caseyvale country

Watching him run off of his bike to climb the podium as the world champion of 2007 only left him with a bitter taste in his mouth, however.

He had watched the kid struggle up through pure grit and talent and he had earned that podium and he had earned his place with the other MotoGP champions on the Winner’s cup but still, he couldn’t help the part of him that was filled with jealousy. There was no feeling better than the feeling of the top step of a podium and the feeling of winning was better than any high a drug could give him and he was jealous. Everytime he saw someone on that top step other than him he was jealous.

Once, it had marked him as a good rider. Crash after crash he had gotten up again out of a sheer need to win and that anger that he had felt had been a strength. It had never been about the money or the fame but the thrill of winning, it’s what had made him different from the rest, but now it made him feel like an old man angry that someone younger now had it all.

If Mick was a better man, he would have stayed to congratulate Casey. But then again, if Mick was a better man, he wouldn’t have felt jealous over a kid winning his first world championship in the first place. He left before Casey climbed down the podium.

•••

A few hours later, Mick found himself standing in front of Casey’s hotel room, fist raised to knock at the door. If it had been any other rider, Mick would have slated it as a lost cause until they finally dragged themselves out of whatever seedy club they’d been partying in, but clubbing had never been Casey’s scene. Everyone who had thought he was too serious had never met Casey Stoner.

So, when the guilt of leaving the kid like that without saying anything to him had finally reached a point where he couldn’t just ignore it, he had called a few people to find what hotel room they’d put Casey in and had finally brought himself to go congratulate the kid. Still he hesitated, his hand still held in the air in front of him, and he wondered if he really was going to do this, before he finally gave in and knocked on the door.

For one, anti-climatic moment, nothing happened and Mick had resigned himself to giving some quick congratulations and a made up reason for his disappearance over the phone when he heard the sound of scuffling and a few muffled curses from behind the door. Casey wrenched the door open a few seconds after and, well – Mick couldn’t judge, he’d had his own wild few nights after his own championships after all – there was no other way to describe him other than a man who was disturbed mid-sex.

He was half dressed, only in a pair of sweatpants and no shirt, and his chest was covered in a blotchy red. If that wasn’t evidence enough, his pupils were blown wide and his usually neatly gelled back hair was sticking up in all directions like someone had run their fingers through it.  Mick would have had to have been blind not to realize what Casey had been doing instead of partying. The only question was how in God’s name Casey had found the courage to talk up a girl.

“Mick,” Casey said, his voice raspy and his eyes wide, “why are you here?”

“I thought I’d congratulate you, but I wasn’t expecting you to have company already,” Mick responded, giving him a once over. “The first championship is always the best, ” he ended weakly. He wasn’t lying, there wasn’t a way that Mick could explain how he’d felt when he’d won his first and do it justice all the while.

Casey’s cheeks went pink and his ears were burning red. “It’s nothing no one else’s done,” he grumbled before tacking on a quick, “thanks.”

“Is that Mick?” Casey’s guest called out from the room and both men froze. That voice was undeniably a man’s voice and suddenly, Mick knew damn well who exactly Casey had been fucking.

“Valentino Rossi,” Mick hissed at Casey incredulously, leaning a little heavier on his cane, “you’re fucking Valentino Rossi of all people?”

“It’s nothing no one else’s done,” Casey repeated again, his eyes narrowing at him and Mick knew Valentino had told him. “You know what? Just come inside.”

Without even checking if Mick was going to follow him, Casey turned to disappear into his room like he just knew that Mick would do as he’d asked and for a second, Mick was tempted to just turn around and walk away. He was far too old to participate in whatever game Casey and Valentino were playing with one another – but in the end, he was just a man like the rest of them all and temptation won out and he followed Casey inside.

•••

Mick had to be careful where he placed his cane because of the clothes thrown carelessly on the floor. The room was dim, dark except for the gentle glow of a night lamp and when he finally caught sight of Valentino sitting on the bed, completely naked. Like Casey, Valentino looked dazed and fucked, but there was still that sharp cunning to his eyes that never really left him.

“Decided to join us old man?” Valentino asked with a lazy grin, clearly egging Mick on. He’d had a bad race, Mick knew, and Valentino was a bitch when he had a bad race – he was surprised that he had come to Casey at all instead of moping with the boy that stuck to him like a shadow.

