#monza 2010

[leclerc-s]

it’s monza race week so that means happy anniversary to the following:

monza 1996:

“the tifosi all around me are erupting. the scarlet flags, the ferrari flags are flying. the prancing horses are prancing, and michael schumacher crosses the line to win the italian grand prix”

monza 2008:

"toro rosso gets its moment in the sun. sebastian vettel is a grand prix winner for the first time. he's the youngest ever, and that's one of the greatest things i've ever seen in grand prix racing."

monza 2010:

"rounding the parabolica, what a feeling for fernando alonso! it's forza ferrari, forza fernando. he wins the italian grand prix at monza!"

monza 2019:

"he can see the celebrations starting. he's got one more corner, the famous parabolica to go. mercedes threw everything at him today, charles leclerc has coped brilliantly. he won in spa! he wins in monza! charles leclerc is the winner of the 2019 italian grand prix." alternatively: "il predestinato vince il gran premio d'italia!"

monza 2020:

“pierre gasly is front for the alpha tauri team, that won here as toro rosso and they are gonna win in 2020 as alpha tauri. pierre gasly wins the italian grand prix!"

monza 2021:

“he left red bull, he went to renault, he's gone to mclaren. he's gonna get the victory now, it's mclaren and ricciardo that win the italian grand prix."

[transbrucewayne]

Watching Monza 2010. Mark Webber was informed that Hulkenberg was not getting penalized to give a place back, and told he would have to pass him. IMMEDIATELY, on next lap, Mark got the fastest lap. Why is that hot.

[whewchilly]

sebastianvettel Italy GP (14th Race): 4th place (Monza) - Swap helmets with speed skier Ivan Origone

[skitskatdacat63]

I would commit murder to see the interview these pictures are from

[ho-ho-honeyryder]

monza is always a sebastian vettel occasion actually

[schumigrace]

yall let's chat tell me in the tags what your comfort race is (i.e., what race/set of races do you go back to watch when you need a boost)

[lizablackthorn]

everybody moved on i stayed there

my comfort races..

[gokartkid]

anybody want to send me past races they rlly like! i keep forgetting a lot of good ones and i have a good chunk of time to watch a bunch today

[cheriladycl01]

Love in the Fast lane - Max Verstappen x Actress! Reader

Plot: Max Verstappen meeting an Actress who has actively been a F1 fan from before the limelight gets invited to the Monza GP after her recent film debut.

"Can we please stop getting these celebrities in that know absolutely nothing about the sport? Vegas was a ball ache" Max says to Christian they walk through the Monza paddock.

"I think you'll actually enjoy who we have for this race, they're a big sponsor" Christian smiles.

"Yeah they all are ..." Daniel chimes in with a slight laugh.

"No, trust me guys i think you'll really really like her" Christian says as they round the corner. Normally whatever celebrity that sat in any of the garages would immediately be getting photos by both their manager and the Red Bull Team for the publicity on both ends.

However both Daniel and Max immediately saw the celebrity that had been invited. She was in the Red Bull team gear crouched down observing Max's car, she was asking questions to all the engineers before taking her own swing on things.

"That's Y/N Y/L/N" Daniel whispers wide eyed just watching her look so effortlessly normal.

"She's been a motor-sport fan for ages! Since before she was an actress. There's a picture of her at like age 10 at the South Korean Grand Prix. She had her first big movie 3 year later!" he continues as if he'd read an autobiography on her at some point.

"Hey Y/N come meet the drivers!" Christian offers to you, your hair was up in a tight pony tail, your face was natural and free of makeup and if they didn't know who you were apart from your outstanding natural beauty they'd assume you were an actual Red Bull team member.

"Oh my gosh, Hi hello!" you saying coming up to them and shaking there hands. Daniel and Max share a look between them, not believing how this 23 year old, Oscar Award winning actress is being a fan girl over them.

"Hello, its really nice to meet you!" Daniel says, and before you know it your being pulled into a hug.

"So you were asking some detailed questions about our cars, how'd that come about?" Max asks trying to get a judge on this girl.

"Oh! Well apart from the fact I've been a Motorsport fan for ages, I did a degree in Engineering at St Andrews around my career. I graduated last year!"

