[i should be studying, instead i'm always writing something]
Hi! Requests are open! Feel free to share with me whatever your mind can't stop picturing! I'll do my best to try and write about it. You can also find me on Wattpad under the same nickname!
Currently writing
Rule Number Three | Carlos Sainz
(on stand-by)
Sketches | Andrea Kimi Antonelli
Completed
Invisible String | Oscar Piastri
Undeniable | Lewis Hamilton
The Man Who Only Knew How To Drive | Max Verstappen
These are my favourite landoscar fics! I've read and loved all of them.
This part will list the Alternative Universe's one. The next part will list the ones in which their both drivers.
Some of them are very famous and you probably have already read them.
I hope you find this rec list useful.
Please, always remember to check the warnings before reading.
zero cycle, agustofwind (driver!Lando × gamer!Oscar, 4/4) - honestly, this is a work of art, not only the best landoscar fic but the best fics i've ever read over all.
Rope you in, Anonymous, 10/10 - I've loved their dynamic in this one and I'm a sucker for College AU's.
he's a maneater, mariahcarreyyy, 1/1 - another CollegeAU, I don't know why but it fits them so well.
the road not taken, zelebrini (miamimaiden), 7/7 - it's a second chance love story, which is also one of my favourite tropes (as you can probably see by the fics I've written)
Casual, loquarocoeur, 13/13 - and again, this is THE CollegeAU (as you probably know already), this made me fall in love with the roommates/friends with benefits trope.
love you with the lights on, nyoomfruits, 1/1 (dj!Lando × driver!Oscar, Oscar has a baby) - so, I wasn't sure about the child trope, but honestly, this is beautiful and it just fits them so well.
sunkissed, passengerprincipessa, 6/6 (yatchie!Lando×engineer!Oscar) - do you need summer vibes/backpacking across the Europe? this is the fic for you! I loved it, they're cute and stupid.
Mistletoe and Second Chances, kaymar814, 1/1 (CEO!Lando × grumpy baker!Oscar, small town vibes) - this reminded me of Gilmore's Girls' Stars Hollow, the whole girl is there and it's funny and cute and Christmas-y.
you love me (but you don't know it yet), nyoomfruits, 1/1 (driver!Lando × non driver!Oscar) - I loved Lando in this one, he's so funny, I actually laughed out loud.
No One's Ever Had Me, Not Like You, flufflybunny, 1/1 (driver!Lando×Non-driver!Oscar. Lando has a baby) - Again, this is so cute! Them with a child works so well.
uncertainty principle, corsi, 1/1 (driver!Lando × non-driver!Oscar, Oscar has a kid who competes in karts) - guys, omg, I was obsessed with this one. Oscar's kid is so cute.
where i am going is right where i am, nyoomfruits, 1/1 (Yoga Instructor!Lando × Pastry Chef!Oscar, small town vibes) - Again, Stars Hollow but with the grid. I don't know why Oscar being a baker/chef works so well but it does so I won't complain
Don't go baking my hear, nyoomfruits, 1/1 - They have a café together, Lando is oblivious, Oscar is so precious in this one. I loved them so much, this is in my top5.
already home, nyoomsfruits, 1/1 - I laughed so much, they get fake-married because of Lando's issues and then they realize they're in love for real.
12 Ways To Bake A Waffle-House (And Love), mrlan_oscpastry, 1/1 - So, uhm. This is actually pretty hard to explain because not only it's beautifully written, but it also deals with some pretty heavy themes, such as grief in a very complex way and difficult relationship with parents. It helped me a lot during a tough patch. Check the warnings and tags before reading.
meet me at the door while it's still open, orangebusoft, 1/1 - as i said before i really enjoy a good second chance trope and in this one they are exes who find their way back to each other (restaurant owner!Oscar × Chef!Lando). This dynamic works wonders.
i'm almost done with the last part for now of still you. ihihihih also next week i'm going on holiday so I won't be able to write much. I hope I'll be able to post it before I have to leave
Summary - Fresh off winning his first Formula One World Championship, Lando Norris returns to Bristol for a childhood friend's wedding, where he comes face to face with his first love, whom he hasn't seen since their relationship ended.
Warnings - angst, exes to lovers, fluff, second chance romance, reunion, happy ending. I wrote one sentence in French using Google Translate because I don't speak French so don't come for me please!
Note - This is a fanfiction. In no way it intends to offend or disrespect the real people the character take ispiration from. I absolutely do not in any way own anything in this story EXCEPT for Rory's character. I borrowed some pop songs that I do not in any way own. I heard them, liked them and thought they were something Ivy could have written but they are not mine. Everything else in this story is based on real life people. Characters do not represent who they are in real life. Please, do not associate anything in this book to real life drivers, to F1 and anything F1-adjacent. Enjoy!
Lando realised it six months after they got back together. He wanted to marry Rory.
It was as simple as that. They had wasted enough time already.
Those six months had only confirmed what he had known all along, even when they had been apart.
Rory was the love of his life, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
He started looking up engagement ring designs on his phone during Media Day before the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The first person to find out had been, unsurprisingly, Oscar Piastri.
His teammate had been hovering over his shoulder during one of those painfully long FIA drivers' meetings, where everyone complained about the same things every weekend and somehow nothing ever changed.
Lando had long since given up pretending to pay attention.
“Why do we even have to come here?” Oscar muttered under his breath. “They don't listen to us anyway, what's the point?”
Lando only hummed, scrolling through another jeweller's website.
Oscar frowned. “...Wait, what are those?” He paused leaning forward to take a better look. “...Is that a ring?”
Lando locked the screen as quickly as he could.
“...Oh my God,” Oscar whispered, eyes widening. “Is that an engagement ring?”
Lando sighed dramatically. “You weren't supposed to see that.”
“Oh my God.”
“Can you stop saying that?”
“You're going to propose to Rory.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Oh my God!”
Then it had been Will's turn. They were supposed to be discussing tyre strategy for the weekend.
Lando had nodded along for a solid twenty minutes, throwing in the occasional “Yeah,” and “Makes sense,” before abruptly interrupting Will mid-sentence.
“Do you think Rory's more of a warm yellow gold person or a white gold person? I'm looking at rings but I think she'd look great with both…”
Silence fell between them. Will blinked. Lando blinked back. Will looked down at the strategy sheets spread across the table. Then back at Lando. Then back at the strategy sheets again, as if checking he hadn't accidentally suffered a concussion.
“...Are you planning on proposing to Rory,” he asked cautiously, “or is this a metaphorical question?”
Lando stared at him with furrowed brows. “Duh.” He scoffed, “I want to propose, obviously.”
Will leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“...Right. We'll come back to the tyre degradation in a minute.”
“I just think oval is a bit too trendy. Like, every major VIP who got engaged in the last two years got an oval cut… I don't want to be a copycat…”
“I cannot believe we really are having this conversation right now.”
“Will. Focus, please.” Lando pulled out his phone and started showing images to his race engineer.
"Lando."
“Emerald or oval?” He insisted.
Will sighed the sigh of a man who had unwillingly somehow turned from a Formula One race engineer to an unofficial engagement consultant in the same afternoon.
“I think emerald… She, uh… I don't know. Just… yeah.”
Two weeks later, Lando and Rory were on a yacht just off the coast of Monaco with Max and Pietra.
The afternoon had stretched lazily into evening, the kind of summer day where time seemed to move slower. The sea was calm beneath them, the water reflecting the golden light of the setting sun.
Rory and Pietra were sitting together at the end of the deck, shoulders pressed close, both of them staring at something on Rory’s phone. Every few seconds one of them would burst into laughter, whispering something that made the other laugh even harder.
Lando couldn’t hear what they were saying.
He didn’t need to.
He was too busy watching her.
There was something about seeing Rory like this completely relaxed, comfortable, surrounded by people she loved, that still felt unreal sometimes.
For years, he had convinced himself that having everything meant standing on podiums, winning races, hearing thousands of people chant his name.
And it had, for a while.
But this? Sitting on a boat in Monaco, watching the woman he loved laugh with one of his closest friends, feeling the warmth of the evening sun on his skin?
This was the part he had never imagined he would get.
His smile softened as Rory pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, completely unaware that he was staring.
Max, leaning beside him against the counter, noticed.
“Mate,” he said, amused. “You’re doing it again.”
Lando blinked and looked away. “Doing what?”
“Looking at her like she invented oxygen.”
Lando rolled his eyes, but the smile stayed. “Shut up.”
Max laughed quietly. “You’re so obvious.” For a moment, neither of them said anything.
The yacht rocked gently beneath their feet. Behind them, Rory and Pietra were still laughing.
Then Lando turned towards him.
“Do you have something to do tomorrow?”
Max frowned immediately. That was never a normal question.
“No, I haven’t.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why? What are you up to?”
Lando looked back towards Rory.
There was a strange nervousness settling in his chest. He needed someone by his side for this part.
“Can you come with me?” he asked.
Max raised an eyebrow. “Where?”
“I have…” Lando hesitated, suddenly feeling ridiculous. “A thing to do.”
The next morning, Lando and Max got out of Lando's apartment early in the morning when the two girls were still asleep.
Lando, on the other hand, had barely slept. Which was ridiculous. He had driven Formula One cars at over 300 kilometres per hour. He had fought for a World Championship. He had stood on podiums in front of hundreds of thousands of people. And yet walking into a jewellery store felt more terrifying.
“You know,” Max said as they drove through Monaco, “for someone who claims he’s not nervous, you’re tapping your fingers like you’re about to start a qualifying lap."
Lando immediately stopped. He hadn’t even noticed.
“I’m not nervous.”
“You are.”
“Am not.”
Max smiled. “You’re buying an engagement ring, mate. You’re allowed to be nervous.”
The words made it feel even more real. Lando looked out of the window, watching Monaco pass by.
“I just…” he started.
Max glanced at him.
“I don’t want to mess this up.”
His best friend’s expression softened. “Lando.”
He looked over.
“You already spent years trying to convince yourself that losing her was the right thing because you thought your career had to come first.”
