WHO DO I WRITE FOR?: mainly lh44, might venture elsewhere with time tho!!
REQUESTS?: ofc!! anything and everything lh44 is welcome. other drivers too, might just take me a little longer. nothing downright ILLEGAL pls like incest or illegal age gaps ty.
CURRENTLY: working on one-shots + requests! just finished safe landing series <3
SEARCH: #Lo'sWorldxLH44 for all my lewis fics! áŻ
CALL OUT MY NAME â I WANT YOU TO STAY EVEN THOUGH YOU DON'T WANT ME
TRY ME â ARE YOU ALONE BABY? IF HE AIN'T AROUND, PICK UP YOUR PHONE, BABY
WASTED TIMES â AND I KNOW RIGHT NOW THAT WE'RE NOT TALKIN', I HOPE YOU KNOW THIS DICK IS STILL AN OPTION
I WAS NEVER THERE â YOU'D RATHER SOMETHING TOXIC, SO I POISON MYSELF AGAIN, AGAIN, TIL' I FEEL NOTHING
HURT YOU â WHEN YOU'RE WITH HIM YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES AND THINK OF ME, JUST CALL ME UP AGAIN, I'LL MAKE YOU WEAK
PRIVILEGE â I DON'T WANNA HEAR THAT YOU ARE SUFFERING, YOU ARE SUFFERING, NO MORE
a selection of one shots based off the album my dear melancholy, by the weeknd.
pairing: lewis hamilton x reader
warnings: toxic relationship, angst, smut, MDNI, 18+ only
MASTERLIST áŻâ
author's note: hi angels!! here's a celebratory fic for lewis's podium!! this was half finished already so i just adjusted it to fit this weekend. not proofread lmk of any errors. i hope you love it <3 (smut is signposted so you can skip it if you like!!)
pairing: lewis hamilton x reader
summary: after weeks of slowly unraveling, you join lewis in montreal for a make-or-break race weekend. between quiet hotel rooms, cobblestone walks with his mum, stolen laughter with a certain young driver turned relationship councillor kimi antonelli, and the raw emotion of race day, the two of you fight to hold onto what you have.
word count: 8k!
warnings: angst with a happy ending, emotional hurt/comfort, kimi antonelli being an absolute sweetheart who loves his grid parents. relationship strain and doubt, mild language. SMUT mdni!! explicit sexual content toward the end of the fic including oral sex (female receiving), penetrative sex, dirty talk, praise kink, mild overstimulation, creampie, and very emotionally intense lovemaking.
You were on a private jet again.
Lewis had his headphones in, temple resting against the ivory wall of the cabin, and you were watching him the way you'd been trying not to. His jaw kept clenching and unclenching, a rhythm you'd learned to read like weather. His eyes were somewhere far away. They always were, nowadays.
Love never really breaks cleanly. It frays. Thread by thread, so slowly you almost miss it happening, until one day you're holding something that barely resembles what it used to be, wondering when exactly you loosened your grip.
You should have known, maybe, when you first fell for him. Lewis Hamilton. Married to his craft, married to his car, married to a sport that demanded everything he had and then came back asking for more. You'd known that going in. You'd chosen it anyway.
Things had been unravelling for weeks. Miami, you'd watched from the sofa at home. Purposefully. A choice that had gutted Lewis. You could tell, even through the phone, even through the silence he'd put up like a wall, but he hadn't said so outright. That wasn't how Lewis worked.
It had started with two missed calls. Separate days, no explanation, silence that sits in your chest and curdles. When he'd finally called back, something in you had already gone cold. You heard it in your own voice, the clipped answers, the careful distance. You watched yourself do it and couldn't quite stop. Lewis had gone quiet in that particular way of his. When he did it, it always felt like a door slowly closing shut.
He'd been trying since. Small things: coffee left on your side of the bed, a voice note sent at 2am from Maranello when you were in London, the usual gestures that said I know without saying anything at all. But trying wasn't the same as fixing it. Trying was proof there was still something broken enough to require the effort.
You'd been ready to skip Montreal entirely. Another race watched from a distance, another weekend managing the specific loneliness of loving someone who lived inside their own head.
"Lew, it's a long way to travel andâ"
"Angel, please." His voice had shifted into a register he so rarely used, stripped of the careful control he wore everywhere else. "I want you there. I need you there with me. Mum's going to be there and I â I want the two of you in the same place. I want you to have that. I want us to have that." He paused, eyes desperately searching your face for any crack in resistance. "I know I haven't made it easy. I know that. But I'm asking you to come anyway. Please."
So you'd said yes. Because you loved him. Because you were terrified that loving him might not be enough, but you weren't ready to find that out yet.
You surfaced from your thoughts when Lewis reached across the seat and took your hand.
He didn't say anything. He'd caught the way your eyes had gone glassy, the way you'd drifted somewhere he couldn't follow, somewhere that was just you and the last few months and everything going slowly, quietly wrong. He hated that look on your face. The one that meant you were watching the two of you in slow motion, cataloguing the damage.
He didn't explain himself. Didn't try to fill the silence with something that would ring false. His thumb moved softly over the back of your hand, a small, steady thing, and he held on through the whole descent.
Checking into the hotel was a blur of golden afternoon light and jet lag. Old Montreal moved slowly outside the windows. Cobblestones, the river somewhere beyond the rooftops, the breeze of a Canadian summer settling over everything like a hand pressed gently to your shoulder.
The hotel was beautiful in the understated way Lewis always chose. Dark wood, cream walls, tall windows that let the late sun pool across the floors in long amber rectangles. He handled everything at the front desk with quiet efficiency, his hand a constant, familiar weight at your waist. You stood slightly tucked into his side.
"You're going to love the room," he said, glancing down at you. There was a soft and hopeful sparkle in his eyes that hurt just to look at. "Promised myself I'd get it right this time."
You gave him a small smile. It was the best you could do, and you both knew it didn't reach your eyes. His brows pulled together, only slightly, just for a moment. The crease between his brows you'd memorised that meant he was worried. Concerned, may be a better way to describe the look on his face. It lasted seconds, and then he pressed a warm kiss to your cheek and turned back to the desk. He finished checking in without saying anything else.
The room was everything he'd promised. A king bed dressed in heavy cream linen. Huge, beautiful windows looking out over the old city, the river a dark glitter in the distance. Flowers on the side table, not hotel flowers, proper ones, something he'd arranged. You noticed and didn't comment and hated yourself a little for that.
You set your bag down. Lewis moved around the space quietly, opening the curtains wider, checking things without really needing to check them. There was a careful quality to the silence. The kind that had been living between you for weeks now â not hostile, just very, very deliberate. You were both choosing every word before you said it, and sometimes choosing not to say anything at all, and somehow that was worse than the argument that had started all of this.
"You hungry?" he asked.
"Not really. Tired, mostly."
"Yeah." He nodded. "We don't have to do anything tonight. We can justâ"
"I know," you said. "I know, Lewis."
Another silence. He looked at you across the room, and you looked back, and there was so much in the space between you that neither of you knew how to reach across it. You watched his throat move as he swallowed. He looked defeated. Sad in a way that made your chest hurt. But you were tired. So incredibly tired.
He looked moments away from crying. But he didn't look surprised by your tone. It was an expected sadness that crossed his features.
A quiet exhale left him, almost a sigh, and then he crossed the room and pulled you into him, arms coming around you fully. Your body responded before your head caught up. Something in your shoulders dropped. The smell of him, the warmth, the solid reality of his chest under your cheek â it moved through you the way it always had, the way that had made you fall for him in the first place and made all of this so unbearably complicated.
His chin settled on top of your head.
"I know things have beenâ" He stopped. Started again. "I just want this weekend to be different, baby." His voice was low, rougher than usual. "Thank you for coming. I mean that."
You closed your eyes. Pressed your face further into his chest and breathed him in and tried to let it quiet the thing that had been sitting in your sternum for weeks. The low persistent press of doubt and hurt and I don't know if we're okay.
"I'm here," you said. It was all you had.
His arms tightened.
You ordered room service. Neither of you really tasted it. You found something to watch. Lewis scrolled for longer than necessary and picked something he'd seen before, which meant he wasn't really watching either, and you didn't call him on it.
You sat close. Not quite how you used to. It wasnât the old unselfconscious tangle you'd been once, but close. His thigh against yours. His arm along the back of the cushions, not quite around you, like he wasn't sure if he'd earned the right to that yet tonight.
Halfway through, he reached over and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. You didn't look at him. He didn't make you.
By the time the credits rolled you were exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. You were hollowed out, wrung through. Lewis turned the lamp off. The room went quiet and dark and Montreal hummed softly outside.
"Come here," he murmured.
You shifted into him in the dark. He didn't say anything else, no more careful words, no attempts at the conversation you still weren't ready to have. You felt his nose tucking into the curve of your neck, his arm heavy across your waist, drawing you back into him until there was no space left. As close as he could get. Like proximity might say the thing he didn't have the language for yet.
You felt him press one more kiss to the back of your shoulder. Barely anything, but a reminder.
I'm here. I'm still here.
His breathing evened out slowly. His hold didn't loosen, even in sleep. You lay in the dark with his arm around you and his heartbeat against your back and stared at the ceiling and tried to figure out if that was enough.
He held you tighter in his sleep. Like even unconscious, something in him knew he was scared.
You woke up to a note.
Good morning beautiful angel. I hope you slept well. Had to go for my run. Hopefully won't take too long. See you soon â Lew âĄ
His handwriting was so neat you knew he'd taken care with it. Next to the note was a glass of water and a small box of macarons from the patisserie downstairs...the ones you'd pointed at through the window when you arrived yesterday, not even really saying anything. He'd noticed. He always noticed the small things, even when he was getting the big ones wrong. You sat with that for a moment before you got up.
You showered long and hot, standing under the water longer for half an hour, not quite ready to face the day. Then you pulled on something comfortable, tucked your key card into your pocket, and went out into the morning.
Montreal in early summer was almost unreasonably beautiful. You walked without much direction, just breathing, just trying to locate yourself inside your own chest again.
Kimi Antonelli walked in with two people from his Mercedes team, already mid-conversation, gesturing with both hands. You couldnât tell if they were passionate or mildly annoyed, with Kimi it was usually both at once. He was nineteen years old and leading the drivers' championship and he carried it with effortless, messy grace. His cap pulled low over his curls, dark eyes bright, the energy of someone born for exactly this who hadn't yet learned to pretend otherwise.
Kimi had always liked you. From the first time Lewis had introduced you last season, Kimi had looked between you both with those sweet eyes and wide grin and said, with complete and total sincerity, "Finally he brings someone worth meeting" â which had mortified Lewis and absolutely delighted you. You'd claimed him as your second favourite driver on the spot. He'd been insufferably smug about it ever since.
He said something to his engineers, waved them toward the counter, and sauntered over completely uninvited, dropping into the seat across from you like he lived there.
"Buongiorno, caro." He looked at you properly, clocking the tiredness you hadn't managed to sleep off. "You look like you haven't slept. Where's Lewis?"
"Running, Kimi."