"Oh woah, that really amazing! Daniel was just telling me about the picture of you at the South Korean Grand Prix in 2010!" he offers, trying to get to know the extremely pretty girl in front of him. You excitedly pull out your phone, going straight into the photos app and to the specific album you had all of your Formula One pictures in.

"Oh i have another one of me and Sebastian Vettel when he won the 2013 Germany Grand Prix, I'd just got back from a movie premiere in London, and i refused to miss it! Oh and here's me, Lewis, Kimi and Sebastian in 2018!" you says showing them the pictures on the phone.

"Well, you had a picture with Seb when he was the Red Bull Golden boy but how about you get one with the current?" Max smirks, and your face reddens.

"Yeah of course! But I want a separate one just for me, not to go on any socials" you smile, you hand your phone to Christian who takes a private one of you and then the media teams come after to take them.

Daniel leaves to talk to his engineer and Christian leaves to set up for the race ahead.

"I'm going to be blunt, I like you. You have a true interest in the sport and if i win this race I want to take you out to dinner" he smirks, looking over at you. He was lent against the wall, his race suit down around his hips.

"Hmmm okay, you've got yourself a deal" you agree.

You watched the race in the Red Bull Garage with the headphones on. You'd been on camera a few times, sometimes when you'd been biting your lip as Max had clipped a corner or didn't break early enough but stopped himself from spinning out. Other times they just caught you with an in awe adoring look at the screen as you watched the cars zoom past.

Max tried as hard as he could but today the Ferrari's just had pace, Charles ended P1, Lando ended P2 and Carlos ended P3, Max unfortunately not being able to go for the overtake in the last sector.

"Everyone in RedBull was celebrating the win of P4 and P5, you came out with the pulling Daniel who had gotten out of his car first into a huge hug.

"Well done Dani that was an amazing race considering the longer pit stop" you admit looking at him and he gives you a massive grin back.

"Max, Max!" you shout as you see him pull himself over the halo of his car. He slams his fist onto the bonnet, and shoves his helmet into the seat of the car.

"Hey, stop you did really well!" you smile at him, holding each wrist of his in your hands, his forehead had started to line with a little bit of sweat, his helmet hair being scraped back now.

"Didn't get the dinner though did i?" he frowns.

"Well what if i tell you that I'm good to go out with you for dinner regardless of a race win..." you smile and he smiles back.

"But that would be going against the offer I originally made" he smirks, leaning forward.

"Fuck the original offer Verstappen" you laugh at him, pulling him in for a kiss that he happily led.

Taglist:

@littlesatanicassholebitch @hockey-racing-fubol @laura-naruto-fan1998 @22yuki @simxican @sinofwriting @lewisroscoelove @cmleitora @stupidandunnecessary @clayra-g @daemyratwst @honey-belden @moonypixel @lauralarsen @vader-is-hot @ironcowboycopnickel @itsjustkhaos @the-untamed-soul @beebo86 @happylittlereader @ziejustme @lou-larcher5 @thewulf @purplephantomwolf @chasing-liberosis @chillyleclerc @chanthereader @annoyingmoonballoon @summissss @evieepepi08 @havaneseoger08 @celesteblack08 @gulphulp @fandom1ruined2me @celebstories @starfusionsworld

[dear-ao3]

what IS going down with daniel? ive seen a few things about it but nothing that actually explains (i am very much not an f1 person, apart from knowing some names from what you guys post lol)

ah yes. daniel ricciardo's fall from grace.

daniel ricciardo is a driver at vcarb. vcarb is the second team of red bull racing. red bull wins stuff, vcarb is meant to ready drivers to get into the red bull team.

daniel was previously a red bull driver and he was doing well there. he was the number one driver at the team for a few years (meaning he was prioritized over his teammate because he was the "better" or "more successful" driver) and red bull wasnt really winning anything at that time, but they weren't sucking. i think he joined red bull around 2014? was teammates with Sebastian vettel (who had won 4 consecutive championships with red bull fro 2010-2013) for a year until he went to ferrari, then was teammates with daniil kyvat for another year and then i think it was partway through 2016 max verstappen, who was at toro rosso (the old team name for vcarb) got swapped with daniil who was "under performing" (red bull do this a lot) and max became Daniels teammate

at first this was fine. max was really young, like 18 years old really young, and daniel had a few more seasons under his belt. daniel was still the number 1 driver. but max was kind of wild and insane and regarded as a future world champion and after a while he started getting better and better and becoming more of a threat to daniel

i need to stress here that the two of them were friends. like absolutely they were friends. they aparently shared hotel rooms and lived in the same building for awhile. they are very good friends. that was not the problem that they hated eachother.

