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Two DNFs in the first three races. Lovely. The F1-75 is lightning fast, while the RB-18 is overweight and can’t seem to run a full race-length without blowing up. Seb is set to cruise easily to the finish line first and extend his championship lead. Christ.

To make things worse, as Max is trying to leave the garage through the back exit to make his way to the Red Bull motorhome, someone barrels toward him and knocks him flat on his ass.

“Jesus,” Max hisses, groaning. His body is already sore from the race—the half of it his car survived for, at any rate. “What the fuck?”

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going,” the man who knocked Max to the ground says. Obviously, Max thinks, ignoring the hand the man stretches out to him, instead picking himself off the ground. Then, the man starts to ramble, “I was trying to find a bathroom, but then I got lost, and once I found it, I’d already missed so much of the race, and—you don’t care.”

American is the first impression of the man Max has, but the more the man talks, the more Max notices a faint undercurrent of an accent. Definitely European. French, maybe.

The second thing Max notices is—

“You have a VIP pass.”

The man’s brows lift up high, mouth parting with something to say, but no sound comes out. His face is quite expressive. And, well, he has quite a handsome face, Max hates to admit. On closer inspection, it’s less handsome, and more beautiful. Thick, perfectly spaced out eyebrows; a pink mouth sculpted so that all the angles are just right; facial hair perfectly lining the cut of his jaw and just under his nose; bright green eyes; a mole beside his nose on the left side of his face like an intentional imperfection that screams, yes, yes, I’m actually real. It’s the sort of Facetuned shit you see on Instagram, except in real life. His face is just—perfect, honestly. So perfect it’s a bit uncomfortable to look at. Max looks elsewhere.

He has expensive-looking sunglasses perched atop his head, and he’s wearing so much red, different shades that somehow all clash with one another, that just looking at his outfit is giving Max a headache. Worse: he’s somehow pulling it off, or maybe that’s just his face.

“Yeah, um,” he says, cheeks a little flushed, but Max can’t tell if it’s from embarrassment, or from how he was sprinting down the backlane of the garages just a moment ago. He brings a hand down to circle over his wrist; he starts to play with his bracelets. “I’m an actor?” he finishes, posing it like a question.

Max purses his lips. “You look like one,” he says flatly, starting to walk off. It’s as much a conversation ender as anything.

However, just as Max has passed the man, he speaks up, loud enough to be heard over the bustle of the paddock. “Charles Leclerc.”

Max grits his teeth, scrunches his face, and lets out an annoyed sigh before turning around to introduce himself. Charles puts his hand out, and it takes Max a second to realize he’s trying to shake hands.

Max doesn’t take it, instead just says, “Max Verstappen.”

“Yes,” Charles says, though it’s breathed out like a laugh. He lowers his hand. He has dimples, and they poke into his cheek as he says, “I know that.”

Max tries to make off for a second time, but Charles is starting up again, “Sorry about the retirement.”

Max sighs. Some people just don’t know how to take a hint. Charles is still smiling, unencumbered, like he thinks a pretty smile is enough to charm Max into conversation.

“Yeah, well,” he grunts, scratching his ear, annoyed at the reminder. “The car is not very consistent at the moment. Are we done now?”

Charles opens his mouth, then closes it to frown. He looks shocked and flustered. “You’re not going to watch the rest of the race?”

“I’ll watch it from my driver room,” Max says, waving his hand. “I am not in the mood for—all of this.” For this conversation, he mostly means, and he starts to walk off again.

But Charles is calling after him. Again. “Wait—” he says, again fiddling with his bracelets. The first is a thin silver cuff, the second is a red friendship bracelet, and the third is beaded with letters Max can’t quite make out. “You really don’t—” He pauses, like he’s carefully choosing his next words. “Know who I am?” he finishes.

Max lifts his eyes and squints. Charles does look familiar, and his name is familiar too, but if he’s an actor, then maybe Max has simply seen him on TV before, a supporting character of a show, probably. A lot of B-list actors get sponsored by F1 teams.

“You just said it,” Max grumbles, walking off. “You’re an actor.”

This time, Charles doesn’t call after him again.

Turns out, Charles Leclerc is not just an actor.

He’s enough of a name that the second Max gets to HQ, an intern directs him toward Christian’s office, a grimace on his face.

“Have a seat,” Christian orders as soon as Max enters his office. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and there are three empty coffee cups by his monitors. “We have a PR nightmare on our hands.”

Max presses his lips together. Christian looks—disappointed. Max hasn’t seen him look this disappointed in years—not in him, at least.

Usually, when he gets in trouble for a PR mishap, all that really happens is the following: Gemma gives him a call, explains the situation, and forwards a list of things he needs to do going forward, like make an Instagram post, do a spontaneous interview, or attend a charity event. To his recollection, he’s never had it so bad that Christian had to be the one yelling at him.

“I know you don’t go on social media these days,” he starts, “so I’ll cut to the chase. How on earth did you manage to piss off Charles Leclerc that badly?”

Max opens his mouth. “I don’t, um. What?”

Honestly, after the hellish flight back to Europe and reviewing the data from the race on the plane, his interaction with Charles is the last thing on his mind.

You really don’t know who I am? Charles had asked him, and really, Max didn’t. From the look on his face, it was probably Charles’ first time meeting someone who didn’t know who he was. Jesus, Max thought, the ego on you. He simply gave off the impression of someone who has effortlessly charmed every person in his life, and now comes to see it as an expectation.

Christian’s mouth screws up into a frown, and he silently slides over his iPad to Max’s side of the desk. On the screen is a Youtube video by Australian Vogue, pulled up to around the halfway mark, titled Charles Leclerc: The Oscars, Formula 1, and Life after Oltremare.

“I am not quite sure what I am looking at.”

“Just press play, Max,” Christian demands quietly, and Max does.

“So,” the interviewer says, “you were at the Australian Grand Prix this weekend.”

They’re in some fancy cafe, sitting across from one another. The low bustle of the other customers is drowned out by soft jazz music. Charles sips on his iced tea, the plate of ricotta hotcakes before him half-eaten, before answering, “Ah, yes. I’m a big fan.” His cheeks are pink, his eyes a little sparkley. He sounds excited by the question.

“Yeah? Who do you support?”

“Ferrari, of course,” Charles says, and Max immediately rolls his eyes.

“Did you get to meet any of the drivers?”

“Yes,” Charles says. “Me and Pierre Gasly are actually childhood friends, so we took some time to catch up.” Max lifts a brow. He hadn’t known that. “I also spoke to Lewis a bit, before the race.”

“You two are friends?”

“Yes. We met at the Met Gala a few years ago and we both live in Monaco at the moment. We hang out sometimes,” Charles answers. He has a shy smile on his lips, mouth closed all coy, but his dimples still imprint on his cheeks. Great. He’s also friends with Lewis, of all people. Not a surprise, per se, but not convenient either. “I wanted to meet Sebastian Vettel, I am a very big fan, but he was understandably quite busy. I hope to meet him at another race. Oh,” he adds after a stilted beat, like an afterthought, the smile falling right off his face. Here it comes, Max thinks. “I also met Max Verstappen.”

“The reigning world champ, right?”

“Right.”

The interviewer sips on her coffee. “How was he?”

Charles takes a moment, pursing his lips like he’s thinking about what to say. Max catches the moment he decides how to go about it. “Not the friendliest, to be honest.”

The interviewer lifts a brow, clearly interested. “Oh?”

“Yeah. I ran into him by the garages,” Charles replies. He smiles again, but this time, it isn’t coy or shy, but rather, calculating. “He was… honestly very rude to me. Which, you know, I completely understand. After a race like that…”

“But it wouldn’t have killed him to be a little less abrasive?” the interviewer finishes.

“Yes,” Charles answers, sounding pleased that he didn’t have to say it himself, “that.”

The interviewer smirks and lets out a soft, amused laugh, then says, “Okay then. So, about your acting hiatus…”

Christian reaches over to pause the video, and slides the iPad back to his side of the desk.

Max chews on his bottom lip. He wonders if the air conditioning is on in Christian’s office. He’s starting to feel hot under his collar. “Honestly, I don’t even think I was that rude.”

Christian narrows his eyes, mouth pleating into a thin line. “Do you know who Charles Leclerc is?”

Max grimaces, then tries, “An actor?”

Christian closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and lets out a quiet sigh. “Yes, he is an actor. The thing is, he won an Oscar two weeks ago. The youngest for Leading Actor by more than five years. He is very famous and well-liked across all age groups.”

An Oscar? Well. Not a B-list actor, then.

Still, he doesn’t get the urgency of this meeting. “So?”

“And,” Christian says, sounding pained, “he is the lead for the F1 movie that’s coming out in 2025.”

“Oh…” Max says. “Right.”

He’s heard about that, the big-budget extravaganza scheduled to start filming next year at real tracks. News of it sent waves through the paddock, especially because Lewis is going to be part of the movie, and is helping with the cast. Not to mention that a few test and reserve drivers are getting roped into it, and Max and several of the other drivers are required to be at its premiere when it comes out.

“This guy is an angel, and I say that with no amount of sarcasm,” Christian says. “People aren’t taking well to his comments about you.”

Max scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest. “No celebrity is an angel.”

“Yeah?” Christian lifts a brow. “Leclerc is. Or, at least, that’s how the public sees him, and that’s all that matters. One of the reasons why this is making headlines is because Leclerc never badmouths anyone.”

Max looks off into the side, stares at the mini-replicas of his helmets sitting on Christian’s shelves, eyes focusing on the one he won the championship with, last year. He thought that would have been enough.

“Max,” Christian says, his voice softening around the edges. “I know you don’t care about the publicity side of things. But Leclerc is a big name.”

“I don’t see—” Max snaps his mouth shut, stops himself from going on and saying what he wants to say. Arguing about this won’t do any good. “I’m sorry, Christian,” he says instead, trying to mean it.

Christian seems pleased at the apology. He leans back into his chair and drums his fingers on the wood of his desk. Max stares at his own hands in his lap. “Thank you, but sorry is not enough. You’re going to fix this.”

Max’s head whips up. “What?”

“For Imola and Miami, he’ll be with Red Bull,” Christian reveals. Before Max can cut in, he goes on, “In Miami, you two are going to film a video, but before that, in Imola you are going to get him to like you. I’ve arranged for you to have lunch on Wednesday.”

His voice catches rough in his throat when he asks, “Excuse me?”

“If you check Twitter, you are currently public enemy number one. And especially after Abu Dhabi…” Max winces. Christian notices and moves on. “Unfortunately, damage control is a necessity.”

“I don’t care about Twitter,” Max mumbles. “Besides, shouldn’t I be focusing on, you know, the race?”

“Well,” Christian says, sounding smug, “you can multitask, can’t you?”

Max tips his head back over the top of his chair and groans, nursing his temples with his fingers. “I still don’t see why this is such a big deal,” he can’t help but say. “It is not like the sponsors will all drop me just because I don’t get along with a famous actor.”

“It’s not all about the sponsors,” Christian argues. “It’s your image, which yes, does in fact matter. And it’s not just the fact he’s famous. He’s also personally connected to F1.”

Max furrows his brows. “How?”

“Do some research, kid,” Christian says. “I don’t want to have to spell it out to you.”

Once he’s back home in Monaco, Max pulls up Wikipedia and looks up Charles Leclerc.

The article is very, very long, and Max doesn’t have the patience to read through the whole thing, and he doesn’t think it’s necessary either. He skims through the intro: Charles has been nominated for two Academy Awards, one of which he won, two Golden Globes, both of which he won, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, which he also won. He is far and wide regarded as the acting talent of the century, or the decade, or what the fuck ever. His filmography has a wide breadth, prolific in both arthouse films and blockbusters. It’s impressive, unfortunately. He’s only twenty-four.

Max looks through his filmography. He doesn’t recognize most of the films, but he does recognize two of them: No Time to Die and The French Dispatch. Max only watched the first.

He moves onto the personal life section.

They’re the same age, but Max is a little older. He was born in Monaco, but moved to the states, California in particular, when he was ten. He’s currently living in Monaco and is the middle child. He’s an avid Ferrari fan, and cites Michael Schumacher as a childhood hero. He’s trilingual, fluent in French, Italian, and English, is an atheist, and is openly bisexual.

Huh.

Max tries not to linger on that fact for too long. After all this, he still doesn’t see how Charles is at all connected to Formula 1. Maybe his father’s like, a high-up exec at Petronas, or maybe his great-grandfather’s secretly a Ferrari world champion.

He thumbs through the entire article, trying to find what Christian was talking about, but then he sees it, right at the top, right in the little information section. Below his photo, and below the details of his birth and the names of his parents, he sees it:

Relatives Arthur Leclerc (brother)
Lorenzo Leclerc (brother)
Jules Bianchi (godfather)

Shit.

Imola approaches, and Max flies over to Italy in his plane a day earlier than he would have liked, Daniel and Lando in tow.

A bit after the plane takes off, Daniel finally brings it up. “Heard you’re in the hotseat.”

“Hotseat is an understatement,” Lando chimes in, sitting beside Daniel, across from Max. He’s wearing a comfy hoodie, looking down at his phone like the screen-obsessed teenager he is in spirit, sipping on a water bottle. “Max has been getting flamed on Twitter for the past two weeks.”

He sounds terribly amused. Max almost regrets letting him fly with him. “Please don’t tell me you’re a Charles Leclerc fan,” Max groans.

“Mate,” Lando says, finally looking up, “everyone’s a fan. I can’t believe you didn’t know who he was.”

“Max doesn’t know who anyone is,” Daniel laughs. Max kicks him under the table. “It’s fine, the public will get over it,” Daniel says, like an apology, a sloppy half-grin on his face. As sympathetic as Daniel is trying to be, the guy has never been in the hotseat for anything publicity-wise.

“Christian won’t,” Max mumbles sulkily, thinking about the lunch he has to have with Charles in a few hours. “The team is pissed at me.”

“I honestly can’t imagine that. You know, like, you’re you. The team is never mad at you,” Daniel says. “And, like, he’s hot and famous or whatever, but—you know.” Daniel beams with a grin, sleazy about it. “So am I,” he finishes, to which Lando rolls his eyes.

Max lets out a breath, mouth screwing up unconsciously before he reveals, “His godfather was Jules.”

The grin falls right off Daniel’s face. “Oh.”

The three of them are silent for at least the next minute. Raymond is tapping away at his laptop in the row behind them. The plane whirrs.

Lando is the first one to break the silence. “So,” he starts awkwardly, dragging the vowel out, “what’s the game plan?”

“Christian tells me I have to make him like me, or whatever,” Max answers, looking at the puffy white clouds through the window. The jet shakes with turbulence.

They’re going to film a video with marketing in Miami, make a joke of their first meeting, and come off as good friends by the end of it all. Before that, though, they actually need to get to know each other.

“Like that’s going to be possible,” Lando mutters, always inspiring confidence.

Daniel smacks his shoulder. “Ignore him. C’mon, it’ll be fine,” he says to Max. “You just gotta—um.”

Max lifts a brow when Daniel trails off, lips pressed taut. “Yes?”

There’s a long pause before Daniel answers, “Be yourself?”

Max glares at him, while Lando throws his head back with honking laughter, the small gap between his front teeth showing, his awful curls bouncing against his forehead. “You’re kidding, right?”

The place his team chose is a fancy little restaurant a few miles out from the track. He and Raymond get into traffic, and Max is slow to leave the car and enter the building, so he gets there a good ten minutes late, hoping that Charles gave up and left. However, as soon as he enters, the waiters at the front shuffle him over to a private area in the back, where Charles is waiting for him. He’s wearing a white button-down short-sleeved shirt, black slacks, and he’s sipping on an Aperol Spritz as he reads over the menu.

“You’re finally here!” he says as Max pulls out the chair across from him and sits down. “I thought you weren’t going to show up, honestly.”

Max frowns. “My team would have a fit,” he says, because they would. He suddenly recalls why they’re even here in the first place, and adds, “And you probably would go on Instagram, or whatever, and say I stood you up, so.”

The blank expression on Charles’ face breaks, and an amused smile creeps up on his mouth. It’s still a bit startling, how good-looking he is. Max runs his sweaty palms down his jeans.

Before Charles can say anything in reply, the waiter asks if Max wants anything to drink. Max considers just ordering a water, but he might need a bit of alcohol to make it through lunch. He orders a glass of white wine, just whatever, I don’t care how expensive it is, and picks up the menu. He puts it up high like a wall between him and Charles. But the barrier doesn’t last long; Charles is reaching over the table, fingers coming up over the top of the leather, and pulling it down.

“Just because you cannot see me, does not mean I am not here.”

Max huffs.

The thing is: he just doesn’t like celebrities. They make him uncomfortable, and they seem to expect him to grovel at their feet like everyone else. Charles doesn’t seem any different, badmouthing him in an interview just because Max didn’t give him the attention he thought he deserved off the merit of—

What? Status? Fame? Attractiveness?

“Fine, yeah,” Max acquiesces, putting the menu down. He purses his lips, and decides to just come out with it, “I just—what are we supposed to be doing here?”

“Well,” Charles starts, “I have been told that you are going to try and woo me so that I say nice things about you.”

Max can’t hold back his snort. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

“I thought so,” Charles replies, easily putting on a neutral expression. It’s too perfect, too smooth, like a robot. Charles hums and asks, “Do you know how much it cost Red Bull to poach me from Ferrari?”

It’s different. This. Charles. From how he was back in Australia during the race. Flustered and blushing, playing nervously with his bracelets, looking like he would do anything to get Max’s attention. But right now he’s full-on celebrity, all confidence and half-smiles, not giving anything away. Max wonders which one is real and which one is the act—or maybe, both of them are just human approximations at best.

“You were supposed to be with Ferrari this weekend?”

Charles grins. “Obviously. It’s their race.”

Italy this, Ferrari that. If Italy is a body, during race weekends, Ferrari is its heart. The longer Max has been in Formula 1, the more he’s come to realize that, yes, the two really do bleed into one another.

Still, though. At the end of the day, it’s all up for grabs.

“Not for long,” Max says. Classical music floats through the room.

Charles quirks a brow. He brings an arm up to the table, cradling his jaw in the crook of his palm. Max follows the motion, noticing that his arms are buff in a way that seems less for strength and more for show. He carries his eyes back up to meet Charles’ face.

“Yeah?”

Nonchalant, Max shrugs. “If my car doesn’t blow up.”

The waiter comes by then with Max’s glass and takes their orders. Max points at the first pasta on the menu; he won’t even be able to eat much, as he has to keep his weight down this weekend. The car is already overweight as is. When it’s Charles’ turn, smooth Italian syllables roll off his tongue with ease, and he even manages to make the waiter laugh, for some reason. Max tries not to roll his eyes, staring at the paintings on the opposite wall, waiting for Charles to finish flirting, or whatever it is he’s doing.

Once the waiter leaves, Charles looks at Max, silent, like he’s expecting Max to say something.

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” Max asks once it’s just the two of them.

“Are you?”

Max picks his wine glass up by the stem and brings it to his lips. Over the rim of the glass, he says, “Not at all.”