“I might stick around if you make it worth my time,” Mick shrugged dismissively in a way he knew would piss him off.

Valentino got up on his knees and pulled him close, making Mick stumble slightly. If Mick just moved his head forwardly slightly, he would be kissing Valentino. Valentino threw his hands around Mick’s neck and smiled slightly at him.

“If I hadn’t been the best fuck you’ve had in your life, maybe that threat would have been convincing.”

“So confident for a boy who was crying the first time I fucked him.” That got a glare from Valentino, but it would have been more threatening if the sight of tears falling down Valentino’s face wasn’t engrained in Mick’s memory.

“Should I leave you two to your dick measuring contest or what?” Casey interrupted from where he was watching them boredly from the headboard.

“Maybe you should learn a little patience,” Valentino bit back, not looking back to face the other man and well, the boy had won his first championship after all, he didn’t deserve backtalk from a bitch.

Mick threaded his fingers into Valentino’s hair, yanking his head back, and Valentino groaned at the pain. “How about you apologize to Casey?” he ordered more than asked.

“How about you go fuck yourself?” Valentino said, his eyes half-lidded but his smile sharp as ever. He winced when Mick’s fingers tightened around Valentino’s hair but a moan slipped from him nonetheless.

“Fuck, sorry Casey,” Valentino said begrudgingly and Mick let go of his hair. Casey watched them with interest, his cock tenting in his pants at the sounds that Valentino made. He clearly thought Mick handling Valentino was hot – after all, Valentino was something like a force of nature, it took a lot to wrangle him into something that almost resembled docile but never fully.

“Casey seems a little uncomfortable in his pants, don’t you think?” Mick hummed, staring into Casey’s eyes the entire time and leaning down next to Valentino’s ear like he was whispering in a dog’s ear. “Go take it off of him.” Valentino opened his mouth, seemingly to say something snide again, before thinking better of it and turning around to face Casey.

He walked over to an armchair in the corner, sitting down heavily as he watched Valentino connect his and Casey’s lips. One of Valentino’s hands went down to unbutton and unzip Casey’s jeans, they stopped for a second as Valentino dragged Casey’s pants off and threw it carelessly behind him. Before Mick could tell him anything, Valentino was reaching for the lube on the night stand.

“Stop, Casey, you should prep him,” Mick called out and Casey nodded eagerly. Unlike Valentino, the boy listened to him sometimes, which was more than Valentino’s never; he was more willing to bend to his will than the other man.

“Allora, I can prep myself,” Valentino whined just for the sake of complaining.

“Let him prep you or Casey can just fuck you without prep, it’s your choice.”

Valentino grumbled before shoving the bottle at Casey. Casey slicked his fingers before pulling him in for a kiss by the back of his neck with his clean hand. His hand remained on the back of his neck as Casey reached down to sink his finger into Valentino’s hole. Mick’s cock stirred in his shorts but he didn’t touch himself.

One finger turned into two and Valentino rested his forehead on Casey’s shoulder, panting and groaning. Slowly, Valentino was losing himself, dazed and incoherent leaving the man and animal that was intent on getting pleasure instead of the darling godling on two tires. There was something so intoxicating about dwindling down Valentino of all people into something dumb with pleasure, moaning and asking for more with not much else on his mind except more more more. The eternal boy king of MotoGP debasing himself for dick, it was hotter than anything else that Mick had seen.

“I think he’s stretched enough, don’t you Casey?” Mick said. “Go on, slip your fingers out and fuck him.”

“Fuck,” Casey groaned, but he did what Mick told him to do. Slowly, he slipped out his fingers and Valentino groaned annoyedly. 

He flipped them over so it was Valentino who was laying on the bed instead of himself and pulled his legs up to rest on Casey’s shoulders. Mick almost cursed when he saw how Valentino was made to bend, the man’s pre-race stretches were being put to good use for once.

Casey lined his dick up to Valentino’s hole before slowly pressing in without pause, Valentino moaned loud enough that Casey covered Valentino’s mouth with his hand. Without giving Valentino much time to get used to the feeling of him inside him, Casey started to move and muffled moans and curses were the only things that came from Valentino.

