Chapter Text
It had started, perhaps fittingly, in Vegas. The city of sin- where everything was glittery, and sort of stupid, but amusing enough. The three Elvises and neon sign to welcome her in had somewhat been overkill, but she had quite liked the short, glittery red and black nails she had been instructed to get ahead of the race. Turning them over in her hand, holding them out and examining how they shimmered under the light. That was, of course until one of Carlos’s engineers had commented that this ‘wasn’t a fashion show, Charlotte!’ and she had shoved her hands away. Of course, the drivers like Max hated all of it. All the spectacle and glitz, and the attention.
It had also started, (again, maybe fittingly), with Max.
The all-nighter, post-race yacht party, where Charles had spent most of the night adjusting her strapless dress, which dangerously slipped down anytime she moved. It was sent by a random Italian sponsor brand, and it had been gorgeous, and very Vegas,
She couldn’t help notice that George was in long-sleeve black one, with opaque tights making her look much more sophisticated than Charles, with many less stares when she moved around, chatting to Mercedes staff and Alex with ease. Lando, whilst not here due to her crash, had been planning on wearing sneakers and trousers.
She’d walked up to the bar, trying to push forward with that faux confidence she’d always used for photoshoots, big sponsor events, leaning against it and drumming her nails. She should’ve been finding Carlos, it hadn’t really been his weekend and Marketing would love a photo of them together from tonight, but-
‘Have you already ordered?’
She spun around. Max was standing there. Face flushed, a visible layer of sweat covering it, and continuing up to where his hair flopped onto his forehead and into his eyes. He had a white linen shirt on that was slightly too unbuttoned for Charles’ taste, and his hand gripped tightly onto the edge of the bar gave away that he was probably pretty drunk already. That, and the yellowy liquid in his glass that surely was a Redbull and God-Knows-what spirit. He had won, she supposed. Who was really to stop the World Champion getting drunk at what was, in essence, his party.
Realising she hadn’t answered, she turned towards the bar, immediately grabbing the servers attention. Opened her mouth to order, but-
‘She’ll have a double Vodka and Redbull. On my tab.’
‘What?’’
‘Winner buys second place a drink, no? To clear the air. I’ve been told that before.’
Incredulous, she stared at him. Sure, her and Max were not nearly as hostile now as they had once been. He's nowhere near being her least favourite on the grid, and she supposed she should feel honoured that this season he had always seemed able to find her after a race, eager to discuss every little detail. Flattered even, that he seemed to value her opinion more than other drivers. But this was just a bit weird. Was he-
Was he- flirting with her?
‘I don’t like Redbull.’ She said, in lieu of any properly formed answer.
Max just laughed, throwing his head back and exposing his neck in that way he did, then looked at her, expression unguarded.
‘Everyone likes Redbull. Even the guys at Mercedes and McLaren. Isn’t that what your hero Seb said?’
His inflection of the man’s name wasn’t mean, per say, but had a slight bite despite his wide grin and sparkly eyes. Max had a habit of being like this, silly and open, straightforward and blunt, to a sometimes jarring degree. She supposed with the lack of competition he felt at ease joking around with the other drivers, safe in his 200 plus points lead and the shiny trophy they were carving his name onto- that a few jokes would not cause anyone to underestimate him.They’d know better.
‘You know he said that about Ferrari. The historic car brand, not the energy drink. I know you know that Max.’
He smiled, fond. ‘Yes. It’s a joke Charles, a funny one. This is where you make one back and we both laugh, because we understand that we are joking . ’
She scrunched her nose and tilted her head. ‘Heard better, to be honest.’
The bartender had returned, and Max wordlessly handed her the drink. Painfully sober, the Redbull made her purse her lips, and she genuinely wondered how Max managed to drink so much of this per season. Now, both standing with their vodka mixes, she sort of wanted to get away. She awkwardly began to make a move to leave, figuring she’d surely find someone else she knew soon.
‘Well, nice to see you Max. I think Pierre is looking for me, so I’ll-'
‘That guy’s looking at you.’
She stopped again. What was his deal tonight? Scanning the room, she saw only a sea of dancing bodies, none of her friends and about three or more different people eyeing her.
In the end, curiosity got the better of her.
‘Which one?’
