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For the first time in a long while, George was the one to text first.
Leaving early today, the text read. Congrats on the podium. See you next weekend.
The pixels danced on the screen. Max read the lines three times, hoping to divine something more from their brief content. He’d seen the interview clips, coming off of the podium still drenched in champagne and Kimi’s boisterous celebration. He’d done his part, and sure, Max Verstappen wasn’t racing for a P3, but a P3 was still better than a DNF, which was where George was at now. He had had this thought before, come to think of it, and just like before, joy eluded him yet again.
Max knew the reason, obvious as it was. The car. It always came down to the car and the track, and him, slotted into the cockpit and wrangling a beast that fought him every step of their journey.
But it was also about George. Max wasn’t stupid, and the time for deluding himself had long come to pass.
To tell the truth, more and more was about George these days, especially when this season had already been written off for Max.
“He left with Gabi and Bottas,” Lando said, helpful as always. Max glowered at him. “What, aren’t you looking for George?”
The paddock was still teeming with people. Most of the other drivers were still hanging out in their garages, loath to leave the paddock with how beautiful Spa was when it wasn’t storming; out of habit, Max had passed by the Mercedes garage and glimpsed the sorry carcass of George’s W17 for himself. And out of habit, his eyes had darted around the space, clocking Marcus and Fred overlooking the telemetry data, but a conspicuous absence overshadowed everything else. And Lando had appeared out of nowhere, shit-eating grin on his face now that he had finished within the points, orange racesuit half-stripped around his waist.
“Not looking for anyone,” Max said evasively. “Where’s George gone, do you know?”
“Flight’s in an hour, so they’re probably packing in their hotels.” Lando shrugged. “Sucks that that happened. You know, yesterday we were actually talking about how he should have pulled a me and taken a grid penalty for a working car. He said I should stop jinxing him.”
“And you jinxed him.”
“You guys are getting really superstitious these days.” Lando laughed, fingering the triple evil eye bracelets on his wrist without a hint of irony. “No need for any jinxing from me when his team’s happy to do it all by themselves. Hey, listen, I’ll check in on George in a bit—heard he was on the verge of tears earlier, if rumors can be believed.”
Max’s head jerked. “He’s what? Here?” The sight of George’s tears was one of Max’s favorites, but he had foolishly thought it was reserved for him alone. The thought of others seeing George’s eyes filling up, the tail ends reddening before a shimmering sheen emerged over the sea-blue irises, was not one he wanted to entertain right in the middle of the pit lane.
“Some journalists said that, who knows, could just be playing it up for clicks—oops, there’s Toto, gonna run before he gives me a look.” And with that, Lando was gone, leaving Max slightly bereft in a sea of black team kits and Toto Wolff heading his way with real determination.
And that, too, was Max’s cue to exit before he could no longer extract himself from a conversation he dreaded having with that man.
He hadn’t counted on going back to Monaco before Hungary. These back-to-back race weekends were rough, but Max was used to them, and in any case Hungary was a lovely place for a quick visit in the summer provided the weather was cooperating, and it was supposed to, the upcoming week. But he’d gladly cancelled the accommodations he had booked in Budapest for the next few days and headed back home in his own jet, with Lando hopping along for the ride and a very nervous Franco constantly asking whether they would touch down before the World Cup final started.
Since the Netherlands had lost early, Max had lost all interest in the tournament. He’d heard Carlos and Charles had taken a jet back together, with Alex and Lily in tow. Franco was chatting to a slightly cantankerous Lando about the odds and the Argentinian team’s inner politics, animated and overzealous the way Max was about car engines. Listening with one ear, Max could only think of the match he had watched with George the day before, England versus France, and how cheered George had been after a mediocre qualifying result when they sank into the couch in Max’s motorhome, a late evening indulgence he couldn’t deny George.
“The national team can’t substitute for your own performance,” Max had said with the grave wisdom of someone whose national team was out since the Round of 32. “And this isn’t even the final final. Third place isn’t anything to write home about.”
George had made a face. Upon reflection, it was a very good face, the cute pout he often did, with a particular set of the eyes and brows that indicated George was fully aware of how he appeared. Max thought: adorable. Max thought: irresistible. And Max also thought: I need him looking that way after the Grand Prix, playful and in high spirit, and mine, solely mine.
Afterwards, between the sheets, George had drawn circles on his skin, said nothing, and kissed Max goodnight before sliding away. The pout was gone, replaced by new lines that had appeared on either side of his mouth from dehydration or exhaustion both. Max found that he had missed the pout immediately. He took it back, what he had said; George should be the happiest he possibly could be, reason be damned, but it was already too late.