Valentino’s dick, pretty and hard against his thin stomach, left a white puddle of precome on his stomach, but no one moved to touch it and Mick made no move to order them to either. His head was thrown back against the pillows, mouth thrown open making little sounds every time Casey pushed inside fully and his eyes bleary and teary. He looked debauched and suddenly Mick had the weird urge to take a picture of the sight.

After a few seconds, Casey lost all pretense of moving slowly and carefully, thrusting in and out of Valentino quickly to chase his own end. Mick finally unzipped his shorts, letting out a sigh of relief as the pressure of his shorts tight against his dick finally left. He didn’t move to join them, however, until Valentino moved his hand down to touch his cock. Mick stood up, his shorts unzipped and slung low on his hips to stop Valentino’s hand.

“What the fuck— let me touch myself,” Valentino scowled and Mick tightened his grasp around Valentino’s wrist.

“You don’t come until I tell you to come,” Mick said cooly, meeting Valentino’s glare head-on.

“Shit, Mick,” Casey groaned. If he had looked well-fucked when he had met Mick at the door, Mick didn’t know what to call how he looked now.

Sweat beaded at Casey’s forehead as he looked down at Valentino with a single-minded focus, powerful arms taught as he gripped Valentino’s waist, pulling him into every thrust. His mouth was red and bitten from when he had been kissing Valentino and Mick reached out to hold the side of his face. Casey looked at him, confused, and Mick pulled him in for a kiss.

Valentino cursed at the sight underneath them as Casey steadily pumped into him while kissing Mick, but neither man paid him any regard, too busy licking into each other’s mouths. When they parted for breath, Casey was panting and there was a blush high on his cheeks and a few thrusts later, Casey was spilling into Valentino.

Pulling out of Valentino, Casey’s come started to leak out but Mick pushed it back in with two of his own fingers. Casey made a sound from the back of his throat as he watched intently where the base of Mick’s fingers were touching Valentino’s rim, but he climbed off the bed watch from the armchair Mick recently vacated.

“My turn,” Mick said, leering down at Valentino. Mick sat down to the side, his leg was still fucked and he couldn’t kneel for long, before pulling Valentino up to sit on his lap, fingers still plugging Casey’s come inside him.

“It’s a surprise you can still get it up after this long, popped a pill before this?” Valentino asked before letting out a keen as Mick curled his fingers inside him.

“Good whores know when to shut up,” Mick said before unceremoniously pulling his fingers out of Valentino and pushing himself into Valentino. He guided Valentino up and down with his hands wrapped around his waist, making the younger man ride him.

He could feel Casey’s come being pushed back into Valentino, fucked in deeper by his cock, and if Valentino’s cursing was anything to go by, Valentino could feel it too. Mick took in greedily every wince, moan, and twitch of Valentino’s face like a man starved. The thing about fucking riders was that you couldn’t know when it would be the last time you were allowed to so every time counted. Valentino was the finickiest one too, he liked to toy with people around him and lost interest when they left his circle, but that only made fucking him now that much more sweeter.

“Please let me come,” Valentino gasped, his eyes wide and pleading.

Mick was close too, he had been basically edging himself for just as long as he had been edging Valentino, but he couldn’t help but taunt Valentino. “Should I let you? But you’ve been such a bitch, baby, I don’t think you deserve it. What would you do if I just came and left you like this? Would you cry again?”

Valentino looked close to crying already, his eyes glistening with welled up tears, and Mick held on, just a few seconds more and he knew that— tears slipped down Valentino’s face and it sent Mick over the edge, adding his own come in with Casey’s. He placed his hand on Valentino’s dick finally, jerking the other man off and it took just a few pumps of his fist and a press on his slit for Valentino to come all over Mick’s hands before collapsing on Mick like a ragdoll.

Guiding Valentino off of him, Mick pulled the other man to curl up on the bed beside him and Casey popped out of God knows where with a wet rag to wipe him off. He was reverent with it, no matter how much snide comments and the media cat fights they had with each other, Casey seemed to like Valentino legitimately for reasons beyond Mick’s comprehension.