Lando stayed quiet.
“Don’t overthink the part where you get to keep her.”
A few minutes later, they stopped outside a small, elegant jewellery boutique tucked away on one of Montecarlo's quieter streets.
Not as flashy as most places in the Principality. It didn’t scream ‘money’. It felt personal, the kind of place where the person behind the counter actually cares.
Lando took a deep breath before getting out of the car. Max followed him without saying a word.
“Bonjour!” A fancy-dressed woman smiled kindly at them when they stepped inside. She couldn’t be more than fifty years old. “Que puis-je faire pour vous aujourd'hui?”
Lando scratched the back of his neck, embarrassed, “Uh, English, s'il te plaît?”
Max stifled a laugh, beside him.
“Oh!” She smiled “Yes, of course! Welcome, what can I do for you today?” She repeated in English with a thick French accent.
Lando opened his mouth and then closed it without saying a word, anxiety taking over for a moment.
Max patted his shoulder and stepped forward, “Hi, my friend here is looking for something special. An engagement ring.”
The woman smiled warmly, “Oh, wonderful! Come, did you have something in mind already?”
Lando shook his head, “I looked at some designs online but… I don't know, they're different up close.”
She nodded, “Yes, they are. I always tell my clients that the engagement ring is important, but the most important part is the story behind it. Each one tells something. So, let's start there. What do you want it to say?”
“That I love her. And I want to spend the rest of my life with her.” Lando started, “That she's my best friend.”
Max scoffed next to him, crossing his arms. Lando chuckled and whispered “Sorry. You come just after, I swear,” before turning back to the jeweller.
“I want it to be hers. Something that she'll actually want to wear. It has to remind me of her.”
The woman listened, taking mental notes, “Then, what is she like? So we can look for something specific.”
Lando took a deep breath, “I've known her since we were kids. She was my first girlfriend,” he smiled, “but… I lost her for a while and a few months back I finally got to have her back and my life has never felt fuller. She's the person I want next to me each day for as long as I live.”
The woman let him speak. Max smiled softly listening.
“She's a primary school teacher in England, that's where we both are from.” He continued, “She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. She loves kids and teaching. She's a natural at it. Uh, her name's Lorelai, but she goes by Rory. She glares at everyone who uses her first name like they have insulted her.” Lando laughed under his breath, “And she loves bookshops and pressing the flowers I buy her into old books because she says it's romantic… I'm sorry, I'm rambling. Uh, I don't think that information is useful now… I just… I clearly have no idea what I'm doing.” His hand rested on top of the exposition glass.
“What's your name, young man?” The woman asked, smiling.
“Lando,” he said.
“I'm Geneviève,” she smiled fondly, “You're a young man in love, experiencing for the first time what it means to want to ask someone to spend the rest of their life with you with something meaningful,” she reached across the counter and squeezed his hand, “It's more common that you'd think, the having no idea of what to do. You love her and you want to tell her in a special way, that's enough.”
Lando smiled and nodded, a little reassured.
Geneviève gave him one last smile, “Well, you told me a lot of useful things, actually. She's a simple girl. I guess she doesn't enjoy over-the-top things.”
“She made me return a Birkin bag once.”
Geneviève widened her eyes, “Oh mon dieu. I think I know what we need.” She reached behind the counter and picked up an exhibitor with lots of diamond rings cut in different shapes, “Come, you two. Let’s sit.”
They sat at a table in a quiet and luminous corner of the shop and started looking at rings.
“It'd help if you could tell me what kind of jewellery she usually wears.”
Lando thought about it for a minute before answering, “She wears this golden necklace her grandma gave to her every day. But almost nothing else. A couple of rings when she's feeling a little wild.”
Geneviève smiled and nodded. “She likes timeless. She probably has taste.” The jeweler put some rings in front of Lando. “These are what I'd suggest you look at.”
The first one was an oval-cut diamond held by four prongs, with smaller diamonds lined the shoulders of the silver band.
Lando looked at it just for a minute before going to the next one.
The second one was a round-cut diamond settled on a cathedral setting and a halo of smaller diamonds around it. Lando took it between his two fingers to look at it better before settling it back down.
Max liked the third one. He pointed at the marquise-cut diamond set on a slender platinum band by four prongs. The pavé diamonds followed the curve of the band.
“That's a good choice. It was very popular in the 80s,” Geneviève said.
Lando nodded but put it down on the exhibitor, “It's beautiful but… doesn't say Rory yet.”
“We can keep looking, don't worry.” Max smiled, “What about that one?”
The ring was built around an emerald-cut diamond. As soon as Lando looked at it, it was clear that the rectangular shape had been chosen because it commanded everyone's attention.
Beneath the stone was hidden a halo of smaller diamonds, that added to the spark of the diamond when it turned, but almost disappeared from sight if you looked at it from above.
Everything was set on a warm gold band with pavè diamonds along the curves.
Lando didn’t answer immediately.
His fingers hovered above the ring, careful not to touch it yet. Something about it made him stop, his eyes fixed on the way the stone reflected the light around them.
“This one caught your attention.” Geneviève exhaled, “I should have known you'd like the emerald cut.”
Lando simply nodded and finally picked the ring up. “It's beautiful.”
“Yeah?” The woman asked, amused, “Tell me why.”
“It's different from the others,” He turned it slightly, watching the light move across the emerald-cut diamond. “It’s elegant,” he continued. “It’s simple from a distance, but then you look closer and there’s more to it. You wouldn't even know the halo is there if you didn't watch closely.”
“And Rory is like that?” She asked.
Lando nodded again, “Yeah. She’s not someone who needs everyone looking at her. She doesn’t walk into a room trying to be the centre of attention. But somehow she's always been the only person I notice when I enter a room.”
Geneviève carefully took the ring back from Lando and placed it on the velvet cushion.“Let me tell you something about emerald cuts.”
Lando looked at her, waiting.
“They are often chosen by people who appreciate structure and elegance. They’re not about creating the biggest sparkle possible. They’re about clarity.”
Lando’s eyes dropped back to the ring.
And maybe that was why it felt right.
Because after years of confusion, of wondering whether his dream was worth losing her for, of thinking success would somehow fill every empty space, he finally saw things clearly.
Rory was it.
Not the distraction from his career.
Not the person waiting on the sidelines.
But the person he wanted beside him when everything else was over.
“That's the one.” He whispered, still looking at it.
Geneviève smiled even wider, “Oh, très bien!”
“Is it possible to customize it?” Lando asked.
“Well, of course. What would you like to change?” The jeweler responded.
“Oh, no. Not to change it. I want to add something.” And he picked up his phone to show it to her.
“I saw this gemstone a while back. It’s called an imperial topaz, I think.”
Geneviève leaned closer to look at the picture on his phone. The stone glowed a deep, warm orange, almost like it held a little piece of sunlight inside it.
“Imperial topaz,” she sighed gently. “Yes. A beautiful stone. Very rare."
Max looked over his shoulder and immediately shook his head. “Are you serious?”
Lando frowned. “What?”
“You’re putting a racing reference in an engagement ring.”
“It’s not a racing reference.”
Max raised an eyebrow. “It’s a little bit of a racing reference.”
Lando ignored him. “I’ve always raced with McLaren,” he explained to Geneviève. “And their colour is orange. Papaya, technically, but…” He smiled slightly, looking back at the image. “This feels like something that belongs to me. And that's part of my life too. I want it to say that she has every part of me.”
The jeweller studied him for a moment, then the ring. “That's really sweet, Lando.”
Something softened in his expression.
“Could you hide it? I want it to belong just to us.”
Geneviève smiled knowingly. She picked up the ring again, turning it carefully beneath the light.
“We could set a small imperial topaz inside the band. Hidden. Engrave around it, perhaps.”
Lando looked at her. “Engraved?”
“Yes. Most people do it. Something personal. A date. A word. Anything that belongs only to you two.”
For a moment, he thought about it,“Could it be ‘still you’?” he said quietly.
Geneviève smiled, “That's perfect.”
Max patted both hands on his shoulders from behind, grinning.“You’re a softie.”
Lando immediately looked offended. “I’m not.”
“Mate, you just spent ten minutes explaining why a gemstone represents the emotional complexity of your relationship.”
Geneviève tried to hide her laugh.
“That sounds like a softie to me.”
Lando sighed, looking back at the ring.
“Just… don’t tell anyone.”
Max smiled, “Your secret is safe with me,” he paused, “Although I might tell Oscar.”
Lando turned to glare at him, “Max!”
Geneviève laughed softly.
“Messieurs, sorry to interrupt, but before we get too carried away, we should discuss the practical side.”
Max immediately stepped back, hands raised in surrender.
Lando simply shrugged and pulled his credit card from his wallet, placing it on the counter.
The jeweller glanced at it, then back at him. Having worked in Monaco long enough, she barely reacted. “You don’t even want to know the price first?”
Lando looked at the ring again. “I think whatever it is…” He smiled faintly. “It’s worth every cent.”
Max stared at him. “Okay, romantic. Beautiful. Very touching.” He leaned closer. “But maybe we should know the number? Just so you’re aware of exactly how much trouble you’re getting yourself into.”
Lando rolled his eyes. “You know I can afford it.”
“I know you can afford it,” Max said. “I’m saying maybe your bank account deserves a warning.”
Lando sighed, but turned back to Geneviève. “So… how much?”
The jeweller picked up the notes she had made during their conversation and calculated for a moment before writing the figure down.
She turned the paper around.
Max looked first. The silence lasted a little too long. “Holy shit.”
Lando glanced at him. “That bad?”
Max looked between him and the number. “That’s not a ring. That’s a house. A big one.”
Lando only smiled slightly. “She’s worth more than a house.”
Max shook his head. “You are genuinely impossible.”
Geneviève smiled before looking back at her notes.
“So, to confirm: a four-carat natural emerald-cut diamond, D colour, internally flawless. Eighteen-karat Fairmined yellow gold band. Cathedral setting, hidden halo, pavé diamonds, custom imperial topaz detail, and engraving.”