the problem was that daniel wanted to win a world championship and he couldnt win a world championship if the team decided to prioritize max over him.

this all came to a head in 2018. daniels contract was up at the end of the year. the car was fast but not quite fast enough to win the championship, though they did manage to get a few good wins in that year (namely daniel won in monaco which is a big deal) but they also had some shit moments (max and daniel both crashed into eachother while max (?) was leading the race in baku) and the car had some technical problems, mainly with the engine. the engine was a renault engine (renault was another team on the grid, only so many comapnies or teams make f1 engines so multiple teams use the same engine) and it kept literally exploding. daniel was making it work (he won monaco unable to shift past like 3rd gear) but it was not ideal if you want to win a world championship

red bull was set to change their engine provider for 2019 and they were going to go with honda. but daniel was still unconvinced because honda hadn't done f1 engines before (or recently i dont remember which) and also there was the whole max thing.

everyone was still convinced he was going to resign with red bull. but he didnt. he signed with renault. the team with the bad engines.

renault were no closer a championship winning team than red bull were, they were actually slightly behind red bull in the championship at that point. and this shocked everyone. why did daniel choose this? well he wanted to be a teams number 1 driver and also he liked the project they were working towards and whatever whatever etc. anyway this doesnt pan out. daniel was at renault for 2 years and then signed with mclaren.

which was by all accounts a disaster. mclaren at this point were still a flaming hot disaster. (mclaren prior to mid season last year were a definitively mid field car). his teammate was lando and lando had only 2 years of experience in f1 and was still quite young (20 i think) but lando essentially had a better time driving the car than daniel did. which no one was expecting. daniel did manage to win a race with them though, in monza in 2022. mclarens first win in many many years.

despite that, he was not treated well. it was easy to see. he looked underweight a lot, looked generally miserable and clearly the team didnt really care too much about him. he and lando were friends though, which was good. media tried to pit the two of them against eachother, but they were and still are good friends.

anyway. daniel's contract was supposed to run through 2023. mclaren and daniel supposedly both elected to end it early at the end of 2022 (mclaren signed oscar as a replacement) leaving daniel without a seat and retired

which was not great. daniels a big personality in f1, hes a funny guy, he says out of pocket stuff, hes goofy and whatever else. people like him, hes fun. so this was upsetting to see the spark leave him and then also see him leave the sport.

adding salt to the wound here, max won the championship in 2021 and 2022

so he got a call from Christian horner, the red bull team principal. christian is not a great guy but he likes daniel. he invites daniel back to red bull as a third driver, which basically means he does pr.

now remember the junior red bull team. in 2023 it was called alpha tauri and yuki tsunoda was there along with nyck devries. nyck had had an awful season by mid point and scored no points. christian had daniel do some tests in one of the red bull cars, his numbers were good and promising and what do you know daniel was back on the grid as a driver at alpha tauri. it seemed the plan was to leave him there for the rest of the season then maybe swap him with checo peer, the second driver at red bull, for the following year.

Daniel ended up breaking his hand a few races back at zandvoort and was replaced briefly by liam lawson, who was the red bull and alpa tauri reserve driver. liam lawson did better than anyone expected and managed to get points and also knock max verstappen out of qualifying in his most dominant season ever.

daniel finished out the last 5 races of the year and had a contract with vcarb (name changed again) for 2024.

checo had a rough end to the 2023 season and it was rumored for awhile that they were going to swap daniel and checo at the start of 2024 but this never panned out. most cause it seemed like daniel was not performing as well as they thought he would. there were a few times where everyone thought he was going to get cut and get replaced by liam lawson again who is still on deck. checo also got resigned at red bull for 2025 and despite having a not so great run for awhile is still on the team.

daniel has not been re signed for 2025

the rumors bounce back and forth every week. some weeks people say hes leaving some weeks people say hes getting promoted to red bull. he generally ignores them. but its no secret he wants to go back to red bull to finish his career.