“You could stay if you want, I wouldn’t mind,” Casey said, not looking up from Valentino. “He stays the night most of the time.”

Mick had the sudden urge to shake Casey and tell him that no matter how young and stupid he was, he couldn’t fall in love with Valentino. It was a tragedy just waiting to happen, someone always leaves.

“I’m going to grab a shower,” Mick grunted instead, grabbing his cane as he walked off in the direction of the bathroom.

•••

Mick looked back at the sleeping duo one more time before he left, his gaze unreadable. He didn’t know what to think of that himself or even what to classify what happened as, but he knew that it wouldn’t happen again. Some fluke of chance was all that he could say it was.

Uccia herself was stewing in the worst of the heat standing at the back of the room with the rest of the team officials and some other random assortment of workers. The conference had been going on for a little less than ten minutes and any time that a question wasn’t directed at her, Valentina was leaning down to talk low into Casey’s ear and the jealousy that burned white hot through her the entire time.

It wasn’t fair, Casey was painfully young, awkward and angrily lashing out like a cornered animal and the ideal prey for the press to prod at. Valentina was a good cover for her, someone that the press was far more interested in, but the ugly thing that lived in Uccia’s chest didn’t seem to care.

After all, Uccia had risked it all for her. Valentina was her best friend, her better half, everything she wanted and everything she wanted to be but Uccia had no claim to Valentina. She was sure that they weren’t girlfriends – Valentina never liked being shackled and Uccia liked to wander – but she was also pretty sure that best friends didn’t fuck each other either.

It was a complicated mess of wanting her and wanting to be her and degrading herself to be next to her forever and filled with the need to run away from her as fast as she could. Uccia tried not to think about it, feeding the gnawing hunger for Valentina’s attention without quite paying attention to its existence. But sometimes in between moments, her thoughts drew to the desperate creature that haunted her that asked what if.

There was a red flush high on Casey’s cheeks as she laughed at everything that Valentina said and watched with the awe that Valentina seemed to incite in everyone she met. Uccia watched as Casey’s eyes dropped down to Valentina’s mouth, her eyes trailing the way her lips moved before reluctantly looking back up at her eyes.

Did she wonder how Valentina’s lips would feel against her own? Did she wonder how Valentina’s mouth would feel around her fingers? Would she get on her knees if Valentina asked? Would she press the purple-blue bruises left behind the next day and get off with the twinges of pain and shame burning in her stomach?

Maybe it was because she knew exactly what it would be like to be Casey; she knew what jokes Valentina would make, the smell of the cologne that Valentina had put on that morning, the weight of Valentina’s attention. In that way, she wasn’t jealous of Casey, because even if it was childish, Uccia couldn’t help but get a sense of satisfaction from having Valentina first. Wherever they went and whoever Valentina fucked, she would always come back and Uccia would leave the porch light on every day until she came back to Uccia.

Casey hid her laugh with her hand and Uccia pursed her lips at the sight. She saw the way Valentina watched her laugh – pleased and affectionate – and she burned red hot with jealousy. Mindlessly, she fixed the ring on her finger so the forty-six emblazoned on it faced up.

After what seemed like forever, a reporter finally asked Valentina a question which got the woman to rip her eyes away from the Australian to answer with a quip that got a laugh out of everyone in the room. Uccio didn’t hear what the joke was but she let out a breath she hadn’t known she had been holding anyway.

•••

She had stayed in that night. It was out of character for her, usually she went willingly to every bar, club, and disco that Valentina decided needed her presence, but on some whim she had faked a headache and which had gotten her a displeased look and an annoyed acceptance from Valentina. Uccia was sure Valentina had caught the lie and Uccia was sure that Valentina was going to be a huge bitch about it for days but she did it anyway.

Before Valentina had left, she had thrown a snippy remark of how Uccia was going to wait at home like a housewife, her mouth twisted into a smirk, and Uccia had called her a dick but she found herself waiting for Valentina to come back nevertheless. It was a part of Valentina’s charm, when she found something that hurt she couldn’t help but bite down onto the soft spot like a hunting dog goring its prey.

