when someone leaks that oscar piastri is a young father, oscar feels like his whole world is about to cave in as he tries to protect you and your daughter.
oscar piastri x f!reader ୨୧ warnings : language, fan culture, tabloids/hate comments, invasion of privacy ୨୧ note : n e ways– oscar gave me baby fever so enjoy 😅 if you enjoy don't forget to comment/reblog!
📅 august 30, 2025
deuxmoi an insider has just leaked exclusive photos and information of formula one driver, oscar piastri, stating that him and long-time girlfriend, y/n, have been parents since 2022. the pictures provided have been revealed to come from y/n's private instagram that reportedly only close family and friends follow.
the insider states that while they can't give away too many details, they confirmed that their daughter's name starts with an 'r'.
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user WHOA WTF OSCAR'S A DAD???? THIS WAS NOT ON MY BINGO LIST
user not them covering the kid's face with a koala cause oscar is australian 😭😭 why is that actually kind of cute
user someone is about to lose their job 😬 hope the quick cash was worth it
user all those jokes about us calling yn mother and HERE SHE WAS AN ACTUAL MOTHER THE WHOLE TIME
user omggggg that picture of oscar with baby r is literally the cutest thing in the world
user he looks so young in it too 🥺
user so apparently oscar's stroke game is just too good huh 🤨
user sorry we doubt you king 😔
user have they never heard of protection??? seriously how could someone with a career like oscar's be so careless 🙄
user at least deuxmoi covered the kid's face...
user wowow wtf is wrong with people???
user what kind of person would expose something like this????
user clearly someone without anything better to do
user no offense... but i doubt oscar does any parenting with how often he's probably gone
user just say oscar isn't your favorite driver and move along 😪
user maybe yn should be more careful on who she lets follow her private account and this wouldn't have happened 🙄 typically pick me wag behavior
user hey!! your comment is a little unnecessary, not yn's fault someone she thought she would trust decided to leak the photos
f1gossipupdates oscar piastri talks about recent rumors of him being a father.
🎙️ : so, oscar– first off congratulations on the win
OP : thank you 🙂
🎙️ : secondly, we have to ask about the recent rumors that have come out this weekend. would you like to make any statement about them?
OP : umm, i mean nothing really to say except that my family's privacy has clearly been invaded. my daughter has nothing to do with racing, and i plan to keep it that way. she's still growing into her own person and i would like to keep her out of the spotlight until she is able to decide whether she wants to be seen or not. the pictures going around were taken from my girlfriend's private instagram that she uses to share those pictures with long-distance friends and family, so quite disheartening to see them being used to 'expose' our daughter.
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user OH HE'S MAD MAD GUYS
user can you blame him though 😭 someone literally just exposed the biggest secret of his life during his wdc title fight 😭😭 i would be pissed too
user he handled that better than i would have honestly
user not saying he wouldn't be but oscar seems like a great dad so i hope fans respect his daughter's privacy
user kind of weird that she got pregnant and oscar didn’t marry her 🤨 cause he def gives the vibe of marrying his gf if he knocked her up
user frrrrrrr maybe he didn’t marry her so it would be easier to leave her if he wanted 🤣🤣
user i wonder what their baby's name is???
user heard some theories it might be rosé or reba but no one knows for sure and i doubt we'll ever find out
ynln and oscarpiastri updated their stories !
📅 december 7, 2025
clip #1 — baby piastri spotted running to oscar after the race
the clip is taken from the grandstand, zooming in on oscar as he's standing in parc fermé trying to cooldown from the race he just finished.
that's when the camera catches oscar turning his head and large smile breaking out onto his features as he's kneeling. that's when a tiny body jumps into his arms and he stands to his full height, hugging his daughter close to him. you are then seen coming up to join oscar and your daughter, the australian driver holding one arm out so that you could join in on the hug.
the clip zooms in even more to catch oscar kissing you sweetly on the lips before he's kissing your daughter on her cheek as she smiles brightly at him.