They barely talk after that, as they wait for their food. Max busies himself in the silence by visualizing the track. He won here last year, but that had been in the rain, and there wasn’t a sprint race to deal with. He’s perfectly happy, imagining the shapes and curves of the track, thinking about how the RB-18 will handle Tamburello, the chicane at full-throttle, how to brake coming into Villeneuve; the sim data looks promising, but you never know, with this car.

Charles, however, doesn’t seem happy with the silence, suddenly suggesting, “Why don’t we treat this like a date?”

“What.” Max looks at Charles’ glass; he’s already finished his drink.

Charles smirks. Max glares at the dimples poking through his cheeks. “Isn’t that basically what this is? We are at a fancy restaurant, sitting opposite one another, and we are supposed to be getting to know each other.”

“That is not. What this is.” Max’s voice comes out rough. He can feel his face burning.

Charles lifts a brow. “You have been on a date before, right?” At the withering expression Max shoots at him, Charles chuckles and waves his hand dismissively, leaning back into his seat and stretching out his legs under the table. “Oh, relax. You are straight, yes yes.”

Max bites the inside of his mouth, careful not to say anything too rash. They’re supposed to be getting to know each other, fine, but Charles doesn’t need to know that much. “Alright,” he sighs, giving in. It won’t do much to argue with Charles in the end, Max realizes. He seems to get what he wants one way or another. “We’ll treat this like a date.”

Charles claps his hands together, a bright smile lighting up his face. He looks almost innocent, the glee of a child. Max is having trouble keeping up with Charles’ different faces, personalities switching every other moment. He hates being kept on his toes like this. “Amazing. So. Tell me about yourself.”

“I’m an F1 driver,” Max says, and he takes a sip of his wine.

“Really!” Charles gasps. He puts a hand over his heart.

Max glares. “I grew up in Holland,” he tries, but Charles only giggles and says, “I could have sworn you were British. Do you have any hobbies?”

“I like to sim race.”

“Any pets?”

“I have two cats.”

“Any siblings?”

“A younger sister.”

“A girlfriend?”

The rapid-fire nature of Charles’ questions and his answers stops, the rhythm skidding to a halt. “No,” Max answers, a beat too slow. Charles doesn’t ask another question. Max feels like he’s gotten himself caught in quicksand. He chews on the inside of his mouth before asking, “You?”

“Nope,” Charles says, lips smacking with the p.

Max thinks back to the Wikipedia article. He wonders if it’s inappropriate to ask here, but he shelves that consideration and asks it anyway, “A boyfriend then?”

Charles’ face opens up in shock—it’s genuine, this time. “Ah, you have been reading up on me.”

“A bit,” Max admits, almost explaining why he knows that, but then he thinks better of it, not needing to go on the defensive.

“No,” Charles answers after a beat, “no boyfriend.”

Dead end. Max isn’t exactly sure where to go from here. He bites his mouth, kind of hoping that the waiter comes with their food to save him, but after a few unfortunate seconds of nothing, he has to think on his feet.

“You’re a Ferrari fan,” he says, hoping that leads them somewhere.

Charles grins wide. “Since I was a little kid. I am cheering Seb on for the title.”

“Of course you are,” Max mutters under his breath, but then he realizes he can make something of this topic, at the very least. “Have you been to F1 races before?”

Charles’ grin only grows wider. He has a dreamy look in his eyes. Max has to stop looking. “Many.”

“What was your first?”

“Monaco, when I was a kid,” Charles says, looking down at his lap. His cheeks flush pink, accentuated by the gentle light of the restaurant. Violins sing in the background. “Our apartment was right by the track,” he goes on, and Max becomes encumbered with the weight of the realization that he’s looking into something precious. Unintentional vulnerability creeping through the fissures of Charles’ previous unchinked demeanor, like sunlight through a half-cracked open door, warm, and maybe beautiful. “My dad, when I was little, he was a big fan. He would take me karting, sometimes, when I would pretend to be sick and stay home from school, and we would watch old races together when I couldn’t sleep.”

“Where is he now?” Max asks. “I’m sure he’d love to get a paddock pass. Red Bull would sponsor both of you for sure.”

The door shuts, and the room goes dark and cold. The dreamy look on Charles’ face fades, replaced by a placid, closed-mouth smile. Then he opens his mouth, about to say something, but the waiter comes with their food, and that’s an end to that.

Charles is moaning over a mouthful of pasta by the time that Max realizes that now’s as good a time as any to ask the question that’s been burning at the back of his head.

One of the reasons why this is making headlines is because Leclerc never badmouths anyone.

Honestly, Max really doesn’t think he was that much of an asshole to Charles that day, and Charles, no matter how much Max still isn’t a fan of him, doesn’t seem like an asshole either.

“Why did you tell that interviewer I was rude to you?”

Charles finishes chewing, swallows, and picks up the cloth from his lap to wipe at his mouth. “Because you were…?”

Well, if that’s it… Alright, Max thinks. “Look, I’m sorry. It was a bad race. I was in a bad mood.”

Charles blinks. The corners of his mouth curl, but it doesn’t go to his eyes. His expression is blank and insincere when he says, “Apology accepted.”

Max thinks of Christian telling him that he needs to fix it himself; thinks of the video they have to film in Miami, thinks of how much trouble he might get in if this doesn’t go all right. Now that they’ve gone this far, Max doesn’t want to half-ass it. “I don’t—I’m not.” His hands furl up in his lap, palms sweaty again. “Like, actually an asshole, okay?”

“Okay,” Charles says slowly.

“I just—” Max feels his shoulders come together. He feels small, feels like he’s a teenager again, going through media training. You can’t say this, can’t say that. If you find yourself in trouble, just say this. What if I don’t mean it? Max asked. Doesn’t matter, say it anyway, they’d always respond. “I don’t see why I have to, like, play nice.”

Charles frowns, his brows furrowing. “Kindness is very important to me.”

“Well,” Max says, “it wasn’t very kind of you to talk shit about me in that interview.”

For once, Charles seems to be caught off-guard. “You’re right,” he says, looking regretful. “I am sorry.”

Despite himself, Max smiles. “Apology accepted,” he echoes, but tries to sound like he means it.

“Let’s start over, shall we?”

“Alright,” Max says, feeling his smile grow.

Charles reaches a hand out over the table. “I’m Charles Leclerc.”

This time, Max takes it. “I’m Max Verstappen.”

And there it is—that smile Max had seen on his face, the first time they met. Bright and unencumbered, the skin around his eyes folding in a thousand different ways. This is the real one, Max thinks. This one is real.

Charles hides his teeth, lips pressing together, but his smile remains. “I know.”

Over the course of the weekend, Max leapfrogs Checo, George, Lewis, and Carlos in the standings, but he’s still twenty seven points behind Seb. His championship lead has been cut, but it’ll still take a few more races, Max thinks, until he can truly call this a title fight.

Because it’s the inaugural Miami Grand Prix, Max is required to fly out to the states on Tuesday, a mere day spent at home in Monaco with the cats, but a job’s a job.

Tuesday is spent swamp racing with Yuki, who’s just gotten back from New York City. Max likes Yuki; he isn’t as PR polished as the others, and he doesn’t take things too seriously, so it’s refreshing, and they can actually have some fun. The language barrier is still a bit rough, but Yuki is improving compared to last year. It’s a good time.

Because Checo got stuck with doing the road trip down from New York to Miami, the majority of media gets shoved onto Max on Wednesday. He films a couple interviews, has lunch in the cafeteria, talks with the engineers about the set-up, and goes over the sim data for the new track, imagining the bumps and curbs, how the ground will feel under him through each turn. By mid-day, he doesn’t have anything left to do, save for the sponsor dinner he has with Christian that night.

After playing Rocket League with Pierre for a short while, he heads to the Red Bull Guesthouse. Most of the guests won’t be arriving until Friday or Saturday morning at the earliest, and the Guesthouse is the most likely place to have the other Red Bull flavors.

He heads to the little part of the building by the pool and goes to the fridge, crouching down to grab a red Red Bull, when someone taps him on the shoulder.

“Hello Max.”

Max nearly drops the Red Bull, jumping back in fright. “Jesus,” he says over Charles’ peels of laughter. “You scared me.”

Charles outstretches a hand; Max takes it, letting Charles help him back up onto his feet. He closes the fridge and cracks open the can. Charles leans against the counter facing him, his elbows balanced on the surface. Raybans are perched on his nose, and his blue tee, patterned with ugly blue, slightly faded stripes, hangs off his shoulders.

“Excited for filming tomorrow?” he asks, a half-grin plastered on his face, all celebrity swag.

“So excited,” Max says, sipping from his Red Bull. They had a simple hot lap planned, but they couldn’t find a free period in Max’s schedule that wasn’t conflicting with the other hot laps that were going on. He wonders what marketing has come up with to replace it.

“Congratulations for the wins in Imola, by the way. Very impressive.”

Max hums. “Thank you, but I of course am sure that you would have liked a Ferrari to win, instead of me.”

Charles’ grin turns full, radiating with smugness. “Naturally.”

Their lunch last week had actually been a lot more bearable than he had expected. Charles, as it turns out, knows a lot more about racing than Max thought. He asked about Max’s awful start, the lock-up he had, how he almost took the lead from Seb in the middle of the race, but had to retire with his engine up in smoke. He let Max explain all the technical side of the retirement, what the mechanics told him in the debrief, the racing lines and the different tyre strengths, listening raptly, even cutting in with a question every now and then. It was a pleasant surprise, and by the time they were finished with their food, he realized he didn’t hate it, talking with Charles.

“Why are you here so early?” Max wonders. Wednesday, unless you’re part of the weekend, there isn’t much for you to do.

“Ah, I am getting dinner with Pierre and Lewis tonight, and I thought I might as well come and see the track while I wait for them to finish. It is very exciting, what they have done with the stadium.”

“Eh,” Max says. The car seems to be doing better, more consistent and stable now, and they’re working on getting the weight down still, but the track is new and despite all the promising sim data, he doubts it will be a walk in the park. “Is it just Pierre and Lewis you are friends with?” Max asks, curious.

“Yes,” Charles answers, then adds, “or, should I count you as my friend?”

Max squints. “I think you are moving too fast for me. We still do not know each other very well.”

“Yeah?” Charles cocks his head to the side. “What are the steps to becoming Max Verstappen’s friend?”

Max takes another sip of his Red Bull, considering it. “Step one, don’t talk shit about me to Australian Vogue.”

Charles makes an unbecoming squawk, mouth flopping open. It’s cute, Max thinks, and berates himself for letting that thought form. “Hey! I thought we were over that!”

Max laughs, leaning back against the fridge behind him, letting the cool surface press into his back.

“What are the other steps?” Charles asks, sounding suddenly very determined. Max raises a brow, trying not to overthink it.

“You will just have to find out, I guess,” he says, leaving it at that.

Charles gestures at the can in Max’s hand and asks, “You actually drink Red Bull?”

“I like it,” Max says, frowning.

Charles makes a noise in disbelief. “No, no. Everyone who drinks energy drinks is just pretending to like it.”

Max snorts and pushes the can into Charles’ hand. “Drink.”

Charles gawks, refusing to take the drink from Max’s hand. “No way.”

“Step two,” Max says, fighting past the odd lurch in his chest when their knuckles brush, “to becoming my friend.”

Charles’ mouth screws up, chin tipped up high, but he eventually takes the can, slowly bringing it up to his mouth, carefully keeping his gaze on Max when he takes a tiny sip.

“Blegh,” he sounds, his mouth puckering and the rest of his face crumpling with disgust. He forces the can into Max’s hands and wipes his lips dry with the back of his hand.

Max folds over in laughter. “Mate,” he says, gasping for breath, “it is not that bad.”

“It tastes like cough syrup,” Charles says, shuddering. “But, like, worse. Like battery acid.”

“I am so sorry it does not live up to your standards. I forgot. People in LA only eat organic food, right?” Max actually doesn’t know much about LA, but he assumes it’s filled with, like, influencers who only eat food they see on Instagram. “Should I add a bit of black tea and lemon? Maybe some cut-up fruit?”

Charles scrunches his nose, prissy and aristocratic about it. “Please don’t reduce me to someone from America.”

“Right, right,” Max says, snickering, “you’re French, I forgot.”

Charles’ jaw drops, and he’s silent for at least twenty seconds. It’s a cute look. “That. Is even worse.”

Max honks out a laugh and shelves this to bring up later.

“Charles!” Max hears from the other end of the room. Then he hears something in French, which Max roughly understands is something along the lines of sorry I’m late.

Charles turns around. “Pierre!” he shouts, and Max can hear the smile on his face. It does something weird to his stomach.

Pierre has jogged up to the space between the counter and the fridge, and he looks between Max and Charles for a moment, eyes narrowed, before switching to English, “Am I interrupting something?”

Charles doesn’t turn back, only waving his hand as he steps out from behind the counter. “No, no,” he says, letting Pierre pull him into a half-hug, and exits the room, an arm slung over Pierre’s shoulders.

Max watches them go, feeling the condensation from his Red Bull can drip down his wrist, ice cold.

“Hi everyone. It’s Charles Leclerc.”

“And Max Verstappen.”

They’re sitting at a table by the pool, an umbrella shielding them from the sun. It’s early morning on Thursday, right when most of the Red Bull guests are doing their trackwalks, so it’s just them and the marketing team out here. Chlorine fills Max’s nose.

He picks his cue cards up, and starts to recite, as stiffly as possible, “You might be wondering why we are here together.” Max’s eyes scan over the rest of the text. It’s complete bullshit. He puts the cards down on the table. “Yeah. So marketing put us up to this after all the things Charles said in Australia. Damage control.”

Charles makes a noise, high-pitched and offended. “You are never letting that go, are you?”

Max’s face splits with a grin, ignoring the glares from the marketing team behind the cameras. “Nope.”

“I would not have said any of that if you weren’t so rude to me in the first place,” Charles argues, and Max just rolls his eyes. “You are actually quite nice.”

“You see?” Max asks the camera, pointing over at Charles with his thumb. “He is a very good actor. He is pretending like he does not hate my guts.”

“Oh yes. It takes so much effort,” Charles drawls. “I should have won my Oscar for this!”

A short laugh bubbles out from Max’s throat before he realizes it.

“So,” Charles says, picking his own cue cards up. “We will just be asking each other some questions. Me first.” He turns over the card on the top, then frowns, looking a little bit confused.

“What does it say?” Max asks.

“Buttered popcorn or caramel corn?” Charles reads, looking a bit disappointed.

Max snorts. “Jesus, guys,” he says at the marketing team. “I thought this would be like, at least a little F1 related. Butter, I guess. Caramel is too sweet.”

“Your turn,” Charles says, putting the card to the back.

“Would you rather time travel to the past, or to the future,” Max reads from his pile, then he glares at the marketing team behind the cameras. “What the hell is this?”

Charles hums for a second, then answers, “The past.”

Max lifts a brow. “You have a lot of things you want to change?”

“No,” Charles says. He flips over the next card in his deck. “Just people I want to see.”

Max bites the inside of his mouth, doesn’t say anything, just waits for Charles to read out loud the next question. However, as soon as he flips it over, his face goes tomato red, deeply uncomfortable, and Max wonders if the question reads something like, When was the last time you got laid, or something.

“Um. This is a stupid question,” Charles says, going to shove it to the back of his pile, but Max quickly reaches out over the table, curious.

“Which super power would you choose,” he reads, and he can barely get through the rest of the words through his sudden fits of laughter, “water shooting out your armpits, or fire shooting out of your arse.” He clutches his stomach, squeezed from laughter so much it hurts, his head nearly banging against the table. Charles, at some point, has also started laughing, all giggly and full of air. “Mate, what the hell? Were you guys—” He has to pause to gasp in another breath, looking behind the cameras again. “Drunk when you came up with these?”

“Never mind this,” Charles says, putting all his cards down, “we’ll come up with our own questions.”

Max leans against the back of his chair, his breathing starting to calm down. “Yeah?” Marketing hasn’t stopped them, so they must be giving them the green light.

“Let me think…” Charles begins, tongue sticking out slightly. “What is your favorite movie of mine?” No Time to Die, Max almost says, because he did actually watch that one and liked it a lot, even though he hadn’t realized Charles was in it, but then Charles quickly adds, “Where I am a lead actor.”

Max presses his lips together. “Um…”

Charles’ eyes widen. “Oh my god,” he says, punctuating each syllable, thick with a French accent. For the most part, Max has noticed, Charles has lost his accent, but it’s in small moments like these that it shines through. “You have not watched any of them, have you?”

Max swallows, and he catches Charles looking at the motion of his throat. “I liked, umm,” he responds, searching through his memory for at least one movie he remembers from that Wikipedia page, “I liked Oltremare?”

“What is it about?” Charles asks with narrowed eyes.

Fuck, Max thinks. He knows what mare means in Italian, so he goes with that. “The sea?”

Charles still has a look of suspicion about him. “Yes. Tell me more.”

Max grins. Alright, sure. “You were a sailor, no, a captain.” Charles is smiling at him, nodding for Max to go on, so Max does. “You were… searching for a mermaid you met when you were just a sailor. You promised her that you would come back to find her and save her from her evil father. You battled sea creatures, and pirates, but then—”

Max could keep going, but Charles is laughing again. Max stops to laugh with him, to take pride in the joy of having made another person happy.

“I will have to disappoint you right now,” Charles starts, his voice unsteady with giggles, “and tell you that there are no pirates or sea creatures, and I am not a sailor.”

“Does it at least have something to do with the sea?”

“Nope,” Charles says, beaming at Max. “Next week, you will come to my house, and I will force you to watch Oltremare.”

Max rolls his eyes. “Of course.”

“You live in Monaco, correct?” Charles asks, pulling out his phone and opening up his calendar.

Wait. Max blinks. “You are serious?”

“I am serious,” Charles says, flashing Max a dazzling smile.

“Yeah. I live in Monaco,” Max says, cheeks growing hot when he remembers that they’re on camera.

“So do I,” Charles says, batting his eyelashes. “It’s a date?”

Max swallows over the lump in his throat, and he resists the urge to fight back a smile. Instead, he lets it out. “It’s a date,” he says, relishing in the way that Charles pulls his lips between his teeth, looking a bit shy, like he wasn’t expecting Max to actually go along with it. “Alright,” Max continues, confidence restored, “what was… your favorite race of mine?”

Charles is quick to respond. “Bahrain this year, obviously. Australia was a close second.”

Max groans and slips further into his seat, letting his eyes roll to the back of his head.

“But… honorable mentions!” Charles says loudly, breaking Max out of his stupor. “Brazil 2016, obviously, was quite impressive at such a young age.” Max slowly pulls himself straight up. “Austin, last year, was very exciting between you and Lewis. I was watching it while I was shooting a commercial. I was trying to get my scenes done as fast as I could so that I could continue watching! Also last year, your quali lap in Jeddah, of course, if you finished it, would have been legendary. China 2017, maybe, I think people don’t talk about enough, your first lap was very impressive. Oh, I have to say, I absolutely hated Austria 2019. Seb deserved to win for sure. I still think you should have been penalized for that move. Should I go on?”

It takes Max a long moment to respond.

“You know your stuff, Leclerc,” he says, because he doesn’t really know what else to say.

Charles smirks like he’s just won the battle, and maybe, Max thinks, he just did. “And you don’t know yours, Verstappen.”