Uccia wasn’t a partner, but she was a friend either – those words had never been adequate enough to describe them. Uccia wasn’t Valentina’s housewife or girlfriend or worker, she had her place and she followed Valentina like a dog with her head held high. You would do anything to be me she wished she could gloat to the sneers that followed her you would do anything to be at her side.

It was the middle of the night when Valentina had come back to her drunk and smelling of something more masculine than the usual flowery perfume. Valentina had stumbled into her and Uccia had half-carried Valentina onto the couch where Valentina tucked her gangly limbs into Uccia’s lap, her breath slow and hot against the crux of Uccia’s neck. They weren’t above locker room gossip, but Valentina didn’t say who she had fucked this time and Uccia hadn’t probed. She had a feeling that she already knew who it was anyway.

“We should watch The Blues Brothers,” Valentina said into Uccia’s neck, her breath smelling of alcohol and something sweet, and Uccia laughed. Valentina was dead weight in her arms but she already wanted something else to do.

Gently, Uccia maneuvered the other woman to lie across the couch instead of sitting in her lap and went to fumble around with the TV and the DVDs that were stacked haphazardly in a cupboard next to it. Valentina watched her from the couch, Uccia could feel her gaze, but she didn’t say anything. When the TV flickered to life Uccia went back and Valentina raised her head so she could lay her head on Uccia’s lap instead. Valentina was gangly enough that her feet dangled over the edge of the couch, she always seemed to not have a care in the world about how much space she occupied.

Sometimes, when she was alone lying wide awake in their bed in the hours between when Valentina would slip into the bed at dawn, she felt jealous of how easily Valentina was confident in herself while it seemed like Uccia had to fight for every inch of what she was. It was childish and incorrect and was left only for the silent nights where there was nothing else to drown out the sound of her own thought, but now, Uccia looked down only and rubbed at the corners of her eyes where Valentina’s eyeshadow had smudged and felt her heart skip a beat. She found it odd that most people didn’t seem to recognize how close jealousy was to love.

Other nights, when they sat there drunk and the world seemed so small and filled with just the two of them, it felt like the line was already crossed. She felt the warmth of Valentina pressed against her and it made her wonder if she just pushed a little further as well. She couldn’t and she wouldn’t, but the idea stuck with her.

Even though Uccia was sure that Valentina could recite the movie line by line, she was paying rapt attention to the screen and even though Uccia could have recognized her in a crowd of a million people, she was paying rapt attention to Valentina. She ran her hands through Valentina’s hair, gently detangling every knot her fingers got caught on, and lost herself in what could be and what she wasn’t willing to reach for.

It was a bittersweet feeling, sitting on the couch that they had picked out together in the closest thing that they had to home for most of the year and watching the movie Valentina had deemed theirs. It felt like Valentina was teasing her with things that she could never have. Valentina was shrewd and a little mean where it counted, so Uccia wouldn’t put it past her to get some sort of pleasure from prodding at Uccia, but Uccia never minded.

“The girl, Casey, she’s pretty, yes?” Valentina asked suddenly and Uccia stilled. She narrowed her eyes at the woman but Valentina never looked away from the screen. Uccia’s girl was like a hunting dog, hungry and vicious even towards her.

“Maybe, why?” Uccia asked back, going back to playing with Valentina’s hair.

“No reason,” Valentina hummed unconvincingly and Uccia snorted before finally looking up at the screen. Eventually, something will happen, Uccia knew, but for now she just settled back into their couch, watching unseeing as familiar scenes flashed by on the screen and letting the familiarity of the scene wash over her.

Once she had bought a shitty romance novel in an airport bookshop while their flight had been delayed hours. It had been cheesy and stupid but she hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away from it until she had reached the end. In a book love was something beautiful and everyone else seemed to agree. For Uccia, love always carried embarrassment. She was embarrassed for wanting, needing, desiring, always reaching for things that she could never get.

Uccia ran her hand through Valentina’s hair once again and the embarrassment twined itself with a jealousy that seemed to never leave her alone. Sweet rot flowered in her ribs and blossomed in her lungs, Valentina followed her with every breath she took,

•••

The restaurant staff were fixing everything for the party around them and Valentina was lounging across a chair next to her in a corner, watching them. At some point Uccia had taken Valentina’s hand and started to fidget with Valentina’s fingers mindlessly.