"Mmh." His eyes moved from the shadows under yours to your half-eaten croissant and back again. "You two are still doing this thing where you make it very complicated?"
You laughed despite yourself. "Kimiâ"
"He's an idiot sometimes," he said, simply, like he was reading from a manual on Lewis Hamilton he'd written himself. "But he's only an idiot about things he's scared of losing. Like youâŠand maybe the championship." He tilted his head. "You know this, yes?"
You stared at him. Your heart was doing something uncomfortable. The ache of being seen too clearly by someone who wasn't even trying. Kimi reached across and stole a piece of your croissant, entirely unbothered by the effect he'd just had.
"I'm going to beat him again on Sunday," he added. "Maybe that will fix his personality."
The laugh that came out of you was embarrassingly loud. You clapped your hand over your mouth. Kimi looked deeply, personally satisfied.
His engineers came back with their orders and Kimi waved them off to another table without a second thought, settling in like he had nowhere else to be. You talked for twenty minutes, about the season, about his car, about a race earlier in the year where he'd held off George for countless laps and made it look almost boring.
"Did it feel like it looked?" you asked. "From outside it looked completely insane."
He considered this seriously, stirring his espresso. "It felt longer," he said. "But also â I don't know. I knew I had him. I could feel it." He looked up, something almost shy crossing his face for just a second. "Does that sound strange?"
"No," you said with a fond smile. "Not at all."
He smiled at that, quieter than his usual wide grin, more genuine. "Lewis says the same," he said. "That's how I know I'm on the right track. When I think the same things he thinks."
Your heart nearly burst. It was the way he said it. No performance, no ego. He was just a nineteen year old boy telling you that your boyfriend was still his benchmark after all of these years.
"He thinks the world of you," you told him. "You know that, right?"
Kimi went a little pink, and looked down at his espresso. "Yes, well," he muttered. "He has good taste. In some things." Then, glancing back up, his wide smile returning he gave you a little nod. âClearly.â
You rolled your eyes. He giggled.
You'd texted Lewis where you were, and he found you maybe ten minutes later. He was still in his running clothes, a flush across his cheeks, slightly breathless from the last stretch back. He stopped in the doorway and took in the scene before you noticed him.
You were laughing at whatever Kimi had just said. A real laugh, head back, unguarded, one Lewis hadn't heard from you in too long. his stomach flipped. His face softened into this quiet, undefended thing as he stood there watching you. How easily you existed in his world, how naturally you fit into it. How quickly you'd become a presence that was warm and steady to Kimi without even trying.
Kimi sensed him first. Looked over, grinned, and raised a hand.
Lewis shook his head and slid into the seat beside you, pressing a kiss to your temple as he settled. His hand found your thigh under the table. Kimi smiled at you both like he'd arranged all of this himself and was extremely pleased with the outcome.
It was the first time since the plane that the ache in you actually settled.
Lewis's mum arrived the following morning, having had to stay back in London with the grandkids she'd been watching. She usually travelled with Lewis for races she did attend, had done for years before life got complicated and she got older.
Lewis had been asking her to come back to the grid for ages, gently, consistently, the way he did when he wanted something he wouldn't push for. "Not just Silverstone mum...I want you to see the world with me." Sheâd already done China this year, so when she'd called to say she wanted Canada, he'd been overjoyed. You'd watched him hang up the phone and just exhale. Happy.
You both waited for her in the lobby, Lewis's hand resting on your waist. He was trying to play it cool and failing completely. His eyes kept drifting to the entrance, a barely-contained energy about him that made him seem younger somehow. Lighter.
The moment he spotted her coming through the doors he was already moving.
"Mum!"
He kissed her cheek and pulled her into a hug, and Carmen laughed and held him for a moment before she looked over his shoulder and found you.
She almost pushed him out of the way to get to you.
"Oh, sweetheart." She took both of your hands in hers, squeezing gently, looking up at you with the kind eyes that Lewis had inherited. "So lovely to see you. I'm so glad you came."
"Me too," you said, and meant it more than you'd expected to.
Lewis stood just off to the side and watched the two of you together.
There was a feeling sitting in his chest he couldn't quite name. Pride, maybe, or a feeling older and more complicated than that. You were smiling, the tension he'd been watching you carry since the plane smoothed out for a moment by the simple warmth of his mother's hands in yours. You looked almost like yourself. He'd missed that. He hadn't realised how much until right now, watching you stand in the lobby of a Montreal hotel looking relieved to be held by someone who loved you without any of the mess.
That was the part that got him. That you were brave-facing it for his mum, working so hard to be okay, and Carmen â who had always been able to see straight through him and everyone he'd ever brought home â was looking at you like she already knew. Like she'd already decided.
He'd done this. He'd taken something good and worn it thin, and here you both were, smiling at each other in a hotel lobby while he stood slightly apart and tried to figure out how to deserve either of you.
His mum glanced over at him then, briefly, over your shoulder. Just a look. He knew that look.
Sort it out, Lewis.
He almost laughed at how quickly she'd figured it out. Instead he crossed the distance and put his arm around you both, pressing a kiss to the top of his mother's head.
"Alright," he said. "I've got my two favourite people. Let's go."
Carmen didn't want to go anywhere in particular. She wanted to be a tourist, to have a saunter around the city.
So they gave her the city.
Lewis knew Montreal well enough to be useful but kept deferring to Carmen, who moved through the old streets like she'd been coming here for years. She'd visited once in the early days, she told you, when Lewis was still finding his feet and she'd come to every race she possibly could. "He didn't know I was nervous," she said, with a small smile. "I made sure of that."
"She was absolutely nervous," Lewis said, from your other side. "She held one of the PR ladyâs hand the entire race."
"I did no such thing."
"You did."
Carmen gave him a look. Lewis grinned, unrepentant, and steered you both around a group of tourists with a hand at the small of your back.
He was different here. You kept noticing it, these small recalibrations. The way his shoulders sat lower, the way he laughed faster, didn't edit himself before he spoke. Away from the paddock and the team and the weight of everything Ferrari needed him to be, he was just Lewis. A man walking cobblestones in the sun with his mum on one side and you on the other, pointing out things he liked, asking your opinion on things that didn't matter, stopping in the middle of the pavement to read a plaque on a wall because something caught his eye.
He held your hand almost constantly. Not in a distracted way. He was holding onto you deliberately, fingers laced properly through yours, occasionally lifting your hand to press his mouth to your knuckles without breaking stride or conversation.
At one point Carmen stopped to look in a shop window and Lewis turned to you, tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, and just looked at you for a second. Not saying anything. His thumb brushed your cheek.
"What?" you said, almost self consciously.
"Nothing." He smiled. "Just looking at you."
You looked away before he could see what that did to you.
Lunch was Carmen's choice, a place in the Plateau she'd been to on that old visit and had apparently thought about ever since. It was everything she'd promised: exposed brick, mismatched chairs, handwritten menus, a place that had earned its reputation entirely by accident. You were seated at a small table by the window, Carmen across from you both, afternoon light coming through the glass in long warm strips.
Lewis looked at the menu for approximately thirty seconds before deciding he was going to order in French.
"Lewis," Carmen said, not looking up from her own menu.
"I'm fine, Mum."
"You are not fine. You said that last time and the poor woman brought you soup."
"I ordered soup."
"You did not order soup. You thought you ordered the Tofu."
You pressed your lips together in an attempt not to laugh. Lewis pointed at you. "Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were going to."
He ordered in French anyway. Carmen listened with her eyes closed like she was enduring something. When the server left she looked at you across the table with an expression of profound patience and said, "He never changes. Completely unteachable."
"I got it right," Lewis said.
"We'll see," said Carmen.
He got it mostly right. The bread came out before he'd expected it to and he looked so genuinely pleased with himself that you had to take a sip of water to compose yourself.
You watched him across the table. He was laughing at what Carmen had said, leaning over to steal from her plate before she'd offered it, getting lightly swatted for it, grinning. Petulant and easy and young in a way he almost never let himself be. His mum said something quietly and he ducked his head and went a little soft around the eyes and you had to look out of the window for a moment because the feeling in your chest was almost too big to hold at the lunch table.
You loved him so much. It still frightened you, how much.
"You're quiet," Lewis said, when Carmen went to the bathroom.
"I'm just watching," you said.
He searched your face. "Good watching or bad watching?"
"Good," you said. "Really good, actually."
The worry that had been clawing at his chest since the argument settled a little at that. He reached under the table and found your hand, and kept it for the rest of lunch.
Afterwards they walked it off, no destination, no rush. Carmen looped her arm through yours at some point and simply kept it there, chatting comfortably, and Lewis fell half a step behind you both. You glanced back once and caught him watching you with the unguarded look he got when he thought no one could see him.
He caught you catching him. Raised his eyebrows like he had no idea what you were talking about.
You shook your head and faced forward, smiling at the street ahead. Behind you, very quietly, you heard him exhale with relief.
Dinner was easy in a way the day had somehow earned. A quiet restaurant around the corner from the hotel. Your cheeks ached from smiling. You couldn't remember the last time that had happened.
Carmen was in the middle of a story about Lewis at fourteen, some incident involving a go-kart and a misplaced confidence in his own mechanical ability, and Lewis was pointing his fork at her across the table saying "that is not how it happened" and "you are genuinely making this worse every time you tell it" and Carmen was ignoring him completely, eyes bright, looking at you as her audience.
"And so," she continued, "he comes in from the garage, covered in oil, completely unbothered, and tells me â and I'm quoting â 'I think I've improved it.'"
"I had improved it," Lewis said.
"It didn't start, Lewis."
"That was unrelated."
You were laughing, tears in your eyes, and Lewis looked at you with mock betrayal and then gave up and laughed too, shaking his head, and Carmen looked between you both with quiet satisfaction and said nothing.
You excused yourself after the mains, slipping away to find the bathroom at the back of the restaurant. It took longer than expected â a narrow corridor, a wrong turn â and by the time you were heading back you were already composing an explanation about getting lost in what was not a large building.
You almost rounded the corner back to the table when you heard his voice.
His tone was low and serious. The register he used when he meant something.
"ânot like the others, Mum. I need you to know that." You can hear him audibly take a deep breath. "I'm in love with her."
You stopped. The restaurant kept going around you. Cutlery, low music, someone laughing two tables over⊠and you stood completely still in the middle of it.
He hadn't said that to you yet. Not like that. Not clean and unqualified, not without something else wrapped around it, some caveat or deflection or the careful architecture he built around things that scared him. He'd said things that circled it, an "I adore you" here and there. He'd shown you, in a hundred small ways. But not those words, not in that order, not plainly, to his mother, in a restaurant in Montreal, like it was fact and he needed someone else to believe it too.
You didn't move.
When you finally looked up, Carmen was watching you from across the room. She'd seen you the moment you stopped. Her expression was soft and completely unsurprised. She'd been expecting this moment, you could tell, had quietly arranged herself for it.
She didn't say anything. She held your gaze for a second, then looked back at Lewis and said something gentle that made him nod.
You waited a minute. Then you walked back to the table, sliding into your seat, reaching for your water like nothing had happened.
"Get lost?" Lewis asked.
"Little bit," you said. "It's a whole thing back there."
