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heliads · 1 year

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you always knew how to push my buttons

Alex Albon, long-suffering woman in motorsport, would really like to focus on her first year of racing for Williams. George Russell makes that difficult.

(or, girl alex galex)

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In Christian Horner’s defense, it wasn’t the worst idea. You have a second driver that’s doing badly, you need to pull them out but don’t want to look cruel, so you put in someone who’ll draw attention to who you’re currently sitting in your car instead of who you used to seat.

A girl is the perfect bargaining chip. The media gets so distracted by historic moments and trailblazers that they forget about the French kid Red Bull abandoned only a little bit ago, and when you tire of the girl, too, you can ship her back to reserve driverhood and still get the necessary pats on the back because, you know, you tried.

Alex Albon doesn’t want to be another token feminism card to play, though, and she certainly doesn’t want to stay in the shadows any more. This is something that Red Bull has learned upon hiring her. It might, perhaps, be something that they regret, because they’ve finally realized that Alex has absolutely no interest in being a little Media Darling Barbie for them, but they were still content to let her rot away in the aftermath of their fast-paced work environment.

Alex has her second chance now, though. She’s done her time in the prison of reserve driver status, and now she’s on the grid again. Williams is, admittedly, somewhat of a far fall from Red Bull, but every Icarus has their plummet to the sea, and she plans on reaching the glimmer of the sun again soon. She’ll be on a podium again. Then she can laugh at the rest of them as much as she pleases.

Until then, Alex is supposed to keep her head down but her chin up, ignoring all of the hundreds of people asking how terrible it must feel to only have less than two full years of being a second driver under her belt before getting booted. Her PR manager has trained her on how to handle the questions without getting abrasive. Williams is glad to have Alex on, of course, but they would really like it if she could play along with the interviewer circus for just a few months more before starting to crack.

Alex is not good at keeping her temper at bay. She is proving it now. It’s only a Thursday, barely a few races into the calendar, and already all of her media training is blinking out of her head like fading batteries.

One interviewer, seemingly sensing this, addresses his next question to her. “Alex, you’ve had a year to recharge as a reserve driver, and now you’re back with Williams. Are you disappointed to get your second chance only to be stuck with a backmarker team?”

Alex has often thought that it’s not drivers who should get media training but the actual media themselves, because how the fuck are you actually allowed to ask that in a professional setting. She grits her teeth into her best impression of a smile and tries to answer normally instead of, like, lunging out of the chair to gouge the guy’s eyes out or something. “I am happy to be back on the grid. Williams has given me a great opportunity, and it’s one that I’ll take as far as I can.”

The reporter frowns, scratching at his head a little before pressing further. “So you’re glad to be with this team, then? You wouldn’t have wanted any of the other teams to reach out with a contract?”

Alex stares at the guy. “I’m at Williams, and I like being here. Quit asking me about other people. Ask better questions.”

The interviewer purses his lips, giving Alex such vivid flashbacks of bitter and jaded old school teachers that she almost wants to ask the guy about his past career choices before turning to F1. However, she has a feeling that the only one who gets to be dissected about their resume is her. Delightful.

“That’s not really that nice, is it?” The man asks, voice so full of condescension that Alex has to squeeze her fingernails into her palms to avoid groaning out loud. “You know, when you first came to the grid, I thought you would be more friendly.”

“Yeah, well.” Alex says shortly. “There were nice girl drivers, but they couldn’t get through all of this. You’re stuck with me now.” Then smiles, like that’ll make all of this better. Oh, her PR manager is so killing her once this ends. Can the team doctors mend broken bones before Friday free practice begins?

The interviewer looks sour, but to her left, Alex actually hears someone laughing. She cocks her head to the side, curious to see who’s looking past her temper to discover a joke, and finds–

George. Of course it would be George.

George Russell is quite possibly one of the only people on the grid at the moment, or perhaps the entire world for that matter, who not only tolerates Alex’s snark and nonsense but likes it, too. Has since they were, like, tweens and teens. They’d observed each other in 2008, caught up between different karting circuits, but waited until 2011 to properly become friends. No self respecting twelve year old would ever interact with a boy who was merely ten, not while she was still winning, but fifteen and thirteen was better. They’re best now.