💬 comments :
👤 : oh those are HIS girls
👤 : oscar didn't win the championship but he sure won the family lottery
👤 : still hate that someone went and leaked baby r's existence before oscar and yn was ready, but i'm glad it didn't stop them from bringing her to the last race
👤 : i agree... i think oscar really enjoys having yn and their daughter at the races with him
👤 : BABY R WAS AT THE RACE 😱 NOT A THREE YEAR OLD GOING TO MORE F1 RACES THAN ANY OF US EVERY WILL 😭 life is truly unfair mannnnnn 😭😭
📅 december 25, 2026
🔒 privyn rowen told oscar every room needed a tree🎄 so guess what every room got 😂
View 92 comments
oscarpiastri ❤️❤️❤️
nicolepiastri she's getting so big 🤧 can't wait to see you guys soon
hattiepiastri still can't believe oscar made literally the cutest baby everr
oscarpiastri thanks 😑
lando lmaoooo why is she making that last face 😂
privyn oscar made a lame joke and she wasn't impressed
ediepiastri glad to see you and ro putting some whimsy into oscar's life 😆 it was very much needed
privyn can never have too much whimsy is what ro says 😆
📅 march 29, 2026
ynln godzilla was r's favorite thing from japan 🇯🇵🗼
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oscarpiastri taking home a trophy and several godzilla action figures
ynln i'm afraid japan unlocked a new obsession 🤭
user STOP THATS SO CUTE– r being so cute and obsessed with godzilla is literally so adorable
user glad to see oscar and yn letting r explore different interests!
lando cutest godzilla lover i know
haasf1team hope she liked our livery this weekend then 🙌
ynln she was obsessed with it! thank you for letting us come by to see it 🖤 hope ollie is okay ❤️
olliebearman a little bruised but i'm good!
user the cherry blossom emoji to cover r's face is very on brand for this japan dump
user little r coloring in hospitality 🤧🤧 she seems so well behaved
user oscar is so boring cause he gave all the potential personality to his daughter
user OMG I SAW THEM WALKING AROUND THE PADDOCK ON SATURDAY!!! YN AND R WERE VISITING SOME OF THE OTHER WAGS
user ohhhhhhh they took r to japan 🥺🥺 seems like she had a good time too
clip #2 – oscar was joined by his daughter during his post-race interview
"uh, yeah, pace was really good today. very happy with the results. turns out we're not so bad when we actually start a race."
both oscar and the interview laugh a little bit. the sky sport's interview is about to ask another question, when oscar suddenly looks down. the camera just barely catches the top part of a tiny head now standing in front of oscar before arms were also appearing, gently patting oscar's stomach.
"daddy up," the microphone just barely catches and oscar can't bother to hide the smile on his face as he looks down at his daughter. then without a second thought, oscar leans down and picks the small girl up. him holding rowen on his hip as she immediately rests her head on his shoulder – clearly content with being held.
"hope you don't mind someone joining us," oscar says as he fixes his daughter's sweater.
"would you say your daughter was a good luck charm for this race?"
"probably, but i wish her good luck would have kicked in back in australia," oscar laughs looking from the camera to rowen. "either way, p2 is a great result for the team, so i'm glad i was able to start and finish this one."
rowen is caught watching as her father talks into the red and blue microphone. her bright eyes then looking towards the microphone and seemingly curious about it.
"daddy, what's that?" she interrupts him, leaning forward to where her tiny fingers just barely grazed the microphone.
"it's a microphone, baby, they use it so people watching on tv can hear me," he explains softly, his hand coming up to gently move her hand away.
💬 comments :
👤 : STOP SHE'S SO CUTE I LOVE BABY R SO MUCH 🥺🥺
👤 : oh that little girl has oscar wrapped around her finger. i've never seen oscar look this soft before
👤 : "i wish her good luck would have kicked in back in australia" OSCAR STOPPPPP 😭😭😭 IM SCREAMING
👤 : i love how oscar doesn't ask where she came from and just picks her up without thinking 😂😂😂😂
👤 : using this as future evidence when haters try to say that oscar doesn't care for his daughter
📅 april 26, 2026
oscar81updates oscar talks about baby r in recent interview and what it was like becoming a young parent in his recent interview.
🎙️ : so, it's been a year since it was revealed you have a daughter. you had her at a young age, what was that like? having to juggle going from f2 to f1 while also learning how to change diapers.