‘Dark hair. By the DJ booth. White shirt, fake Rolex, I think-’
‘Ah. Yes’
‘Know him?’ Max said, looking genuinely interested and tilting his head slightly to the side whilst staring openly.
‘Kind of. He’s one of Carlos's engineers. Antonio.’
‘An engineer?’ Max sounded slightly incredulous. ‘Him?’
‘Yes, an engineer.’ Charles glared at him slightly. ‘Why?’
‘Well, none of Checo’s engineers have ever looked at me like that.’ Max persisted. ‘They’ve certainly never stared at my ass.’
‘Max! That is-’ She sputtered slightly. She hated sometimes how he acted as though basic social cues were beneath him. When did this conversation get so away from her? ’He is sort of an ex. It's really not important.'
'Well, if he is an ex, then he must be important, no?'
‘Not an ex, like I said. A guy I know.’ She hurriedly sipped her drink, cheeks warm. She sort of hoped Max would drop it, start waffling about the race again. He was surely uninterested in the comings and goings of Charles’ love life, right?
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
"We almost did. But then we just- didn’t, I guess.’
‘I think you dodged a bullet. He is quite ugly.’’
‘Max! That is so horrible, you do not even know him.’
‘Well, surely it would be meaner if I did know him? I’m sure he’s nice but-’
‘Max.’ She says, turning herself back towards him, exasperated.
‘Charles .’ He grins, leaning slightly to mock her body language.
‘You are being mean. And it’s none of your business. He is not anything, anymore.’
‘I am allowed to have an opinion though, no? ’
‘Max.’
‘Charles!’
He was basically giggling now, face still flushed with alcohol and clearly giddy with the rush of being a little shit. She really, really didn’t want to be mean, but this was not how she wished to spend her night.
‘Max. I will say this once. You are a nice guy, and I'm sure there are a million girls out there right now who would like to dance with you, or go home with you or whatever.’
‘A million ?’ He faux-gasped, in a way much more reminiscent of Daniel than himself. ‘What kind of boy do you take me for?’
‘ However ,’ She said loudly, cutting off his spiel. ‘I am not one of them. So please stop talking about my exes, and buying me drinks or whatever you’d call this weird flirting.’
To his credit, Max doesn’t look too taken aback. He more just looks at her plainly, that all-knowing, ‘you can't hide from me’ way he does.
‘Okay.’
‘Thanks.’
‘But. I am confused. I was not flirting.’
She snorts, taking a sip of her horrid drink to keep her hands busy, lest she knee Max in the groin just to shut him up.
‘Yeah. Sure you weren’t.’
‘I was not!’ Max protests, his sincerity and insistence contrasted with his drunken movements. ‘You are not my type. Very pretty, yes but not my type. And besides, you are Charles.’
‘I am Charles?’ she repeats, wondering if this an instance of her English failing her slightly. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I am Max, you are Charles.’ He says it with a nonchalance as though the repetition somehow made the sentence any more understandable. ‘I do not- what is the phrase? Shit where I eat? Eat where I work?’
‘I’m sorry, are you comparing sleeping with me to shitting ?’
Max snorted slightly, covering his mouth with his hand, and that was her last straw.
Why was she even entertaining such a stupid, mind-numbing conversation in the party capital of the world? Why, when in a nightclub full of rich, hot millionaires who wouldn’t think twice about jumping into bed with her, was she talking to a boy she had once seen throw up a hot dog on the side of a race track- a man currently wearing denim shorts to a nightclub. One who’d shoved her off the track earlier on today and merely laughed jovially after the fact with a 10 second apology, before starting his new rant about tyre degradation.
She grabbed her purse, and made the executive choice to leave her drink.
’Enjoy your night Max. I would say it was nice chatting, but I would be a liar.’
She felt his eyes on her as she walked away. A somewhat petty, immature move, but it felt good. It was only when she was in the throng of dancing bodies she realised that she had begun walking with no idea of where in the club she was going to. George was nowhere to be seen, and Pierre was talking to some long-legged model that he probably wished to be left alone with. Her feet took her over to the DJ booth, and the tug in her gut told her this was probably a bad idea, but the more conniving voice in her head told her that Max was still watching.
