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The orange cat-shaped mug had been sitting in Charles Leclerc's Monaco apartment for exactly two years. It was a gift from his younger brother Arthur, purchased from the Ferrari museum gift shop in Maranello, and Charles drank his morning tea from it every single day without exception. The ceramic had developed a tiny crack near the handle from repeated use, but Charles refused to throw it away. He was sentimental about things like that.
On Thursday morning, he reached for it in the cabinet above his espresso machine and found something else entirely.
The new mug was white with a hand-painted yellow cat on the front. The cat had blue eyes and was holding a tiny red heart between its paws. Below the cat, in neat handwriting that Charles recognized immediately, were the words "I'm sorry."
Charles stared at it for a long moment. Leo, his golden long-haired dachshund, padded over and pressed his cold nose against Charles's ankle.
"He broke into my apartment again," Charles told the dog.
Leo wagged his tail.
Charles filled the mug with hot water, dropped in a tea bag, and waited. The steam curled upward as he leaned against the counter, still in his sleep clothes, his brown curls messy from bed. He had not spoken to Max Verstappen in three days.
The fight had been stupid. Charles knew it was stupid even while he was storming out of Max's apartment, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the framed photo of them from the Monaco Grand Prix gala. Max had promised to be home by eight for their anniversary dinner. Charles had spent two hours preparing osso buco from his grandmother's recipe, the one she had taught him when he was seventeen and hopeless in the kitchen. He had set the table with candles. He had even put on the dark green shirt that Max said brought out his eyes.
At eight-thirty, Charles had texted: "Where are you?"
At nine, he had called. No answer.
At nine-forty-five, Max had walked through the door smelling of Red Bull Racing motor oil and someone else's alpha cologne, talking about how Christian had asked him to stay late to go over telemetry data and he had completely lost track of time.
The osso buco was cold. Charles had already scraped it into the trash.
"You could have texted," Charles had said, his voice quiet in that dangerous way that meant he was truly angry and not just annoyed.
"I forgot. I'm sorry, I genuinely forgot. The data was fascinating and Christian kept talking and I just—"
"You forgot our anniversary."
Max's face had done something complicated. His blue eyes had gone wide, then pained, then defensive. Charles had watched the shift happen in real time, the way Max's shoulders had tensed up toward his ears, his scent gland at the base of his neck releasing a sharp burst of distressed alpha pheromones that smelled like burnt caramel.
"I didn't forget," Max had said, which was somehow worse than admitting he had. "I just forgot what day it was."
Charles had left.
He had not answered Max's texts for three days. He had not answered his calls. He had seen Max exactly twice in the paddock at the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, and both times he had walked past him like he was made of air, which was difficult because Max's alpha scent always reached Charles before Max himself did, that warm blend of sandalwood and vanilla that made Charles's omega instincts sit up and pay attention.
On the second day, Charles's own scent had soured so noticeably that Pierre had asked him if he was getting sick. Charles had said he was fine. His wrist gland throbbed under the scent patch he wore, and he refused to acknowledge why.
Now, on the fourth morning, Charles turned the mug around in his hands.
The back had more writing.
"You said you like cute things. Don't you like me?"
Charles pressed his palm over his mouth. His green eyes were hot. He was still angry. He wanted to stay angry. Max Verstappen had missed their anniversary dinner and then tried to apologize by sneaking into his apartment and replacing his favorite mug with a hand-painted cat.
"Ridiculous," Charles said out loud. Leo tilted his head. "He is ridiculous. This is not an apology. This is a bribe."
Leo's tail wagged again, which was not helpful.
Charles drank his tea from the mug. He did not throw it away. He told himself this meant nothing.
At noon, Charles drove to Max's apartment.
He told himself he was going because he wanted to return the mug. He had wrapped it in a dish towel and placed it carefully in the passenger seat of his Ferrari, and he had rehearsed what he would say at least fifteen times on the short drive through Monaco's winding streets. He would be calm. He would be firm. He would tell Max that breaking into someone's home and stealing their belongings was not an acceptable way to apologize, and that he needed to learn to use his words like an adult.
