Chapter Text
Max’s memories of her childhood are vague, mostly she remembers feelings, not specific events. She remembers the glittering lights of the Christmas markets, Victoria’s shrieks of laughter when she blew out the candles of her birthday cake, the taste of her favorite candies, and the tense line of her mother’s shoulders when her father came home after he lost a race. Memory is a strange thing, she has often mused, because there is one memory that is so sharp and clear she can describe it in detail.
And really, it was the only memory that truly mattered.
She has known her destiny was in racing since she was four and a half years old. She’d gotten behind the wheel of a kart and it had been an instant obsession, it was in her blood. It was her and the machine, united in a symbiotic relationship that transcended reason and understanding. The hum of the engine overlapped with the beating of her heart and it silenced everything around her. But more than just love, she had talent. It only got better when she started competing when she was seven and began to rack up wins. She quickly discovered that she liked to win and anything less was abysmal. The rush of joy she had felt had been unlike anything she had ever experienced and even years later, she was still hooked on the adrenaline.
Her father hadn’t always been strict but he drastically changed after the divorce. Her mother left the Netherlands and he became angry, resentful, and discontent at the inferiority of Max's gender. As the oldest, she had stayed with him, and he wanted her to quit. She reminded him too much of the karting champion he couldn’t tie down and he might’ve given up on her karting dreams if it wasn’t for the fact that Max had begged and pleaded for him to let her continue.
They’ll look at you, he had said, and see nothing but a weak, stupid girl. They’ll think you’re easy, so you must never be anything less than perfect. You have to be twice as good to even get your foot in the door.
She never got softness from him, after that, nor tenderness. Talent alone wasn’t enough, he had instilled in her; she needed discipline, hunger, and tenacity. He had beaten weakness out of her with a hard hand and had shaped her into a terrifying force in her own right. The bruises on her arms didn’t sting as much as losing did.
She doesn’t remember ever having any school friends—or any friends at all for that matter. Instead all she remembers are hours spent on the karting tracks; in the rain, in the bitter cold, under the hail. Day after day, until the kart was just an extension of her limbs. Until she could see nothing but racing lines when she closed her eyes.
Her father had never let her grow out her hair, said it was too much of a hassle to deal with between karting competitions and travel. He only bought her pants and t-shirts because he said he didn’t want her distracting the completion or give them any reason to think she was soft or easy. He didn’t let her paint her nails, or wax her eyebrows, or shave her legs; he made sure that there was nothing sweet or girly about her. He had ripped out from the root anything that would’ve brought her girlish joy.
Her mother sees the effects it has on her in the rare times she visits Belgium. She tries to tell Max she can race and like dresses at the same time, like Victoria, but Max brushes off her concern and parrots her fathers words, tells her it’s nothing but a distraction.
“And I don’t need distractions,” She says, her chin tilted up, barely twelve and already indoctrinated.
Sophie looks sad, sees the bruises on Max’s ribs, on her cheeks, and turns her face away. It won’t be until many years later that Max will understand that Jos was using her as punishment for her. Telling her indirectly, she is doing what you never could and I’m the one who got her there.
It had been easy in the beginning, in the years before she hit puberty, to blend in with the boys in her age group. She was as rowdy and as aggressive as any of them, especially on the track. Then she had hit thirteen and her body started to change, but even then, she could hide behind her formless race suit.
The boys didn’t approach her, mostly because of her father and his glares, but also because she was wiping the floor with them, and they did not like the fact they were losing to a girl. They had been mean, as boys often are when their pride is wounded, and said vile and cruel things behind her back. It had made her angry but she pressed the noise down and kept winning, kept showing them that she was a generational talent and better than them whether they liked to admit it or not. Charles was one of the few that challenged her head on without being a complete asshole about it, but she hated his guts. On principle.
At fifteen, as she brakes record after record, she began growing hungrier, angrier. A simmering rage was brewing below her skin, because it was hard for driver programs to take her seriously, even with all her accolades. At the same time, her father’s expectations kept growing and expanding too; growing bigger than what even she thought possible. Every time she thought she was reaching the end of the line, he would move the end goal further ahead and refused to wave the checkered flag.
Prove you were worth my time, he would tell her. Make it to the top.