She refused to read into why that was an incentive to walk straight up to Antonio, who was watching her approach like a deer in headlights.
&&&
‘I do really think you overreacted a bit Charlie. It’s a really common British idiom.’
‘Mate, are you eighty? Which frickin’ twenty-five year old says ‘ idiom-’
‘Sorry, which twenty-four year old still says frickin’ ?’
Charles huffs and picks up her phone from where it's fallen to stand against the bathroom mirror again. ‘You are both being so unhelpful. It was such a rude thing to say! We were literally in public.’
She had called Lando and George, to try to debrief her night and recount her interaction with Max. With their bickering in her ear, her hangover, subsequent headache and this one bit of hair that just would not lay flat, it wasn’t the most successful morning after. She knew there was some kind of a strategy meeting with the team today, ‘a quick runthrough’ of their end of season marketing. Where Silvia would pitch new PR strategies at her and Carlos, and both of them would smile and nod. The absurdity of their joint thirst traps being scheduled almost as tightly as their press conferences didn’t escape her.
She had sort of hoped that Lando and George would just sympathise, agree that Max was being weird, but of course George had to be rational and try to explain away the whole thing. She decided to tell her as much, and cut off whatever they were currently ranting about.
‘I’m not saying he wasn’t weird- this is Max we’re talking about, but it’s a really common phrase. ‘Don’t shit where you eat.’ George does little air quotes, wiggling her long fingers before continuing. ‘And he was using it in the right context. It basically just means ‘don’t bring personal shit into professional shit’.’
‘But he was flirting with me-’
‘I’m sure he was.’ George replies with the tone you might use to calm a screaming toddler down. ‘But- and I’m saying this with the most amount of love Charles- you also flirt with him quite a bit.’
This makes Charles stop using her sponsored hair gel and stare, incredulously, at George’s tiny facetime box. ‘I don’t!’
‘You flirt with everyone, bro.’ Lando pipes back up. ‘I mean, fairs cause you’re hot and all that and so does George, except that’s mostly just with Alex and Alonso-’
‘I do not flirt with Fernando- you can’t just go around saying that Lands-’
‘Oh, Fernando - first name basis and all, how sexy-’
‘Lando you can’t say I flirt with someone like Fernando, it’s different to talking about Alex-’
‘Ahh, so you admit you flirt with Alex?’ Charles thinks Lando is wiggling her eyebrows, but her screen has gone slightly pixelated.
‘Lando, we are in the same hotel- I will come up those two floors and murder you-’
‘Why don’t you just let the lift go up one more and see Alexander-’
Lando cackles, whilst George’s little box disappears as she leaves the call with an angry huff and a middle finger. Charles sighs, accepts defeat with the baby hairs around her ears, and leaves the bathroom, still on call.
‘You shouldn’t tease her too much about Alex. She already won’t tell us much about it all, and it’s the one thing she doesn’t know how to joke about.’
Lando rolls her eyes, but Charles can tell- even over shitty hotel wifi camera quality- that she’s gone a bit sheepish, ears flushed red.
‘Yeah, alright mum, I’ll give her a call later. She was making a good point, by the way- even if it was a bit pretentious. About the Max thing, I mean.’
‘Hm. I suppose. I just don’t know why he talks to me so much.’
Lando snorts at that.
‘Charles. C’mon.’
She hates sometimes, when George and Lando uses this tone on her, like there was some glaringly obvious act she was missing. It was the slight downside of having two native English speakers as close friends. Their little turns-of-phrase, little quips that took her an extra 2 seconds to fully process and respond to, always brought on that feeling of being out-of-the-loop.
‘Max talks to you,’ Lando says, speaking slowly and clearly like she thinks Charles is highly stupid, ‘Because you’re friends?’
‘No we are not.’
‘Look, just because he’s not Pierre or me and George, or someone you’d go to with like- real shit. He can still be your mate.’
‘We are not mates though! Yes, we are friendly but this is not a real friendship, what me and him have. It’s professional.’
Lando openly laughs at that one. ‘Oh yeah- really professional to miss that Brundle is asking you for a post-race interview because you simply have to talk to Max about braking on turn 3. Very normal way to be.’
Charles flushes, the heat building up her neck. ‘He is my rival. I want to beat him. That does not make us friends.’