this all came to a head this weekend in singapore.

heading into the weekend there were some heavy rumors that daniel was going to be replaced by liam lawson for the last 6 races because daniel is underperforming. and this was a Strong rumor. so strong in fact that it started to get properly addressed by commentators and announcers.

why would red bull pick now to swap him? not sure. williams did a driver swap a few weeks ago and that has worked in their favor. it would also i guess let them see if liam still has what it takes for 2025. whos to say.

in any case. daniel had a bad qualifying and ended the race in 18/18. however. at the end, they pitted him to get soft tires. (the fastest ones) to potentially get him the fastest lap of the race.

fastest lap of the race gets you one extra championship point if youre in the top 10. and daniel was not in the top 10 but it would take the point away from lando norris, who was winning in his mclaren by almost 30 seconds. lando is behind max in the drivers championship standings by about 50 something points and slowly gaining.

so daniel ricciardo, in what might have been his last ever f1 race, goes balls to the walls in a slightly shit box mid field car, on the second to last lap, and pulls out what is not only the fastest lap, but the track record fastest lap, taking a point away from lando norris, who drives for the team that mistreated him so badly and kicked him out of the sport the first time, all to help max verstappen, his ex teammate and the very reason why he left red bull in the first place, win the championship.

yeah.

anyway, all of the commentators were treating it like it was daniels last race. they asked him what his emotions were getting out of the car and he almost cried in the interview, they showed him a montage of his career, the whole team was waiting for him outside of the hospitality when he got back, he got voted driver of the day by the fans despite being virtually in last place. it seems like hes done and he knows hes done but unfortunately no one can say anything about it yet.

which is unfortunate. as i said everyone likes him. and it was general consensus of everyone announcing this weekend that he deserved a better send off than this weird cut right before the end of the season. for someone who has in fact done so much for red bull, it feels like theyre shooting him in the foot.

[charleszleclerc]

Timeline

June 21st 1997

Evelyn Martin is born to Elise and Hugo Martin who already have one son named Adrien.

October 16th 1997

Charles Leclerc is born to Pascale Leclerc and Hervé Leclerc who already have a son named Lorenzo.

April 2nd 1999

Elise and Hugo have their last child. A girl named Arielle. He completed the Martin family and both Evelyn and Adrien were happy with their new sibling.

October 14th 2000

Hervé and Pascale welcome their third son. Arthur Leclerc completes the Leclerc family.

2001

Evelyn starts ballet dancing at the age of four because she had seen it on tv and wanted to be a ballet dancer

2005

Charles starts go kart racing competitively he was eight.

He wins the French  PACA Championship in 2005, 2006, and 2008

Evelyn decided she wanted to be a professional ballet dancer when she grew up so she became more serious about her dancing and entering competitions.

2008

Evelyn fractures her foot for the first time when one of her jumps went wrong. She was out of dancing for awhile.

Charles won the French PACA for the last time

2009

Charles became a French Cadet Champion

Evelyn returned to ballet and won a few competitions. Her dancing outshone others and she was offered a place at a prestigious ballet school in Monte Carlo.

They both join the same secondary school

2010

Charles moved to the KF3 class where he wins the junior Monaco kart cup

Evelyn is having a hard time at the ballet school as none of the girls really like her but her love for ballet stops her from quitting

2011

Charles wins the CIK-FIA KF3 World Cup, the CIK-FIA Karting Academy Trophy and the ERDF Junior Kart Masters

Evelyn joins her school’s photography group

2012

Charles partakes in Val D'Argenton track is hosting the second round of the WSK Euro Series season this is where max and he have their “inchident”

Evelyn attends the race with her family she meets max and they become friends

2013

Max and Evelyns friendship grows

Evelyns dream to be a professional ballet dancer and that’s all she cares about instead of school

Charles  won the South Garda Winter Cup and claimed sixth position in the CIK-FIA European KZ  Championship and finished second in the CIK-FIA World KZ Championship, behind Max

Evelyn and Charles meet at school and become good friends towards the end of the year

2014

Evelyn tears her Acl in January of 2014 and is told her dreams of being a professional dancer will never happen

Charles is there and supports her through it all. They start hanging out more.