Though they have to improvise the majority of the questions, it ends up being easy and fun. Max asks Charles about acting, Charles asks Max about racing, and it goes on and on like that until the marketing team tells them they have to wrap up. Max checks his watch and realizes they’ve already gone twenty minutes over the alloted time.

Max doesn’t get to say goodbye to Charles, because they’re both whisked away to their own schedules: Charles to some charity event, and Max to the driver briefing.

Despite all the issues in practice, Max wins in Miami, and it feels good. Really good. He parties hard at the end of the night at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. He doesn’t see Charles at all, but that’s alright. They both did what they needed to do: their video was posted on Friday, and it was well-received with mostly positive comments. Gained seven million views in the first day, mostly due to Charles’ name in the title and his face in the thumbnail for sure, and, according to the social media team, people online are raving about his and Charles’ chemistry, whatever that means. All of Charles’ comments about Max being rude in Australia are magically overwritten by how well they got on on screen.

All this to say: mission accomplished. Max doesn’t expect to see Charles again, at least not in the near future. Perhaps at another race, since Charles seems to love F1, or perhaps once filming for the movie kicks into full gear.

Monday night, Max arrives back in Monaco. He feeds the cats, orders takeout for dinner, and opens up Netflix on the TV. He blinks at the first thing he sees being Charles’ face. He looks years younger, face completely free of scruff, an innocence and desperation in his eyes.

Boyish, #3 in movies today, recently added on Netflix. Max skims through the description. It’s an indie romantic coming-of-age—yeah, nope.

He scrolls past it, about to start the next episode of Peaky Blinders, when he notices Charles’ face, yet again, in another thumbnail: Bloodline. Out of curiosity, Max scrolls down to read its description. It’s a psychological thriller slash horror—yeah, also nope.

Well, now that Max is doing this, he might as well go all the way. He searches Charles Leclerc on Netflix to see what other movies he has: Zero Down, a 2019 Rated-R heist comedy, where Charles seems to be the target of the heist; The Myth of You, released last year, another arthouse romantic drama, Charles playing opposite Florence Pugh; and the last one on Netflix is, well, Oltremare.

Max still doesn’t know what the movie is about, and it’s the one that won Charles an Academy Award, so he goes to watch the trailer, right when his phone goes off with a WhatsApp notification.

+1 XXX XXX XXXX
this is charles!

What the hell. Max startles and turns off his TV.

Max Verstappen
How did you get this number

Charles’ response is immediate.

+1 XXX XXX XXXX
i asked someone at red bull 🙂
anyway
what are you doing friday afternoon?

Max frowns, then opens up his GCal. He has a Zoom meeting in the morning, training with Brad before lunch, but otherwise, he’s free.

Max Verstappen
Nothing?

+1 XXX XXX XXXX
good
i will clear out my afternoon for you

Max Verstappen
What?

+1 XXX XXX XXXX
my movie
don’t tell me you already forgot?

Max squints, trying to remember what the hell he’s talking about. Heat prickles down from the roots of his scalp all the way down to the back of his neck. He didn’t think they were actually serious, thought it was just a bit.

Max Verstappen
Oh
Right

The messages are read immediately, but Charles isn’t typing. Max chews on his bottom lip. Is this—what is he supposed to do now? He waits, and waits, and waits a little more, and minutes tick by. Eventually, he gets another message.

+1 XXX XXX XXXX
2pm, don’t be late

His final text is an address, along with an apartment number.

Well then.

Come Friday 2 PM, Max finds himself on the other side of Monte Carlo, parked outside a small building complex. He double checks the apartment number that Charles texted him, presses on the buzzer. Soon enough, he’s let into the building. He walks up two flights of stairs to the second floor. There’s only one apartment on this floor, so he knocks, waits, the door opens, and—

It takes Max a long second to reconcile the fact that the man before him is the same movie star he saw in Australia, had lunch with in Italy, and filmed a silly video with in Miami.

Charles is wearing black thick-rimmed glasses, and his hair is messy, but pulled back by a red and white bandana. He hasn’t shaved, facial hair coming in all patchy, and there’s a small toothpaste stain on the collar of his grey crew neck, rumpled. He’s wearing nylon black shorts, coming up just above his knees.

It’s—

He’s—

“Hi Max,” he says, smiling.

Max feels his palms sweat a little as he smiles back. “Hi Charles.”

Charles steps to the side and says, “Come in.”

Once Max is inside, he slips off his shoes because Charles is only wearing socks that come up high on his shins, and he looks around the apartment. The walls are white, with some gold aspects built into them, large modern paintings filling most of the blank space. One of the walls is filled with shelves that are mostly empty, but a couple candles, houseplants, and books give color to deep burgundy wood. There’s a rectangular sofa, beige and with a few throw warm-toned pillows, a small coffee table in the center of the room, and a rug with cow prints. On the adjacent wall, just before the kitchen and small dining area starts, is the window, taking up the middle section. Into the distance is the ocean, a deep, bright blue filled with sparkling white boats and yachts. Opposite the window, is an upright piano.

“It’s not very big,” Charles says. “I am only renting it for the year.”

It does look smaller than Max’s apartment, a lot smaller, but—

Max doesn’t know. It’s a little messy; there’s a dark red sweatshirt lying over the back of a chair in the dining area, papers scattered all over the table that look like part of a script, dog-eared and with notes all over them, a few dirty dishes in the sink, and a small wine stain on the cow rug. Some of the books on the shelves have fallen over. If you look close enough, it’s cluttered, yet somehow sparse—like every misplaced item means something. Well worn, touched.

Max’s apartment never has any mess, not that he’s a particularly neat person, but his building complex has a cleaning service that comes by every other day.

Charles’ apartment, however—

It isn’t the glitz and glam Max expected it to be. It looks like a home.

It looks lived in. It looks loved.

“Have you eaten?” Charles asks.

Max turns to look at him and grimaces. He actually ate just before coming here. He wasn’t sure what this was supposed to be.

“You have,” Charles confirms. “That’s fine.” He waves his hand. “I ordered takeout for the both of us just in case. I would have cooked but… I am not very good,” he admits with a laugh. “Do you mind if I eat first?”

“That’s fine,” Max says. He bites his lip. He’s really only allowed to eat a certain amount of calories a day during the week, but it’s never enough, not really, to satiate the hunger inside him. He supposes it won’t be too bad to indulge today. “I can eat again too.”

Charles grins at him and Max follows him into the kitchen. Sits down at the small dining table and puts his elbow up on the table, resting his cheek in his palm. Charles picks up the takeout containers by the kitchen sink and empties them out onto bowls, steam rising above. Max watches, eyes running across Charles’ broad back, the white sliver of a shirt just peeking out under his crew neck collar. Watches as Charles lifts onto one foot and scratches at his ankle with his toe.

He wonders what Charles’ daily life is. Who usually comes here, if anyone. Other celebrities, friends, or family. What he does in his free time. If he’s happy. If he’s lonely.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Charles asks after he’s got the food ready. He slides Max’s bowl across the table and takes a seat. It’s creamy tomato gnocchi for both of them, fresh basil and spinach sprinkled atop, chicken nestled in the sauce. Max hums at the smell. Charles hands Max a fork.

Max takes it with his free hand, cheek still tilted into his other palm. “I am trying to figure you out.”

Charles smirks. “Alright then. How about a question for a question? It’s like a continuation of our last date.” Max blinks. “I start.”

Max removes his hand from his face and sits up, forking at a piece of gnocchi and chicken and bringing it to his mouth. Max hums in approval, and reminds himself to ask Charles where he ordered this from.

“Why did you go into racing?” Charles asks, then he quickly follows up, “Not how—you already told me about that. Why.”

The how of it all is the far easier question. Max had all the resources available to him. A dad who was an F1 driver, a family with enough money to invest in his future, inborn talent and racing genes.

The why of it all, however—

“Probably because of my dad,” Max answers, shrugging. “He raced in Formula One, and he wanted me to race in it too.”

Charles stabs a piece of gnocchi and hums. “You did not want to?”

“I did,” Max says, trying not to sound defensive, “but—it was his dream. It only became mine later.”

He thinks of how hard it was, his childhood. He knows—he knows it could have been worse. He knows that he was lucky, really, and he has nothing to complain about. He lives a good life, a privileged one. And he loves racing, he really does. It is his life. It always has been his life. But—there was a point in time when there were other parts too. Playing football with his friends after school, messing around with the other boys in class, quizzing Victoria on the capitals of the world. He loved it all, all of the other parts, but soon racing grew so big that he just didn’t have space for them; that’s what his dad told him, anyway. If you want to be a champion, if you want to race in Formula One, he said, you have to focus. You can’t get distracted. And Max wanted it, he wanted it for himself, but also—he wanted to make his dad proud.

This is for your own good, his dad told him, and Max tried his hardest to believe it.

It was hard work. It was hard, it was painful, giving everything up. It was hard—it was so hard.

Quitting football, Victoria and his mother moving away, the divorce, the long car rides, the screaming, but even worse—the silence. The uncertainty if he would actually make it to Formula 1. If it would all be worth it, one day. The echo, the negative space: the worry that it all might just be for nothing.

“My family, they put in so much time and money and effort and you know, at the end of the day, there was no other option, really.” It was up to him; his family had sacrificed so much. Max shrugs. “Not that I wanted to do anything else, by that point.”

His father was right, in the end. It was for his own good. It wasn’t all for nothing. It had all been worth it. If Max had the chance to do anything differently, he wouldn’t. Now, he can look back on that hard childhood, think about the boy he once was, chubby and small and angry at the world. He wants to tell that boy: Thank you. Keep going. It will be worth it.

Charles chews on his gnocchi, careful eyes watching Max. Max realizes that it’s his turn now.

Basic things, he tells himself. He still doesn’t know much about Charles.

“How did you get into acting?”

Charles finishes chewing and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. There’s still a spot of sauce by the side of his mouth. Max doesn’t say anything. “When I was nine, my dad got a job in the states. In LA. But I was so stubborn about it. I didn’t want to leave Europe, so Jules’ parents took me in. He was my godfather. But after a year, my dad got really sick, and—you know. I moved to California to be with my family.”

Where is he now? Max asked back in Imola. He is starting to realize what the answer to that question is.

“Then,” Charles goes on, “I got casted on the street. Just for commercials and stuff. My dad, when he was in the hospital, he saw me on TV. I think I was filming something for asthma medication, something silly like that, and—” Charles smiles; it takes up his entire face, warm, gentle, and nostalgic. “He was so happy. So I thought I should take it seriously. He started to do better; his cancer went into remission, so things were okay for a few years, and we could afford to pay for my acting classes and my tuition at an arts school. It was so hard. I wasn’t very good at acting at first, and I would only really land the few small roles I did because…”

“You are attractive,” Max finishes, heart beating fast at the admission. Beautiful is the right word for Charles, really, but the word feels too scary on his tongue.

It’s worth it, though, because Charles makes an embarrassed noise. “Yeah, um. Yeah. But I got better. I filmed Boyish when I was eighteen. It was my first lead role. It did really well. Better than I expected. But then, my dad got sick again, and it was worse that time, and he passed away the next summer.”

Max’s throat feels thick. He wants to do something: like reach across the table and take Charles’ hand, or stand up and go over to Charles and pull him into a hug. But that’s not— None of that is—

All he can do, however, is say, “I am so sorry.”

Charles only shakes his head, comforting. “It’s okay,” he says, smiling. It still doesn’t feel like enough, but Charles continues. “After that I was supposed to take an acting break, but my career was doing so well, and I didn’t want to let the momentum stop. So I didn’t, and here I am now.”

“Yeah,” Max says, feeling a slight flutter in his chest. “Here you are now.”

Once they’re done eating, Max offers to wash their dishes, but Charles just shoos him away every time he tries to get close to the sink and tells him to just sit down and wait.

“I was mostly kidding,” Charles says after he’s finished, and drying his hands with a cloth, “when I said you had to watch my movie. You don’t seem like a movie guy, anyway.”

Max blushes. Sure, he isn’t a movie guy. He hates romance movies and horror, finds comedy too cheesy, and doesn’t have the patience to sit through dramas. He likes action movies, he supposes, but they’re all the same in the end, and he’d rather be playing video games, so he doesn’t watch them that often. Still, though. “I watch movies.”

“Yeah?” Charles asks, brow raised. “What was the last one you watched?”

Max thinks back. The only thing he can think of is the whale documentary he watched the other night. Yeah, he’s not telling Charles that.

Charles notices, and smiles. “We can do anything you want. I blocked out my whole afternoon for you.”

Max furrows his brows. Charles seems like a social butterfly. It’s not like he’s short on friends. “Why?”

Charles shrugs. “I think you’re fun. And I am terribly bored these days. Both of my brothers are in the states, and all my friends are so busy. I am almost regretting taking the year off.”

“Hey. I’m busy too,” Max says, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Yeah?” Charles smirks. “Then why are you here?”

Max purses his lips. There is an answer to Charles’ question, probably, but Max doesn’t want to dig too far inside himself to find it. The seconds tick by. Charles is still looking at him, waiting for his answer.

Eventually, Max gives up and asks, “Do you have FIFA?”

After two consecutive slaughters, 9-2 and 10-3, Charles drops his controller down on the sofa in defeat. He had been so confident after the first round, shouting, No, no! I was just going easy on you. Again. Now, he has this look on his face—brows furrowed, mouth pulled into a pout, as if he can’t quite understand what’s just happened.

“You are…” he starts. “Very good at this game. This is not fair.”

Max laughs. It was fun—a lot of fun. Charles was shouting throughout the entire duration of the games, bouncing and wildly moving his arms along with his thumbs, kicking his feet on occasion, shifting on the couch every time he had the ball. He sticks his tongue out when he’s focused, Max noticed, whole body leaned forward at a ridiculous angle. The only goals Max gave up were when he was too busy looking at Charles.

“You said I could pick what we do.”

Charles scrunches his nose, tilts up high. “Next time, you have to watch my movies.”

Max freezes. “Next time?”

Charles’ shoulders twitch. He catches himself, steels himself, and slowly, he says, “If that is okay.”

Max scans his face. He looks shy. Sincere. Self-conscious. Like he wants to hide, but is acting against all his instincts, and instead, baring himself out to the world, to Max.

The least Max can do is return the favor.

“Yeah,” he says, voice a little croaky. “It’s okay.”

Charles’ throat bobs. Max looks away.

He glances at the TV, then at the small digital clock below it. It’s almost 6 PM.

“I should probably go,” he says, still looking away from Charles.

“Okay,” Charles says, then stands up. “I’ll see you out.”

Max follows him, but his eye catches on the piano fitted against the wall before the corridor. There are thin books and printed-out sheet music strewn across the smooth, shiny black top.

“Do you play?” Max asks, even though it’s a bit of an obvious question.

Charles turns, and he has a soft look on his face. “Yes. Since I was a child. I compose, a little bit. I am better at playing than I am at composing.”

“Play me something, before I go,” Max says, delighting in Charles’ surprise. He smirks, then adds, “You still have yet to impress me.”

Charles’ face splits open with a grin. He walks toward the piano, then takes a seat on the right side of the bench. He pats the left side and says, “Sit.”

“Alright,” Max says, tentative about it. He doesn’t think he’s ever watched anyone play piano before in his life, let alone this close, but he was the one who asked in the first place. He sits down on the edge of the bench, fully seated, but a careful distance between him and Charles.

And Charles takes in a deep breath, and begins to play.

It starts light and easy, all slow lingering notes. There’s a bright sweetness smoothing out the edges, it comes in waves. Max thinks of the sea, the push and pull of the tides in midday, watching Charles’ right hand fingers dance delicately over the higher keys, practiced and effortless, holds his breath whenever Charles stretches over his body to reach lower notes. The melody develops and opens up, but there’s a darkness still there, creeping under the floorboards like an undercurrent, a hardness bleeding into the melody, grounding, an echo.

“Do you like it?” Charles asks, still playing.

Max’s eyes move to Charles’ mouth, watching as his pink lips form over the syllables. He decides to be honest. “I’m not sure.”

A dimple presses into Charles’ cheek. “Just keep listening. It gets better.”

It’s then that the hard, low parts start to work together with the sweet melody, accelerating, growing into a crescendo that tapers off, suddenly. It starts again, louder. The darkness is more present, less of a dance and more of a fight, this time. The melody feels like a consequence; certain shapes created in spontaneity. Careful, but not too careful.

Then it blooms. High-riffs, solid and steady chords rooting the piece as the world expands. The melody resetablishes itself, subtle elegance and jagged roughness at the same time—then the piece tapers off, like something has been taken away from you. Like you are at the beginning, but something, something you cannot name, has changed.

It’s the same melody, Max recognizes, that comes back. It’s different, more mature. Light-fingered, not trying to prove anything. But there is a question, a dwelling hidden, somewhere, in the space between dream and awake. A variation on the beginning, but without that darkness. A longing. A warmth.

The piece ends slowly, the core melody repeating over and over, like it is tired of itself, like it is trying to find where it started. Alone, quiet, searching.

A note lingers in the air, and so do Charles’ hands over the keys.

Max looks at Charles. He has his eyes closed as he brings his hands to his lap, and there’s a deep flush on his face.

When he opens his eyes, his gaze finds Max. “Did you—”

“Will you be in Barcelona?” Max blurts, before he can help it.

Charles’ lips part. He blinks, slowly. He’s playing with his fingers in his lap. “Do you want me to be?”

Max swallows. His chest is doing something strange. “Yes,” he says, barely able to hear it over the roar of his heartbeat. “I would.”

They see each other one more time before Barcelona, the next Tuesday. Again, at Charles’ apartment.

They don’t end up watching Oltremare, but they watch the heist movie, Zero Down. It has Chris Hemsworth, Emily Blunt, and Daniel Craig. Charles plays the target: the rich spoiled youngest child of some corrupt French billionaire.

He is very good, Max has to admit: he blends in when he needs to, steals the show when appropriate. He has good chemistry with the other actors and his lines come out naturally. He sells the snotty rich kid role, but he doesn’t leave it at that. There’s a moment halfway into the film, where he’s being seduced by Anya Taylor-Joy, who’s part of the heist team. They return to his hotel suite, and they’re kissing in the corridor, and she takes his hand and leads him to his bed. He had been so confident, at the start, but as soon as she lets her dress slip, the straps hanging on her elbows, his breath hitches, eyes widen, throat bobs, and his hands fall to the bed, curling into fists like he doesn’t know what to do with them. They look at one another. He’s positioned on top of her, one knee between her thighs. He licks his lips, a deep flush setting in his cheeks, and he looks away to the side, embarrassed.

At this point, she’s supposed to drug him with the small syringe taped to her hip. Instead, she brings a hand up to his face, and makes him look at her as she pulls him down for a kiss.

It’s hard to reconcile that the man on the screen is the same one sitting on the couch next to him.

It’s even stranger, how much Max enjoys it, hanging out with Charles. The thing is: Max doesn’t really hang out with people like this. Sure, he has friends, but they’re all into the same things he is. Racing, video games, partying. Charles is a movie star, a classically trained pianist, and a regular attendee at fashion shows, even though his own personal fashion taste is horrible. Max doesn’t watch movies, and he hates listening to music. He knows what he likes; he doesn’t see the point in exploring further.