“Did you convince Stoner to fly here just for this?” Uccia asked, pulling one of Valentina’s fingers back before balling them up into a fist. 

“What? No, she had something in Italy, I just had to convince her that staying with us for three days would be better than flying in and out of Italy for Misano.” Uccia hummed in response while running her fingers over the ridges of her knuckles.

“The championship fight with Nicky is close, no? Maybe you shouldn’t be fucking the rookie right now.”

“Bah, Casey’s having more fun getting to know the gravel personally, don’t worry about her this year. I’ll cut it out when her bike stops trying to kill her,” Valentina smiled at her and the corners of her eyes furrowed. It was deeper now than a few years ago. That thought made Uccia want to trace them with her fingertips and smooth them out before making her smile to see them again.

Uccia pursed her lips at her answer but shrugged. To Valentina's credit, Casey’s situation had been bad enough that she’d picked up a nasty new nickname from the press. But besides, when Valentina had an idea in her head, no one could get it out so it was a waste even trying. It was like an adrenaline rush in its own right, doing something that you shouldn’t be doing, and Valentina had always been a junkie in her own right.

The older they got the more everybody was aware of the cunning of Valentina Rossi. Some of the media had called her a cold blooded bitch but Uccia thought that it was what made her better than the rest of the grid. Still sometimes, she thought that Valentina could get careless, blind in her want for entertainment, but she just hummed noncommittally. Valentina had gotten better at being wary of people, of their false promises and their cheap love, but she had always been reckless and when she inevitably got hurt, Uccia would be there to kiss her tears away and distract her with a hand between her thighs.

No, Uccia wasn’t scared of this rookie, but maybe the most unsettling moments of being friends with Valentina were when she waited. Unlike what most people thought, Uccia wasn’t a complete idiot. She knew that Valentina slept with Casey sometimes and that eventually, Valentina was going to do something stupid about it, but there was always a foreboding feeling when you knew that she had something planned but didn’t have a clue when she was going to do it.

So while Valentina inviting Casey to a dinner party left a bad taste in her mouth, it also was a breath of fresh air in a way. Usually the dinners were just friends, Valentina had a habit of cutting off competitors – Uccia didn’t know what Casey Stoner brought to the table that Marco Melandri lacked but she kept that thought to herself.

Still, knowing when everything was going to go to shit was almost comforting in a way. Sete, Casey, the girls in Ibiza, the girls in the bars, grid girls, fan girls, they were all one and the same in the transient interest given to them by Valentina before her sights would shift again. The way Valentina liked Uccia was different; they were Valentina-and-Uccia, two parts of a whole ever since that distant past when they first met.

“I still don’t like it,” Uccia said simply. It only got an eyeroll from Valentina but Uccia knew that she would still take her thoughts into account – she’d known her long enough to know that Valentina would listen to her even when she pretended not to.

The first people started to walk in and Valentina, always the people person, beamed at them before jumping to her feet to greet them. It was hard to get yourself into the small inner circle of people that Valentina considered friends. When they were both young and stupid they’d found out the hard way that old friends changed after money and fame and that new friends were more often vultures than not but it was hard to keep Valentina away from a crowd.

Uccia watched her laugh and motion animatedly as she spoke for a second before getting out of her chair following behind her. Quickly, she was pulled into conversations with old friends following no pattern as they talked about everything and nothing – mindless debates over things that didn’t matter, the goings on of their lives since they had all last seen each other, before it all inevitably led to racing and Valentina in some way.

The woman herself drifted around, circulating steadily in between the natural factions that had formed within the room, pitching in a joke or a quip or regaling the group with a story of her own before moving on but Uccia could see that she was waiting. It was subtle, but Uccia could see her glance at the door every few minutes. Waiting, waiting, waiting. For whatever game that Valentina had made of this in her mind, whether Stoner appeared or didn’t was seemingly crucial and that made Uccia wary if anything.

Like a trained dog, Uccia began to glance at the entrance as well, waiting for Stoner to appear at the door. She had a feeling that the girl wouldn’t chicken out of appearing despite having the disposition of a skittish street cat if only because Valentina Rossi had asked her to, but there was a first time for everything.