‘Charles, I want to beat you. George does too. And Pierre, and Alex, and frickin’- all of us want to beat each other. Max is my mate, and I want to beat him.’
Lando was, annoyingly, right. Charles, despite it all, did speak to Max a lot during the season- even made adequate small talk when running into each other in Monaco. Sometimes she had more interactions with Max more than she saw Pierre, though he was away more during the holidays. There were plenty of drivers she only said about four words to throughout a whole season, but Max -
‘I guess Max is my friend, then.’ Charles says, feeling slightly defeated.
‘Clever girl. Only took you twenty-two races.’
‘You won’t say anything, right? About all this. To him?’
‘Yeah, course not. He’s an idiot, he was completely plastered last night anyways.’
‘Thanks.’ She pauses, and then; ‘And that, of course, is why he does not want to sleep with me, or eat where he shits or whatever it was, no ?’
Lando clears her throat slightly, voice sounding slightly bemused. ‘Yeah, if you say so. Max said you left with someone last night anyways. Wanna tell me more about that?’
She's using the tone of a teacher giving a talking-to, and Charles braces herself for impact.
‘I may have slept with Antonio. Again.’
Lando gives such a loud sigh it's closer to a yell. ‘You are such an idiot. You’re so lucky George’s not on here anymore, she’d kill you.’
‘I know, but-’
‘No Charles! He’s like, in love with you, and so annoying, and you are so out of his league.’
‘Don’t be mean-’
‘I’m not! He’s rude, and odd, and he works for the enemy. ’ Lando finishes dramatically.
‘He works for Ferrari.’
‘He works for Carlos . You’re committing garage-cest.’
She looks at Lando across the screen, and they both huff with laughter. The lecture seems to be over, so Charles can’t risk firing back-
‘If we’re talking about being involved with Carlos, then you can’t talk-’
Lando laughs again, this time that ridiculous screech that throws her head back. ‘You are such a bitch. Are you on your period or something?’
‘Careful. You’re beginning to sound a bit like Sky Sports.’
Lando's about to reply when she looks offscreen, where someone’s clearly talking to her.
‘Yeah, okay. Yeah, tell Jon I’ll just be a sec.’ She turns back. ‘Look babe, I gotta go. Got more checkups and stuff. I think they wanna check if I'm okay to fly back later.’
‘Oh my god, Lando, I forgot- how is your back doing? What did the doctor say?’
She had sort of forgotten that whilst her and George had gone out celebrating a podium and points respectively, Lando’s nasty shunt into the barriers meant she had been resting. Guilt washed over her as her interaction with Max became more and more asinine to think about.
‘It’s fine. Bit sore, but I’ll be fine for Abu Dhabi apparently. Jon left some space in my diet plan for room service cake last night, so it’s not all bad.’
‘Good. You scared me and George, you know.’
It feels like an important thing to say. Admittedly, when informed during the race about Lando’s crash and subsequent hospital visit, an ‘ Is she okay? ’ was all Charles had really managed, a bit preoccupied in the fight for P1, but still. There was a kinship, a connection with the other female drivers she just couldn’t get anywhere else.
‘God Leclerc. Don’t get soppy on me, I can practically feel my breakfast coming back up.’
‘Alright.’ Charles mock-rolls her eyes, pretending to be exasperated, but she can tell by the tone of Lando’s voice she's secretly pleased. ‘Bye Lands.’
‘Bye Charlie! Send my love to Max ’
With another laugh and the sound of the call ending, she's gone.
&&&
The really frustrating, and mind-numbingly insulting and frankly, un-feminist thing about all of this, that she couldn’t seem to express was that she genuinely had never even looked at Max, or any of the others in that way.
Well.
There had been Seb. But Seb was just sweet. And charming. And handsome in that way older guys always were. Like the mortifying crush she had formed once on one of Lorenzo’s friends in her KF3 days. Aged 13, finding excuses to go into his room to watch, slack-jawed as they yelled at FIFA. Trying to apply mascara with a wobbly hand, looking more like a racoon than anything else. Learning to play FIFA with them, desperate to seem cooler and older than she was. Ironic, considering Arthur was the only one who could actually beat any of them, and she couldn’t actually remember Lo’s friends name now.