🐨 : it was definitely something i struggled with learning how to do, but more so learning how to juggle being a racer and a dad. me and my girlfriend we both struggled i think, and there were times i thought i was failing the both of them. but y/n was always there to pick me up even when she was exhausted. i'm thankful that my parents really helped us in the first year. they really helped me grow more confident in being both a loving dad and partner; i was able to be there for y/n like she was for me.
🎙️ : how does your daughter feel about you being an f1 driver? does she realize what you do and why you are constantly leaving?
🐨 : umm, she knows i drive a really fast car. she's always had that kind of understanding, we have pictures of my car along with my old helmets all over the house, so she's grown up with seeing the f1 cars. when she was about two, she was obsessed with the little hot wheels cars, and so i was constantly buying them whenever i went to a new country for her. she still plays with them, we got her one of the race tracks – the one with the shark – and she played the hell out of it.
at the very beginning when she was like one and half to two years old, she was always very distraught when i left. she would burst into tears whenever she seen my suitcase by the door. i remember she even took her first steps towards my suitcase, not me or y/n, because she wanted to push it away *laughs* it very cute and we were both shocked. but now she does much better with me leaving, i always tell her that i'll call her and to watch me on tv. obviously, she still has her moments where she throws full tantrums, but she's four so it doesn't surprise me and usually me holding her and rocking her gets her to stop.
🎙️ : i bet you've almost missed your flights cause of that!
🐨 : oh, one thousand percent, but i wouldn't trade it for the world. i hate leaving knowing that she's crying. it really messes with me.
🎙️ : has she been to any races?
🐨 : yeah, she’s been to a few. we don’t take her to a lot just because it can be a lot for someone so young. we didn’t start taking her to any until 2024, and that was only a handful. she’s been to the australian one for the past three years. she’s been to the british and monaco one, and we also took her to abu dhabi last year.
🎙️ : i remember seeing the clips of your daughter running up to you after the race.
🐨 : *laughs* yeah, seeing her run to me kind of just… i felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. and i knew that even if i wasn’t world champion, i was still champion to her — as cheesy as that sounds, and i wouldn’t change it for the world.
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user dad!oscar is my fav genre of oscar 🤧
user he may not be my favorite driver but i have mad respect for him and how he's able to balance such a crazy life
user so glad he's more comfortable talking about his daughter now 🥺 you can really tell how much love he has for her
user like that's HIS baby
user omg r being obsessed with hot wheels is so cute and them even getting her one of the tracks too STOPPPPPPPP
user so being obsessed with cars is just a piastri thing then 😂😂 bless y/n's heart for now having two car obsessed people lmaooooo
user still can't wrap my head around oscar being a dad 😵💫😵💫 certified dilf if you ask me
📅 may 9, 2026
oscar81updates oscar was spotted attending his daughter's dance recital in monaco last night and also posted an update of r in her recital outfit.
View all 2,390 comments
user oh he looks so proud of her 🥺🥺🥺
user this just confirms that oscar was always meant to be a girl dad
user dude grew up with three younger sisters, it would have been weird if he WASN'T a girl dad lmao
user i heard the dance recital was for mother's day which i think makes it even sweeter, so glad he was able to go see her dance
user i love that he's slowly posting just a little bit of r here and there
user glad he can trust us 🤧
user NO ONE RUIN THIS FOR US GUYS I SWEAR TO GOD
user 2026 is the year of girl dad!oscar and i'm LIVING for it
user oscar living in peace now that he doesn't have to worry about winning a championship with that tractor mclaren like to call a car
user he literally looks so happy to be there watching his daughter
user normalize not recording celebrities in public esp when they are at private events or with their kids 😭😭
📅 may 10, 2026
oscarpiastri happy mother's day to the love of my life and the one who always keeps me steady and sane. every year i grow more and more thankful to you, my dear y/n, and i know i'm not usually good with words, but i hope you know how much i truly adore and love you.
i remember when we first started dating you asked me if i believed in soulmates, and i told you no. and i didn't. but i realize that even if i didn't believe in them at the time, you were always my soulmate. my other half. the mother of my daughter, my precious world. last year was a crazy whirlwind for us and i'm glad we got through the storm together.
i love you so much, y/n 🧡
View all 213,389 comments
ynln oh oscar 🥺 you are literally so sweet and i love you so much
lando happy mother's day y/n! oscar would literally be a chicken without its head if it wasn't for you and little r 😂
mclarenf1 happy mother's day y/n 🧡🧡
user can't believe we got sappy oscar before gta6
user omg i literally can't 🥹🥹 the different photos throughout the year has me SOBBING
user such a beautiful family!
