Page 51 of Dirty Air
“What a shit show.” Henry joins Fritz at lunch. It's an improvement over sitting far away and staring, which is what everyone else has decided to do.
That NDA doesn’t seem so ironclad after all.
Oh well. Fritz doesn’t mind people knowing he sucks cock. He’s good at it.
Henry pulls up his computer. He clicks through track condition reports, but the laptop mostly works as a disguise for their actual conversation. “Are you alright?”
“Apparently I am afraid of gay men, so that is new.” Fritz stabs his pasta a little too aggressively. “There is a room full of strangers meeting right now to discuss what to do about it. Oh, I should warn you, at some point it might come out that I suck cock.”
Henry doesn’t flinch. “Does your family know?”
Fritz nods. “Sex is not a big deal in our family, honestly. I guess that made it easier for me to explore things with anyone. I know that other people have a problem.”
“They shouldn’t.”
“No, but I know it happens. I am sure there will be teams who do not want me. Sponsors. Crew members. Even teammates. Which is stupid, because I thought I was very funny, actually.” Fritz shoves a forkful of pasta into his mouth. “A stupid way to ruin a career.”
“Speaking of—” Henry says. “I think we should stop what we’re doing.”
Fritz’s head snaps up, horrified. “I would never say anything about—” He trails off, afraid to even say it out loud—to try to define whatever is brewing between them.
No, Fritz has kept secrets for his partners before—bigger secrets for people he’s liked a lot less. He would never out Henry.
“I didn’t think you would. I just think that maybe we’d both be better off, in the long run.”
Fritz doesn’t even know what to say. He opens his mouth, but when no words come out, he closes it again. Partners have broken up with him in the past, sure, but he usually senses something coming. Most times he can see their reasoning.
But this? It sucker-punches him. “Okay.”
It’s not okay, but Fritz doesn’t know what else he can do. He won’t beg someone to be his partner—especially not after Henry explicitly told him he didn’t want to be.
Fuck, he’sso alone.
“Okay, great.” Henry exhales, just another thing off his to-do list. “Great, yes, so getting back to?—”
Fritz stands up, scrapes his plate into the trash, and leaves.
Fritz isn’t hiding in his driver’s room, except he definitely is. He has an alarm set for his next scheduled meeting, and his big ‘shut out the world’ headphones on. It’s just him and blisteringly loud house music for the foreseeable future.
His door opens and he jolts upright, knocking his headphones back.
Madison gives him an apologetic wave and closes the door behind herself. “I knocked.”
“Sorry, is there another meeting?”
Surely Madison can’t expect him to film any social videos right now. He’s in something of a crisis.
“No, but we think we found a solution?”
It still sounds like a question. “Do I have to go out there and tell everyone I like dicks?”
“Um, not if you don’t want to.”
“Okay.” Well, that should help his career somewhat.
“Even if you want to, I really don’t think you should phrase it like that.” She shrugs with amusement. “I’m not in PR, though, so what do I know?”
Fritz tries to force a smile, to rearrange his face into something more pleasant, but he can’t. “What is the solution, then?”