And it wasn’t as thought Max didn’t want to make it to the top, because she did—oh how she did! But getting to the top is going to take more than just dreaming. She knows that her dream can end just like her mother's did: failing to progress beyond karting. To get to where she wants—Formula 1—she is going have to abandon more. So in the years following she dedicated more of herself to the machine, worked harder, acquired a razor sharp focus for her single minded pursuit, and slowly, she shed her identity until it was no longer her and the machine; rather, she was the machine. She was carbon fiber and engine oil; stronger than steel, obstinate, precise, ruthless, and she burned.
She catches the attention of Helmut and Horner, and though she thought them sleazy, rancid men, they were the ones who signed her. Both of them were raging misogynists, but they were business men first, humans second, and they saw her and all her wins, talent, and were willing to take a gamble.
"If it all goes to shit,” Helmut said to Jos while they were negotiating her contract, “We let her sink, but if it works out: we’re revolutionaries—and the whole world will be watching.”
He had smiled at her, almost kindly, and Max clenched her fists under the desk, digging in her nails into her palms. Jos didn’t rise up to defend her, rather, he seemed content to throw her into the swamp and let her figure it out. They were only giving her one chance, but that was all Max really needed.
When she broke the news to her mother, her mother had looked at her with pride, but even as she exclaimed the words, “I’m so proud of you!” Max could sense there was something close terror in her voice.
“Got any advice?” She asked, almost as a joke.
“Don’t let them win,” Sophie had immediately answered, “They will be jealous, and they will be bitter. They will ruin you.”
Max was speechless, she knew who the ’them’ she was referring to were—the men, the drivers. For some reason, that was not the advice she had been expecting, but also, maybe it was. Her mother knew what it was like—the world of Formula One, and all it entailed. Champagne, bloodlust, and cruelty that could chew right through her and spit her back out without regret.
She’d taken her mother’s advice to heart—especially because she had already gotten a taste of it. Mark was an American boy. She’d met him when she was sixteen, and he hadn’t been intimidated by her. At first. She liked the attention he had given her, especially because she didn’t get it from anyone else. She felt odd in her body sometimes, didn’t like her too big nose, the wideness of her hips and thighs, or her round cheeks but he made her forget about the things she didn't like about herself. Mark wasn’t good looking, but he was nice, and when he smiled his left cheek would show a cute dimple. He would talk to her like she was a person and it felt strange, though it shouldn’t have.
“You know,” He had said once, “When you race, you become completely different. Almost like a wild animal. It’s freaky,” He had laughed, but Max felt herself flush in humiliation, “It’s not a bad thing!” He had tried to amend, “I just think you should let people see more of the real you.”
She didn’t know how to feel about being compared to an animal—especially by someone who said they liked her. She tried not to think of his words, though they had already made an impression on her, and not a good one. As the season progressed, she kept winning, kept besting him, and his admiration slowly turned into frustration and then anger. His perception of her turned sour and he stopped being kind. He started avoided her, made excuses to not talk to her, started badmouthing her being her back, betraying the trust she had placed in him. She wishes she could say she had stood up for herself and confronted him, but she hadn’t been brave enough. After all, their little “relationship” was just private kisses and conversations shared trackside where no one could see them.
She thinks that by the end, he really had begun to hate her.
When the news broke that she would be joining Torro Rosso, he had been furious, had looked at her and not even congratulated her.
“You really are an animal,” He said unkindly, jealousy dripping from every word.
“Yeah,” She responded, grin sharp and false, hurt from being treated like she was invisible, “A predator.”
Before he could answer, she walked away and never saw him again.
But she had not known what true vindictive hate was until she made her Formula One debut.
They’re going to eat you alive, the noise around her taunted, they don’t care that you’re a girl.
An interviewer had asked her, “Max Verstappen, welcome. Youngest ever Formula one driver, seventeen years of age. You feel ready for this?”
“I hope so,” She had responded, with a nervous laugh, “We’ll see.”
Max really had hoped, briefly, that she would only be perceived as a driver, but that hope deteriorated when her first race ended in a DNF. Even thought it hadn’t been her fault, people had made it look like it was. She was criticized and scrutinized every which way. What made it worse was that it wasn’t even just her driving, it had been everything, even the things that didn’t matter—the way she talked, her hair, her way of dressing, her manners.
It had been infuriating.
Even after she began to earn points, she was still criticized. She was painted as reckless and dangerous. The other drivers’ comments didn’t help either, the noise around her kept growing louder and louder and the only time she could feel it go quiet was when she put on her helmet and gripped the steering wheel of a car.