He had got in touch a few years ago. Like many of her hometown acquaintances had once she hit F1. Either hitting on her, asking for money to buy a yacht, or both. It had been when she was still in Sauber, and consistently being asked more about her love life and hair-care routine than her racing. In the most surface level form too, of an instagram DM saying he thought he had seen her in Sass Cafe. A simple congrats on the ‘new career’. That he’d have to go for a drink with Lorenzo soon, it’d been way too long and maybe Charles could come too? When she had gone on the date (purely indulging that awkward teenage version of herself who would’ve wrung her neck for turning him down) it had taken all of 20 minutes of talking for him to mention that he ‘didn’t remember her being so beautiful when she was 14’, to place a hand dangerously high on her thigh and a ‘do you want to go someplace quieter?’
Later, she had hurriedly left him at the booth, apologising with a racing excuse- as though a FIA official or Fred Vassuer had desperately needed to contact her at half ten on a Thursday in her rookie season.
But aside from Seb, and weird friends of Lorenzo’s, she hadn’t had a proper crush in years. And especially not one on the grid, of all places. Sure, she could recognize that guys like Lewis, Daniel (Toto, though you’d have to torture that one out of her) and others were handsome, but she was a grown woman, who dated, and had sex, and kept her love life and career separate. They were her rivals, the obstacles standing in between her and glory. She wouldn’t jeopardise her dreams for it.
So this was truly just misogyny. Yes , that was it. Max was just one of those small-minded guys who couldn’t fathom a woman having any use beyond as a sexual object, was too wrapped up in championship fame to think any woman might not be interested in him.
‘Charles?’
She shakes herself back into reality, and looks at her laptop screen where Sylvia's looking at her, an expectant eyebrow raised in her little Zoom box.
‘That works for you, yes?’
‘Uh.’ She heard herself say, dumbly.
Okay, so she had just zoned out for the majority of the meeting. Letting the words wash over her and nodding politely always tended to work when she was feeling like this. Hungover, and frustrated. Still mourning a win she knows she could’ve gotten yesterday, if the fates had aligned just a bit closer.
Her phone buzzes in her back pocket, but she doesn't dare to check it with all eyes currently on her.
‘Yes.’ she says, praying she hasn’t just mortally offended anyone, or perhaps agreed to do a driver swap with Haas next season. ‘Yes that’s all fine for me.’
Sylvia nods, pleased, and scribbles something down off camera.
‘Excellent. Next item then, if you’ll scroll to Section 2B, on your email.’
She chances a look at her phone whilst everyone else begins clicking at their screens to follow along.
New message : from Carlos Sainz
Hahaha. You were not listening right? 😂 (13:36)
She huffs a bit, more like an exhale of air than a laugh, and checks her laptop again. Currently, Carlos is seemingly following along, but his eyes look slightly glazed over and his hoodie's drawn up partly hiding his face- like he's just as bored as her. She begins to type a response.
‘You caught me, lol. Idek what we just agreed to or anything. ’ (13:38)
On-screen, his eyes flick up slightly as the notification surely comes through, but he makes no other show of having seen her message. A minute later however;
How’s the hangover? U were pretty drunk last night. (13:40)
She begins to rapid-type
Was I? What did i do (13:40)
Yea. You said some stuff about Max and then I think Pierre got you an uber. Hahaha. (13:42)
What did I say? Lol (13:43)
Idk, just heard from Lando you were arguing. Max told us he wanted to talk to u but i think it went wrong. Nothing that different for u and Max tbh 😂 ’ (13:45)
She switches her phone off, brain whirring. Then, starts typing again.
Was he upset? (13:47)
No, i think he was just drunk. He’s probably fine today. (13:48)
Btw. Since u weren’t listening. We’ve agreed to a really weird photoshoot.🎄(13:50)
&&&
‘Weird’ had been an understatement. She decides to tell Carlos as much, as the photographers set up in front of them, fiddling.
‘Well. I tried to warn you.’ He shrugs.
Since Ferrari need content to churn out over the festive period, they’ve got them both donning red Santa costumes with little prancing horses embroidered on. Carlo, in ridiculous fur trimmed red trousers and black combat boots, a classic Santa hat and a white top that stretches over his muscles in a slightly obscene way. She catches herself staring and quickly looks away, eyes landing on a mirror they’ve got tucked away, next to a ring-light. She looks-
Well.
