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Charles is still buzzing — not just from the podium, but from the heat of the moment, the way the crowd screamed his name like they loved him, like they knew him. Monaco always feels personal. But today, it’s not the win that lingers in his chest.
It’s Max.
Max, with oil-streaked hands and a too-serious face, standing just behind the line of crew. Max, who didn’t win today but still managed to look like a storm no one dared to cross. Max, who didn’t speak to him after the race, but had stared a little too long when Charles took off his helmet.
Charles shifts under the sun, forcing a smile that almost slips into something more genuine when the reporter leans in with an easy, teasing question.
“So, Charles — the paddock’s buzzing. You’ve been seen smiling at your phone, disappearing during press days. Are the rumors true? Is Ferrari’s golden boy finally off the market?”
It would be so easy to lie. Or dodge. Or laugh it off like always.
But something in him is tired of pretending. Not about being in love — no, that’s been true for too long now. But pretending that it’s something shameful, or secret, or unworthy just because Max doesn’t know.
So Charles tilts his head. Smiles — soft, private. The kind of smile no one in this audience deserves, but he gives it anyway.
“I’m engaged,” he says, voice warm. “To someone who... grounds me. Keeps me sane when everything else is noise.”
The reporter’s eyebrows rise. “Really? So not another driver, then?”
A chuckle. “You’d be surprised.”
Charles shrugs, eyes flicking past the camera, as if somewhere in the crowd — or just behind memory — that person might be standing. “He doesn’t like media. He doesn’t even like people, really. But he always shows up. Especially when I lose.”
The reporter tries to follow up — something about wedding dates or names — but Charles shakes his head gently. “It’s private. But it’s real.”
The towel clings damp to the back of Max’s neck, but he doesn’t move to take it off. The noise around him — footsteps, crates clanking, low voices on radios — washes over him like water too cold to feel.
Someone — Jeroen, maybe? — holds up a phone with the stream still playing. Charles on screen, flushed from the heat, half-shadowed under the Ferrari cap.
“He’s smiling like an idiot,” the guy laughs. “You think it’s the win, or the fiancé?”
Max doesn't respond. He’s already looking.
He doesn’t mean to. Doesn’t want to, honestly. But his gaze hooks on Charles like it always does, like a habit he can’t break.
There’s something different about the way he’s holding himself. Less stiff, less guarded. His smile is soft — that rare, real version Max sees sometimes in hotel corridors at midnight or in the quiet moments before press briefings begin.
“I’m engaged,” Charles says.
The words slip past Max like static. Unregistered.
“To someone who… grounds me.”
This time, Max frowns. Something twists low in his stomach. He doesn’t know why, not really. Maybe it’s the voice — quiet, honest, like Charles is saying it for himself more than anyone else. Maybe it’s the look in his eyes.
He glances down at his water bottle. Then away.
The mechanic beside him nudges his shoulder. “You okay?”
Max’s reply is automatic. “Yeah, yeah. He deserves it. He’s… he’s good at being in love.”
But it burns a little, doesn’t it? The thought of Charles being in love. The thought of someone else getting that version of him — the one who shows up when everything else goes to hell, the one who doesn’t just want wins and podiums but wants a place to land. Wants home.
And Max — Max has never had a home.
Sometimes, he thinks maybe Charles could’ve been that. Or already was.
But that’s not how things work between them. They don’t talk about feelings. They race. They argue. They shoulder past each other in hotel elevators and sit too close in briefings and let their gazes linger just a few seconds too long. They share silence like it's language, tension like it’s tether.
Charles never told him he was seeing someone. But that’s fine. That’s none of his business.
(Except Charles does tell him everything. He always has.)
And now he’s telling the world about someone else.
Someone who “doesn’t like people.”
Someone who “always shows up.”
Someone who grounds him.
Max feels heat crawl up his spine.
It’s coincidence. A thousand people could fit that description.
But his chest still feels a little too tight when he finally mutters, “He likes media boys anyway,” just to hear something out loud that might make it stop hurting.
He grabs the towel, slings it over his shoulder, and turns away from the phone screen. The image lingers anyway — Charles, smiling softly into the camera, eyes fixed somewhere far away.
Max doesn’t know why it feels like a goodbye.
But he hates it.
The rain hasn’t started yet, but the air tastes like it’s coming.
Charles sits under the canopy with a few other drivers — Oscar, Lando, Lewis — all of them damp-haired and restless. The PR handler hovers nearby, nodding at the camera crew as they begin to roll. Another pre-weekend fluff piece for the fans. He’s tired, but he smiles. Always smiling.