They were both small back then; George more so, almost a whole head shorter than Alex at that point, but he’s caught up remarkably fast, and not just in height. They were both stuck in the same fantasy, kids growing up at each other’s houses and dreaming of climbing the F3-F2-F1 ladder, and now they’re both here, swapping off places on the Williams team roster like a baton in a relay race. Time changes us all. They would never be the exception, even if it was kind of sort of wonderful back then, and Alex kind of sort of misses the way it was.

Not in the least bit because it meant less media duties for her back then. The interview ends in a pitiably long time, just long enough for Alex to wonder if reserve driverhood wasn’t better than this solely because she at least didn’t have to attend driver’s media days. She’s released soon enough, though, permitted to spill out into the dizzying sun of the paddock once more.

She pauses by the door to let George catch up to her; Alex likes walking quickly away, but she does owe George for breaking the ice back there. Once another driver had laughed, the interviewer could join in, nervously coughing and chuckling before quickly moving on to a better, more suitable candidate for terrible questions.

“D’you think I should put in a petition to the stewards asking for media days to be longer?” George asks conversationally, “I was kind of getting the feeling that you wanted to spend more time getting interrogated.”

Alex twists her face into a bitter glare. “I’d rather you just run me over with your car on Sunday and get the whole trouble over with. It’s like they want me to just start weeping over the wreck of my career already and give them a good show.”

George snorts. “They want drama, just ignore them. They’ll find a new victim soon enough.”

Easy for him to say, Mr. Saturday with the crisp Tommy Hilfiger lining on his new Mercedes team kit, he’s not the one getting picked to pieces. George had practically salivated over the shirt when he got his first shipment of merch, making Alex unbox it with him like they were vloggers or something.

He’d lingered over each cap and polo so long that Alex had threatened to slice the lot of it to ribbons with her box cutter unless he picked up the pace. Even still, George’s face had idled over the black and white fabrics long after everything was unpackaged, like he still couldn’t believe it was all real.

Alex stages a desolate sigh. “Yeah, yeah. They’ll all forget about me soon enough. It’ll be good.”

“Not all of them,” George corrects. “There’s still me, remember?”

His blue eyes are wide and accusatory. Alex finds it within herself to chuckle. “How could I not? We’ll skip media day and go hang out. Just us two.”

“Just us,” George repeats almost reverently, a prayer, a promise.

And it– it’s a joke, yeah, there’s no way in hell that either of them would be so dismissive of their seat that they’d willfully invoke the wrath of PR managers and team principles by skiving off entire days of the race week circus, but it’s still fun to imagine. George would be the one to do it with, anyway. George gets Alex. Always has.

Especially in connection with Alex’s hatred of the media. Alex has other hobbies than bashing interviewers, obviously, she does have a life that revolves around more than just despising bad questions and uncomfortable skits, but media duties are just such a prevalent part of being a driver that she can’t hide from them that often. That means someone has to hear her complaints, and more often than not, that person is George.

He’s quite used to it, though, having more than enough years to accept and subsequently tune out Alex’s rambling monologues on how useless it is to ask the same questions and hear the same forced answers every week without fail. More often than not, George is roped into various plots to get Alex out of the piercing eye of the camera, or at least make times like those more tolerable, like he did today.

A memory rises unbidden to the forefront of Alex’s mind. It was a few years back, when Alex was still with Red Bull and George was testing the limits of Williams. They’d been conducting post-race interviews, or Alex had, at least; George had appeared out of the mess of drivers and PR accomplices to kind of hover in the background of Alex’s frame, looming in a typical George-like manner.

Alex had really wanted to forget the whole race the second it ended– as if she couldn’t see Christian Horner shaking his head over the displays, as if all today accomplished wasn’t just a chance to give the public another set of Alex’s average speeds to be endlessly compared with Max’s– but the interviewer was dragging his heels, forcing one word answers into paragraphs of speculation.

At one point, the guy had pointed out a bloody scrape showing through Alex’s undershirt. She’d accidentally caught the skin against the edge of her car when she was getting out, but doubtless it would be used as just another chance to prove Alex wasn’t fit for the car or the team didn’t care about her or whatever. Alex wanted to leave, but the interviewer wouldn’t leave well enough alone, which meant it was time for more drastic measures.

She had rolled her eyes, then made some asinine one-liner about how that wasn’t the first time blood had shown up against a race suit. Jokes about periods always get the same awkward shuffling feet and vague mumbling about getting someone else to talk to. It’s a fairly dependable constant.

