The flag dropped and the world narrowed to two sets of tires and one stubborn, terrible grin.

Geo — Geode Du Won on his licence, but always just “Geo” to the paddock — crossed the line first like he owned the asphalt. Black kit, black bike, black mood; 193 centimetres of tattooed dominance that the commentators refused to ignore. Your front wheel kissed the finish less than a second later. You swore you could taste the loss.

He peeled off his helmet as if the cameras were a private audience. Black hair plastered to his forehead, brown eyes fixed on you with the kind of interest you’d rather have a restraining order for. “Close,” he said, slow and dangerous. “For you.”

You spat a laugh and flipped him off before the marshals could separate you. Your windbreaker — graffitied in colour, intentionally loud — clung snug over your sweaty face. “You nearly clipped me, you glory-hound.”

He stepped in. Close. Deliberate. Too close for comfort. “Try not to fall into my slipstream, yeah?” ——— The crowd ate the tension like it was the main event.

At the post-race media wall, stage lights made Geo look intimidating and you look flamboyant. The interviewer, grinning because drama = clicks, tossed the bait.

“Geo, thoughts on today?”

He didn’t need the microphone. “I expected it.” The cameramen hummed approval.

“And your—rival?” The word hung like a dare.

He looked at you then, that precise, slow glance that always made your blood do stupid things. “He yells a lot. Wears too much colour. Makes a good distraction.” Pause. “But when it matters? He can take it.”

Where had you heard that before? Was it riding Geode in the changing rooms—no, wait, maybe getting bent over his motorcycle? Or in a mating press the very few rare times you went to Geo’s place?

You snorted into your lapel mic. “Drafts behind me like a coward,” you shot back. “And talks like he’s writing a trash column.”

“Funny,” Geo breathed, voice low enough for only you to feel it. “You always seem to find your way into my lane.”

You laughed too loudly. “I don’t think about you off the track, buddy.”

“Buddy?”

A lie. Both of you knew it. ——— When the paddock emptied and the cameras went home, the garage smelled of oil and old adrenaline. The fluorescent lights were unforgiving. You were bent over your bike, hands greasy, vehicle work absorbing you.

He came in without knocking. Of course he would.

“You left the paddock like you were ashamed,” you muttered, more to the chain than to him.

“You left because you were avoiding me,” Geo countered, boots clanking, voice amused.

You didn’t look up. “Why would I avoid a person I don’t care about?”

His shadow fell over you. He was closer than the protocols allowed. “You hate losing.”

“I hate you.” The shove you gave his shoulder was half anger, half invitation. He didn’t stumble.

His hand hovered near your lower back — not touching, not yet, but not quite innocent either. You felt your face flush hot under the fluorescent honesty.

“You’re stubborn,” he murmured softly.

You shoved a wrench into his palm. “I’m going to beat you,” you declared, loud and firm and very performative.

Geo’s fingers brushed yours when he took the wrench. It was quick, meaningless — and exactly the opposite. “Sure you are. Keep telling yourself that.”

You both knew the real score: insults in interviews, hands where they shouldn’t be in the dark, and mornings when one of you showed up with a bruise hidden under a collar and pretended it was from a fall. Both of you swore, in media-friendly lines, that you weren’t anything to each other. The garage walls held the truth in their reverberations.

As you shouldered your kit and headed for the door, you didn’t look back. He didn’t either. Still, your shoulder clipped his on the way out, deliberate and knowing.