Across the paddock, he’d seen Max earlier — hoodie up, jaw clenched, already annoyed at the sky, the press, or maybe just the world. Charles almost laughed when Max stepped directly into a puddle and didn’t even flinch. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
He wonders, not for the first time, how a person could be so furious and so beautiful at the same time.
“So,” the interviewer grins, flipping to a new card, “let’s talk love lives. Seems to be a theme this season.”
Charles feels the question before it lands. He knows how to play this game now.
“Charles,” the interviewer says, turning toward him with mock seriousness. “You mentioned recently that you’re engaged — congratulations, by the way.”
Charles gives a small nod, eyes flicking downward. “Merci.”
“But you’ve never introduced him. So tell us — are you and your fiancé similar? Do you share hobbies? Taste in music? Or is he your opposite?”
Charles hesitates just a fraction too long.
He doesn’t have to answer. He could keep it vague. Smile politely. Say something forgettable.
But something in him rebels against that idea — the same way it always rebels when he thinks about how long he’s been in love with someone who might never love him back, at least not out loud. Not in the way Charles wants.
He clears his throat.
“Oh, we’re very different,” he says. His voice is light, but there’s something in his tone — a hush beneath the words. “He likes thunderstorms. Can you believe that? He’ll go stand on the balcony just to listen to the rain.”
Lando snorts. “Sounds like a psycho.”
Charles smiles. “He is. Wakes up at five in the morning to go running in weather I wouldn’t send a dog out in. Goes on road trips without GPS. Doesn’t care about social media. I think once, he threatened to throw my phone in a lake.”
The other drivers laugh. Charles does too — but only on the surface.
“He makes me nervous,” he adds, almost too quietly. “In a good way.”
Max doesn’t hear the interview live. He’s in the simulator trailer, headphones on, doing wet-lap calibration with his engineers. It’s only later, during a lull in debrief, that someone sends him a clip with the caption:
“charles and his feral woodsman fiancé”
He watches the video on mute first. Just sees Charles, smiling with that ridiculous fondness that makes something tighten in his chest.
When he finally plays it with sound, he frowns deeper with each line.
Thunderstorms. Early morning runs. Road trips. Threatened to throw my phone in a lake.
He said that once. In Zandvoort. Charles had been doomscrolling after the qualifying, and Max had snapped and muttered, “I should toss that thing into the North Sea. It’s rotting your brain.”
Max lowers the phone.
It’s weird, he thinks. To hear someone talk about a person and feel like you should recognize them, and yet not be sure. It’s like seeing your reflection in the wrong mirror. Close, but warped.
He’s not Charles’ fiancé. They’re not even together. They never were.
But still, Max can’t stop thinking:
If it was me… would he say that?
If I told him I liked the rain, would he smile like that again?
And then he shakes his head. Slams the locker shut. Walks out into the grey air like it doesn’t matter, like it isn’t sticking to his ribs like rain about to fall.
Charles sits on a wide sofa, arms draped over the back, posture relaxed in that way he gets when he’s just a little too tired to keep the walls all the way up. The weekend has been rough — yellow flags, engine issues, a P9 he doesn’t want to think about. But they gave him a drink before they hit record, and the quiet of the studio feels a bit like shelter.
Next to him, Carlos and Esteban laugh at some earlier anecdote, but Charles is half-listening. His head tilts when the host smiles and says, “We’ve had a theme on this show lately — all about love. You said you were engaged last month, right?”
Charles hums, smiling into the mic. “I did.”
“Can we ask — when did you know? Like, really know he was the one?”
The room quiets just a little.
Charles takes a breath. Not because he’s unsure — but because the answer rises so quickly, so vividly, it almost hurts.
“It was a few years ago,” he says slowly, as if testing the weight of each word. “I’d done something reckless. Really stupid. On track. Lost my head completely.”
He glances sideways at Carlos, who’s gone still beside him.
“I came back to the hotel ready to argue, ready to be angry at everyone, honestly. And then… he was there. In my room. Didn’t even wait for me to change. He just yelled.”
The smile on Charles’ face twists into something fond, almost wistful.
“Ten minutes, full volume. No filter. Called me an arrogant idiot and a liability. Said I’d get myself killed and then expect everyone to pretend it didn’t matter.”
He exhales. “I didn’t say anything. I just let him talk. Because for once, someone wasn’t trying to handle me. He was just… scared for me. And mad about it. And honest.”
The host chuckles. “That’s when you knew you were in love?”