He smiled and turned back to Carmen, his hand finding your knee under the table, warm and absent, a reflex.
You looked at the tablecloth. Then at him.
He was laughing at what Carmen had said again, head tilted back, completely open. Candlelight caught the angles of his face. He looked happy. He looked like someone who had told his mother the truth and was sitting with the relief of it.
Everything was exactly the same as it had been twenty minutes ago. Everything was completely different.
You picked up your glass and took a slow sip and let it move through you. You'd need a little time to hold what he'd just said properly, to turn over and look at, to believe.
But you were smiling. Quietly, to yourself, at nothing in particular. Carmen caught it. She said nothing, but you watched as she smiled into her wine.
The paddock version of Lewis was a different creature entirely.
You'd known this for a while now, had learned to hold both versions of him without confusing them. The man who stole from his mother's plate at lunch and the man who walked into that garage like he owned the air inside it. Head up, shoulders back, every movement deliberate knowing that all eyes were on him. His engineers fell into step around him and he absorbed their information and fired back questions and you watched from the hospitality area and felt the familiar complicated swell of it. Pride, mostly. Occasionally a feeling that felt lonelier.
Carmen settled into the seat beside you like she'd done it a thousand times.
"He's always been like that," she said, following your gaze. "Even as a boy. The moment he got in a kart, something switched on. I used to joke that I had two sons â the one who came home for dinner, and the one who lived at the circuit." She smiled, but it was a considered one. "It cost him things. It still does. He knows that."
You didn't say anything. She wasn't finished.
"I used to pray," she said, quieter now, "that whoever he ended up with would love all of him. Not just the version he puts out there." She glanced at you sidelong. "The whole difficult, complicated, wonderful man. Not the helmet. Not the trophy. Him."
You looked down at your hands.
"Carmenâ"
"I'm not putting pressure on you, sweetheart," she said gently. "I'm just telling you what I see."
Across the garage, Lewis looked up from a conversation with his race engineer and found you immediately, like he'd known exactly where you were the whole time. He held your gaze. He didn't smile, didn't gesture. He simply looked, steady and intent, for a long moment. Like you were a comfort. Like having you nearby gave him some sort of relief.
You held it back.
It wasn't a resolution. But it was something.
Lewis qualified well and drove the sprint on the edge of what the car could give him, which on Saturday turned out to be P6. The pace was there â you could see it, Carmen could see it, anyone watching could see it â but the result wasn't a true reflection and Lewis knew that better than anyone. He came out of the debrief controlled, measured, already somewhere else mentally. Sunday was the one that mattered. He'd already moved on.
"The car feels good," he told you, finding you outside the garage, squeezing your hand briefly. "I know where I am in it. That's what counts today."
You nodded. "Sunday."
"Sunday," he agreed, a soft smile on his face.
You were walking back through the paddock together when Kimi materialised at your side, still in his race suit, helmet hair still a little wild, practically vibrating. He'd finished P2, which gave him enough energy to power a small city. There was tensions brewing between him and George Russell, you'd caught the edges of it on the broadcast, but Kimi seemed to be processing that particular tension by simply radiating cheerfulness at everyone in his path.
He fell into step beside you, looked between you and Lewis with a smirk, and narrowed his eyes at you slightly.
"Better," he announced. "You two are better today."
"We're fine," Lewis said.
"Yesterday you were not fine. Today â better." Kimi shrugged, entirely at ease with his own assessment. "You're welcome, by the way."
Lewis looked at him, eyebrows furrowed in a way that was jokingly offended. "For what?"
"The breakfast. I fixed it."
Lewis looked at you. You looked at the ground. You were absolutely not going to smile or laugh...
"Please," Lewis said, with immense dignity, "get away from me Kimi."
Kimi grinned â all teeth, deeply satisfied with himself â and peeled off toward the Mercedes motorhome without another word, practically whistling.
You waited until he was out of earshot.
"He's not wrong," you snickered.
Lewis nudged you with his hip, rolling his eyes. "Don't."
But he was almost smiling, and you both knew it.
Carmen went to bed early, muttering an excuse about needing to be well rested for the race. She kissed you both on the cheek, squeezed Lewis's hand. You suspected she was about as tired as she was surprised by anything, but you let her go.
Which left the two of you, and the balcony, and Montreal spread out below in the warm dark.
You'd been out there maybe five minutes, the city humming quietly beneath you, when Lewis spoke first. Which wasn't like him. Lewis waited things out, let silence do its work, came in when he'd already constructed what he wanted to say. Tonight he just started talking.
"I know I made you feel like a liability."
You turned to look at him. He was staring out at the city, biting his lip nervously, elbows on the railing.
"Not on purpose. I don't think I even knew I was doing it untilâ" He stopped. Started again. "Until Miami. Until you didn't come. And I understood why and I couldn't even be angry about it, which was the worst part."
"Lewisâ"
"Let me finish." His tone wasnât sharp, it was a gentle request. "Please."
You waited.
"Every relationship I've ever been in, I've treated love like something that could wait. Like it would still be there when I had time for it, when the season was over, when things quieted down." He let out a short, humourless exhale. "Things never quiet down. I know that. I've always known that and I did it anyway and it cost me everything, every time."
He turned to look at you then, and his eyes were glassy in the low light. "I'm not good at balance. I've never been. The sport takes everything I have and I let it because I built my whole life around letting it, and then I met you and I didn't â I didn't know how to restructure that. I still don't, completely. But I'm trying to figure it out."
The city moved below you. Someone was playing music somewhere, low and indistinct.
"I'm scared," he said. Quietly, like the admission was painful. "I'm scared I've already broken something I can't fix. That I've made you feel soâŠ.so optional, for so long, that you've started believing it."
Your chest hurt.
"I don't feel optional," you said. "I feelâ" You searched for it. "I feel like I'm competing with something I can't compete with. And I don't want to compete with it. I never wanted that. I just wanted to beâŠI wanted to be someone you came home to, not someone you fit in between commitments."
He closed his eyes briefly. Taking a deep breath before opening them.
"You are," he said. "You're the only person I actually want to come home to. That's the thing I keepâŠI keep getting the execution wrong but the feeling has never been the question. Not for a single second."
"Then why does it feel like that sometimes?"
"Because I'm an idiot," he said, simply, and you laughed despite everything, a short wet sound, and he reached over and took your hand off the railing and held it in both of his. "Because I was built to pour everything into one thing and I'm still learning how to pour it into more than that. Into a person. Into you."
You looked at your hands, folded into his.
"What are you saying?" you asked softly.
"I'm saying I don't want to lose you." He turned your hand over, pressed his thumb to your palm. "I'm saying I want to love you harder than I've loved anything. I want to be someone worth staying for. I know I have to show you that, not just say it â I know words aren't enough after the last few months. But I needed you to know that's where I am. That's what I want."
The night sat around you both, warm and still.
You didn't say anything for a moment. Then you turned toward him, and he looked at you, and you reached up and touched his face. Your palm settled against his cheek, and he leaned into it like he was exhausted.
"I'm not going anywhere," you said. "I need things to change. But I'm not going anywhere."
He exhaled. Long and slow, like he'd been holding it for months.
He turned his head and pressed his lips to your palm.
You talked for a long time after that. Not fixing everything, one conversation couldn't do that and you both knew it, but pulling things into the light that had been sitting in the dark too long. His fears. Yours. What you needed from him. What he was genuinely capable of giving, and what he was still working on, and the difference between the two. He didn't make promises he couldn't keep and you loved him for that. He made smaller ones. Specific ones. Promises that felt like they might actually hold.
By the time you went back inside the air between you had changed. Still tender, still careful, but open now, something breathing in it that hadn't been there before.
He held the door for you, hand at your back as you stepped inside, and you felt the weight of the weekend behind you and the race tomorrow ahead, and him, right here, choosing this.
You didn't resolve everything. But you went to sleep that night facing each other, his forehead against yours in the dark. He kissed you softly until he fell asleep.
That was enough for now. More than enough.
Morning light slipped through the half-drawn curtains, pale and gentle across the bed. You woke first, lying there for a while just watching him sleep. The slow rise and fall of his chest, the way his face looked softer without the weight of the day on it yet.
Then Lewis stirred. His eyes opened, found yours, and instant warmth moved across his face. He reached for you, sliding one hand into your hair as he pulled you in. The kiss was deep, slow, and sweet, like he was pouring everything he said last night into it. His lips moved against yours with quiet hunger, needing to feel you close before he started his day. When he finally pulled back, he rested his forehead on yours, breathing you in.
âMorning, angel,â he whispered, voice still rough from sleep.Â
Breakfast was quiet and warm in the hotel restaurant. Carmen sat across from you, coffee steaming between you both while Lewis had already slipped away for a quick physio session before the track. She reached over and squeezed your hand, her touch gentle but sure.
âHe needs you more than he knows how to say,â she said softly, eyes kind and knowing. âMore than heâll ever admit out loud. I see it. Iâve always seen it.â
You swallowed, the words lying warm and heavy in your chest. Carmen gave your hand another squeeze.
âHeâs going to be brilliant today. He always is when he has something real to race for.â
At the track, Lewis was in full race mode. Focused, sharp, moving through the garage like a man who carried the weight of expectations on his shoulders. But he kept breaking his own rhythm to come back to you.
You were standing near the monitors when he appeared behind you, hands settling warm and heavy on your shoulders. He gave them a gentle press, then leaned in and kissed your forehead, slow and loving, like the data in front of him could wait.
A little later, just before heading to the grid, he found you again. He took your face in both hands, resting his forehead against yours. The paddock noise faded for a moment, just the two of you in that small pocket of calm.
âStay close today,â he murmured, voice low and rough with feeling. âPlease.â
His eyes held yours for a long second, full of everything he was carrying. Love, fear, hope, need. Then he kissed you once more, soft and quick, before pulling away and slipping back into that focused version of himself.
But you felt it. Every time he came back to you, even for those few seconds, it felt like a promise he was choosing to keep.
The Canadian Grand Prix was cold.Â
The air was damp with mist and noise as you stood in the garage with Carmen, the clouds heavy over the grandstands. Your heart was already in your throat before the lights even went out. Lewis started P5, and from the first lap you could see it in the way the Ferrari moved. He looked sharp, alive, hungry. He was P4 before you could blink.
The race unfolded, raw and beautiful. Every corner, every braking zone, you felt it in your chest. Carmenâs hand stayed close to yours, both of you leaning forward, barely breathing.
Then it happened.
Lewis went for the move on Max to take p2. Clean. Brave. He carried so much speed into the corner, the car planted beautifully on the outside, and he just⊠took the position. The crowd erupted like thunder rolling over the circuit. You didnât even realise you were screaming until your throat burned. Carmen grabbed your arm tight, her nails digging in, eyes wide with the same wild joy you felt.
âThatâs my boy,â she whispered, voice thick.
He defended like a man who refused to give an inch. Every lap you watched him hold off the pressure behind, precise and calm under fire. It was his best drive in the Ferrari so far. You could feel it, the way he was racing not just for points, but for something deeper.
