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Charles Leclerc woke up feeling wrong.
The deep, solid warmth that usually pinned him to the mattress—a familiar, heavy-limbed weight he secretly adored—was gone. His left side felt cool, exposed. The sheets on Max’s half of the bed were smooth, already losing the night’s heat.
He blinked, the soft morning light doing nothing to soothe the immediate, sharp twist of anxiety in his gut. Max was an immovable object upon waking, a sleep-sodden, grumpy barnacle until at least two alarms had sounded. His absence was a clear, blaring alarm in itself.
Then the smell hit him.
Something was cooking. Something buttery, with a faint, ominous hint of… scorch? It wafted up from downstairs, a domestic scent that turned Charles’s blood to ice.
No. No, no, no.
Max in the kitchen, before noon, of his own volition, could only mean one thing. It was a signal flare. A five-alarm fire of a gesture. Max cooked when he was trying to be meaningful. Max cooked when he was commemorating something.
Charles sat bolt upright, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. His mind, still fuzzy with sleep, became a whirlwind of sheer panic. What date is it? He scrabbled for his phone on the nightstand, his fingers clumsy.
The screen lit up. April 17th. He stared at it, his brain scrambling through a mental archive of Max’s ridiculous, sentimental milestones. Max, the ruthless, focused competitor on track, was a secret, shameless romantic of the most specific and invented kind off it. Their shared calendar was a minefield of his making.
Was it the anniversary of their first public argument that ended in a kiss? No, that was in February. The anniversary of Max finally beating him at FIFA after a six-month losing streak? October. The day Charles “officially” moved his toothbrush into Max’s apartment? May. The commemoration of the “Great Team Radio Silence Break” after Spa 2022? That had a whole weekend dedicated to it.
April 17th. April 17th. It was blank. It was terrifyingly blank.
“Merde,” Charles whispered, the word dropping into the silent room. He flung the duvet back, his bare feet hitting the cool floor. He was already constructing apologies, planning desperate, last-minute gestures. Could he get flowers delivered this early? What did one even buy for the anniversary of… of what? Think, Charles!
He pulled on a pair of soft sweatpants, his movements jerky. He needed to check the sacred document: the Notes app on his phone where he’d been forced, six months into their relationship, to meticulously log every single “important date” Max had ever uttered. It was titled, simply, “DO NOT FORGET (OR ELSE).”
Pausing by the bedroom door, he took a steadying breath. He could hear movement downstairs now—the clatter of a pan, a low, muttered curse in Dutch. The scent of burning carbohydrates grew stronger.
He crept down the stairs, not wanting to announce his state of sheer dread. The open-plan living area and kitchen came into view. And there was Max.
Max stood by the stove, his back to Charles. He wore only a pair of loose sleep pants, the muscles of his back and shoulders shifting under his skin as he poked suspiciously at something in a frying pan. His blond hair was a messy, sleep-tousled halo. On the counter beside him sat a precarious tower of… well, they were intended to be pancakes. Some were nearly black at the edges. Others were a pale, doughy beige. A bowl of batter sat nearby, looking accusatory.
Charles felt a wave of affection, sharp and sudden, cut through the panic. Max looked so intensely focused, so out of his element. He was a man who could feel the precise degradation of tyres through his hands and feet, but judging the heat of a hob was an arcane mystery.
“Max?” Charles said, his voice still rough with sleep.
Max jumped, nearly flipping the pancake onto the floor. He caught the pan handle just in time, turning. His blue eyes, usually so cool and assessing, were wide with surprise, then softened when they landed on Charles.
“You are up,” Max said. “I was trying to be quiet.”
“You were,” Charles said, leaning against the doorway. He crossed his arms, trying to project a calm he didn’t feel. “It was the smell of impending kitchen fire that woke me.”
Max scowled, a faint pink tinge appearing on his cheeks. “It is not a fire. It is… tactical browning. For texture.” He gestured with the spatula. “You like the crispy bits.”
Charles’s heart squeezed. He did like the crispy bits. The fact Max knew that, the fact he was standing here creating a battalion of semi-crispy, semi-charred discs, was making Charles’s anxiety worse. The gesture was too big. This had to be for a major date.
