▄▀▄▀▄ lily ▄▀▄▀▄

Your eyes blink slowly, sleep still lingering in the edges of your body. His room is dark—messy, too, though not as badly as you’ve known it to be. You vaguely spot the outline of his helmets, of weights that have strayed too far from his training room, of the chair the two of you knocked into earlier.

You close your eyes. Exhale. Through the blinds, you can see the glow of street lights and the quiet night awaiting outside. 

He breathes softly behind you. A steady, quiet sigh capable of lulling you back to sleep just as easily. And it’d be so easy, pretending this away. Pretending you never woke up. That you never saw the clock on his nightstand reading 6:01 AM in bright numbers. That the boy with his arm curled around you is something else than what he is.

The fact that his room is starting to feel familiar is a realization that trickles in slowly at the back of your mind. Not a hotel, like you used to. No—as of late, his apartment seems to have become a fixed point in your nights. 

You know the steps to this dance far too well already.

Lando Norris doesn’t do mornings. Then again, neither do you.

(The first time was back in your hotel room in Barcelona. Ages ago, really—before he started seeing that second-to-last girlfriend of his. You had barely stepped into the shower, the feeling of his lips still lingering on your skin, when you heard the door closing behind him).

Falling back into old habits is a slippery slope. One enough friends have warned you about. It’s routine by now—watching him date for a few months, break-up, invite you out, and end up in his bedroom all over again. You’re rebound, you know that. Except after Lando’s latest very public, though quietly messy breakup, he wasn’t texting you the following morning. Wasn’t liking year-old posts of yours on Instagram. Wasn’t sending you innocent messages that eventually became a casual invite out devolving into anything but. You assumed rumors were true— “slag summer” or whatever that means. You’d seen enough videos of him partying with people whose faces didn’t ring a bell, leaving with girls you forbid yourself from looking up. 

It was three of your friends that made the decision for you. Made you a Raya account, told you that you could do better than some fuck boy with a love  for expensive cars. And you did go on dates—just a few, most for the sake of your friends, though some for yours. It’s not like you and Lando were ever serious, much less exclusive. Just sex and a good time. A mutual benefit to getting rid of pent up frustration.

You went on a date with a tennis player. An actor from some upcoming series on Hulu. A handful of influencers. The farthest you got was three dates with a handsome football player. It only took one casual picture with him posted on your story before someone else ended up finding you on Raya.

lando: i think i have an evn better pic of you on my travel cam from that same day lando: want me 2 send it to u? lando: might not b approved under rayas guidelines tho ;)

He’s a bad habit you can’t seem to shake off. A revolving door that sends you right back to where you started. 

You exhale. Shift on the bed to try and locate your clothes, all strewn across the floor of his bedroom. His shirt is nice on you, though. And if you’ll allow yourself something, maybe you’ll decide to keep it—just because it’s cute and expensive.

Once you spot your top and your shoes, you move to get up. Lando’s grip around your waist tightens, a mumbled protest hummed against your back.

Your hand curls around his, gently trying to lift each finger off. In response, he buries his face deeper into your neck. 

“Trying to get away already?” Lando asks, voice hoarse and sleep-worn.

“It’s late,” you say quietly, not wanting to rouse him any more than you have. You wanted to avoid waking him up all together—make it a quick, swift exit. “I should go.”

His arm tightens around your waist, pulling you closer to him. His nose tickles your neck, lips ghosting against your skin.

“Lando—”

“Stay,” he hums, voice dragging against his throat. His chest rises and falls evenly behind you, like he hasn’t quite managed to wake up just yet. “It’s dark out. I’ll drive you in the morning.”

Your fingers mindlessly tangle through his curls, pulling a content sigh from him. “You don’t mean that.”

Lando mutters something you don’t quite catch. Before you can ask, though, you feel his lips press against your neck in a quiet, bargaining trail. You shiver when his teeth catch on your collarbone. “You can wait a few hours if you wanna leave so badly,” he mumbles, words punctuated by kisses on the slope of your neck—like he’s making it his mission to kiss away the tension caught in your shoulders. “S’it so bad to be seen with me?”

You huff, though there’s no real bite to it. You vaguely register Lando pulling the covers over the two of you. “You’re being unfair,” you murmur back, though your body has already made up its mind, relaxing in his hold.

“Maybe,” Lando says, and you can feel that stupid smile pressed against your skin. Like he knows he’s won. “You love it, though.”

“I’m not calling an Uber in broad daylight,” you say resolutely. His breaths have already evened out.

“Said m’gonna drive you home. Promise,” he yawns.

You turn around, meeting his gaze now. His blue-green eyes are droopy, blinking slowly as he tries to keep himself awake. Your lipstick is still smudged on the base of his throat, curls muzzed with sleep and your own work from early in the night.

“What?” he asks, his fingers trailing mindless patterns on your back.

“I didn’t know that was an option,” you say, brushing away his curls with your thumb. He preens under it, leaning into your touch like he’s starved for it. You think you like this Lando—the one that’s not quite awake yet. “You driving me home.”

“Always has been,” he sighs contentedly. “You just like t’leave before there’s a chance.”