Lando nodded. “Yes.”
She looked over the details once more.
“This will require sourcing the diamond, creating the custom setting, hand-setting every stone, and engraving the band.”
“How long?” Lando asked.
Geneviève hesitated. “At best?”
Lando nodded. “If I push my workshop and everything goes perfectly… six months.”
Lando looked down at the design again.
Six months wasn’t long. Not when he had spent years trying to find his way back to her.
I promise the last part (for now) is almost finished. I can't bring myself to do it because I'm scared I'll mess it up but I eventually will. Hopefully you'll have it by the end of the week
Summary - Fresh off winning his first Formula One World Championship, Lando Norris returns to Bristol for a childhood friend's wedding, where he comes face to face with his first love, whom he hasn't seen since their relationship ended.
Warnings - angst, exes to lovers, fluff, second chance romance, reunion, happy ending. I wrote one sentence in French using Google Translate because I don't speak French so don't come for me please!
Note - This is a fanfiction. In no way it intends to offend or disrespect the real people the character take ispiration from. I absolutely do not in any way own anything in this story EXCEPT for Rory's character. I borrowed some pop songs that I do not in any way own. I heard them, liked them and thought they were something Ivy could have written but they are not mine. Everything else in this story is based on real life people. Characters do not represent who they are in real life. Please, do not associate anything in this book to real life drivers, to F1 and anything F1-adjacent. Enjoy!
Lando realised it six months after they got back together. He wanted to marry Rory.
It was as simple as that. They had wasted enough time already.
Those six months had only confirmed what he had known all along, even when they had been apart.
Rory was the love of his life, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
He started looking up engagement ring designs on his phone during Media Day before the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The first person to find out had been, unsurprisingly, Oscar Piastri.
His teammate had been hovering over his shoulder during one of those painfully long FIA drivers' meetings, where everyone complained about the same things every weekend and somehow nothing ever changed.
Lando had long since given up pretending to pay attention.
“Why do we even have to come here?” Oscar muttered under his breath. “They don't listen to us anyway, what's the point?”
Lando only hummed, scrolling through another jeweller's website.
Oscar frowned. “...Wait, what are those?” He paused leaning forward to take a better look. “...Is that a ring?”
Lando locked the screen as quickly as he could.
“...Oh my God,” Oscar whispered, eyes widening. “Is that an engagement ring?”
Lando sighed dramatically. “You weren't supposed to see that.”
“Oh my God.”
“Can you stop saying that?”
“You're going to propose to Rory.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Oh my God!”
Then it had been Will's turn. They were supposed to be discussing tyre strategy for the weekend.
Lando had nodded along for a solid twenty minutes, throwing in the occasional “Yeah,” and “Makes sense,” before abruptly interrupting Will mid-sentence.
“Do you think Rory's more of a warm yellow gold person or a white gold person? I'm looking at rings but I think she'd look great with both…”
Silence fell between them. Will blinked. Lando blinked back. Will looked down at the strategy sheets spread across the table. Then back at Lando. Then back at the strategy sheets again, as if checking he hadn't accidentally suffered a concussion.
“...Are you planning on proposing to Rory,” he asked cautiously, “or is this a metaphorical question?”
Lando stared at him with furrowed brows. “Duh.” He scoffed, “I want to propose, obviously.”
Will leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“...Right. We'll come back to the tyre degradation in a minute.”
“I just think oval is a bit too trendy. Like, every major VIP who got engaged in the last two years got an oval cut… I don't want to be a copycat…”
“I cannot believe we really are having this conversation right now.”
“Will. Focus, please.” Lando pulled out his phone and started showing images to his race engineer.
"Lando."
“Emerald or oval?” He insisted.
Will sighed the sigh of a man who had unwillingly somehow turned from a Formula One race engineer to an unofficial engagement consultant in the same afternoon.
“I think emerald… She, uh… I don't know. Just… yeah.”
Two weeks later, Lando and Rory were on a yacht just off the coast of Monaco with Max and Pietra.
The afternoon had stretched lazily into evening, the kind of summer day where time seemed to move slower. The sea was calm beneath them, the water reflecting the golden light of the setting sun.
Rory and Pietra were sitting together at the end of the deck, shoulders pressed close, both of them staring at something on Rory’s phone. Every few seconds one of them would burst into laughter, whispering something that made the other laugh even harder.
Lando couldn’t hear what they were saying.
He didn’t need to.
He was too busy watching her.
There was something about seeing Rory like this completely relaxed, comfortable, surrounded by people she loved, that still felt unreal sometimes.
For years, he had convinced himself that having everything meant standing on podiums, winning races, hearing thousands of people chant his name.
And it had, for a while.
But this? Sitting on a boat in Monaco, watching the woman he loved laugh with one of his closest friends, feeling the warmth of the evening sun on his skin?
This was the part he had never imagined he would get.
His smile softened as Rory pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, completely unaware that he was staring.
Max, leaning beside him against the counter, noticed.
“Mate,” he said, amused. “You’re doing it again.”
Lando blinked and looked away. “Doing what?”
“Looking at her like she invented oxygen.”
Lando rolled his eyes, but the smile stayed. “Shut up.”
Max laughed quietly. “You’re so obvious.” For a moment, neither of them said anything.
The yacht rocked gently beneath their feet. Behind them, Rory and Pietra were still laughing.
Then Lando turned towards him.
“Do you have something to do tomorrow?”
Max frowned immediately. That was never a normal question.
“No, I haven’t.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why? What are you up to?”
Lando looked back towards Rory.
There was a strange nervousness settling in his chest. He needed someone by his side for this part.
“Can you come with me?” he asked.
Max raised an eyebrow. “Where?”
“I have…” Lando hesitated, suddenly feeling ridiculous. “A thing to do.”
The next morning, Lando and Max got out of Lando's apartment early in the morning when the two girls were still asleep.
Lando, on the other hand, had barely slept. Which was ridiculous. He had driven Formula One cars at over 300 kilometres per hour. He had fought for a World Championship. He had stood on podiums in front of hundreds of thousands of people. And yet walking into a jewellery store felt more terrifying.
“You know,” Max said as they drove through Monaco, “for someone who claims he’s not nervous, you’re tapping your fingers like you’re about to start a qualifying lap."
Lando immediately stopped. He hadn’t even noticed.
“I’m not nervous.”
“You are.”
“Am not.”
Max smiled. “You’re buying an engagement ring, mate. You’re allowed to be nervous.”
The words made it feel even more real. Lando looked out of the window, watching Monaco pass by.
“I just…” he started.
Max glanced at him.
“I don’t want to mess this up.”
His best friend’s expression softened. “Lando.”
He looked over.
“You already spent years trying to convince yourself that losing her was the right thing because you thought your career had to come first.”
Lando stayed quiet.
“Don’t overthink the part where you get to keep her.”
A few minutes later, they stopped outside a small, elegant jewellery boutique tucked away on one of Montecarlo's quieter streets.
Not as flashy as most places in the Principality. It didn’t scream ‘money’. It felt personal, the kind of place where the person behind the counter actually cares.
Lando took a deep breath before getting out of the car. Max followed him without saying a word.
“Bonjour!” A fancy-dressed woman smiled kindly at them when they stepped inside. She couldn’t be more than fifty years old. “Que puis-je faire pour vous aujourd'hui?”
Lando scratched the back of his neck, embarrassed, “Uh, English, s'il te plaît?”
Max stifled a laugh, beside him.
“Oh!” She smiled “Yes, of course! Welcome, what can I do for you today?” She repeated in English with a thick French accent.
Lando opened his mouth and then closed it without saying a word, anxiety taking over for a moment.
Max patted his shoulder and stepped forward, “Hi, my friend here is looking for something special. An engagement ring.”
The woman smiled warmly, “Oh, wonderful! Come, did you have something in mind already?”
Lando shook his head, “I looked at some designs online but… I don't know, they're different up close.”
She nodded, “Yes, they are. I always tell my clients that the engagement ring is important, but the most important part is the story behind it. Each one tells something. So, let's start there. What do you want it to say?”
“That I love her. And I want to spend the rest of my life with her.” Lando started, “That she's my best friend.”
Max scoffed next to him, crossing his arms. Lando chuckled and whispered “Sorry. You come just after, I swear,” before turning back to the jeweller.
“I want it to be hers. Something that she'll actually want to wear. It has to remind me of her.”
The woman listened, taking mental notes, “Then, what is she like? So we can look for something specific.”
Lando took a deep breath, “I've known her since we were kids. She was my first girlfriend,” he smiled, “but… I lost her for a while and a few months back I finally got to have her back and my life has never felt fuller. She's the person I want next to me each day for as long as I live.”
The woman let him speak. Max smiled softly listening.
“She's a primary school teacher in England, that's where we both are from.” He continued, “She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. She loves kids and teaching. She's a natural at it. Uh, her name's Lorelai, but she goes by Rory. She glares at everyone who uses her first name like they have insulted her.” Lando laughed under his breath, “And she loves bookshops and pressing the flowers I buy her into old books because she says it's romantic… I'm sorry, I'm rambling. Uh, I don't think that information is useful now… I just… I clearly have no idea what I'm doing.” His hand rested on top of the exposition glass.
“What's your name, young man?” The woman asked, smiling.
“Lando,” he said.
“I'm Geneviève,” she smiled fondly, “You're a young man in love, experiencing for the first time what it means to want to ask someone to spend the rest of their life with you with something meaningful,” she reached across the counter and squeezed his hand, “It's more common that you'd think, the having no idea of what to do. You love her and you want to tell her in a special way, that's enough.”
Lando smiled and nodded, a little reassured.
Geneviève gave him one last smile, “Well, you told me a lot of useful things, actually. She's a simple girl. I guess she doesn't enjoy over-the-top things.”
“She made me return a Birkin bag once.”
Geneviève widened her eyes, “Oh mon dieu. I think I know what we need.” She reached behind the counter and picked up an exhibitor with lots of diamond rings cut in different shapes, “Come, you two. Let’s sit.”
