Chapter Text
First Advent: Baby, It's Cold Outside
CHARLES
The snow started falling somewhere between Daniel's third toast and his fifth attempt to get everyone to sing carols.
I noticed it through the tall windows of Daniel's apartment, the way the flakes drifted lazily past the glass, catching the warm light spilling out from inside. Monaco doesn't get snow often, and when it does, the whole city seems to hold its breath in wonder, as if the Mediterranean itself can't quite believe what it's seeing.
"It's sticking," Pierre observed, appearing at my elbow with a fresh glass of mulled wine. The scent of cinnamon and cloves wafted up, mixing with the pine from the enormous Christmas tree Daniel had somehow wrestled into his living room. "The roads are going to be a disaster."
"The roads are always a disaster when it snows here. No one knows how to drive in it."
"Including you."
"Especially me. That's why I took the metro."
The party swirled around us, a warm blur of laughter and music and the particular chaos that happens when Daniel Ricciardo decides to host anything. The apartment was decorated within an inch of its life: garlands of evergreen draped over every doorframe, candles flickering on every surface, stockings hung by the fireplace despite the fact that Daniel didn't have a fireplace until last week when he apparently purchased one specifically for stocking-hanging purposes.
"It's electric," he'd explained proudly when I'd asked. "The flames are fake but the holiday spirit is very real."
The holiday spirit was indeed very real, aided by the mulled wine and the champagne and the truly impressive spread of food covering the dining table. Mince pies and stolen bread and a cheese board that could feed a small army. Bowls of sugared nuts and crystallized ginger. A towering croquembouche that Daniel swore he'd made himself but that I strongly suspected came from the patisserie on Rue Grimaldi.
I'd been here for four hours, which was approximately three hours longer than I'd intended to stay.
"You should go talk to him," Pierre said, nodding toward the corner of the room where Max Verstappen was holding court with a group of guests I didn't recognize.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You've been staring at him for twenty minutes."
"I've been looking in his general direction. There's a difference."
"There really isn't."
I took a pointed sip of my mulled wine instead of answering. The truth was, I had been watching Max, the same way I always watched Max at these things: from a safe distance, admiring the way he laughed with his whole body, the way the warm light caught the gold in his hair, the way his sweater. A deep forest green that probably cost more than my monthly rent, made his eyes look impossibly blue.
Max Verstappen was, objectively, the most beautiful person I'd ever met. He was also my coworker, my sometimes-rival, my frequent debate partner, and the source of approximately ninety percent of my romantic frustration over the past three years.
We were friends. Sort of. We were something, anyway, something that existed in the space between colleagues and something more, something that involved too much eye contact and too many almost-moments and absolutely no resolution.
"The snow is getting heavier," Pierre observed. "You should probably leave soon if you want to make the last metro."
He was right. I should leave. I should put down my wine, find my coat, make my excuses, and brave the increasingly winter-wonderland streets of Monaco before I got stranded at Daniel's apartment listening to his "Christmas Classics" playlist until sunrise.
Instead, I heard myself say: "One more drink."
Pierre's knowing smile was deeply annoying.
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One more drink turned into two, which turned into helping Daniel rearrange the furniture for an impromptu dance floor, which turned into watching Max slow-dance with Daniel's elderly neighbor Madame Fortier while she giggled like a schoolgirl.
"He's good with old ladies," Pierre commented.
"He's good with everyone."
"Especially you."
"Pierre."
"I'm just saying. He looks at you differently than he looks at everyone else."
"He looks at me like I'm a professional inconvenience who occasionally says interesting things."
"That's not what I see."
I didn't ask what Pierre saw because I was afraid of the answer. Afraid of the hope it might kindle, the same hope I'd been carefully suppressing for three years. Max and I had our rhythm, our pattern of bickering and bonding and never quite crossing the line into something more. It was comfortable. It was safe.
It was also slowly driving me insane, but that seemed like a reasonable price to pay for not risking rejection.
The party began to thin around eleven, guests trickling out in pairs and groups, buttoning coats and wrapping scarves against the cold. I watched the snow through the window, which had graduated from gentle flurries to something approaching actual weather. The street below was white now, a thin blanket covering the cobblestones, and the Christmas lights strung between buildings cast everything in a warm, golden glow.
"Charles." Daniel appeared at my side, slightly flushed from either hosting duties or mulled wine or both. "You're not leaving yet, are you?"
"I should. The metro-"
"The metro stopped running twenty minutes ago. Something about the snow on the tracks." He said this with the cheerful unconcern of someone who had a perfectly good apartment to sleep in. "You'll have to wait it out."