Charles nods. “Yeah. I think I fell for him somewhere between ‘what the fuck is wrong with you’ and ‘do you even care if you die?’”
Laughter follows — the audience, the other drivers — but Charles doesn’t laugh with them. He just sips his drink, quiet and lost for a second in whatever memory he’s conjured.
“He’s not gentle,” Charles adds. “But he’s good. And I trust him more than I trust anyone.”
Max hears the interview in bed.
He’s lying sideways, legs tangled in the sheets, TV flickering low on the wall. His phone buzzes — a message from Daniel with a laughing emoji and a quote:
“fell in love while getting verbally obliterated — this you??”
Max clicks the link.
Listens.
And freezes.
Because he remembers that night.
Austria. 2021.
Charles had pulled an absolutely deranged overtake attempt that nearly put both of them in the gravel. Max had hunted him down in the hotel, furious, heart still hammering from the adrenaline and terror and… and something else he never named.
He’d yelled. God, he’d yelled.
He’d said things he’d never said to anyone before.
Charles had just stood there, still in his fireproofs, eyes wide, letting Max burn through every word like he deserved it.
Max had left feeling ashamed. Like he’d gone too far.
He’d never apologized.
And now — now — Charles is sitting on a podcast years later, smiling like Max had given him something sacred.
He drops the phone on the pillow beside him. Stares at the ceiling.
It’s stupid. He knows it’s stupid. There’s no way Charles is talking about him.
Right?
But that voice — the softness, the truth in it — it doesn’t sound like something you make up for press. It doesn’t sound like a lie.
It sounds like Charles is still standing in that hotel room, still listening to Max scream, and still choosing him anyway.
And that… that makes Max want to scream all over again. Just to make sure Charles still hears him.
Charles first notices it when Max doesn’t look at him on the track walk.
Normally, there’s at least a nod. A shoulder bump. A stupid comment muttered under breath that Charles pretends to be annoyed by but always secretly treasures. But today — nothing.
Max walks ahead with his trainers, gaze locked forward, arms crossed like he’s physically shielding himself from something. From someone.
From Charles.
He tells himself it’s nothing. Maybe Max is tired. Maybe he’s focused. Maybe it's the crowd pressure.
But then the same thing happens at the drivers’ meeting. Charles walks in just after Max and instinctively moves to sit next to him — the seat he always takes, the one that feels like his. But Max’s eyes flick up and then away, and before Charles can say anything, Max stands and relocates to the other end of the row.
No smile. No glance back.
Charles tries not to take it personally.
But he does.
Later that day, they’re both in the cooldown room after practice. Charles finishes his bottle of water and turns to Max like always, half-teasing: “That last sector, you scared me a bit.”
Max just shrugs. Doesn’t look at him. “You should’ve gone faster then.”
It’s sharp. Not the usual snark. Not familiar. It hits like cold water down Charles’ spine.
Carlos, standing nearby, gives Charles a brief, questioning glance, but says nothing.
Charles wants to follow up. To demand, What’s wrong? To say, Don’t look at me like I’m just another driver.
But he doesn’t.
Because what if Max has figured it out?
What if he’s finally connected the interviews, the quotes, the way Charles always watches him like he’s gravity and the world’s spinning too fast?
What if he’s disgusted?
What if he’s never been in on the joke, never even considered the possibility, and now Charles has ruined the fragile, impossible friendship they’ve built between podiums and press rooms?
He spends the evening sitting on the floor of his hotel shower with the water running far too hot.
When he texts Max — "Everything okay?" — the message is left on read.
For hours.
The camera follows Charles through the airy corridors of his Monaco home. He’s in a loose linen shirt, barefoot, smiling easily, answering rapid-fire questions as he walks — favorite pasta dish, hardest track, most embarrassing moment on live TV. He plays the game well. He always has.
But his smile falters — just briefly — when the interviewer asks:
“Okay. Describe your fiancé in three words.”
It should be simple. Another throwaway answer. A tease. A wink.
But Charles doesn’t laugh.
He stops walking. Tilts his head, just slightly. His eyes flick to the side, toward the open balcony where the sea is loud and full of wind. And something shifts in his face — softens, quiets.
“Kind,” he says first, voice low. “Smart.”
He hesitates.
Then, with the ghost of a grin that never reaches his eyes: “Brutal.”
The interviewer chuckles behind the camera. “That’s… intriguing.”
Charles doesn’t explain. He just shrugs.
“He would hate this video,” he adds, already moving again. “Hates pretending.”