Max's building had a private underground garage. Charles had the access code. He had had it for over a year, just like Max had the code to his place, which was how the mug theft had happened in the first place.
The elevator ride to the penthouse took forty seconds. Charles spent all forty of them failing to calm his heartbeat.
Max opened the door before Charles could knock. He must have heard the elevator or smelled Charles through the door, the way alphas could detect their omega's scent from an embarrassing distance. He was wearing gray sweatpants and a faded Red Bull team shirt with a hole near the collar. His blond hair was unstyled, flattened on one side from sleeping. There was a smear of something orange on his fingers. Paint, Charles realized. Paint from the mug.
"Hi," Max said.
He did not move from the doorway. His scent was controlled, deliberately neutral, which meant he was nervous. A nervous Max was a careful Max. Charles had learned this early in their relationship. The alpha who could scream on the radio during a race and call other drivers dangerous idiots was, in private, the gentlest person Charles had ever known.
"You broke into my home," Charles said.
"Yes."
"You stole my mug."
"I replaced it."
"That is not the point." Charles crossed his arms. He was still holding the dish-towel-wrapped mug. "The point is you cannot just sneak into my apartment because I am not answering your calls. The point is you missed our anniversary and then you decided that painting a cat would fix everything."
Max leaned against the doorframe. Jimmy, one of his leopard cats, wound between his ankles and then darted past him into the hallway, probably heading for the cat tree in the living room. Sassy was nowhere to be seen, which meant she was probably sleeping on Max's pillow.
"I did not think painting a cat would fix everything," Max said. His voice was low and even, the same tone he used when he was explaining something technical to his engineers. "I thought you would throw it away. I thought you were going to throw it at my head, actually. I prepared for that."
Charles narrowed his eyes. "You prepared for me to throw a mug at your head."
"I moved the breakable things in the hallway. Just in case."
Charles wanted to laugh. He did not laugh. He bit the inside of his cheek and held the dish towel bundle tighter.
"Three days," he said instead. "Three days, Max. You could have said something at the track. You walked past me twice."
"You told me not to talk to you at the track," Max said. "The first season we were together, you said it would be unprofessional to have relationship arguments in the paddock, and I should save it for when we are both home. So I did. I waited until we were both home."
Charles had forgotten he had said that. It had been almost three years ago, back when they had first started dating and everything had felt fragile and new, and Charles had been terrified of the paddock finding out and turning his private life into content for Drive to Survive.
"You remember that," Charles said.
"I remember everything you say," Max replied. He said it simply, without weight, like it was an obvious fact. "You said you liked cute things. That was on the flight back from Singapore. You were looking at cat videos on your phone and you said, 'I like cute things, that is why I am with you,' and then you showed me a video of a kitten falling asleep on a puppy."
The dish towel bundle was getting heavy in Charles's hands. He loosened his grip on it.
"That was two years ago."
"Two years and three months. It was after the night race. You had a fever from the heat and the team doctor made you drink electrolyte solution that you said tasted like seawater." Max scratched the back of his neck, near his scent gland. His pheromones had shifted from controlled-neutral to something warmer, something hopeful. "I know you, Charles. I know you hate it when I apologize with words because I am bad at words. You always say I sound like I am reading from a script. So I tried something else."
Charles unwrapped the dish towel. The white mug with the yellow cat sat in his palms. The blue eyes were slightly uneven, one a little larger than the other. The red heart was smudged at the edges where the paint had bled.
"You painted this yourself," Charles said.
"I am not an artist."
"No, you are not." Charles traced the cat's ear with his fingertip. "It looks like a potato with eyes."
"I followed a YouTube tutorial."
"Was the tutorial for children?"
Max's mouth twitched. "It was for beginners. The woman had a very calm voice. I watched it three times."