They sat at a table in a quiet and luminous corner of the shop and started looking at rings.
“It'd help if you could tell me what kind of jewellery she usually wears.”
Lando thought about it for a minute before answering, “She wears this golden necklace her grandma gave to her every day. But almost nothing else. A couple of rings when she's feeling a little wild.”
Geneviève smiled and nodded. “She likes timeless. She probably has taste.” The jeweler put some rings in front of Lando. “These are what I'd suggest you look at.”
The first one was an oval-cut diamond held by four prongs, with smaller diamonds lined the shoulders of the silver band.
Lando looked at it just for a minute before going to the next one.
The second one was a round-cut diamond settled on a cathedral setting and a halo of smaller diamonds around it. Lando took it between his two fingers to look at it better before settling it back down.
Max liked the third one. He pointed at the marquise-cut diamond set on a slender platinum band by four prongs. The pavé diamonds followed the curve of the band.
“That's a good choice. It was very popular in the 80s,” Geneviève said.
Lando nodded but put it down on the exhibitor, “It's beautiful but… doesn't say Rory yet.”
“We can keep looking, don't worry.” Max smiled, “What about that one?”
The ring was built around an emerald-cut diamond. As soon as Lando looked at it, it was clear that the rectangular shape had been chosen because it commanded everyone's attention.
Beneath the stone was hidden a halo of smaller diamonds, that added to the spark of the diamond when it turned, but almost disappeared from sight if you looked at it from above.
Everything was set on a warm gold band with pavè diamonds along the curves.
Lando didn’t answer immediately.
His fingers hovered above the ring, careful not to touch it yet. Something about it made him stop, his eyes fixed on the way the stone reflected the light around them.
“This one caught your attention.” Geneviève exhaled, “I should have known you'd like the emerald cut.”
Lando simply nodded and finally picked the ring up. “It's beautiful.”
“Yeah?” The woman asked, amused, “Tell me why.”
“It's different from the others,” He turned it slightly, watching the light move across the emerald-cut diamond. “It’s elegant,” he continued. “It’s simple from a distance, but then you look closer and there’s more to it. You wouldn't even know the halo is there if you didn't watch closely.”
“And Rory is like that?” She asked.
Lando nodded again, “Yeah. She’s not someone who needs everyone looking at her. She doesn’t walk into a room trying to be the centre of attention. But somehow she's always been the only person I notice when I enter a room.”
Geneviève carefully took the ring back from Lando and placed it on the velvet cushion.“Let me tell you something about emerald cuts.”
Lando looked at her, waiting.
“They are often chosen by people who appreciate structure and elegance. They’re not about creating the biggest sparkle possible. They’re about clarity.”
Lando’s eyes dropped back to the ring.
And maybe that was why it felt right.
Because after years of confusion, of wondering whether his dream was worth losing her for, of thinking success would somehow fill every empty space, he finally saw things clearly.
Rory was it.
Not the distraction from his career.
Not the person waiting on the sidelines.
But the person he wanted beside him when everything else was over.
“That's the one.” He whispered, still looking at it.
Geneviève smiled even wider, “Oh, très bien!”
“Is it possible to customize it?” Lando asked.
“Well, of course. What would you like to change?” The jeweler responded.
“Oh, no. Not to change it. I want to add something.” And he picked up his phone to show it to her.
“I saw this gemstone a while back. It’s called an imperial topaz, I think.”
Geneviève leaned closer to look at the picture on his phone. The stone glowed a deep, warm orange, almost like it held a little piece of sunlight inside it.
“Imperial topaz,” she sighed gently. “Yes. A beautiful stone. Very rare."
Max looked over his shoulder and immediately shook his head. “Are you serious?”
Lando frowned. “What?”
“You’re putting a racing reference in an engagement ring.”
“It’s not a racing reference.”
Max raised an eyebrow. “It’s a little bit of a racing reference.”
Lando ignored him. “I’ve always raced with McLaren,” he explained to Geneviève. “And their colour is orange. Papaya, technically, but…” He smiled slightly, looking back at the image. “This feels like something that belongs to me. And that's part of my life too. I want it to say that she has every part of me.”
The jeweller studied him for a moment, then the ring. “That's really sweet, Lando.”
Something softened in his expression.
“Could you hide it? I want it to belong just to us.”
Geneviève smiled knowingly. She picked up the ring again, turning it carefully beneath the light.
“We could set a small imperial topaz inside the band. Hidden. Engrave around it, perhaps.”
Lando looked at her. “Engraved?”
“Yes. Most people do it. Something personal. A date. A word. Anything that belongs only to you two.”
For a moment, he thought about it,“Could it be ‘still you’?” he said quietly.
Geneviève smiled, “That's perfect.”
Max patted both hands on his shoulders from behind, grinning.“You’re a softie.”
Lando immediately looked offended. “I’m not.”
“Mate, you just spent ten minutes explaining why a gemstone represents the emotional complexity of your relationship.”
Geneviève tried to hide her laugh.
“That sounds like a softie to me.”
Lando sighed, looking back at the ring.
“Just… don’t tell anyone.”
Max smiled, “Your secret is safe with me,” he paused, “Although I might tell Oscar.”
Lando turned to glare at him, “Max!”
Geneviève laughed softly.
“Messieurs, sorry to interrupt, but before we get too carried away, we should discuss the practical side.”
Max immediately stepped back, hands raised in surrender.
Lando simply shrugged and pulled his credit card from his wallet, placing it on the counter.
The jeweller glanced at it, then back at him. Having worked in Monaco long enough, she barely reacted. “You don’t even want to know the price first?”
Lando looked at the ring again. “I think whatever it is…” He smiled faintly. “It’s worth every cent.”
Max stared at him. “Okay, romantic. Beautiful. Very touching.” He leaned closer. “But maybe we should know the number? Just so you’re aware of exactly how much trouble you’re getting yourself into.”
Lando rolled his eyes. “You know I can afford it.”
“I know you can afford it,” Max said. “I’m saying maybe your bank account deserves a warning.”
Lando sighed, but turned back to Geneviève. “So… how much?”
The jeweller picked up the notes she had made during their conversation and calculated for a moment before writing the figure down.
She turned the paper around.
Max looked first. The silence lasted a little too long. “Holy shit.”
Lando glanced at him. “That bad?”
Max looked between him and the number. “That’s not a ring. That’s a house. A big one.”
Lando only smiled slightly. “She’s worth more than a house.”
Max shook his head. “You are genuinely impossible.”
Geneviève smiled before looking back at her notes.
“So, to confirm: a four-carat natural emerald-cut diamond, D colour, internally flawless. Eighteen-karat Fairmined yellow gold band. Cathedral setting, hidden halo, pavé diamonds, custom imperial topaz detail, and engraving.”
Lando nodded. “Yes.”
She looked over the details once more.
“This will require sourcing the diamond, creating the custom setting, hand-setting every stone, and engraving the band.”
“How long?” Lando asked.
Geneviève hesitated. “At best?”
Lando nodded. “If I push my workshop and everything goes perfectly… six months.”
Lando looked down at the design again.
Six months wasn’t long. Not when he had spent years trying to find his way back to her.
Summary - Fresh off winning his first Formula One World Championship, Lando Norris returns to Bristol for a childhood friend's wedding, where he comes face to face with his first love, whom he hasn't seen since their relationship ended.
Warnings - angst, exes to lovers, fluff, second chance romance, reunion, happy ending.
Note - This is a fanfiction. In no way it intends to offend or disrespect the real people the character take ispiration from. I absolutely do not in any way own anything in this story EXCEPT for Rory's character. I borrowed some pop songs that I do not in any way own. I heard them, liked them and thought they were something Ivy could have written but they are not mine. Everything else in this story is based on real life people. Characters do not represent who they are in real life. Please, do not associate anything in this book to real life drivers, to F1 and anything F1-adjacent. Enjoy!
Summary - In which a chaotic eleven-year-old Lando Norris met a beautiful blonde-haired little genius during their first week of school and decided she was going to be his best friend, who later became all his world.
Margaret Rowe didn't like chaos of any kind, except for the one that came with her best friend Lando. She had always know she had been in love with him since she was fourteen.
Life tried to pull them apart but they kept finding their way back to each other because whatever had always been between them was stronger than gravity.
Warning - Slow burn, 18+ Content, She Fell First - He Fell Harder
Note - This is a fanfiction. In no way it intends to offend or disrespect the real people the character take ispiration from. I absolutely do not in any way own anything in this story EXCEPT for Margaret's character and her family. Everything in this story is based on real life people. Characters do not represent who they are in real life. Please, do not associate anything in this book to real life drivers, to F1 or to anyone F1-adjacent! Enjoy!
"Everywhere, everything
I wanna love you 'til we're food for the worms to eat
'til our fingers decompose
keep my hand in yours"
MEET THE CHARACTERS
Lando Norris
11/13/1999
British
McLaren F1 Driver
"And take my mind
And take my pain
Like an empty bottle takes the rain
And heal, heal, hell, heal
And tell me some things last."
Margaret Rowe
07/24/1999
British
Literature PhD Student
"And in the mornin' when I'm wakin' up
I swear that you're the first thing that I'm thinkin' of
r/aita · @piastriprincess asked, “aita (m25) for hating all my best friend’s boyfriends?”
ꔮ starring: lando norris x best friend!reader.
ꔮ word count: 7.7k.
ꔮ includes: romance, angst, hurt/comfort. mentions of food, alcohol; profanity. flashbacks, max fewtrell (<3) haunts the narrative, yearning…, best friends to lovers. title inspired by both lorde’s (i’m waiting for it, that green light, i want it) and tate mcrae’s (i’m still waitin’ at the green light to tell you what i feel like) song of the same name.
ꔮ commentary box: confession time—i’ve always felt a bit hit-or-miss when writing for lando, but this one… i reaaally like how it turned out 🚦 everybody say ‘thank you, lily’ for the banger prompt!!! 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭
The McLaren P1 isn’t exactly designed for emotional turmoil.
