professional maladaptive daydreamer @scrib-belle - Tumblr Blog

BULL IN TOWN! [mv1 x kpop!reader]

ᯓ★ part 12! max verstappen is cool, collected, focused. he's here to race, and couldn't care less about the media and pr stunts that go hand-in-hand with being a celebrity. be that as it may, his life is thrown into a tailspin when he has to chase down a frantic k-popstar that is insisting to record a sample of the RB21 for the F1 Movie OST.

on the other hand, you just really want to play the guitar and make good music. everything else (including max) is a happy bonus.

oblivious!reader, smitten!max, crazy stans, reader is half filipino half korean, reader is female presenting, reader has physical descriptors, disclaimer: i am not a guitarist or blues expert so pls bear with me <3

content warning: this chapter briefly discusses/alludes to suicide. nothing is described in great detail. mild swearing is used. mild sexual innuendos. please be advised.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ tags: @bunnisplayground @h-rtsnana @artyyjia @hlmzsbl @coral7161 @hlydia111 @reidsworld @alessa-the-enchantress @thechosen-neo @darlingdxll @flovverist @pharmasennapuff @itisiyourfemur

ᯓ★ [masterlist]

Your eyes lingered on the news page open on your phone.

Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton came close to colliding during the Hungarian Grand Prix as the World Champions battled to better their disappointing grid positions.

Max had finished P9, and he had yet to message or call you. It’s been three hours. In your little apartment, it’s seven in the morning. In Budapest, it should be around eight in the evening. You moved over to YouTube, opened the F1 page and checked whatever driver interview was available—- uploaded 2 hours ago. Perfect.

“It’s fine,” Max said into the mic. “It’s been a tough week but we’ll just keep trying, keep working, keep understanding our weaker spots and try to improve on them.”

But he didn’t look happy.

You moved over to YouTube; you still held a grudge against Twitter (or X, or whatever it is now), and wanted to know the opinions of other fans. You hadn’t been able to watch the race live: you had been busy doing a gig at the Cold Bear, and when you had finally got home you had no energy to open your phone, opting to crash immediately onto your bed instead.

Many of the fans still had faith in Max’s abilities. So did you. The general consensus was that the car was too prone to oversteering; you hadn’t watched his onboards yet, but you made a mental note to do so, soon.

Unbidden, your mind wandered to the Spring Concert Scandal, how it had felt to be so powerless, to try to give everything only to have people who say that they believed in you show that they don’t care at all in the worst way possible. You didn’t quite know what to say to Max. Nothing can really numb the sting of failure.

You open your messages with him, mind blank but heart wrenched. All of the trite things that you could say flashed before your eyes. You’ll get it next time. You can still do it. I believe in you.

They weren’t what you would want to hear. Honesty— that’s what he deserved from you.

Hey, you texted. Wasn’t able to watch the race live. Hope you’re okay, even if the race wasn’t. I’m here if you want to talk about it. You pressed the small little arrow button, and without any preamble the message was sent.

You look up and around your small apartment, fingers itching to pick up the guitar.

It’s a small place: a studio apartment with a kitchenette and tiny bathroom. The space was too small for a couch or a table, but it had a window facing the east that let the morning sunlight in. The green paint was chipped near the doorframe and the bathroom door squeaked. When you first moved in, you learned quickly that New Orleans had the highest rate of cockroach infestation in the United States. You had no fear for these cajun butterflies— not when you grew up seeing your grandmother chase down and kill cockroaches the size of her fist with only her slipper. A bit of diatomaceous earth and aggressive cockroach killing did the trick.

Despite the gigs and the waitressing and the busy schedule, you were quite good at making sure your apartment was clean. It helped that you barely owned anything. The refrigerator worked, there were no leaks, and there was a small convenience story just below your apartment— what more could you ask for?