Everyone was uncomfortable, which was exactly what Alex wanted, because when they’re uncomfortable they don’t want her there anymore and she can leave. The interviewer already looked like he wished he could stab himself through the eyes with the metal straw Lewis was sipping through earlier that day, but George— George was still grinning. Fondly. And not at all put off.

Freak. Alex was kind of fascinated by him. Still is. If anything, the fascination has multiplied.

And that makes it sound like— but it’s not—

Alex has known George almost her entire life. As long as it mattered, really. Recently, though, she’s started thinking. About George. In ways that she had not before.

Because, at the end of the day, there is something to George Russell that Alex might have missed the first time around. Something she only noticed when he was getting out of the car, peeling off the outer layer of his race suit so she had no choice but to stare at the fireproofs skin tight against him. Or when he posted a hundred different shirtless selfies, practically daring her to look. It is not hard to look. Not at George.

George, who’s had her back since they were kids. George, who randomly interrupts her interviews to call her a warrior. Who goes on podcasts to go on long tangents about how Alex deserves better than she gets and calls her proper quick despite the fact that she’s past the days of winning everything. He’s in a Mercedes now, she’s in the dusty contrail of his speeding jet, and George still has the time of day to give to her. Maybe he’s the type of guy to deserve her looking.

It makes Alex seek him out more, even more than she did before. It makes her do risky, stupid things, like pull George into her driver’s room after another Thursday debrief so they can hypothetically make fun of all that was said that day but mainly just so she can sit right by him and look.

George is apparently immune to the looking. Alex is observing him like she’s one of the thousands of spectators out there, goggle-eyed and hopeless, but George seems not to notice it at all. Perhaps she should invest in a homemade sign or something. Maybe even a cardboard cutout of his face.

“There were quite a number of rumors about you today,” George is in the midst of noting, “mainly that you’re going to be switching teams already. If you are, can you tell me now so I can place bets?”

Alex laughs. “I’m not going anywhere. Not yet, at least. Tell your fellow gamblers to cool it.”

George makes an elaborate display of shrugging. “You can’t be too sure of yourself. Ferrari’s always on the lookout for a new driver lineup, apparently, and McLaren’ll never pass up the chance for fresh blood.”

“I don’t want to give Zak Brown any of my blood,” Alex asserts, “But Ferrari would certainly be something. I’m sure the bad strategy is made up by other things like salaries and teammates. Charles is a pretty boy, isn’t he? That would help with the rest of it.”

George makes a sort of squawking noise in the back of his throat. Alex can’t honestly tell if he’s embarrassed for Charles’ sake or what, but there’s a hot pink shock of blush sitting high on his cheekbones now, starting to mottle his neck. “Did you just call Charles pretty?”

Alex’s nod is exaggeratedly slow, just to be obstinate. “Yes, I did. Boys can be pretty. Don’t forget what century you’re in, Georgie. We’re forward thinkers now.” She narrows her eyes a little, sensing weakness, then— “You’re pretty too, y’know that? Eyelashes and all.”

This, then, is the source of tension. George genuinely squirms in his seat, hands clenched on the armrests of his chair like he fully expects to melt into the floor if he isn’t white-knuckling the thing. “That’s— that’s not— I wasn’t trying to angle for a compliment.”

“You didn’t have to,” Alex says, divinely pleased with herself, “I gave it out anyway. Consider me in a charitable mood.”

George rolls his eyes. “Since when have you been charitable?”

Alex scoffs. “Since forever. I volunteer, y’know. I have been spotted giving caps to children.”

George settles back into his seat, a comfortable smile on his face. “I know. I take it back. You’ve always been good.”

It is, all things considered, a very simple thing to say. You have always been good. Good is subjective. The idea of Alex that exists in George’s head, the one that is good, she’s subjective too, not quite real but close enough. Alex wonders what that girl must be like, good enough to ease the annoyance of a friend’s teasing, enough to– to make up for the fact that it’s her, that it’s Alex, or maybe that was why George was here in the first place, because the Alex that won him over was the real Alex all along.

And it’s stupid because– Have you ever been alone in a room with a boy? The whole space is empty but he sits right next to you. And he’s looking at you like the sun, like the stars, like even as you blind him, he’s never seen anything better and he’ll keep on staring, just to see what else you can do. You’ve gone your whole life swearing up and down that just because you’re the only female driver on the grid, that doesn’t mean you’ll fall in love with the first male driver to stop and look at you twice, but.