There was this sense of loyalty that Valentina instilled in other people. It had made people ask jokingly sometimes whether Valentina would ever become a cult leader and personally Uccia had always thought that it wouldn’t ever matter because Uccia would follow her regardless. Cult leader or racer, wife or friend, Valentina was addicting in some odd way. It wasn’t an exact science how or why Valentina was the way that she was and so Uccia never made the effort to define her – it was simple as that.

It didn’t take a while for Casey to show up, popping up between one blink and the next. She stood in the fringes of the crowd and spoke with people only when they came up to her. Her eyes never seemed to leave Valentina but she never made a move to greet her and Valentina was too busy entertaining to notice the woman.

Tearing her eyes away from Casey, Uccia went back into her conversation trying not to seem like she was being – god forbid – interested but her eyes would stray to the younger woman sometimes, watching her from the peripheries of her vision. She told herself that she was just watching out for a rookie, but she knew that the reason was bullshit; she had never been as good as Valentina in lying to herself.

•••

The alley wall was damp against Uccia’s back and the chill of it was slowly seeping in through her blouse. Valentina was draped over her with her hands resting low on Uccia’s hips and mouth languidly pressing against Uccia’s all the while the party slowed down inside. It was more reckless than they would usually risk it but Valentina didn’t seem to care so neither did Uccia.

At some point, she had seen Valentina dip out into the bathroom with Casey and Uccia wondered whether the chapstick that she tasted on Valentina’s lips was Casey’s. In the end, it wasn’t like Uccia was Valentina’s keeper, it didn’t matter who Valentina went off with as long as she came back to Uccia.

Someone walked into the alleyway before coming to a standstill probably at the sight of Valentina and Uccia very conspicuously tangled together. Valentina pulled away from the kiss, – still not moving away from where she was draped over Uccia, however – and Uccia turned to see Casey standing awkwardly at the opening looking like she would have rather been anywhere else. It was hard to see with the streetlamp casting everything in yellow but it seemed like the other woman was blushing bright red.

“I wasn’t expecting— I promise I won’t tell. I can pretend I didn’t see this,” Casey said, stumbling over her words and lacking her usual edge. It was odd to see her like this, she looked a lot like she wanted to run far far away from the both of them.

“You can come here and join us,” Valentina replied instead with a grin which morphed into a hiss of pain when Uccia pinched her sharply on the side.

Casey’s face only scrunched into something that was a mix of anger and confusion before she spluttered something incomprehensible and left in a rush. She clearly didn’t know whether they were together but she also clearly didn’t think to mention her and Valentina’s bathroom tryst. What a dick, Uccia thought dispassionately for her hypothetically taken self’s sake.

“What the fuck are you thinking?” Uccia asked, turning on Valentina furiously. She caught something contemplative that lined Valentina’s face which instinctively made Uccia wary. Usually, Uccia was all in on whatever plan that Valentina made up but she had a feeling that this would be a particularly shitty one.

“Allora, if I got her in my bed, you’d like it too, no?” Valentina responded thoughtfully and Uccia sighed but didn’t go against it. They both knew each other too well for that. Taking Uccia’s silence as the answer it was, Valentina cackled before pulling Uccia out of the alleyway by her hand and leading her back to their hotel room.

Uccia knew that she would inevitably be pulled into whatever scheme that Valentina made up as she always was. But she could deal with that when Valentina actually got her way.

•••

Casey went down easy underneath Valentina. Pinning her down against the hotel bed, Valentina kissed down Casey’s neck and fumbled with the buttons of her flannel while Uccia knelt off to the side, kissing Casey while holding the side of her face. Casey was an awkward kisser and Uccia couldn’t help but compare her to Valentina like she did every other girl but it was pleasant enough.

They broke apart when Valentina pulled Casey up to strip her of her shirt, pressing a kiss onto the juncture of her neck and shoulder as she unclasped Casey’s bra and Uccia took the time to strip down. Casey watched her for a second as Uccia shirked off her shirt and skirt before quickly looking away to Valentina.

Even though she was easily shorter than both Valentina and Uccia, Casey was broader and more muscular. Valentina had always been on the lean side, scrawny and agile, but Uccia found that Casey was a nice contrast to her visually.

