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Max’s thumb hovered over his phone screen. The text thread with Charles was a mix of mundane logistics and coded phrases that would look like nothing to anyone else. Today, the message was simple. Engine feels odd. Need a second opinion. Their agreed-upon code for I miss you and I want to see you outside the bubble.
He typed a reply. Garage might be free. 1400. He hit send. The wait was brief. Charles’s response was a single thumbs-up emoji. Max felt a faint, familiar curl of anticipation in his stomach. It was different from the pre-race kind. This was sharper, sweeter, and entirely tied to a specific pair of green eyes.
The problem was the world. The world meant cameras, fans, reporters, team members, and a sea of phones always held aloft. The world saw them as rivals, points on a championship table, headlines waiting to happen. It did not see, and could not see, what they were. Max found the constant performance exhausting. Charles, for all his public poise, found it wound him tight with a quiet anxiety. Their relationship was a secret, meticulously guarded. It was their most precious piece of engineering, and sometimes, it needed a test run outside the lab.
The plan was always the same. A neutral location, far from any circuit or team hotel. Today, it was a vast, modern art museum in a city neither of them knew well. It was the perfect place. Indoors, spacious, quiet, and requiring a certain level of anonymity just to blend with the other visitors.
Max stood before his closet. The disguise was a uniform. A black beanie pulled low over his distinctive blonde hair. Large, dark sunglasses hid his blue eyes. A surgical mask covered the lower half of his face. The final piece was a long, heavy coat, charcoal grey and nondescript. He looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like a man who might have a bad cold or a minor criminal. He looked nothing like Max Verstappen, Formula 1 World Champion. Perfect.
He arrived early, circling the block twice in a hired car that was as anonymous as his coat. He saw Charles before Charles saw him. He was leaning against a wall near the museum’s side entrance, similarly shrouded. A navy beanie was pulled over his brown curls. Oversized sunglasses and a mask obscured his face. A long, tan coat reached his calves. Even bundled up, there was a particular grace to his posture that made Max’s pulse quicken. Charles Leclerc was, objectively and in Max’s very subjective opinion, a very beautiful person. It was an inconvenient truth that made their subterfuge both necessary and absurd.
Max walked up, keeping a careful meter of distance. He gave a slight nod toward the entrance. Charles nodded back. No words. They were two strangers proceeding into a museum. They bought tickets from separate machines, not looking at each other. The lobby was cool and echoed with soft footsteps. They drifted toward a gallery filled with intimidating sculptures.
Only when they were surrounded by towering, twisted metal forms did Max close the distance. He stopped beside Charles, who was pretending to study a plaque.
“Your engine trouble sounds serious,” Max murmured, his voice low behind his mask.
Charles didn’t turn his head. A smile was audible in his voice. “A persistent issue. Very high-revving. Needs careful handling.”
“Maybe it’s the driver.”
“The driver is excellent.”
They began to walk slowly through the gallery, side by side, maintaining a careful, friend-like gap. The tension was a live wire between them. It was in the glance Charles snuck from behind his sunglasses, in the way Max’s hand flexed at his side. They wanted the contact they were denied everywhere else. The plan was for here, in the quiet, cavernous spaces between exhibits.
They turned a corner into a new room. This one housed abstract paintings, vast canvases of swirling color. It was emptier. Max made a decision. He stopped, pretending to examine a particularly violent splash of red and yellow. Charles stopped beside him.
“Now,” Max said, the word barely a breath.
In one smooth, practiced motion, both men unbuttoned their long coats. The heavy fabric fell open. In the shadowy space between their bodies, shielded from any possible sightline by the walls of their coats, Max’s hand found Charles’s. Their fingers slotted together, palm to palm, a tight, desperate clasp. They let their arms hang naturally at their sides, the joined hands hidden perfectly in the tent of their coats. To anyone walking by, they were just two oddly overdressed men standing rather close to a painting.
The effect was immediate and electric. The simple, secret contact sent a wave of warmth through Max that had nothing to do with the coat. He could feel Charles’s glove against his own skin. He gave Charles’s hand a firm squeeze. Charles squeezed back, his thumb stroking a slow arc over Max’s knuckle. A silent conversation. I’m here. You’re here. This is real.
They started walking again, a slow, synchronized pace. It was awkward, a four-legged gait constrained by the need to keep their conjoined hands concealed, but it was the most liberating walk Max had taken in months. Every brush of Charles’s shoulder against his arm, every subtle shift of their linked fingers, was a universe of communication.
“This one is ugly,” Charles whispered, nodding toward a canvas of brown and grey geometric shapes.
“They’re all ugly,” Max replied. “I don’t care.”
Charles’s laugh was a soft huff of air behind his mask. “You have no culture.”
“I have enough.”
They wandered from room to room, a slow-moving island of secret intimacy in a sea of art and murmured conversations. The museum’s layout helped, with its nooks and alcoves and dimly lit passages. In a hallway connecting two wings, almost completely deserted, Max dared to lift their joined hands slightly, just enough to press a quick, masked kiss to the back of Charles’s wrist, feeling the bone and tendon beneath his lips. Charles inhaled sharply. The sound went straight to Max’s core.
“You are reckless,” Charles whispered, but he leaned his weight more firmly into Max’s side for a moment.
“You like it,” Max stated.
Charles didn’t deny it. He just linked their fingers tighter.
The afternoon unfolded in a series of stolen moments. A shared glance over a bizarre video installation, their hidden hands swinging gently between them. A silent, laughing fit in front of a pretentious sculpture that looked like a crumpled water bottle. Standing before a serene landscape, Charles’s thumb tracing calming circles on Max’s palm, a silent antidote to the constant pressure they both lived under. They didn’t talk much. They didn’t need to. The connection thrummed through their clasped hands, a steady, reassuring current.