When he crossed the line in P2, the radio crackled loud through your headset. His engineerâs voice cracked with pure joy. You heard Lewis exhale over the radio. Relief and triumph all tangled together in one shaky breath. It hit you right in the centre of your chest.
Kimi won, of course. The nineteen-year-old crossed the line first, the crowd losing its mind around you. It was his first Canadian Grand Prix victory, and the way he pulled further ahead in the championship felt inevitable. You couldnât even be mad. Not when you saw how brightly he shone.
Lewis climbed out of the car and ran straight to his team, jumping into the cluster of red suits with pure emotion. Then he turned, helmet off, skin damp with sweat, and came toward the barrier where you and Carmen had jogged to.
He reached his mum first, leaning over to kiss her cheek. âYou have to come to every race now. Both of you. My lucky charms.â
Then his eyes found yours. He cupped your cheek with one hand, the other still wrapped around his mum over the barrier. The touch was warm, a little rough from the gloves. He leaned in and kissed you. Deep, honest, right there in front of everyone.
âYou drove so well, Lew,â you breathed against his lips, voice shaky with everything you felt. âGod, you were amazing out there.â
He pulled back just enough to look at you, eyes soft and shining. âThank you, baby. I love you.â
He said it like it was the easiest, most natural thing in the world. Like it had always belonged between you. Before you could even process the words, before your heart could catch up, he was already being pulled away toward the cool-down room, glancing back once with a small, private smile meant only for you.
The noise on the podium was immense. Crowd roaring, music thumping, the kind of energy that vibrated in your bones. You and Carmen stood at the barrier again, hands linked, watching as the three drivers walked out.
Lewis stepped onto the second place spot, still buzzing. He looked straight out into the crowd and found you almost immediately. His eyes locked on yours. Then he pointed directly at you, no hesitation. After that, he placed his hand over his heart and blew a soft kiss toward both of you.
Carmenâs smile widened, warm and emotional beside you.
Kimi stood on the top step, gold trophy raised high, looking over the moon. He was grinning wide, curls wild, pure happiness rolling off him. Heâd earned every bit of it.
Champagne sprayed everywhere, soaking all three drivers. Even Max, on the third step, looked genuinely happy, laughing as the sticky spray hit him.
Then came the celebration. A Mercedes member had already joined them on the podium for the constructorsâ trophy presentation, the atmosphere electric as the team celebrated their strong result. But Kimi, buzzing with uncontainable joy, turned toward Lewis with a wide smile, and you caught the mischievous glint in Lewis's eyes. Without a word, the two of them reached for him togetherâLewis on one side, the Mercedes member on the otherâhoisting the young driver up in one smooth, coordinated motion.
Kimi sat across both their shoulders, each man holding firmly onto one of his legs to keep him steady. It was a beautiful, brotherly effort, effortless in its warmth. Lewisâs arm wrapped securely around Kimiâs leg, his face tilted upward with quiet, unmistakable pride. Pride that came from years of watching this boy grow, learn from him, and bloom into someone extraordinary. The Mercedes member mirrored the support on the other side, the three of them forming a triumphant, living podium of their own.
Kimi threw his head back and laughed, arms spread wide, fists clenched in a cheer like he'd only just stepped out of the car. Champagne dripped from his curls onto Lewisâs shoulders, but no one cared. The sight of it made your heart swell until it ached with the sweetest kind of fullness.
To you, Kimi had become so much more than a driver, more than Lewisâs friendly rival or the sportâs bright new star. He was your adopted grid son, your heartâs wild childâthe nineteen-year-old with the old soul who made you laugh until your sides hurt and melted something protective inside you every time he looked your way. You loved him fiercely, like a son the universe had quietly gifted you, and watching Lewis hold him up like this, their bond so pure and unguarded, filled you with a warmth that went deeper than words.
Lewisâs gaze found yours across the chaos, steady and full of everything unsaid. Look at him, that look whispered. Look at what we get to be part of. You pressed a hand to your chest, smiling so hard your cheeks hurt, tears gathering at the corners of your eyes. Carmen squeezed your fingers tighter beside you, her own eyes shining with the same quiet joy.
Kimi spotted you then, his grin softening into a look that was boyish and radiant. He pointed straight at you with the hand not holding the trophy.
You blew him a kiss in return, mouthing the words you knew would reach him: Iâm so proud of you, sweetheart.
He ducked his head for half a second, the same shy little gesture he always did when your praise caught him off guard, and then he was laughing again, trying to not fall off their shoulders.
Carmen's hand rubbed gently over your arm. She didnât say a single word. She didnât need to. The pride and love on her face said everything as she watched her son celebrate. Lewis looked so happy and alive, you were helpless fighting back tears.
In that moment, standing there with champagne mist in the air and your heart full, you felt it too. Healing, for both of you.Â
finish here if you don't want the smut!
After dinner, the three of you lingered over dessert and quiet conversation, the kind that felt like wrapping the whole weekend in a blanket that felt warm and steady. Carmen looked between you and Lewis with soft, satisfied eyes. When you finally walked her back to her room, she paused at the door, taking both your hands in hers first, then pulling Lewis into a quick hug.
âTake care of each other,â she said, her voice gentle but firm, a motherâs quiet wisdom wrapped in warmth. She squeezed your hand once more, her smile knowing. âReally take care of each other. Thatâs all I ask.â
Lewis nodded, pressing a kiss to her cheek. âWe will, Mum.â
She gave you both one last look, full of hope and quiet approval, before slipping inside.
The door to your suite had barely clicked shut before Lewis was on you.
He pulled you to him with a hunger that had been building all day, all weekend, maybe for weeks. One strong arm wrapped around your waist, the other sliding up your back as he walked you backwards into the room. His mouth found yours instantly. Deep, desperate, champagne and adrenaline still singing on his tongue. The restraint heâd carried through every public moment shattered the second you were alone.
âGod, I need you,â he breathed against your lips, voice rough and low. âBeen thinking about this since the podium. Since this morningâŠâ
You gasped as your back met the wall, but there was no fear in it. Only heat and want. His hands were everywhere, sliding under your top, palms hot against your skin like he was memorising every curve, every inch he had almost let slip away. He kissed you harder, tongue stroking yours, then gentled it without warning, turning the kiss slow and reverent.
He pulled back just enough to look at you. His dark eyes held yours, intense and open, forehead dropping to rest against yours.
âI love you,â he whispered. The words sounded like theyâd been torn out of his chest. âI love you so much.â
Your hands found the hem of his shirt. âLewâŠâ
âNo, let me say it.â He kissed you again, slower this time, while his hands worked your clothes open. âI love you. Iâve got you. Iâm not going anywhere, baby. Not ever again.â
"I love you too," you whispered, closing your eyes and letting him take the lead. Clothes fell away in a haze. His jeans, your top, underwear, until there was nothing between you. He lifted you effortlessly, your legs wrapping around his waist as he carried you to the king sized bed. When he laid you down, he didnât look away once. His body covered yours, heavy and warm, skin still buzzing from the race.
He kissed down your neck, slow and beautiful, sucking gently at the spot that always made you shiver. One hand traced your side, thumb brushing the underside of your breast before he took it into his mouth, tongue circling until you arched off the bed with a soft cry.
âLook at me,â he murmured, voice vibrating against your skin.
You did. His eyes were glassy with emotion and lust as he moved lower, kissing every rib, every soft place on your stomach like it was sacred. When he settled between your thighs, he hooked your legs over his shoulders and looked up at you again.
âI love you,â he said, then licked a long, slow stripe through your folds.
You moaned, fingers threading into his braids as he devoured you with devastating patience. Every stroke of his tongue was purposeful, loving, like he was proving his love with his mouth. Two thick fingers slid inside you, curling just right, and he groaned against you when your walls clenched around them.
âLewisâfuckâpleaseâŠâ
He didnât stop until you were trembling, thighs shaking around his head. When you came, it hit you hard, pleasure ripping through you in waves. He stayed with you through every pulse, murmuring soft praises against your slick skin.
He climbed back up your body, kissing you so you could taste yourself on his tongue. His cock pressed hot and heavy against your thigh, but he didnât rush.
âEyes on me, angel,â he whispered, lining himself up. His forehead pressed to yours again, breath mingling. âI want to see you.â
He pushed inside in one smooth, deep thrust. The stretch was perfect, overwhelming. You both moaned, the sound raw and honest. For a moment he just stayed there, buried to the hilt, breathing with you.
âI love you so much,â he moaned, voice breaking as he started to move. Long, powerful strokes that hit deep every time. âIâm going to do better babyâŠfuck, i promise.â
âLewâoh godââ The words broke out of you, raw and needy.
âIâve got you,â he panted, never breaking eye contact, forehead still pressed to yours. But his gaze darkened, his adoration turning into desperation. The careful restraint heâd been holding onto all weekend started to fray.
You could feel it in the way his rhythm changed, hips snapping harder, the wet sound of skin meeting skin filling the room. He was still so deep, so thick inside you, but it wasnât enough. Not anymore.
âHarder,â you begged, voice trembling as you dragged your nails down his back. âLewis, pleaseâfuck me harder.â
A low, feral sound rumbled from his chest. His eyes flashed with heat, any sign of his usual polished control cracking open. He hooked your leg even higher, nearly folding you in half as he drove into you with a powerful thrust that punched the air from your lungs.
âLike this?â he growled, voice rough and breathless. He slammed into you again, deeper, harder, the headboard knocking against the wall. âYou want me to fuck you like I mean it, baby?â
âYesâyes, please,â you gasped, head falling back against the pillow. Every brutal stroke sent sparks of pleasure shooting through you, bordering on too much, but you craved it. You needed him unleashed. âDonât hold back. Love me harder, Lew. Pleaseââ
He lost it then. A broken moan tore from his throat as he gave in completely. His hips pistoned into you with raw intensity, the wet slap of your bodies growing louder, more obscene. One hand fisted in your hair, tilting your head so he could kiss you messily. All you could feel was tongue and teeth and desperation, all while the other hand gripped your ass, pulling you onto his cock with every thrust.
âFuck, you feel so good,â he groaned against your mouth, voice breaking. âSo tight around me. This pussy is mine, angel. Say it.â
âItâs yours,â you whimpered, barely able to form words as he pounded into you. âAll yoursâoh fuck, Lewisââ
He buried his face in your neck, sucking hard enough to leave marks as he fucked you harder, faster, chasing his climax with single-minded need. The tenderness was still there, threaded through every brutal snap of his hips, but the hunger had taken over. His breath came in hot, ragged bursts against your skin.
âI love you so fucking much,â he moaned, the words vibrating through you. He looked almost pained with all of the emotions he was feeling. âIâm never letting you go. Never.â
The emotion of the weekendâthe fight, the reconciliation, the race, his public âI love youââcrashed over you both. Tears slipped from the corners of your eyes, not from sadness but from the sheer intensity of being loved like this. He kissed them away without slowing down.Â
You shattered around him with a cry, clenching so hard it dragged him over with you. Lewis came with a deep, guttural groan, hips stuttering as he spilled inside you, pulsing hot and endless. He kept moving through it, slow and deep, like he couldnât bear to stop.