Them looking at her seemed to make Casey a little uncomfortable, her scowl put off by her slowly reddening face. She was shyer in bed than she was on camera. It wasn’t like Casey was soft by any means, God knows that a soft girl would have gotten eaten by the media before she ever got on a MotoGP bike, but it made Uccia uncomfortably aware of her age and inexperience in a way that the other girls that they had brought to bed never had.

“You do know that we didn’t have to take off our clothes to just sit here and stare at each other like idiots, right?” Casey snarked, sitting stone still at the edge of the bed in a way that made her look more uncomfortable than if she had fidgeted; Uccia could see even in the low light of the nightlamps that a red flush went all the way down to her chest.

It seemed like she didn’t know if she was allowed to look at Uccia and pointedly tried not to after the first time her eyes had strayed towards her and if Uccia had noticed, Valentina surely had as well. Just as she had thought, Valentina looked over at Uccia with a glimmer of something in her eyes and Uccia just sent her a glare before pushing Casey down to lay down again roughly.

Casey pushed herself up onto her elbows, looking a little confused as Uccia bullied her thigh in between Casey’s legs instead of Valentina. “You agreed to fuck me too, you know,” Uccia pointed out, trying to sound sharp but landing somewhat sullen.

A hand gripped Uccia’s waist and pushed her grind forward into Casey making them both moan. “We can have fun without fighting,” Valentina admonished like she was telling off a couple of kids. With her free hand, Valentina then pushed a finger into Casey’s mouth, pumping it in and out like she was fucking her face as she watched enraptured.

Uccia’s mood soured when she caught sight of the display. She hated sharing Valentina, she hated hearing the sweet nothings that Valentina would whisper into other girls’ ears, and she hated seeing her watch them. After every time she told herself that she would tell Valentina no the next time she asked and without fail she ended up in their bed with another pretty girl between them the next time she was asked.

Her distaste of it was something of a fascination to Valentina, something they both knew and neither talked about. To Valentina, it was another game, another small scratch to bully and prod until it became a bigger wound and Uccia had just never stopped her. Tonight wasn’t the first time she had done it and it wouldn’t be the last.

She ignored the sickly feeling in her chest and tilted her head to the side to kiss Valentina, letting her slip her tongue into Uccia’s mouth and pulling her attention away from Casey. Sete, Casey, the girls in Ibiza, the girls in the bars, grid girls, fan girls, so many people but Valentina never stayed for them. Uccia bit into Valentina’s lower lip, the other woman flinched slightly but didn’t pull away and the taste of copper hit her tongue.

When Uccia backed away, she looked down at Casey to see the other woman watching them intently, even more flushed than before with her eyes blown wide with a mixture of shock and lust. Giving into a random idea that flitted through her head, Uccia bent down to press her lips against Casey again and let her taste the metallic tinge of Valentina’s blood still in her mouth.

•••

At twenty-two years old, Casey Stoner had won her first world championship in her second year in MotoGP. At some point in the near future when Valentina will inevitably be asked about it as she always was and she would laugh and comment idly that, “By twenty-two I’m already three times world champion.”

Uccia fixed her cap, watching unseeingly from a shaded corner as the paddock moved all around her and waiting like a well trained dog for Valentina to show up again from an engineering meeting she had been pulled into.

There was no real moment that she could point which she could say had caused Casey to fall out of Valentina’s favor. It could have been at her first win in Motogi or even when the media started to call her Valentina’s challenger – Uccia wasn’t in the business of speculating but even she was prone to wondering sometimes.

Uccia was broken out of her thoughts when she caught sight of Valentina walking out of the Yamaha motorhome and she had started to walk towards her when Casey and a couple of her engineering team walked past Valentina.

It was clear even from a bit of distance that Casey wanted Valentina to acknowledge her but Valentina walked past her as if she didn’t exist. Uccia watched as Casey’s face tensed up slightly, her eyes still trailing on Valentina as she jogged towards Uccia before pointedly looking away and walking a little faster leaving her mechanics to confusedly speed up next to her.

“What are you staring at?” Valentina asked her. She stole the hat off of Uccia’s head and put it on her own, which had happened enough times that Uccia didn’t even bother commenting on it.