Max watches the clip late that night.
It’s not even sent to him directly this time. He sees it trending on Twitter — a short reel posted by a fan account. He clicks before he can stop himself.
At first, it’s the usual fluff. Charles being charming. Talking with his hands. Moving through the rooms Max has stood in himself, once, during a team dinner when neither of them could quite meet the other’s eyes.
Then comes the question.
And the answer.
Max sits forward slowly, heart tightening with each word.
Kind.
Smart.
Brutal.
There’s a long silence in the room. Only the hum of the laptop fan and the dull sound of the sea outside his hotel window. As if Monaco has followed him all the way to Japan.
Brutal. That’s the word that sticks.
It’s what people always call Max. Not media. Not the fans. But the people who know him.
Charles knows him.
And the way he says it — not like an insult, but like an intimate truth — makes something in Max unravel. It's not a jab. It’s affection. It’s awe.
He would hate this video.
That part cuts the deepest. Because Max does hate this kind of thing. The lights, the fakery, the endless polishing of personality for cameras and strangers.
But Charles… sees that. Sees it and still talks about him like this. Like he’s proud. Like it’s beautiful.
Like he’s in love.
Max presses pause. Stares at the frozen frame: Charles, with windblown hair and a half-smile that’s not for the camera.
Not for the interviewer.
Maybe not for anyone but him.
Max leans back against the hotel headboard and presses his palms over his eyes.
Because now — now he’s scared.
What if it’s been him all along?
What if he’s been blind, walking through years of quiet declarations and never once thought to listen?
And what if Charles… has already given up waiting?
The hotel room is dark, save for the soft blue glow of Max’s phone screen.
He’s lying on his stomach, scrolling through a page full of adoptable cats from a local shelter — something he’s been doing for weeks without telling anyone. Something he only admitted to himself yesterday.
He hadn’t meant to think about Charles tonight.
But of course, Charles is everywhere now. In video clips and stills and the echoes of things Max remembers a second too late. In the words kind, smart, brutal still looping through his mind like a mantra he didn’t ask for.
And then there’s the message — still pinned at the top of his screen.
From three nights ago.
From Charles.
“Everything okay?”
Max had left it on read. Not because he didn’t care — but because he cared too much and had no idea what to do with it.
He stares at it now, thumb hovering. He could ignore it forever. He’s good at that. But something’s been gnawing at him, hollowing out the space behind his ribs. A weight that feels too much like regret.
And Charles…
Charles always listens when Max talks about his pets. Really listens. Not like most people do — with distracted smiles and polite nods — but with this gentle, steady focus, like every word matters. Like Max matters.
It’s stupid. But it’s safe.
So he taps into the message box.
And he types.
Max:
sorry, yeah. just tired. race weekends mess with my head sometimes.
anyway. random — but i think i want to get a new cat. been looking at shelters in amsterdam.
there’s this ugly one with one ear and a crooked face. i kind of love her.
He hesitates. Reads it over. It’s nothing, really. A distraction. A flicker of himself he’s willing to show.
But maybe it’s also more than that.
Maybe it’s please talk to me like you used to.
Maybe it’s i miss you and don’t know how to say it.
Maybe it’s i think i’m starting to understand, and it’s terrifying.
He hits send before he can change his mind. Then throws the phone facedown and closes his eyes.
It buzzes back within a minute.
Charles:
you always love the weird ones
send me pictures. maybe she’s perfect.
Max smiles. Just barely.
It doesn’t fix anything. But it’s a start.
The press room is full, buzzing, stale with the scent of adrenaline and camera flashes. Another podium for Charles, though not a win — P2 today, but it hardly matters. He’s glowing anyway. Not from the result.
From the decision he’s already made.
He sees Max across the room, sitting two chairs away. Quiet, unreadable. He hasn’t looked at Charles all evening.
But Charles knows he’s listening.
The moderator calls on a journalist toward the back, and the question is light, off-script — a filler moment.
“Charles, your fans are obsessed with your love life these days,” the journalist laughs. “You mentioned being engaged a while back — any chance we’ll get a reveal soon? Or at least tell us if the mystery fiancé is a cat person or a dog person?”
Laughter rolls through the room, soft and easy.
Charles doesn’t laugh.
He could say no comment. He could smile and brush it off like always.
But his fingers tighten slightly on the edge of the table.
He swallows once.
Then speaks, soft but steady.
“We’re adopting a cat,” he says.
It’s quiet for a beat. Cameras blink. A few chuckles.
Charles continues.