Afterwards, he didnât pull out right away. He stayed inside you, holding you close, foreheads still pressed together as your breathing slowly evened out. His thumb brushed tenderly over your cheek.
âWeâre going to be okay,â he whispered, voice thick with exhaustion and peace. âIâm going to keep choosing you. Every single day.â
You kissed him softly, heart so full it ached in the most beautiful way. The suite was quiet except for the distant hum of Montreal at night, but in that bed, wrapped in Lewis, everything felt like it was finally mending.
Not only did Lewis get a podium, so did Nicholasđ„č
i knowđ„čđ„čđ„č his podium vid was so emotional. what a weekend for the hamilton brothers. absolutely beautiful scenes. i love when everything comes together like thisđ€
hii!! congrats on 500 followers!! you deserve it <33333 i saw you accept requests based on songs, so iâm proposing some lewis x reader fic inspired by âlove me hardedâ by ariana grande and the weeknd! :D
hi my angel!! this request was from january and i'm SO sorry it took so long. you can find the fic here <3 a lovely angsty -> smutty fic based on his most recent podium + the song of course. i hope you love it xxx
MASTERLIST áŻâ
author's note: hi angels!! here's a celebratory fic for lewis's podium!! this was half finished already so i just adjusted it to fit this weekend. not proofread lmk of any errors. i hope you love it <3 (smut is signposted so you can skip it if you like!!)
pairing: lewis hamilton x reader
summary: after weeks of slowly unraveling, you join lewis in montreal for a make-or-break race weekend. between quiet hotel rooms, cobblestone walks with his mum, stolen laughter with a certain young driver turned relationship councillor kimi antonelli, and the raw emotion of race day, the two of you fight to hold onto what you have.
word count: 8k!
warnings: angst with a happy ending, emotional hurt/comfort, kimi antonelli being an absolute sweetheart who loves his grid parents. relationship strain and doubt, mild language. SMUT mdni!! explicit sexual content toward the end of the fic including oral sex (female receiving), penetrative sex, dirty talk, praise kink, mild overstimulation, creampie, and very emotionally intense lovemaking.
You were on a private jet again.
Lewis had his headphones in, temple resting against the ivory wall of the cabin, and you were watching him the way you'd been trying not to. His jaw kept clenching and unclenching, a rhythm you'd learned to read like weather. His eyes were somewhere far away. They always were, nowadays.
Love never really breaks cleanly. It frays. Thread by thread, so slowly you almost miss it happening, until one day you're holding something that barely resembles what it used to be, wondering when exactly you loosened your grip.
You should have known, maybe, when you first fell for him. Lewis Hamilton. Married to his craft, married to his car, married to a sport that demanded everything he had and then came back asking for more. You'd known that going in. You'd chosen it anyway.
Things had been unravelling for weeks. Miami, you'd watched from the sofa at home. Purposefully. A choice that had gutted Lewis. You could tell, even through the phone, even through the silence he'd put up like a wall, but he hadn't said so outright. That wasn't how Lewis worked.
It had started with two missed calls. Separate days, no explanation, silence that sits in your chest and curdles. When he'd finally called back, something in you had already gone cold. You heard it in your own voice, the clipped answers, the careful distance. You watched yourself do it and couldn't quite stop. Lewis had gone quiet in that particular way of his. When he did it, it always felt like a door slowly closing shut.
He'd been trying since. Small things: coffee left on your side of the bed, a voice note sent at 2am from Maranello when you were in London, the usual gestures that said I know without saying anything at all. But trying wasn't the same as fixing it. Trying was proof there was still something broken enough to require the effort.
You'd been ready to skip Montreal entirely. Another race watched from a distance, another weekend managing the specific loneliness of loving someone who lived inside their own head.
"Lew, it's a long way to travel andâ"
"Angel, please." His voice had shifted into a register he so rarely used, stripped of the careful control he wore everywhere else. "I want you there. I need you there with me. Mum's going to be there and I â I want the two of you in the same place. I want you to have that. I want us to have that." He paused, eyes desperately searching your face for any crack in resistance. "I know I haven't made it easy. I know that. But I'm asking you to come anyway. Please."
So you'd said yes. Because you loved him. Because you were terrified that loving him might not be enough, but you weren't ready to find that out yet.
You surfaced from your thoughts when Lewis reached across the seat and took your hand.
He didn't say anything. He'd caught the way your eyes had gone glassy, the way you'd drifted somewhere he couldn't follow, somewhere that was just you and the last few months and everything going slowly, quietly wrong. He hated that look on your face. The one that meant you were watching the two of you in slow motion, cataloguing the damage.
He didn't explain himself. Didn't try to fill the silence with something that would ring false. His thumb moved softly over the back of your hand, a small, steady thing, and he held on through the whole descent.
Checking into the hotel was a blur of golden afternoon light and jet lag. Old Montreal moved slowly outside the windows. Cobblestones, the river somewhere beyond the rooftops, the breeze of a Canadian summer settling over everything like a hand pressed gently to your shoulder.
The hotel was beautiful in the understated way Lewis always chose. Dark wood, cream walls, tall windows that let the late sun pool across the floors in long amber rectangles. He handled everything at the front desk with quiet efficiency, his hand a constant, familiar weight at your waist. You stood slightly tucked into his side.
"You're going to love the room," he said, glancing down at you. There was a soft and hopeful sparkle in his eyes that hurt just to look at. "Promised myself I'd get it right this time."
You gave him a small smile. It was the best you could do, and you both knew it didn't reach your eyes. His brows pulled together, only slightly, just for a moment. The crease between his brows you'd memorised that meant he was worried. Concerned, may be a better way to describe the look on his face. It lasted seconds, and then he pressed a warm kiss to your cheek and turned back to the desk. He finished checking in without saying anything else.
The room was everything he'd promised. A king bed dressed in heavy cream linen. Huge, beautiful windows looking out over the old city, the river a dark glitter in the distance. Flowers on the side table, not hotel flowers, proper ones, something he'd arranged. You noticed and didn't comment and hated yourself a little for that.
You set your bag down. Lewis moved around the space quietly, opening the curtains wider, checking things without really needing to check them. There was a careful quality to the silence. The kind that had been living between you for weeks now â not hostile, just very, very deliberate. You were both choosing every word before you said it, and sometimes choosing not to say anything at all, and somehow that was worse than the argument that had started all of this.
"You hungry?" he asked.
"Not really. Tired, mostly."
"Yeah." He nodded. "We don't have to do anything tonight. We can justâ"
"I know," you said. "I know, Lewis."
Another silence. He looked at you across the room, and you looked back, and there was so much in the space between you that neither of you knew how to reach across it. You watched his throat move as he swallowed. He looked defeated. Sad in a way that made your chest hurt. But you were tired. So incredibly tired.
He looked moments away from crying. But he didn't look surprised by your tone. It was an expected sadness that crossed his features.
A quiet exhale left him, almost a sigh, and then he crossed the room and pulled you into him, arms coming around you fully. Your body responded before your head caught up. Something in your shoulders dropped. The smell of him, the warmth, the solid reality of his chest under your cheek â it moved through you the way it always had, the way that had made you fall for him in the first place and made all of this so unbearably complicated.
His chin settled on top of your head.
"I know things have beenâ" He stopped. Started again. "I just want this weekend to be different, baby." His voice was low, rougher than usual. "Thank you for coming. I mean that."
You closed your eyes. Pressed your face further into his chest and breathed him in and tried to let it quiet the thing that had been sitting in your sternum for weeks. The low persistent press of doubt and hurt and I don't know if we're okay.
"I'm here," you said. It was all you had.
His arms tightened.
You ordered room service. Neither of you really tasted it. You found something to watch. Lewis scrolled for longer than necessary and picked something he'd seen before, which meant he wasn't really watching either, and you didn't call him on it.
You sat close. Not quite how you used to. It wasnât the old unselfconscious tangle you'd been once, but close. His thigh against yours. His arm along the back of the cushions, not quite around you, like he wasn't sure if he'd earned the right to that yet tonight.
Halfway through, he reached over and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. You didn't look at him. He didn't make you.
By the time the credits rolled you were exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. You were hollowed out, wrung through. Lewis turned the lamp off. The room went quiet and dark and Montreal hummed softly outside.
"Come here," he murmured.
You shifted into him in the dark. He didn't say anything else, no more careful words, no attempts at the conversation you still weren't ready to have. You felt his nose tucking into the curve of your neck, his arm heavy across your waist, drawing you back into him until there was no space left. As close as he could get. Like proximity might say the thing he didn't have the language for yet.
You felt him press one more kiss to the back of your shoulder. Barely anything, but a reminder.
I'm here. I'm still here.
His breathing evened out slowly. His hold didn't loosen, even in sleep. You lay in the dark with his arm around you and his heartbeat against your back and stared at the ceiling and tried to figure out if that was enough.
He held you tighter in his sleep. Like even unconscious, something in him knew he was scared.
You woke up to a note.
Good morning beautiful angel. I hope you slept well. Had to go for my run. Hopefully won't take too long. See you soon â Lew âĄ
His handwriting was so neat you knew he'd taken care with it. Next to the note was a glass of water and a small box of macarons from the patisserie downstairs...the ones you'd pointed at through the window when you arrived yesterday, not even really saying anything. He'd noticed. He always noticed the small things, even when he was getting the big ones wrong. You sat with that for a moment before you got up.
You showered long and hot, standing under the water longer for half an hour, not quite ready to face the day. Then you pulled on something comfortable, tucked your key card into your pocket, and went out into the morning.
Montreal in early summer was almost unreasonably beautiful. You walked without much direction, just breathing, just trying to locate yourself inside your own chest again.
Kimi Antonelli walked in with two people from his Mercedes team, already mid-conversation, gesturing with both hands. You couldnât tell if they were passionate or mildly annoyed, with Kimi it was usually both at once. He was nineteen years old and leading the drivers' championship and he carried it with effortless, messy grace. His cap pulled low over his curls, dark eyes bright, the energy of someone born for exactly this who hadn't yet learned to pretend otherwise.
Kimi had always liked you. From the first time Lewis had introduced you last season, Kimi had looked between you both with those sweet eyes and wide grin and said, with complete and total sincerity, "Finally he brings someone worth meeting" â which had mortified Lewis and absolutely delighted you. You'd claimed him as your second favourite driver on the spot. He'd been insufferably smug about it ever since.
He said something to his engineers, waved them toward the counter, and sauntered over completely uninvited, dropping into the seat across from you like he lived there.
"Buongiorno, caro." He looked at you properly, clocking the tiredness you hadn't managed to sleep off. "You look like you haven't slept. Where's Lewis?"
"Running, Kimi."
"Mmh." His eyes moved from the shadows under yours to your half-eaten croissant and back again. "You two are still doing this thing where you make it very complicated?"
You laughed despite yourself. "Kimiâ"
"He's an idiot sometimes," he said, simply, like he was reading from a manual on Lewis Hamilton he'd written himself. "But he's only an idiot about things he's scared of losing. Like youâŠand maybe the championship." He tilted his head. "You know this, yes?"