“Wanna go again?” he asked, but George only shook his head and quickly dressed, armor back on. The team kit seemed to taunt Max, how it fit George like it was molded to him.
At the door, George gave him a tremulous smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Give me a good fight tomorrow, then.”
“I always do,” Max had said, a statement of fact rather than a promise. They weren’t in the business of promising the obvious. He had thought George would chase him today from P3, the way he had been chasing George, the hunt neither of them could dissociate from. At the starting grid, their eyes had met before the helmets went on, and the dark circles under George’s eyes betrayed just how little sleep he’d got the night before after returning to the hotel, if he did at all.
Max should have kept him overnight, if only to be sure George wasn’t obsessively poring over the telemetry data instead of getting some needed rest.
“And then I saw Carlos flipping me off when my back was turned.” Franco announced, jerking Max back to the jet. Lando was texting someone, likely Oscar, likely about sitting next to an Argentinian on the plane and how it was an affront to his national dignity. Franco sighed, still on his monologue. “Even George gave me a wide berth. You’re like the only one who’s still willing to talk to me.”
“Well, I definitely flipped you off behind your back too, don’t you worry. And it’s not you specifically,” Lando assured him. “It’s just Argentina. It’s not like you’d want to sit next to Carlos or Alonso right now either.”
Franco crossed his arms. “They’re just haters because we have Messi. I’m calling it now, Argentina to Spain, 3-1, since I’m being generous.”
“Text George the bet, he’s supposed to be keeping track.” Lando wiggled his brows. “Minimum $1000, so think hard, Cassandra.”
“No, I just have a really strong feeling, I’m good for it.” Franco’s fingers danced on the phone screen, decisive, until the message sent sound whooshed like a bird taking flight. Bet placed, he chewed on his bottom lip, brows knitted. “Did you hear George’s radio earlier? I’ve never heard him that angry.”
Lando, who had been racing with George and Max for far longer than Franco was even in a F1 car, laughed. “It’s been a hot minute, but oh, he can get there.” He shot Max a knowing grin. “Usually it’s Max he’s yelling about though.”
“I didn’t hear the radio,” Max only said, and that was all the cue Franco needed to pull out his phone and swipe furiously until he found the radio snippet in question.
“I’m out. What the fuck happened with the SOC down the straights?! I had no fucking battery on the straight! Guys, unacceptable. Un-fucking-acceptable this whole weekend!”
Not a single muscle on his face moved. Max handed Franco’s phone back, a flat stare his only response.
“Wild, right?! But it really is so strange, he was basically going backward on Semmel. Kimi’s car seemed fine, though. Hey, this is crazy but like, do you think—” Franco started, but before he could finish whatever dangerous thought was fomenting behind those eyes, Lando clapped his shoulder and tilted his head slightly. Franco frowned, clearly befuddled. “What?!”
At the same time, the flight attendant informed them with a smile, “We’re landing in ten minutes.” Franco perked up immediately with the promise of watching the game in his home theater in the very near future. Lando gave a lazy grin and turned back to his phone. He’d finished within the points, and that seemed to be all Lando was asking from the universe these days.
Max wished some of their happiness was contagious. The sky over Monaco was clear, but Max could see nothing through the dark clouds of his thoughts, and George’s furious voice on the radio, the total loss of composure George would hate himself for afterward.
Franco's unfinished thought hung in the cabin air long afterward. Max latched onto it and thought of George’s long ago words that someone did not want the championship to be his.
When the wheels touched the ground, the jolt went all the way through him, like the earth had opened up to swallow them whole.
Would that it had.
Max had sent off a reply the minute he turned on his phone and received George’s single text. Where are you? he had written, and had given George ample time to see it before sending off another barrage of messages that went read or unread, since George had disabled read receipts.
Are you going home?
I’m coming over in a few hours. Just need to change the itinerary.
Schat, are you getting these? Just landed.
George?
George wasn’t home. Max found this out the hard way, with the Monaco sun bestowing its last rays on him as the summer evening finally creeped closer. He had stood in the freezing air-conditioned lobby of George’s building and tried to explain to the doorman that he was just waiting for a friend, and if said man could kindly check in on the occupant of unit so-and-so. But he couldn’t tell if the man was just fucking with his head or if he really didn’t know who Max was; an offering of his name yielded a blank, polite smile and a kind, automatic reminder that the lobby was meant for residents only, and if Max would please contact his friend separately, and really, it was still a toss up which of the two it was.