The impulse is to argue. But his eyes are already closing, and sleep is starting to creep up on you too. And he’s not wrong—not really. Every night you’ve spent together—whether at a hotel or here in Monaco—you’ve left long before the sun comes up. A force of habit, maybe.

“Stay,” Lando mumbles, eyes closed and peaceful.

“Okay,” you respond—or maybe you don’t. Maybe it’s just a half-formed, fleeting thought that passes by before you fall asleep.

The next time Lando opens his eyes, sunlight filters through his blinds. He squints, an annoyed half-gran scratching against his throat. He cuts himself off as soon as he notices the warm body next to him.

Your chest rises and falls evenly, hair strewn around your head like a halo. He rubs the back of his palm over his eyes, careful not to disturb you. His apartment already feels warmer—usually, the first thing he would do as soon as he wakes up is open his window before his room starts to feel like a dutch oven. He can’t make himself detach from your side. 

Lando shifts, settling back into you when he feels you stir. He pauses. Closes his eyes for good measure.

A beat passes. Two.

“I know you’re awake, Lando.”

Lando clicks his tongue, pouting as you rise from his pillow, his hand dropping from around you. He should’ve been quieter—let this golden morning stretch like melted sugar.

“There’s no hurry,” Lando hears himself saying before he can help it. He watches as you stretch your arms over your head, his shirt riding up slightly. Lando straightens, trying to go for casual. “Unless you’re supposed to be meeting someone.”

Oh, yeah, real smooth. Really good job there.

You look at him over your shoulder, raising a brow. “Meet someone?”

Lando’s words get stuck in his throat. This is what you look like when you’re waking up. It hits him unexpectedly how domestic this feels—how easy it would be to become used to this.

He clears his throat. “I don’t know.” Lando sits up against the headrest, one hand struggling to fix the mess that is his hair. You’re only partly to blame—his mistake was ever letting you know that he likes it when you tug at his curls. 

He scrunches his nose, annoyance filtering in. “That rugby player from the other day might be waiting to hear back from you.”

You look unimpressed, though he doesn’t miss the faint blush by the tips of your ears. “He’s a football player.”

“Ah,” he says, and his face does nothing to hide the flare of irritation he feels. Lando can’t help it—not when that picture of yours still sits fresh in his mind. 

His chin propped over your shoulder, hands around your waist. Casual. Maybe too casual.

“You’re being petty,” you say, scanning his face carefully. And his stare pointedly lands on the curve of your neck, where a trail of bruised hickeys is already blooming.

Lando meets your gaze. “I’m not petty, I’m jealous.” He shrugs, catching the brief surprise that crosses your pretty eyes. He exhales, letting his body loosen. “Kinda don’t have a right to be, though.”

“Yeah,” you say, and it makes him stiffen, the way it lands when you say it. “You don’t.” 

Lando tries to go for nonchalant when he asks, “How many dates has he taken you on?”

You hesitate. Briefly. “Three.”

“Oh, must be getting serious.”

You look away, jaw ticking—and Lando knows then that he’s accidentally stepped into a sore spot. He fleetingly wonders whether the guy you’re seeing doesn’t wanna get serious with you. The thought makes something bitter churn in his gut. Though it’d be hypocritical of him to say it infuriates him even a little.

But then he pictures the guy’s pearly-white smile. His dark brown eyes and fuckin’ perfect hair like he’s never had bedhead a single day of his life.

So, yeah, maybe he’s checked your Instagram. 

“It was gonna be four,” you say, but your voice catches—like the words slipped out before you could stop them. Four dates. Your eyes find Lando’s, and he hates that his heart skips a beat. Something about the intensity of the way you’re looking at him—somehow both entirely different from last night and all too similar. Like you wanna pull him closer. Like you resent him for it. “Before you texted.”

It lands close to his ego, knowing that you chose him over the lad from Real Madrid. You don’t look too pleased about it, though.

“Interrupted date night then, did I?” Lando asks. He watches as you turn away with a huff, annoyed. And it is annoying—that he still finds you hot when you’re mad at him. “Sorry. Sounded like a dickhead.”

“You are a dick, Lando.” 

“I don’t mean to,” he says, easily. Leans closer to you and props his chin on the curve of your shoulder and neck. Maybe to use up any space your date may have taken. His mind wanders, and the thought trickles into his mind—has he kissed you? Have you hooked up? Maybe he’s not that great at sex if you’d rather have Lando over him. He feels tempted to kiss your neck again, find that spot that makes you whine, erase any trace of anyone other than him. 

Just to test the idea, Lando’s lips press against the slope of your neck, teeth gently nipping at the tender skin. His voice is a deep hum buried at the back of his throat. “Forgive me?”

He feels you relax under him for a second—just a second. Then, you’re pulling away from him like he’s stung you. “You’re doing it again,” you say, unreadable. You mutter something under your breath, moving to stand up. “I should go.”

His chest rattles. His hand latches onto your wrist before he can help it. And Lando’s supposed to be suave and smooth. Instead, what comes out of his mouth is a strangled, “Don’t.”

