Once Thomas is finally asleep, Julien flings his bag open and digs out his laptop and controls.
“Are you streaming again?” Rafael leans into his space and rests his heavy hand on his thigh. It’s burning hot, even through a layer of thick jeans.
Julien shimmies down his chair, breaking the contact to plug in his laptop cable. “Yeah, I was planning to.”
“Can I watch?”
Once the foot pedals are in place, Julien pops back up. “If you want.”
Rafael already has his tablet face down and pushed away, towards the window. If he still doesn’t like his book, heshould find a movie or something. Instead, he looks at Julien expectedly.
“Hey guys.” Julien adjusts the angle of his microphone, jumping when the camera light blinks on. The image is distorted by tape residue, but it’s definitely his real face.
“Julien!”
Oh, that kinda sucks. This is supposed to be his Romeo time.
How weird would it be to ask his team to keep calling him Romeo? Even if they use everybody else’s real names?
That’s probably pretty weird.
“Where are you?”
“Uh…” Julien squints and tries to make out the little borders on the screen at the front of the plane. It doesn’t matter—he’s shit at geography. “Somewhere between Japan and Germany.”
The guys laugh in unison, and it sounds forced, almost.
“Are you on a private jet?”
“Oh yeah.” Julien picks up his laptop as far as the cables will let him and shows off the aisle. “This isn’t normal for me, though. Usually I’m on a commercial flight with the rest of the team. This year, well, obviously it’s different.”
“I can’t hear what they’re saying.” Rafael leans closer, until his curly hair enters the frame.
“I don’t have any other headphones.”
“I have headphones.”
“Yeah? And how are you going to connect if I’m already connected?”
The most interesting part of the stream is the racing. Rafael doesn’t need to listen to the guys ramble on about nonsense while they fight on track.
“Rafael Souza?!”
“They said your name,” Julien relays.
Rafael presses closer until his face is fully in the frame. He’d be cheek-to-cheek if the headphones weren’t so large. “Tell them I say hello.”
“We can hear him.”
“Great.” At least that’s one part of the process down.
“What’d they say?”
“Okay, I’m not doing this for the next hour.” Julien looks back at the Ferraro leadership, but they seem engrossed in their own conversation. He disconnects his headphones and turns the volume down. “Now you should be able to hear it too.”
“How’s the arm, Rafael? Getting better?”
“It’s my collarbone that broke.” Though everyone is well-aware by now, Rafael leans further into Julien’s space and taps it to demonstrate. “I’m working with my trainer to get my strength back, but it’s sore right now. I, uh, slept bad.”