"What do you mean, stopped running?"
"I mean the trains have ceased their train-like activities for the evening. Pierre already left, he managed to get the last one. But you..." Daniel shrugged expansively. "You're stuck with us."
"Us?"
"Me and Max. He's also stranded." Daniel's smile turned knowing in a way I didn't appreciate. "I'd offer you my guest room, but I'm afraid I've already promised it to Madame Fortier. She's had quite a lot of champagne and her building is three blocks away."
"So where am I supposed to-"
"Max lives two streets over. He's already offered to walk you there." Daniel patted my shoulder with exaggerated sympathy. "Such a gentleman, our Max. Always looking out for his friends."
I turned to find Max approaching us, his coat already on, a scarf wound around his neck in a way that should have looked ridiculous but instead looked effortlessly elegant. His cheeks were slightly pink, whether from the warmth of the party or the prospect of walking through snow I couldn't tell.
"Ready to go?" he asked, and his smile was the same smile he always gave me, warm and slightly teasing, with something underneath I couldn't quite name.
"I don't want to impose-"
"It's not imposing. It's a five-minute walk, and I have hot chocolate." He said this as if hot chocolate was a compelling legal argument, which, I suppose, it was. "Come on, Charles. It's snowing. It's Christmas. Don't make me walk home alone."
Daniel was watching us with undisguised glee. Max was looking at me with those impossible blue eyes. And outside, Monaco was disappearing under a blanket of white, the kind of magical Christmas snowfall that seemed designed specifically to trap me in romantic proximity with the man I'd been carefully not-falling-for for three years.
"Fine," I heard myself say. "But only for the hot chocolate."
Max's smile widened. "Of course. Only for the hot chocolate."
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The walk to Max's apartment was exactly as romantic as I'd feared.
The snow had transformed Monaco into something out of a postcard, all the usual Mediterranean edges softened and blurred. Christmas lights reflected off the white ground, creating pools of gold and red and green. Our footsteps crunched in perfect synchronization, leaving twin trails of prints behind us. The cold air bit at my cheeks, and my breath came out in visible puffs, and beside me, Max was humming something that might have been a Christmas carol.
"I love it when it snows here," he said, tilting his face up toward the falling flakes. A few caught in his eyelashes, glittering like tiny stars. "Everyone acts like the world is ending, but really it's just... quiet. Peaceful."
"It's also freezing."
"You're not dressed warmly enough." He looked at my coat with disapproval. "That thing barely qualifies as outerwear."
"It was fine when I left this morning."
"It's not fine now." Before I could protest, Max was unwinding his scarf and looping it around my neck, his fingers brushing my collar, my jaw, sending sparks across my skin despite the cold. "There. Better."
The scarf smelled like him. Sandalwood and something warm and spicy, the same cologne he always wore, the one that made me slightly dizzy every time I caught a whiff of it in the office. I buried my nose in the soft wool and tried not to think about the intimacy of wearing something that had been wrapped around Max's skin moments before.
"You didn't have to do that."
"I know. I wanted to."
We walked the rest of the way in comfortable silence, past darkened shops with holiday displays in their windows, past a café where the owner was just locking up and waved at us through the frosted glass, past a small plaza where someone had built a snowman that was already listing dangerously to one side.
Max's apartment building was old and elegant, the kind of Monaco architecture that spoke of old money and good taste. He led me through a lobby decorated with a tasteful Christmas tree and up a winding staircase to the third floor, where he unlocked a door and ushered me inside.
"Welcome to my humble abode," he said, flicking on lights as we entered. "Make yourself comfortable."
Humble was not the word I would have used. The apartment was beautiful, all high ceilings and tall windows and furniture that managed to be both stylish and inviting. A Christmas tree stood in the corner, smaller than Daniel's monstrosity but perfectly proportioned, decorated with silver and gold ornaments that caught the light. Garlands of greenery wrapped around the mantelpiece, and candles in glass holders waited to be lit. The whole space smelled like pine and cinnamon, like Christmas itself had taken up residence.
"This is... not what I expected," I admitted.
"What did you expect?"
"I don't know. Something more... bachelor pad. Less Christmas wonderland."
Max laughed, shrugging off his coat and hanging it by the door. "I like Christmas. Is that a crime?"
"Depends on the jurisdiction."
"Well, in this jurisdiction, Christmas is not only legal but encouraged. Now sit down, I'm making hot chocolate."