You pick up your Maton, playing a few chords that you’ve been working with the past few days. P9, P9, P9… your mind hadn’t left the race, yet. You think of all the things that Max has told you about the way that he was brought up. Sticking cold fingers near the exhaust of his kart, learning track limits as fast as possible, learning how to overtake, overtake, overtake. One world championship is enough, he said. But to you it sounded like he wanted it to be enough, but it wasn’t, not really. Max’s jaw always tightened when he’d talk about it, something hard would settle behind his eyes. Until there wasn’t anything new to achieve, nothing new to do, nothing that he hadn’t already tried… it wouldn’t be enough.

That thought made you hum quietly to yourself, feeling the cold bite of steel strings against your fingers. Failing is a part of everything, and how could he say that he experienced everything that the sport had to offer if he didn’t experience failure every now and then? Without the cameras, and the marketing, and the sponsorship deals, what was Formula One left with?

Adrenaline, passion, speed. Audacity. Mavericks, pushing the limits and then pushing them some more. It was in the language of the sport, after all: raw pace, undercuts. In an age where men were finished with embarking on expeditions through uncharted oceans, and couldn’t yet explore the stars… this is something that they could have: an opera of engines.

You had been playing around some inversions of the sixth string drop 3 voicings of the Am7 chord, but without really questioning your instinct, you switched over to the C Major 7th chords. What had once felt like a question to your ears suddenly felt more like a lullaby. You dug deeper into the feeling, experimenting in C Major, until you felt something slow and melodic drip out slowly.

There wasn’t much thinking, only remembering. You wondered what life would have been like if you met Max sooner, as children. Would he see the broken down swing-set in your old school, with its chipping paint and cut-out tire seats, and smile? Would he join you, as you balanced on top of those split tires, swinging yourself higher and higher? Would your grandmother come out from beyond the banana trees, her hands on her hips, yelling? These things come to mind, as though they were memories.

As the mental images flash by, you stop confining yourself to the alliteration of three chords strung together, meant to have lyrics over them. You build on the song, the way your grandfather built the old wooden house you grew up in. Closing your eyes, you lose touch with the way the guitar strings snag over your blistering fingers— the sound of chickens, your grandmother’s cooking, and some street vender are clearer to you. You remember the way your grandfather walked— thud-dun, thud-dun— the way he would polish your little black school shoes. You remember how you would get up early every morning, before the sun even rose, just to help your grandmother water her garden. You remember the way you’d try to remember what your mother looked like, clinging on to traces of her voice and her touch while she was away, teaching children that weren’t you.

The song paints a picture of your childhood—- you lose yourself in the recollection. Hours blur into the paltry moments of your girlhood. Stealing small candy in the cafeteria because you were too hungry to focus in class. Jumping in your seat when your teacher brings out a broom and slams it on a table because everyone was too noisy. Putting tape on the neck of your very first instrument— the laùd— because you didn’t memorize yet where to put your small chubby fingers.

You remember your first recital, the first time you’ve ever seen both of your grandparents smiling at the same time at you. You remember the last time you heard a gunshot. You remember the last time you heard Sinatra playing in another room, an echo of a man’s choice to leave you and follow his wife. You remember the laugh of your grandfather: high pitched and screechy, the way he would lean back and laugh into the sun.

Distantly, you are aware that you aren’t playing a happy song. It isn’t sad, either. The music is just there, sitting with you in that room for hours and hours on end. It’s the most that you’ve ever been still, it’s the longest that you’ve ever lost yourself in notes, harmonies, and arpeggios. You can feel yourself borrowing themes and motifs from other artists: Hendrix and Chopin and Clapton. Rachmaninoff and Malmsteen. The guitar is light in your hands. It feels more real than you are.

Then your phone rings. It’s your alarm: you’ve played through the day, and it’s time to get ready to head to work. You put a hand to your eyes, not realizing that at some point you had been crying. Your skin feels cold to the touch.

You step out of the pajamas that you’ve been wearing all day, slipping into the clothes that you’ve mentally assigned to your job at the Sugar Bird. As you put on a final swipe of lipstick, you hover between your two guitars— you almost reach for the acoustic Maton that you’ve been playing all day, wanting to tap into that magic again.

But the weight of all those memories press down on you. That wasn’t a song you would ever play again. You would never want anyone to ever hear it, too. It was a song no one but you could ever love.