Humiliation ritual over, Max stalked towards the road and his illegally parked car. With his luck today, he was practically begging for a parking ticket. Max drove aimlessly for a while, catching snippets of billboards and posters with their images on them leftover from the Monaco Grand Prix, and gazed at a half-torn poster of George in his blue helmet, barely recognizable now but for the startling color Max could identify by value alone in grayscale. The intensity of George’s gaze met his own, and unbidden, the thought of those eyes filling up with tears refused to vacate the premises.
If George was somewhere crying alone, if George was hurting with no one to see it, then what was the point of Max these days?
His therapist probably had a lot to say about that. Max shelved that for another day, and dialed a contact on his phone he had sworn off ever talking to again.
“He’s not with me,” Alex Albon replied on the first ring. “We’re at Charles’s place right now.” So in his building, having a party he was probably invited to implicitly, as if he could read Charles’s mind about these things, but he digressed.
The only exclusion he cared about wasn’t at the party either.
“Well, he’s not home.”
“Or he’s just not letting you in.” Alex didn’t sound particularly worried, which was probably a good sign, but Max had grown more cautious these days given how poorly he had judged these signs in the past. “It was a rough day. He probably just wants some space.”
“Are you sure that’s what he needs right now? Being all in his head about something he couldn’t control?”
“Gabi said he seemed okay on the ride home, just a bit quiet.” But Alex also paused, and Max could hear the background cheers trickling in.
“Max! You know you could just come up, right?” Charles’s voice, dialed to maximum volume, which still wasn’t very loud. “Come be contrarian! Carlos is unchallenged!”
Alex sighed. “Charles said come over. George will probably find his way here soon enough; he was quite invested in Argentina’s downfall. I’ll keep trying and see if he bites.”
“No, that’s fine. I don’t care enough.” About the game. About the rest of the grid. About being the fifth wheel in what seemed to be a very cozy double date. “You really don’t have location sharing on?”
“Blimey, mate, he’s your boyfriend, not mine,” Alex hissed into the phone, his girlfriend’s tinkling laughter coming in through the line. “Oh, Lily, stop that! Stop laughing!” Max’s eyebrows shot up, but before he could volley back a reply or process that word, the call disconnected.
Of all things, Max turned to the podcasts.
It was late enough that the final match was starting in Monaco, nine p.m., the city wide awake. When he walked through the halls of the building to reach his unit, he could hear the occasional laughter bursting through the confinements of walls. He briefly wondered if these same people had seen the race earlier that day, with many of them on decent enough terms with Charles, and quite a few had attempted to reach out to Max in kind, neighborly ways themselves. But Max had never held any interest in socializing, especially without its being built into a contract he begrudgingly signed every few years just to keep being in a car that refused to cooperate.
The sports podcasters were usually a waste of time. Some of them liked him a lot—idolized him, lionized him even, pardon the pun, and had made no secret of their preferences. And an equal amount, and perhaps the Venn diagram overlapped there, detested George Russell to a degree Max had trouble explaining. It might have had something to do with their rivalry since the 2024 season, but it predated that, too, the animosity the media world had held towards a man who moved through their world like it was a night at the ballet, and him the prima donna of the season.
To a degree, Max understood where they were coming from, the immediate visceral reaction George evoked, until it hit him much later what all that was really about.
But even tonight, the pundits were saying some rather interesting things about the Belgian Grand Prix.
Max scrolled through the reels mechanically, not taking in anyone’s particular handle and giving himself to the algorithm, the modern voices of the Oracle of Delphi. He let the words wash over him like a pelting thunderstorm, remembering how it had rained in Spa years ago in a podium he and George had shared.
“Now we all know I’m no George Russell fan,” came a male voice in that cadence that was probably a requirement to start commenting on a sport he had never played, “but no one could watch that race without acknowledging that something was seriously wrong with his straight line speed.”
He flicked to another reel.
“—came onto Sky and said that he just had nothing left to say,” another, faster voice with a generic British accent, continued, “that’s massive, that, Russell without something ready for the media pen, and yes perhaps there are things to improve on as Toto had said, but one really had to wonder—”
“—side of the garage, Mercedes has wasted no time in addressing Antonelli’s issues with the engine—”
“—needs to learn from Kimi, being showed up by a kid like that—”
“—bad luck,” chimed another voice, sympathetic, “he did say that a few races ago, like the gods didn’t want him in the fight—”
“—I mean Russell is already in a rocketship and he still can’t make it, look at Kimi—”
“—just devastating, the way he looked after,” a woman said, sounding on the verge of tears herself, “the light had just gone completely from his eyes, oh Toto Wolff I will see you in hell—”
”—not a conspiracy theorist but is anyone getting a flavor of—“
Into the night, the words came in fragments, sometimes contradictory, pulling into a mosaic he was slowly starting to decipher the central image. Max checked his phone several times even though his notifications were on full ring. George hadn’t called back, and none of his messages had been answered.
