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The invitation arrived on a Tuesday, embossed with silver lettering and a photo of Carlos and Lando looking nauseatingly in love. Max stared at it for a long moment, thumb resting on the RSVP line, thinking about the guest accommodation form that had come with it.
One room. One bed. One weekend.
He ticked “attending” and told himself it wouldn’t be a problem.
Six months was enough time to get over someone. Six months was enough time to forget the way Charles’s green eyes crinkled at the corners when he genuinely laughed, or the way his scent—honeysuckle and sea salt—used to cling to Max’s pillows for days after he left. Six months was clinically, mathematically sufficient.
Max had done the calculations. He was fine.
The ceremony took place at a vineyard in Provence, late afternoon sun making everyone squint. Max sat in the third row, Jimmy and Sassy safely boarded back in Monaco, and kept his eyes fixed on the floral arch where Carlos was already standing, looking like he might vibrate out of his own skin with happiness.
Charles arrived thirty seconds before the music started, slipping into the seat two rows behind Max. Max knew this because his alpha senses picked up the honeysuckle before his brain registered anything else, a sharp tug behind his sternum that he refused to acknowledge.
He did not turn around.
Lando walked down the aisle with his sleeves rolled up and his bow tie already crooked, and Max watched Carlos’s face go soft in a way that made something twist in his chest. Charles made a small sound behind him, barely audible, and Max’s fingers tightened on his program.
At the reception, they were seated at the same table. Strategic error on someone’s part—probably Lando’s, who had never met a social grenade he didn’t want to pull the pin on. Max positioned himself behind a floral centerpiece and focused on his champagne.
“You’re avoiding me,” Charles said, appearing at his elbow three hours in.
“I’m standing still,” Max replied. “You approached me.”
Charles’s mouth did something complicated. “The accommodation office put us together.”
“I saw.”
“I can ask them to change it.”
Max should have said yes. The word was right there, sensible and clean. Instead he said, “It’s fine,” and watched Charles’s scent gland pulse once at the base of his throat, a tiny betrayal of omega anxiety that Charles’s carefully neutral expression gave nothing away about.
“Fine,” Charles repeated.
“Fine,” Max confirmed.
Neither of them moved. The DJ started playing something with a heavy bass line, and Pierre crashed into their tableau to drag Charles toward the dance floor, shooting Max a look that clearly communicated fix this, you idiot in the universal language of protective best friends.
Max had another glass of champagne and did not watch Charles dance. He absolutely did not watch the way Charles’s collar gaped when he threw his head back laughing, revealing the elegant line of his throat.
Four months ago, Max would have pressed his mouth to that exact spot. Would have felt Charles’s pulse flutter against his lips. Would have—
He went to find the bar.
The room was on the second floor of the guest house, a converted stone barn with exposed beams and a bed that was generous by French standards but laughably small by “two Formula One drivers who used to sleep tangled together and now haven’t spoken in half a year” standards.
Max took the left side. Old habit. Charles always slept on the right, curled toward the wall, one hand tucked under his pillow. Max knew this the way he knew racing lines—embedded deep, automatic.
Charles emerged from the bathroom in soft cotton pajamas, his brown curls damp and his scent gland glistening faintly from whatever moisturizer he’d applied. The honeysuckle hit Max like a physical force, undercut with something sharper. Charles was nervous. His omega instincts were probably screaming at the proximity of an alpha in an enclosed space, especially an alpha who—
An alpha who wasn’t his anymore.
“I can sleep on the floor,” Max said.
“Don’t be stupid.” Charles pulled back the covers on the right side. “We’re adults.”
Right. Adults. Adults who had screamed at each other in a Monaco apartment six months ago, Charles’s voice cracking on “I can’t keep doing this, I can’t keep being second to everything else in your life,” Max’s silence filling the space where explanations should have gone.
Adults who hadn’t spoken since.
Max turned off the lamp. The darkness made it easier to breathe, or maybe harder—he couldn’t tell anymore.
“Goodnight, Charles.”
A pause. “Goodnight, Max.”