You pick up Nappy, a more familiar sound to the regulars at Sugar Bird. After gathering your bag and keys, you step out of your small apartment, flicking the lights off, and locking it behind you.

The sun was beginning to set, and somewhere on some other street was a musician bellowing out a tune on a saxophone. New Orleans was waking up.

Sugar Bird Jazz Bar New Orleans, Louisiana ⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆

Now that you’ve seen him, singling out Clarence Bobar in a crowd was easy. He usually crept into Sugar Bird like a shadow, sticking to the corners. Mama Zeliè always gave him a two-finger salute, but usually let the old man keep to himself. Tonight was no different, and you walked over to him with his regular order— a Grey Goose dirty martini, extra dry. You set it on his table, the floating olives bobbing along the surface.

He politely nodded at you before gesturing at the stage. “When will you be playing?”

“At around midnight,” you reply. Usually, a New Orleans night didn’t end so early, but most of Sugar Bird’s clientele were older folks that liked to get their rest. When the crowds died down and there wasn’t much work for you to do by waitressing, you’d get up onstage and play.

Zeliè’s Birds don’t accompany you so much anymore. Sometimes you’d be accompanied by a second guitar or the pianist, but most of the time those old men would take your time on the stage as an opportunity for them to have a break and crack open a beer. It was somewhat a badge of honor to have those old-timers respect your playing enough to let you have the stage all to yourself.

Customers flowed into the Sugar Bird like bourbon into a glass. You took orders, served drinks, and made small talk with some of the regulars that found it amusing to have someone so out of place blend seamlessly into their way of life. It was tiring— your shoulder was starting to hurt from the weight of a food-laden tray. But complaining was beyond you. There were a million other things that you could be doing, but here you were. You bit your tongue and carried on.

The night continued on. In the spaces when you had time to think beyond the walls of Sugar Bird, you would wonder if Max had seen your message and replied. This was the longest between messages between the two of you, and it was a strangely uncomfortable feeling.

You wanted to be the kind of girlfriend that was nonchalant— okay with distance, unperturbed by being apart. But you missed him. You missed making him laugh, making fun of the bland food that he sometimes ate. You missed seeing his dimples, the little mole on his lip.

With a start, you realize that you two have spent more time physically apart than together. If he saw more of you up close, would he still like what he sees? Would he still stay?

Someone catches your eye, signalling that they want the check. You nod and walk over, letting your ruminations go, for now. Most of the diners are starting to leave, and you work with Mama Zeliè to get all the tabs sorted. Once that’s finished, it’s a quarter past midnight, and the band is happy to let you take over.

You untie your apron in the backroom, folding it neatly. Nappy is pulled out from her case, and you go back out and onto the small makeshift stage of the bar. It’s been a couple of months since you’ve started working here, and you’ve slowly built up a repertoire of songs to perform.

You start off with some Stevie Ray Vaughan, playing Riviera Paradise. It starts off placidly enough, settling into a melody reminiscent of water lapping at a shore in the sunset. In some distant way, it felt like Miami in the eighties, kept sterile under a glass. You transitioned to some other tunes— most of them standard jazz songs, some of them your favorites. Though you gave each of them their own special twist, none of them truly felt experimental.

Then, as you were mentally preparing for the next song— Hit the Road, Jack— you had an idea. You glance at the crowd; you don’t think that anyone would clock the little joke that you were about to make.

You switched over to A minor as you began the song, singing the lyrics softly to yourself. And as the chorus started to build, you switched over to 33 Max Verstappen, switching it from C Major to A minor, to match Hit the Road, Jack. It was a fun little mix, and you could see that no one really caught on to the game that you were playing.

“Hit the road, Max,” you sang, to no one in particular, “and don’t you come back no more, no more.”

You played with a smile, up until you had the sudden feeling of— well, missing him. Would he find the song as funny as you? Would he like the remix? Inexplicably, you wanted to stop playing. It wasn’t fun anymore.

You wrapped up your set shortly after that, stepping off the stage and going to the backroom to put on your apron again. You settled Nappy back down into the case and opened your handbag, fishing for your cellphone.

