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“Are you sure you want this Max?”
Breathing doesn't come to him naturally as it should, the air rattling in his lungs. He’s been scared so often in his life that the feeling itself doesn’t scare him anymore. Whether it’s been jumping into the seat of a racecar, watching the red lights flash until he’d step on the gas into what could be his final drive, or going back to Amsterdam for Thanksgiving with his dad, pictures of him and Vicky on the walls, Mom cut out of every one of them, he’s always been seeded with fear.
“Max? Are you still with me?”
Max clears his throat, shuffling his body into a better posture. “Yeah, of course,” he says, voice raspy. He’s always hated the way he sounded when he spoke, words scraping up his throat. It sounds infantile to his own ears, a sort of trapped youth he can never age out of. “What were you saying?”
His mom stares at him now, eyes deep and soulful and alive; he’s missed her lately. The easy smile. The home cooked meals. The way she just knows when something’s wrong. “Schatje, I don’t think this is a good idea. You can barely sit for a second without your eyes wandering. Maybe there are other options we could explore that would be better for you.”
He shakes his head, letting himself sink into the couch. “You don’t understand. I can’t just leave him.”
Her eyes soften. Molten chocolate like the hot cocoa she used to make him and Vicky on Christmas Eve, all those years ago. She takes his hand, warm against his cold skin. “Max…”
“Mom.” His voice cracks. He doesn’t realize he’s been biting at his cheek until she reaches to cup his face in her palm. His chest is full to bursting— with fear, anger, anxiety, but most of all, love. None of it anything he can formulate. “Mom,” he repeats, desperate though uncertain for what.
“Oh, Schatje,” she whispers, brows furrowing kindly. “Come here,” Max lets her lay his head on her lap as she hums calmingly. “Who do you mean to leave, Max? Him?” The name goes unspoken, but Max hears it clear as day. “Or the one he left behind?”
Hot tears flood his eyes, dripping down over his nose and temple, into the socket of his ear. There’s no stopping it once he starts, a hiccuping sob ripping from the deepest, most buried parts of himself. He doesn't know whether to hate Sophie or love her at that moment. The ugly truth Max has tried to hide within himself from everyone else. The force of his sobs shakes the entirety of his body. “How am I going to do this?” he manages through his cries, as his mother scrapes her nails against the base of his skull gently.
“I don’t tell the future, Schatje. What I can say is, knowing my son, you will find a way.”
***
When Max had gotten the call, his best friend was already dead. There was no hopeful exchange of dying words between him and Daniel, no I love you’s, no I’ll see you in the afterlife’s, no dying breaths to be seen.
The hospital room was clinical white, the sheets scrub blue. A chill perpetuated every room, corridor and wall, reminding you that this was a place for the sick and dying. His warmed toes in his shoes, his scarless skin and his beating organs reminded him of his trespassing as he inched closer to Daniel, bit by bit, fear rattling his lungs. He thought Daniel might be pranking him, that this was all some stupid joke to give Max the fright of his life, that the second Max inched just one more step forward his friend would jump out of bed and yell “Gotcha, Maxy!”
The air hung heavy when Max found himself standing over Daniel’s corpse. He barely even registered Joe and Grace standing in the corner of the room, arms wrapped around each other and sniffling away tears. All he could see was Dan. How ashy he was underneath his tan. The hollows of his cheeks. His bloodless hands.
Max already missed his smile.
“—Ax? Max?” Grace. Grace was talking to him. Her concerned gaze brought him back from the dark swirl of thoughts clouding his mind. “I’m so sorry, Max.”
“What? No, no,” he said, stumbling over the syllables. His tongue was too heavy. “He was your son. I’m sorry. For the loss.”
“But he was your friend,” Grace said, brows pulled tightly together. “You meant so much to him, and him to you.”
Max didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t, clearing his throat and turning away from the bed. The urge to turn his head back and watch Daniel remained like sticky candy stuck in his teeth, but he just— he couldn’t. Not now. Maybe not ever.
A knock at the door interrupted the silence. “Excuse me?” It was a woman’s voice, deep and accented, too loud for the moment even through the door. “I’m here regarding Mr. Ricciardo’s will.”
“Now?” Joe rumbled. Despite his tough exterior, Max could see the pinpricks of tears in the man’s eyes, heard him sniffling away the pain so he could be there for his wife.