It was around this time when she began growing more and more reclusive and any time she wasn’t racing or had other work duties, she was at home on her sim. It was easier there, to just drive and not have to hear the grating noise of the paddock.
Carlos was supportive where he could be, told her to not mind it, but it was easy for him to say. He wasn’t being nearly as nitpicked as she was even though he was chasing after the grid girls like a dog ran after a flock of birds. But that came with the territory of being an F1 driver so she supposes she couldn't really fault him for being charmed by the ‘perks’ of his station.
By the end of the season, she’d gotten used to her words being twisted until they lost their original meaning, so she stopped caring, stopped trying to be reasonable and spoke plainly and bluntly. She didn't smile at the cameras, didn't soften her words when she thought she was being asked a stupid question and soon, the media circus seemed bearable. But things take a nosedive again when she replaces Kvyat—at least she’d managed to get people eat their words after winning the Spanish Grand Prix that time. Victory had never tasted sweeter, standing on the top step of that podium.
Daniel had been a breath of fresh air. He was funny and kind; he grounded her in a way that no other teammate had ever done before. He had made her laugh until her sides hurt and after all the media PR they did together, Max’s popularity began to improve. Daniel brought out a side to her that was more personable, easier to digest, and she liked to make him laugh. She can admit that she had a bit of a crush on him and it didn’t help her case that the mechanics and the other people in the garages began to joke their “ki-ki-ay” routine was a mating call.
When he left, it really had left her disappointed but because of him, she had been able to realize that whatever disagreements she had with someone on the track didn't have to bleed into her personal life. So she begins to try to discover who she is outside of the car, splits herself into Max, the machine, and Max, the girl, who because of circumstance, she had never really gotten to know.
Where racing was concerned, she was becoming a bigger threat than people wanted her to be. Especially because it was her—Max Amelia Verstappen and they did not want to see her win. She had many incidents where her anger got the best of her, especially the whole fiasco with Ocon that had sent her community service hell, but she had let the noise fade into the background as best as she could. In 2019 and 2020 she had knocked on the door of greatness and it did not bend to her will but she wasn’t good at quitting. Never had been. If anything it made her more determined. She would never take no for an answer, she didn't get this far to not try again.
And then, as she knew it would happen since she was four and half years old, all the pieces fell neatly into place.
Abu Dhabi 2021.
The moment that she crosses the finish line and she hears "Max Verstappen you are the world champion!" everything comes rushing at her like a tidal wave. Relief, joy, and the overwhelming feeling of I did it!
Her father properly hugs her for the first time since she was seven, she feels tears gathering in the corners of her eyes and its as though she has finally managed to make him proud. She wants to hang on to him for longer but he pushes her away. The sting of the rejection is quickly soothed over when one of the mechanics lifts her in the air and the cheers from the crowd are loud enough to drown out the ringing in her ears. Her tears dry up before they even have the chance to fall.
The media storm that follows is close to insanity. She’d manage to dethrone the reigning seven time world champion and hell had broken loose. The death and rape threats had reached such an all time high that she had to hand off all her social media account access to her publicist because the bullshit was too much, even for her.
But no one could take her win away from her, her name was etched down next to the greats.
Now you must hold on to the title, Jos tells her, later that very same night, this cannot be enough for you.
She doesn't know how to feel, but she nods, agrees, because if he'd been right about everything else, he must be right about this too.
In 2022 she defends, shows the world that her win is more that just luck. The noise doesn't lessen, but she learns to ignore it.
So Max is not a stranger to a media smear campaign. At this point, she was used to it with how often it happened but year after year she has risen above it, kept her head above water, and conquered.
She has grown thick skin and is good at not caring what other people think of her, but all those incidents had made her guard her cards close to her chest. She is meticulous on what she lets the world see of her. They can get all her anger, all her sharp edges, and her rotten moods, but never her vulnerability—no, never that.
Until now.
And fuck if it isn’t eating her up.
A stupid picture—because she’d been careless and stupid, so stupid.
Max doesn’t know when it even started.
This—thing.
This weird fucking thing with—fucking princess George, of all people.
George who gets mani-pedis with her, and cooks her dinner, and buys her flowers, and treats her like she’s something precious. And Max isn’t used to the intense attention—not like this.