Before you could check your messages, Clarence Bobar stepped into the backroom without so much as a knock.

“You were pretty wooden up there,” he said, cutting to the chase. “Like you were just going through the motions.”

“But,” you bit back, “I did the motions pretty well.”

“And you’re fine with that?” Clarence crossed his arms. You were technically taller than the man, but his presence sucked up all the space in a room. “You didn’t do anything new up there, except for that little ditty.”

“Thanks for the review,” you say dryly, itching to open your messages. Can the man just leave? “You want to leave a Yelp rating, too?”

“You think you’re tough, don’t you?” Clarence says, unsmiling.

“I’m not putting on a tough guy act,” you reply sharply. “I just genuinely want you gone.”

“Sure you are,” he shoots back, ignoring the insult. “Every time someone says something that sounds like honest criticism, you go straight for the tough guy act. Leave me alone, ain’t nobody can tell me nothing, get outta here— I’ve heard it all before, you know.”

“I can’t imagine why,” you say, rolling your eyes.

“I get it,” Clarence continues, pushing forward. “I know you think I don’t, but I do—”

“I really don’t know what you gain from cornering me like this.” You cut him off, just wanting to be left alone. “Because whatever it is you’re trying to sell me, I’m not interested.”

“I’ve just got a feeling that you have something in you,” Clarence admitted. “A new sound, a new way of doing things. I’ll be damned if I let you throw it away on dingy bars like this.”

That raises your hackles, brings you back to the memory of being fifteen and starry-eyed.

“You think I haven’t heard that before?” You shoot back. “Almost word for word, I’ve heard this pitch time and again. That I’ve got talent, that I’ve got something no one else has. But guess what? Everyone’s got something that no one else has. You’re not going to find me in a studio with an entire committee of producers deciding what I should sing ever again.”

“And you think a man like me gets a reputation like mine by making shitty music?” Clarence finally breaks into a smile, and it’s scarier than his usual stoic expression. Something about it is slightly manic, as though he’s happy to continue egging you on, getting you to talk more. It’s unnerving to have his coal black eyes staring straight at you.

“I’ve lived in music,” Clarence continued, “and I’ll die by it. I’ve got the ear and the hands to make good on that promise. And I’ve done my best to keep music— real music, made by real people and instruments— alive. But I’m just the old guard now. Who cares about Bobar? Who cares about the Boss Man? Nobody— nobody, that’s who.”

“There’s more to life than music, you know.” Truth be told, you have no idea what to make of him and his coal eyes. “You should be enjoying your retirement.”

Clarence laughs, a low rumbling sound that shouldn’t belong to such a short man. His voice is scratchy after years of use and abuse. “Don’t act like music isn’t your life, too,” he claps back. “People like us— we think in music, feel in it, dream in it. It’s not a discipline to us, it’s breathing. Life, when we get it right. Death, when we don’t.”

“That’s supposed to impress me or something?”

“No,” he replies, sharp and quick. “I just need you to understand— damn, kid. We’re one and the same.”

“We’ll both fade into irrelevance?” You mean it as an insult, but it clearly doesn’t faze him.

“We’ll both be playing music,” Clarence says, “no matter how much it hurts us.”

And if that doesn’t make you feel like a cowardly hypocrite, nothing else will. You look away from him, finally, just so that you can evade the weight of his dark eyes.

“This is such a roundabout way of calling me stupid,” you mumble.

“I never called you stupid,” Clarence bites back, “but damn if you’re stubborn. I just want to hear you play like yourself for once. Not the kid that thinks jazz and blues will make her a serious musician. Not the kid that was forced to the stage too young. I want to hear that funny little song that you played up there again. I want you to sound like you.”

You take a deep breath, trying to calm yourself. It takes everything in you to not choke the man to death— why was he so insistent? Why didn’t he just leave you alone?

“What do you get out of it?” You spit it out through gritted teeth.

“Can’t an old man just want to hear good music before he dies?”