Charles is aware of how she looks. She knows she’s pretty. She knows the combination of athletes training and a good hand in genetic roulette has meant she’s been marketable since the minute puberty hit. She knows Carlos goes through a similar treatment, and their combined attractiveness is gold-dust for Ferrari’s socials. It’s not personal.
Her costume consists of a red top, made of a similar material to one of her workout ones. They’ve applied makeup to her stomach, making her defined muscles stand out. A tiny fur trimmed skirt and a matching hat to Carlos’s rounds it out.
It’s quite a cute outfit, all in all. The latex black heels are slightly overkill though, and make her look a bit like an escort. But perhaps a high end escort, for lawyers or CEO’s. It’s fine really.
‘Okay! We are good to go.’
She lines up next to Carlos, tottering in her heels and smiling politely as they pose next to a snow-white Christmas tree. There were worse jobs. This would probably be over soon, and would be great for the team’s engagement. This was fine.
‘Charles, if you could maybe pretend you’re riding the sleigh? Like Santa would? Carlos, you could pose by the reindeer?’
She takes it all back. It’s awful.
About 45 minutes later, it’s done. They’re packing up the softbox lights and Silvia is beaming looking at the photographer’s laptop screen, so the photos must be decent.
Carlos has already gone to get changed, muttering that the fur was too itchy on his skin. Thankfully, she has nothing else today except maybe a call to her trainer later on. But, no more costumes and cameras, so that’s something.
‘Oh. Are we in the wrong place?’
Her heart drops in her stomach. When she turns, she’s faced with about five Red Bull staff, Checo, Daniel, and Max. They’re holding various props, and what looks like a stack of question cards. Checo looks bewildered, Daniel’s smirking slightly, and Max-
Max just looks like Max.
Silvia strides over, shaking her head. ‘No, no. We are mostly done now. I was told you’re also doing some shooting. Do you need it now, or can we finish up?’
‘Um.’ The woman in front, who Charles thinks might be Max’s PR woman, glances round, and shrugs. ‘No, we can wait if you need to do something.’
‘Excellent.’ Silvia nods. She does a beckoning motion with her hands ‘Charles?’
‘What?’
‘We just need one or two solo shots of you. To finish.’
Charles wonders what she’s done in a past life to deserve this.
‘Oh. Did- did we not get enough with Carlos?’ She sounds slightly pleading, and prays Silvia takes mercy on her.
Silvia merely looks a bit miffed, and bustles forward. ‘No, no. We need some of you, for our women’s campaign. It won’t take long.’
Charles wants to point out the issues surrounding feminism will not be solved by her dressing up like that one scene in Mean Girls, (which Lando had shown her in lockdown, and she thinks she didn’t fully get) but she’s already being pushed back in front of the lights. And for fuck's sake, Max and the rest of them are just-
Waiting by the edge. And watching .
‘Big smile, Miss Leclerc!’ the photographer calls, and she plasters on a sickly fake one, posing with the #WomeninMotorsport sign, feeling distinctly like a fraud.
&&&
‘That was a bit brutal. Earlier.’
Max has somehow managed to find her (and really, Charles should double check he’s not got a tracker on her, because he’s so good at it) standing outside the warehouse they’ve been shooting in. She's thrown a Ferrari hoodie over the costume, and shoved the heels far down into the depths of her bag, in favour of sliders and fluffy socks.
‘Yes. A bit.’
‘I mean, ever since being a little kid, I’ve always wanted to meet Mrs Claus, but-’
She elbows him, sharply, huffing a dry laugh. ‘Fuck off.’
He laughs a little, and they lapse into silence. Then,
‘Are they all like that? Your Ferrari stuff?’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. You dressing up, and posing.’
She shrugs. ‘I guess, sometimes. Aren’t yours?’
‘It seems a bit wrong. No?’
She turns to him, exasperated. It feels like a weird mirror of their conversation in the club.
‘Max. You're probably right, it’s probably wrong and awful but- I’m really tired. And I’m dressed like Santa, and I just wanna go home.’ She smiles at him weakly, to soften the blow. It’s probably a bit too much, but Max just smiles sheepishly back, and nods.