But it’s nice, maybe, doing new normal people things with a not-so normal person.

On the plane to Barcelona is Max, his personnel, Lando, Alex, and George. They’re all on their phones, waiting for the plane to take off.

“Are we waiting for anyone?” George asks. “I thought we were supposed to take off at seven sharp.”

“One more person,” Max replies, checking his phone for updates. It’s 7:16, now. “Just—just don’t freak out, okay?”

Alex looks at him weird. “Why would we freak out?”

Then there’s the noise of luggage being stowed away in the compartment, then footsteps coming up the steps and down the aisle, and Max lets out a breath in relief. Finally. He takes the backpack he’d put on the seat beside him to save, and sets it on the ground by his feet.

“I’m so sorry,” Charles apologizes in a rush, panting with a hand on his stomach, like he had run all the way from his apartment to the hangar. “Traffic.”

All heads whip from Charles to Max. The jet is silent.

“Mate,” Lando says, his phone clattering on the table, his jaw dropping so low it might catch bugs any second now. “What. The. Hell.”

Charles giggles as he takes his seat next to Max, clearly basking in the attention. “Hello.”

Cue another beat of silence. Then, the plane erupts in shouts, Lando, George, and Alex all yelling over one another.

Max groans and lets his eyes roll to the back of his head. Jesus Christ. Really, everyone is a fan.

They part ways once they land in Barcelona. Charles gets driven to his hotel to settle all his belongings, while Max and the others head straight to the paddock. Max ignores the rest of them as they rave about Charles. The entire hour of the flight was spent with the three of them gushing over Charles and asking him the most detailed questions about all of his movies.

The first schedule for the day is the driver briefing. They review the incidents from the last race, then move onto talking about the track they’ll be racing at. Everyone complains about the same things they complained about last year: the curbs, the tyre wear, the grass.

After that, Max has a meeting to attend with the strategy team, immediately followed by another one with the engineers to discuss the set-up for the weekend. He has lunch at noon, and it’s only then that he has some free time. He decides to head to the garage and talk in the back with Archie. He’s one of the older mechanics: he’s sixty-one and his youngest daughter has just given birth to a baby boy. When they were in Miami, Archie had promised to show Max some photos.

“Oh my god,” Max says, holding Archie’s phone in his hand, zooming close in on the baby’s face, a grin exploding on his face. “He is so cute.”

“Even cuter in person,” Archie says, glowing with pride.

“What’s his name?” Max asks, scrolling to see the other photos. His mother is holding him to her chest in the second photo, her eyes filled with love, stroking the back of his head.

“Sam.”

Max hums. “He is very beautiful. Same eyes as Ava,” he observes.

“He’s got his father’s nose, though,” Archie says.

Max chuckles, and hands the phone back to Archie. “He’ll grow into it. How is Ava doing, after it all?”

Someone taps Max on the shoulder. Max frowns at being interrupted, but turns around to see Gemma. “Your guest is here,” she says, looking a little smug.

Max knits his brows together. “My guest?” he asks, confused. He searches the garage and sees Charles, surrounded by a whole group of photographers, waiting at the entrance.

Gemma gives him a knowing smile, which Max ignores. He makes a come here motion to Charles, not wanting to get involved with the whole photographer mess.

Charles looks a little uncertain, but he makes his way inside. No one really pays him any attention, too focused on their screens or their autoparts. He weaves his way through the garage to the back, careful not to bump into anything or anyone.

“Hey,” Max says.

“Hey,” Charles says, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth. He slides his sunglasses up atop his head, and Max is met with his crinkley-eyed smile.

A beat. Max realizes he should probably say a little more than hey. “This is Archie,” he says, gesturing to the side. “He’s one of my mechanics.”

“Hi Archie,” Charles says, offering out his hand. “I’m Charles.”

“I know,” Archie replies, shaking his hand. He looks—oddly enough, starstruck. “You’re—my wife is a big fan.”

Charles lifts a brow. “And you’re not?” he asks. When Archie stutters a bit, Charles laughs brightly. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Thank you, and it’s nice to meet you.”

He looks at Max, like he isn’t quite sure how to proceed. Max squares his shoulders. This is his element. He has no reason to be intimidated.

“Do you want me to show you around the garage?”

“Yes,” Charles says immediately, brows shooting up with eagerness. “I would like that very much.”

It’s easy to forget how big of an F1 fan Charles is, what with everything else that he is. He’s practically bouncing as Max shows him the RB-18, explains the car set-up that they have for the weekend, the rear wing load and the floor height mostly, listens carefully as Max explains the benefits and disadvantages, nodding his head, hanging off every word. After that, Max introduces him to Helmut and Adrian, and to everybody’s surprise, Charles manages to charm them both after only a couple minutes. They’re at the front of the garage, where Charles is speaking Italian to a few of the mechanics, when his eye wanders outside. Max catches it in a millisecond and sees a flash of red.

“It’s okay,” Max says. “You can go say hi, if you want.”

Charles looks at him, boyish glee poorly hidden on his face. He places both of his hands on Max’s upper arms and promises, “I will be right back.”

He’s running out of the garage, tripping on one of the wires and barely catching himself.

“Seb! Seb!”

Max can’t help but laugh to himself. Everyone today has been so starstruck by Charles—it’s nice, seeing it go the other way around.

“You got close to Leclerc, huh?”

Max turns. Christian is smiling at him.

“I just think it’s sweet.”

Rolling his eyes and scowling, Max replies, “You just think it’s good for my image.”

“That,” Christian admits, “but I also like seeing you happy.”

As it turns out, Charles doesn’t come right back. Max waits for a few minutes, chatting with Adrian by the screens, but then it becomes clear that Charles will take a lot longer. He decides to go sign merch, since he has to get that done by the end of the day, and he wants to finish it before he’s scheduled to be in the media pen.

He talks with Yuki, Fernando, and Esteban for a bit, and after they leave, he maintains some awkward silence with Lewis and George who arrive together. After he’s finished, he’s quick to leave, wanting to stop by his motorhome to rest, but as he passes by the Alpha Tauri garages, Pierre spots him, and goes toward him.

“Hey, Max,” Pierre says, jogging to catch up from where he was perched against the wall. He pulls his headphones down to his shoulders.

“Hey,” Max says, waiting for Pierre to go on. It seems like he wants to say something.

Eventually, Pierre comes out with it. “Charles has been talking a lot about you,” he says, adjusting his cap. “He tells me you flew here together.”

Childhood friends. Right, right.

Max doesn’t have the patience right now to play any games. “Pierre,” he sighs, “just say what it is you want to say.”

Pierre frowns. The Spanish sun burns on Max’s skin in the meantime, scorching and persistent. “Are you messing with him?”

The words sound odd from Pierre’s mouth, like it’s a new set of words he’s just learned and isn’t quite sure how to use but is using anyway.

Max recoils, mouth opening and closing a couple times before he decides on what he wants to say. “You are protective of him,” he observes.

“He is very important to me,” Pierre says, crossing his arms over his chest. “We shared a childhood.”

We shared a childhood. Max rolls that phrase over in his head, feeling it on his tongue. What the fuck does that even mean? Though, he supposes, that isn’t the important part.

“What do you mean, messing with him?”

“Like—” Pierre huffs out a frustrated breath. “Are you leading him on? For, like, fucking, Red Bull, or something. I know they told you to get on his good side.”

Max flushes. He hears something else in there, something old and hurt and deep, but he doesn’t have the time to explore Pierre’s wounds with Red Bull. “That’s not—that was so long ago. This is of course not that.”

“Then what is it?”

Max tries not to think about it, this thing between him and Charles, whatever it is.

Over the course of his life, Max has learned, most of the time, the best way to go about things is to not overthink them. Once you get inside your head, the worse it’s going to be. Sometimes, you just have to let the dice fall where they may. He doesn’t believe in fate, doesn’t believe in predestined outcomes, but he accepts that some things are in his control, and some things aren’t. You just have to be able to tell the difference.

With Charles, it’s just—

Max shrugs. Doesn’t say anything. He looks down at his feet.

“For some reason,” Pierre says, softer, “he likes you. A lot.”

And—

It’s not like—

It’s not like that’s news. It’s not like he didn’t know. It’s not like he couldn’t tell. The constant flirting, the dates, the way Charles looks at him—

Max swallows, feeling small, smaller than he’s felt in years. He doesn’t feel like a champion. He feels like a boy, still looking at his feet as he asks, “Does he know?”

He looks up, and sees a gentle look on Pierre’s face. “I didn’t tell him. Don’t worry,” he reassures. “He asked, but—I said I didn’t know.” Relief floods Max’s chest. “I think,” Pierre continues, “he’s still trying to figure you out.”

Max swallows, his throat thick. “Thank you,” he croaks out, licking his lips.

Pierre’s face opens up, then he smiles, shakes his head. He looks around the paddock. No one is looking at them, too preoccupied with their own tasks to care.

“So,” Pierre says after a beat, “it’s real?”

Real. That’s—that’s a hard concept. For most of Max’s life, the past, the present, the future; what was in front of him and what was merely a dream he was running toward, they blended together. He spent seventeen years, even the years he can’t remember, working at his dream, then all of a sudden, it was his reality. Fast forward seven years he was a champion, everything he wanted to be but wasn’t sure if he would ever be. It’s just—everything has moved so fast. Max can’t tell real from unreal anymore. He wants to rest, wants to live in the moment, but the moment is—it keeps moving. It keeps escaping him. He isn’t sure where it is, isn’t sure where he is. What is real, what is not. Max feels like he could wake up one day, twelve years old again, strapped into his go-kart in pouring Holland rain, trying to find grip where there wasn’t, thinking of better things and a brighter future.

He thinks about Charles, playing the piano, thinks about the notes, thinks about the melody. Sweet and soft and serene. Slow, playful, heavy. Lingering, longing, regretful. Hopeful.

“Maybe,” Max says, then he admits, “I don’t know.”

Pierre exhales heavily. “Well,” he says, “it’s real to him.”

Max has never dated a man, but he’s fucked a few. Mostly when he was younger.

The first time was a year into F1, a grand prix victory on his shoulders—the youngest ever in history. He was hot shit. On top of the world. Cloud fucking nine. Could do whatever he wanted, no consequences.

He wasn’t stupid about it of course. He’d cleared it with Red Bull ahead of time. Was casual about it as he asked Gemma to draft up an NDA template. She’d raised a brow at him, went through a whole spiel about gay rights, LGBTQ+ rights, all the socio-political nuances of Formula 1 or whatever the fuck, and how they’d support him, no matter what. He didn’t care. He tuned her out and made her promise not to tell anyone, not even Christian. It didn’t fucking matter, in the end. He wasn’t going to marry a guy, or be in a public relationship with one, ever. It was just fun, nothing more. He still liked girls, but—you know. He liked guys too. It was that fucking simple, and no one seemed to get it.

Dating was complicated enough with girls, he knew from experience, and he knew it’d be even worse with a guy. He’d been through enough media training, and a horrible recapitulation of his high school sex education classes because he was still underage when he entered F1. It was complete bullshit. Yes, he knew how to put on a condom. Yes, he knew the dangers of unprotected sex. Yes, he knew how to be careful. Yes, yes, yes.

Grindr worked for a time. He’d just say his name was Max, and at the end of it, he’d pull out a folded copy of an NDA from his wallet, shove a pen into their hands, and tell them to sign it, ignoring the odd, shocked look on their face, like they didn’t think he was serious. But then, he got older, smarter, and even more famous, realized it was too risky and he had too much to lose. He deleted Grindr and stuck to girls for a few years. Had a girlfriend even, before the pandemic, and it was good. He was happy. It was fine. It was fucking fine, and he was good at it—keeping it all a secret.

Telling Pierre had been a drunken accident, back when they were teammates. They were out partying after Austria, and Max had left Pierre his phone as he went to buy them both drinks. Apparently, Max’s phone had been going off with Grindr notifications the entire time; like an idiot, he’d redownloaded it and forgot to turn off notifications. Max had snatched his phone out of Pierre’s phone and stormed out of the club. Pierre followed him, and they talked it out, drunk and slurring in a back alley of the club. It all had been fine in the end, and Pierre put a hand on his shoulder, awkward about it, and promised to keep his secret. It was probably the first time Max considered Pierre as an actual friend.

His parents know, of course. Max had known he wasn’t straight even since before F3. His mom and sister had made it this big, emotional ordeal, hugging him and telling him they loved him no matter what. It was uncomfortable, but—Max appreciated it.

In all honesty, he thinks he liked the way his dad went about it more. He dropped it on him when they were in the car, driving to Max’s last F3 race. Max had already had a seat in F1, the next year, and had already been in an F1 car for testing. He had nothing to fear, nothing to lose. There was a look on his father’s face. Max didn’t understand it at the time, and he still doesn’t, looking back, if he’s going to be honest. He doesn’t know if he ever will. Whatever.

All that matters is what his father ended up saying, after a lengthy moment of silence: As long as you are smart about it. As long as you don’t let it affect your career, it’s fine with me.

And that was that.

Almost seven years out, Max can’t help but wonder if it’s not something that will affect his career anymore, but rather, something he’s been letting career affect.

“Max,” Charles says, jogging toward him in the motorhome park, “I have been looking for you!”

Max turns and sees Charles with a grin splitting his face. Just behind him is Carlos’ motorhome. The red looks good against him, Max thinks.

“Did you get Seb’s signature?” Max asks, teasing.

“Even better,” Charles says, waggling his brows. “I got his number.”

Max frowns slightly. “You know he is married, right?”

Charles waves his hand dismissively. “It is not like that,” he objects, but then he smirks, puts his hands in his pockets and bounces on his heels, putting on an air of playfulness. “Though,” he says, “he is very handsome.”

Handsome isn’t exactly the word that Max would use to describe Sebastian Vettel, but he supposes that everyone has different tastes.

After a beat, Charles gestures behind Max. “This is your motorhome?”

“Yeah. Um. Want to take a look?”

“If that is okay,” Charles says, then Max leads him inside.

Unlike most of the other drivers who prefer to customize their motorhomes for the European leg, Max’s is pretty much the bare minimum, the bare essentials. Max isn’t picky, seeing as he only comes here to hide away from the chaos of the paddock or sleep at night. Though, there’s a small fridge stocked with water and Red Bulls, a couch, a tiny shower and mini-bathroom, and his travel simulator on the bottom floor. The top floor has his bed and a small drawer for clothes.

“It’s not, like, a lot.”

“It’s cute,” Charles says, propping his sunglasses atop his hair. “Can I…?” he asks, motioning toward the couch.

“Yeah, of course,” Max says, going to sit on the small table opposite where Charles is.

“What else do you have to do today?” Charles asks.

Max checks his watch and groans. “I have press in about thirty minutes. After that, more meetings, and then dinner, and then I am free.”

Max is never enthusiastic about press, but he got tipped off that that asshole journalist from the Sun is going to be there today. He wants to linger here, in his little motorhome, with Charles, talking about everything and nothing.

“Busy busy,” Charles hums. He brings a hand up to his hair, runs his fingers through it.

An intrusive thought: Max wonders what it would feel like, if he ran his fingers through Charles’ curls. He quickly buries it away.

“What about you?”

“Nothing,” Charles says. “I am basically on a year-long vacation. I have some film festivals and fashion weeks to go to, but other than that and some interviews throughout the year, I am just relaxing.”

“I’m sorry that I can’t, you know, entertain you, or whatever.”

Charles scoffs and shakes his head. “You don’t need to. I am very entertained as it is. I have been to a few races before in past years, but I was in such a rush all the time, and it was, for the most part, just publicity, coming between filmings or auditions. This is probably the first time I am allowing myself to breathe.”

Max is curious about that. Charles didn’t take a break after his father passed away, not wanting to stop the momentum of his career, but he stopped right after winning an Oscar. For someone as ambitious as Charles is, it’s odd, to Max. “Why aren’t you acting this year?”

Charles angles his head toward his lap, biting his red mouth. His right hand circles around his left wrist, toying with the bracelets there with his thumb and index finger. Max is reminded of their first meeting, how nervous and excited Charles had seemed.

Back then, he hadn’t been able to read the letters on Charles’ beaded bracelet. AMA SEMPRE, he reads now.

“Acting is… it is pretty much all I’ve done,” Charles starts quietly. “Oltremare was—it was a big thing. Very, very emotional for me. Rewarding, for sure. I think, honestly, it might be the peak of my career, and I am okay with that. Of course, there is more I want to achieve, more directors and more actors I want to work with, more stories that I want to be a part of, and I have been offered a lot of roles ever since I got the nomination, but honestly… The only thing I really want to do for a while is the F1 movie. When Alessandro reached out to me and told me he was writing and directing it and that he wanted to cast me as the lead—I jumped at the chance.” Charles smiles, that same warmth and vulnerability Max had seen back in Imola. “I was so happy. Happier than I was when I won the Oscar, if you could believe that. But other than this… I don’t know. I think—I think there is more to it, life, than my career.”

“Like what?”

Charles looks up, finally, smoothing his hands against his pants. “Things like this. Like—hanging out with you, and coming to races.” The throb of Max’s heartbeat sticks to his ears, presses against his fingertips like a prickly heat. “But, you know,” Charles goes on, not giving Max any time to linger on that feeling, luckily, “I am still training for filming next year, so there is that.”

Max blinks. It takes him a moment to understand what Charles means. “You’ll be in the car?”

Charles makes an embarrassed noise, his hand coming up to palm the back of his neck. “Only an F2 car, but yes.”

“That is still of course dangerous, no?” Max had thought that all of the actual driving would be done by stunt doubles.

“I mean, I guess,” Charles says, shrugging, “but I do have some racing experience. I karted a bit as a child, when I was still in Europe.”

“You did?” Max asks, his head starting to spin, something starting to form in his head. They’re the same age, and Pierre— We shared a childhood, he had said. “Would we have met?”

Charles startles with a laugh, shaking his head. “I wasn’t very good.”

Hm, Max thinks. Alright then. He puts his hands behind him, flat to the table, and leans back. “What is the movie about?”

Charles preens with movie star smugness, the glorious privilege of holding a secret. “You’ll have to find out when it comes out.”

Max snorts. “In, like, three years?”

“Yes,” Charles says, grinning. “You will come to the advance showings, however, so you will still see it earlier than most.”

“I will?”

Max isn’t stupid. He knows he’s somehow, inexplicably, developed a crush on Charles.

The thing is: Charles is not who Max thought. He’s a world-famous celebrity, sure, but he’s humble, not in a fake way, or to an annoying extent. He’s a spectacle for sure, but mostly because he really is that charming. Behind the movie star persona, underneath all the built-up approximations of what he thinks he should do and say in any given moment, there is a deep-rooted sincerity in everything he does.

He knows that Charles likes him back. As much as Max wants to just—fucking go for it, full send it—it’s just.

It’s not that simple.

If they keep going like this, Max is aware, it will get complicated. It just will. Charles has forty-seven million followers on Instagram. Sure, he’s out and loved, but Max—isn’t. The races in the Middle East, he could be banned from them, if they make one wrong move. It wouldn’t just be a publicity disaster, but one that the FIA would have to get involved in. That’s not something that he wants to risk, losing control, or having his personal life be put before his racing. It won’t be worth it. It was never part of the plan.