user omg that first slide is from the originally ones that were leaked!!
user oscar reclaiming that picture from the loser who leaked it to begin with 🙂↕️🙂↕️
user the mixture of pics of yn by herself and with r are so sweet 🥹 she's literally so gorg
user oscar pulling such a pretty girl just isn't fair 😤😤
f1atelier photos are just placeholders! yn doesn't have an actual faceclaim please imagine yourself or whoever you want in these pictures! thanks.
pairing: oscar piastri x fem!reader, andrea kimi antonelli x gf!fem!reader
summary: kimi has everything oscar has ever wanted. and oscar knows kimi doesn’t deserve any of it. not the praise. not the wins. and especially not you. so when the envy becomes too much, oscar decides he’ll take it all from him. every single last thing that makes kimi happy. even if that means taking you.
warnings: fluff, LOTS of angst, jealousy, established relationship, very innocent and slightly dumb reader, technically infidelity, toxic childhood!bf!kimi, gaslighting, arguing, yelling, manipulation, possessiveness, kimi disrespects reader a lot, kinda cunning!oscar?, 18+ (minors dni), teasing, p in v, unprotected sex, degradation, public sex, voyeurism, handjob, poor humour // poorly proof read as usual
word count: 12.3k
a/n: based on this request! first piece of my 6000 follower celebration!!! letting you know you may be triggered at many points of this fic and that's okay! 😬
Oscar Piastri had never really let anyone get under his skin. Early in life, he had learned the art of calm and composure. Underreaction had always been the silent winner. No one ever got to him. Nothing really pissed him off. He treated people fairly. He always thought that if he went by the books, one day he'd reap the rewards.
But very quickly into his Formula One career; he had learned that was not the truth. And nor was he as calm as he once thought he was.
In the very same time frame Osar was supposed to be receiving praise and getting race wins, came Kimi Antonelli. The monster rookie. The new Verstappen who replaced the Sir Lewis Hamilton's seat.
It wasn't like Oscar hadn't heard of him. He had always heard of him down the line. The kid in the Mercedes' junior line up. A racing prodigy. A sweet guy with all the Italian charm. When he heard Kimi was racing in F2, skipping the previous level, he had even thought of extending his hand. Sure, you couldn't be friends with everyone on track. But it didn't hurt to try.
But Oscar was sorely mistaken.
The ego-boosting headlines and the compliments had gotten to Kimi. He walked, no—he strode with pride. Innocent brown eyes filled with a disgusting shade of smugness that no driver could fathom. His lips in a constant curved smirk. Complaints and complaints on the tip of his tongue when nothing went his way. The coy downplay of his achievements at such as young eage. How easily he manipulated Toto and Susie to get what he wanted.
It was different kind of art. A sick, satrical version of it. How easy the Italian charm had faded away.
And always by his side was you. Kimi's pride and joy. His girlfriend of three years, always wrapped around his arm.
You... You were the worst part of it all.
Oscar had seen you like everyone else had. You were simply gorgeous. Oscar could never forget how slowly his head had turned when you had first entered the paddock. The double take he had taken along with everyone else, watching your every move.
Everything about you seemed perfect.
Your sparkly wide eyes. Pretty painted lips. Soft, boisterous laugh. Perfectly styled hair. Perfume that made all in your trail dizzy. You talked with your heart rather than your mind. You were a good person. Pure. Whole. Anyone could see that from a mile away.
It was then when Oscar had locked eyes with Kimi, spotting that smirk on his stupid face and that evil glint in those brown eyes. A look of acknowlegement. Yes. It was you next to him. Not next to Oscar. Not next to anyone else.
Oscar would never forget that very moment where Kimi's head had leaned down just a little, lips gliding over your ear to whisper something that made you laugh while his hand creeped down your waist, to your lower back and right over your ass. Fingers slightly while as he groped you shamelessly. And not a second later, his lips were on yours, kissing you deeply and messily, tongue out without any hurry. Like there weren't any cameras on him.