Charles set the mug down on the hallway table, next to a stack of mail and a Red Bull Racing lanyard. He stepped forward and pressed his forehead against Max's shoulder. The cotton of the team shirt was soft and smelled like laundry detergent and underneath that, like Max himself, sandalwood and vanilla and the particular warmth that Charles's omega brain had decided meant safety.
"I am still angry," Charles said into the fabric.
"I know."
"The osso buco took two hours. I used your grandmother's recipe. My grandmother's recipe. She wrote it down for me before she died."
Max's hand came up to rest on the back of Charles's neck. His thumb pressed gently against the edge of Charles's scent gland, not hard enough to stimulate it, just present. A grounding pressure. Alphas were not supposed to know how to do that without being taught, but Max had learned. Max had spent the first six months of their relationship reading about omega physiology like he was studying for an exam, because he had been terrified of doing something wrong.
"I know," Max said again. "I am sorry. I am genuinely sorry. I will make you osso buco. It will be terrible because I cannot cook, but I will make it anyway, and you can laugh at me, and then we can order pizza."
Charles lifted his head. His eyes were damp but not spilling over. "You cannot cook at all. Last time you tried to make pasta, you set off the smoke alarm and the building had to be evacuated."
"That was one time."
"It was three times. Three different buildings. Monaco, Milton Keynes, and the hotel in Austria."
Max's ears went pink. The tips of them, just barely visible under his messy blond hair. "The Austria one was not my fault. The pan was defective."
"The pan was not defective. You put oil in a cold pan and then walked away to play FIFA with Lando."
"I won the FIFA match."
Charles laughed. It came out wet and reluctant and not at all dignified, but it was a laugh, and Max's whole body relaxed like a puppet with its strings cut. His scent bloomed properly then, sandalwood and vanilla and relief, and Charles let himself breathe it in.
They stood in the doorway for a long moment. Sassy appeared at the end of the hallway, regarded them with the disdain of a cat who had been interrupted mid-nap, and then disappeared back into the bedroom.
"You have to promise me something," Charles said.
"Anything."
"You have to stop breaking into my apartment. We have keys. We have had keys for two years. You can just use the door like a normal person."
Max's expression flickered. "Technically I did use the door. I have a code."
"Max."
"I will use the door. And I will text you to ask first. Even if you are not answering my texts, I will text anyway, so there is a record of me asking."
"That is not what I meant and you know it." Charles pulled back far enough to look at Max properly. His blue eyes were tired, the skin underneath them faintly purple. Max had not been sleeping either. Charles could tell. He could always tell. "You cannot replace my things with apology gifts every time we fight. That is not how relationships work."
"I know." Max's voice went quieter. "I did not know what else to do. You would not talk to me. I thought maybe if I gave you something you would at least look at it, and then maybe you would come here so I could explain."
"You could have explained over text."
"You deserve better than a text apology. You deserve osso buco and candles and me showing up on time." Max's jaw tightened. His scent spiked with something bitter before he got it under control again. "I ruined it. I ruin things sometimes. I get focused and I forget the world exists and I hurt people without meaning to. I hurt you without meaning to. I am trying to be better at it."
Charles knew this about Max. He had known it since they were twelve years old and Max had been the strange blond kid at the karting track who did not know how to talk to other children but could drive faster than anyone Charles had ever seen. Max had always been like this, so focused on the thing in front of him that everything else fell away. It was not malice. It was never malice. It was just the way his brain worked, and Charles had fallen in love with him knowing it.
"You will be better at it," Charles said. "And I will stop giving you the silent treatment for three days because that is also not how relationships work."
"It was very effective. I felt terrible."
"Good. You should feel terrible. You missed my grandmother's osso buco."
Max winced. "You are going to hold that over me forever."
"Yes." Charles picked up the mug from the hallway table. "This is my new favorite mug. I am throwing away the old one."
"The old one had a crack. It was unsanitary. I have been wanting to replace it for months."
"You could have just told me it was unsanitary."
"You would have argued with me. You are very attached to objects. Last year you cried when your racing gloves got a hole in them and the team made you throw them away."