“What’s the occasion?” Charles asked, aiming for casual and landing somewhere near strangled.
Max turned back to the pan, his shoulders stiffening slightly. “Can I not make breakfast for my husband without an occasion?”
That was it. The confirmation. When Max got deliberately, obtusely neutral, he was hiding a sentimental agenda. Charles felt a fresh jolt of panic.
“Of course you can,” Charles said, his voice tight. He walked into the kitchen, hovering near the island. “It’s just… you’re usually more of a ‘toast and protein shake’ man before ten.”
“I am expanding my horizons,” Max stated, attempting to flip a pancake. It folded in on itself mid-air with a sad, soggy plop. He sighed. “Maybe the horizons are not for expanding today.”
Charles couldn’t stand it anymore. The suspense was worse than the forgetting. He pulled out his phone, unlocking it with frantic swipes. He opened the Notes app, scrolling through the endless list.
“Max, please, just tell me,” he burst out, his eyes scanning the entries. “I am looking, but I cannot find it. Is it the anniversary of the first time I beat you in karting? No, that’s in July. The day we got the cat? November. The day you said my hair looked ‘acceptable’ in the rain? That has a star next to it, I remember that one. What is today? I am sorry. I am so sorry I forgot.”
He finally looked up from his phone. Max had turned off the hob. He was facing Charles fully now, his expression unreadable. He leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. The posture was pure Max—a little defensive, a little closed off.
“You think I made breakfast because you forgot a date,” Max said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes! Obviously!” Charles ran a hand through his own messy brown hair. “It is your pattern. You get… you get quiet and then you do something big. Last year, when I forgot the anniversary of our first secret holiday, you learned how to make that stupid complicated pasta from scratch and the kitchen looked like a flour bomb exploded! This…” He waved a hand at the tragic pancake tower. “This is a flour bomb of a different kind. Just tell me what I missed so I can grovel properly.”
A strange, complicated flicker passed over Max’s face. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t even disappointment. It looked like… hurt. A deep, quiet kind of hurt that was far worse than any melodramatic sigh.
“So you think the only reason I would do something for you is to… to punish you? Or to make a point?” Max’s voice was low.
Charles faltered. “No. That’s not what I…”
“That is what you said.” Max pushed off from the counter. He walked to the kitchen table—a beautiful, stupidly expensive piece of modern furniture that Charles had chosen—and pulled out a chair. He sat down, not looking at Charles. “You think I keep this list to trap you. To catch you out.”
Charles’s phone felt heavy in his hand. The list on the screen seemed to mock him. “I do not think that. I just… I worry about forgetting the things that are important to you. They are important to me because they are important to you. Even the silly ones about FIFA.”
Max was silent for a long moment, staring at the table’s surface. “What if today was not on the list?”
The question hung in the air. Charles slowly lowered himself into the chair opposite Max. “What do you mean?”
“What if,” Max said, finally meeting his gaze. His blue eyes were startlingly earnest. “I woke up today. And the sun was coming through the window on your hair. And you were snoring, just a little bit.”
“I do not snore,” Charles interjected automatically, a feeble protest.
“You do. It is a small, stupid sound.” A tiny, reluctant smile touched Max’s lips. “And I looked at you. And I thought, ‘I am the luckiest bastard in the world.’ And I felt… happy. Not because of something that happened a year or two ago. Just because of now. Because you are here. In our home. With your stupid snoring and your messy hair.”
Charles felt his throat tighten. He couldn’t speak.
“So I got up,” Max continued, his voice gaining strength. “I wanted to bring you breakfast in bed. Not because you forgot something. But because I remembered something. I remembered that I love you. On a Tuesday. In April. For no other reason.”
The world seemed to tilt and right itself on a new axis. The panic, the frantic calendar-checking, the dread—it all melted away, leaving behind a raw, tender shame. He had been so busy navigating the minefield of invented anniversaries, he had missed the simple, vast field of their ordinary life.