From the next unit’s open window came a muffled roar, then a collective groan. Argentina may have scored or not scored, or perhaps it was Spain. Someone cried foul, the shriek so loud it pierced through layers of insulation. Max wasn’t paying attention, and even if he was held at gunpoint, couldn’t have named even one player from either teams at this point.
Because on his screen was nothing but George, the blankness on his face, the shock distilled into a resignation that was chilling to behold on a man who had never stopped fighting back. Max replayed the videos over and over, thinking he could catch a flash of unshed tears in those colorless eyes, the blue swallowed by the Belgian clouds.
But George didn’t let a single tear fall on camera.
George, at least text Alex.
George, I mean it.
Sign of life
I’m home. I’m fine. Don’t come over.
Of course, Max was there within ten minutes, tearing through the empty Monaco streets at three in the morning with a speed that would have won him the Grand Prix were the race held in the circuit of George Russell’s neighborhood. The doorman was different, and this one was newly energized from the result of the World Cup final, sporting a tiny pin of the Spanish flag on his lapel. Max wasn’t great with this kind of things, but he rehearsed what he imagined others might have said in the same situation, Yes, George’s friend, yes, I’m Max, of course here’s the autograph, say hi to your kid, so nice to meet you, yes, Spain’s goal was beautiful, simply lovely, yes, have a good night, I’ll ask him to buzz me in next time, good night, very kind of you.
The exchange drained what little remained of his social battery, but Max didn’t have anywhere else to spend this particular currency, and George had never demanded it of him.
George wasn’t demanding anything at all of him tonight, with how he refused to come to the door.
“Open up, schat.” He’d been calmly talking to a door for a couple of minutes, mindful of the volume at this time of the night, and hoped that George’s building had better sound insulation than his own did. “Come on, princess, don’t be dramatic.”
The hallway was just as cold as the lobby even as the summer night air was temperate outside. Max shoved both hands into his hoodie’s front pocket, taking on a stance he had often associated with Oscar, his lips pursed almost in a satire of George’s favorite expression. But no one came to the door, no matter how many times he patiently tapped, slow and steady like pattering rain.
Finally, after fifteen minutes, his phone lit up.
Go home
You’re waking up the neighbors
That’s probably going to be your problem, right, schatje
The phone rang. Max slipped on his wireless earbuds, the call automatically transferring. George’s voice, transformed through the connection into something half-man, half-machine, rang in his ears. “I meant what I said, Max. I told you not to come over.”
“I just thought we’d been here before, schat.” Max scratched the back of his neck, looking up at the ceiling. It was very high. “Giving me Montreal flashbacks.”
“We’re not replaying Montreal.” He turned up the volume, letting George’s voice fill his consciousness entirely. It was difficult to tell from a voice how George was doing. If he could have seen the face to go along with it, the movements of George’s expressive mouth, the flicker of his gaze, the tiny furrows between his brows where an old childhood scar faintly remained, he could have divined George’s state of mind by virtue of knowing just what specific combinations of those features produced. But George was just a disembodied voice, not so unlike those podcasters voices that had filled his evening, and in his words were meaning that were entirely hidden from Max. His voice was steady, if a little low for the time of day it was.
“I just want to see how you’re doing.”
“Very kind of you. I’m fine.” George took a long breath. “I’ve said everything I had to say to the camera.”
“Since when do we communicate through interview clips, George?”
“We did before,” George reminded him, huffing incredulously. An improvement, Max thought, a reaction. “Too much champagne gone to your head that you’d forgotten?”
“I’d like to think something has changed in that time,” Max said, surprising himself with the openness in the words. The cards had been laid on the table for a long time, at least on his side. He’d sat there with them face up, with George still holding his deck behind his back, and had called it a tryst of equals. But George hadn’t yet sunken his fangs completely into Max’s soft underbelly, so at least that was a win, or at least not a total decimation of Max’s dignity just yet. “What are you going to do?”
“What do you mean? What is there to do?”
“I mean, you’ve heard what they said, about the—”
“No, Max,” George snapped. “I’m not going to run jousting at windmills and seeing dragons in them. You should have known better than to even suggest it.”
“From what it’s looking like, you’re more like a blind man touching a wolf’s jaw and calling it a golden retriever,” Max bit back. “Those are not the same cars you’re driving, and you know that.” He turned his back to the door and slid down to the ground, legs outstretched. “You said it yourself. I did watch your ridiculous interviews. Schat, you looked…”
“Absolutely stunning?”
“Devastating,” Max agreed. “Or devastated. Your pick.”