George is looking at Alex, eyes half-lidded, mouth open slightly, mid-gasp without a sound, and Alex isn’t falling in love because she wouldn’t do that. If she did, though, she thinks it would not be the worst thing ever. She can hear her heartbeat echoing in her ears, loud as the drums race organizers bring out in the bands for their anthem before lights out and away we go. Just as bad, too, because the sound is tripping over itself, speeding up and slowing down and absolutely erratic.

Alex can feel her entire chest constricting, ribs bruising as they bend against each other. George tilts his head to the side, concern flickering over his expression. “Are you alright?”

No. “Yes,” Alex says. No.

George seems to believe this about as much as Alex does, and he reaches up to touch Alex’s forehead, two fingers exactly perpendicular against the warm flush of Alex’s skin. It’s so grandmotherly it’s almost ridiculous, George pursing his lips like he’s going to prescribe hot soup or a good night’s sleep or something else motherly and terrible, but instead he just shrugs and says that he doesn’t feel a fever. Alex doesn’t know if she’s more hurt by the dismissal or when George takes his hand away.

“You’re probably fine,” George tells her.

He’s leaned away again, but he keeps a firm hold on the same two fingers that had touched her skin like he’s nursing a cut, like having any contact with Alex should be imprinted into him forever. It makes Alex want to touch him again, forever, and never let go. They could be joined together at the hip physically instead of just metaphorically. It probably wouldn’t mess with racing that badly.

She lets out a weak chuckle. “Is that your expert opinion, Dr. Russell?”

George flushes, embarrassed, and looks away. “You probably won’t lose any limbs or anything.”

Alex cackles. “I should hope not. You’d have a terrible medical practice if I came in for a fever and you did, like, an amputation or something.”

George snorts. “It’s only the natural response to a fever, of course.”

He eyes Alex again as he says it, eyes rolling down her body as he mumbles the words natural response. Alex leans forward slightly, and George mirrors her by impulse. “Is that all that doctors do for their patients?” She asks under her breath. Not her best attempt at dirty talk, but she doesn’t really have the power to think of anything else more impressive.

It works, anyway. George shakes once, all over, a sort of head to toe shiver that forces the breath from his lungs. Alex can actually hear it as George’s words hitch in his throat, but there’s a sharp rap on the door before either of them can find out how he’ll respond.

George flies away from Alex, practically leaping off of the sofa as he attempts to quickly create distance between them. It’s a good thing that their intruder just stays on the other side of the door, announcing themselves to be Alex’s PR manager needing her to come out for another round of interviews before leaving, because George is panting like he’s run a footrace, all in the effort to make it seem like nothing had happened here at all.

Hadn’t it? Even as George announces that he’d better go since Alex is busy now, and even as Alex unhappily stands up at last to go face the dozen TikToks they’ll force her to make before she can escape again, she glances back one last time at the room before she leaves. It’s as if she’s expecting to see something there, some sign of the heavy tension that had been there just moments ago.

Nothing. Just creased pillows and an empty sofa. Alex indulges herself in a brief fantasy that there had been a better reason for that other than a brief conversation, but it can’t last long. She’s got media duties to scoff at, and she’s learned long ago that it’s better not to think excessively about George while there’s a camera in her face. For some reason, it causes her to lose all sense of what she’s saying.

The idea that something else could have happened, though, lingers in Alex’s head far longer than it should. It sticks around through free practice, appears in her thoughts after qualifying, even pops out of her head briefly during the race itself.

It’s turn four, Alex brakes as late as she dares, and as she pushes her foot decisively back onto the accelerator, her brain has the audacity to ask if maybe George would have touched her if they had stayed in that room even a little longer.

He had wanted to, maybe. His fingers had been clenching and unclenching the whole time, flickering in invisible piano-chord patterns ever closer to that gap where his leg ended and hers began. Senna, turning over in his grave, if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you’re no longer a racing driver.

This is what dumbstruck boys get you, then. At this point, Alex is feeling practically delusional. Half a second later, she remembers that she’s still, like, in a car, which is a more pressing matter to attend to than musings on what could’ve happened if more stars aligned, but. She does ask over the radio where George ended up when the race has finished, and she uses that information to decide to ask George to show up to her hotel room after night begins to fall.