Charles opened his mouth to protest, closed it again, and settled for glaring. "Those gloves won me Monza. They had sentimental value."
"They had a hole. Your thumb was sticking out." Max reached out and took the mug from Charles's hands, turning it over to examine his own paintwork. "The eyes are really bad. I am sorry about the eyes. I tried to redo them four times and they kept getting worse."
"I like the eyes. They are stupid. They look like you."
Max looked up from the mug, and his expression was so transparently hopeful that Charles felt something in his chest crack open. Max Verstappen, three-time world champion, the most dominant driver in Formula One history, was standing in his hallway holding a badly painted cat mug and waiting to see if his boyfriend forgave him.
"Come inside," Max said. "I will make you lunch. Something that does not require the stove."
"I am not eating another protein bar. The last one you gave me tasted like chocolate-flavored sawdust."
"I have actual food. Daniel brought over leftover risotto yesterday. It is mushroom. You like mushrooms."
Charles followed him inside. Jimmy was sprawled across the back of the couch, his spotted coat gleaming in the afternoon light that streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The apartment was clean in the way Max's apartment was always clean, everything in its place except for the corner of the living room that had been turned into a temporary painting station. Newspaper covered the floor. There were six different brushes soaking in a cup of cloudy water. A paper plate held dried puddles of yellow, blue, red, and white paint.
"You made a disaster zone," Charles said, gesturing at it.
"I will clean it later. After lunch. Before lunch. I can clean it now if you want."
"Max. Relax. I am not going to leave."
Max exhaled. He set the mug on the kitchen counter and crossed to the refrigerator, pulling out a container of risotto. His movements were careful and deliberate, the way he did everything when he was trying not to make mistakes. Charles watched him portion the risotto into two bowls and put them in the microwave, watched him set the timer, watched him lean against the counter with his arms crossed.
"You are staring at me," Max said without looking up.
"I am thinking."
"About what."
"About how you remembered something I said two years ago on a plane. About how you painted a cat on a mug because I told you I like cute things. About how you broke into my apartment and committed a minor theft because you did not know how else to apologize." Charles walked over to the kitchen island and sat on one of the stools. "You are very strange, Max Verstappen."
"You like strange things." Max glanced at him, and the corner of his mouth lifted. "You told me that too. On the same flight. You said, 'I like strange things, that is why I am dating a Dutchman.'"
"I was jet-lagged and feverish. I do not remember half of what I said on that flight."
"I remember all of it. You talked for four hours. You told me about the time you tried to build a go-kart with your brother and it fell apart on the first turn. You told me about your grandmother's garden and the lemon tree that never produced lemons. You told me that when you were fifteen you had a crush on your physics tutor and you failed physics on purpose so you could keep seeing him."
Charles felt his face go hot. "I did not tell you that."
"You did. His name was Matteo. He had brown hair and you said he smelled like bergamot, which you found very sophisticated at the time."
"I am going to murder you."
"You cannot murder me. You just forgave me. It would be a waste of an apology mug."
The microwave beeped. Max pulled out the bowls and handed one to Charles along with a fork. The risotto was good, creamy and properly seasoned, which meant Daniel had made it and not Max. They ate standing at the kitchen island because Max did not own a dining table. He had replaced it with a second sim rig six months ago, and Charles had yelled at him about it for a week, and then they had eaten dinner on the couch every night since because Charles secretly preferred it.
"Next year," Max said between bites, "I will set seventeen alarms. On my phone, on my computer, on the microwave if it has an alarm function. I will not forget."
"Next year you will cook."
"I will attempt to cook. You will need to sign a waiver."
"A waiver."
"Releasing me from liability in the event of a kitchen fire."
Charles set his fork down. "Do you know what I actually want, for next year?"
Max shook his head.
"I want you to tell me if you are going to be late. That is all. Just a text. One text. 'I will be late, do not wait for me.' Then I will not make osso buco and I will not be angry and we will not have to do three days of silence and mug theft."
