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Omegas didn't get much say once the paddock decided they were worth chasing, and this season, apparently, he was worth chasing by nearly everyone.
Toto's courtship didn't feel like courtship so much as an acquisition already underway. He never asked George what he wanted; he simply informed him, in that low, unhurried voice, what would be happening and when. A car was arranged. A dinner was booked. George's schedule was quietly rearranged around him before George had even agreed to anything, and somehow he found himself going along with it anyway.
"You didn't have to do that," George said once, staring at yet another decision that had been made on his behalf.
"I know what's good for you," Toto said, not unkindly, resting a hand at the back of George's neck with a weight that was somehow both a comfort and a warning. "You don't need to think about it. That's what I'm here for."
Toto looked at him like George already belonged to him, like the outcome had been settled from the very first day they'd met, and some traitorous part of George found that certainty intoxicating; it wasn't the worst fate imaginable. But he also wanted to live his life to the fullest, and he knew that would never be possible with Toto.
Lewis courted him like an old friend easing him into something bigger, all warmth and no urgency. He sent George documentaries he thought he'd like, showed up with two coffees exactly how George took his, and somehow made every gesture feel like it cost him nothing and meant everything.
"I'm not going to chase you," Lewis said one evening, sprawled across from him with that easy, unbothered grace he wore like a second skin. "I think good things find their way eventually."
George admired him endlessly — the calm, the wisdom, the effortless cool that made George feel instantly more interesting just by standing near him. Lewis made him laugh, made him think, made him feel like the most fascinating person in any room.
And yet George kept noticing that Lewis's confidence never quite reached the parts of him that ached. Being adored by someone so composed felt lovely. It didn't feel like being needed.
Charles courted him like it was 1890 and George was the last great romance of his life. Handwritten notes appeared in George's bag before races, all looping cursive and heartfelt little confessions. Once, he'd arranged for the two of them to have dinner on a small boat off the coast during the Monaco weekend, candles lit against the dark water, the whole scene lifted straight out of a postcard.
"You think this is too much," Charles said, watching George's face as he read the latest note, looking equal parts hopeful and terrified of being laughed at.
"A little," George admitted, fighting a smile. "But I don't hate it."
But for all its beauty, none of it ever quite landed the way Charles meant it to. It felt like a scene George had wandered into rather than one built around who he actually was — lovely to look at, but somehow not really about him at all. George kept catching himself smiling for Charles's sake rather than his own, and knowing, guiltily, that no candlelit boat would ever change that.
Oscar's courtship was, without question, the most endearing disaster George had ever witnessed. He'd clearly researched everything — the etiquette, appropriate gifts, the correct number of days to wait before texting back — and executed all of it with the stiff precision of someone reciting a manual from memory.
"I brought you this," Oscar said, holding out a small, obviously overthought gift with the solemnity of a diplomatic exchange. "I read that Alphas are meant to bring something meaningful. I wasn't sure what counted as meaningful, so I got you three options."
George bit back a laugh, touched despite himself. "You didn't have to research a spreadsheet's worth of courting rituals, Oscar."
Oscar's ears went pink. "I wanted to get it right."
There was something so earnest in his awkwardness, full of sincerity and careful effort, that softened George's heart every time. But it was sweet in a way that made George want to protect him rather than be swept off his feet by him, and George found himself wishing that his heart worked in the tidy, logical way Oscar's clearly did.
Daniel courted him loudly, gleefully, and with an audience. He turned every interaction into an event, dragging George into karaoke nights and late dinners with half the paddock in tow, always somehow angling George to sit beside him.
"Tell me I'm not growing on you," Daniel said, grinning that easy, sunbeam grin of his after yet another night that had left George's cheeks sore from laughing.
"You're insufferable," George said, which wasn't a no, and they both knew it.
Being around Daniel was pure, uncomplicated fun, all warmth and noise and the particular joy of never having to be serious for very long. George adored him for it. But when the laughter died down and the room emptied out, George noticed that the quiet after Daniel left never quite ached the way the quiet after somebody else did.
Kimi's courtship came with none of the patience the others seemed to manage. He was younger, hungrier, and made no effort to hide either.
"I don't understand why you make me wait," Kimi said one evening, dark eyes intent, standing a little too close in that way he always did. "I know what I want. I want you."
"Things don't work like that," George said, though the sheer force of Kimi's certainty was, admittedly, a little flattering.
"They should," Kimi shot back, something fierce and stubborn in his voice.
There was an intensity to him that George found almost thrilling in short bursts — the way Kimi looked at him like a prize he intended to win, no matter how long it took. But deep down George knew that being wanted so fiercely by someone who barely knew him wasn't the same as being understood.
Alex didn't court him at all, not really. Alex simply stayed — through bad race weekends and worse press days, through every 2 a.m. phone call and every ridiculous rant about strategy calls George refused to let go of. He made George laugh until his stomach hurt and told him hard truths nobody else dared to, and somehow both of those things made George trust him more, not less.
"You know I'd be good to you," Alex said once, quiet and honest in a way that startled George more than any grand gesture could have.
"I know," George said, and meant it.
Everyone said it, eventually, in one form or another — that George should choose Alex, that it made perfect sense, that Alex knew him better than anyone else in the paddock ever would. George thought so too, some days. Alex was steady and safe and endlessly kind, the sort of Alpha George's own good sense told him he should want.
His heart, unhelpfully, had other ideas.
Max didn't court him so much as collide with him, over and over, until George stopped being able to tell the difference between an argument and a courtship at all.
There were no flowers, no notes, no careful research into etiquette. There was Max shouldering into his space uninvited, scowling like George's mere existence personally offended him, and then showing up outside his room an hour later with a stolen ice pack because he'd noticed George favouring his wrist after FP2 and hadn't been able to stand it.
"I'm not courting you," Max said flatly, the one time George dared to call it that, color rising up his neck regardless.
"Right," George said, fighting a smile. "You just bring ice packs to people you hate."
Max glared at him, with wounded pride and a terrible follow-through, and George felt something in his chest lurch dangerously toward fond. Max was hot-headed and stubborn and catastrophically bad at expressing anything that wasn't fury, and yet every clumsy, furious gesture landed somewhere in George that none of the others had managed to touch.
It made no sense. George had options — good ones, sensible ones, several of them standing right in front of him with open hands and open hearts. And still, infuriatingly, helplessly, his own heart kept turning back toward the one Alpha who couldn't even admit he was trying.