Hate You - LN

1 - Devin

"Dev," Lando breathes, his lips swollen from our kiss.

I try to catch my breath but it's difficult to suck any air into my lungs when his strong hands are gripping my hips and my back pressed to the wall behind me. He holds me up so our hips are together and I'm pinned to the wall of his apartment kitchen. I weave my fingers through his curls and pull back slightly to let him speak but it's hard to focus when our most intimate parts are only separated by his boxers. Both his that I'm wearing, and the ones around his lower half. It's too many clothes and much more than we were wearing earlier. Why did we get somewhat dressed again?

"Yes?" I say, equally as breathless as him with Lando's lips only inches away from my own.

We've been messing around like this since the pandemic hit. Lando lives a few blocks from me in Monaco so it's easy and he's never been anything but kind to me. Since I've grown up in Monaco with the Leclerc family for the most part, when last year Lando moved here we met and things went from there. Lando and I had quickly become fast friends and after one drunken night in the club plus some pandemic boredom, one thing led to another and we've been hanging out, or rather, hooking up ever since.

Spending time with him became a welcome habit in lockdown. With Mclaren his allowed social circle was pretty small, thankfully I was a part of it. Unlike my adoptive brothers, Lando's always been real with me. nothing fake, nothing centred around the millions of cameras that follow him everywhere, nothing. It's always been just- us.

We were kind of in a friends-with-benefits situation. He came to my place, and I come around him, it's almost routine and both of us needed it. Afterwards, we usually end up ordering takeout or making food, playing some video games, or watching movies. We've binge-watched Grey's Anatomy, which grossed out Lando a few times, and recently we finished all of the Harry Potter movies for the second time. I'm still shit at video games, but I've learnt how to use Lando's simulator and I've gotten within 5 seconds of his time. Which might I say, is one hell of an accomplishment. It's nice to have the company when you walk around outside and the streets are bare and anywhere you go a stick has to be shoved up your nose.

Lately, we've been growing closer and I'll be the first to admit it's starting to feel like more than just a friends-with-benefits situation. But Lando and I agreed that friends were best. I think. I can't have a relationship with school and- other things. And it's hard for him and the media...

Who am I kidding? I know it's all shitty excuses but I can't have a relationship right now. I can't let someone get that close just to get hurt. By me or someone else. Even if I like Lando.

Nonetheless, I'm finishing up my master's this month and Lando and I are both hoping that I can join him at a few races this year. Thankfully last week he got the call that racing is going forward despite the pandemic so our friend-ish vacations to different countries with his racing are a go. Being as I grew up with the Leclercs it's not odd for me to be seen at race tracks and hopefully because of that Lando won't get flack online for having a girl around. Win-win for both of us.

Lando's hands move across the skin of my waist and up my stomach, pulling his T-shirt I'd lazily thrown on earlier up to expose my skin more to him. I groan at the heat of his hands across my goose-bumped skin and tighten my legs instinctually around his hips, trying to bring him closer. Which isn't much from where he keeps me pinned up against the wall.

"Will you be my girlfriend?" Lando groans into my lips.

Every muscle in my body turns to ice. We've gotten close sure, but this was sex, no?

Fuck. I like Lando. I know I do. I like him as my friend, one of my best friends. And sure, I get butterflies, and I get nervous, and hot and blushy, and I want to see him all the time but that was the desire.

It definitely isn't- fuck.

My mind goes blank as I stare into the green hopefully abyss that is his eyes. And I know what I need to say, I can't say to him. I can't watch that happiness, that hope goes out in his eyes. So I kiss him.

I kiss him like I will never get to kiss him again and Lando groans against my lips, no doubt taking the kiss as my answer. Regret and something like heartbreak fills my chest but I smother it and force myself to get lost in his lips, in his touch so I don't have to get lost in my head. Lando lifts me from the wall, sliding his hands down my hips and under my ass. I wrap my arms around his neck, not wanting to let go and I keep my lips on his.

He tastes like mint and smells like the cologne I picked out for him last month. Earth and stone and fucking lust incarnate.

My back hits his mattress softly, the messy sheets from last night still splayed all over the place as Lando follows me down, nudging my knees apart so he can settle between them. His weight over me, the heat of his body igniting fires along my skin. The clothes on my body quickly join those on the floor from last night and Lando hadn't put more than his boxers on this morning, but they quickly join my clothes on the floor as well.

I know he's happy, he always is when we're together, but today it's different. Today he's happy, he moans and touches me because he thinks the kiss is an agreeance for me to be his. Not a goodbye.

I feel awful. I'm a horrible, terrible person.

Soon my body is alight with wanting and my back arches instinctually as I get close. Lando holds me, his arm under my lower back pulling me into him. I have no control over his movements and yet I know with one word from me and he'll stop. I pretend it's the pleasure when we both tumble off the edge and a tear falls from my eye and he wipes it with a gentile thumb before finding his release too. Lando collapses onto my chest like so many times before and I hold him to me for a second longer than I should.

Then, with a parting kiss on his cheek, Lando rolls over and I no longer feel his skin on mine. I know with our lack of sleep last night paired with a horrible pandemic sleep schedule Lando will be asleep in a few minutes and I'm proven right when a few minutes later I hear his light snores from beside me.

It's then that I let myself go and I can't help the tears that fall. He'll never understand why I have to leave. But I have to protect him. He can't know the dark parts about me that come with being his girlfriend. He can't get hurt because of me.

I love him too much to bring him in on every part of my life. Without me, he's safe.

I muffle my sobs in my hand as I collect my clothes from his bedroom floor and the drawer in his dresser he cleared out for me. My breath hitches loudly and I'm thankful Lando is a heavy sleeper.

"I'm sorry," I whisper as I step out into the hallway that leads out of Lando's apartment.

I can't let myself be vulnerable like he needs me to be. And I can't break like I was broken before like my mother was broken, how everything around me breaks. Even if it's at the cost of losing Lando, I refuse to lose myself again, and I refuse to let him be hurt through me.

"I love you." I barely hear the words come out of my own mouth. But it doesn't hurt any less.

I close the door and it shuts with a click behind me.

I'll never see him again.