Max woke at 3:16 AM to the soft rustle of fabric and the particular chill of night air against exposed skin.
Charles had kicked the duvet off again.
It was such a familiar sight that Max’s chest ached with it. Charles sprawled on his stomach, one arm flung out, the duvet pooled around his ankles. His pajama top had ridden up, exposing a strip of lower back, and he was shivering slightly in his sleep, his body curled inward against the cold.
Max stared at the ceiling for thirty seconds. He was not going to touch the duvet. He was going to let Charles freeze, because Charles was a grown adult who had chosen to end things, and Max’s alpha instincts could damn well mind their own business.
Charles shivered again, a tiny unconscious sound escaping his throat.
Max got up.
He moved carefully, the way he did everything, and pulled the duvet up inch by inch. He tucked it around Charles’s shoulders, smoothed it down over the exposed strip of back, made sure the edges were secure against the draft from the old windows. His fingers brushed Charles’s hair away from his face—still damp at the ends, smelling faintly of the hotel shampoo beneath the honeysuckle.
Charles’s breathing stayed even. Steady. Asleep.
Max allowed himself two seconds to look at Charles’s face in the moonlight, the fan of his dark lashes against his cheeks, the slight pout of his mouth. Then he withdrew his hand and went back to his side of the bed.
If he’d been paying closer attention, he might have noticed the way Charles’s eyelids fluttered just slightly. Might have noticed the way his pulse jumped visibly at his throat, a rapid flutter against the pale skin.
Might have noticed that Charles was very, very awake.
Charles lay perfectly still, heart hammering so hard he was certain Max could hear it. The alpha scent in the room had shifted—protective, warm, the cedarwood deepening into something that made Charles’s omega instincts purr with satisfaction even as his brain screamed in protest.
Max had tucked him in. Max, who Charles had left standing in his living room with accusations still echoing off the walls. Max, who had looked at him during the ceremony with those impossible blue eyes and made Charles forget every reason he’d had for walking away.
The duvet was warm where Max had pulled it up. Charles’s scent gland throbbed with the effort of not releasing a wave of contented omega pheromones that would give away everything.
He wanted to roll over. Wanted to press his face into the curve of Max’s neck and breathe in cedarwood until the ache in his chest subsided. Wanted to say all the things he’d practiced in the mirror for six months—that he’d been scared, that he’d panicked, that the idea of being so vulnerable to someone had terrified him more than any corner he’d ever taken at 300 kilometers per hour.
But Max’s breathing had evened out, and Charles was a coward, so he stayed still and let his heart try to escape through his ribs and memorized the particular warmth of Max’s scent in the dark.
Breakfast was a battlefield disguised as a buffet.
Charles came down late, circles under his eyes that his concealer hadn’t quite managed. Max was already at a table with Daniel, methodically destroying a croissant while Daniel gestured expansively about something involving jet skis and questionable life choices.
“Morning,” Charles said, sliding into the chair across from Max.
Daniel’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. “Morning. You two look like death. Trouble sleeping?”
“Jet lag,” Max said.
“Fine,” Charles said simultaneously.
Daniel looked between them, clearly filing this away for future interrogation, but before he could launch it, Charles reached for the coffee and their fingers brushed.
It was nothing. The briefest contact, knuckle against knuckle, skin on skin.
Charles’s scent gland pulsed once, releasing a spike of honeysuckle so sharp that Max’s alpha instincts slammed into high alert. His hand jerked, coffee sloshing over the rim of the cup.
“Sorry,” Charles muttered, face flushing.
“It’s fine.” Max’s voice had gone rough, cedarwood bleeding into the air despite his best efforts. Daniel was definitely staring now, nostrils flaring at the sudden concentration of mingled alpha and omega pheromones thick enough to choke on.
“Right,” Daniel said slowly. “I’m going to go find my husband. Who I love. Good talk.”
He fled with his plate, leaving them alone in a cloud of their own chemistry.
Charles wrapped both hands around his coffee cup. “Max—”
“We don’t have to do this.”
“I want to.” Charles’s green eyes lifted to meet Max’s blue ones. “Please. I’ve been wanting to for six months.”