Clarence walks back to the door. For sure he can see how much he’s gotten you angry, and you hate that he knows how much his words affect you. As his hand rests on the doorknob, he gives one final look— long, assessing, but strangely free of calculation. It’s as though he’s seeing, not looking.

“I’m not here to use you.” Clarence says, almost gently. “Nah, kid. I’m here because you’re wasting something I’d kill to have again.”

He saunters out before you can reply, as quiet as he came. The door barely makes sound as he closes it behind him with a soft click. The room exhales with his absence.

Your hands are balled up into fists, and you’re gripping your phone too tight. Your fingertips sting when you close your fists, the pain a reminder of the hour that you spent on the guitar. You press harder anyway, as if pain could drown out his voice.

With a deep exhale, you relax. You breathe in, then out. In, then out. You rock on the balls of your feet, taking deep breaths and trying not to— what, cry? No. That old man didn’t deserve your tears. He didn’t deserve space in your mind. He was just a fly— small, annoying, really old fly.

You’ll never admit how much his words affect you— not to yourself, not to anyone. So you do what you do best: hide it under lock and key, never touch on his insinuations, and how true they feel.

Something needs to pivot. You look down at your phone and its open screen. Something about the sight is grounding— you have a picture of you and Luna in the Hungaroring as your wallpaper. You should take more pictures with Max, soon.

You pull your message app open. Sure enough, Max has replied already.

Thanks. Don’t want to talk about it really. I miss you. When can you come to Monaco?

You smile, re-reading his message over and over again. Your heart stutters every time you read his little ‘I miss you.’ To anyone else it would read as bland, but to you it feels like Max.

I miss you too, you text back. I’ve got my suitcase ready. I can go anytime.

Nice Côte d'Azur Airport 19 Rue Costes et Bellonte, 06200 Nice, France ⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆

You push your trolley out into the arrival area— on it, you’ve stacked the suitcase that Max gifted you, your Maton, and Nappy. After buying tickets to the earliest flight you could find, you decided to bring both your guitars, feeling uneasy about the prospect of leaving either one of them behind. Sure, you lived in a relatively safe area of New Orleans, but anything could happen while you were gone.

And you’d be gone for two weeks— with Max, in Monaco.

It’s two in the morning, and there’s hardly anyone else with you. The plane hadn’t been full— just a handful of people in their most comfortable clothes on a red-eye flight. You spent the plane ride asleep, dreaming of the last time you had been with your mom: a belly full of hot soup, the eyeglasses that she started wearing, the familiar thrill and rhythm of your local dialect. Crude jokes, crude liquor. The pride in getting to buy whatever your mother needed and wanted.

The dreaming had been cut-off by a static voice in the intercom: the flight stewardess announced the plane’s descent in sharp, guttural French.

The airport was swathed in shades of gray; it was full of the sound of machines humming, footsteps falling on cold linoleum floors. Getting through customs was simple enough; everyone was sleep deprived, aching for the reprieve of a pillow under one’s head.

And now, you were out at the arrival area, all by yourself. The cold white fluorescent lights overhead bathed everything in a strange light blue hue. Everything looked ghostly, transient— as though everything was a mirage and would melt away soon enough. The sound of your lone footsteps echoed throughout the place as you walked up beside the pavement, wondering where your ride was.

It should be a creepy feeling, but all you feel is a sense of peace and anticipation, brewing in your chest. You walk through the arrival area, checking your phone for any updates from Max, up until a bright blue sportscar pulls up in your line of vision, stopping. The window rolls down, revealing a grinning Max.

You let out a little screech of joy before you can contain yourself. Max steps out of the car, laughing at your reaction. You don’t know who moves first, but at some point you must have ran to him, because you’re suddenly away from your little trolley stacked full with your luggage, and buried deep in Max’s arms.

He lifts you up, and gives you a little spin. It feels like a rom-com, you think deliriously. I’m living in a rom-com.

Even as he puts you back down to the ground, he doesn’t let go. Max’s hold on you grows tighter, and he buries his head in the crook of your neck. His warm breath tickles your skin.

Before you can form another thought, something quick and soft presses against your forehead— he kissed it. You look up at him, smiling, before going on your tip-toes to kiss him, a peck on the lips.