Your brows twitch. “Lando…”

“No, look, I’m sorry,” he says, and he means it—maybe more than you know. “I am.”

He looks at you like he’s dreading watching you walk out his apartment. Maybe because you stayed past the night—and instead of feeling like a new door’s opening, it all feels like the end of the line is closer than he expected. Maybe this gold-dipped morning was just a way for the universe to soften the blow.

You look conflicted, searching his gaze like you’ve lost something in it.

“Did you just text me because I was going out with someone?” you ask, voice like forged steel. Lando blinks, brows pinched together. “Or because you just broke up with your girlfriend?” 

“It’s not like that,” he’s quick to say. It’s not, he swears, though he’s not dull as to not know how it looks. He releases your wrist. “I mean, I was jealous. Am. Whatever—but that isn’t, this isn’t—”

“Isn’t what, Lando?” you ask, and it’s impossible to miss how exasperated you sound. “Isn’t serious? I know that. But there’s someone out there I might actually get serious with, and I need to know what this is meant to be.”

Whatever he was about to say gets stuck in his throat. His mind loops your words like a record scratch. “You—You wanna go official with him?”

You look away, like his question’s caught you off guard. “I-I mean—I don’t know, not yet, I don’t…” You shut your eyes, trying to gather your thoughts. “This can’t carry on forever, Lan. Not like this.”

Maybe it’s the way you say his name. The first time you said it wasn’t actually in this bedroom, like a breathy whine while he was eating you out—though you have used it several times since. The first time you called him that—Lan—was actually at Max’s birthday last year. Nothing happened between the two of you then. You didn’t take his hand and had him drive to your place like you’d done more than once before. Instead, you’d been sipping on piña coladas and margaritas all night, and by the time he found you again, you were sitting by the stairs of the yacht, staring at the hardwood floors like they were the ones to blame. He ended up sticking by you the rest of the night, your head leaning against his shoulder while you toyed with the rings in his fingers. 

“Y’know,” you’d mumbled, toying with a silver band. “You can b’sweet when you want to, Lan. S’a good look on you.”

And he’d just sat there, thankful you were too tipsy to notice the blush climbing up his cheeks.

So, yeah—maybe it’s the fact that you used that stupid nickname that makes his heart flutter whenever you say it. Maybe it’s the fact that he knows this might be his last chance—that if he doesn’t get it out now, he never will.

“I don’t know how else to talk to you.” 

As soon as he says it, he feels pathetic. His cheeks are hot, and the look you’re giving him doesn’t make it any better.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he complains, biting the inside of his cheek. “I’ve tried inviting you out like fifteen times already, and you always—always shoot me down.”

Your face twists. “What? I don’t shoot you down.”

“Then what was that last week, when I invited you to hang out with a few friends in Nice?”

“That was different.”

“I sent you paddock passes in May.”

“Your team sent them.”

“I sent them.”

A light sparks in your eyes. “You had a girlfriend in June.”

“I did,” Lando concedes, sitting straighter. “And do you know how fucked it is to have to be catching myself before I called her by your name?”

He watches his words land. Your expression sours. “That’s not on me.”

Lando shakes his head. “No, it’s on me.” His hands tangle through his hair. “Because even when I was with her, you would still find your way into my head.” His jaw tightens, like he’s been dreading saying it out loud. “I didn’t break up with her and then go find you.” Lando feels his body brace, akin to when he feels the rear tire lock and knows the crash is incoming. “I kept… I kept looking for you while I was with her.”

You look at him with true, raw surprise. Feels fair, given that Lando feels like he’s exposed himself. Left his skin tender and vulnerable. No lies, no smiles to hide behind anymore.

“Look, I’m not… I’m not asking for an answer,” he hesitates, struggling to find the words. “I’m just asking you not to disappear on me.”

You study him slowly. “I can’t keep being an almost, Lando.”

It feels like the door opens just a creak. He nods in earnest. “Don’t be.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“But we can try, right?” Lando says. “It’s a start.”

And this time, when he kisses your temple, it doesn’t feel like he’s trying to cross out someone else’s touch, or rewrite his own mistakes. There’s no greed there, no lust. Just a start. A first line being penned of a long, long story.

“Let me drive you home,” Lando murmurs into your temple, voice still rougher with sleep. This time, he feels you lean back into him.

“Okay,” you say. When you meet his watercolor eyes, he relishes the small, near imperceptible smile tugging at your lips. Gold-dipped. Sunlight in a bottle.

He nods once. “Okay.”

deuxmoi DEUXMOI EXCLUSIVE …… 📸 Mclaren’s Lando Norris spotted this morning getting cozy with a mystery woman in Monte Carlo. Source alleges Lando was “dropping her off” before the picture was taken, leading to speculation on the nature of their relationship.

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user1 slag summer!!!!!!!

user2 yeahhh the chances of lando getting into a serious relationship r probably the same chances of williams getting a podium 👎👎 sorry pal

user3 admin might wanna check their sources cause you do know this is LANDO we’re talking abt right 😭

lando hey so can you piss off pls

lando ur gonna fuck this up for me delete

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