A bit more silence. Charles doesn't really get why he's still here, with her.
‘You fly out soon?’
‘I think so.’
‘Back to Monaco?’
‘Yes.’
‘Me also.’
A beat, and then-
‘Wanna fly back on my plane?’
She doesn’t know what makes her say yes. Perhaps it’s because of the photoshoot debacle, or the fact that she knows Max’s stupid private jet will get her back in her bed quicker than the flight from commercial. No autographs, or arrivals gate paparazzi.
‘Okay.’
Later, in the Uber to the landing strip where Max’s plane waits, she turns to him, aware of how nice he’s being.
‘I am sorry. About Vegas.’
Max tilts his head, in that way he always does when he’s confused.
‘Vegas?’
‘In the club. I was very rude, I think. So I'm sorry.’
‘Oh. That.’ He turns, and looks out of the window for a few seconds. When he looks back, the smile is genuine. ‘It’s fine. I was very drunk, after all.’
‘I don’t think I was drunk enough.’ She admits.
‘I didn’t mean to be rude about your boyfriend. Lando mentioned you left with him and-’
‘He’s really, really not my boyfriend.’ Charles laughs. ‘Antonio is-’
She stops. She doesn’t know how much she can tell Max. How much she should.
‘I am very much single. No boyfriend. And definitely not Antonio.’
Max nods. ‘Your type is more basketball players, right?’
Charles turns, prepared to feel offended, but it completely falls flat when she sees the boyish grin on Max’s face.
‘No.’ She sniffs, pretending to look annoyed. Then-
‘I also like tennis players.’
The way Max’s laughter guffaws around the car sparks something in her chest. She tries to ignore it.
The inside of the plane is nice. She’s been on private jets before, of course, but this one is entirely Max’s. There’s a tiny number 1 embroidered on the fabric of the seats. The plane staff do a brilliant job of not looking surprised when she was onto the plane behind Max, and she’s handed a fancy bottle of water when she sits.
She clambers awkwardly into the seat opposite Max’s after changing out of the costume fully in the bathroom. He reaches for something underneath his seat, and places a leather box on the table between them.
‘Do you want to play chess? I am not very good, but-’
‘Um. Yes.’ She answers dumbly.
Max nods once, and begins to line up pawns in front of her.
After a few rounds of fairly equal play, despite what Max had said, he leans back in his seat. Looks at Charles in that plain, open way.
‘What?’ She says, feeling a bit too noticed for her liking.
‘You really are very pretty.’
She rolls her eyes, without thinking. ‘I know that, Max. Please tell me you didn’t invite me onto your plane just to hit on me.’
‘Will you let me finish?’ He says, smirking slightly.
Charles shuts up. He goes on.
‘You are very pretty, but. I’m not attracted to you like that.’
‘Okay.’ She says, a bit baffled by what he’s leading up to. She wishes he wouldn’t talk in riddles like this. She thinks of a joke Lando showed her about bridge trolls who ask riddles to travellers, and tries not to laugh in Max’s face as the comparison makes itself in her head.
‘I really was not flirting with you, in Vegas. Or trying to-’ He gestures with his hands in such a Max way, Charles smiles in spite of herself. ‘I was just wanting to talk to you. I like talking to you.’
‘I like talking to you.’ She says it back as a reflex, but realises it’s true as the words leave her mouth.
She does like talking to Max, actually. She can rant to him about chicanes, and understeer, and turns, and he listens. She can talk to Carlos, Pierre, George, Lando- most of the grid really, about racing. Of course she can.
But Max never laughs, or rolls his eyes, like she’s getting a bit too much into it. Like she’s too passionate about every finite detail of her race. And her boyfriends and such like to listen, in a sweet, doting way, but they usually stop her after a while, by saying ‘ That’s great babe, but where do you wanna go for dinner? ’ or something of the sort.
Max is kind of just as mad as her, when it comes down to it.
‘Can we be friends? Properly.’’ She finds herself saying without realising.
The look of slight surprise on Max’s face is bright, and warm. He nods, almost imperceptibly.
‘I always thought we were.’ It’s accompanied with a lovely smile. ‘Now, can I beat you at chess again?’
She laughs.