Charles lightly kicks Max’s ankle. “Of course you will. You will be my date,” he says, and winks. He tries to, at least.

A warmth materializes in Max’s chest, and he finds himself smiling before he realizes it.

Maybe, Max thinks, it might be alright to sit in the passenger seat, close his eyes, and let Charles take the wheel.

It will get complicated, but right now, it’s anything but. He kicks Charles’ ankle back.

After winning the Spanish Grand Prix, mostly thanks to Seb’s engine failing on Lap 27, and no thanks to his lack of DRS, Max leads the drivers’ championship by six points.

Fucking finally, Max thinks.

The car seems to be over its reliability issues—at least the ones that cause retirements—now that they’ve brought the weight significantly down, but there are still so many things to tweak. They’re only six races in, however. Anything could happen, and the Ferrari is still fast.

Still, though. It’s cause to party.

Carpe Diem holds some of the better post-race parties in Max’s experience. Nothing will ever beat Abu Dhabi last year, but Spain is always a good time. He still thinks fondly about 2016; he’d been partying with Martin and Daniel, celebrating his first ever grand prix victory, the youngest ever winner in history. He deserved to party hard, even his dad said so. But, well, two days had passed, and Max had somehow found himself in Ibiza, on the beach under the scorching sun, his skin peeling and mouth dry, either still rolling or going through a nasty episode of ego death. He honestly couldn’t tell. It would be up there in his favorite party memories; the only problem is he doesn’t remember most of it.

After showering and changing out of his racesuit, he hitches a ride with the younger mechanics, Ollie, Tom, and Albert. It’s a twenty minute drive to the venue, plus traffic, so he fucks around on his phone as the others chat about all the little hiccups they had during the race. Normally, Max would want to join in, but he’s already spent the past few hours in debriefs and talking to the media, so he wants to take these precious twenty minutes to recharge.

Once they get into Carpe Diem, the other three head to the bathroom. They invite Max, but Max hates doing coke sober—it makes him feel like he’s vibrating out of his skin, too hyperaware of the click of his jaw, the chattering of his teeth, and the beating of his heart. He tells them to come find him in an hour or so once he’s drunk enough to enjoy it.

The first thing he does is head to the bar. People offer him shots along the way, and he gladly accepts them all.

About an hour in, he’s well and truly pissed. The strobe lights feel all nice against his skin, the ground vibrates with music, wracking through his whole body like a heartbeat. It’s the good sort of drunk, the kind past warm and tipsy, but miles before nausea and dizziness. Everything feels loose and easy.

He’s at a table with Lando, Lando’s Max, and Carlos, and he offers to grab their next set of drinks. The line at the nearest bar looks too long, so Max weaves his way through and past the sea of pulsing bodies to the other side of the club, closest to the entrance. Once he’s close enough to get a good look at the bar, his heart spikes.

“You made it!” Max shouts.

Charles turns, and a bright smile splits his face when he sees Max. He looks so beautiful, Max can’t help but think, blue-purple club lights reflected in his eyes, face glowing pink, hair loose and falling over his forehead. He’s wearing a dark blue button-down, short-sleeved, the collar popped open.

Someone behind him pushes him, or maybe he trips over air. Truth be told, he isn’t sure. He’s stumbling forward, almost knocking into Charles. Max narrowly gets a hand on the edge of the bartable, steadying himself.

“Whoa,” Charles says, bringing his hands up to Max’s shoulders. He giggles and licks his lips. His hands feel nice, Max thinks, on his shoulders, strong and certain.

“I’m good, I’m good,” Max says with a laugh, recovering to stand upright. Charles removes his hands.

“Yes,” Charles says, and it takes Max a moment to remember what question Charles is answering. “Just for a few minutes. You have been here a while?”

It’s hard to hear Charles, so Max pulls out the empty stool next to him and leans in. “An hour or so,” he answers. He notices that Charles’ glass only has ice in it. “Can I buy you another drink?”

A dimple prods into Charles’ cheek, and he nods.

“What do you want?”

Charles’ face scrunches up in consideration. “Your choice,” he decides.

Max leans over the table and gets the attention of the bartender. It’s loud enough that it’s hard to hear anyone you’re not directly next to, so he has to shout to make himself heard; even then, it’s swallowed up by music.

Still, the bartender hears him, somehow, and begins to make Charles’ drink. Max watches her make it. Heat prickles up the back of Max’s neck, already sweaty, once he realizes that Charles is watching him. Quickly, she finishes up the drink and slides it across the table. Max takes it, pleased at the feeling of the cold glass against his fingers, and slides it over to Charles.

“What is this?” Charles asks, picking it up and sniffing it.

Max smirks, then motions toward it with his hand. “Try it.”

Warily, Charles brings it to his mouth, pink mouth curling over the straw. He takes one sip, then groans in disgust. Max throws his head back in laughter.

“You are joking,” Charles says, sticking his tongue out. “A vodka Red Bull?”

“It is rather nice, no?” Max asks, tapping Charles’ ankle with the heel of his foot.

Charles rolls his eyes, dramatic about it, but takes another sip of it anyway. “Oh, yes,” he says after a moment. “I forgot. Congratulations on the win.”

Pride swells in Max’s chest. “Thank you,” he responds, bringing a hand up to scratch his ear. “Do you want to— I have a booth. VIP.” His face flushes as he stumbles over his words.

“Yes,” Charles says instantly. “I would like that.” But then he shifts awkwardly, motioning to his other side. “Uh. Can Pierre…?”

Max blinks. Has he been there the whole time?

“Oh. Hi Pierre.” He waves, not knowing what else to do.

Pierre rolls his eyes and lets out an exhausted sigh. “Hi Max.”

Max chews on his bottom lip. “Sorry. I didn’t see you.”

Pierre laughs under his breath, then shakes his head. He pats Charles’ shoulder and says something that gets covered by the music. Charles says something back, and then Pierre is gone.

“He is going to find a friend,” Charles explains, then stands up. “Show me to your booth?”

Max nods, then realizes it’s going to be a bit difficult to navigate through the crowd. He quickly gets an idea, though.

He puts one hand on Charles’ lower back and begins to lead him through the dance floor. It gets bumpy, his fingers flex on Charles’ spine, and they shuffle closer, but Max doesn’t lose him.

Once they make it to the other side and up the stairs to the VIP area, Max groans at the changed sight of the table. Carlos is still there, but Lando and Lando’s Max have left, replaced by George and Alex, who both look pink and flushed and about one drink away from being kicked out of the club, shouting over one another.

“Sorry. Looks like these idiots took it over.”

“That’s okay,” Charles says, his smile gentle. He sips on his vodka Red Bull. “I like your friends.”

“They’re not really—”

“Max! Charles!” Alex shouts through the chaos of the club. “We have shots!”

Well.

They make their way over to the table. It’s a bit of a mess trying to fit five people at a booth clearly only meant for four. Charles goes in first, next to Carlos, then Max squeezes in beside him, a sweaty table of limbs. He balances three-quarters of his butt on the velvet cushion, his other leg propped up to keep him upright. They’re so close like this, all pressed up against each other. Charles smells good, Max notices, cologne sweet and light. His face is clean-shaven. He’s pretty.

Carlos turns to look at Charles, then squints. “You are Charles Leclerc.”

Charles looks beautiful when he throws his head back in laughter. “And you are Carlos Sainz.”

Carlos’ brows raise. He leans forward and says to Max, “I did not know you had celebrity friends.”

At the very least, Carlos seems to be a lot more chill about the whole movie star thing than the others were on the plane this morning, while George and Alex seem to have gotten over the initial shock, but maybe that’s just the alcohol.

“He has one,” Charles says, clapping a hand over Max’s knee. He keeps it there.

Max is too warm to feel the goosebumps traveling up his arms.

“Sorry,” George apologizes, tipping over. His entire side is pressed up against Alex. “I would’ve gotten an extra one if I knew you’d be here.”

“You can have mine,” Max says, taking his shot from the tray and gliding it across to Charles.

Charles looks at him and frowns. “Are you sure?”

“Max has had a lot to drink, mate,” Carlos says.

“Shut up,” Max mumbles. “Not even that much.” In all honesty, he lost count about two shots ago, but he knows what he can handle.

“If you are sure,” Charles says, reaching for the shot. His other hand slides up higher on Max’s thigh.

“I’m sure,” Max says, licking over his bottom lip.

The other four cheer and clink glasses before they do their shots, clear liquid spilling down wrists, then they bring the rims up to their mouths and tip them back. Max isn’t looking at anyone but Charles, the light reflected off his chin, the sheen of his lower lip.

The good thing about the Formula 1 afterparties, especially the ones held in Europe and the US, is that almost everyone attending is either associated with F1, or a celebrity, at least C-list, so it’s pretty easy to meld into the crowd, get lost in the lights, especially for the drivers.

The following two songs are spent shouting over each other. They flit wildly from one topic to the next: from today’s race, to Monaco next week, to the F1 movie, to talking about how Carlos and his girlfriend are going through a bit of a rough patch. Max only catches about half of it, their mouths moving but muted. Then George stumbles out of the booth, and Alex follows, intending to get everyone more shots, which—honestly, he and Alex ought to be cut off by now, but that really isn’t any of Max’s business.

After they’re gone, Charles slumps slightly into Max’s side, a warm pressure against his arm. The top of his hair tickles Max’s neck. His hand remains on Max’s thigh.

“Feeling it?” Max asks, craning his head to look at Charles.

“Yes,” Charles says with a small, breathy laugh. “Me and Pierre also drank a little before coming here.”

“Max!” someone calls.

Max turns to see who it is, and Charles sits up at the movement. For a moment, Max mourns the loss of him.

“Ollie, hey,” Max says, “been a while.”

Ollie stretches out his hand and Max clasps it. In his palm is a small plastic baggie. Max takes it with a grin, quickly pocketing it.

“All yours, mate,” he says, then disappears off into the crowd.

Charles is looking at him curiously, his head tilted to the side. Distracted, Max stares at the small mole beside his button nose.

“What was that?”

Max opens his mouth. Right at that moment, George and Alex are swerving their way back to the table, the tray of shots just barely kept upright. Max keeps his eyes on Charles, and Charles keeps his on Max. Max licks over his lower lip. He has a feeling that Charles knows exactly what that was.

Leap of faith. Anyway, they’re friends, aren’t they?

He leans over until his mouth is just centimeters from Charles’ ear. “Toilet?”

He hears Charles giggle, then feels him nod. He grips Max’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”

The great thing about the toilets on the VIP level is that the club doesn’t have anyone policing them. They head into the handicap toilet and lock the door behind them. It’s quieter here, the room dim and blacklist, but Max can still feel the boom of the music writhing under his skin, distorted and echoey.

“Haven’t done this since I was filming for Zero Down,” Charles says as Max is emptying out the baggie onto the small metallic area above the sink, white residue staining the surface.

He pulls out his wallet, fishes out his hotel key card and a banknote, and begins to cut. It probably won’t be as good as the coke he’d done with Daniel post-Monza last year, but there’s enough for four lines—that should make up for it.

“Yeah?”

“You know,” Charles says, “cast parties and all.”

Max snorts, pockets his key card, and starts to roll up the note. He does his two, then hands the note off to Charles.

It hits quick, shooting up his spine and down to the whorls of his fingertips. He feels alive, light on his feet, like he’s jumping out of the cockpit and stepping up onto the nose of his car, on top of the world. Like he can do anything, have anything.

He doesn’t realize that Charles is already done with his lines. He steps closer to Max and slips the banknote into Max’s back pocket. Max swallows at the proximity.

“There,” Charles says, tapping under his nose, “you got some on your—”

Max brings the back of his hand up to his face to wipe it away, but Charles laughs. “You missed it,” he says. “It’s right—”

He steps impossibly closer, cupping the side of Max’s face with his palm. Max’s molars chatter together. The air feels charged, like pure electricity. Max feels dizzy, but not because of the coke. Charles’ hand is warm and rough against his flesh. Max tries not to nuzzle into the warmth. His thumb wipes below Max’s nose, the pad of his finger brushing across his top lip, lingering. Max’s mouth tingles at the feeling.

“There,” Charles mutters, but he doesn’t remove his hand.

Max opens his mouth, shudders when Charles’ eyes flick up to meet his, when his thumb slips and wipes across his lip, lighter this time, hesitant.

It’s—

He’s—

Max takes a step back, ignoring the disappointed frown on Charles’ face, how he brings his hand to the side of his thigh and curls it into a fist. Max runs his hand through his hair, gross and matted down with sweat, blurts out, “Do you want to dance?”

And, honestly, Max has no idea why he suggested that. They make it down to the main dance floor, and they awkwardly run into Lewis and some haute couture model and trade insincere hello, it’s nice to see you’s. Once they’re alone, they have to fit themselves within the swell of sweating bodies, hopping and swaying back and forth to sharp cutting beats. Remixed pop music is playing instead of EDM club beats, which Max is thankful for, because the tempo is slower, and he doesn’t know if he could handle getting whacked in the face with limp, flicking wrists right now.

“I don’t really—”

“What?” Charles shouts, bustled around a bit by a group bouncing to the music beside them, their hips swaying wildly. The colors keep changing, nearly with each beat, and it’s almost overwhelming, except Max feels— It has this odd effect of making Max feel part of it, like a cell in a body, a screw in the car. Small, invisible, and insignificant.

Max tries again, louder this time and angling himself forward until his stubble brushes against Charles’ cheek. “I don’t really dance,” he repeats.

When he pulls back, Charles is smiling reassuredly at him. He doesn’t seem to be holding the bathroom incident against Max.

“That’s okay,” he says. “Neither do I.”

Suddenly, Max wants to explain. He wants to shout over the music, he wants to drag Charles out of the club and bare his heart, the shriveled mess of it, and tell Charles everything. Why he can’t and why he shouldn’t and why, despite all of that, he still wants and wants and wants.

The music changes, something rolling with deep, heavy beats. It must be a popular song. The crowd is cheering. Everyone seems so happy and fearless. Max looks around. He sees George and Alex out in the distance. Sees some of his mechanics dancing with girls, laughing and grinding against one another. He sees Lewis, then further back on the floor, Lando and Lando’s Max. The dance floor is a single organism thumping to a heartbeat.

Then, it happens in slow motion. The girl behind Charles trips and barely catches herself, but Charles is caught in the carnage, clumsily tripping forward. Max narrowly catches him, one hand quickly grabbing his waist, the other coming up to his shoulder, hand fitting around the base of his neck, thumb pressing against his pulse point. His body is sturdy and solid now, but Max holds on tight.

The club is packed shoulder-to-shoulder, there’s barely any space to move or dance or breathe, but the world feels small and simple. Manageable. Safe.

Max looks at Charles now, more careful than ever before.

His mouth is pink, the dip of his Cupid’s bow shiny, pupils dilated. The ridges of his throat bob, and an inexplicable amount of want burns hot in Max’s belly, heart pounding. Really, Charles is too beautiful for his own good. He’s so lovely.

He thinks about the look Charles gave him in the toilet, how his hand cupped his cheek, how his thumb sweeped over his lip, wanting.

Charles wants this too, Max realizes—or maybe that’s not quite right—has known this entire time, and at the moment, he can’t remember why he’s taken so much pain to hold himself back.

Max squeezes at his hip, pulling him in closer before he even realizes what he’s doing, closer and closer until their bodies are fitted against one another. Max’s body feels like a livewire, feels aware of how his flesh wraps around his bones and how his blood courses through his veins. His heart roars in his ears.

He shouldn’t have—

In the bathroom—

He regrets it. He should have just—

“Max,” Charles says, quiet enough that Max can’t actually hear him, but he watches as Charles’ mouth forms over the syllable. His eyes are so dark. His mouth closes, then opens again to say something else, but he can’t get it out, because Max is gripping his neck and pulling him into a kiss.

Charles gasps in surprise, mouth opening for Max, allowing him to slip his tongue across the seam of his lips. His hands fly to Max’s waist, squeezing. The world feels so narrow, the air too thick, the lights too bright. Max closes his eyes, lets himself want and lets himself take. He’s frantic and fierce about it, at first, weeks of held-back want all poured out into frenetic energy—but then Charles strokes his hip, impossibly gentle and patient, slows down the tempo, like he’s saying, it’s okay, I’m here, I have you, I want this too.

Hands and hands and hands. Max’s hand curls over the shell of Charles’ ear, then slides down the front of his body, to his waist. He slides his mouth along the side of Charles’ chin, shuddering when he hears Charles suck in a breath, hot when it’s exhaled against his neck, a stuttered sigh; he mouths at Charles’ jaw, then down to his neck, his tongue curling around his pulse point, lips closing over it, biting gently at his soft flesh, tasting like salt and spilled liquor. Charles’ hands are at his face now, and he’s pulling Max back up for another kiss, laughing into it, gentle and teasing and playful this time, noses brushing, trembling against one another.

Charles pulls back, stroking at Max’s mouth, wet and swollen. Their foreheads rest against one another. Max takes a deep breath.

“I think,” Charles says. “We should probably get out of here.”

Max lays his hand over Charles’ hand, and Charles lets him slip his fingers between the spaces, smiling at him. Max smiles back.

“I think so too.”

RING! RING! RING!

The shrill noise is like a knife slicing Max’s brain open. His head hurts, and his body aches, and he acts more out of survival instinct rather than intention. He pats around the bed, groaning at how even the slightest of movements makes sharp, pounding pain shoot straight to his head. Eventually, he finds his phone. He considers simply turning it the fuck off, but he manages to open his eyes, and sees that it’s from Gemma.

He rubs at his eyes, fights past the ache of his muscles, shuddering at the feel of his bare skin against the fabric of the sheets. He taps and slides at his screen wildly to answer the call.

“Have you checked your email?” Gemma says as soon as it picks up. While she’s not shouting, or even speaking at a loud volume, her voice is even shriller than his ring tone, and any sort of noise is making Max’s headache worse right now.

“What? Gemma, it is the middle of the fucking night,” Max says, his voice hoarse and scratchy against his throat. He still feels hazy and drunk. “I am not fucking checking my email.”

“Check it,” Gemma says forcefully. “Now. Keep me on the line.”

She sounds serious, so Max sighs and does as she says, putting her on speakerphone. “Alright, alright.”

“What’s happening?”

Charles’ voice sounds even more wrecked than Max’s felt. He’s rolling over onto his back, rubbing at his eyes. His hair is sticking up on one side but completely flat on the other. He has pink love bites all over his neck and some on his chest. The covers come to rest just by his hip, exposing the hand-shaped bruises by the sharp cut of his V-line, and Max—

Tears his eyes away. Looks at his phone. Opens up his email. Clicks on the first message, scrolls to the end to open up the attachments.

“Oh,” Max says, understanding why Gemma sounds so pissed. His memories from last night start to fall into place.

“Right, oh,” Gemma says, mockingly. Max can’t even bring it in himself to be offended. “We’ve sent a car to your hotel. You’re flying out to Milton Keynes ASAP.”

Max swallows. He glances over at Charles, who’s looking at him wild-eyed.

“Bring Charles,” Gemma finishes, and the line cuts.

The actual process of getting to the plane, Max can’t really remember. He vaguely remembers brushing his teeth, locating two sets of clean clothes from his suitcase for him and Charles to put on, chugging a Red Bull or two in a failed attempt to sober up, and Charles napping on his shoulder in the car.