Max set down his croissant. The dining room was emptying out around them, guests drifting toward the garden for post-wedding activities, and no one was paying attention to the two drivers in the corner who were apparently having a conversation they’d been avoiding since November.
“You said I made you feel like second place,” Max said quietly. “You said being with me was like living in a shadow.”
“I was scared.” Charles’s voice cracked. “I was so scared, Max. You’re—you’re you, and I’m me, and we’ve been competing since we were children, and somewhere along the way I fell in love with you and I didn’t know how to be that vulnerable with someone I’m also supposed to want to beat.”
Max’s scent shifted. The cedarwood softened, wrapping around the honeysuckle like muscle memory. “You never had to beat me, Charles. That was never what this was.”
“I know that now.” Charles’s fingers were white-knuckled on the coffee cup. “I knew it then. I just—I panicked. And by the time I figured out how stupid I’d been, six months had gone by and you hadn’t called and I thought maybe you were relieved.”
“Relieved.” Max’s laugh was humorless. “Charles, I’ve been sleeping on the left side of my bed for six months because the right side still smells like you. Jimmy started sleeping there because he missed you. I had to buy Sassy a new toy because she kept looking for the one you gave her.”
Charles stared at him. “The little fish?”
“She destroyed it. Looking for you.”
Something in Charles’s expression fractured, and suddenly his scent was flooding the space between them, honeysuckle and salt and regret and hope all tangled together. Max’s alpha instincts responded before his brain caught up, a low rumble building in his chest that he barely managed to suppress.
“I still have your hoodie,” Charles whispered. “The Red Bull one. I sleep in it when it gets bad.”
Max closed his eyes. “Charles.”
“I’m sorry.” The words tumbled out, rapid and desperate. “I’m sorry I walked out. I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’m sorry I made you think for one second that you weren’t enough, because you were, you are, you’ve always been—”
“Come here.”
Charles didn’t hesitate. He rounded the table and Max stood to meet him, and then Charles was pressed against his chest with Max’s arms wrapped around him and Max’s nose buried in his hair, right against his scent gland.
The contact was electric. Six months of separation, of suppressed instincts, of aching loneliness—it all crashed together as Charles’s omega finally, finally recognized its alpha and released a wave of pheromones so potent that several people at nearby tables turned to look.
“We’re causing a scene,” Max murmured against his temple.
“I don’t care.” Charles’s voice was muffled against Max’s shoulder. “I don’t care about anything except you right now.”
Max’s arms tightened. “We still have a lot to talk about.”
“I know.”
“And you’re still going to try to beat me every race.”
Charles pulled back just enough to meet Max’s eyes, and there was something fierce in his expression despite the tears clinging to his lashes. “Obviously. What kind of omega do you think I am?”
Max kissed him.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t careful. It was six months of missing someone distilled into a single point of contact, Charles’s mouth opening under his, Charles’s fingers gripping the front of his shirt, their scents tangling until no one within a fifty-foot radius could possibly mistake them for anything but bonded.
When they broke apart, Charles was laughing, wet and bright. “I can’t believe Carlos and Lando’s wedding is going to be the story we tell people.”
“We’ll tell them it was romantic,” Max said. “Leave out the part where you kicked off the duvet and I had to get up at four in the morning.”
Charles froze. “You knew I was awake?”
The corner of Max’s mouth lifted. “Your heart was beating so hard I could feel it through the mattress.”
“Oh my god.”
“Your scent gland was going crazy too. Very unsubtle for someone who was supposed to be asleep.”
Charles buried his face in Max’s chest, and Max could feel the heat of his blush even through his shirt. “I hate you.”
“No you don’t.” Max’s voice had gone soft, the way it only ever did for Charles. “You love me. You said so earlier. At the table. In front of Daniel’s abandoned croissant.”
“I’m going to take it back.”
“Too late. I’m holding you to it.”
Charles lifted his head, and his green eyes were bright with something that looked a lot like the future. “Promise?”
Max pressed his lips to Charles’s forehead, right above his scent gland, and let his alpha rumble answer for him.
“Promise.”