He remembered your flushed cheeks while you kissed Kimi back. Eyes a little wide with disbelief but still you had kissed him anyways, smile apparent on your face. Small hands reaching for his sleeves to brace yourself.
Then there was that mix of disgust and anger that rushed through Oscar's body. He genuinely couldn't believe it. How could anyone dating you treat you like that in public? Like you were a plaything. A trophy.
And that's how it had gone on for months. That superiority Kimi welded with you by his side. Making you sit on his lap at dinners, hands travelling carelessly under the short skirts and dresses he had gotten you. Interrupting interviews just to go and kiss you on the camera. Letting those videos of you and him in the nightclub get posted where you danced together.
And while it seemed like things were all sunshines and rainbows for the both of you, Oscar could see the truth for what it was. Kimi had no respect for you. In fact, he was horrible to you.
Because behind Kimi's handsy fingers and clingy mouth were the arguments in the quiet parts of the paddock. The ones where he would make your pretty eyes cry and then pretended to kiss them better. Where he constantly made you question yourself and belittled you in front of others. Then he'd let your eyes light up with the fake promises of a future together. He didn't really let you talk to anyone either unless it made him look good.
And you had no idea. Simply believing him with your heart. The epitome of 'love makes you blind.'
You were like an innocent lamb in the dirty hands of Kimi's.
It had gotten worse this season.
The consistent wins and praise had made Kimi delirious. If he was careless before, he had not a single inch of it in him any longer. With the whispers of a Championship-winning car and a talent one people wouldn't see for years, he was driven by the foundation of immature confidence.
Perhaps that's why Oscar had heard what he had heard in China. Seen what he had seen.
It was Lando, Oscar, and George conversing between the Mercedes and McLaren garages. Talking about the cars and whatnot while the paddock had finally become quiet after the race. Some teams were still in their debriefs, some packing up. The sun threatening to settle, orange mixed lightly into the air.
The conversation was coming to a swift end, Lando and George citing how they needed to grab their things from their hotel before they all met for the private flight back to Monaco. The two of them had barely walked away before Oscar had heard it.
A deep mewl in the air.
Oscar blinked, brows furrowed as he turned towards the Mercedes' garage. He couldn't see anyone nearby. The place empty with a majority of the team still in another debrief. He would've taken a step back and joined Lando but then he had heard it again.
"Oh fuck!"
Call it curiosity. But Oscar's legs seemed to move on their own, defying the rules of non-personnel entering the garage while he quietly walked onto enemy territory. It didn't take him long to navigate, the ins and outs similar to any other garage. The sounds became louder and louder with every step he took. Yet he couldn't quite discern them.
But when he did, it made his feet stop and his blood freeze.
He stood outside of Kimi's driver's room. It not just any sound coming into the air. It's yours. Hands imprinting onto the blurred iced-glass door, your shadowed figure could barely be made out. Your moans travelled through the glass with bare deviation from the lewd, deep slaps of skin echoing around what felt like his skull.
"Louder, belle. Let them hear who makes you feel this good," Kimi grunted shamelessly. "God, you're so pathetic. This turned on when anyone can hear you. You make a good whore, don't you?"
His chuckle was deep and mocking. And yet, your trembling moans merged into the air.
Oscar could hear it. Your sharp pants. Desperate and needy. "More," you begged. "Deeper."
Oscar blinked, breathing in deeply while he took a shaky step back. Fuck, this was so wrong. He could barely think with your sweet sounds tainted by Kimi's disgusting insults. It felt like he was watching a crime being committed.
The struggle grounded him for a few moments. Not willing to move. But the idea of you reaching any sort of end with Kimi made a thin layer of bile crawl up Oscar's throat. So he moved before he could hear it, feet quick and light.
He was sweating by the time he reached the McLaren suite, mind haywired, breath erratic while he tried to block out those sounds. That was a mistake, right? Something he had come across on pure accident. Yes. That was it. Kimi wasn't so vain that he'd just put you out there for anyone to listen to. That was an accident.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
But by the time Oscar had reached the private jet, he had once again been proven wrong. He was there, backpack slung across his back and suitcase rolling next to him as he arrived to find Lando and George waiting near the stairs of the plane.
Oscar raised a brow. "What are you guys waiting for? Shouldn't you be onboard?" He queried.