It’s low to the ground and louder than sin. Not the kind of car you want to be brooding in. But here Lando is, idling at the curb outside your flat in Bristol, watching the rain tattoo the windscreen and trying to pretend he’s not bracing for whatever weird tension you’ve decided to lace this car ride with.
You appear in the rearview mirror like a final boss. Hoodie up, duffel bag slung over one shoulder, looking like you’re headed to war rather than a birthday party.
Lando presses the button to open the door. You hesitate, which you never used to do. You slide into the passenger seat like it physically pains you. He half-expects you to bring holy water.
“You know,” he says, because silence is worse than bad jokes, “most people would be thrilled to be chauffeured in a million-pound hypercar. You look like you’re entering a hostage negotiation.”
You don’t laugh. You do that half-smile thing that doesn’t reach your eyes, and suddenly Lando wants to kick himself for knowing the difference.
“Thanks for the lift,” you say, polite enough to pass for normal.
It isn’t. It really, really isn’t.
Lando flicks the wipers on. The rain makes a rhythmic hiss against the windshield. It used to be that rides like this meant music and shared snacks and you yelling at him for taking corners too aggressively. Now, it feels like he has to tiptoe around your mood as if it's an open flame.
He eases the car away from the curb. “So, Birmingham,” he says. “Home of Fewtrell’s yearly descent into unchecked ego.”
You huff out a laugh through your nose, barely audible. It should make him feel triumphant; instead, it makes his chest tight.
What’s a spark when you used to light up around him? No matter how many people crowded your lives—teammates, friends, plus-ones at dinner tables—you were always his person. That one human who saw him beyond the grid, who didn’t care about lap times or social media engagement.
Lando knows something broke. He just doesn’t know when.
The car hums beneath him, taut with energy it can’t release in Bristol traffic. Maybe it’s a metaphor. Maybe everything is.
“You doing okay?” he asks, too casually.
You look out the window. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
There it is. He could write a dissertation on your avoidance techniques. In fact, he probably should. Title: How to Be Ghosted by Your Best Friend Without Them Technically Leaving the Chat.
He lets it go for now. Because the motorway is long, and the rain’s getting heavier, and there’s still two hours between here and the truth.
Lando doesn’t know when the silence between you became a living thing.
It’s not just still. It’s tense. It’s textured. It breathes like it’s third-wheeling from the back seat, wedged between you two with crossed arms and a wisenheimer expression.
He fiddles with the volume knob, turning the music down so low it’s practically just rhythm. Normally, you’d complain that it’s criminal to listen to music and not let it play properly. You’d grab his phone and queue some obnoxiously long indie playlist called something like orange show speedway and make him admit that you have taste.
Today, nothing.
He risks a glance sideways. You’re staring out the window like you’re auditioning for a breakup scene in a rainy film.
You used to talk to him about everything.
Shared inside jokes. Shared chips. Shared one toothbrush once on a trip to Mallorca, which he’s never quite recovered from. Every girl he ever liked, you sized up with terrifying efficiency. Every victory lap, you were the first person he texted. Every racing-related heartbreak, you were the one who told him to shut up, cry it out, then get back in the car.
He doesn’t remember a version of his life that doesn’t include you in the passenger seat.
So what the hell happened?
His car purrs along the motorway, cutting through the wet roads with the kind of grace only British engineering can pull off. They pass a familiar neighborhood and Lando slows a little, almost unconsciously.
He recognizes it before he wants to. The red-bricked semi with the peeling paint and the tragically optimistic garden gnome. He looks towards you, forces a grin.
“You remember this place?” he asks, way too chipper. “Your first boyfriend lived there. What was his name again? Something that sounded like a bootleg Marvel villain.”
You sigh. “Connor.”
“Right. Connor. God, he had the personality of a paper towel.”
You don’t smile. You just go back to looking out the window, past the brick house and the neighborhood that once felt like Lando’s entire world.
The silence, smug bastard that it is, stretches its limbs and settles in again.
Lando grips the wheel tighter. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe he should’ve driven straight through and pretended the past wasn’t sitting in the backseat, wearing a stupid letterman jacket and reminding him of everything he didn’t say back then.
He can’t help but add, “He was an idiot, by the way. Never deserved you.”
That gets a flicker. Not a response, exactly, but a shift. A pause. A breath caught in your throat.
For a second, Lando remembers it. That summer. The start of all this. The spark, the fester, the personal betrayal of the friendship that was never quite enough for a man who wanted it all.
The first time Lando meets Connor, he’s already mentally uninstalling him like a glitchy app.
It’s some after-school club thing. Yearbook, or debate, or something equally cursed. The point is: Lando doesn’t belong here. He’s there because you asked him to walk you home, and you insisted he wait until the meeting ended. Which would’ve been fine, if the meeting hadn’t devolved into social hour and you hadn’t suddenly started radiating this stupidly obvious crush energy toward a guy in a rugby hoodie.
Connor.
The name alone sounds like someone who owns too many types of protein powder.
He’s tall in the way sixth-formers think is impressive. Smiles like he’s waiting for a camera to flash. And he talks—God, does he talk. About running drills. About his coach. About, and this is not a joke, a recent dream he had where he was chosen as the face of a sports drink campaign.
“He said, ‘I think I have the jawline for it,’” Lando recalls later in a whisper, as if traumatized.
Back in the moment, Lando tries to be polite. He stands there, hands in pockets, nodding like he’s buffering. “Right. That’s cool,” he mumbles, after Connor launches into a story about a pulled hamstring.
You glance over, eyes bright, clearly hoping Lando will be nice. So he tries again. “Do you, like, play matches every weekend, then?”
Connor nods solemnly. “Unless I’m injured. But I usually push through it.”
“Cool,” Lando says, tone flat as a pancake. He considers throwing himself out the nearest window.
He checks his phone. Fifteen minutes of this. That’s longer than he lasted in his first karting endurance run. He’s about to make a quiet escape—fake a text, mumble something about dinner, the works—when you touch his wrist.
“Stay?” you ask.
You say it soft, barely audible over the buzz of the room, and it derails his exit plan completely. He sighs. Dramatically. Just enough so you know he’s suffering, but not enough to actually mean it.
“Fine,” he grits out. “But if he brings up Real Madrid again, I’m eating the fluorescent lightbulb.”
You beam at him like he just agreed to co-sign your mortgage.
He stays for another twenty agonizing minutes. Listens to Connor talk about macro splits. Lets you giggle at jokes that barely qualify as sentences. Pretends not to notice the way your foot inches closer to Connor’s under the table.
Lando doesn’t know it yet, but something inside him knots that day. Small and quiet. Tight enough to notice. Deep enough that it’ll take years to unravel.
Connor lasts six months.
Six months of bland texts, gym selfies, and Lando resisting the urge to stage a small, tasteful intervention.
He suffers through it all like a war veteran. Group hangs where Connor brings up creatine unprompted. School events where Connor stands behind you like a security detail. One truly cursed double date to the cinema where Connor clapped at the end of the movie.
Lando logs every moment like evidence for a trial that never comes. Until one Tuesday afternoon, when you text him the four most beautiful words in the English language.
I dumped him lol.
Lando shows up at your door within the hour, snacks under one arm, self-righteousness under the other.
You look strangely relaxed. Legs curled under you on the sofa, hoodie sleeves pulled over your hands, as if the breakup lifted a fog you didn’t know had settled.
“Turns out,” you say, accepting a bag of crisps from him, “dating someone who talks about himself in third person isn’t actually fun.”
Lando gasps, hand to chest. “Lando is shocked. Who could’ve predicted that?”
You roll your eyes. “Bug off.”
“I’m just saying,” he grins, sinking into the cushion beside you, “some of us knew from day one that Connor was a human rice cake with delusions of grandeur.”
You snort, the laugh bubbling out of you before you can stop it. “Fine, fine. You were right.”
“Finally.” He makes a show of looking to the heavens. “It only took six months, three public arguments, and one extremely awkward bowling night.”
“Never again,” you groan, tossing a crisp at him. “No more athletes.”
Lando recoils like you slapped him. “Excuse you. I’m an athlete.”
“You’re an exception. You’re, like, emotionally literate.”
“That’s the nicest insult I’ve ever received.”
You laugh again, easier this time, and Lando feels something shift. It’s a small, prideful flicker of knowing: Connor probably never made you laugh like that.
He watches you tip your head back against the sofa, eyes fluttering closed. The late afternoon light spills across your face, and for once, there’s no boyfriend shadowing your smile.
It’s just you and Lando.
And just like that, Boyfriend Number One is out of the picture.
The wipers fight a losing battle, flailing side to side in frantic arcs, trying their best to keep the view ahead from turning into an impressionist painting. The P1 glides through it all with the confidence of a car built to outrun lightning, but even Lando—lover of speed, master of circuits, alleged adult—has to admit.
This is not exactly ideal driving weather.
You’ve been silent for most of the ride. The kind of silence that has teeth. It presses against the back of Lando’s neck, daring him to say something dumb.
Then, finally—
“Lando,” you say, voice barely above a whisper, “it’s getting really bad.”
He blinks, snapped out of the existential spiral he’d been mentally free-falling through. Turns slightly toward you, brow cocked in mock offense. “Have you forgotten who I am?”
You give him a tight, unimpressed look. “A man who once rear-ended a shopping cart at Tesco car park.”
“That was one time. I was seventeen. And it came out of nowhere.”
“It was stationary, Lando.”
“It was aggressively stationary.”
Your knuckles go white against the armrest as another gust of wind slams against the car. Your worry hangs thick in the space between you, louder than the rain. Lando feels it like static beneath his skin.
He huffs, puffing up with the defensive pride of a man desperate to impress someone who already knows every version of him, embarrassing stories and all.
“I’ve driven Spa in a thunderstorm, you know. This?” he gestures with one hand. “This is drizzle with a flair for the dramatic.”
Cue cosmic timing.
The car hydroplanes.