Evelyn realises there is more to life than dancing. She puts her spare time into fashion and creating clothes.

In 2014, Charles graduated to single-seaters, racing in the Formula Renault 2.0 Alps championship for British team Fortec Motorsports. During the season, he took seven podium positions, including a double victory at Monza, to finish runner-up in the championship behind Koiranen GP's Nyck de Vries

October 2014 Jules Bianchi crashes in Japan

Evelyn’s there for Charles immediately

Christmas day Charles and Evelyn decide to start dating

2015

Charles and Evelyn finish school at the age of 18

Charles joins F3

Evelyn applies to start a fashion design course

Their relationship is a bit rough when Jules dies but Evelyn stays by Charles side

2016

Charles and Evelyn’s relationship is stronger than ever

Evelyn decides to start teaching ballet to children to spread the love she had for it

Charles claimed three victories and took the title in his first year of the series, despite crashing out in the feature race of the season's final race in Abu Dhabi in the GP3 series

In 2016, Leclerc joined the Ferrari Driver Academy and he acted as development driver for Haas F1 Team and Scuderia Ferrari.

2017

Charles joined formula 2 for the 2017 season with the Prema racing team

Evelyn graduated and started working on trying to set up her own business  

Hervé Leclerc passes away

Evelyn is there for Charles day and night. Their relationship only grows stronger

Charles wins the f2 championship

2018

For the 2018 Formula One World Championship, Leclerc signed for the Sauber F1 Team as a race driver

Evelyn released her first clothing line

2019-present

Charles signed with Ferrari

Evelyn continues to release clothing items building her brand one step at a time

She also continues to teach ballet

Max and Evelyn’s friendship has continued to grow over the years

May 2024 Charles wins the Monaco grand prix

July 2024 Evelyn finds out she’s pregnant

December 2024 marked 10 years since they started dating, Charles has something to ask Evelyn

Here is a new post!! this is sorta a timeline and masterlist so if there is anything you would like a blurb/oneshot on send me an ask. I'm excited for this story but I am in college right now so updates might be slow. All the dates and events I took from Wiki so sorry if their wrong

[leclerc-s]

i call this one selfies with monza winners after making tifosi cry tears of joy

[puzzlebean]

Juan Manuel Fangio, Aintree 1957 // Ayrton Senna, Interlagos 1993 // Clara Bow - Taylor Swift // Alain Prost, Kyalami 1993 // Michael Schumacher, Spa-Francorchamps 1995 // thanK you aIMee - Taylor Swift // Sebastian Vettel, Abu Dhabi 2010 // Lewis Hamilton, Turkey 2020 // Nothing New - Taylor Swift // Max Verstappen, Monza 2023

[whewchilly]

Via Stories

[alonsista]

Monza 2010

[bellewintersroe]

Max Verstappen x HornerDaughter!

Part 2 - here is the LINK to the first part! Leni has to act dumb to everything Max has told her when they’re in Monza where Kelly is. She witnesses a somewhat awkward interaction and Max gets suspicious when Leni is close with Carlos.

Warnings: mentions of arguments, probs some swearing, jealousy and impure thoughts. A little naughty thing happens between Leni and Max, but nothing major.

A couple days later we were all back together in Monza for the following Grand Prix. It was more than a success for Red Bull, with Checo taking second and Max taking yet another win. Red Bull now had 10 consecutive wins a row. It was party central around the grid, plus Sainz had bagged 3rd place which he truly deserved, he fought off the RB’s like a mad man for a good 15 laps. After his birthday yesterday, I congratulated him with a massive hug.

“You really deserved that, well done.” I hugged the Spanish man. I’d met Carlos years ago when he signed with Red Bull back in 2010.(I fancied him). Now he just felt like my older brother. Okay maybe that was a weird thing to say.

“Thank you, miss Leni. I missed you.” He gave me a tight squeeze back as I smiled adoringly towards Carlos. “I miss you Carlos, I hope Ferrari are treating you better than before the summer break.” I half joked.

“Yeah, me too.” His eyes widened. “Will you be out tonight?” Carlos then questioned. “Probably, I think we’ll be at the same place, -are you celebrating your birthday too?” “Of course.” He smirked. “I’ll come over and say hi. Get you a couple birthday shots!” I nodded as the older man laughed. “Drinking competition.”