"I..." Lando said wordlessly, awkwardly looking over at George who looked slightly paler than usual. Neither of them could bring it up. The mere idea too shameful.
"What?" Oscar pressed, sighing when no response was given. He moved forward, pushing past them to get up the stairs. By the time he was through the door, it had become evident as to why those two were waiting outside.
"Oh fuck. That's it," Kimi's voice flew from the bathroom down the aisle.
Oscar's fingers instantly tightened around his suitcase. His stomach churned with disgust as his brain familiarised itself with the situation once again. The sounds of you against one another was far less muted this time. Your whimpers curling around Oscar's ears.
He couldn't tell what was worse. The fact that the plane hadn't even gotten off the ground yet or the fact Oscar wasn't the only one subjected to this. His coworkers down below. The staff of the plane awkwardly trying to resume their job. All while Kimi was burning your dignity to the floor.
"You gonna cum for me, belle? Yeah?"
Oscar's breath quickened as Kimi's voice tightened.
"Tell me, baby. Who makes you feel this good?"
Oscar sucked in a sharp breath, annoyance simmering in his blood.
"You. You do, Kimi," you sobbed, gasp heavenly with every push forward harsher than before. "Kimi, Kimi—I'm going to—"
A smug moan fell from his lips. "I know, I know. Everyone's going to know how good I make you feel, belle."
Oscar regretted staying this time. He should've left the moment he had realised. He shouldn't have stayed to hear the sinful draw out of your voice nor the useless wavering grunt of Kimi's. Then he wouldn't of seen Kimi coming out of the bathroom, still shifting his pants on tighter, adjusting his zip with you following behind him, red in the face.
Kimi breathed with a drop of sweat worked up on his brow. "Hey, Oscar," he greeted, tugging at his shirt without a inch of shame in the world. He looked past him, spotting the emptiness in the jet. "Are Lando and George still waiting? I'll go them, yeah? Takeoff's soon."
Oscar's lips curled in disgust as Kimi walked past him, shoulder bustling into his before Kimi's hand, still covered in the musk of sex, patted him. His brown eyes flickered to yours, now seated with the imprints of Kimi all over you. Purple on your neck, hands on your bare thigh, poorly hidden beneath your skirt. You were tainted with Kimi. He swallowed, meeting your flustered gaze.
You gave him a timid wave. "Hi, Oscar."
Oscar's breath caught. He was sure that was the first time he had heard his name fall from your lips. He enjoyed the way it rolled of your tongue. It sounded much better than Kimi's. He gave you a hesitant nod of acnknowledgement. He couldn't peel his eyes away from the shame beneath your kind expression. He could feel the judgement pouring from the staff in the cabin. Remember the awkward look on Lando and George's faces. And it was all because of Kimi.
Oscar hated Kimi. He hated that Kimi had everything he ever wanted. An easy fight for a title. The potential to win more races than he ever had in his rookie years. And you. He had you.
Oscar was going to beat Kimi. One way or another, he was going to beat the stupid smug smirk off that Italian face. He would take everything that he had away from him. Even if that something was you.
It was a brief glimpse Oscar had gotten from you. But that was all he needed to stop in his tracks. The sight of you in tears, cheeks flushed, and hidden in behind some corner of the Mercedes' suite. No. That just wouldn't do.
You sniffled, tip of your nose red as Oscar placed down a cup of freshly steamed hot chocolate and sat across you. With a tight, thankful smile, you held the burning cup between your fingers.
"A-Are you sure its okay for me to be here?" You asked, eyeing the unfamiliar shades of papaya around you.
Oscar watched you quietly, nodding unconsciously. He blinked as your eyes drifted to his. The tips of ears reddened as he had been caught. He cleared his throat, nodding more definitely. "Of course, it is. I couldn't possibly have just left you like that."
You swallowed tightly, cheeks pouring with heat once again as you thought about how Oscar had found you just sobbing away. The concern in his eyes had been surprising. You had never seen anything like it before. A part of you wished you had. In a different pair of brown eyes.
Oscar pursed his lips at the silence brewing in the air. He sucked in a sharp breath, leaning forward. "I know it's not my place but... is it Kimi?"
You looked down at the mention of your boyfriend before smiling much to Oscar's surprise. "It was my fault really. I made a mistake. I just thought..."
He raised a brow. "You thought?"