It happens in an instant. A slick patch, a twitch of the wheel, the rear kicking out just enough to raise the hair on his arms. The tail of the car fishtails right, then violently left, the P1 tilting off center in a slow-motion ballet of oh-god-oh-no.
Lando reacts on instinct. Years of karting, racing, muscle memory firing like it’s just another corner at Silverstone. He counter-steers, stabilizes, corrects. The car obeys, just barely. But what he doesn’t think about is the way his arm flings across your chest, holding you in place.
It’s ridiculous. There’s a five-point seatbelt system. The car is practically a carbon-fiber cocoon. All the same, his body makes the decision before his brain does: protect you first.
The tires grip. The fishtail stops. The car straightens.
His heart tries to break the sound barrier.
You’re both silent, the only noise your unsteady breathing and the rhythmic thump of his heart echoing in his ears. He doesn’t wince when you practically screech, “What the hell was that?!”
“It was a save,” he mutters, as if saying it in a smaller voice will make it sound more reasonable. He grips the wheel like it personally betrayed him.
You round on him as if he just tried to murder you with style. “A save? I thought I was about to become modern art on the side of the M5!”
“I had it under control.”
“You swore it was drizzle!”
“Water is water, babe!”
Your hands go to your face in pure exasperation. “You absolute bellend.”
For some reason—maybe the adrenaline, maybe just you finally sounding like you again—Lando laughs. It starts low, then builds, bubbling up like he’s been holding it in for weeks.
He watches you from the corner of his eye. You’re alive, irritated, breathing. For the first time in what feels like forever, your voice has weight. You’re not tiptoeing around him. You’re calling him out. Loud and unfiltered and exactly as you used to be.
“Missed that,” he says, almost to himself.
“What?”
He keeps his eyes ahead, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. His grin is trying to stay small but refuses to be ignored. “The sound of you telling me off,” he says, plain and simple and honest to a fault.
In the thick of rain and tension, there’s a crack of warmth. The silence that follows isn’t the old silence. It’s not angry or tense or drowning in things unsaid. It feels like the kind that comes after something.
Maybe not a full repair, but a start.
Lando pulls into the gas station. You’d asked him politely but firmly to pull over, just for a bit, to wait out the rain. And for once, he doesn’t argue.
The fluorescent lights hum above as he shifts the car into park. Rain still drums on the roof, but the chaos outside feels farther away now. Muted. Contained. It gives the illusion of control, even if everything still feels slightly sideways.
You unbuckle and stretch, exhaling like you’ve been holding your breath since the near-spin. Maybe you have. Lando watches you from the corner of his eye, trying not to make it weird. Failing a little.
It’s this station. Your station. Not legally, but in spirit.
He remembers all the times you’ve dragged him here over the years: late-night snack runs, dares to buy the weirdest item on the shelf, one very ill-advised slushie taste test that ended with blue tongues and a stomach bug. This place has been witness to everything from your worst hangovers to your best impressions of cursed TV ads.
He glances at the flickering store sign, then at you.
“Remember when you dated the cashier here?” he says, because clearly he has a death wish.
You groan. It’s visceral. From the chest. “Can we not talk about Tom?”
“Oh, Tom now. We’re using names.” Lando grins, all teeth and zero mercy. “He sold you expired milk on your third date.”
You cover your face. “I’m going to open this car door and let the rain take me.”
“And abandon me here? In the sacred land of lukewarm sausage rolls and scratch cards?”
You laugh. You actually laugh. And even if it’s mostly directed at your own poor decisions, Lando will take it.
“God,” you grumble, still hiding behind your hands. “I was so dumb.”
“No,” he says. “You were just hopeful. With tragically low standards.”
You peek at him through your fingers, eyes narrowing. “Is that your version of comforting me?”
He shrugs, fighting a laugh of his own. “I thought it was pretty accurate.”
You’re still smiling when you turn your face back toward the rain-blurred window. Lando watches the way your expression fades into something softer. More distant.
He thinks of the way you used to look at Tom. And the way you looked after it all went to shit.
The memory creeps in, uninvited. The same way that godforsaken ‘boyfriend’ did.
Tom was a phase.
Lando says it then, says it now, says it like a mantra. A phase. Curtain bangs, the keto diet, Vine.
He never meets Tom properly. Not in the same way he met Connor, all tight smiles and passive-aggressive protein talk. No, Tom appears in your life like a Wi-Fi outage: disruptive, inconvenient, and wildly inconvenient at the worst possible time.
Lando’s already racing in the lower formulas when it starts. Barely home. Living out of suitcases and duffel bags, counting time in flights and practice laps. He sees it unfold from the periphery. A flicker of chaos just off-track.
He catches glimpses of it in your Snapchat stories. Blurry concert videos. Gas station selfies. One particularly haunting Boomerang of you and Tom doing shots with a caption that just says YOLO in Comic Sans font.
That was the first real red flag.
The second comes from Max, in a text that just says: Why is your best friend dating the guy who once tried to pay for gum with a Greggs coupon.
Lando doesn’t even respond. He only closes his phone and exhales like he’s been personally wronged.
Tom is a lot, from what he can tell. The kind of guy who thinks sarcasm is a personality trait and only follows meme accounts. He wears those tiny sunglasses ironically. Calls himself a ‘creative entrepreneur’ because he once made a custom iPhone wallpaper in Canva.
Lando doesn’t get it.
He doesn’t get why you’re laughing so hard in those stories, or why your texts to him have started thinning out, shorter and more sporadic. He doesn’t get how this man—this man who lists “vibes” as a core value—has managed to take up space where Lando should be.
But he tells himself it’s just a phase.
You’ve had them before. The Twilight obsession. The time you tried to become a minimalist and nearly cried getting rid of a shoebox of concert tickets. This is the same thing, just with more snapbacks and ‘u up?’ texts.
And so Lando watches from a distance. A blur of airports and circuits and hotel rooms, tuning into your life in fifteen-second increments.
He tells himself not to get worked up. Not to overthink it. It’s just a phase.
The thing about phases is they leave a mark when they pass.
After God-knows-how-long of on-again, off-again, the end comes in the form of reliable gossip from Max.
Lando doesn’t hesitate. Max barely gets the words out—“She’s really done this time. Like, done done.”—and Lando’s already pulling up the British Airways app with the grace of a man who’s been waiting for this moment since Tom entered your life.
The flight to Bristol is boring. The snacks are stale. The woman beside him spends forty minutes playing Candy Crush with her volume on full blast and a grim determination Lando hasn’t seen since the Monaco GP. But none of it matters, because his leg is bouncing with a rhythm only anxiety or maybe anticipation can tap out.
He hasn’t seen you in three months. Not properly. Not since the last time Tom slithered his way back into your life like a parasitic vine, and Lando watched helplessly as you got tangled again. Like you were boarding a ship headed straight into a hurricane with a neon sign that read this is fine. Lando, from the shore, had to wave and pretend he didn’t want to light that ship on fire.
Now he’s here. Rented car. Cap tilted low. Heart wired.
He texts Max to stall, tells him to play dumb if you ask questions. Pulls into your driveway like it’s any other Wednesday, not a dramatic friendship intervention wrapped in emotional whiplash and British Airways peanuts.
You open the door, and both of you balk at the sight of each other.
“You flew here?” you breathe.
“You dyed your hair?” he counters immediately, because yeah, you look different.
Still you, but brighter around the edges. Like maybe the weight of Tom has finally stopped sitting on your chest. You’re in a hoodie he hasn’t seen in a while. The grey one you used to steal from him back when you were neighbors and everything was stupid and easy.
“You flew here?” you repeat, incredulous. There’s a defensive slant to your tone, like you’re not sure if you’re allowed to feel touched.
He shrugs, stepping past you into the hallway like he hasn’t just crossed countries to make sure you’re okay. “Was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d pop by, insult your ex, steal your biscuits.”
You smile. A real one. Tentative, but real..
He follows you to the kitchen, where the kettle’s already half-boiled and the air smells like tea bags. You sit, curled into the chair like you’re trying to fold yourself down to a more manageable size. Lando hates that. Hates that you look like you’re bracing for the next hit, hates that you think you had to be anything but yourself in this devastating situationship.
“Max said you were done,” he says outright.
You nod. “I am.”
“Good,” he says, voice thick with something unspoken. “Because if I had to pretend to like him one more time, I’d have developed a stress twitch.”
You laugh, and it feels like sunlight breaking through a cloudy week. Broken and bright. It does something to Lando’s chest. A little lurch. A little click. A puzzle piece slotting into place.
“Remember when he said Manchester was in Scotland?”
“God, or when he thought almond milk came from baby almonds?”
“Or when he tried to fight that goose?”
That one breaks you. You snort, full-on wheeze, laugh so hard your shoulders shake and your face disappears into your hands. Lando watches you like he’s trying to memorize every second. Like if he stares hard enough, he can bottle the sound of your joy and take it with him when he’s fighting for his life on Sundays.
You look up, cheeks flushed, eyes finally shining with something other than sadness. “He really did try to fight a goose, didn’t he?”
“He lost,” Lando deadpans. “To a bird with a vendetta and no moral compass.”
You giggle again, softer this time, settling into it. Into him.
Lando lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding since the plane took off.
This. This is what he came for.
To see you smile like that. To make you laugh again. To remind you who you are outside of the storm cloud that was Boyfriend Number Two.
Even if it’s just for a little while.
Lando’s staring straight ahead when it blurts out of him: “Why have you been avoiding me?”
The words hit the windshield just as hard as the rain does, fast and sharp and impossible to ignore. Yobegu stiffen in the passenger seat.
“I haven’t,” you say, too fast. Too rehearsed. Lando can see you in your bathroom back home, preparing for the conversation in front of your mirror.
Lando scoffs. Loudly. Dramatically. Because what else is he meant to do with a lie that transparent?
“Right. So all the unanswered texts, the missed calls, the five-second voice notes that end with ‘Sorry, gotta go’ even though I can literally hear you not going anywhere—,” he pauses, takes in a breath, goes on, “that’s just you being, what? Efficient?”