You stared at him. Your heart was doing something uncomfortable. The ache of being seen too clearly by someone who wasn't even trying. Kimi reached across and stole a piece of your croissant, entirely unbothered by the effect he'd just had.
"I'm going to beat him again on Sunday," he added. "Maybe that will fix his personality."
The laugh that came out of you was embarrassingly loud. You clapped your hand over your mouth. Kimi looked deeply, personally satisfied.
His engineers came back with their orders and Kimi waved them off to another table without a second thought, settling in like he had nowhere else to be. You talked for twenty minutes, about the season, about his car, about a race earlier in the year where he'd held off George for countless laps and made it look almost boring.
"Did it feel like it looked?" you asked. "From outside it looked completely insane."
He considered this seriously, stirring his espresso. "It felt longer," he said. "But also â I don't know. I knew I had him. I could feel it." He looked up, something almost shy crossing his face for just a second. "Does that sound strange?"
"No," you said with a fond smile. "Not at all."
He smiled at that, quieter than his usual wide grin, more genuine. "Lewis says the same," he said. "That's how I know I'm on the right track. When I think the same things he thinks."
Your heart nearly burst. It was the way he said it. No performance, no ego. He was just a nineteen year old boy telling you that your boyfriend was still his benchmark after all of these years.
"He thinks the world of you," you told him. "You know that, right?"
Kimi went a little pink, and looked down at his espresso. "Yes, well," he muttered. "He has good taste. In some things." Then, glancing back up, his wide smile returning he gave you a little nod. âClearly.â
You rolled your eyes. He giggled.
You'd texted Lewis where you were, and he found you maybe ten minutes later. He was still in his running clothes, a flush across his cheeks, slightly breathless from the last stretch back. He stopped in the doorway and took in the scene before you noticed him.
You were laughing at whatever Kimi had just said. A real laugh, head back, unguarded, one Lewis hadn't heard from you in too long. his stomach flipped. His face softened into this quiet, undefended thing as he stood there watching you. How easily you existed in his world, how naturally you fit into it. How quickly you'd become a presence that was warm and steady to Kimi without even trying.
Kimi sensed him first. Looked over, grinned, and raised a hand.
Lewis shook his head and slid into the seat beside you, pressing a kiss to your temple as he settled. His hand found your thigh under the table. Kimi smiled at you both like he'd arranged all of this himself and was extremely pleased with the outcome.
It was the first time since the plane that the ache in you actually settled.
Lewis's mum arrived the following morning, having had to stay back in London with the grandkids she'd been watching. She usually travelled with Lewis for races she did attend, had done for years before life got complicated and she got older.
Lewis had been asking her to come back to the grid for ages, gently, consistently, the way he did when he wanted something he wouldn't push for. "Not just Silverstone mum...I want you to see the world with me." Sheâd already done China this year, so when she'd called to say she wanted Canada, he'd been overjoyed. You'd watched him hang up the phone and just exhale. Happy.
You both waited for her in the lobby, Lewis's hand resting on your waist. He was trying to play it cool and failing completely. His eyes kept drifting to the entrance, a barely-contained energy about him that made him seem younger somehow. Lighter.
The moment he spotted her coming through the doors he was already moving.
"Mum!"
He kissed her cheek and pulled her into a hug, and Carmen laughed and held him for a moment before she looked over his shoulder and found you.
She almost pushed him out of the way to get to you.
"Oh, sweetheart." She took both of your hands in hers, squeezing gently, looking up at you with the kind eyes that Lewis had inherited. "So lovely to see you. I'm so glad you came."
"Me too," you said, and meant it more than you'd expected to.
Lewis stood just off to the side and watched the two of you together.
There was a feeling sitting in his chest he couldn't quite name. Pride, maybe, or a feeling older and more complicated than that. You were smiling, the tension he'd been watching you carry since the plane smoothed out for a moment by the simple warmth of his mother's hands in yours. You looked almost like yourself. He'd missed that. He hadn't realised how much until right now, watching you stand in the lobby of a Montreal hotel looking relieved to be held by someone who loved you without any of the mess.
That was the part that got him. That you were brave-facing it for his mum, working so hard to be okay, and Carmen â who had always been able to see straight through him and everyone he'd ever brought home â was looking at you like she already knew. Like she'd already decided.
He'd done this. He'd taken something good and worn it thin, and here you both were, smiling at each other in a hotel lobby while he stood slightly apart and tried to figure out how to deserve either of you.
His mum glanced over at him then, briefly, over your shoulder. Just a look. He knew that look.
Sort it out, Lewis.
He almost laughed at how quickly she'd figured it out. Instead he crossed the distance and put his arm around you both, pressing a kiss to the top of his mother's head.
"Alright," he said. "I've got my two favourite people. Let's go."
Carmen didn't want to go anywhere in particular. She wanted to be a tourist, to have a saunter around the city.
So they gave her the city.
Lewis knew Montreal well enough to be useful but kept deferring to Carmen, who moved through the old streets like she'd been coming here for years. She'd visited once in the early days, she told you, when Lewis was still finding his feet and she'd come to every race she possibly could. "He didn't know I was nervous," she said, with a small smile. "I made sure of that."
"She was absolutely nervous," Lewis said, from your other side. "She held one of the PR ladyâs hand the entire race."
"I did no such thing."
"You did."
Carmen gave him a look. Lewis grinned, unrepentant, and steered you both around a group of tourists with a hand at the small of your back.
He was different here. You kept noticing it, these small recalibrations. The way his shoulders sat lower, the way he laughed faster, didn't edit himself before he spoke. Away from the paddock and the team and the weight of everything Ferrari needed him to be, he was just Lewis. A man walking cobblestones in the sun with his mum on one side and you on the other, pointing out things he liked, asking your opinion on things that didn't matter, stopping in the middle of the pavement to read a plaque on a wall because something caught his eye.
He held your hand almost constantly. Not in a distracted way. He was holding onto you deliberately, fingers laced properly through yours, occasionally lifting your hand to press his mouth to your knuckles without breaking stride or conversation.
At one point Carmen stopped to look in a shop window and Lewis turned to you, tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, and just looked at you for a second. Not saying anything. His thumb brushed your cheek.
"What?" you said, almost self consciously.
"Nothing." He smiled. "Just looking at you."
You looked away before he could see what that did to you.
Lunch was Carmen's choice, a place in the Plateau she'd been to on that old visit and had apparently thought about ever since. It was everything she'd promised: exposed brick, mismatched chairs, handwritten menus, a place that had earned its reputation entirely by accident. You were seated at a small table by the window, Carmen across from you both, afternoon light coming through the glass in long warm strips.
Lewis looked at the menu for approximately thirty seconds before deciding he was going to order in French.
"Lewis," Carmen said, not looking up from her own menu.
"I'm fine, Mum."
"You are not fine. You said that last time and the poor woman brought you soup."
"I ordered soup."
"You did not order soup. You thought you ordered the Tofu."
You pressed your lips together in an attempt not to laugh. Lewis pointed at you. "Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were going to."
He ordered in French anyway. Carmen listened with her eyes closed like she was enduring something. When the server left she looked at you across the table with an expression of profound patience and said, "He never changes. Completely unteachable."
"I got it right," Lewis said.
"We'll see," said Carmen.
He got it mostly right. The bread came out before he'd expected it to and he looked so genuinely pleased with himself that you had to take a sip of water to compose yourself.
You watched him across the table. He was laughing at what Carmen had said, leaning over to steal from her plate before she'd offered it, getting lightly swatted for it, grinning. Petulant and easy and young in a way he almost never let himself be. His mum said something quietly and he ducked his head and went a little soft around the eyes and you had to look out of the window for a moment because the feeling in your chest was almost too big to hold at the lunch table.
You loved him so much. It still frightened you, how much.
"You're quiet," Lewis said, when Carmen went to the bathroom.
"I'm just watching," you said.
He searched your face. "Good watching or bad watching?"
"Good," you said. "Really good, actually."
The worry that had been clawing at his chest since the argument settled a little at that. He reached under the table and found your hand, and kept it for the rest of lunch.
Afterwards they walked it off, no destination, no rush. Carmen looped her arm through yours at some point and simply kept it there, chatting comfortably, and Lewis fell half a step behind you both. You glanced back once and caught him watching you with the unguarded look he got when he thought no one could see him.
He caught you catching him. Raised his eyebrows like he had no idea what you were talking about.
You shook your head and faced forward, smiling at the street ahead. Behind you, very quietly, you heard him exhale with relief.
Dinner was easy in a way the day had somehow earned. A quiet restaurant around the corner from the hotel. Your cheeks ached from smiling. You couldn't remember the last time that had happened.
Carmen was in the middle of a story about Lewis at fourteen, some incident involving a go-kart and a misplaced confidence in his own mechanical ability, and Lewis was pointing his fork at her across the table saying "that is not how it happened" and "you are genuinely making this worse every time you tell it" and Carmen was ignoring him completely, eyes bright, looking at you as her audience.
"And so," she continued, "he comes in from the garage, covered in oil, completely unbothered, and tells me â and I'm quoting â 'I think I've improved it.'"
"I had improved it," Lewis said.
"It didn't start, Lewis."
"That was unrelated."
You were laughing, tears in your eyes, and Lewis looked at you with mock betrayal and then gave up and laughed too, shaking his head, and Carmen looked between you both with quiet satisfaction and said nothing.
You excused yourself after the mains, slipping away to find the bathroom at the back of the restaurant. It took longer than expected â a narrow corridor, a wrong turn â and by the time you were heading back you were already composing an explanation about getting lost in what was not a large building.
You almost rounded the corner back to the table when you heard his voice.
His tone was low and serious. The register he used when he meant something.
"ânot like the others, Mum. I need you to know that." You can hear him audibly take a deep breath. "I'm in love with her."
You stopped. The restaurant kept going around you. Cutlery, low music, someone laughing two tables over⊠and you stood completely still in the middle of it.
He hadn't said that to you yet. Not like that. Not clean and unqualified, not without something else wrapped around it, some caveat or deflection or the careful architecture he built around things that scared him. He'd said things that circled it, an "I adore you" here and there. He'd shown you, in a hundred small ways. But not those words, not in that order, not plainly, to his mother, in a restaurant in Montreal, like it was fact and he needed someone else to believe it too.
You didn't move.
When you finally looked up, Carmen was watching you from across the room. She'd seen you the moment you stopped. Her expression was soft and completely unsurprised. She'd been expecting this moment, you could tell, had quietly arranged herself for it.
She didn't say anything. She held your gaze for a second, then looked back at Lewis and said something gentle that made him nod.
You waited a minute. Then you walked back to the table, sliding into your seat, reaching for your water like nothing had happened.
"Get lost?" Lewis asked.
"Little bit," you said. "It's a whole thing back there."
He smiled and turned back to Carmen, his hand finding your knee under the table, warm and absent, a reflex.
You looked at the tablecloth. Then at him.
He was laughing at what Carmen had said again, head tilted back, completely open. Candlelight caught the angles of his face. He looked happy. He looked like someone who had told his mother the truth and was sitting with the relief of it.
Everything was exactly the same as it had been twenty minutes ago. Everything was completely different.