“We could set an appointment?” the woman suggested, sounding quite awkward. “Mr. Ricciardo did not mention a preference for when and where his will was to be read, so we have room to work.”
Joe looked to his wife, who was still looking at Max. She looked him over as he shoved his trembling hands into his pockets. “Are you okay, sweetheart?” she murmured. Max felt hot shame pool in his stomach. Let it be him who’d take away from a mother’s grief for her son. He nodded quickly. Disbelief thinned her lips, but Grace let it be, turning to her husband and muttering a quick affirmation.
The door with a quiet click, and they were met with a fresh-faced lawyer in a pin-stripe suit. She smiled nervously, then caught sight of Dan in the back and quickly wiped it clean from her face. “I am so sorry for your loss, Mrs. and Mr. Ricciardo, and— Mr. Verstappen. And the timing.” She swallowed, scuffing her shoes against the waxed linoleum. “There was an emergency at the firm and— to cut a long story short— we’re a bit short staffed, so your son’s lawyer, Mr. Brown, has been made unavailable. But, I can assure you, I’ll do right by your son’s dying wishes.”
The Ricciardo’s wrapped themselves up in each other’s arms once more, leaning on each other for stability. Max felt wobbly in comparison, but the one he wanted to lean on was… Gone. Away. Except he wouldn’t be back to hold Max up.
The fresh-faced woman introduced herself as Lana, and they all moved about the room sluggishly to get the three of them seated in rattly hospital chairs whilst she remained standing. Max ignored that Daniel’s body was just… There. Still. At rest. Grace was holding her boy’s hand in between hers, squeezing the lifeless limb in her veiny, frail hands while Joe held onto his calf over the thin blue blanket. They looked as harrowed as Max felt as Lana talked on about legal jargon, but they were rapt with attention, not missing a single beat. Ever parents, even while their son lay motionless in their hands.
Lana began listing off various properties belonging to Daniel: his old truck, his villa in Italy, the Monaco and LA apartments, his dogs, his finances. It felt odd hearing Daniel’s life reduced to a series of ownership, when Max knew he was so much more than that.
Daniel was his loud smile, he was unruly curls in the Australian sun, he was the basketball court in downtown Los Angeles, he was the gaming console he kept only for when Max came over, he was the old music records in his garage, he was the man who taught Max how to be one too.
But as Lana’s list went on, Daniel’s parents listening intently, Max was shaken out of his mindless drift when his name was mentioned. “He left me something?”
Lana was nodding, eyes roving over her legal papers rapidly. She started to rattle off property like a grocery list: “Daniel Joseph Ricciardo, after his passing, transfers his ownership to Max Emilian Verstappen of a PS4 console, a photo album dating 2016, two surf boards, his Grand Prix trophies— there’s a note here: ‘Not that the bastard needs any more than he already has”— and his Italian villa to share with Joe and Grace Ricciardo. Additionally, he transfers legal guardianship of his eight month old son, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, to Max Verstappen.
“Well,” she concluded somewhat hastily, “that seems to be it. Any questions? I’ll leave the office number as well, if necessary—”
“His what?” Grace yelled. For a second, the silence was so loud you could hear a pin drop.
Lana shifted awkwardly and frowned. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid you’ll have to specify.”
Joe’s chair scraped back roughly as he stood. “There’s been a mistake. My son doesn’t have any kids.”
Lana’s frown deepened. “Sir, this will was written and agreed upon explicitly by your son before his death.”
“Don’t fucking— Call it that, damn it! He’s not— My Danny’s not— He is, but—” Joe’s anger rose and fell like a raging fire suddenly deprived of oxygen. His shoulders dropped, and he visibly cracked. Sobs wracked his body as he struggled to heave in breath after breath.
Max watched on, feeling as if he’d been cleaved open on the autopsy table; dead but alive as they reached into his chest cavity and tore out his heart with him feeling every single nerve ending scream. He couldn’t move an inch, paralyzed as his stomach fell through the floor.
The lawyer, Lara, Lana, whatever, muttered hasty apologies Max didn’t hear as she made a swift exit, leaving behind a stack of papers and an air of despair.
Grace hurried to comfort her husband, cradling his head into her chest as they cried. Max reached for the stack of paper by Daniel’s cold feet, avoiding touching the man at all. He turned them around and immediately found those words again:
‘— his eight month old son, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, to Max Verstappen.’