You cross your arms. Classic defense stance. He sees the way your jaw tenses, the way you shift your weight as if you’re prepping to run a marathon. Or escape a conversation.
“I’ve been busy,” you offer.
“With what, a monastic vow of silence?”
“Lando.”
“Don’t ‘Lando’ me,” he snaps, turning toward you now, fully, anger prickling beneath his skin. Not white-hot fury. A low, aching kind. The kind born of hurt. “You disappear on me for weeks and think I won’t notice?”
You open your mouth. Close it again.
He laughs, humorless. “Jesus. Just say it, then. Whatever it is you’re clearly trying not to.”
“There’s nothing to say,” you argue.
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
Silence, heavy and cloying, stretches between you like something physical. And then you reach for the door.
Lando blinks. “Are you serious? It’s pissing it down outside.”
You push it open anyway.
“Oh my God,” he groans, reaching across to try and stop you, but you’re already halfway out. Rain slapping hard against your hoodie, the wind catching your hair.
“This is so unnecessarily dramatic,” he shouts over the downpour. “Even for you!”
You flip him off without looking over your shoulder. Lando exhales like he’s just aged ten years.
Of course this is happening.
Of course you’re trying to escape a deeply emotional conversation by drowning yourself in goddamn weather.
And of course, he’s about to go after you anyway.
Lando has chased you through paddocks, airports, and one ill-advised IKEA on a bank holiday weekend. But this? This is a new low.
You’re walking down a rain-slicked road like it’s a runway, soaked to the bone, one arm stretched out like you’re auditioning for a 90s road trip comedy.
“Will you please get in the bloody car?” Lando yells, jogging a few paces behind you, hoodie already useless against the downpour.
Rain pelts his face. His trainers are definitely ruined. There are probably frogs watching from the ditch with more dignity than he currently possesses.
You don’t look back. You just wave your hand in a vague go away gesture and keep walking as if the pavement’s not a slip hazard waiting to happen.
“What are you even doing?” he calls again. “Trying to get kidnapped? Start a new life in Wales?”
“I’m proving a point!” you shout over your shoulder.
“What point?” Lando throws his arms up. “That you’re allergic to staying in a parked car with me for more than five minutes?!”
You stop walking long enough to turn. Hair dripping, mascara smudged, and cheeks pink with cold and fury. “I’m not letting you deflect like you always do.”
“I’m the one deflecting?” Lando screeches. “Who’s the one playing out the third act of a Nora Ephron film on the side of the A38 right now? The one you watched with—”
“Don’t.”
You narrow your eyes. He knows that look. That look has preceded at least two near-misdemeanors and one regrettable shared tattoo.
“Don’t what?” he bites out anyway.
“Don’t make this about him.”
Lando stops short. The wind shoves water into his face.
You cross your arms, jaw tight. “That’s a low blow, Lando,” you say tersely.
He sighs, remembering himself. Runs a hand through his dripping curls. “Okay. Yeah. That one might’ve been on me.”
You glance away, lips pressed tight.
Even now—even drenched, and stubborn, and maybe seconds from catching pneumonia—you look heartbreakingly familiar.
Lando doesn’t say it. Doesn’t even think it too loud.
He only watches the past creep back in like a drizzle.
His name is Matthew. Not Matt. Not Matty. Not some delightfully ridiculous hybrid nickname you’d shout across a car park. No, it’s Matthew.
Like a grown-up. Like a man who knows how to fold a fitted sheet and use words like ‘conscientious’ in casual conversation.
Lando hates him immediately.
Not for any real reason. Matthew is tall, polite, and somehow always smells like eucalyptus. He wears jumpers with elbow patches and irons his jeans. He volunteers on the weekends. Max meets him once and texts Lando, bro he’s NICE nice, which somehow makes it worse.
Because Matthew is nice. Objectively. Irritatingly. The kind of nice that doesn’t even flinch when your gran asks invasive questions or when your dog throws up on his shoes. Lando tries to catch him out—waits for a bad joke, a sarcastic smirk, a single out-of-pocket comment—but Matthew plays a clean game. Doesn’t even double dip.
It drives Lando mad.
And what’s worse? You’re happy. Genuinely happy.
Glowing in a way that makes Lando’s stomach twist, because it’s not for him. It never has been, not really. Not in the way he wants. Sure, he’s had his chances. He’s danced around it for years, leaving breadcrumb jokes and half-hearted flirtations in your path like you might trip over them one day and fall into his arms.
You never did. You fell for Matthew, and for all the right reasons.
Lando tries. God, he tries. Plays the supportive friend card with a smile stretched too tight. Tells you he’s glad for you, then goes home and grumbles to Max about how Matthew probably has a sock drawer organized by color.
It’s not that he wants Matthew to be awful. He just wants something—anything—that makes this ache in his chest easier to justify. Some glaring red flag. Some hidden flaw. But all Lando’s got is a deep, gnawing sense of falling behind, of watching the credits roll on a film he thought he was starring in.
He’s not happy for you. Not in the way you might want. That, somehow, is the most infuriating part of all.
Matthew stays in the picture for a whopping three years.
Long enough to survive two surprise party meltdowns, a full flat renovation, and a group trip to the Dolomites where Max nearly dies trying to ski backwards. Matthew’s in every photo, every inside joke, every weekend plan. He’s at your side in Instagram posts and tagged stories, smiling like he belongs there.
Matthew helps Max fix his sink. He gets Lando a birthday gift without needing a reminder. He has a spreadsheet for your shared groceries. He knows your order at five different coffee shops. He does everything right.
Lando hates, hates, HATES it. Not because there’s anything wrong with Matthew, but because there isn’t.
Because every day you seem a little more out of reach.
Because you don’t text him at midnight with weird thoughts anymore. Because you cancel plans, rebook dinners, drop conversations halfway through. Because now Lando only hears about your day in secondhand summaries at group hangouts.
When he does finally get a one-on-one lunch, you’re distracted. Checking your phone. Smiling at something you won’t tell him about.
It drives him insane in that quiet, gnawing kind of way. The slow unravel. The you-shaped silence growing wider each week.
Then Matthew asks him.
Lando’s in line at a coffee shop, still wearing his hoodie from a bad simulator session, phone in hand. Matthew taps him on the shoulder, all pleasant charm and water-repellent outerwear.
“Hey, mate. Sorry to bother, but—um—do you happen to know her ring size?”
Lando balks. “What?”
“Her ring size,” Matthew laughs nervously. “I’m thinking of… you know. Eventually. Not now-now. But sometime.”
He says it all casual, like it’s a weather update. Like he’s not detonating a landmine in the middle of Lando’s soul.
Lando laughs. Loud. Too loud. The barista glances over.
“Sorry, erm, just… had a flashback to when she got one of those mood rings from a vending machine and insisted it meant she was dying,” he stammers. “No clue on size, though.”
Matthew chuckles. Thanks him. Moves on.
Lando, meanwhile, forgets what he came here for. Leaves without coffee. Gets in the car and sits there for twenty-three minutes, hands gripping the wheel like he might snap it off.
He doesn’t cry.
But he does punch the steering wheel once. Then again. “Fuck,” Lando grits out through his teeth, fist landing the steering wheel a third, softer time. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Matthew thinks it’s end game. You probably do, too. Lando’s the only one who hasn’t gotten the memo.
It sneaks up on him. The ensuing distance. Not yours, for once, but his.
It’s subtle at first. Missed texts, delayed replies, a string of excuses that sound convincing even to him. You, ever gracious, ever unbothered, don’t push. Until one day you ask, plainly, with that look that always cuts straight through him: “Are you avoiding me?”
Lando—cornered in the world’s most dangerous trap, your honesty—says the worst thing possible. He lies.
“What? No. Just busy.”
You nod, but your eyes hold there, suspicious. He changes the subject so fast it practically leaves a skid mark.
He tries afterwards. God, he really does. Makes more effort to be a better best friend. Starts sending you memes again. Asks about your week. Makes jokes about your taste in romcoms like he’s not the one who’s watched Notting Hill six times. With you. Voluntarily.
But it’s like trying to balance on ice. Because every time Matthew’s name comes up—when he picks you up from dinner, or when you show up in one of those blouses Lando knows weren’t your taste until someone else said they liked them—Lando short-circuits a little.
Matthew’s a man-shaped Post-it stuck to every part of you Lando doesn’t get to touch, and it all but kills him for those three years.
Lando’s terrified of becoming the footnote in your story. Of standing at your wedding someday, raising a glass and making a joke about how he always knew, when really he never wanted to know.
You’re the one who shows up this time.
No warning. No text. Just the doorbell to his apartment, and you, and eyes that look a little red, and a voice so small he almost misses it when you say: “Can I come in?”
Matthew’s not with you.
Matthew’s not coming.
You sit on his couch. You take your shoes off and set them aside. You don’t speak right away. You curl your knees up and hold a pillow against your chest like a shield. Lando doesn’t ask questions.
You say, “We ended things.”
He waits for the joy. For the surge of self-righteous relief. For the I told you so itching to leap off his tongue.
None of it comes.
Instead, you cry.
For the first time—really cry over a breakup in front of him. Shoulders shaking. Silent tears at first, then the full-body, rib-wracking kind. Lando just sits there. Not joking. Not speaking. Only shifting closer until you fold into his side like muscle memory.
He holds you.
All he feels is this: sadness. Yours, his, collective.
No more pretending. No more pretending this doesn’t hurt. No more pretending he’s only ever been your best friend.
Lando kisses the top of your head.
“I’m sorry,” he says into your hair, and he means it. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Please,” Lando calls, already drenched through. “I don’t want to die for Max, of all people.”
You don’t even look back. Just keep walking, thumb out like you’re genuinely trying to hitchhike. In the middle of nowhere. In the pouring rain.
“Oh, come on,” he yells. “This is not the moment to recreate the climax of your favorite romcom.”
You spin on him. “Why? Scared you’ll end up in the headlines?”
He stops short, blinking water out of his eyes. “No, I’m scared you’ll actually get in some random stranger’s van and I’ll have to chase it down like an idiot!”