“Are you trying to kill me? I’ll see you tonight, Carlos.” “Yes, let me know when you are in there. I think somebody wants to speak to you.” Carlos nodded behind me as my brows furrowed slightly as I spun around, hand sliding off Carlos’ arm. Max was lingering, a huge smile plastered across his face as he attempted to bite it back, nodding towards Carlos. My heart fluttered pathetically as I laughed out of pure ecstasy.

“Max!” The two of us embraced tightly as he lifted me up. “Oh my god, I’m so happy for you.” I felt the breath of his laughter against my bare shoulder as he gently eased me back to the ground.

“Thank you, thank you. I’m so happy.” He modestly spoke, cheeks flustered from his excitement. The whole morning I had to act sheepishly around him and Kelly, purely because of what he told me when he was drunk. For a second of seeing him, I forgot what I felt awkward about. But when his hand lingered on my upper back, I felt the exact same itch of guilt that had pestered me all day.

“Good, you should be. You’ll be celebrating tonight, right?”

“Maybe, maybe.” He shrugged, hand slipping off as I crossed my hands over my chest. “Maybe? Max you’ve literally beaten a world record, you can’t not!” I nagged, pulling on his arm dramatically.

He smirked sheepishly, laughing to himself as we began walking back to the Red Bull garage. “Carlos is going out!” I spoke, as though that would sway him. “I’m sure Checo is too!” “Go party with Carlos.” Max shrugged nudging my arm. “Huh?” I asked loudly. “Huh?” He mimicked as I scoffed out a laugh. “I thought you… you know- I mean now you’re single-” “Ew, what’re you trying to say?”

“Yes, what are you trying to say, Max?” Another female voice interrupted and I tilted my head up, stomach sinking to see Kelly. “Hi Kelly!” I politely smiled. “Hey.” She smiled back. It was about as far as our friendship ever got, I always made an effort with her, but she was quiet in general, maybe the 13 year age difference between us was a bit too extreme. I was just being a hater.

“Well I thought now Leni is single she might have been… interested in Carlos.”

“Oh.” Kelly’s face relaxed as I felt my frown grow harder. “Carlos? He’s known me since I was like 9!” I grimaced towards Max, feeling Kelly staring right back to her boyfriend. Max shifted uncomfortably. I felt uncomfortable- god he needed to just tell the woman what he was feeling.

“Oops.” Max shrugged as we shared another laugh. Kelly on the other hand, didn’t seem amused. “No hug for me, Max?” She sassed as I felt my stomach churn in guilt. Max’s mouth opened to respond and I wanted to yell out, hug her you fool.

“I’m gonna go, see you both later.” I awkwardly excused myself, wanting to literally throw myself off a cliff. A shudder ran down my spine, cringing at the whole interaction. This whole crush on Max had to stop, how the hell could I limit interaction between us without it looking so obvious?

Limiting interaction is what I tried to do. I kept my distance from Max the whole evening, opting to chat with Checo rather than be around where he and Kelly bickered. It wasn’t anything new the arguments, my dad often said it was Max’s number 1 distraction. Knowing what I now knew, I agreed. I just had to keep my head down and act like whatever they were arguing about wasn’t loud enough that you could hear Kelly over the music.

Minutes later she stormed out, tipping a few drinks off the table in the process. Max groaned into his hands, luckily, Hannah, the strategist, reassured Max she was leaving anyway and she’d fix it. I kinda felt bad for him, he’d just won yet another world title and this had to happen tonight. He looked a little sad, the minute my heart churned I turned my attention elsewhere. I hated the way I wanted to go and speak to him, it wasn’t right. Max needed to end the torment Kelly was probably feeling and sort out their god damn mortgage issue.

Desperate to avoid any form of drama, I escaped to go spend some time with Carlos and the Ferrari team for a while. I looked like a little backstabber, playfully sticking my fingers up at people from RB. I’d fully danced my feet off, and I was exhausted from all the day drinking combined with the heat at Monza.

After saying bye to a bunch of people, I slipped outside, bagging a cigarette off somebody as I stumbled to an empty table, booking an Uber.