It’s sweet and shouldn’t last longer than a breath, but Max cups the back of your head, angles his, and deepens the kiss. You melt into it, feeling his warmth— feeling him. You’re too tired to wonder if your breath stinks, or if you smell gross. And you couldn’t anyway; Max was kissing you dizzy. It was long, and slow. It cuts off your breathing. It grips your heart like a vice that you hope would never loosen. When you both finally pull apart, your chest is heaving. So is his.

Max rests his forehead on yours.

“I miss you,” he says quietly. “I wish you were there.”

And then he looks at you with big blue eyes. The harsh lighting overhead makes the shadows in his face sharper and makes his lashes look longer. The sight of him arrests you, takes your breath captive.

“I wish I was there, too,” you reply honestly. But something twists in your gut. You could’ve been there too, couldn’t you— if you weren’t so dead-set on living your nomadic lifestyle. A pang of insecurity trickles into your chest, but you smile the feeling away. It’s time to be happy, after all.

Max finally lets you go, and you miss his warmth. He moves over to the airport trolley carrying your things.

“This looks familiar,” he teased, eyeing the suitcase he had given you back in Miami. “I can’t believe you’re still using it.”

“It’s sturdy,” you reply with a smile. “Hasn’t let me down yet.”

Max smiles down at the suitcase. “You know,” he begins, “that was actually mine.”

You freeze mid-step. “What?”

“Yeah,” Max said, still smiling. His dimples made an appearance with how wide he was grinning. “It was empty— just something I had to bring because of a sponsorship contract or something. I don’t know. I bring a lot of bags.”

“Makes sense,” you agree, “since you have your own jet, but why…”

“Why did I give this to you?” Max asks, finishing your sentence. You nod.

“Well,” he begins, leaning against it, “I just thought that you would be happier to get a new suitcase instead of roses. Anyone else could have gotten you flowers.”

Without being asked, he picks up your suitcase, and the case for Nappy. You let him take it, leaving you with the smaller case of your Maton. Your mind seems to have stalled at his words, and you’re trying to catch up with what he had just revealed— and how he mentioned it so casually, as though the mental gymnastics between something useful versus something ornamental was easy. You don’t quite know how to respond to all that.

Max led you into the car, opening the door for you. He slides into the driver’s seat easily, helps you adjust the seatbelt, and makes sure you’re comfortable. Max even offers to let you use the aux cord, but you laugh him off— you don’t want to listen to music right now. You want to talk to him, hear his voice in person and not through a screen.

It should be the bare minimum for a relationship, but something about it makes you feel giddy. It might just be jet-lag, though.

“It’ll be a twenty, maybe thirty minute drive,” Max tells you, as he pulls out of the airport and into the highway.

You raise a brow at him. “Google told me that it takes forty minutes to an hour between the airport and Monaco.”

“Well, Google isn’t me, is it?” Max is smirking at you. “And I’m the fastest taxi driver there is.”

That makes you laugh. “Probably the highest paid one, too.”

“Oh?” He raises a brow. “I didn’t know you were going to pay me for this drive. Airport taxi drivers always charge premium, you know.”

“Should I?” You flirt back. “I barely have any cash on me.”

“We can work it out back at the apartment,” he replies breezily.

Your face turns red at the insinuation beneath his words, which makes him laugh at your embarrassment.

“It’s way too easy to make you blush,” he observes. “Are you like this with everyone else, or just me?”

You chuckle nervously at the question; in truth, Luna’s raunchy jokes sometimes embarrass you, but no one ever makes your heart race at the same time.

“I don’t know,” you deflect. “I never really thought about it before.”

“When other guys flirt with you,” Max tries again, “how do you react?”

“No one flirts with me,” you reply easily. It’s true… sort of.

“Bullshit.” He’s smiling despite spitting the word through his teeth.

“I’m telling the truth!”

Max glances over at you from the driver’s seat, his posture relaxed and his grip on the steering wheel loose. There is something in his eyes that’s sparkling, something about the way that he’s smiling at you that looks smug and self-assured. It’s criminally hot, and you can feel your cheeks turning red yet again by the weight of his gaze.