The problem with perfect moments is their fragility. They were in a room dedicated to mirrors and light, their reflections fractured and repeated endlessly. Max was momentarily fascinated by the sight of them—two faceless, coated figures, standing together. You couldn’t see their hands. It was a perfect metaphor.
Then he saw it. In one of the mirror fragments, a glimpse of a phone held at a curious angle. A young man, a few exhibits away, was not looking at the art. He was looking at them. Or rather, he was looking at Charles, his head tilted in a way that suggested recognition.
Max’s body went on high alert. He didn’t tense, a skill honed on the track. Panicking broadcasted trouble. He simply leaned in, as if to examine the art more closely, and spoke softly into the space between them.
“Ten o’clock. Phone. Might be looking.”
He felt Charles’s hand stiffen in his for a second, then deliberately relax. Charles gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. Their carefully constructed bubble had developed a pinprick leak.
“The next room,” Charles murmured. “Crowded.”
They moved, still linked, their pace unhurried but purposeful. The room with the mirrors led into a packed exhibition of a famous pop artist. The space was full of people and noise. It was their best chance. They weaved through the crowd, their hidden hands still tightly held, a lifeline in the sudden press of bodies. Max kept his head down, his sunglasses scanning the reflections in the glass cases. He didn’t see the phone again. Maybe it was a false alarm. Maybe the guy was just texting and happened to glance up. But the risk was now a tangible thing in the air, spoiling the sweetness.
They found a relatively quiet corner near an emergency exit sign. The pop art was bright and loud around them.
“We should go,” Max said, the words tasting sour.
“I know,” Charles replied. His voice was quiet. He sounded disappointed, but not surprised. This was their reality. The clock always ticked on their stolen time.
“Separately. You first. I’ll loop back and leave in five.”
Charles nodded. This was the drill. But neither of them moved to let go. Their hands were still locked together in the sanctuary of their coats. Max turned to face him, just slightly. He could see the faint outline of Charles’s jaw beneath the mask, the curve of his lips.
“Tonight,” Max said. It wasn’t a question. They had a hotel, booked under different names, in a different part of the city. It was the final leg of their hidden lap.
“Tonight,” Charles confirmed. He finally, slowly, loosened his grip. His fingers trailed against Max’s palm as he withdrew his hand. The loss of contact felt like a drop in temperature. Max buttoned his coat, sealing away the warmth. Charles did the same, becoming once more a solitary, anonymous figure.
Without another word, Charles turned and melted into the crowd, heading for a different exit. Max watched him go, the elegant line of his coat, the set of his shoulders. He waited, counting seconds in his head, his own hand still tingling with the memory of Charles’s touch. The museum, which had felt like a playground minutes ago, now just felt like a public space full of eyes.
He left as planned, taking a circuitous route back to the car. The drive to the hotel was quiet. He used a service entrance, took the elevator to the top floor, and let himself into a bland, spacious suite. He shed the disguise, tossing the beanie, glasses, and mask onto a chair. He ran a hand through his flattened hair and waited.
Twenty minutes later, a soft knock came at the door. A specific pattern. Two quick, three slow. Max opened it.
Charles slipped inside, already pulling off his own beanie and mask. His sunglasses were tucked into his coat pocket. His brown hair was mussed, and his green eyes were bright, a little wide with the residual adrenaline of their near-miss and the journey over. He was flushed, beautiful, and here. Entirely here.
Max locked the door and turned. They looked at each other across the impersonal hotel room. The pretense was gone. The walls were down.
“That was close,” Charles said, letting out a long breath.
“It was nothing,” Max replied, walking toward him. He stopped a foot away. “He didn’t follow.”
“I know. Still.” Charles reached up and began unbuttoning Max’s shirt, his fingers nimble and sure. “I hate it. The hiding.”
“I know.” Max’s hands went to Charles’s coat, pushing it off his shoulders. It fell to the floor with a heavy thud. “It won’t be forever.”
“It feels like forever.”
Max didn’t answer with words. He cupped Charles’s face in his hands and kissed him. It was a deep, thorough kiss, claiming and reassuring all at once. It was everything they couldn’t do in the museum, in the paddock, in the world. Charles leaned into it, his hands coming up to grip Max’s wrists, his mouth opening under Max’s. The anxiety of the afternoon melted away, burned off by a more urgent, focused heat.
Later, much later, they lay tangled in the dark. The city lights cast soft patterns on the ceiling. Charles was a warm, solid weight against Max’s side, his head on Max’s shoulder, his fingers idly tracing patterns on Max’s chest.
“The best part,” Charles said, his voice drowsy and content, “was the hallway. With the ugly paintings.”
“The brown one?”
“No. The one before. Where you…” He didn’t finish, just brought Max’s wrist to his own lips and brushed a kiss there, mirroring Max’s earlier gesture.
A simple touch. Hidden then, open now. Max tightened his arm around Charles, pulling him closer. He thought of the endless races, the points, the politics, the noise. It all faded into background static. This, here, was the only thing that made absolute, perfect sense. The hidden laps were a necessity, but this—the quiet, the truth of skin on skin, the steady rhythm of Charles’s breathing—this was the victory. This was the finish line he kept chasing, over and over.
“Next time,” Max said, his voice a low rumble in the dark. “Maybe the botanical gardens. Bigger coats.”
He felt Charles’s smile against his skin.
“I’ll check my schedule,” Charles mumbled, already half-asleep. “Engine might need another opinion.”
Max closed his eyes, a genuine, unguarded smile touching his own lips.