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Max didn’t know how to feel. He was happy for Liam and Isack, of course he was. The picture they had shared made their love for each other obvious, and he should have just been happy for them. He should let this lingering bullshit go and just be happy for his younger teammate and his boyfriend.
He should be happy with the largely positive response from the rest of the grid. Sure, he knew there were members that were more ignorant, but nobody had been rude, nobody had made any comments about Isack and Liam’s relationship beyond expressing happiness for them and offering support.
It had been over a year and a half. Max needed to get over it.
All he had said was ‘oh.’ It was stupid to think that he’d wanted a bigger reaction than that. Maybe even a message. That was dumb. Stupid thought. They hadn’t messaged each other privately this season. Their last messages were from December of last year. An unanswered ‘sorry’ from Charles was the most recent thing in their text thread.
He still wasn’t sure who it was in the end, who said the words that had Max walking out of that cramped bathroom stall of the club and back to his own hotel room, alone. It wasn’t like they had talked about it since then.
He should have been celebrating in the club, getting blackout and dancing and screaming until his voice was shot and he stumbled back to his hotel in the wee hours of the morning. It had been his fourth championship in as many years, and all he wanted to do was celebrate with his boyfriend. He wanted to hold him close, press him into his mattress and wake up with him the next morning with his body sore and heart full.
It wasn’t Charles’ fault. Max didn’t blame him. He wasn’t sure if he blamed himself either. Charles was the only one really thinking right. Ferrari was already pissed at them him for sneaking into Red Bull’s motorhome to congratulate Max. They were in a bathroom, but it was still a public bar in Las Vegas. Charles was just trying to protect them.
They had hardly been together for a year. Max had thought Charles was it for him. He still thought that, if he was being honest, he’d tried dating again, and when that hadn’t worked, he’d moved on to flings and hookups. It still hadn’t worked. He wasn’t able to stop thinking about Charles. There wasn’t a day that that passed without a thought of him.
Nobody else had the history they did. Max couldn’t remember the first time they met each other, but Charles had been on his mind since they met. It sounded too romantic to even think. He’d never been much of a romantic until they got together, and then it was like every romantic inclination had been waiting for the other man. After their years long back and forth, countless nights together they called ‘convenient hookups’ to protect their poorly disguised feelings. It was lovely, to feel safe and cared for like that, to care for someone else in that way. Max had thought that it was the start of forever with his person. He had been in the middle of his most dominant season, and now he had the man he’d loved since he was a teenager. And it was wonderful at first, until they told their teams.
Red Bull had been fine, a little annoyed at the idea that Max was in a relationship with a competitor, but they got over the gay bit quickly. His performance thus far in 2023 had softened the blow a bit. Ferrari were a different story. On paper they were reluctantly supportive. They made no efforts to break up the pair, but they made liberal use of a part of Charles’ contract that he’d neglected to pay attention to before. It had never come up before, but Ferrari had full control of Charles’ public image in the case it affected the reputation of the team. They determined that, if it were to get out, the fact that their driver was gay, and in a relationship with another driver, would be harmful to the team’s reputation and legacy.
It wasn’t Charles’ fault, but it was hard to feel like their relationship was real when it was only allowed to exist away from race tracks and teams. It was hard for Max to feel like he really had Charles when they couldn’t see each other. It was fine, in the beginning, neither of them wanted to come out, to be the first queer drivers on the grid, and then it had devolved. Charles wasn’t allowed to go to Red Bull, Max wasn’t allowed in Ferrari. Their only public appearances were allowed to be during prescheduled events. They couldn’t be seen together outside of the track. They had been able to see each other more during a race weekend back when they were just hooking up in secret. Charles was always distant at the track. It was hard for Max to be around Charles, he had to have a model hanging off his arm at every public appearance. The women didn’t know the extent of it, only a few ever knew Charles was gay, that his sexuality was the reason for the PR appearances.
They never knew about Max. Nobody in Charles’ life knew about Max, and nobody in Max’s knew about Charles. Nobody but their teams.
Nobody knew.
That was what it really came down to in the end. Max’s mother didn’t even know. He’d said those exact words on that night in Las Vegas. Max didn’t need the world to know, but hiding like they were made what they had feel like a dirty secret. Charles was scared. Whether it was of Ferrari, or the fans, or the media, that is what it came down to. And Max couldn’t blame him. He was scared too. He still was, though it was mostly worry for Isack and Liam now.
Max hated that he wanted Charles to text him. He hated that he was too much of a coward to send the message himself.
Max pressed his hands into his face. He thinks he is happy for them. That the world had improved enough that Liam and Isack could be a different, could tell people. Something in the back of his brain told him it was just because it wasn’t Ferrari.
Charles still hadn’t said anything else. The messages had moved on, joking and teasing the couple, but a click of a button showed that Charles was still online.
Max threw his phone across the bed. He was being fucking stupid. Charles had surely moved on, he looked happy in the paddock, smiles and bright eyes that just made Max miss him even more. He needed to move on.
It had been nearly two decades since he fell in love. It had been a year and a half since they broke up. He wasn’t sure if he could.
⋆⋆⋆
Max couldn’t stop himself from scrolling. Page after page of blatant homophobia, of jokes that tried to hide their prejudice, and comments that questioned Isack and Liam’s place in the sport. Neither were top drivers, and this seemed to only fan the flames of those parts of the internet that already wanted to see them out of the sport.
He read a comment blaming poor performance at the last GP on Isack and Liam’s sexuality, and threw his phone across the bed. It was fucked. Max had never seriously considered coming out before, but seeing assholes on the internet using his name to defend their abuse, to excuse their hatred, made him so angry. He didn’t know what to do. Liam and Isack had messaged in the grid group chat, and they seemed to be in good spirits. Red Bull and VCARB had made statements of support, and the boys’ joint Instagram post seemed positive, but Qatar was less than a week away, and he knew the media was going to be awful.
It would help. Maybe. Maybe it would just make it worse. Max Verstappen comes out as bisexual! He could see the headlines now. He had never wanted the media to know, at least not until he had long since retired and settled down. He hadn’t even let himself consider coming out publicly when he was still with Charles, it wouldn’t have been possible with Ferrari’s contract, and thinking about what they couldn’t have just made the situation even worse.
And he was back to thinking about Charles. It had been worse in the past few months, seeing glimpses of Isack and Liam getting to be happy, together, had him considering the what-ifs even more than he had before. It was already too frequent before, and now Charles was on his mind near-constantly. He felt like he was going to implode if he saw that grin again in the paddock.
Max wasn’t going to come out, he decided. Red Bull would be pissed, to have to use another one of their ‘just-in-case’ statements today. He did leave a comment on Isack and Liam’s post, longer than his usual comments were, sure to make his opinion on the situation clear. Maybe the assholes online would stop using his name to spread their hatred. He wouldn’t count on it.
If he spent the rest of the day scrolling through that locked photo album on his phone, the one with the pictures that nobody would get to see, that was between him and the photos.