You huff, cross your arms. “I don’t need saving.”
“I never said you did!”
“Then what do you want, Lando?”
What does he want?
What does he want?
A World Driver’s Championship, dry clothes, a dog. Most of all—
“I want you to come back,” he says, and it’s not just about the car anymore.
His voice cracks on the words, like his lungs are tired of holding the weight in. He thinks of the distance, the years, the boys. He thinks of what it was like when it was just you and him against the world.
“Come back to me,” he breathes, “Just—come back.”
In the back of his mind, he adds: Pleasepleaseplease. I’ve never begged for anything and I’ll be horrible. Don’t make me do that. Come back to me, please.
You look at him like he’s just punched you in the chest. And for a second, he thinks he’s messed everything up. Again.
A laugh escapes you, but it’s not happy.
It’s bitter, and broken, and fraying at the edges. “That’s always been the problem, hasn’t it?” you spit.
“What?” he asks, throat tightening.
“You,” you say, voice sparking now. “You’ve always been the problem.”
He recoils like you’ve physically hits him. “I—I don’t understand.”
You step closer, jabbing a finger into his hoodie. “You want to know why no man’s ever lasted? Why every boyfriend I’ve had eventually walked away, or I did?”
Lando doesn’t speak. Can’t.
“It’s you,” you seethe. “Even Matthew, for all his perfection, for all the ways he was kind and patient and stupidly good at making pancakes—he knew. He knew there were parts of me that didn’t belong to him. That never would.”
You slam a fist to Lando’s chest, and he stumbles backward despite it not being all that forceful.
“Because those parts belonged to you,” you sob, and something in the silence cracks open. “So much of me—’s all with you.”
Lando doesn’t realize he’s crying until the rain can’t account for the salt.
He stands a few feet in front of you on the shoulder of the road, headlights casting long shadows, mist curling at his knees like the world’s stage crew is setting up a very dramatic Act Three.
Maybe this is Act Three. Or Act Twenty-Five. Whatever. He’s tired. And wet. And done being careful.
He thinks about all the times you’ve asked him—offhand, casual, never really casual—what he thought of the guy you were dating. The little glances after a joke, a compliment, a moment you hoped he’d noticed. He always pretended he didn’t.
About how you once skipped a two-year anniversary dinner because he’d binned it in Q1 and couldn’t even make eye contact in the garage. You showed up with pizza and no expectations, just sat with him until the world felt less unbearable.
About how every year, without fail, you still get him a birthday card and write the same stupid inside joke in it. How your playlists have songs he said he liked once. How there’s always a seat saved for him, in every version of your life.
He moves before he can think better of it.
Closes the distance, rain pouring off his curls, hands cupping your face like you’re a flame he’s terrified of snuffing out. You blink up at him, stunned, lips parted to protest, or breathe, or remind him of something impossible.
“God, you’re such an idiot,” he breathes, and then he’s kissing you.
It’s too wet. Too much nose. Possibly some teeth. But it’s real, and it’s him, and it’s you, and he’s been dying to do this since the moment he realized you were the only person who’s ever made him feel like more than just a wheel in motion.
He pulls back a fraction, mouth brushing yours, breath ragged. “I can’t do this anymore,” he says, the words spilling out of him in a stream. “I can’t settle for just parts of you. I want all of you. All the stupid parts. The loud parts. The ones that break things just to fix them better. You. I want you.”
Turns out Lando Norris knew how to beg after all.
Your eyes are shining now, but not from the rain. “Okay,” you whisper. “Okay.”
You fist the front of his hoodie and kiss him again. Like you’re furious he didn’t do this sooner. Like you’re scared he’ll stop.
Like there’s no such thing as bad timing, or broken umbrellas, or boyfriends who came before. Just this moment, and this road, and the sound of everything finally falling into place.
You finally, finally give in. Lando manages to herd you toward the car with all the finesse of a wet sheepdog, wet curls plastered to his forehead and shoes squelching with every step. You duck inside the passenger seat, and Lando shuts the door behind you with a thud that feels suspiciously like relief.
He cranks the heater, grabs a towel from the back, and starts dabbing at your arms before realizing that’s probably weird. You snatch the towel from him with a soft scoff and wrap it around your shoulders.
“I hate you,” you say heatlessly.
Lando snorts. “You kissed me like you were trying to win a bloody Oscar. Hate’s a strong word.”
You roll your eyes. “I was cold and emotionally compromised.”
“You still are.” He reaches over to adjust the vents so they’re aimed directly at you. It feels too domestic, too tender, as if this is just a normal night and not the latest installment of your mutual slow-burn, star-crossed, soap opera.
But then you laugh.
Not the quiet, breath-through-your-nose kind you’ve been rationing for the last few weeks. No, this one bubbles out of your chest like champagne, loud and undignified, echoing around the car like a challenge to the storm outside.
Lando glances at you, startled. “What?”
“You’re being weird,” you accuse, grinning. “Like—boyfriend weird. Hovering. Fiddling with the heater. Are you about to offer me your hoodie next?”
He shifts in his seat, brows furrowing. “I mean… yeah?”
“Seriously?”
“I just kissed you in the rain like a Nicholas Sparks protagonist. I think I deserve to be called your boyfriend.”
You stare at him, towel clutched around you. He stares back, every nerve ending in his body doing laps. Then, slowly, you lean across the center console and kiss him.
No preamble. No hesitation. Just your mouth on his, warm and sure and rain-slicked and a little desperate.
He groans, half in disbelief, half in oh thank fuck, and immediately fumbles for your waist, pulling you over the console and into his lap.
“Lando,” you protest into his mouth, breathless, “your seats—”
“Fuck the seats,” he mutters, kissing you harder, both hands tangled in your damp hair. “Fuck the car.”
And fuck all the boys before, too, he nearly adds, but you’re kissing him back before he can bitch about it. It’s a welcome way to be shut up.
Max opens the door to find you and Lando shivering on his doorstep.
It’s not exactly how he envisioned this moment going down—less triumphant reentry, more drowned rats with trust issues—but then again, with you two, it was never going to be smooth.
“Look who finally made it out of the wild,” Max deadpans, stepping aside to let you two in. “Welcome to Birmingham. Population: two soggy disasters with no sense of direction.”
Lando mutters something about missed turns, a road that may or may not exist on modern maps, and sheep with murder in their eyes. You chirp out a very sincere, very breathless, “We’re so sorry we missed the party,” as you toe off your wet shoes, leaving a trail of puddles like you’re starring in a very damp Hansel and Gretel reboot.
Max lifts a brow, unimpressed. “Uh-huh. You missed the party, the group photo, the snacks, my DJ set, and my famous mini quiches. Tragic, really.”
“There were quiches?” Lando asks, eyes wide with betrayal.
“There were never quiches,” Max says dryly. “But if there had been, you’d have missed them. Along with the firework display and the ice sculpture of Toto Wolff.”
You and Lando shuffle inside like two kids caught sneaking back after curfew, still damp despite the towels draped around your shoulders like battle-worn cloaks. You look like someone who’s cried, laughed, kissed, and threatened murder all in one afternoon. Lando looks like a boy who’s finally gotten what he wanted and is now terrified of losing it.
Honestly, Max has never seen the pair of you look better.
You nudge Lando with your shoulder. He elbows you back. You squawk something about fragile bones. He mumbles something about delicate drama queens. It’s like watching a tennis match, if tennis involved way more bickering and accidental flirting.
Friends again, Max notes. But also…
It’s in the little things. The way Lando brushes a strand of wet hair off your cheek, his eyes tracing your face with a reverence that borders religion. The way your hand lingers at his back, fingers resting there like it’s instinct. The way you press a kiss to his cheek when Max turns to grab a towel, clearly forgetting that he lives here and has functioning eyeballs.
“Right,” Max says, chucking a fresh towel at Lando’s head. “Don’t get my couch pregnant. It’s the only thing in this flat that hasn’t betrayed me.”
Lando sputters, towel smacking against his face, while you laugh so hard you nearly fall onto the aforementioned couch. “You love us,” you say, beaming up at Max from where you’re sprawled.
“I tolerate you,” Max corrects, but he’s smiling.
Lando flops beside you, damp clothes making a half-hearted squelch against the upholstery. You both look like chaos wrapped in human skin, but for the first time in weeks, maybe months, there’s a weird sort of peace between you. The kind that comes after a storm, literal and emotional.
Max leans against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, watching you two settle in like you haven’t been emotionally exhausting all week. He scrolls through his phone and quietly closes the Weather app.
There was never any party.
Just a text thread, a fake group chat full of complicit friends, and one extremely coordinated schedule that might strand a stubborn driver and his emotionally constipated soulmate in the middle of nowhere.
Max smiles to himself.
Sometimes, you really do have to drive people into a storm to get them to admit they’re in love. ⛐
Actuallyyyyyy we need a sequel for big things just Maggie and lando in the future being maybe parents (cause lando has been mentioning kids a lot lately lol)and doing silly activities together outside of f1 and uni😁
you guys really love Lando's content, don't you ahaha i'll think about it even if i have imagined Maggie as a career-focused woman for a while. thank you for all this btw I love getting feedback❤️
waited for still you to be completed to finally read it hehe it was amazing and espionage loved the second part the most (i need to read them again pleasee give us a bonus chap 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏)
Thank you!!! I'm happy that you liked it. I will be thinking about a sequel if I get the right idea. It was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for me, so yeah... I need to be in the right state of mind to write it ahaha
omg still yours was sooo beautifully written and i loved it sooo much! have you thought about a bonus chapter/epilogue of them together a few years later?
Thank you so much!! It was the only thing I could think about for like 48 hours so I spent a lot of time on it. Actually I haven't thought about a sequel yet, but i will now ahahaha Who knows maybe I'll have an idea in a few days!
I keep coming across videos on TikTok of people recommending locked fanfictions (RPF) on ao3 what the heck guys is it really that difficult to understand that you shouldn't be doing that if the author asked you not to