There had been a few others, of course, men and sometimes women, who had come and gone out of her life like passing ships in the night. The men she needed as a necessity, for the type of release she couldn’t reach on her own, and they were more than eager to provide it; but they though her as a passing novelty, never anything to take seriously, and they especially did not like how deep her pockets ran. They could not bend her to their will or use her as a stepping stone for their own goals so they quickly lost interest.
The women were softer with her but they expected too much from her and on the flip side, they did enjoy how deep her pockets ran. Sometimes that’s the only thing they saw. Max gave in, occasionally, splurged on clothes and gifts for them because it kept them around longer but she hated being taken advantage of and when Max stopped with the attention, they became annoying. They wanted her to beg them, chase after them, but Max would never do such a thing, so they left, jilted and upset.
But she's only ever been truly heartbroken twice.
The first one, Kelly, who was older than her, beautiful, but Max couldn't hang on to her. She was like water slipping through her fingers. Max is nineteen and handing her her bleeding heart, but Kelly pushed it way, says with her eyes what she can't with her lips: I don't love you. And Max had tried, she had but she didn't know how to keep her, and Kelly didn't want to be kept. She had only been with Max to pass the time and she didn't actually want a future together. Still, she had learned a lot from her, Kelly had taught Max the rules of the game and how to approach the more...legal technicalities of being a high profile athlete with everything to loose.
Her second relationship had been tumultuous—a fucking shitshow from the start. Max had been twenty-one, lonely and wanting attention from anyone who was willing to give it to her. Brandon had been sixteen years older than her, a financial analyst at Red Bull, and, most damming of all: married. He had been there, ready, with a warm smile, telling her the words she wanted to hear and at the same time feeding her lies and making her feel she like was crazy for wanting more than scraps. She doesn't like remembering that time of her life. Brandon thought her a simpleton, with nothing in her head but cars and racing. With the way Max had acted with him, hanging on to his every word like it was religion, she could see why he would think it. But if Max had learned anything from her hopeless relationship with Kelly it was how to cover her ass, even when she was stupid in love.
There was nothing sexy about NDA's but they definitely saved her career more than once when someone got foolishly brave and attempted to blackmail her. Brandon had tried, and Max had ruined him—he'd be lucky if he ever got a job in finance again. She would never be as weak as she had been at sixteen.
Everyone after, they were just fillers, until even that left her dissatisfied. She had a spectacular knack for choosing badly, it seemed.
No one had ever stayed, no one even tried, she was too busy, too focused on racing, too angry, too rough, too moody, too whatever.
Always just too much and somehow not enough at the same time.
But George had stayed, even after she had threatened to put him in the wall. When she was so angry she could have drowned in her own rage. He had stayed, and stayed, and stayed.
George had always been in her periphery, they were…cordial at best when they were younger and in the first few years of his F1 career. He, like all the other boys, gave her a wide berth back in their karting days, as if she were a lit firecracker about to go off at any second (which wasn’t a far off comparison). She thought him a good driver, especially after he moved to Mercedes and at the rate he was improving, she was sure one day she would face him head on in a championship battle, but other than the few times they had bad run ins in a race, he was just…there. He had always been just another competitor she had to beat, a coworker that worked in a different department than her. She felt very neutral about him.
Then came the 2023 season and that’s the first time she noticed him—really noticed him, because he made himself known. The incident in Azerbaijan leaves her fuming, blood rushing in her ears, especially when she goes back and sees his interview, "I'm not just going to wave her by because it's Max Verstappen in a Red Bull."
Dickhead, indeed.
But just as quickly as he set her off, her anger passes, and he goes back to being last on her list of priorities.
It had been in that stupid, fuckass padel game where they’d all made fun of her awful padel skills that she thought of him as more than just another driver on the grid and started to see him as an individual person. Maybe it was the hair, or his unguarded smile, or his stupid shorts, or maybe it had been the way he had patiently and without condescension attempted to help her with her swing when they were paired up together. She wishes she could say for sure. Maybe then she could make excuses for herself.
“We should play again sometime,” George had said, in a short moment when it had just been the two of them and there had been no cameras or microphones hanging around them.
I’d rather not, she almost bit back but something possessed her to nod, “That’d be nice.”
He’d texted her two weeks later: want to play some padle?
The instinctive answer was fuck no but she found herself responding: sure, when?
They met up sporadically to play after that but he would text her frequently about random things, send her memes, and she found herself responding and not totally hating him or his shitty British humor.
