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He does look a little like a lion, Charles thinks. Perhaps they should have named him Leo in the crib (only Max suits him so well: greatest ; maximum speed, maximum everything) for his golden hair and broad face, afternoon sunlight in his proud eyes, like the lions in Trafalgar Square that Charles saw once, or the lions that stare out of animal documentary posters and safari adverts. The rise of his chin and the curve of his mouth which is almost smug but Charles knows he’s mostly just happy , proud of himself in a way Charles can’t begrudge him.
“Well done on the race, eh?” he says as they climb off the podiums and Charles can’t reply before he’s getting blasted in the face with champagne, mixing with sweat and the heavy smell of rain-wet asphalt. And then Max is all up close again, continuing the conversation, even though Charles feels like he has sweet wine fizzing in his nose and lungs, like he might never breathe right again. “You were so quick on those corners.” Max already said this, down by the cars while they were waiting for their post-race interviews to the crowd. His hands are explaining himself as he speaks, moving in tandem like the cars warming their tires. “And clever to avoid that crash into turn three.”
“It lost me a few places,” says Charles, shrugging, he can still feel the eyes on them from the crowd, hear the booing and cheering in equal measures, “there was probably a better move.”
Max frowns, champagne dripping from his fringe. “I don’t know. I will watch your on-boards,” he promises. (He wonders if Max cares at all that the booing is for him.)
Charles wants to tell him not to, wants to tell him to piss off, honestly, and just let Charles fail where he does and let Ferrari fail at on-board analysis and just leave it alone . But he doesn’t. It’s strange that he doesn’t, he should , really. Max’s hand ghosts the small of his back as they walk off the stage and back behind the wings, and he wants to tell Max to just leave him alone, not just his on-boards and the post-race analysis texts he sends. He wants to yell, Just leave me alone! Leave the whole thing alone!
He doesn’t. Won’t.
The boy with the lion’s face and more wins than Charles thinks he’ll ever get (because he’s stupid, stupid, stupid) has been with him since they were kids, ghosting his footsteps. (Or Charles has been ghosting his, like when you’re playing a video game and the ghost of the character who did it before — the one of your elder brother who knows the controls and always plays better — hops along ahead until you lose sight of it, falling from platforms and being defeated by the pixel monsters before you can catch up.) Maybe every step of the way every good tiding and omen Charles thinks he has seen has actually been for Max, like seeing the star of Bethlehem over the crib of your son the house over from the barn where Jesus was born and believing it was for yours. Maybe Max saw the shooting star in Val d’Argenton first, or got shit on by a luckier bird the week before, or had a good day where everything went right just the same day as Charles did.
It makes Charles feel like the world is crumbling and bursting and burning and at the end of it only Max Verstappen will be left holding all the cards.
“Good race,” says Max, patting him on the shoulder and then being pulled off by his PR team to do some interviews.
“Good race,” Charles says after him, probably too quiet for Max to hear.
*
He’s leaving hospitality later that evening, the night drawing in but the air still warm and almost balmy against his bare arms, the rain during the race hadn’t cooled it down at all. He’s still thinking, abstractly, of Max and his leonine face and the way he drives his car and the dancing Bulls swaying in the drizzle and silver spray ahead.
“Hey!” comes a shout from behind and then Max is jogging up out of the twilight, waving a hand to someone behind him. “Charles,” he says, smiling big, stupid Red Bull hat pushed low on his forehead, looking not so much a lion but a man. “Where is your hotel?”
Charles tells him and Max replies that he’s just across the street and it seems Charles is stuck with him the rest of the evening. He should have seen it coming, he supposes, what with his luck. All Max wants to talk about is the race, all Charles wants to do it forget about it and try again better next race.
“It was a shame you got stuck in third,” Max tells him. “Next time I will get on the radio and tell Checo to get out of your way, yes?” He laughs. “Well, no. I don’t think even you would like me very much for that.”
He bites his lip. “I hate talking about the race afterwards, Max.” And then he slides into his rental car.
After a moment, without asking, Max gets into the passenger seat. “Why?”
Charles glares at him. “Why are you in my car , mate?”
Max shrugs. “I’m being green, we are carpooling. Why don’t you like to talk about the race after? I always talk about the race after with you.” He frowns.
“Well, I don’t like it. I’d rather — I forget and then do better next time.” He pulls out of the parking spot, resigning himself to his unwanted hitch-hiker.