“I think,” Max says slowly, “that other guys do flirt with you, but you just never noticed.”

That’s what Luna and the others say too, but you’ve always brushed it off as them hyping you up. You laugh, feeling awkward and not quite knowing how to reply.

“If they gave me a suitcase, maybe I would have noticed,” you joke.

“They should have stuck around and become your friend first,” Max says, his tone shifting to serious. His eyes are on the road, but that doesn’t make you feel like he isn’t focusing on you beside him in the passenger’s seat. “They should have taken you seriously.”

“And do you take me seriously?”

“Yes,” Max says. His eyes are focused on the road; this time he doesn’t glance at you. “I take you very seriously.”

In the darkness, you feel something in your heart melt. A boundary, a wall— you don’t know what it is, or why it was there in the first place. You don’t know what it was trying to protect. But you can feel its absence; you feel softer somehow, more vulnerable.

The conversation meanders after that; you vent about Clarence Bobar to him, and how annoying he is. Max listens intently, asking if you felt like he was being a creep. To be fair, the old music producer didn’t feel like a creep, just an oddly persistent uncle. You give him some updates on Mama Zeliè, share some funny stories about the gigs you’ve been playing.

In turn, he talks a bit about his cats, and how excited they are to meet you. He talks a bit about the race, and what they did afterwards. You notice the things he doesn’t say more than the things he does—- he avoids talking about how he feels about it, or what he thinks. Max just talks about the outcome like a foregone fact, already done and dusted. You suppose that it’s a healthy way to move past failure, especially in a world that moves as fast as Formula One.

At some point, he starts talking about his time at the Nurburgring, how it felt, how he wanted to try racing other different cars in the future. Max speaks faster when he’s excited, grows less careful about his accent when he’s relaxed. You wonder what it would be like to talk to him in his native language. You’ve started learning Dutch on Duolingo, but you haven’t been on top of your lessons.

Sure enough, it only takes Max thirty minutes to drive you to Monaco. In the early morning, it looks like a fairytale: white buildings, cobblestone streets, Old World charm. You look out the window, taking everything in.

“I wonder what it’ll look like in the morning,” you tell Max. “It looks so… clean.”

“It should be,” he snorts, “especially with how expensive it is to live here.”

“But I thought you guys don’t pay taxes.”

“Well, of course,” Max begins, “but the cost of living is pretty expensive. Bottled water? Nearly nine euros. Ridiculous.”

“I’m sure it’s a beautiful place, though,” you reply. “I read somewhere that there’s a small town nearby— Eze?”

Max hums. “It’s just a few minutes away,” he recalls. “I haven’t been, but most of the tourists and backpackers go, sometimes.”

“Monaco gets backpackers?” Something about the mental image of a scraggly mountaineer in the glitzy streets of Monaco felt deeply funny.

“Of course,” Max smiles, catching on to the irony of the image, “we get the rich ones.”

He pulls up at an apartment complex, waves at the guard on the night shift. There had been no conversations between the two of you about whether you’d stay with him or in a hotel— the answer had been obvious.

The apartment was a contrast to the ornate architecture of what you’ve seen from the principality so far; it was sleek and modern, filled with abstract art pieces. Max led you through the place wordlessly— in brighter light, you could see the dark circles around his eyes. He was probably tired, and so were you. The excitement of finally seeing your boyfriend had started to fade, and you were feeling the effects of just wrapping up a trans-Atlantic flight.

He fished a key from the pocket of his skinny jeans, fitted it in the keyhole, twisted it around until the door clicked open.

“After you,” he said, opening the door for you.

“Thank you,” you smile, stepping into his space. “This is the most excellent service from a taxi driver I’ve ever gotten.”

“There’s some other services you can avail of,” Max added, arching his brows suggestively.

You laugh, but before you can think of what to reply, a meow pulls you away from your thoughts. Jimmy and Sassy, who you’ve only seen in picture, greet you both as Max steps into the apartment, carrying your bags with him.