Max was quiet for a moment. His scent shifted again, still warm but with an undertone of something more serious. When he spoke, his voice was lower than before.
"I can do that," he said. "I will do that. I am sorry I did not do it before."
"I know you are sorry. You painted a cat."
"A very ugly cat."
"The ugliest cat I have ever seen. I love it. I am going to use it every morning for the rest of my life."
Max reached across the kitchen island and took Charles's hand. His fingers were still faintly stained with yellow paint around the nails. His palm was warm and dry and familiar. Charles turned his hand over and laced their fingers together, and Max's scent gland at his wrist pressed gently against Charles's, a casual contact that sent a slow pulse of calm through Charles's nervous system. Scenting, his omega brain supplied helpfully. He is scenting you. He missed you.
"You could have just said something at the track," Charles said quietly. "On Friday. You walked right past me outside the Ferrari motorhome."
"You were with Carlos. You looked like you wanted to set me on fire with your mind. I decided to wait."
"Smart decision."
"I occasionally make those."
Charles squeezed his hand. "Occasionally. Once per year, if we are lucky."
Max leaned over the kitchen island and kissed him. It was a brief kiss, gentle and undemanding, and when he pulled back his blue eyes were doing that thing they always did when he looked at Charles, that softening that Charles had noticed for the first time in a hotel room in Baku and had never stopped noticing since.
"I missed you," Max said.
"Three days."
"Three very long days. Sassy was upset. She likes you more than she likes me."
"Sassy has good taste."
"She does. She chose you."
Jimmy meowed from the couch, as if offended by the implication that he did not also choose Charles. Max glanced over at the leopard cat and then back at Charles.
"Jimmy also chooses you," he amended. "Both cats choose you. I also choose you."
"That is a lot of choosing."
"I am very committed to my choices."
Charles picked up his fork and took another bite of risotto. The mug sat on the counter between them, the crooked blue eyes of the yellow cat staring up at the ceiling. Outside the windows, Monaco glittered in the afternoon sun, all white buildings and blue sea and the distant sound of traffic winding up the hills.
"Next time we fight," Charles said, "just come to the door. Knock on the door like a human being. Do not sneak in and replace my belongings."
"Even if the belonging has a crack and is a health hazard?"
"Especially then."
Max nodded solemnly. "Understood. I will let you die of ceramic-related infections. This is what love looks like."
"Love is not stealing someone's favorite mug."
"Love is painting a replacement mug by hand using a YouTube tutorial for children."
Charles looked at the cat's lopsided eyes, its smudged heart, the way the yellow paint had dripped slightly near the base where Max had used too much water. He thought about Max sitting on his living room floor surrounded by newspaper, watching a calm-voiced woman explain how to paint a cat, ruining four attempts and starting over each time. He thought about Max remembering a throwaway comment from a feverish flight two years ago. He thought about Max, who forgot anniversaries but remembered everything Charles had ever said.
"You are right," Charles said. "That is what love looks like."
Max smiled. It was his real smile, the one that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made him look younger than twenty-six, made him look like the kid Charles had met on a karting track when they were both twelve and furious and determined to be the fastest person in the world.
"Finish your risotto," Max said. "Then we can watch a movie. You can pick. Even if it is that French one with the subtitles that I always fall asleep during."
"You fall asleep during every movie."
"I do not fall asleep during every movie. I fell asleep during one movie. Two movies. Three movies. I am a busy person, I require rest."
"You are a terrible person to watch movies with."
"And yet you keep watching them with me."
Charles looked at him across the kitchen island, at his paint-stained fingers and his too-big team shirt and his ridiculous hopeful expression, and felt the last of his anger dissolve like sugar in hot tea.
"I keep doing a lot of things with you," Charles said. "Do not make me regret it."
"I will not," Max said. "I promise. And if I do, I will paint you another mug. Possibly a dog this time. I think I could manage a dog."
"Please never paint again."
"No promises," Max said, and his scent was warm and happy and entirely, completely home.