2023 had year had been the year all the noise around her had finally begun to grow quieter. She had dominated that season so spectacularly that nothing could have brought her down. Not the anonymous opinions of idiots online, not the comments of other drivers, not even her father’s growing indifference. By that time, she knew that he had begun to quietly grow discontent with her since her first championship win because Max had rebelled by starting to grow her hair out. It was something so inconsequential, but for some reason, he had not taken it well.
“Cut your hair,” He had ordered more than once.
“I don’t want to,” She responded every time and he would pinch his face in a grimace.
“I better not hear you’re whoring yourself out to your competitors,” He would spit with vile.
“It’s just hair.” She would argue, but somehow it was never enough to convince him otherwise.
Something bitter always burned in the back of her throat when he insinuated that she would stoop low enough to fall for one of the drivers on the grid. Because Max had rules for herself and she knew work and pleasure did not mix.
That’s why George had been something so unexpected. Something she didn’t go looking for, and for a long time, even avoided.
He’d always been handsome, beautiful even, but that was something anyone with eyes could see. She herself had said some unhinged things about his body when her brain to mouth filter turned off, and every time she remembered the interviews she would cringe in embarrassment. But he was a coworker, and that set him in a strict 'do not fuck him' category along with all the other drivers.
Unfortunately for her, her relationship with him was something that completely snowballed out of her hands.
It starts off as something vaguely close to friendship, she’s sure that’s all it is, in the beginning. It’s not like she could avoid him completely, even when they weren’t racing, they ran in the same circles in Monaco. Paddle games here and there, dinner with Lando, Charles, and Alex, celebrations at the club when she won—and she won a lot that season. She had crown herself world champion by Qatar and it had felt like she was on top of the world. George had been there, looking up at her on the podium with a strange look on his face, it was the first time she had noticed it. Something warm expanded and gave away in her chest, though she didn’t know what to attribute it to: George or her historic win.
At the turn of the new year, during pre-season testing, she knows immediately that the RB20 is not anything like Rocky. It's good but it doesn’t feel right under her palms, she feels rattling and resistance from the gearbox, the engine, and brakes. Its not smooth at all, but she makes it work, like she always does, because that’s just who she is.
And in the background of all the noise of the early season, George, inviting her to dinner.
Just the two of them.
She doesn't say no, but doesn't think anything monumental of it. They're just becoming closer friends, like Lando or maybe even Charles. But it's different, somehow, with George, he pays attention to everything she says, down to the smallest details. He lets her rant about her cats, her frustrations about the inconveniences of her day, the annoyance she feels about getting asked dumb questions by the media, and the thing is, he's not letting her just rant; he asks questions, looks at her like what she's saying is the most important thing he's ever heard.
It's disarming.
"The amount of Red Bulls you consume is alarming," He comments one day when they're in her apartment and he opens her fridge and finds it bare except for water and the energy drinks.
She flops on her couch as she answers, "It's like drinking coffee."
"It is nothing like coffee."
He pulls out a water bottle and a Red Bull and closes the fridge.
"Yes it is," She argues, "A cup of coffee is almost 100mg of caffeine, the Red Bull only has 80mg."
"Is that the excuse you tell yourself?" He asks, amused, coming to around the couch to sit next to her, "It still has more calories."
"I like the taste. It's not about the caffeine, I just drink them for the love of the game."
He looks at the drink with a wary gaze and hands it to her, "If you say so."
"I do say so," She says, cracking the can open and taking a long, satisfying sip.
"Well, it's great for your marketing team. You are Red Bull, at this point."
"Mmmm," She hummed, "Don't let Helmut hear you say that, he'll finally croak."
He laughed, and Max liked the way it washed over her, and she gets that feeling again, of something warm spreading over her chest.
Something is building up around them, Max doesn't want to give it a name, because if she acknowledges it then it makes it real, and if she makes it real, then she has to cut it off. But she begins to think about him more often, about the curve of his smile, the way his eyes shine, thinks about the strength of his shoulders, his steady hands.
She notices the way he'll take care of her even when she doesn't ask: tying her shoes when he sees her laces undone, switching out her gin and tonics for water when she's getting too drunk, making sure she makes it to her hotel room every night and then the following morning he's driving her personally to the airport when she's hungover. He'll make sure all her belongings make it on the jet, gives her water and aspirins, guides her to her seat, and pulls her eye mask over her eyes and lets her go to sleep.