He looked at Daniel one last time, feeling him calling his name. “You bastard,” he whispered, looking into his closed eyes. Eight months since Andrea, Daniel's fuckingchild he'd never bothered to tell anyone about, was born. Eight. Months. It was true, he supposed, that they simply weren't friends like they used to be despite their efforts to believe otherwise, when everything was simpler and RedBull was their mutual happy place. A son felt like betrayal to the fragile peace that had settled between them since 2018. A son was a life beyond Max's grasp. An affirmation of the sickness that twisted Max's heart to shreds in the late of night.
Open your eyes, he wanted to scream, Open your fucking eyes and tell what I’m supposed to do with all these broken pieces you’ve left behind.
***
The family services’ agency is bright and sunny and reminds him too much of a magazine home-decor set, with the nude throw pillows and white throw blankets over leathery couches. He sits in the latter, anxiously tapping his foot against the ground. It doesn’t slip by his notice that many of the employees milling about are glancing at him. Perhaps they’ve seen him on the news or the sports channels, or just knew him by default because this is Monaco, and no one doesn’t know about racing drivers in the capital of Formula One. Frankly, he doesn’t care and he wishes they would stop looking at him like a zoo animal. It can’t be the first time they see a celebrity in one of these places, with the way most of them end up front-page on the tabloids after raucous nights of European partying and women.
Max pauses that train of thought. He’d never considered Daniel might be part of those. Though he knows the man used to party a lot; he wasn’t afraid of smoking, and certainly not of drinking his weight in alcohol after a good race. But a secret affair? Getting some Italian woman pregnant? The space between them has grown without Max ever noticing, even after all they’ve done and overcome together. Is he really so blinded by easy smiles? He wants to ask, aching to know what he had missed. He won't answer if you call, a harsh, internal hiss breaks through his spiral. Dead men tell no tales, no matter how much you beg.
“Mr. Verstappen?” an assistant calls. Max starts at his name and hastens to follow the harried assistant into a warmly lit office, where a thirty-something is shuffling papers around. “Oh! You guys got here quick! Thank you so much, Mira, you can head back now.”
The door closes behind the assistant as the social services agent gestures Max into a plush armchair, smiling warmly. “Sit, please. It’s Max Emilian, right? Hi, I’m River, and I’ll be the one to help you through this process.”
“Just Max,” he says, then mutters: “It’s nice to meet you.” His eyes rove around the office, catching on a wall of pictures of River and presumably their kids grinning wildly at the camera.
If possible, their smile warms even further. “This is a hard decision to make, Max. I’ve been through it myself. Since me and my partner are unable to conceive, we decided to adopt, and although I understand your situation is much different, the basis is the same: accepting a new child into your home, your family, your life; it’s tough. You have to be 100% sure you can do this, for the kid’s sake.”
The cold numbness that’s encompassed him for the past week and a half since his life went from ‘with Daniel’ to ‘without Daniel’ momentarily thaws at River’s words. “Of course,” he murmurs, guilt flooding his stomach. The thing is, Max isn’t 100% certain he can raise a child. Actually, he's quite fucking certain he can't. He’s barely 23, hasn’t accomplished what he’s set out to do in Formula One, hasn’t got a girlfriend— isn’t convinced a girl is what he wants— and to top it all off with a kid? The impossibility of it all calls him like a void.
“Why’d you want me to have him?” Max had asked in the darkness of his bedroom as he scrolled through old selfies of him and Daniel, curled up in bed with nothing but his boxers and an undershirt on, itchy cat hair all over his pillows. He had stopped on a particular picture of them both in their old Red Bull Racing polos, giggling over something or other. A picture someone else had taken. Daniel’s eyes are bright half-moons wrinkled in laughter. “Sometimes,” he had whispered, thinking of the life Daniel surely had beyond Max, beyond the feeling that ballooned his heart and twisted his stomach into knots when he thought of Daniel, “I feel like I don’t know you anymore. Like I never really did.”
Later, when River and him have discussed all there is to discuss about what it means to sign his name on the dotted line, River smiles questingly at him and asks if he’d like to meet him.
All Max can do is answer, “Yes.”