You picked up your glass and took a slow sip and let it move through you. You'd need a little time to hold what he'd just said properly, to turn over and look at, to believe.
But you were smiling. Quietly, to yourself, at nothing in particular. Carmen caught it. She said nothing, but you watched as she smiled into her wine.
The paddock version of Lewis was a different creature entirely.
You'd known this for a while now, had learned to hold both versions of him without confusing them. The man who stole from his mother's plate at lunch and the man who walked into that garage like he owned the air inside it. Head up, shoulders back, every movement deliberate knowing that all eyes were on him. His engineers fell into step around him and he absorbed their information and fired back questions and you watched from the hospitality area and felt the familiar complicated swell of it. Pride, mostly. Occasionally a feeling that felt lonelier.
Carmen settled into the seat beside you like she'd done it a thousand times.
"He's always been like that," she said, following your gaze. "Even as a boy. The moment he got in a kart, something switched on. I used to joke that I had two sons â the one who came home for dinner, and the one who lived at the circuit." She smiled, but it was a considered one. "It cost him things. It still does. He knows that."
You didn't say anything. She wasn't finished.
"I used to pray," she said, quieter now, "that whoever he ended up with would love all of him. Not just the version he puts out there." She glanced at you sidelong. "The whole difficult, complicated, wonderful man. Not the helmet. Not the trophy. Him."
You looked down at your hands.
"Carmenâ"
"I'm not putting pressure on you, sweetheart," she said gently. "I'm just telling you what I see."
Across the garage, Lewis looked up from a conversation with his race engineer and found you immediately, like he'd known exactly where you were the whole time. He held your gaze. He didn't smile, didn't gesture. He simply looked, steady and intent, for a long moment. Like you were a comfort. Like having you nearby gave him some sort of relief.
You held it back.
It wasn't a resolution. But it was something.
Lewis qualified well and drove the sprint on the edge of what the car could give him, which on Saturday turned out to be P6. The pace was there â you could see it, Carmen could see it, anyone watching could see it â but the result wasn't a true reflection and Lewis knew that better than anyone. He came out of the debrief controlled, measured, already somewhere else mentally. Sunday was the one that mattered. He'd already moved on.
"The car feels good," he told you, finding you outside the garage, squeezing your hand briefly. "I know where I am in it. That's what counts today."
You nodded. "Sunday."
"Sunday," he agreed, a soft smile on his face.
You were walking back through the paddock together when Kimi materialised at your side, still in his race suit, helmet hair still a little wild, practically vibrating. He'd finished P2, which gave him enough energy to power a small city. There was tensions brewing between him and George Russell, you'd caught the edges of it on the broadcast, but Kimi seemed to be processing that particular tension by simply radiating cheerfulness at everyone in his path.
He fell into step beside you, looked between you and Lewis with a smirk, and narrowed his eyes at you slightly.
"Better," he announced. "You two are better today."
"We're fine," Lewis said.
"Yesterday you were not fine. Today â better." Kimi shrugged, entirely at ease with his own assessment. "You're welcome, by the way."
Lewis looked at him, eyebrows furrowed in a way that was jokingly offended. "For what?"
"The breakfast. I fixed it."
Lewis looked at you. You looked at the ground. You were absolutely not going to smile or laugh...
"Please," Lewis said, with immense dignity, "get away from me Kimi."
Kimi grinned â all teeth, deeply satisfied with himself â and peeled off toward the Mercedes motorhome without another word, practically whistling.
You waited until he was out of earshot.
"He's not wrong," you snickered.
Lewis nudged you with his hip, rolling his eyes. "Don't."
But he was almost smiling, and you both knew it.
Carmen went to bed early, muttering an excuse about needing to be well rested for the race. She kissed you both on the cheek, squeezed Lewis's hand. You suspected she was about as tired as she was surprised by anything, but you let her go.
Which left the two of you, and the balcony, and Montreal spread out below in the warm dark.
You'd been out there maybe five minutes, the city humming quietly beneath you, when Lewis spoke first. Which wasn't like him. Lewis waited things out, let silence do its work, came in when he'd already constructed what he wanted to say. Tonight he just started talking.
"I know I made you feel like a liability."
You turned to look at him. He was staring out at the city, biting his lip nervously, elbows on the railing.
"Not on purpose. I don't think I even knew I was doing it untilâ" He stopped. Started again. "Until Miami. Until you didn't come. And I understood why and I couldn't even be angry about it, which was the worst part."
"Lewisâ"
"Let me finish." His tone wasnât sharp, it was a gentle request. "Please."
You waited.
"Every relationship I've ever been in, I've treated love like something that could wait. Like it would still be there when I had time for it, when the season was over, when things quieted down." He let out a short, humourless exhale. "Things never quiet down. I know that. I've always known that and I did it anyway and it cost me everything, every time."
He turned to look at you then, and his eyes were glassy in the low light. "I'm not good at balance. I've never been. The sport takes everything I have and I let it because I built my whole life around letting it, and then I met you and I didn't â I didn't know how to restructure that. I still don't, completely. But I'm trying to figure it out."
The city moved below you. Someone was playing music somewhere, low and indistinct.
"I'm scared," he said. Quietly, like the admission was painful. "I'm scared I've already broken something I can't fix. That I've made you feel soâŠ.so optional, for so long, that you've started believing it."
Your chest hurt.
"I don't feel optional," you said. "I feelâ" You searched for it. "I feel like I'm competing with something I can't compete with. And I don't want to compete with it. I never wanted that. I just wanted to beâŠI wanted to be someone you came home to, not someone you fit in between commitments."
He closed his eyes briefly. Taking a deep breath before opening them.
"You are," he said. "You're the only person I actually want to come home to. That's the thing I keepâŠI keep getting the execution wrong but the feeling has never been the question. Not for a single second."
"Then why does it feel like that sometimes?"
"Because I'm an idiot," he said, simply, and you laughed despite everything, a short wet sound, and he reached over and took your hand off the railing and held it in both of his. "Because I was built to pour everything into one thing and I'm still learning how to pour it into more than that. Into a person. Into you."
You looked at your hands, folded into his.
"What are you saying?" you asked softly.
"I'm saying I don't want to lose you." He turned your hand over, pressed his thumb to your palm. "I'm saying I want to love you harder than I've loved anything. I want to be someone worth staying for. I know I have to show you that, not just say it â I know words aren't enough after the last few months. But I needed you to know that's where I am. That's what I want."
The night sat around you both, warm and still.
You didn't say anything for a moment. Then you turned toward him, and he looked at you, and you reached up and touched his face. Your palm settled against his cheek, and he leaned into it like he was exhausted.
"I'm not going anywhere," you said. "I need things to change. But I'm not going anywhere."
He exhaled. Long and slow, like he'd been holding it for months.
He turned his head and pressed his lips to your palm.
You talked for a long time after that. Not fixing everything, one conversation couldn't do that and you both knew it, but pulling things into the light that had been sitting in the dark too long. His fears. Yours. What you needed from him. What he was genuinely capable of giving, and what he was still working on, and the difference between the two. He didn't make promises he couldn't keep and you loved him for that. He made smaller ones. Specific ones. Promises that felt like they might actually hold.
By the time you went back inside the air between you had changed. Still tender, still careful, but open now, something breathing in it that hadn't been there before.
He held the door for you, hand at your back as you stepped inside, and you felt the weight of the weekend behind you and the race tomorrow ahead, and him, right here, choosing this.
You didn't resolve everything. But you went to sleep that night facing each other, his forehead against yours in the dark. He kissed you softly until he fell asleep.
That was enough for now. More than enough.
Morning light slipped through the half-drawn curtains, pale and gentle across the bed. You woke first, lying there for a while just watching him sleep. The slow rise and fall of his chest, the way his face looked softer without the weight of the day on it yet.
Then Lewis stirred. His eyes opened, found yours, and instant warmth moved across his face. He reached for you, sliding one hand into your hair as he pulled you in. The kiss was deep, slow, and sweet, like he was pouring everything he said last night into it. His lips moved against yours with quiet hunger, needing to feel you close before he started his day. When he finally pulled back, he rested his forehead on yours, breathing you in.
âMorning, angel,â he whispered, voice still rough from sleep.Â
Breakfast was quiet and warm in the hotel restaurant. Carmen sat across from you, coffee steaming between you both while Lewis had already slipped away for a quick physio session before the track. She reached over and squeezed your hand, her touch gentle but sure.
âHe needs you more than he knows how to say,â she said softly, eyes kind and knowing. âMore than heâll ever admit out loud. I see it. Iâve always seen it.â
You swallowed, the words lying warm and heavy in your chest. Carmen gave your hand another squeeze.
âHeâs going to be brilliant today. He always is when he has something real to race for.â
At the track, Lewis was in full race mode. Focused, sharp, moving through the garage like a man who carried the weight of expectations on his shoulders. But he kept breaking his own rhythm to come back to you.
You were standing near the monitors when he appeared behind you, hands settling warm and heavy on your shoulders. He gave them a gentle press, then leaned in and kissed your forehead, slow and loving, like the data in front of him could wait.
A little later, just before heading to the grid, he found you again. He took your face in both hands, resting his forehead against yours. The paddock noise faded for a moment, just the two of you in that small pocket of calm.
âStay close today,â he murmured, voice low and rough with feeling. âPlease.â
His eyes held yours for a long second, full of everything he was carrying. Love, fear, hope, need. Then he kissed you once more, soft and quick, before pulling away and slipping back into that focused version of himself.
But you felt it. Every time he came back to you, even for those few seconds, it felt like a promise he was choosing to keep.
The Canadian Grand Prix was cold.Â
The air was damp with mist and noise as you stood in the garage with Carmen, the clouds heavy over the grandstands. Your heart was already in your throat before the lights even went out. Lewis started P5, and from the first lap you could see it in the way the Ferrari moved. He looked sharp, alive, hungry. He was P4 before you could blink.
The race unfolded, raw and beautiful. Every corner, every braking zone, you felt it in your chest. Carmenâs hand stayed close to yours, both of you leaning forward, barely breathing.
Then it happened.
Lewis went for the move on Max to take p2. Clean. Brave. He carried so much speed into the corner, the car planted beautifully on the outside, and he just⊠took the position. The crowd erupted like thunder rolling over the circuit. You didnât even realise you were screaming until your throat burned. Carmen grabbed your arm tight, her nails digging in, eyes wide with the same wild joy you felt.
âThatâs my boy,â she whispered, voice thick.
He defended like a man who refused to give an inch. Every lap you watched him hold off the pressure behind, precise and calm under fire. It was his best drive in the Ferrari so far. You could feel it, the way he was racing not just for points, but for something deeper.
When he crossed the line in P2, the radio crackled loud through your headset. His engineerâs voice cracked with pure joy. You heard Lewis exhale over the radio. Relief and triumph all tangled together in one shaky breath. It hit you right in the centre of your chest.
Kimi won, of course. The nineteen-year-old crossed the line first, the crowd losing its mind around you. It was his first Canadian Grand Prix victory, and the way he pulled further ahead in the championship felt inevitable. You couldnât even be mad. Not when you saw how brightly he shone.