“12 minutes? Ugh.” I muttered to myself, quite literally desperate to throw myself in bed. My ankles were desperately hurting where I’d grown uneasy in my heels, and it was beginning to radiate up to my shins. I lit the cigarette and began puffing on the stick that I normally wouldn’t smoke sober.

“I didn’t know you smoke?” My heart skipped a beat as I dropped the freshly lit cigarette into a puddle next to the chair. “I don’t anymore.” I cleared my throat, glancing up to Max quickly. Where had he come from?

“Don’t tell Geri or my dad.” I commented as he let out a soft chuckle. “I won’t.”

“Thanks… what’re you doing out here?”

“Leaving.” He shrugged, sitting across from me. “Oh, me too. You can get in my Uber if you want.” I offered.

“Yeah please, I’ll pay. I gotta go and… find Kelly.” He awkwardly spoke as I glimpsed away at the mention of her name.

“No, you don’t have to pay.” I ignored the last part of his sentence, shaking my head firmly. “I do.” Max firmed. “I don’t mind Max, he’s 10 minutes away, anyway.” I looked back down to my phone as he nodded. “I’ll split share.” He offered, reaching over to tap my phone onto his contact to share the cost. “Okay.” I shyly spoke watching him slide my phone back to me.

“You ok?” He then questioned as I glimpsed back up. “Yeah, I’m good. Are you?”

“Yeah.” He sighed, running his hand through his slightly messy hair. He had stubble growing in areas that made him look extra manly, and I had to pinch my bare thigh to focus on what he was saying.

“Not exactly the best night.” Max awkwardly chuckled as I began picking at the wood on the table, thinking carefully about my words for a good few seconds. “You should tell her, Max.” I boldly said. I felt him shift uncomfortably, when I looked up he was too staring at the table. I assumed he knew what I was talking about. “I know.” He chewed on the inside of his cheeks.

“I didn’t think you’d remember..” he then added on as I let out an awkward laugh. “I didn’t think you would. You’re rich enough, just pay off the mortgage and then that’s out of the way.” “I was talking to my accountant about it.” He rubbed his face. “That’s why she was upset.”

“Oh.” I commented, my eyes roaming around any part of the smoking area, as long as I didn’t make eye contact with him, it was fine.

“Yeah.” Awkward, my teeth sunk into my bottom lip, probably taking off half the lipgloss I’d just applied. “Awkward.” I blurted out, earning a laugh from Max as we caught each others eyes again.

“You don’t have a filter do you?” I felt my cheeks warm desperately as I tried not to smile. “I mean- just not after a few drinks.”

“It’s funny, Leni.” He giggled as I took a sharp breath, “it gets me in trouble sometimes.” I shrugged. We made small talk back and fourth for the next ten minutes before climbing in the Uber together, it was safe to say neither of us was as drunk as we were that night on the beach, we actually had some restraint about us.

“I forgot to take my brother to his tutor today!” I spoke up, turning to face him. Max’s head was rested back, lolling to look at me with a soft gaze.

“How? Why does he have a tutor on a Sunday?” He spluttered out a laugh.

“You tell me. My dad was speaking to me and I forgot to listen- took Monty up to the paddock, he knocked himself out on Gelato, the same way I did the free champagne, and I just… forgot.” “Oh, Leni.” Max laughed, reaching over to slightly touch my hand through his amusement. I spared a quick glance down to his hand, it was inching closer to my own, nudging against it with every bump of movement in the car.

“It was stupid.” I muttered on a sharp intake of breath. Max looked back to me, smiling, I shyly caught his eye, feeling his fingers graze over mine to hold onto my hand. He was smiling, glancing down to our hands and I couldn’t process the butterflies he gave me. The way my heart set off racing, how I felt like I couldn’t speak. What on earth was happening right now?

What followed was a terrible guilt. “Max.” I exhaled, softly parting out hands. I didn’t know what that was, or how it happened so quickly, of course it wasn’t a kiss, but the movement made me truly question if Max and I were actually just friends? Max straightened in his seat, clearing his throat.

“I’m sorry.” He muttered. I trapped both my hands between my knees. I didn’t quite know what to say, I glanced out of the window, pursing my lips slightly. “You need to tell her.”