You chuckled softly, blinking through your sore eyes. "It sounds crazy now that I think about it. I thought he was cheating," you laughed a little deeper, sighing as you shook your head in disbelief. "There was the girl and— well. He was right. I was overreacting. I just really thought..."
The ache in Oscar's chest was unwelcome as your voice grew small and strained. He blinked at your sudden smile yet again. "I was stupid, wasn't I?" You sighed, taking a sip of your hot chocolate.
"No, you weren't."
Your eyes flew to Oscar, wide. Your heart thudded in your chest, fear growing like diseased vines. What did he mean by that?
"It's not stupid to ask questions. That's the least you deserve. It's your right," Oscar murmured gently, fingers curling to move the loose tresses in front of your face but stuck at his side.
You pulled your brows together. That's not what Kimi told you. He always said questions weren't important. Useless, really. That only stupid people ask and answer. That's why he acted the way he did in interviews—disruptive and indifferent. But what you were hearing now...
You tilted your head, curiosity swarming through your brain. "Can I ask you questions then?"
A gentle smile sprawled onto Oscar's face as he leaned back in his seat. "You can ask me anything you want, sweetheart."
He watched you hum almost silently. Like you were thinking of all the new options you could explore. And for a split second, he saw it. That sliver of excitement swirling in your eyes. The expanse of your pupils. And it made his breath catch.
"Do you believe in aliens?"
Amusement coursed through his veins. There was something so mundane about the question. Out of all the things you could have asked... But he pushed down the quirk of his lips. "In a world of unexplained things, I think there's room for aliens."
Your brows pulled again, doe-eyes looking at him for a second. Maybe a second too long. Long enough for Oscar's heart to test new unhealthy rthyhms. "That's the most media trained answer you could've given. Nice job."
Oscar blinked at your response, brown eyes watching you stand as you looked at the digital clock that counted sixty minutes to the start of the first free practice. Sixty minutes that required you to be near Kimi. He breathed slowly upon your small smile beaming.
"Thank you for... well, just thank you," you mumbled, scratching the back of your neck sheepishly. You turned on your heel before pausing, head tilting back to the brown eyes still on you. "Question. Do my eyes look puffy?"
Oscar could've remained seated and told you from where he sat. But he stood, taking those few closer steps near you. The world seemed to slow as he leaned in, inspecting your face from a careful distance. Or the lack of. It was silent for a brief moment. "No," he decided.
You swallowed, releasing the breath you had unintentionally been holding. You smiled lightly. "Good. Kimi doesn't like it when they are," you chuckled. "Okay. Bye, Oscar."
Oscar pressed his lips together, biting down the distaste lingering on his tongue as he bidded you goodbye. His turmoil seemed to linger even when you were gone. Every time he thought he couldn't hate Kimi anymore, you gave him one more reason to do so.
The crowd roared as usual. A fundamental noise that your ears had become used to as you stood beneath the podium and metres away from the finishing cars. It was Silverstone. Classical and traditional. Every driver's dream race to win. And Kimi had done it.
You stood between the neverending Mercedes' team, dolled in Kimi's jacket waiting for for him as he did his final few victory laps around the circuit, basking in the cheers and exclaims pouring from the stadium. Yet, he wasn't the first driver you saw. It was Oscar, cladded in papaya, and the claimer of P2. You watched him down the line, greeting his team. And for a moment, you expected him to sweep right past you.
But someone at Mercedes knew him a little better, pulling him aside with a handshake. And then those brown eyes flickered to you and over the teal and black clinging to your shoulder with an emotion unfamiliar to you. But a smile graced his face nevertheless. Boyish as usual, you noticed.
You returned the gesture. "Congrats on second," you said loudly, hands curling over the barricade.
"Thank you," Oscar breathed, hand dishevelling his sweat-ridden brown locks, lines of his balaclava etched into his slightly reddened face. “If only I had one more lap," he sighed tiredly, reminiscing the hundredths between his and Kimi's finishing times.
You pressed your lips together, smile hanging awkwardly. "Next time. I'm sure of it," you nodded astutely, brows pulled with firm belief.