The next thing he knows they’re on the plane, Charles is staring out the window, plucking at the beads of his bracelets, while Max is staring at the photos, knuckles white over his case.

They are bad. Very bad. Very incriminating too. There’s no question about who they are.

Max turns his phone over and resists the urge to chuck it across the jet.

Fucking assholes.

It’s a thirty minute drive to Milton Keynes from the airport.

As soon as they landed, missed call after missed call started popping up on his phone. Surprisingly, he didn’t have any calls from his dad. Bizarrely, he had one from Lewis. He decided to turn his phone off, trying not to think about it.

He feels a bit more sober now, but he finds it hard to sit still, anxious from the coke hangover and the knowledge that his career might be over. Red Bull won’t fire him—they were the ones pushing for the contract extension anyway, and Max knows how valuable he is to the team—but the FIA might not allow him to race.

“I’m sorry.”

Max turns to look at Charles. It’s the first word he’s spoken since the morning. He’s wearing a loose Red Bull hoodie and loose grey workout shorts that were falling off his hip whenever they had to walk. He’s also wearing one of Max’s white shirts, peeking above the navy sweatshirt strings, and at the side of his throat is a hickey, purpling a deep red. Max swallows. I did that, he thinks, then swallows again, lowers his head in shame.

“Don’t be sorry,” Max sighs, hands curling into fists. His nails are short, but they dig into his palms hard enough that he can feel his skin pinching. “I was the one who kissed you.”

Max was drunk last night, drunk enough to kiss Charles right on the dance floor, in full-view of everyone there, but not drunk enough to not remember it the morning after.

“I wanted you to kiss me,” Charles admits sincerely, brows knitted.

Max shakes his head. “I should have—in the toilet. Not in public.”

Charles is silent for a moment. His voice is gentle when he replies, “Probably. But it’s not like I stopped you.”

Max looks down at his lap. He feels seventeen again, sitting in the passenger seat of his dad’s van, eyes boring a hole down at his lap as he told his dad that he— Thinks about the hard set of his dad’s jaw, the look that Max can’t understand to this day. Thinks about how much his dad gave up, the family that his dreams broke. His sister crying her heart out in Malaysia, going home for the winter holidays and falling asleep in his mother’s lap. The countless sacrifices that everyone has made for him, all his life. Helmut putting his faith in him when he was so young. The hard years, the many retirements of 2017, contract renegotiations, how his dad refused to talk to him for weeks after Canada, crashing in Monaco, crashing in Baku. Daniel leaving the team without telling him, then Pierre leaving, then Alex leaving. The cramp in his leg in Abu Dhabi. His heart throbbing in his mouth. GP’s voice on the radio. Christian hugging him so tight. All his mechanics who had known him since he was a boy, crying and screaming their throats hoarse and lifting him up on their shoulders. The champagne they poured all over his face, into his hair, and over his shoulders. You’re a world champion now, he tells himself. No one can take that away from you. But can’t they?

“Hey,” Charles says, his hand coming to lay over Max’s. He realizes he’s been picking at his nails, blood running down his fingers. He’s been bouncing his knee, too. He holds himself together.

“We’re in this together, alright?”

Max lifts his head. It takes more strength than he expected. Charles is—there’s a look on his face. Kind and—patient. Max sucks in a shaking breath, body wound up with tension. He’s so angry. At the assholes who took the photos, at—

At himself, for doing this, letting it happen, for not— For not being smart. For being so stupid to think that this was something he could have.

Charles pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. His thumb strokes over Max’s knuckles, brushing some of the blood away. When Max doesn’t respond after a few moments, Charles starts again, hesitantly, “Only if, I mean, if that is what you want.”

Max opens his mouth then shuts it, struggling to form words, to find the right ones, to find anything. He doesn’t even know what he wants anymore.

“Charles, I—” he stops himself, throat thick with—with fucking, tears, or some shit. Max swallows. He’s not going to fucking cry. He won’t let himself. He’s not a fucking kid. He can own up to his mistakes. It won’t do any good, crying about it. He needs to focus. He needs to get through this meeting. He needs to do better next time, if he gets a next time. He can fix this. He needs to fix this.

“Hey,” Charles hisses, grabbing his face with his free hand, the other still laid over Max’s hand, forcing Max to look right at him. “Hey,” he repeats, softer this time.

What? Max wants to hiss back, but he can’t get his mouth open. He’s afraid of what would happen if he does. He tips his chin up rebelliously.

Charles slides his hand across the side of Max’s throat, coming to rest at his nape. “It’ll be okay.”

Max manages to grit the words out, “How do you know?”

“Well,” Charles says, throat bobbing. “I don’t. But—” He takes a long breath, his chest heaving with it, and strokes his thumb under the curve of Max’s ear. “I believe in you.”

Then, for some fucking reason, he attempts at a wink.

Before Max knows it, a laugh bubbles from his throat. That doesn’t even make any sense. Having faith has no outcome in reality. Some things are just—out of your control, and Max knows that this is out of his. But Charles looks so sincere. Sounds like he really means it, really thinks that his faith will matter in the end. Max has no idea what he’s done to elicit that sort of unshakeable faith from Charles, from anyone who has believed in him, anybody who has ever put their faith in him.

It’s funny.

It’s—it’s really, really fucking funny in the end, isn’t it?

Weakly, Max leans forward, lets Charles tug his head into his shoulder. He closes his eyes, lets hot tears bleed into Charles’ neck, and laughs again.

“I’ll be honest,” Christian starts as soon as they take their seats on the other side of his desk. “This is a PR nightmare.”

Max grimaces, but he’s far past feeling sorry for himself. “Worse than Australia?” he can’t help but ask, to which Christian only responds with a silent glare.

“I’ll get straight to it,” Christian says with a sigh.

Charles sits up straight beside Max. He puts a hand on Max’s knee. Max lays his hand over it.

“Luckily, because the party was hosted by F1, we do have some leverage. We also got ahead of it, and we’ve paid off all the tabloids that have the photos, and all the individuals who took them, and we’re trying to enter a legal agreement that gives us full control over them. The photos haven’t reached the general public, and if our efforts pay off, it won’t. Right now, we are pretty sure it’s contained to just people who were at the party, members of the paddock, and a handful of reporters.”

And that’s—

That’s better than Max could have ever imagined. That’s—best case scenario.

They’re protecting him. He can still race. It isn’t over yet.

Charles turns to look at Max, and from the corner of his eye, he can see a wide smile on Charles’ face. But Max keeps his head faced forward. The other shoe will drop. It has to. It always does.

“However,” Christian goes on, and there it is. “You two cannot be seen in public together for the time being. Nowhere near each other.” He turns his head to look at Charles, narrows his eyes. “That means no more races, Charles.”

Charles’ jaw drops, and a stuttered, shocked noise escapes his throat. “For how long? What about the movie? I have a contract—”

“Relax,” Christian cuts in, making a calm down motion with his hands. “This has nothing to do with the movie. And you are not banned forever, or anything of the like. Just—maybe until the summer break, as a precaution, we need you not to be around during race weekends. We’re working with your team. The publicity department is still drafting up a set of guidelines for your team to approve. Check your emails frequently.”

Charles pouts, but doesn’t object to any of that.

Christian directs his attention to Max. “For you, the baseline is, it would be in your best interest to lay low, which I assume you can do?” He asks with a raised brow. Max nods immediately, and Christian nods back. “Don’t get me wrong, boys. This is very, very serious. However, although people are talking, they have no proof. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but it’s looking promising. You know the news cycles. As long as we get this taken care of, they’ll forget about this eventually. You two got very lucky.”

Luck, huh?

“Charles,” Christian switches. “I don’t know if you’ve been checking your phone, but your brother will be flying in tomorrow morning. He’s been informed of the situation. You both will be meeting with our team, alright?”

Max furrows his brows together. “Your brother?”

“He’s my manager,” Charles explains, pink-cheeked. For the first time all meeting, he looks nervous.

“We’ve already booked a hotel room for him. Will you need accommodation too?” Christian asks. “Or…?”

Charles opens his mouth, closes it. He looks over at Max.

To be honest, Max still isn’t sure where exactly they stand, even after the car ride, but—he thinks—he thinks he has an idea of where he’d like them to end up.

“No,” Max says, answering for Charles. “It’s fine.”

The corner of Charles’ lip ticks up, wobbling with a small smile. Max wipes his sweaty palms against his shorts, ignoring the spike in his heartrate.

“Max, you’ll also need to stay in Milton Keynes for another day,” Christian says after a moment. “You’ll have a meeting with the PR team tonight, just in case…” He grimaces, but keeps his voice level. “Just in case things don’t go as planned, you will need to draft a statement. You don’t actually have to write it yourself, but you’ll have to approve something. Just for the worst case scenario. And in the morning, you’ll need to film some videos with Yuki, just so that we can have things to push out.”

And really, Max has spent the entire morning switching between thinking out different iterations of the worst case scenario, what he could do, what would be the best plan of action, and simply trying not to think about anything at all. He can do this.

“I won’t keep you two long. You both look very tired. I’m so sorry we had to make you travel so early in the morning, but it’s important that we have you close to headquarters.”

“Understood,” Max says, and Charles nods along.

“I just want to say…” Christian starts hesitantly, like he’s trying to choose his words carefully. “We are, again, heavily discouraging that you two be seen in public together. However, if you are discreet, very discreet, that is okay with us, and especially with me.”

Heat crawls up Max’s spine all the way to his cheeks and ears. Dear god.

“You can do that, right?” Christian prods when neither of them answer him. “Be discreet?”

“Yeah,” Max gruffs out, crossing his arms over his chest and looking to the side. “We can do that.”

“I am very good at being discreet,” Charles says, sounding determined. It’s cute, Max thinks.

“Fantastic.” Christian sounds and looks pleased, as pleased as he can be given the circumstances. “Charles, you can head out. But Max, stay behind for a moment.”

Charles glances at Max for a moment, reluctant to go, but eventually steps outside the office. Once the door closes behind him, Christian gives Max a stern look.

“What you did last night was very stupid.”

Max purses his lips, shoulders stiffening. “I know,” he admits. He busies himself by staring at the line of picture frames propped up against the window behind Christian. There’s one of Christian and Seb, back when Seb was driving for them; then one of Christian, Daniel, and Geri at their wedding; finally, one of Christian and himself from Spain 2016.

“I don’t think you need me to lecture you about this. Do I?”

Max lets his eyes return to Christian. “No,” he says. Saying it and nothing more is like pulling out teeth. He wants to add something like, I’m not a child, Christian, but he thinks better of it, realizing that will only make him sound like more of a child.

“Good. Just—” Christian takes a breath. “Don’t beat yourself up too much about it. It was stupid, but it is something to learn from. Plus—” He stops himself again, and smiles warmly. “I think you have a good thing. He could be really good for you.”

Max groans, eyes squeezing shut from embarrassment. He doesn’t want to have this talk with Christian. Doesn’t want to explain that he still isn’t really sure what he and Charles are, that they’re as new and green as you could get.

Christian laughs, and Max peeks an eye open. “Alright, fine,” he says, throwing in the towel at the dad talk, and Max lets out a breath of relief. “But, I just want you to know, if you want to—to come out. On your own terms—”

“I don’t,” Max cuts in, fierce and certain about it. Because he doesn’t. This is no one’s business but his own and, well, Charles’ now.

“If you do,” Christian goes on anyway, “one day, and I’m not saying you have to, we will be behind you. We are behind you, no matter what. You’re not alone in this.”

A thickness materializes in Max’s throat, a warmth in his chest. “Thank you, Christian,” he croaks out, wincing at how his voice cracks.

He pushes his chair back to make for the door, but then Christian is also getting up, coming over to his side of the desk. Max stops, a bit confused, but then Christian’s arms are coming around him, holding him tight. It takes Max a long moment to realize what’s happening and to hug Christian back. He really is so small. Max can’t remember when he outgrew him. Christian gives him another squeeze, then lets him go.

“Now go get some rest. You look exhausted.”

Exhausted doesn’t even cover the half of it.

Max gets the keys to one of the cars in the garages they save for him whenever he’s staying by HQ, and he and Charles drive to Max’s Milton Keynes apartment. It’s a short drive, but Charles insists on playing music. He plays, like, Coldplay, or whatever, and Max has to admit that he doesn’t hate it.

It’s not even eleven by the time they arrive. They quietly shuffle into his flat, and head straight to the shower together to save time.

“Oh my god,” Charles moans as the hot water sprays above their heads. “That feels so good.”

Max hums in agreement, letting out a satisfied breath. Steam rises above them. He closes his eyes and lets the spray hit his face. They both stand there for a few minutes, just appreciating the hot, sobering water, letting it rinse the sweat and grime from last night and the tension from this morning off their bodies. When Max asks Charles to hand him the shampoo, Charles grabs it, but then gently nudges Max out of the spray, turning him around.

“Here,” he says, twisting the water off, clicking the bottle open, then pouring a gallop into his hand. “Let me.”

It isn’t until Charles’ hands are gently rubbing the shampoo into his hair that he realizes this is the first time he’s ever showered with anyone. His past relationships were never really like that, never intimate in that sort of way, and he was always quick to either leave or kick his partner out if it was a one-night sort of thing. It takes Max a moment to let his shoulders loosen, to relax into the touch. It’s nice.

It’s—really nice.

Once Charles is done, he puts his soapy hands on Max’s shoulders, and Max carefully goes to face him.

Charles’ eyes are bright, and he’s laughing at Max.

Max scowls. “What?”

“Nothing,” Charles says, bringing a hand up to run through Max’s hair. “You just look really funny.”

“Ha ha,” Max says, picking up the shampoo bottle from the rack. “Now turn around.”

Charles goes. If Max was any less exhausted, he would take the moment to soberly appreciate the sight of Charles’ back, broad shoulders, the hard cut of muscles there, the dip of his waist, then even lower. His fucking—Adonis build. He focuses on the task at hand.

Charles makes a pleased noise as Max massages his scalp, makes sure to get every centimeter of hair, then turns Charles back around, laughing softly when he sees Charles like that, his hair all soapy and dripping and white, almost like a mohawk.

Charles pouts at being laughed at, then quickly reaches over to turn the water on, making Max yelp at the cold water, since he’s the only one standing under the spray at the moment.

By the time Max yanks Charles into the spray, the water is already hot. He turns around, runs his hands through his hair to get all the soap out. Max does the same, and once they’re both ready to move onto the body wash, he turns off the spray. When he goes to reach for the bottle, he suddenly notices all the love bites he’d left on Charles’ neck. He brings a hand up to thumb gingerly at one of the marks, brows screwing together.

“Sorry,” he says, belly roiling at the memories from last night, closing his mouth over Charles’ jugular like he had his heart between his teeth, one hand bruising his waist as the other bent his leg up to his chest as he—

“It’s okay. I don’t have any shoots for a while, anyway,” Charles says, throat bobbing at Max’s touch. “I just didn’t think you’d be a biter.”

Max pulls his hand back, lets the memories subside. “Yeah? Did you think about what I’d be like?”

Charles licks over his lower lip. “A little bit,” he says, his eyes a little dark. Max tries his hardest not to look down, not to get distracted; they have all the time in the world, and as much as Max likes Charles, he’d much rather have a nap right now than anything else.

Charles reaches for the product rack, then his hand freezes. He glares at the rack. There’s not much to look at. Just a small bottle of shampoo, a cheap bulk-size bottle of bodywash, and a bar of soap. “Do you seriously not have conditioner?”

The bedroom is pretty sparse. There’s a bed, a dresser with an attached mirror, a bedside table, a desk that he never uses, and that’s pretty much it. He fishes out some clothes for him and Charles to change into, and they both collapse face down onto the bed. The bed is small, just a twin size since Max rarely sleeps here, and always alone, so it’s a tight fit. The mattress squeaks under them, and they manage to crawl under the crisp, unused covers. The air con is too cold, but Max is too tired to try and fiddle with the system.

He rolls over onto his side, the covers pulled up over both their shoulders. When he opens his eyes, he sees that Charles is looking at him, facing him. He’s bringing a hand to Max’s hair, his fingers combing through the still damp strands like he’s trying to memorize every part of him.

“Tell me about your brothers,” Max says. He remembers seeing them on Charles’ Wikipedia page, and Christian had mentioned them earlier. He fights off his exhaustion. He’s still as bone-deep tired as he was earlier, but not wanting to sleep just yet.

Charles smiles. It’s a warm thing. “They are my best friends. My little brother is studying at UCLA. He’s in his last year. His name is Arthur.”

“Does he also want to become an actor?” Max asks, because if his older brother is his manager, maybe Charles’ younger brother is also involved in the acting world.

Charles laughs, shaking his head. “No, no. He is the smart one. He is studying mechanical engineering. He actually wants to be involved in F1, one day. I am very proud of him.” Max can tell, from the glow on his cheeks, the glimmer in his eyes when he talks about him. “And my older brother, Lorenzo, is my manager.”

“You seemed nervous during the meeting when Christian mentioned him,” Max points out.

“Well, he is my brother, and my manager,” Charles says. “You can guess how complicated that gets.”

“Yeah,” Max says, biting his lip.

“But,” Charles goes on, “we have a very good relationship, despite everything. I guess—I think he will want to meet you, and I am nervous about that.”

“And you don’t want me to meet him?” Max asks, curious. It just seems like the obvious explanation, and he doesn’t take any offense by it. He doesn’t think he’d want his dad to meet Charles either, at least not as they are now.

“It’s not that,” Charles says, brows furrowing. “I actually think he will really like you. And before you ask, yes, he is also Tifosi. It’s just—” One of Charles’ cheek hollows from where he bites on the inside. “This is… This is not the first time this has happened to me, and he had to deal with the carnage last time too, and it was way worse then.”

Max’s brows raise.

“It was… this whole thing,” Charles explains, swallowing. “I am not out by choice, you know. I had just gotten my first Oscar nomination, for Bloodline, and I had a stupid one-night stand, and he told the press about me.”

“Fuck that guy.”

Charles laughs. “It was my fault for not being careful. We could not take any legal action against him, since, you know, legally, I didn’t take any precautions. I’m not happy about how it happened, but, you know, it happened and I can’t change anything. At the very least, I do not have to hide anymore. I am very happy about being open with my sexuality now. But, you know. It wasn’t my choice.”

Hiding, hiding, hiding. It had never been a burden, for Max. He had a plan, came up with it with his dad when he was still in karts. Sure, it was fast-tracked, but it was simple: get to Formula 1, win races, win a championship, and don’t get distracted.

Meeting someone like Charles was never part of the plan.

It comes out of Max’s mouth before he realizes it. “I’m sorry.”

Charles’ mouth downturns, beautiful brows coming together. It is so hard, Max thinks, to come to terms with how beautiful Charles is. “Why are you sorry?”

“I won’t—” Max reaches deep inside himself to find the words. “As long as I’m in Formula One, I won’t, I don’t want to risk it. I can’t ever—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Charles interrupts, scooching closer until they’re just a breath apart. His fingers come to Max’s cheek, gentle. He laughs. “You’re moving too fast for me,” he says, green eyes so terrifyingly bright, dimples so calamitously deep. “I’m serious. Don’t think about that right now. Okay?”