"So is George your new personal assistant or what?" Lando asks one time.
"Huh?" She responded, dumbly.
"Well its not like he's not having the time of his life."
"What?" She asked.
Lando laughed and shook his head but didn't clarify, "Nothinggg."
It's a joke, but what Lando doesn't know is that they're together so often that her assistant will call George when she can't get a hold of Max.
Max tries very, very hard to not think about what that says about their relationship or how reliant she's become on him.
Things tip over, finally, in Canada. She thinks it's funny that they both set the same exact lap time even though it's ultimately Max that wins. At least they'd shared the podium.
Later that night, when they're out celebrating at a two-storied club, George finds Max hiding under one of the stair cases.
"There you are," He said, sitting down next to her.
"Mmm," She mumbles, not taking her eyes off her phone. She's playing Call of Duty: Mobile, her day had been so busy that she forgot to do her streak. A streak that she had kept up for almost two years, and she refused to loose it.
"They're looking for you, you know?"
"I'll go when I'm done."
George huffs, "This celebration is all for you and you're hiding away, playing games."
"They can wait," She said absentmindedly, "This can't."
George doesn't say anything more, lets her play her game until she's finished, already long used to being ignored when she's playing.
"There!" She exclaims when she wins, and finally looks up, it's then that she realizes just how close he is. He's leaning down, looking over her shoulder at her phone, face impossibly close. His hair is falling over his eyes, his cheeks are flushed from the alcohol, and his shirt has the first two buttons undone. When his eyes come up to her face, Max freezes, her breath catching in her throat.
"What?"
"It pisses me off how perfectly symmetrical your face is," She blurts, without thinking, trying to divert him from noticing that she'd been staring.
His eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and his lips quirk up, "I'll take that as a compliment."
"It's not," She emphasized, "It's an insult, Russell."
He rolls his eyes, "Sure it is."
"It is. It's like-I'm making fun of you, because you're so perfect all the time. You should loosen up, sometime."
"I'm not perfect all the time."
"Oh please, you're a stickler for the rules."
"Not always."
"I've seen your closet, mate, you color code your entire wardrobe. Not much of an argument there. Or what? You got some skeletons in there? I bet those are color coded too."
"I do not color code everything."
Max rolled her eyes, bumping his shoulder, "Rigghttt, and I didn't just win today."
"I'm being serious!" He says, a bit affronted, "I have flaws like everyone."
"I don't believe you."
"You don't have to believe me, but it's true."
"I bet you don't even have guilty pleasures," She jokes, egging him on.
"You have never been more wrong."
She laughs, absolutely delighted, "No wayyyy! Now I'm curious! What could possibly be the guilty pleasure of George Russell?"
He smiles like he's trying to hold back a laugh, "You'd never believe me if I told you."
"Is it something illegal?" She says, still grinning.
He nods solemnly, playing along, "Exactly, I'd be out of contract before the end of the year if anyone found out."
"Well now you gotta tell me."
He looks thoughtful for a moment but then says, "If you tell anyone, I'll never forgive you."
"I won't," She says, leaning closer, now really curious about his answer.
"Well," He started and then paused, a myriad of emotions crossing his face in an instant. She searched his face, waiting, and Max had been trying very hard to not be distracted by his eyelashes. But huh, Max had never noticed, but George had two perfectly placed moles on the right side of his nose. They're cute, her brain stupidly supplied and then short-circuits again when when she noticed, There's another one! Right there, on his cheek, close to his lips.
"Well," He started again, and she blinks, suddenly very aware that she'd been staring and there's no way he didn't notice this time. "I know I shouldn't," his voice had been thick but lower and softer, "But these days I've been really liking," His eyes flicker down to her lips and back up to her eyes, "Red Bull."
If Max had been thinking reasonably, she would've laughed, made fun of him, but instead, she felt a hot blush overtake her face down to her neck.
George tracks it, slowly he drags his eyes, from her ears, to her cheeks, to her lips, down to her neck, and back up to her eyes. He moves closer, his eyes narrowing, intentions clear, and Max—she should stop him, but she doesn't want to.
George kissed her, and the world had gone absolutely silent.
George had been as irritating about being in a relationship as he was about everything else. He kept a copy of Max's schedule on his tablet, coordinating with her assistant to carve out time for them to spend together. He even penned in and considered the time she spent on her sim, he planned dates around it, spent time researching the menu of three different restaurants before he settled on their dinner plans, and learned her favorite dishes to cook when she didn't feel like going out.