“She’s from a shelter in Amsterdam. One ear, crooked little face. Looks like she’s been in three street fights and won them all.”
The room laughs again — not sure if it’s a joke.
But Max — Max doesn’t laugh.
His whole body has gone still.
Charles glances toward him, just once, quickly, like it hurts to look too long.
“She’s perfect,” he adds quietly. “He said so. And I trust him.”
Silence blooms.
The moderator fumbles to move on. Someone else asks a question to the driver on the other end of the table. Charles doesn’t hear it.
Max is still frozen.
His heart is pounding so hard he’s sure it must be audible. The words echo through his skull, one by one, undeniable.
Amsterdam.
Crooked face.
He said so.
I trust him.
There is no wiggle room. No misinterpretation. No way to pretend it’s not him.
It is him. It always was.
Charles told the world — not with his name, but with something far more intimate.
A shared moment.
A cat no one else could possibly know about.
And suddenly, Max feels like the wind has been knocked out of him. Not in fear, not anymore — but in awe.
He’s been loved.
Openly.
He’s been loved, and he never saw it.
He looks at Charles now — really looks — and sees the nerves behind the smile, the hope beneath the calm. A man who has waited years for this moment.
And Max knows what he has to do.
It starts like any other interview.
Max is tired. The race was hard, his shoulders ache, and the summer heat hasn’t relented all day. He keeps his sunglasses on even as the sun dips — mostly because he’s not sure his eyes are ready for the world to see.
Not yet.
The interviewer smiles politely, mic up. “Tough day out there, Max. Looked like some tire degradation toward the end?”
“Yeah, we struggled with grip,” he says automatically. “I think strategy was alright, but—” He stops himself. “Sorry. You’ve probably heard that already.”
The reporter chuckles. “It’s fine. I know you’re probably itching to get out of here. Big plans tonight?”
Max hesitates.
It would be so easy to say no.
To keep it guarded. Safe.
But something in him shifts. Something Charles lit on fire — with his cat story, his soft voice, his trust him.
Max doesn’t want to hide anymore.
Not this.
So he shrugs, casual. Too casual. “Going home. My fiancé’s probably already setting up the cat tree.”
Silence. The kind that bends the air.
The reporter tilts her head, slow, confused smile. “Your… fiancé?”
Max doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t smile either. Just lets it sit there, natural, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
He nods. “Yeah. We just adopted a cat from a shelter.”
Now there’s a faint tremble at the corner of his mouth — almost a smile, but not quite. His eyes flick past the camera. Somewhere behind the lights, he knows Charles is watching.
“We’re calling her Amber,” he adds. “Little gremlin, but she’s got personality.”
The reporter stumbles through a laugh, clearly not expecting any of this. “Right! Wow — congratulations. That’s… great. Didn’t know you were engaged.”
“Yeah,” Max says softly, almost to himself now. “Me neither. Took me a while to figure it out.”
Then he gives the camera the tiniest of smirks. Barely there.
And walks away.
Charles catches Max near the corner of the Red Bull garage, already halfway to disappearing, helmet in hand, still moving like he’s in a hurry to get away from everything.
“Max!” Charles calls out, maybe too loudly. His voice echoes more than he meant it to.
Max turns, brows lifting under his cap. He looks caught — and oddly calm about it.
Charles slows, eyes still wide. His mouth opens, then closes again.
Then, helplessly:
“So I’m your fiancé now?”
Max tilts his head, mock-serious. “Why? You jealous of the cat?”
That shouldn't make Charles laugh as hard as it does — but the noise comes out of him before he can stop it, loud and boyish and relieved. His whole body relaxes, the tension bleeding out in one great laugh like a popped balloon.
Max laughs too — quietly, shoulders shaking like he’s surprised by himself.
“I thought you’d like the dramatic reveal,” Max adds after a beat, scratching the back of his neck. “Bit of suspense. Long game. Very romantic.”
“Oh, extremely,” Charles huffs. “Especially the part where you ignored all my texts for two days.”
“That was foreshadowing.”
Charles rolls his eyes — but he’s grinning too hard for it to land. Then, softer: “So… we’re okay?”
Max pauses.
Then he looks up, eyes clear. “Yeah. We’re okay.”
A beat. Then Max smirks.
“Fiancé.”
Charles groans. “If you keep saying it like that I’m getting you a ring tonight.”
“You won’t,” Max challenges.
Charles leans in — close enough that Max’s breath catches just slightly.
“I absolutely will.”
And this time, when they laugh, it’s easy.
Like a beginning.