This is no uncommon occurrence. The two of them often meet up at someone’s house or another’s room. It’s a more efficient vehicle for random conversations than extended phone calls. George appears at her threshold within ten minutes, panting slightly, and it could just be Alex’s overactive imagination, but she swears he looks nervous, like he wants something. They both do. Alex just has to be sure that it’s the same thing and not something grievously, totally different.

“So,” she says boldly. “Uh. Good race.”

George looks at her askance. “Yeah, thanks.”

God, it’s like they’re work acquaintances. Alex wants to die. How is it that she wants more, but the second she tries to say that, she becomes even less?

Second time’s the charm. She clears her throat. “I wanted to ask you something. About when we were in my driver’s room. Someone came in before– but I wanted to know if you, if we, were going to do anything if that hadn’t happened, and. Yeah.”

She is terrible. George still looks taken aback. “Oh, on Thursday? I don’t know, someone came in,” he repeats.

Alex is going to scream. “They did. If they didn’t, though.”

George swallows. “Right. I– I think I would have wanted something.”

As if that isn’t the vaguest thing that George could have possibly said. “Something?” Alex asks. "Like what, a new front wing?”

George sighs, exasperated. “No, Alex, like you.”

It hangs in the air for a while. Alex thinks that if she tried hard enough, she could actually see the words printed into the very oxygen she’s breathing. Like you. Alex, like you.

In retrospect, silence is not a good way to address such a thing. George, who has always been tense, who will always overthink things to the point of mental anguish, takes this as a sign that he misread the situation, and damage control is launched accordingly.

“Forget it,” George says abruptly, “This isn’t– Just forget it, alright? I’ll see you next week.”

He’s out of the door before Alex knows what’s going on. Alex stares open mouthed at the exit, a thousand thoughts churning through his head. As if Alex could just forget it. The idea is such an impossibility that it’s almost laughable.

Because– because Alex remembers what it was like, being young, being kids. Together. Alone in her house or his. A dozen inside jokes no one else gets. A hundred side eyes and bitten tongues and uncontrollable laughs. Alex ran away from it all when she was kicked off of Red Bull, when she was certain that it would never again be what it was– George her muse, Alex his idol, both of them the best and neither of them out of it. Running, though, running robbed her of it all. Alex wants it all more than she ever has before.

And maybe they’ll never have a podium together, and maybe Alex will never be at the top step of their pyramid anymore, but at this moment they’re two ships passing in the night, George relinquishing the Williams seat so he can hand it off to Alex, and maybe– maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s enough. If she tries hard enough, she can make it enough. Maybe he’d want it to be enough too.

Maybe he already did. Alex’s stomach twists as she thinks back to everything George has said to her over the recent months. He’s always been so genuine, says each word like he means it more than anything, but he’s put something extra into them as of late, something special. His hands move more when he speaks, maybe that’s it. Alex has taken the time to observe every digit, every ungnawed cuticle, every knuckle and bit of bone straining against the skin.

She’s watching for something, waiting for it to happen, and then in a clap of mental thunder Alex realizes that what she is waiting for has already occurred. George has already given her the go-ahead. Has many times over. Alex wasn’t aware of it because she was too scared to look, too afraid to ruin something good, but. Alex is looking now, and a far worse thing would be to have this before her and let it go.

Alex thinks about George wringing his hands and apologizing too much, lunging into her room before she barely even called him, second guessing and blindly firing and doing everything in his power to keep her. It’s stupidly charming, and overwhelmingly off putting at the same time, but it’s George, and it’s what Alex wants. Alex wants George. Alex wants George more than she has wanted anything. At times like this, she thinks she might give up anything else, that top step of the podium, the sweet taste of champagne scorching down her throat, if it meant she might be able to taste him, too.

Alex throws herself out of the room. George hasn’t made it that far, even despite his long, reedy legs, dragging each footstep like his shoes have been weighed down with iron. By contrast, Alex is jetting down the hall, sprinting out of her door so fast she’s not entirely sure that both her feet are ever touching the ground. She catches up to George in about half a heartbeat, thinks, fastest, thinks, pole position, and kisses him.

George goes as still as a statue. Alex is still moving when she hits him and does this abrupt careening around thing where her acceleration is still carrying her past him down the hall even as their lips connect. George has to catch her around the middle so she doesn’t fall over, his hands clumsily connecting at her waist, but at least that means he’s still thinking, because Alex’s brain shut off the second his mouth was on hers.