They lead him to a hallway, where they briefly pass by a playroom where about a dozen kids are toying around with doll houses, plastic mechanic stations and miniature train tracks, whilst another dozen roll about or yell, running after each other screaming. The sight is a small wonder; he had never spent much time around other kids his age beyond karting when he was a kid. Most of his early childhood memories consist of him and his dad, surrounded by cars and karts and tracks and mechanics; tools, sheets, hands grabbing him by the helmet, shouting. Sometimes, glimpses of his mother’s soothing face, snippets of her voice and Vicky’s whiny tone as she pleaded for something or other.
They walk past it to a quieter room some doors away; a few wet nurses are breastfeeding the younger ones, babies still in their diapers, whilst rocking back and forth in wooden chairs. A slender woman walks forward towards them as they enter the room; she and River exchange a few words. Anticipation rises. Max’s breath shortens into short bursts, hands clenching by his sides. He needs a wheel, his sim, whatever. Crests. Who’s he kidding, he can’t handle a fucking kid when he’s barely a man himself.
Max is about to run out of the room when the slender woman comes back, a tiny sleeping bundle in her arms.
“Would you like to hold him?” she murmurs. Max is holding out his arms before he can even blink.
Warmth is the first thing he registers as the baby is shuffled into his arms. The woman adjusts his hold around him until the kid’s lolling head is resting comfortably on his collarbone and his butt is properly supported. Unconsciously, he finds himself running his fingers through the mop of curly brown hair tickling Max’s chin. Just like Dan’s, he marvels.
In his sleep, he shuffles around until Max can properly see his face. Wrinkly eyelids and a puckered, drooling mouth is what he’s met with. “His cheeks,” Max whispers, feeling too loud. He runs a finger against the boy’s face. “They’re so soft?”
River and the woman laugh quietly, fond, but he barely hears them over the rushing in his ears.
In that moment, Max knows he’s not worth being a father; it’s not in his blood, not his instinct. In fact, there's nothing remotely fatherly about him. Yet, there’s another knowledge that carves him. Gently, the walls around himself he didn’t realize had risen begin to fall away. Max knows now there’s no way he’s letting the last piece he has of Daniel— this little boy with ruddy cheeks and a nest of curls atop his head— fall to oblivion.
***
Parenting is hard, Max reasons with himself. There’s a stack of overdue library books on his coffee table, reading titles like Parenting 101 and Toddler Care for Dummies, which Max has decidedly not read and instead called his mom for advice. But, he thinks, surely it cannot be so bad?
The entire apartment had gotten babyproofed a week ago, just in time for Max completing the court mandated adoption papers. Despite the fact Kimi— as Max had taken to calling him— was already a toddler, paranoia hung over Max like a dark cloud. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if something completely avoidable were to happen to Kimi. Six hours of frenzied haste later he’d dutifully plastified the sharp edges of his lower tables, installed locks on his toolbox drawers and secured any loose frames into the wall. He’d bought a stack of plastic plates, cups and utensils that now sat in a neat pile beside his own ceramic ware.
Though, Max hardly had to worry. Kimi was an angel through and through. At night, when even Monaco went to sleep, Max lingered by Kimi’s tiny racecar-shaped bed to watch him sleep. The toddler’s face was peaceful, a sort of unblemished purity from the waking world. Tears would fill his eyes and carve their way down the grieved lines of his face in a still, lonely silence.
Kimi would never know who his dad was. Never know that glaring smile, that heartfelt way of life, nor the light he shone down on those around him.
Kneeling, Max leans down and buries his tear-streaked face in a tiny head wild with curls. He smells the Monaco sunshine, like home. Max slackens into it.
Kimi wakes with a huff, nose scrunched up. Max laughs despite himself. “Oh, don’t fuss,” he whispers, cradling his puffy cheeks within his too big hands. The toddler’s face goes red as he begins to cry. Loud, wailing sobs break the silence. Max tuts and hefts Kimi up into his arms, walking towards his own bedroom just next door. He rocks him back and forth like he’d learned to do with Vicky’s babies, and lays down on top of his comforter. His wallet uncomfortably poking his ass through his jeans and Kimi’s a hefty baby, but the weight of him on his chest and his dwindling cries far outweighs his discomfort.
“Feeling better, buddy?” he says, brushing Kimi’s curls back from his forehead. The kid stares back at him, wide brown eyes fighting to keep themselves open. Simply adorable, he thinks quietly. “Me too,” he murmurs, exhaustion pulling him under just as Kimi’s eyes slide closed.