Lewis climbed out of the car and ran straight to his team, jumping into the cluster of red suits with pure emotion. Then he turned, helmet off, skin damp with sweat, and came toward the barrier where you and Carmen had jogged to.
He reached his mum first, leaning over to kiss her cheek. âYou have to come to every race now. Both of you. My lucky charms.â
Then his eyes found yours. He cupped your cheek with one hand, the other still wrapped around his mum over the barrier. The touch was warm, a little rough from the gloves. He leaned in and kissed you. Deep, honest, right there in front of everyone.
âYou drove so well, Lew,â you breathed against his lips, voice shaky with everything you felt. âGod, you were amazing out there.â
He pulled back just enough to look at you, eyes soft and shining. âThank you, baby. I love you.â
He said it like it was the easiest, most natural thing in the world. Like it had always belonged between you. Before you could even process the words, before your heart could catch up, he was already being pulled away toward the cool-down room, glancing back once with a small, private smile meant only for you.
The noise on the podium was immense. Crowd roaring, music thumping, the kind of energy that vibrated in your bones. You and Carmen stood at the barrier again, hands linked, watching as the three drivers walked out.
Lewis stepped onto the second place spot, still buzzing. He looked straight out into the crowd and found you almost immediately. His eyes locked on yours. Then he pointed directly at you, no hesitation. After that, he placed his hand over his heart and blew a soft kiss toward both of you.
Carmenâs smile widened, warm and emotional beside you.
Kimi stood on the top step, gold trophy raised high, looking over the moon. He was grinning wide, curls wild, pure happiness rolling off him. Heâd earned every bit of it.
Champagne sprayed everywhere, soaking all three drivers. Even Max, on the third step, looked genuinely happy, laughing as the sticky spray hit him.
Then came the celebration. A Mercedes member had already joined them on the podium for the constructorsâ trophy presentation, the atmosphere electric as the team celebrated their strong result. But Kimi, buzzing with uncontainable joy, turned toward Lewis with a wide smile, and you caught the mischievous glint in Lewis's eyes. Without a word, the two of them reached for him togetherâLewis on one side, the Mercedes member on the otherâhoisting the young driver up in one smooth, coordinated motion.
Kimi sat across both their shoulders, each man holding firmly onto one of his legs to keep him steady. It was a beautiful, brotherly effort, effortless in its warmth. Lewisâs arm wrapped securely around Kimiâs leg, his face tilted upward with quiet, unmistakable pride. Pride that came from years of watching this boy grow, learn from him, and bloom into someone extraordinary. The Mercedes member mirrored the support on the other side, the three of them forming a triumphant, living podium of their own.
Kimi threw his head back and laughed, arms spread wide, fists clenched in a cheer like he'd only just stepped out of the car. Champagne dripped from his curls onto Lewisâs shoulders, but no one cared. The sight of it made your heart swell until it ached with the sweetest kind of fullness.
To you, Kimi had become so much more than a driver, more than Lewisâs friendly rival or the sportâs bright new star. He was your adopted grid son, your heartâs wild childâthe nineteen-year-old with the old soul who made you laugh until your sides hurt and melted something protective inside you every time he looked your way. You loved him fiercely, like a son the universe had quietly gifted you, and watching Lewis hold him up like this, their bond so pure and unguarded, filled you with a warmth that went deeper than words.
Lewisâs gaze found yours across the chaos, steady and full of everything unsaid. Look at him, that look whispered. Look at what we get to be part of. You pressed a hand to your chest, smiling so hard your cheeks hurt, tears gathering at the corners of your eyes. Carmen squeezed your fingers tighter beside you, her own eyes shining with the same quiet joy.
Kimi spotted you then, his grin softening into a look that was boyish and radiant. He pointed straight at you with the hand not holding the trophy.
You blew him a kiss in return, mouthing the words you knew would reach him: Iâm so proud of you, sweetheart.
He ducked his head for half a second, the same shy little gesture he always did when your praise caught him off guard, and then he was laughing again, trying to not fall off their shoulders.
Carmen's hand rubbed gently over your arm. She didnât say a single word. She didnât need to. The pride and love on her face said everything as she watched her son celebrate. Lewis looked so happy and alive, you were helpless fighting back tears.
In that moment, standing there with champagne mist in the air and your heart full, you felt it too. Healing, for both of you.Â
finish here if you don't want the smut!
After dinner, the three of you lingered over dessert and quiet conversation, the kind that felt like wrapping the whole weekend in a blanket that felt warm and steady. Carmen looked between you and Lewis with soft, satisfied eyes. When you finally walked her back to her room, she paused at the door, taking both your hands in hers first, then pulling Lewis into a quick hug.
âTake care of each other,â she said, her voice gentle but firm, a motherâs quiet wisdom wrapped in warmth. She squeezed your hand once more, her smile knowing. âReally take care of each other. Thatâs all I ask.â
Lewis nodded, pressing a kiss to her cheek. âWe will, Mum.â
She gave you both one last look, full of hope and quiet approval, before slipping inside.
The door to your suite had barely clicked shut before Lewis was on you.
He pulled you to him with a hunger that had been building all day, all weekend, maybe for weeks. One strong arm wrapped around your waist, the other sliding up your back as he walked you backwards into the room. His mouth found yours instantly. Deep, desperate, champagne and adrenaline still singing on his tongue. The restraint heâd carried through every public moment shattered the second you were alone.
âGod, I need you,â he breathed against your lips, voice rough and low. âBeen thinking about this since the podium. Since this morningâŠâ
You gasped as your back met the wall, but there was no fear in it. Only heat and want. His hands were everywhere, sliding under your top, palms hot against your skin like he was memorising every curve, every inch he had almost let slip away. He kissed you harder, tongue stroking yours, then gentled it without warning, turning the kiss slow and reverent.
He pulled back just enough to look at you. His dark eyes held yours, intense and open, forehead dropping to rest against yours.
âI love you,â he whispered. The words sounded like theyâd been torn out of his chest. âI love you so much.â
Your hands found the hem of his shirt. âLewâŠâ
âNo, let me say it.â He kissed you again, slower this time, while his hands worked your clothes open. âI love you. Iâve got you. Iâm not going anywhere, baby. Not ever again.â
"I love you too," you whispered, closing your eyes and letting him take the lead. Clothes fell away in a haze. His jeans, your top, underwear, until there was nothing between you. He lifted you effortlessly, your legs wrapping around his waist as he carried you to the king sized bed. When he laid you down, he didnât look away once. His body covered yours, heavy and warm, skin still buzzing from the race.
He kissed down your neck, slow and beautiful, sucking gently at the spot that always made you shiver. One hand traced your side, thumb brushing the underside of your breast before he took it into his mouth, tongue circling until you arched off the bed with a soft cry.
âLook at me,â he murmured, voice vibrating against your skin.
You did. His eyes were glassy with emotion and lust as he moved lower, kissing every rib, every soft place on your stomach like it was sacred. When he settled between your thighs, he hooked your legs over his shoulders and looked up at you again.
âI love you,â he said, then licked a long, slow stripe through your folds.
You moaned, fingers threading into his braids as he devoured you with devastating patience. Every stroke of his tongue was purposeful, loving, like he was proving his love with his mouth. Two thick fingers slid inside you, curling just right, and he groaned against you when your walls clenched around them.
âLewisâfuckâpleaseâŠâ
He didnât stop until you were trembling, thighs shaking around his head. When you came, it hit you hard, pleasure ripping through you in waves. He stayed with you through every pulse, murmuring soft praises against your slick skin.
He climbed back up your body, kissing you so you could taste yourself on his tongue. His cock pressed hot and heavy against your thigh, but he didnât rush.
âEyes on me, angel,â he whispered, lining himself up. His forehead pressed to yours again, breath mingling. âI want to see you.â
He pushed inside in one smooth, deep thrust. The stretch was perfect, overwhelming. You both moaned, the sound raw and honest. For a moment he just stayed there, buried to the hilt, breathing with you.
âI love you so much,â he moaned, voice breaking as he started to move. Long, powerful strokes that hit deep every time. âIâm going to do better babyâŠfuck, i promise.â
âLewâoh godââ The words broke out of you, raw and needy.
âIâve got you,â he panted, never breaking eye contact, forehead still pressed to yours. But his gaze darkened, his adoration turning into desperation. The careful restraint heâd been holding onto all weekend started to fray.
You could feel it in the way his rhythm changed, hips snapping harder, the wet sound of skin meeting skin filling the room. He was still so deep, so thick inside you, but it wasnât enough. Not anymore.
âHarder,â you begged, voice trembling as you dragged your nails down his back. âLewis, pleaseâfuck me harder.â
A low, feral sound rumbled from his chest. His eyes flashed with heat, any sign of his usual polished control cracking open. He hooked your leg even higher, nearly folding you in half as he drove into you with a powerful thrust that punched the air from your lungs.
âLike this?â he growled, voice rough and breathless. He slammed into you again, deeper, harder, the headboard knocking against the wall. âYou want me to fuck you like I mean it, baby?â
âYesâyes, please,â you gasped, head falling back against the pillow. Every brutal stroke sent sparks of pleasure shooting through you, bordering on too much, but you craved it. You needed him unleashed. âDonât hold back. Love me harder, Lew. Pleaseââ
He lost it then. A broken moan tore from his throat as he gave in completely. His hips pistoned into you with raw intensity, the wet slap of your bodies growing louder, more obscene. One hand fisted in your hair, tilting your head so he could kiss you messily. All you could feel was tongue and teeth and desperation, all while the other hand gripped your ass, pulling you onto his cock with every thrust.
âFuck, you feel so good,â he groaned against your mouth, voice breaking. âSo tight around me. This pussy is mine, angel. Say it.â
âItâs yours,â you whimpered, barely able to form words as he pounded into you. âAll yoursâoh fuck, Lewisââ
He buried his face in your neck, sucking hard enough to leave marks as he fucked you harder, faster, chasing his climax with single-minded need. The tenderness was still there, threaded through every brutal snap of his hips, but the hunger had taken over. His breath came in hot, ragged bursts against your skin.
âI love you so fucking much,â he moaned, the words vibrating through you. He looked almost pained with all of the emotions he was feeling. âIâm never letting you go. Never.â
The emotion of the weekendâthe fight, the reconciliation, the race, his public âI love youââcrashed over you both. Tears slipped from the corners of your eyes, not from sadness but from the sheer intensity of being loved like this. He kissed them away without slowing down.Â
You shattered around him with a cry, clenching so hard it dragged him over with you. Lewis came with a deep, guttural groan, hips stuttering as he spilled inside you, pulsing hot and endless. He kept moving through it, slow and deep, like he couldnât bear to stop.
Afterwards, he didnât pull out right away. He stayed inside you, holding you close, foreheads still pressed together as your breathing slowly evened out. His thumb brushed tenderly over your cheek.
âWeâre going to be okay,â he whispered, voice thick with exhaustion and peace. âIâm going to keep choosing you. Every single day.â
You kissed him softly, heart so full it ached in the most beautiful way. The suite was quiet except for the distant hum of Montreal at night, but in that bed, wrapped in Lewis, everything felt like it was finally mending.