George has always been the thinker, though. George, sitting up late in the corner of the Albon family basement, blue eyes wide as he tucks his feet under himself and continues to extoll the virtues of minimized tire degradation, George, finally eye level with her and not looking up, matter-of-factly informing Alex that of course they’ll both be in Formula One together, are you kidding.

George today, brain whirring into overdrive, whose first thought isn’t to ask Alex what in the hell she’s doing but to urge the two of them to get back into her room before someone sees. Alex has no problem in accepting. Where he goes, she does too. They kind of work out like that.

And, when Alex wakes up lazy and late the next morning, when the first thing she spots is George’s shirt on the ground right next to hers, she remembers how well they work out, too. She stretches and yawns widely, flopping onto her back to discover that a) George is already awake, probably for hours (weirdo), and b) is now intimately connected with the most trustworthy news sources his phone can offer instead of with her (double weirdo).

Alex arches a brow over at him from where she still lies, tangled in linen sheets of a thread count that are probably higher than both their salaries. “Nothing like a fresh economic roundup to get you pumped to start your morning, huh, Georgie?”

George tends to pair a dramatic sigh with his eye rolls, Alex observes fondly. “There’s nothing wrong with staying informed, Alex. I’m not looking at the business section, though. I’m reading about us. Tabloids.”

For a moment, Alex’s heart freezes in her chest. She hadn’t counted on getting found out this quickly, and god, how could they, unless Red Bull really did want to capitalize on her downfall and, like, paid for a secret investigator to follow her around and take photos when she finally caved and pursued her best friend. Which, weird, but kind of foreseeable, too. They’d probably done it to Pierre at least once.

She scavenges about for her phone on the nightstand beside her and turns it on, typing geogre rhssel abd alrx albon tkgrther??? into the Safari search bar. She’s damn near unintelligible in her haste, but the search engine knows what she’s getting at and delivers anyway. Praise be.

Alex is expecting grainy surveillance photos of them making out in the hallway or something like that, but instead, she’s just greeted with more talk pieces on their long history together since they were karting kids, a few rumors here and there about what might be but nothing more than mere speculation.

“It’s okay,” she reassures George at last, “They don’t know.”

George frowns, still not entirely convinced. “It’s weird timing on a lot of these. At least three or four fan gossip pages put out stuff all last night. Why’d they all do it at the same time if they didn’t see?”

Alex shrugs. “Maybe they got bored, I don’t know. Odds are they saw us talking at the paddock earlier and decided to play off of interest so they posted.”

George counters, “Or, they might have posted, because we were, you know, we were kind of, uh, obvious, and–”

“We’re fine,” Alex says, rolling her eyes, “They don’t have anything new, just repeating the same stuff about how we might be fucking. No proof. Everyone’s dragging them for getting into pointless rumors.”

“Good,” George says, nodding his head emphatically like he’s committing every word to memory. “I don’t want anyone finding out that I– that we–” He can’t finish the sentence, unable to say more than a few words towards the audacious subject without tripping over the syllables.

Alex can guess at his meaning anyway, though, and it makes her laugh.

“What, you don’t want our bosses bringing up your potential plans to deflower me or something at the next team meeting, do you?” Alex says, cackling.

George’s cheeks turn an alarming shade of Ferrari red. “No. Not that.”

Still. Alex can’t tease him for blushing, because her cheeks have gone hot at the thought of it. If George were to– if they– It was a little late for that, of course, but if he really was the first–

“Your reputation remains intact,” Alex says, reassuring George of the truth but kind of herself, too. They’re both fine. No one knows. Wouldn’t it be something if they did, though. What they could do if they didn’t have to worry about getting caught.

Sometimes, Alex thinks that she does actually want to get caught. It would make sense. Every time she gets up the morning after, because it does happen again, despite both of them never formally saying it was a one time thing but kind of fearing it would be, anyway, every time she finds that they actually forgot to lock the door or they make out in one of the driver’s rooms such that you can still hear people going back and forth outside it, she remembers. George does too.

In fact, she thinks he likes it even better than she does. George Russell, newest boy to Mercedes, soon to a race win (everyone can feel it coming, even if it hasn’t yet), our glorious prodigy coming into everything, and the one who managed to get Alex’s heart, too, while he was at it. Heart and hands, body and soul. All of it. George has all of it.

