
Lando exhales a burst of laughter, shakes his head again. He looks a bit chagrined when he speaks.
"Sorry, I'm," he gestures towards his head, gives Steve a lopsided smile. "Thank you for putting this together," he says.
"Organizing orgies is probably a more common part of this job then you'd think," Steve replies, mostly for the way Lando laughs again and wrinkles his nose.
"It's not an orgy," Lando protests. "Too much coordination. Threesome max, I think."
Steve snorts. "I'll keep that in mind," he says. His watch buzzes. "Alright, tee time."
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