You put Nappy’s guitar case on the floor, turning to look at Max. He’s standing close to you, scooping up a purring Jimmy, carrying the cat like a child.

“There’s a shower down the hall,” he says, “and a guest bedroom, if you want to stay there.”

You raise a brow at him. “Do you want me to stay there?”

Max laughs at that, running a hand through his hair. “Of course not,” he says, eyes twinkling. “I didn’t wait all this time just to have you sleep in the guest bedroom.”

“Then I’m not sleeping in the guest bedroom,” you say, not breaking eye contact with him. “I’m sleeping with you.”

For the first time, it’s Max who turns red.

You both laugh, but the humor is just a front for something simmering between the two of you. Max helps you bring your suitcase to his bedroom, switching on the lights. It has a big window, facing the sea. It’s gorgeous and grand, something that you used to only see in glossy magazine covers or cheap romance novels.

This was your life. Holy shit, this was your life.

Max smiles at your awe of the view, promising to take you to see the Riviera. “But you need to get washed up first, liefje,” he says.

And so you fish out your toiletry bag and pajamas, lock yourself in the bathroom, and take a shower. You see the shampoo and soap that he uses— you pick them up, read the labels, but in the end you’re too shy to use them. You use your own products. For a while, you just stand under the hot water streaming out of the showerhead, suddenly feeling too tired to do anything. It’s as if your bones decided to weigh a million tonnes. You didn’t move, and didn’t want to move.

The bathroom is decorated in pale yellow marble, like a hotel bathroom. Everything about it is luxurious in its minimalism— the handles, the doorknobs, even the water heater was gorgeous. It felt a bit ridiculous to be so awed by the casual luxury that Max lived in— you had been to the best hotels and accommodations in the peak of your career. Perhaps the difference was that you never thought of living in that luxury. It felt like a foreign tongue to you, worlds away from how you grew up.

You stepped out of the shower, thoughts in a serious place as you dried your hair with the fluffy towel that Max lent you. You brushed your teeth, did a bit of skincare. When you stepped out, Max was already in bed, Jimmy and Sassy lying down in different parts of the bedroom.

“There you are,” Max smiles. “I thought you would take longer.”

“I’m too tired,” you reply with a yawn, going to the opposite side and sitting on the bed. “Sorry for keeping you up, by the way.”

Max snorts at that, not dignifying the comment with a response—- as though he thought the idea was ridiculous. After saying it, it did sound ridiculous. Why wouldn’t Max wait for you? He had been the one that hoped you could fly to Monaco as soon as possible, after all.

He pats the empty space in the bed, and you acquiesce, crawling under the covers. They’re soft and fluffy, just a little bit on the heavy side. Everything felt perfect with Max: the bed was just big enough for two, the room was beautiful and pristine, and the evening air wasn’t too hot nor too cold. Max leaned back on his own pillow, his blue eyes sucking up all the light in the room. He studied you for a moment, before wordlessly reaching out to you and pulling you close. You let him.

It shouldn’t be so easy to slip into space beside him, to have him throw an arm over you like it’s nothing. But it is. It’s like leaves falling on an autumn day, the sea crashing into the shore. Perhaps you were two stars orbiting each other, always swirling, always turning.

You don’t know when you close your eyes, but you do. You end up drifting to sleep, too tired to feel Max’s lips on your forehead.

[A/N: i finally finished my exams!!!! and as a little treat, here's a long ass chapter (it's around 6k words!!). thanks to everyone that's been sticking around for this story. it really is quite a bit self-indulgent on my part, but mostly because i love writing about what it's like to play music. i used to do the violin before as a teenager, and getting to immerse myself in the language of this art has been really fun.

i also love trying to think of ways for reader and max to banter!! i hope i nailed the airport scene!!!!! we're drawing closer and closer to the end of the story......... let me know in the comments your theories on how it will end! rest assured that it'll be a happy ending tho

as always, likes comments and reblogs give me life. i actually stare at comments whenever i read them for the first time, i really appreciate them!! and they're the reason why i keep posting updates hehehe]

ᯓ★ [masterlist]

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