He disappeared into the kitchen, and I heard the sounds of cupboards opening, milk being poured, the click of the stove. I wandered around the living room, examining the bookshelves (eclectic, ranging from philosophy to racing memoirs to what appeared to be a complete collection of Agatha Christie), the framed photographs (family, friends, a few I recognized from work), the record player in the corner with a stack of vinyl beside it.
"You can put something on if you want," Max called from the kitchen. "I have jazz, classical, Christmas music obviously..."
I flipped through the records and found a collection of holiday standards, instrumental versions of songs I'd known since childhood. I set it playing, and the apartment filled with soft piano and gentle strings, the kind of music that made you want to curl up by a fire and never leave.
Max returned with two mugs, steam rising from both, topped with a truly excessive amount of whipped cream. He'd lit the candles on the mantelpiece, and the combination of candlelight and Christmas tree and snow falling past the windows made the whole scene feel like something out of a film.
"One hot chocolate," he said, pressing a mug into my hands. "My secret recipe."
"What's the secret?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a secret."
I took a sip and nearly moaned. It was rich and dark and perfectly sweet, with something underneath I couldn't quite identify. A hint of spice, maybe. Something that warmed me from the inside out.
"This is incredible."
"I know." He settled onto the sofa beside me, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him through my sweater. "So. Here we are."
"Here we are," I agreed.
"Stranded by snow."
"Technically stranded by metro failure."
"Semantics." He took a sip of his own chocolate, watching me over the rim of the mug. "Are you going to relax, or are you going to spend the whole night looking for escape routes?"
"I'm not looking for escape routes."
"You've glanced at the door three times since we sat down."
"I was admiring your coat rack."
"Liar." But he was smiling, and the candlelight made his eyes look even bluer, and the snow was still falling outside, and suddenly I couldn't remember why I'd ever wanted to leave Daniel's party in the first place.
"Fine," I admitted. "Maybe I'm a little nervous."
"Why?"
"Because we're..." I gestured vaguely between us. "This is... we don't usually..."
"Don't usually what? Spend time together outside of work?"
"Not alone. Not like this."
"Like what?"
"Like it's a date."
The word hung in the air between us, heavier than I'd intended. Max's expression shifted, something flickering in his eyes that I couldn't read.
"Would that be so terrible?" he asked quietly. "If it were a date?"
My heart was beating too fast. The hot chocolate was suddenly very interesting, steam rising in lazy spirals, whipped cream melting slowly into the dark liquid.
"Max..."
"Charles." He set his mug down on the coffee table and turned to face me fully, one leg tucked underneath him, his knee almost touching my thigh. "Can I tell you something?"
"That depends on what it is."
"I didn't offer to let you stay because the metro stopped running."
"You didn't?"
"I mean, that was convenient. But I would have found another excuse if that one hadn't presented itself."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean..." He took a breath, and I realized with surprise that he was nervous too, this man who was always so confident, so sure of himself. "I mean I've been looking for an excuse to get you alone for approximately three years, and tonight seemed like my best opportunity."
I stared at him. "Three years?"
"Give or take."
"You've wanted to... for three years?"
"Is that so surprising?"
"Yes! I thought..." I set my own mug down because my hands were shaking. "I thought you just saw me as a colleague. A friend, maybe. Someone to argue with about quarterly reports."
"Charles." He laughed softly. "I have never, in the entire history of our acquaintance, cared about quarterly reports."
"Then why-"
"Because you care about them. Because you get this little crease between your eyebrows when you're concentrating, and it's the most adorable thing I've ever seen. Because arguing with you is the highlight of my week. Because every time you walk into a room, I forget what I was doing." He was very close now, close enough that I could count the individual snowflakes melting in his hair. "Because I've been trying to tell you this for three years and kept chickening out."
"You never chickened out on anything in your life."
"You'd be surprised."
The record changed to a new song, something slow and romantic, and outside the snow was still falling, and inside the candles flickered, and Max was looking at me like I was the answer to a question he'd been asking for a very long time.
"I should probably go," I said, not moving at all.
"Should you?"
"The snow might... there might be taxis..."
"There aren't taxis. I checked."
"The roads might be cleared by now..."
"They definitely aren't. I checked that too."
"You seem to have checked a lot of things."
"I'm thorough." He reached out and touched my hand, just a brush of fingers, light as the snow falling outside. "Stay, Charles. Not because you're stranded. Not because the metro isn't running. Stay because you want to."
"And if I want to?"
"Then I'll make you more hot chocolate. And we can listen to records and watch the snow and talk about things that aren't quarterly reports. And maybe..." His voice dropped lower. "Maybe we can finally stop pretending we're just colleagues."