Max would've felt bad, if it wasn't for the fact that she knew that for George, planning was half the fun.
He also doesn't mind being her secret. She supposed that he understood, since he was also had his own reputation to keep.
"My father can never know about this," She had told him. "Ever."
He had given her a look and joked, "Not even when we get married?"
She'd shaken her head, "As if we'll ever last that long."
"We might," He said, his voice strange.
Max didn't answer but she didn't even think they would last past the summer break. He was just...easily accessible but she wasn't going to tell him that.
They spend the summer together, soaking in the sun and fuck, George puts her through the mattress so good she might have to rethink her entire approach about this relationship thing. She doesn't realize how screwed she truly is until she almost fucks it up as she's prone to do.
Qatar 2024 and everything that follows sends her into a spiral and she has the dawning realization that the last thing she wants is to lose him.
Max is used to anger as a reaction, a too tight grip on her forearm, a slap across the face, a violent action done in the heat of the moment or words screamed out until her ears are ringing. Her father had frequent explosive bouts of anger, and the consequences were ones she had to pay dearly, but they didn’t last. Even when she was left in the gas station, when she had walked back home, the next day he had made her breakfast. Then he proceeded to dissected all her mistakes from the race down to its bones over pancakes.
She’s not used to calculated anger. Cold and precise, anger that lasts longer than a day, bleeding out into weeks. Silent and irritating. Like a rash.
George's brand of anger.
Unthinkingly, she had mouthed off in front of the cameras in the heat of the moment but it had immediately fizzled out hours later. She had sent him a message when her head cleared, disregard that.
George had left her on seen.
The next day she seeks him out early in the morning before they're scheduled to flight out, what she doesn't realize at the time is that while her anger is now ashes, his has been simmering. She lets herself into his hotel room with the spare key he had given her the previous Wednesday night. He's not there but she waits for him, takes note that his suitcase is packed, so she concludes he must be getting breakfast.
She doesn't know how much time passes, but when George finally makes it back to the room, she's almost dozing off on the bed. The shutting of the door wakes her from her stupor.
"Hey," She greets, a bit groggy and sitting up.
He freezes when he sees her, his lips falling into a tight line.
"Flight leaves soon. Did you wanna leave to the airport right now?" She asks.
George looks at her with steady eyes, but doesn't say anything.
"What?" She presses, when he still doesn't say anything to her, and she slides of the bed, slipping on her shoes.
He swallows thickly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and then finally says, "I thought your assistant told you, but I'm flying with the team today."
"What?" She asks, confused, "Why?"
"I think it would do us some good to have some space."
"But why?" She repeats, "What for?"
"What do you mean 'why?'" He asks incredulously, "Did you forget everything you said yesterday? That you 'lost all respect for me' and I'm 'two-faced'?"
“You're still mad about that?" She questions in disbelief, "Fuck, George you are acting like the one with the pussy here is you and not me.”
The moment the words are out of her mouth, she knows she's fucked it. He'd confided in her about disliking the way people insulted him, and here she was, using it to her advantage.
George takes a sharp breath and his cheeks flush in anger.
"Wait-" She tries to back track, "That-"
"Don't." He stops her, holding a hand up, "Just-dont."
"No, I shouldn't have—"
"Verstappen," He cuts her off, and the way he said it, makes her freeze, "Stop!"
He'd taken his suitcase and walked out of the room, leaving Max behind, too stunned to chase after him. On the jet, the spot next to her was like a black hole in the way it felt wrong in its emptiness. She hoped that things would smooth themselves out, George had said they needed space, and she expected their time apart would quell his ire.
But he had avoided her during the driver dinner and in the next Grand Prix he had made his thoughts very known.
She had felt hot rage when she heard the interview, because why? Why the fuck would he do that? Why did he not just confront her in person and instead went to the fucking media?
She should've known. She should've seen this coming from kilometers away, he was just another Mark. Another two-faced asshole that got close to her because they couldn't beat her were it mattered. Red hot angry tears sting the back of her eyelids, but she refuses to let them fall, even though she's rabid with anger, she somehow manages to bite back with coherent words.
If George wanted to play this game, she would play it.
She's more that fine letting things stand as they are, Max had never needed anyone.
She doesn't need him at all.