Max shakes his head, ribs tightening, heart clamorous. It’s— It’s the—

Fear, from this morning, that everyone would know. Fear that the world would find out. Fear that he’d never be able to race in Formula 1 again. Fear that his dad would—that his dad would— Not scream, or shout, or yell, or even tell him that he was disappointed in him. No, no, no, not that. Fear that his dad would never speak to him again. His dad doesn’t—he isn’t like that. Max knows he isn’t like that. But if Max put his career at risk for—for a guy, that would—

It’s not just that. Max is already a champion, has already raced in F1, has already achieved everything he wanted, has already achieved more than his father ever could. That’s not— He could live without it: his career, his dad, or his reputation. He just doesn’t know if he could live with knowing what it is like to— To have. To have this good thing in his life. To have this and to lose it. To have this, and to have it all be for nothing just because he couldn’t commit. Just because he could never be open.

“What do you think about when you’re in the car?”

“I don’t—”

“Hey, just—think about it,” Charles says, so Max tries.

Downshifts. DRS. Throttle. Clutch. Braking. Grip. Tyre wear. The shape of the track. Hitting the apex. The racing line. Where to overtake. A lot of things.

Quietly, Max says, feeling a bit silly about it, “Driving. I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Charles says, eyes softening. “Just like you’re in the car. Let’s just enjoy what we have right now. I like what we have.”

Max glares at him. “We have barely had it.”

It hasn’t even been two months since they met, less than twenty-four hours since they first kissed. It all went too fast, way too fast, but—

Sitting around in Charles’ apartment eating pasta, playing FIFA, watching Charles’ movie, listening to him play piano, talking about their families, talking about their careers, talking about the things and the people they love.

It’s been good.

Charles presses his forehead to Max’s. Sincerity bleeds through his voice when he says, “Yes, but I think I will like even more of it.”

Max brings a hand up to the side of Charles’ face, cupping just below his earlobe. He strokes Charles’ cheekbone, his face searing hot to the touch. He takes a breath; Charles smells like his shampoo.

“It is still very early, and I know we won’t be perfect, but I don’t think we have to be,” Charles says.

And that’s—

Different. Different from everything Max knows. It also feels like a relief.

“I really like you,” Max confesses, a whisper, a blister-bloom of pain to breathe out, but the truth, plain and naked and raw, sitting between them. And despite his reputation, he has had a lifetime of keeping the truth to his chest—the important things. Saying this might just be the most courageous thing he’s done in a long while.

Charles closes his eyes, lashes casting dark shadows over his cheeks, and smiles. “I really like you too.”

His hand lays between their chests. Max looks at the third bracelet, reads the letters to himself again. AMA SEMPRE. It’s cheesy, but—rather lovely, just like the rest of him.

“Now,” Charles says, sliding his arm around Max’s waist, “let’s try to sleep, okay?”

Max hums, ribs loosening in his chest, and lets the boulderous weight of the day drag his eyes shut.

I am the sum of everyone who has put their faith in me, Max thinks as the tide starts to pull him under. I am my father’s son, my mother’s child. I am my sister’s only brother. No one can take that away from me.

Thursday, media day. Even worse, it’s Monaco.

However, Max has been assured that any reporter who asks about it, or even hints at it, will be swiftly escorted out of the paddock, and will have their name placed on an official, FIA-mandated year-long ban from races, and each press conference will start with a reminder that personal, non-racing related questions will be cut off. Gemma stays by his side throughout all of his morning media duties, but Max avoids any unnecessary interviews, just in case.

It’s—

It’s alright. He can tell that there are eyes on him, wherever he goes, but he makes sure to stay out of the spotlight.

Thankfully, however, a lot of the media attention is split between him and Seb, who is both looking to retake his championship lead, and seems to be the favorite for the weekend, given his consistently high results in Monaco over the years.

The real problem is the other drivers. Pretty much all of them know, considering that most of them were at Carpe Diem, and a good amount of them were on the dance floor and probably saw it with their own eyes. If there’s one thing the drivers like to do more than race or party, it’s gossip between themselves.

Which Max can deal with, really—knowing that they all know, and he really quite honestly doubts that any of them aren’t going to be—cool about it. It’s just—he doesn’t want anyone acting any differently.

Wednesday afternoon, Lando had asked to play the F1 game with him; even though Max saw through it, he said yes anyway, and they talked about it awkwardly over their mics. It’s like, mega cool, you know? Lando had tried, voice pitched high. You know, it’s Charles Leclerc. Max had promptly shunted Lando’s car, and that was that. He appreciated it, honestly, but he appreciated it even more when Lando didn’t bring it up again. Later that night, Daniel had come over to his apartment unannounced with two bags of Max’s favorite takeout food. The entire time, Max was waiting for Daniel to bring it up, but he never did. As Max saw him out at the door, he finally understood what Daniel was doing, and appreciated the gesture for what it was.

And it’s not—

Max doesn’t need any more than that.

After Monaco, they have a two week break, and Max is sure that by that time, it will have blown over, especially if Charles isn’t seen at any more races. He just needs to make it through the weekend unbothered.

So he tries to stick to his team, and when he can’t manage that, to Lando and Daniel, and even Pierre, who called Charles on Monday while they were still at Max’s Milton Keynes flat, wanting to check in on them. Besides, despite all the disadvantages of Monaco, it’s also Monaco, which means every driver’s schedule is packed already, so it isn’t too difficult to avoid anyone he doesn’t want to speak to.

At least until the end of the day: Max sneaks out of the Red Bull Energy Station, hurries behind all the motorhomes, and manages to make it to the parking lot, when he hears someone chasing after him.

“Hey, Max.”

Max freezes. He would—he’s so close to his car. He could just—fucking bolt. But then he remembers the missed call from Monday.

He turns around. “Lewis,” he says, all his joints suddenly feeling stiff.

He doesn’t— He honestly can’t remember the last time he and Lewis had a conversation. Not this year, not after Abu Dhabi, for sure.

“Glad I caught you,” Lewis says, taking a beat to recover his breath. Max is once again struck with the urge to make a run for it. But he doesn’t. He isn’t sure why not. Lewis smiles at him, closed-mouthed, and—it doesn’t look forced. It’s awkward, definitely, but tinged with sincerity. “I just wanted to say, if you or Charles need anything, just let me know.”

The words come out in a rush, so fast that it takes Max a long moment to register it, and then another to recoil.

His mouth feels dry and cottony, throat hoarse. His hat feels too heavy on his head. “Yeah,” he punches out stiffly, feet suddenly bolted to the ground. “Okay.”

Lewis cringes. He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m serious, man,” he tries again. “I’ll be here for you, if you need it. Uh, that’s all I really wanted to say. Sorry.” He shakes his head, looking embarrassed about it, swivels on his heel, and starts to walk away.

Max doesn’t—

It’s not like he doesn’t—

“Wait,” Max calls out loudly, his voice alien to his own ears. Lewis stops, then turns back around. Max opens his mouth, closes it, purses it, again and again and again, but Lewis stays, patient. Max takes in a final breath, then breathes it out. “Thank you,” he says, squaring his shoulders. “I really appreciate it.”

Lewis’ face opens up in surprise. He lets out a laugh. “Any time,” he says, making to leave once again.

Max watches him go, head still reeling. You’re not alone in this, Christian said. We’re in this together, Charles said.

Huh, Max thinks. Huh.

Fucking media day.

The race itself is mediocre, which is to be expected after qualifying, but more chaotic than expected because of the conditions. He gets a podium, thanks to Ferrari, and he extends his championship lead, also thanks to Ferrari.

After the team debrief and all the interviews, he drives back to his apartment, showers, changes into clean clothes, and checks his phone for the first time since the morning. There’s a few messages from his dad, mom, and sister, as well as some of the Redline guys, but they’re all standard congratulatory messages. What stands out is the following:

Charles Leclerc
i am so sad about seb 🙁

Max snorts and types out a reply.

Max Verstappen
🙄
I told you Ferrari was a shit team

Charles responds immediately.

Charles Leclerc
hey!!!!!!

Max tries to think of something clever to respond with, but then quickly gives up on it, deciding to try something else.

Max Verstappen
What are you doing tonight?

Charles Leclerc
well
i am banned from all the afterparties 🙂
so nothing 🙃

Max grins. He didn’t really feel like partying tonight anyway.

Just as the sun is beginning to set, Max’s doorbell rings, and he rushes off the sofa to let Charles in. He saw him just a few days ago before they parted ways, and they’ve been texting on-and-off throughout the week, but—he missed him.

“Wanna come in?” Max asks, unable to help the way his chest goes all tight just at the sight of him in a cozy grey sweatshirt, neon green PUMA shorts, and glasses.

Charles steps in, and Max leads him down the long, empty hallway into the main part of his apartment. Once they’re in the living room, Charles looks around. Max’s neck grows hot, wondering what he thinks about it. It isn’t as homey as Charles’ is, but he likes to think there’s some sort of personality to it.

Just as Charles is walking up to Max’s trophy shelf, which has copies of each of Max’s win trophies, and life-size replicas of the helmets he’s worn throughout the years, Max catches in his peripheral a rush of movement low on the ground, coming from his open bedroom.

Charles does too. He startles and takes a quick step back.

Both Jimmy and Sassy are sprinting toward them, and Max quickly warns, “They are a bit unfriendly to strangers, so don’t freak out or try to pet them.”

Whenever Max has anyone over, even family, friends, and his trainer, who all come by often, he has to calm his cats down.

It took him forever to get Jimmy to like him; even now, he likes being alone more than he likes being with Max. Sassy, on the other hand, has always liked Max, but she’s a bit of an attention seeker, always getting into trouble, hiding in places she shouldn’t, exploring the apartment. One time, Max found her sleeping beneath the pedals of his simulator.

“They might scratch you—”

Max’s words die in his throat when he sees Jimmy nudging his forehead against Charles’ ankle, purring as he rubs his cheek against his foot, curling up over his toes. Sassy, on the other hand, paws gently reaching for Charles’ shin. Without disturbing Jimmy, Charles crouches, and Sassy immediately crawls up onto his thigh, then nimbly jumps onto Charles’ shoulder.

Charles giggles happily as Sassy licks his cheek. He looks up at Max, eyes bright, one hand coming down to stroke behind Jimmy’s ears, who nuzzles into his palm. “I think they like me.”

Max swallows, doesn’t say anything.

Charles tilts his head to the side, and Sassy jumps down to the floor at the movement. Jimmy finally frees Charles’ foot, and they both run over to their play tower.

“What?” Charles asks, pouting now that the cats are gone, and Max is still staring at him, wordlessly. He stands up.

Max’s heart feels too big for his body. He doesn’t know what to do with it, except—

Step forward, put his hands on Charles’ hips, and back him up against his trophy cabinet, careful not to knock anything over. Max pins him there, looks at him for a long moment, then kisses him, hard and firm.

“Oh,” Charles says, smiling from ear to ear once Max pulls away, embarrassed. Before Max can step back, he reaches up for Max’s neck, and pulls him in for another kiss.

Much later, they’re in Max’s bed, bare and boneless and warm, sprawled out atop the covers, lying on their sides, face to face. Max has a hand up to Charles’ ear, fingers delicate as they play with the soft spirals of cartilage there.

“What are you thinking about?” Charles asks, brushing away Max’s hair from his forehead.

Max studies Charles’ face, regards him: the lovely slope of his nose, the shape of his mouth, the shiny dip of his Cupid’s bow, his bright green eyes, the sharp angles of his jaw, the pretty mole on his cheek, the soft crease between his brows.

“That I want to know everything about you,” Max says.

Charles hums, cheeks dimpling. “I think you already know a lot about me.”

“Not enough,” Max replies, because it’s the truth. He doesn’t think he could ever know enough about Charles. “We are very different.”

“Not that different, I think,” Charles argues, propping himself up on one elbow, cheek squished by his hand as he looks down on Max. “For starters,” he says, “we both live in Monaco, we both like Formula One, and we both love what we do.”

“What is it that you love about acting?” Max asks, heart fluttering, knowing that he has all of Charles’ attention tonight. He might not have won the race today, but this might be enough.

Charles sits up against the headboard. Max traces the path of his eyes. He’s looking at the world map hanging on the opposite wall, then at the small photo frames Max has of his family and his team, then back down at Max.

“I like—this is probably a cliche, but I like getting the chance to be someone else. Live in their shoes, and the universe that the writers and directors have created. It’s not all about following the script,” he says, his throat bobbing with a swallow. “It’s like a sort of fluid thing you all create together. The script sets guidelines, but there’s—so much not said, so much you have to intuit. There is so much that you can prepare for and envision, but really, once the cameras are rolling, something is created there. In the set, with the other actors. Take after take. It’s all about trusting in the other actors, the directors, the script.”

Max listens on. Charles’ voice is soothing, and there’s a calming and serene certainty to his words.

“It’s a little bit like what you do, I think,” Charles discerns. “You trust the other drivers, you trust your team, your engineer, your car. You have to be conscious of your instincts, you have to know whether to question them, fight them, or take the risk, and go with what you feel instead of with the script. It’s a fine line. A challenge of spontaneity. I really like it. I don’t really method act, but—I like the idea, how you get used to a character, become that character, in a way. In the end, though, I think one thing that people often get mixed up is that—you don’t lose yourself when you’re playing a character. It’s kind of the opposite, at least for me. I become more in tune with myself, my emotions, and what elicits them. I just channel them into the character, and it becomes second nature, with enough practice. Character study is my favorite part of acting, I’d say.”

Charles makes a sharp noise, his tongue clicking against the back of his teeth. “It’s a bit of a paradox. You have to forget yourself and be someone else, but you also have to put yourself into the character. What can make it really special is, kinda digging inside yourself, looking for those emotions you need. It’s all inside of you,” he says, pink with passion, unafraid to hold his heart in his hands for the world, for Max to see. Max likes him so much.

“Really,” he finishes, soft and warm, “you just have to pay attention.”

All this time, Max realizes, Charles has been paying attention.

“I think,” Max says after a lengthy beat, though in truth, it’s his heart that is telling him what to say, “I would like to watch Oltremare.”

Charles smiles. Pure, pure joy. “Yeah?”

Max licks over his bottom lip, swallowing. “Yeah.”

OLTREMARE, TOLD BY CHARLES LECLERC

INT. WHITE ROOM — DAY

The room is empty, save for a single chair in the center of the room. CHARLES LECLERC (24) walks into the room. He is dressed casually, an easy-going smile on his face. In his hands is a clapperboard. He looks comfortable, in his element.

CHARLES

Hello, I’m Charles Leclerc, and I play Henri Barre in Oltremare. Alessandro is having each main cast member, me, Julian, and Ella, explain Oltremare, entirely from memory, for the one year anniversary of its release. This film is very special to all of us, and we are so proud of what we have created. It is best experienced by actually watching the movie, so if you haven’t watched it, I have to ask you to stop watching, open up Netflix or wherever Oltremare is on streaming services, and watch it first. Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. (fails at a wink) If you’re still here, thank you for watching what we have put so much love and care into. Thank you, for allowing us to share this with you. I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that when watching Oltremare, you felt even an ounce of the love that we put into this film. So, finally, I invite you to relive it with me.

Charles claps the slate. We begin.

My name is Henri. I was born and raised in Rouen, which is in Northern France. I have loved music ever since I was a child. When I was three years old, I heard my mother playing piano. I walked to her on my little legs, and climbed up onto the piano bench. She laughed, picked me up, and sat me down beside her. I squealed with joy as she began to play again, and I banged my hands against the keys, wanting to play with her. Three was too young to start learning piano, my parents thought, but I was very insistent and I would not take no for an answer. I cried and cried and threw fit after fit, until at last, they hired a piano teacher for me.

I was gifted, that was clear enough—and I was a quick learner, a hardworking one too. By the time that I was ten years old, I had already played at Carnegie Hall. I had picked up Italian during all my travels. I loved Italy so much, for some reason, more than France. It was so beautiful, so warm and cozy. Every time I went for a concert, to play or to listen, or learn from great pianists, I did not want to leave. It smelled like salt and flowers. I felt a connection to it—something that I could not explain. For the rest of my life, I will struggle to understand it.

For a time, I toured all around Europe. I was only twelve when I was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. It was there that I learned how to compose. I lived a more quiet, stable life for the next five years. My parents were very happy about that, to settle down somewhere. Do not get me wrong—they were so proud of me, and so supportive. My childhood was filled with so much love.

After I turned seventeen, I left the states, and began to tour the world again—with my own music this time. I went everywhere, from Tokyo to Sao Paulo, from New Zealand to London. The summer before I turned eighteen, however, I took a break, and decided to spend it in Syros, a Grecian island. I wanted to spend the summer composing new music, so I found a small villa that accepted guests—right by the seaside, but not filled with tourists—and booked a room for the whole summer. There were only a few tenants there at a time, none of them staying as long as I was. It was peaceful. I picked it because it happened to have a grand piano in the foyer, and a few upright pianos scattered around.

The owner of the villa’s name was Francesco. He was Italian, but he moved to Greece to stay with his wife who left him years ago, years before I met him, but he stayed, and he took care of the property. I met him during my first few days in Greece. He did not take care of the villa’s affairs, but he owned it, and he lived in it. One morning, just as the sun was beginning to rise, I woke up, feeling well-rested, but restless in my soul still. I walked down to the foyer, wanting to compose, wanting to do something with my hands, but then I heard it—a beautiful piece, something I had never heard before. Of course, when it comes to classical music, no theme or melody is completely new, but this one—felt different. I felt an instant—magnetism, perhaps. I felt drawn toward him.

He heard me—my footsteps, and his playing halted. I felt guilty at interrupting, but he just smiled, all easy and slow, and said, in English, because he wasn’t sure what I spoke, and English was probably his best bet, “You. You are the prodigy, correct?”

I laughed. He was so handsome, and his music was so beautiful. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I put one at the back of my neck—it was hot to the touch. The other came down to my thigh, awkward.

“Probably,” I said, in Italian, because of a hunch—I didn’t really have any reason to speak in Italian, if not for an instinct—and his brows raised in surprise.

That morning, I listen to him play. We don’t talk very much, but when we do, he is lovely, and friendly, and so well-spoken it makes me feel, for once in my life, inadequate. But that was not a bad thing. It is never a bad thing, knowing that there is so much more—more than music—in the world that there is to learn, and maybe to love.

The next morning I come down at dawn and there he is again, playing the same song. Again, and again, and again. A week has passed, then two weeks, and he is still playing that same melody. Each morning, he is changing things. He was improvising on the same melody, developing the themes, playing with the moods. I am there every morning. Before I realize it, I’ve spent more time listening to him play than I have composing my own music.

He was no virtuoso, not like I was, his fingers more clumsy, but I loved watching them fall on the keys, the way it felt so innocent, so real, so simple and sincere. As the days passed, his piece became more and more beautiful. We talk about our lives, sometimes, but mostly, we talk through music. He listens to me play, sometimes, but I much prefer listening to him.

I, at this point, am seventeen. He is thirty-one. We don’t— It is not like that. But I fall in love. I don’t know if he feels the same way for me, but I know that I have fallen in love with him.

“What is this called?” I ask, at some point.