The fire in the electric fireplace, because of course Max had one too, cast dancing shadows across his face. The Christmas tree lights twinkled in my peripheral vision. The whole world had narrowed to this moment, this choice, this man looking at me with hope in his eyes.
"I want to," I said.
Max's smile was like sunrise.
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He made more hot chocolate. Then he made a third batch when we somehow talked through the second without drinking it. The record player cycled through holiday standards, and the candles burned low, and the snow kept falling, and we sat on his sofa with our knees touching and talked.
We talked about everything and nothing. About our childhoods, our dreams, our favorite Christmas memories. About the time Max got lost in a department store during the holidays and was found by security sitting perfectly content in the Christmas display, building a fort out of decorative presents. About the year my mother made figgy pudding from an ancient recipe and nearly poisoned the entire family.
We talked about work, but differently than we usually did. Not the surface-level office banter but the real stuff: what we loved about our jobs, what we wished we could change, where we saw ourselves in five years, in ten, in twenty.
"I never pictured myself here," Max admitted, gesturing at the elegant apartment, the expensive furniture, the trappings of a successful life. "When I was young, I thought I'd be... I don't know. Traveling the world. Having adventures. Not sitting in an office doing finance."
"Do you regret it?"
"Sometimes. But then I remember that this office gave me you, and suddenly the spreadsheets don't seem so bad."
"That's..." I didn't know how to finish the sentence. Romantic. Ridiculous. Exactly what I'd always wanted to hear.
"Too much?" He looked worried suddenly, the confidence slipping. "I'm sorry, I know I'm being-"
"It's not too much."
"No?"
"It's exactly enough."
He smiled again, that sunrise smile, and reached out to brush a strand of hair from my forehead. His fingers lingered, tracing down my temple, my cheek, coming to rest at the corner of my jaw.
"Can I kiss you?" he asked.
"That depends."
"On what?"
"On whether you're going to stop after one."
He laughed, a surprised and delighted sound, and then he was leaning in, and I was meeting him halfway, and his lips were warm and tasted like chocolate, and the kiss was everything I'd spent three years imagining and more.
It was soft at first, tentative, the kind of first kiss that asks permission with every press of lips. Then his hand slid to the back of my neck, and I grabbed the front of his sweater, and tentative became something else entirely. Something that had three years of wanting behind it, three years of almost-moments finally finding their resolution.
When we broke apart, both breathing harder, his forehead rested against mine.
"So," he said. "That happened."
"It did."
"About time."
"Very much so."
"Are you still looking for escape routes?"
I laughed, the sound slightly breathless. "I think I've decided to stay."
"Good." He kissed me again, quick and sweet. "Because the snow isn't stopping anytime soon, and I have nowhere else I'd rather be."
"Trapped in your apartment by weather conditions?"
"Trapped in my apartment with you." He pulled back just enough to look at me properly, his eyes soft in the candlelight. "I've been waiting a long time for this, Charles. Three years of watching you, wanting you, trying to work up the courage to say something."
"Why didn't you?"
"Fear, mostly. Fear that I'd misread everything, that you didn't feel the same way, that I'd ruin what we had by wanting more." He shrugged. "Seemed easier to pine from a distance."
"We're both idiots."
"Clearly." He grinned. "But at least we're idiots together now."
The record had stopped at some point, the apartment falling into a comfortable silence broken only by the soft tick of snow against the windows. Outside, Monaco was buried in white, the city transformed into something magical, something that existed only in Christmas cards and dreams.
Inside, I was sitting on Max Verstappen's sofa, wearing his scarf, kissing him like it was the only thing I'd ever been meant to do.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"Now? Now we finish our hot chocolate before it gets cold again. And then maybe we listen to more records. And then maybe we fall asleep on this couch watching the snow. And then tomorrow, when the metro is running again and the roads are cleared..."
"Yes?"
"Tomorrow, I take you to breakfast. And then lunch. And then dinner. And then every meal after that, for as long as you'll have me."
"That sounds like a lot of meals."
"I'm a man of large appetites."
"Is that supposed to be a euphemism?"
"Only if you want it to be."
I kissed him again because I could, because I was finally allowed to, because three years of wanting had culminated in this moment and I intended to make the most of it. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me closer, and the snow kept falling, and the Christmas tree lights kept twinkling, and somewhere in the distance, church bells chimed midnight.
"Merry Christmas," Max murmured against my lips.
"Merry Christmas," I said back.
And outside, the cold wind howled and the snow piled higher and higher, and I didn't care at all. Because inside was warm, and Max was here, and I finally had exactly what I'd always wanted.
It might be cold outside, I thought, but in here, it's perfect.