They sat in silence. Max liked to think that just on the other side of the door, George was matching his position, but the best case scenario was probably for George to be in bed, under a blanket, comfortable for the first time in this whole accursed race weekend. Finally, George’s voice again, softer. “I think maybe it’s mathematically impossible now.”
“Shit, did you fail maths in school?” Max almost choked on his outrage. “You know I don’t actually want that, right, schat? You could get my cock any time you want without that kind of talk.” Well, shit, he shouldn’t have said that, but that was out now, and Max couldn’t just un-say things.
“It’s kind of clear now that it’s just a pipe dream.” George laughed humorlessly. “So maybe it’s the other thing I’ll get, unless you want to back out of that, too, and that’s fine, Max, I’m not holding you to it, I did make you wait for too long—”
“I know you got a spreadsheet with a scores split hypothetical between you and Kimi for the rest of the season, don’t fucking lie, you can’t just give up like that.” The halls were very quiet now. People were indeed sleeping, and Max lowered his voice. “Where’s your fire, schat?”
“Put out in the rain, apparently.”
“It wasn’t even a drizzle, not like 2021 at all. Come on, schat, open the door. We can talk about this inside. Let’s address the elephant in the room, or the wolf in the room, if you will. It’s long past due. You know what’s happening isn’t right. It’s not you. George, you know that, right? You know it’s not you?”
For a moment, Max thought George really would do it. He could almost see George’s face—likely pale, with bloodshot eyes and dark circles and deepened lines around his mouth, with his lashes fanned over his cheeks and tear tracks that he had wiped away, leaving only a faint redness under his eyes. And he could finally take George into his arms, could offer the service of his body if nothing else, and talk George through it again, as if his words meant anything but the faith of one person against the world.
But in the end, George was still the one to call the shot. “I know, Max.” Of course George knew—George, who had driven that kart around in endless circles trying to beat a rigged timer, knew before most did when a jigsaw puzzle was missing pieces. “But not tonight, Max, I’m really not up for it. And as much as I do like your cock”—George huffed, a break in the storm—“maybe I need to stop using it like human Xanax. There has to be some kind of mental health term for this.”
“You really don’t have to,” Max said, almost begging. “It’s probably healthier than alcohol as far as coping mechanisms go.”
“I am drinking water,” George emphasized, “in bed, in my jammies. It’s not a sexy kind of night, Max, go home.”
“Proof of life?”
“Huh?”
“Send me a selfie, or let’s video call, schat, let me see you.”
“I’m right here,” George said, exasperated. “Max, I look like shit, I know I look like shit, yes I cried a bit, so just let me mope, okay? I’m fine. I’m alive. I’m not doing anything destructive; I’m listening to Reputation and drinking water and then I’m going to sleep.”
“Did you watch the game?”
“The—No, Max, I didn’t watch the game. Spain won, Alex texted me. So at least there’s some small mercy from the universe. My ancestors are turning in their graves because I just said that.”
“Franco said he placed a bet. He had a feeling.”
“Yes, well, I have feelings about a lot of things, too. I had a feeling things would work themselves out, but they haven’t, so now I know how much stock to put in feelings. He’ll manage. So will I.” A pause as both of them took in George’s words. His voice softened. “Go to bed, Max, it’s so late.”
“Your doorman wasn’t very nice, the day guy.”
“I’m sure he was perfectly professional and doing his job. I could call the night guy up and have him escort you off, you know.”
“You really won’t let me see you even for a second?”
George didn’t say anything for a while. Then, Max’s phone dinged with a text notification, and a blurry, dark photo went through, barely legible as George’s face taken with the front camera and absolutely no light in the room, a medium-gray shape rising from total darkness.
“Devastating,” Max said without inflection, and George, for the first time on their call, laughed with feelings.
The next morning, alone in bed and greeted by a sunrise that had no business sneaking into his room, Max reached for his phone by habit.
No new messages. No missed calls.
But on George’s Instagram, a new photo appeared, with George in his fireproofs, face in profile, waist snatched, hands on hips. His earbud was the same blue as the helmet, in full colors and untouched by the weather. There was no false optimism; he looked tired, but he looked good, and he looked most of all like a creature who had clawed his way out of a trap all by himself. The caption was definitely meant for George’s millions of followers, but it went straight to that deep pocket in Max’s brain and stayed there, as if George had said it to him alone in an oracle's intonation, this new small scrap of George he had gleaned from the universe, proof of life and proof of fire.
Knocked down, we get back up. No matter how many times. So many tough moments this year but I will not stop fighting.
And Max, too, had a feeling—and the feeling was faith.