He snorts. “How are you going to get better if you forget where you went wrong? That’s just stupid, Charles.” He looks out of the window and the car is silent for a minute, just the engine and Max’s fingernails tapping on the car door. “If you forget,” he adds, “you do not remember where you went right either. I mean, you were perfect gaining on Checo, you were like a machine, yes? If you forget how to do this, because you want to forget the bits where you did —”
“— shit,” Charles inputs.
Max shrugs again, pulling a face. “Sure, forgetting the bits where you did shit, if you do that you are ruining your chances of improvement.”
“You talk to me like I’m a rookie,” snaps Charles, infuriated still in that low-level burning way he almost always is around Max. “Like I am a child, we are the same age! We grew up doing and learning the same things. I know what I’m doing.”
He looks a little affronted out of the corner of Charles’s eye. “I know you’re not a child. Obviously.” He’s pulling at the knees of his jeans with his fingernails. “But we did not learn the same way, I am only sharing what I think works. Feel free to share your own wisdom back the other way.”
“Oh, you want notes back?” Charles asks, incredulous. “I do not know why you want to improve on a time twenty seconds faster than the rest of the grid. You did nothing badly, you were perfect in every turn. Is that the analysis you want?”
Max crosses his arms.
Charles pulls into the car park below his hotel and pulls up. “You can cross the street to your own.”
“I want you to look at my qualifying,” says Max. “I only got second.”
He rolls his eyes. “ Only ,” he says under his breath, shooting Max a glance. “Are you never satisfied? I think you’re a good driver, almost perfect. Happy?”
“Almost,” Max repeats, grinning. “So you think there is room to improve?”
Charles twists in his seat to look at him directly. “Okay. Here is my advice to you, yes? Perfect is not attainable and you don’t need to kill yourself trying.”
He smiles. “You will get Air Max tomorrow? I will have notes to give you, we can go over our races.”
He stares at him, in the amber gloom of the underground parking. He can’t be serious. “Max…”
“Say yes,” he says. “It will be fun.” He bites his lip, there’s a freckle on the top one, dark and teasing. Max darts across the centre console and kisses his cheek. He still smells of champagne and sweat, below the smell of deodorant and shower gel. So close Charles can see the blush growing on his cheeks and the blue flash of his eyes. “And now you have more questions,” he whispers, “and you will come fly on my private jet with me.”
“I thought you were going green,” Charles whispers back.
Max grins big, like he’s overjoyed that Charles isn’t — isn’t what? Telling him to get the fuck out of his car? He should, he really should tell him to. “This is why you have to get in the jet, to make it worthwhile to fly,” he says, still talking quiet like there’s anyone to hear them, “be eco-friendly, Charles. Or I will tell a reporter.” His smile falls a little smaller, gentle. “You don’t have to. I can stop talking about races to you, I can bother Checo. He’s paid to keep me entertained, I think.”
He feels himself smiling back a little. If you forget, you do not know where you went right, either. “I will watch your quali before I go to sleep and take some notes,” he allows. He swallows as Max shows his teeth again, like a lion but Charles is wishing those teeth would get closer to him, to his throat, and those lips would press to his cheek again. “I will see you at the airport.”
“Yes,” says Max. “You will not regret it, Leclerc.” He opens the door of the car and his half out before he twists around and kisses Charles on the cheek again, Charles pretends he hadn’t been hoping for it as Max’s face pulls away again, all blonde and gold and handsome. “I shall see you tomorrow.”
“You will. Goodbye, mate.”
He doesn’t get out of the car for a few minutes after Max leaves, feeling a strange thrum below his fingertips and ribcage and skull. He thinks he has probably made a mistake, this is the kind of thing that can only go wrong. (Him and Max, Max and him.)
But then he remembers. He remembers that Max is always the lucky one, the one who catches the shooting star in his fist and asks questions later. If Max is involved, surely it will all go right. Or maybe Charles will be plagued with him from this moment on, a sort of obnoxiously handsome golden boy who everyone hates sunning himself in champagne and basking in the podium wins. Better make the most of it, he thinks, and climbs out of the car to go up to his hotel room and make notes on Max Verstappen’s ‘almost’ perfect qualifying. Better make the most of it.
(He might think about the way Max almost dipped in to kiss his lips — the tiniest swaying movement forwards, before he caught himself — all the way across the lobby, in the lift, and the whole time he tries to analyse Max’s quali, or maybe he doesn’t, he’s saying nothing.)