***
The funeral is a commercial success on Live TV across Europe and Australia. About a dozen drones and twice as many camera crews surround the burial site as Daniel’s body is lowered into the ground at Daniel’s favourite hiking spot in Perth. The sun is at its highest axis overhead, casting a muggy haze across the entire rite.
Max stands alongside Grace, Joe, Daniel’s sister and his nieces at the center of it all. His fingers twitch nigh constantly against his thighs, mind running circles between trying not to cry at Dan’s funeral and resisting the urge to call the nanny he’d hired for the day. He hadn’t brought Kimi out of fear the paparazzi would snap a shot of his new charge and publish it on every available platform, shattering the sliver of possibility Kimi could have at a private life. He knows what a childhood surrounded by cameras and journalists is like, the kind of pressure on a child to constantly put up a front isn’t one that should be beared. If there’s one thing Max will protect Kimi from, it’s the media. Daniel hadn’t even told his parents about his apparent love child, let alone Max, so the media knowing is out of question on principle.
He didn't tell you about the mother either, a cruel voice tears through the ringing silence in his head. His heart twists in his chest. Hot shame bursts through him violently. Had Daniel known Max's heart would stop?
Following the burial, most of the camera crews disperse, on the hunt for the next big story already. The attendees do the same, offering their condolences to Daniel’s parents. The latter’s faces are crestfallen, aged decades by grief; no parent wants to see their child go before themselves.
Max stands by his lonesome a few feet in front of Daniel’s grave. The stone was low to the ground, a deep grey marble. ‘Daniel Joseph Ricciardo, beloved son, uncle, friend, and joy of the paddock.’
He can't cry, distinctly aware of the remaining cameras zeroed in on his face. He wants to scream into the cameramens’ faces, punch a hole straight through the lenses. Is his grief a spectacle to them? A Top Ten headline? Rage bubbles within his gut and he clenches his fists to avoid an outburst. Despite it not being a race weekend and the funeral not even remotely close to the track, the FIA would still somehow manage to fine him his liver for swearing on air. His nails dig red half-moons into his calloused palms.
“Max?” Grace.
He clears his throat, swallowing back a litany of profanities. “My condolences.”
Grace’s face is pleading. “None of that, not from you, Max. You boys meant so much to each other.” She pauses, and glances askingly between his eyes. ”Sometimes, I wondered whether you two…”
His jaw clenches. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Please, Max,” she says. “You know me and Joe would support you no matter what.”
“It wasn’t like that,” he reiterates, glancing briefly over at Daniel’s grave. The fresh soil laid overtop. Something in him uncoils and his shoulders drop. His next words come in a hushed whisper. For once, his voice doesn’t break, but resignation poisons his tone. “Not for him, anyway.”
Grace purses her lips, though not unsympathetically. Her eyes shimmer with tears. “Oh, Max,” she says, rubbing a warm palm across his back. It only served to remind him how much he wanted his own mother there with him, standing by his side to bear his burdens for him. “He loved you so, so much. Just…”
He steps away from her. Grace doesn’t have to say anything for Max to understand, but he would never put the cruel weight of breaking his heart on her shoulders.
“It’s okay,” he tells her, even as his vision tunnels and sickness roils through him. The rest of the funeral goes by in a haze; Max wonders later whether he hasn’t dreamed it. Dreamed the past few weeks. Maybe he’ll wake up and everything will be as it should, put right by the universe.
Would you be there to greet me when I wake, Daniel? Would you look at me all funny and wonder where my mind had been? Would you have loved me like I love you?
That night, back in Monaco courtesy of his jet, the what-ifs run through his mind as he rocks Kimi to sleep in his arms. The babe is bundled tightly in a baby blue blanket, emitting weak coos every now and then, plastered against Max’s chest. He had taken to sleeping with Max in his bed instead of his own, chasing a warmth Max is all too willing to give.
There are some things he won’t be able to give Kimi, in the coming years of his life, despite Max’s willingness. Max can’t give Kimi a mother, he can’t give him his father. Hell, he can’t even give him normalcy. But Max is determined to give Kimi a childhood suffused with belonging; never would his boy feel so alone he was forced to rely only on himself the way Max had when he was young. At the very least, he can promise him that.