Race With a Heart
Chapter 68: The Right to Be Happy

Chapter 68: The Right to Be Happy

The conversation with Mrs. Robson shocked Steve to the core. She shook him more than he could understand. One sentence in particular was remembered by him. Mrs. Robson saying, ’a man who loves you also has a right to be happy.’

Once upon a time, Steve decided that the only way to be happy for Martin was to build a stable relationship with a woman. In order to be happy in love, a man cannot love unilaterally, he must also be loved. At that point in his life, Steve knew he couldn’t give Martin love, so he wanted to end it all before it even started. Unfortunately, it was too late then. Everything between them had happened so quickly, without any plan, or even without much sense, that it was too late for sense. Martin, seduced by him, did not take their relationship as an adventure, but developed a strong feeling in himself. An unbreakable love grew within him that only a blind man could not perceive.

Steve had rejected him, and yet he kept reaching for him, as if he could no longer live without that cheerful young boy, from whom so much warm love was flowing towards Paxton. Steve was taking all, giving nothing but physical pleasure in return.

Steve walked down the riverside boulevard thoughtfully. He paid no attention to the beauty of the world around him or to the people he passed. It’s as if the whole world at this point was made up entirely of him and his thoughts about Martin.

Paxton knew Martin had a girlfriend. He did not know it at the very beginning, when he so selfishly reached for it as a means of meeting his own needs, but later Jack told him that Martin had a girlfriend. This shouldn’t have surprised Steve, and it wasn’t. Martin was very cute, kind and cheerful and surely the girls enjoyed seeing him and fell in love easily. Steve took him three times, introducing the boy to the secrets of forbidden pleasure, and when Martin really got confused in his mind and heart, Paxton pushed him away and told him to go back to his girlfriend. Steve had never heard of them breaking up, so to the best of his knowledge Martin was currently in a relationship with a woman. He probably tried very hard to be happy with her, and when Steve saw him having a good time with a pretty girl, he found that indeed Martin was happy, but still succumbed to the physical temptations offered by Paxton. Martin, it seemed, had been forced by him to lead a double life.

How can a man feel when he has been introduced to the world of previously unknown, forbidden pleasure, whose whole world is turned upside down, who is punished to return to what was before the initiation and in fact still reaches for him? Everything that happened in Martin’s mind and heart at that moment was the sole responsibility of Paxton.

Having brought this good boy to this state, Steve had no right to blame him, expect nothing of him, or even hope for anything. All Steve could do at this point was to give Martin complete control and let him decide not for himself but for both of them.

Steve just had to put himself at Martin’s disposal and subject himself to his sentence.

It wasn’t that easy though. Paxton realized he could be rejected just as he had rejected Martin earlier. The boy can tell him outright that he lives with a woman, and Steve ... Steve can be his lover. Of course, Paxton will have no right to ask for anything more, but if he hears those words before his second race it could affect his condition. It is true that Steve already suspected that he was in the second place in Martin’s life, but suspecting and knowing are two completely different things. When you have suspicions, you can also hope, but when you hear the truth in your face, all hope dies. So it would be better for him to go talk to Martin after the race. It is best if it brings him victory.

Steve knew the eroticism between them was very strong. The driver did not live in sexual abstinence, but the pleasure he enjoyed only in the arms of the women, until he caught fire in him against Martin. Paxton had never met a person who was as drawn to him as he was. It wasn’t just animal magnetism, but something that went far beyond the desires of the flesh, as if Martin were satisfying Steve’s unconscious needs in his heart. Today, after talking with Mrs. Robson, the driver was able to admit that these might have been the seeds of love.

He wasn’t quite sure about it yet. Never in love, Steve couldn’t recognize this feeling, especially since his heart and mind were drowned in guilt. But more and more he found himself thinking about Martin and missing him. He missed not only the caresses of the body but also simply his company.

Martin was just a man Steve felt especially comfortable with.

Of course, Steve didn’t know if the impressions were mutual. Physical pleasures and everyday life consisting of work and ordinary conversations are two completely separate things. At that moment, they were united by their physicality. Was there a chance that they could become part of their daily routine?

As long as they worked in the same stable, in a way it was. They saw each other every day, and although they hardly spoke to each other, they could do so at any time. They could look at each other and get to know each other slowly, although for now only in the work environment. It was, however, a starting point from which they could go out for a beer after work to talk more privately.

Exactly as they did it once, unfortunately with disastrous results. Steve was finally beginning to understand that he had made a mistake then, but his heart was more closed and harder then. It was the later meetings with Martin, initiated by the boy himself, that began to tear down the wall with which Steve surrounded his heart. If Martin hadn’t been so consistent and so bold, Paxton wouldn’t have opened his heart.

So Steve stood at the threshold of the great unknown. He felt like a man who had committed several serious crimes, now about to stand trial. The judge will be none other than Martin. Steve knew the boy loved him, but he didn’t know the exact shape of the love or its size. Is it enough to erase Steve’s guilt?

Paxton imagined his conversation with Martin after winning the second grand prix. If the second place pleased young mechanic so much, how would he react to the first? If he is in an excellent mood, he will be more prone to pass lenient sentences. Maybe they’ll go to bed again? This time, however, it will not end with only sex. This time, Steve will try to find out more about Martin, about his interests, dreams and fears. They would go out together for a beer, a pool table, or wherever the younger man wants. If only Martin gives him a chance, Paxton will turn into the best boyfriend possible.

Martin looked around for the correct address. He wasn’t sure if it was right, as he was probably in the most luxurious part of the city. The fences around the houses were high, as if they were intended to separate the inhabitants of the houses from the rest of the world, protecting their right to privacy. The streets were clean and the greenery was beautiful and well-kept. Kevin Moore must have been really rich if he lived in that neighborhood.

The young professor was overjoyed at Martin’s call. The mechanic gave him a very cursory brief, nervously, because he was a little frightened by his own boldness to ask a stranger for help, but Kevin seemed genuinely interested. He was chained at home at the moment, but if Martin doesn’t mind dropping by and giving him the details of the case, Kevin might be on the case today.

Martin was overjoyed at this turn of events and enthusiastically assured him that he might come over to Kavin’s house.

It was only later that Martin realized that he might have agreed too hastily.

It’s not that he didn’t trust Moore and was afraid he would do something to him. Kevin was definitely not a bad guy. He was educated, worked with the police, and was Jack’s boyfriend, so he was beyond suspicion in the eyes of the young mechanic, but if Lambert found out that Martin had visited Moore at his house ...

Martin had never suspected Jack that he might be so jealous before, but when he heard him on the phone then ... Just the memory gave him a shiver down his spine. Lambert must have really loved his boyfriend very much, since the mere thought of his betrayal made him furious. True, Jack trusted Martin and his love for Steve, but if Martin saw Paxton at Moore’s house, he would feel jealous too, although there could be a thousand different reasons for the visit. So maybe Martin shouldn’t be meeting Kevin in such a private place?

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