“The pancakes are shit,” Max added, the pragmatic racer re-emerging to puncture the sentiment. “I will order us something.”
Charles laughed, the sound wet and shaky. He reached across the table, covering Max’s hand with his own. “They are the most beautiful, terrible pancakes I have ever seen.”
Max turned his hand over, lacing their fingers together. His grip was firm, warm. “You were really sweating it, huh?”
“You have no idea,” Charles confessed, squeezing his hand. “I was ready to charter a plane to get you last-minute tulips from Amsterdam.”
“I hate tulips,” Max said, but he was smiling properly now.
“I know. That is why it would have been a grand, terrible gesture. Perfect for a missed anniversary.” Charles leaned forward. “Max… I am sorry. Not for missing a date. But for… for assuming. For thinking your love came with a calendar attached.”
Max shrugged one shoulder, a little awkward with the vulnerability. “I know I made the list. I know it is… a lot. My mother says I get it from my father. Once, he celebrated the anniversary of the first time they successfully parallel parked their old car together.”
That drew a genuine laugh from Charles. “That sounds about right.”
“But the list…” Max hesitated. “It is not a test for you, schat. It is… it is a map for me. My brain, it is good for racing lines, for setups, for data. For feelings? It is messy. These dates, they are like… waypoints. They help me remember to look up from the data and see you. To celebrate you. But the celebrating should not be only on the waypoints. The whole journey is the point.”
It was the most profound thing Charles had ever heard Max say about them. He stood up, pulling Max up with him. He wrapped his arms around Max’s waist, burying his face in the warm skin of his neck. Max’s arms came around him, strong and certain.
“I love you,” Charles murmured against his skin. “On a Tuesday. In April. For no other reason.”
He felt Max’s breath hitch. His embrace tightened.
“Good,” Max muttered into his hair. “That is the only one you really need to remember.”
They stood like that for a long while, in their sunny kitchen, amid the smell of burnt batter and coffee. The forgotten phone, with its daunting list, lay dark on the table.
Later, after they had ordered proper breakfast and were tangled together on the sofa, feeding each other pastries, Charles spoke again.
“So there is really nothing special about today?”
Max finished chewing a croissant. “Well. There might be one thing.”
Charles’s eyes widened. “Max! Do not tell me I was right! After all that!”
“No, no,” Max chuckled, wiping a flake of pastry from Charles’s lower lip. “Not an anniversary. A… a beginning.” He got up, walking to a drawer in the hallway console. He returned with a small, flat, velvet box.
Charles’s breath caught. It was too big for a ring. But…
“We are already married,” Charles said, confused.
“I know.” Max sat down, placing the box in Charles’s lap. “Open it.”
With slightly trembling fingers, Charles opened the box. Nestled inside were two keys on a simple silver ring. Not car keys. House keys.
“The new place,” Max said, his voice quiet. “In Monaco. The paperwork is done. It is ours. Officially. I got the keys yesterday.”
Charles stared at the keys. This wasn’t a commemoration of the past. This was a key to their future. A real, tangible, shared future in a home they had chosen together, not a driver apartment or a temporary rental. A home.
“You… you said the lawyer said it would take another week,” Charles stammered.
“I lied,” Max said, unrepentant. “I wanted it to be a surprise. A today surprise. Not a past surprise.”
Overwhelmed, Charles looked from the keys to Max’s hopeful, nervous face. This was Max’s language. Not flowers or grand declarations, but solid, real things. A terrible breakfast. A set of keys. A map of waypoints that had finally led them, inexorably, to this exact, ordinary, perfect moment.
He picked up the keyring, the metal cool in his hand. Then he launched himself at Max, knocking him back into the sofa cushions, kissing him with all the fervour of panic transformed into joy.
Max laughed against his lips, holding him close. “So you like it?”
“I love it,” Charles said, pulling back just enough to speak. His green eyes shone. “But it is now a date. April 17th. The day we got the keys to our real home. I am putting it on the list.”
Max groaned, but he was still smiling, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “You are impossible.”
“You started it,” Charles whispered, kissing him again, slow and deep. “With your stupid, perfect, burnt pancakes.”