“It doesn’t have a name yet,” he says, fingers still running over the keys, gentle and intentional. “Why don’t you title it?”

I look out the window. We are right by the ocean. “Oltremare,” I say, the color of the sea.

He smiles, and keeps playing.

Nothing happens between us that summer.

I leave, of course, to continue my tour, with only a few new pieces to show for my summer in Greece, mostly for encores, but my heart is full, and I am happy, and I think about him every time I play. I was growing tired of piano, to be honest, but coming to Syros, and listening to him play—I felt like I could do this forever.

My tour is successful and I grow even more famous. The next summer, I come back to Syros, to his villa, excited to share with him the news of my tour, excited to hear his finished piece—he had promised me that he would finish it soon.

But he is gone. I find out he passed away from a long illness—one he never told me about. One I could not even see.

I stop touring. I grow distant from my family, from what little friends I had. My parents say that he has ruined me. They don’t understand. He never touched me, although that summer, I wished he would. I wished he would do more than tell me about his life and play me his song. I grow angrier and angrier. I am filled with so much anger that—I become nothing. I disappear. I run away to Italy, to a small village in the south, and I spend the next five years of my life obsessed with recreating his piece. Oltremare, Oltremare, Oltremare. Finding the right notes and all the right cadences. It is his—it is the only thing I have left of him. He never wrote anything down.

Once my money runs out, I make a living by teaching young children how to play piano.

Through the years, the piece gets farther and farther away from what it was. Mere approximations. It is not beautiful to my ears—it is not right. I cannot get it right.

One summer, I begin to teach a young girl. She is young, thirteen, another prodigy like me, a violinist. She is only learning piano on the side, auxiliary, because her parents forced her, but she does not like music. She has come to hate it. She is a child. She is full of life and joy and inocence. She can’t speak Italian. She is from America. She is in Italy for the summer.

Her name is Chiara.

We become close. She still doesn’t really like playing piano or classical music at all, even though she is talented, very talented, but she likes me, she says. She sees me like an older brother, although both of us are only children. Sometimes, when she coaxes me into it, we skip her lesson, and we go swimming, we visit the castles her parents refuse to let her go to—you need to focus on piano, they say, you need to focus on violin, they say. They are vacationing. She is not.

The world begins to open up for me. I still think about Francesco, and I still try to recreate Oltremare, but there is warmth in my life again.

She comes early to her lesson, one day, and hears me composing. She is quiet, so I go on. After I go on and on she sits down beside me, puts her hands on the keys, and asks, “Why not do this? Make it sound like this?”

Grief tears open the stitched-up wounds in my chest. How dare she?

We fight. We fight like brother and sister, and I end up screaming at her. I say, “No, no, that’s not the way it goes.”

“It sounds better this way,” she says, tears forming in her eyes out of fear. I am too filled with rage and grief to think anything of it—to think of her at all.

“But that’s not how it goes,” I shout at her.

She tips her little chin up, rebellious and stubborn. “How does it go, then?”

I don’t have an answer for her. In truth, I can’t even remember what the original melody was like.

What even is Oltremare, at this point?

Five years out, I can barely remember the sound of his voice, let alone the sounds his fingers made.

Who am I, at this point? He died, but I am nothing but a ghost.

I bang my fist against the keys. She jolts. She jumps to her feet. She runs away, stomping her feet and sniffling, rubbing at her eyes.

She doesn’t come to her next lesson, or the next, or the next, and I get worried.

I need to find her. I need to make things right.

I ask her parents where she went and they give me the name of a little Italian village a few miles away. She’s wasting her talent, they say. After all the things we’ve done for her, they say, bitterness flooding their mouths. I pay them no mind. I take my car, and I drive to that village.

I find her there, after a few days walking around the village, aimlessly, desperate. I find her in a small meadow, small children all around her, gazing up at her in awe. She is smiling. She looks so happy. She is playing the violin.

She is playing Oltremare.

How she made it sound on the piano, when I yelled at her, and it is at that moment I realize—

She was right. It sounds better this way. It sounds beautiful. It may or may not be the original melody, however, it makes me remember him. The warmth of the villa, his arms reaching across my body to hit the lower octaves.

I cry, I break down, and she notices me. She sets her violin and bow down on the grass and runs to me, embraces me, like I was the one who needed to be found.

She takes me to her house, hand in hand. She was staying with her grandmother.

She tells me—she saw how hard I worked at it, composing this hopeless piece, over and over, and she—

Likes music now. Doesn’t hate it. You get the idea.

There is a piano in the foyer. She leads me to it, sets her violin case down in the corner, and tells me to play. I shake my head.

“You know how it goes,” she says.

“I don’t,” I tell her. “I can’t remember.”

“You do,” she says. “You can feel it.” She places her small hand over her heart. “Here.”

So I play, and I struggle, and it’s not right, but that’s okay. It’s still beautiful. From there, we bleed into the last scene. A memory, me and Francesco, in the villa, sitting side by side, his hands on the keys, my hands in my lap.

I am seventeen again, and he is alive.

Sunlight creeps in through the window. The air is dusty but warm. It smells like salt and flowers. He is continuing the melody.

END.

“You’re crying,” Charles gasps as the scene cuts to black, Oltremare continuing into the roll of credits. Glee fills his voice.

Max tears his eyes away from the screen, rubbing violently at his eyes with the back of his hand. “I am not,” he insists, but he can’t deny the way his voice is knotted and choked, a plethora of unnamable emotions stuck in his throat.

He pulls back his hand, and it comes back wet. His eyes are stinging. He blinks rapidly. His chest kind of hurts, ribs all tight. What the fuck. What the actual fuck. Max has never cried at a movie in his life.

“Hey,” Charles laughs, smiling as he tugs Max’s hand away from his face. Max fights him for a moment, and they end up wrestling a bit. Charles lands on top of him, a knee between his thighs. It’s a tight fit, the both of them horizontal and filling up the couch.

A rogue sniffle fills the room. “This is fucking stupid,” Max hisses out, embarrassed and stubborn. He avoids Charles’ eyes.

“It’s okay.” Charles’ voice is kind and soft. His thumb comes up to sweep away Max’s tears, careful and feather-light. Max’s breathing begins to calm. Max’s breathing begins to calm. “It is a very sad movie, a very beautiful one, but quite sad. I cried the first time I watched it too.”

You are brilliant, Max wants to say, even though he doesn’t really know what that means. Max doesn’t really understand what it means to act, doesn’t know what it means to find the emotions inside of you and pour them out into something that doesn’t yet exist, something you have to create, but that may be the beauty of it, he thinks. You are beautiful, Max wants to say, but instead, he asks:

“Do you ever miss it? Italy and Greece.”

“All the time,” Charles says, cracking a smile. He shifts so that he’s tucked between Max and the sofa. Max makes space for him. “We filmed for almost half a year, through COVID. It was… it will forever be a big part of my life. But I’m flying out to Greece soon with Lorenzo. We’re going to go island hopping for two weeks, Mykonos, Santorini, you know the whole bit. Then we go to Italy, where Arthur is joining us after his semester ends.”

Max frowns. He places his hand on Charles’ hip, a thumb sliding along the cut of muscle exposed by his shirt, riding up with his position. “When are you leaving?”

“Friday,” Charles says. “I’ll be back in Monaco in July.”

The echo: after this Friday, they won’t see each other until July, which is only about a month and a half away, but that’s too much time, still. Max has never known, not really, what it’s like to want to be with someone every single moment of every single day. To want to know everything about another person, to want to know everything about another person so different from him. His life has been a routine: flight after flight, country after country, race after race. He’s always liked it, the simplicity, and he cherishes the moments of solitude in between, but—it has been nice, not to be so alone.

“I will miss you,” Max confesses quietly, not unafraid, but Charles has offered and shown so much of his heart to him that Max feels— Feels like— It might be okay. This might be okay to have.

Charles tucks his head into the crook of Max’s shoulder, kissing feather-light at his throat. “I’ll miss you too,” he replies. “But I will make sure that I don’t miss any of your races.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Charles pulls back so that Max can see him in all his beauty. A slow, bright smile spreads across his face. “Every Sunday, while you’re in the car,” he says, placing a hand over Max’s heart, “I want you to know that I am watching, and that I am cheering on Seb.”

Max splutters in shock, then shoves at his face. Charles giggles happily, dodging his hands.

“Dick,” he says, but he can’t stop smiling.

Christian was right. It does blow over in a few weeks. By Austria, no one is even remotely talking about him or Charles.

He also wins in Austria, which is nice.

Instead of partying, Max elects to fly back to Monaco. The French Grand Prix won’t be for another two weeks, and he wants to spend as much time at home as possible. On the plane ride back, he notices a text from Charles, timestamped around when the race ended.

Charles Leclerc
congrats on the win 🙁

Max snorts and sends back a 💪 emoji. Around an hour later he finally gets a text back. It’s a selfie, a photo of Charles frowning cutely. Max looks at the background: he’s back in his Monaco apartment.

Over the past couple weeks, Charles has been sending him photos of his vacation, him and his brothers lounging on Grecian beaches, drunk at Italian wineries, and even at sports bars watching his races, but still, there is something that texts and FaceTimes will never be able to replace.

Max Verstappen
Are you doing anything fun today?

Charles Leclerc
if working out is considered fun
then yes
you?

When Charles lets him in, his face is flushed bright pink, sweat matts his hair, beads down his neck, and dampens his light green workout shirt. If it wasn’t for that, Max would hug him.

“I was just about to shower,” Charles says, looking a little embarrassed. “Could you wait for me?”

Max laughs. “Of course,” he says, slipping off his shoes, and following Charles to the bedroom. Charles slips into the en suite, and Max takes a seat on the unmade bed, pulls out his phone as the noise of the shower and Charles’ humming fills the room.

But he quickly tires of that, and decides to peek around Charles’ bedroom. He’s been here many times before, but he’s never gotten the chance to look.

Charles’ Oscar statuette and all his other awards sit in a tiny glass cabinet in the corner of the room. A couple posters line the walls, bringing color to the room. His sheets are navy blue, crisp linen smelling, with pillows that don’t match the sheets. Max walks back over to the bed and sits by the side closest to the table, eyes caught by the set of tiny framed photographs sitting by his lamp.

There’s one of Charles and his brothers. It’s Christmas: there’s a tree and presents in the back, a small Santa figure on the right side, behind the three of them. Charles is in the middle and he’s the only one looking at the camera, one arm stretched beside him in a yawn. He looks so young. He looks maybe six or seven. Arthur on his right has an awful bowl cut, naturally blond streaks in his brown hair, wearing a Spiderman onesie, playing on a PSP, presumably with Lorenzo, a teenager back then, on Charles’ left.

The next photo is of Charles and his dad. Charles is just a baby here. He’s wearing a striped hat, a cozy little sweater, and he’s sitting on his dad’s shoulders. The photo is black and white.

There are a few more: one of Charles as a teenager and his mom posing by the Hollywood sign, one of Charles and Jules Bianchi at a karting track, and—

And—

Wait.

The photo of Charles and Jules. Max picks it up to get a closer look.

No fucking way.

Max recognizes that Spiderman helmet.

There is no fucking way.

Charles is wearing a red-yellow racesuit. The number on his red-yellow kart is 35.

Max remembers that number.

His eyes go to the bottom right corner for the date: October 2007.

Charles was ten years old, then. So was Max.

The shower cuts off, but Max keeps staring at the photo. The bathroom door creaks open, and Charles steps over to his dresser, changes into a loose-fitting shirt, low-riding pajama bottoms, and walks over to the bed, but Max keeps staring at the photo.

“That’s me and Jules,” Charles says, sitting next to Max.

Max whips his head up to look at him. “I know,” he says, because he can’t think of anything else to say. His head is reeling. Charles tilts his head to the side when Max doesn’t say anything else. So Max just—

“I was at this race.” It’s not a question, even though he’s only half-sure about it.

Charles flinches with his entire face, his eyes going bug-wide like he’s just been caught. It’s as much an answer as anything.

Max sputters in disbelief. He puts the photo frame back onto the bedside table. He flattens his lips into a line. “You said you weren’t very good.”

“I wasn’t,” Charles says, a beat too late.

Max swallows, shakes his head. “We raced against each other.”

Charles is silent for a long, long moment, until he cringes and admits, “Only once.” His hands are doing something weird in his lap.

It’s—

It’s just—

Max feels like his entire world is flipping over. Up is down and left is right. The insides of the earth are unspooled.

He comes to a realization.

“That’s why—” he starts, floundering. “That is why you were so pushy when we met in Australia.”

There’s a terrified look on Charles’ face, pupils constricting, brows screwing together. “I—”

Max cuts him off. “I cannot believe this. You didn’t want to ask me if I knew you. You wanted to ask if I remembered you.”

Charles presses his lips together.

Max has so many questions, but the first one that comes to mind is: “How does no one know?”

Charles looks down at his lap, ears growing pink. His throat bobs. “After I was outed, I got my agent to scrape everything of my past off the internet. I just—I got a little paranoid. My socials were wiped, and I contacted all of my exes and got them to erase any traces of me off their profiles. I like the fame. I don’t like the digging. Some people do know. Like the track owners and stuff, but otherwise, there were so many boys from Europe karting those days, and I never made it to single-seaters, so people kind of forgot.”

Max doesn’t realize that he hasn’t said anything until Charles asks, hesitation lining each syllable, “Are you—mad?”

“No,” Max is quick to say, though it comes out snappy and irritated. He takes a breath, then tries again softer, “I’m of course not mad, I—” He runs a hand through his hair, scratching at his temple. “I just—”

Another realization.

“Wait—” A smile creeps up on Max’s face. He knocks his knee with Charles’ thigh. “You liked me, didn’t you?”

Charles splutters. His face is bright red, but he seems less tense than he was before. “Not—not from the start, especially not after Australia. But then Red Bull contacted me, and I thought I should give you another try. Then we had lunch, and—you weren’t so bad, actually.”

He’s chewing on his bottom lip, picking at the beads on his bracelet, turning the others over nervously. Max reaches out and takes his hand, pulls it into his own lap. And he isn’t entirely sure what he’s even doing, but it seems to work because Charles takes a deep breath and goes on.

“I guess…” Charles says, neck pink as he turns to look at Max. “I formed a bit of a crush.”

Max can’t help but smile so wide that it starts to hurt his cheeks. He lets Charles take his hand, still in his lap, and turn it over. “A big part of it is the racing, I will admit. I like how passionate you are,” Max shudders when Charles’ fingertip runs over his palm, tracing the top line. “How focused you get.” Now, the curved horizontal line in the center. “How much you know about the sport you love.” Then the one sloped close to his thumb, down to his wrist. “How kind and funny you are.” Slow and gentle along the vertical, center line, up and down, finger to heel. “And how much you pay attention.”

Max’s heart is throbbing in his ear, hammering in his chest.

Charles lightly sets Max’s hand down in his lap. “It was—” he starts, biting his lip. “You, to me, you are like—a part of my past. A part that—feels so far away.”

“You have Pierre,” Max points out.

Charles laughs and shakes his head, looking at their hands. “That’s different. That is—he is too much of my past. All the good parts, but all of the bad parts too.” He looks up at Max. “You were just all of the good parts.”

“We only raced against each other once,” Max says, a vibrating warmth in his cheeks.

“Still,” Charles says with a shrug. “You kind of just—represent the could have beens.”

Which… Max understands to some extent. He can’t imagine what it must have been like for Charles, to be shipped off to America that young, to have your life and everything you love ripped away. You have to hold onto some things. For Charles, the thought that Max was one of those things—

It’s—

It’s a lot. It’s insane.

But it’s—

It makes him happy.

Still.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Charles makes a throaty noise. “It was embarrassing,” he ends up saying, looking off to the side. “That I remembered, and you didn’t.”

Max cups the side of his face, his palm to a blisteringly-warm cheek, angling his head so that Charles is forced to face him. Charles avoids his eyes, but when Max pulls back his hand, Charles doesn’t move.

“We were in Italy,” Max says quietly, “and I of course was leading.” It’s then that Charles lifts his eyes, parts his lips. “You were in second and you were chasing me down, but we were both seconds ahead of everyone else. You came down the inside, pushed me into the grass, and you took the lead. But then I came back through your slipstream on the last lap, you ran wide, and I won the race.”

It was his first karting race in Italy. Of course he fucking remembers. He just didn’t know that boy who gave him so much trouble was Charles. Charles Leclerc, Academy Award winning superstar. Charles Leclerc, Hollywood darling. Charles Leclerc, his boyfriend.

“You were crying,” Max goes on, “when we were on the podium. I of course thought that you were just being a sore loser. But then I never saw you again.”

“It was my last race,” Charles says, his voice cracking. He swallows. “I really wanted to win it. I never forgave you for that.”

Max smirks. “Enough to badmouth me to Vogue Australia?”

Charles scrunches his nose, prissy and aristocratic. “It wasn’t just because of that. You were very rude to me.”

“You are not used to that,” Max says, giddy. “People not being instantly charmed by you.”

“Well,” Charles says, flushing slightly. “It was jarring. But I was annoyed that you didn’t remember me. I spent—I spent so long, thinking about what could have been, if I kept karting. You—you are everything I wanted to be, as a child.”

Max laughs. “Mate, you won an Oscar.”

“I did, yeah,” Charles says, laughing too. “I know, it is ridiculous.”

“It isn’t, really,” Max says, thinking about it, thinking about that race, how much Charles had frustrated him, how much effort it took to pass him. This boy he had never raced against before, this boy he didn’t even know the name of. He was a fighter, and it was infuriating. “You were good. Very good. Not as good as me, but—” It’s then that Charles smacks Max on his side, but Max just chuckles and goes on, “Maybe you would have made it to Formula One.”

Charles snorts and rolls his eyes. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“You’d be driving for Ferrari—”

“Obviously.”

“—and I’d be driving for Red Bull, and we’d be fighting for a title.”

Charles leans back on his hands, looking up at the ceiling. His feet knock together. He lies back so that he’s flat against the bed, brown hair haloed around his head. “That would’ve been nice.”

Max goes down with him, finding his hand in the space between them and laces their fingers together. “It would have.”

“But,” Charles says after a moment, turning over onto his cheek to look at Max. “I think… I think I like this. I am very happy.”

“Yeah?” Max grins.

“I like acting,” Charles says. “I like my life, how it turned out. And—” His eyes go bright, and the skin around them folds with a smile. “I like you. I like—all of it.”

Max smiles back. Against all odds, he has something he never thought he would let himself have. Something that makes him happy. Someone who makes him happy. Something that might not last forever, but something real, something that exists here and now, here in the space between them. Something that no one can take away from him. Something good. Someone beautiful. Someone lovely. Very, very lovely.

“I do too.”

He closes his eyes, then rolls over so that he can lay his forehead against Charles’ shoulder, breath him in, the scent of his expensive shampoo, feel the warmth of his skin.

“Come to Zandvoort,” Max mumbles, more from his heart than from anywhere else, lips moving against Charles’ neck. Charles’ race ban will be over by then.

Charles sounds confused. “That’s not for months.”

“I know, but—” Max takes a deep breath. “I would like my mom and my sister to meet you, I think.”

A long beat passes before Charles kisses the top of Max’s head, soft and lingering, before he says, “And I would like to meet them.”