It gets easier as time goes on, if that were even possible at all. How much can you improve upon a good thing when it already seems perfect? It’s like fine tuning a rear wing or shaving off seconds from a suspension. Alex never thought she’d describe love with something as insipid as car parts, but she has a sneaking suspicion that George might find it rather romantic. It’s relevant, at least, so that should count for something.

George would appreciate the practicality, at least. George would appreciate her. Does. Always does. Alex wakes up one morning, hair a mess, not sure which of their rooms she’s in nor if she had the presence of mind to carry her high heels back from the bar she’d been wasted at last night, and George still looks at her like she’s a work of art. He’s endearingly fond of her, which makes it even easier to be fond of him.

Alex thinks that she could be persuaded to stay here forever, lingering in this in between space of his-and-hers, the room belonging to both of them until she figures out which one of them has their name scrawled on the key card, but unfortunately there are still meetings to go to, interviews to conduct, engineers and team principles to appease.

Alex drags herself out of bed, grabbing the closest clean clothes before scraping at her hair with a brush and considering the whole affair handled as best it can be. Behind her, George’s figure appears out of the early morning shower mist on the bathroom mirror, the edges of his reflected skin and hair feathered over with steam.

“What do you think?” Alex asks, gesturing vaguely to herself with a languid hand, “Vogue cover ready?”

George snorts. “Oh, always. Do you have to head out already?”

“If I didn’t have to be somewhere soon, I would have slept in until noon,” Alex notes.

George hums in agreement. “So professional of you.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “You know me. Word on the street is that I’m highly coveted by all the teams for my winning mindset. That’s why they want me at the factory all the time, so no one can entice me away with a different contract offer.”

George laughs even despite the bad joke, then reaches to pluck at the fabric of Alex’s attire with a knowing, almost possessive, air of triumph.

“That’s my old shirt,” George observes, “You might want to change before you go out or someone’ll notice.”

Alex checks herself in the mirror, then shakes her head. George hasn’t gotten rid of all his old team kits, as it turns out; although this Williams tee isn’t Alex’s, it’ll do well enough. “It’s the same logo, how would they know it’s yours? It’s not got your name on it or anything.”

George’s eyes widen behind Alex in the mirror, veritable oceans swimming in the hazy glow of the hotel bathroom lighting. “What if they photograph you?”

Alex shrugs. “We’re the only ones who’ll know,” she tells George.

“Just us,” George agrees, but his hands coil in the extra fabric at the hem of her shirt, a silent reminder that it’s his, his shirt, his hotel room, and maybe– maybe Alex too, his.

The thought sends a hot shock coursing through Alex, pooling in her lower back near where George’s fingers still press against the fabric. She almost expects George to yank his hand back from an electric pulse when his knuckles accidentally brush her skin, but instead, he leans into the touch, and doesn’t let go until the stray buzzing from Alex’s phone grows insistent and it becomes clear that they can hide out here no longer.

Alex leaves first; George isn’t needed for half an hour after Alex, and they’re not stupid enough to leave a hotel together the morning after a drunken celebration. Not yet, at least. Idling listlessly in the elevator as it slowly ferries her down from the relative heaven of George’s hotel room, Alex thinks that it would be something to lose the last of her wisdom soon enough, to let the paparazzi catch her walking out of their shared hotel room, heels in her hands, dress from last night rucked up around her knees so she can walk.

Maybe she should tell George about it. She can imagine his reaction already, but the temptation of vocalizing it brings with it a sort of delicious rush that isn’t easily ignored. A ding echoes somewhere from the circuitry behind the wall of the elevator, and she steps out from the sliding doors, nodding at the receptionist before crossing the threshold.

The brightness of the morning blinds Alex when she walks outside. Somewhere out there, a car waits to carry her away, but for now, Alex lets the shocking sunlight bleach her clean of any expectations of driving or team principles or anything, anything at all.

She makes it halfway across the asphalt before giving in to the Orpheus-like temptation to turn back. Shading her eyes with her hand, Alex’s eyes chase the floors level by level until she finds one room in particular, one man who’s already gone to the trouble of throwing up the drapes on his window so he can peer out at the scene below. At her. She is in his shirt; was just in his room, in his bed; in his gaze now too, held and treasured.

Alex looks up at him and grins. “Good morning, Georgie.”

He can’t hear her. It doesn’t matter. They’ll have plenty of time for talking– and not– in the days and months and years to come. Just as before; so after, too. Alex would not want it any other way.

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