A chuckle fell from his lips. Cute. His head tipped in agreement. "Yeah. Next time," he mumbled. He took a quick breath in. "I was wond—"
Oscar's words were quelled as the supporting shouts grew louder with Kimi's pull into parc fermé. You both silently watched him remove his steering wheel, topping the his car with his fists in the air triumphantly. His small jump off was smooth after every recent win. You felt his head glide towards you while he inched closer to the weighing scale. Nothing decipherable about those eyes behind the helmet.
Kimi didn't waste a second. Helmet and balacava off. Sponsor watch on. Marching towards the crowd of teal and black. Marching towards you. Aware of every lens following his every move. His stagnant gaze on you purposeful. Gait with a force so casual yet demanding.
Forceful enough for Oscar to take a step back as he watched Kimi's hand, the very one with the sponsor watch, fall to your face and bring his lips to yours. The grandstands and pools of fans around cheer as expected. The cameras zoom in hungrily, too blinded to see the quirk of Kimi's lips. Instead disguised as the loving boyfriend depicted across fanpages and headlines.
But Oscar could see it. He stood behind Kimi, jaw locked, teeth clenching so tightly the pain swells in his gums. He hadn't realised it until Sophie, his press officer, put her hand on his arm to attend the trackside interview, grounding him back to reality. He swallowed tightly, taking a slow breath in and out before turning on his heel, fingers curled tightly at his side.
With every step closer to the cameras and the waiting interviewer, Oscar couldn't shake the image of you two out of his head. This was the very same guy who had sent you crying just a few weeks ago, leaving Oscar to pick up the pieces. Who had the sheer audacity to make you feel like shit just for doubting him.
What a fucking asshole.
Monaco was not home for Oscar. It would never be. Nowhere near as comfortable and easy as Australia was. He preferred the scorching heats and casualness of the people around him. Not the sports cars or luxury yachts collecting dust on the Monégasque waters. This was well and truly just a perk of his job. Nothing more, nothing less.
But just when Oscar couldn't find anything happy about it, a walk outside to get his groceries left him finding you nearby, eyes glued to the clothing store nearby.
You blinked at the call of your name, tearing your eyes away to find a familiar mop of brown hair. The smile on your face was instant. You waved in a way that made his cheeks tighten. "What are you doing here?"
Oscar breathed in, looking around the streets he had become used to, hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts. "Uh, I was going to get some groceries. How about you? Not in Italy. Well, obviously," he chuckled awkwardly.
Christ... was he always such a loser?
You grinned, nodding in agreement. "Kimi finally moved in so I came to help. Now... I'm shopping," you said, lifting your arm with the few shopping bags you had collected so far.
He suppressed his frown at the mention of Kimi's name. "So I guess I'll be seeing you around more often?" He queried, brows raised with hope.
"Yeah. I mean maybe. This place is a lot," you laughed softly, eyes tracing over the endless cars, stores, and yachts. This was definitely not Bologna or even Milan. Monaco was a in a league of its own.
Oscar nodded. "It's overwhelming at first," he agreed, swallowing tightly as a new thought popped into his mind. "I mean, if you don't mind, I could be your guide when you're here. You can give me your number. Call me when you're around."
You mulled over his offer, surprise light but evident on your face. You never really gave your number to anyone. Especially not any of the drivers—Kimi's rule. But Oscar was just being nice. It would probably be good too. That way you didn't have to bother Kimi.
"Sure," you said, hand reaching out to grab your phone. "Give yourself a miss call."
Oscar's eyes lit up, faint smile on his face as he punched in his number into your phone, letting the call linger briefly. Satisfied, he saved his name into your phone. Oscar :)
"Perfect," you breathed, eyes crinkling with a thankful glint as you pocketed your phone. "I'll let you get back to it then. I still have a few more places I wanna see."
Oscar tried not to let his disappointment show. You just got here. "If you wanted some company... I'm happy to join," he shrugged, hoping that was as casual as it was in his head.
Your eyes widened slightly. "Really?"
"Yeah, sure. I know a few places too," he nodded, unable to understand your shock. As if Kimi never joined you—oh who was he kidding? Of course that asshole didn't join you. And if he did, it would be for him.
You grinned. "Lead the way."
You pursed your lips, eyeing the skirt you hovered over yourself as you stood in front of the store's long mirror. It was a sparkly little thing. Silver. Small. Sequined. Your eyes flickered to Oscar's reflection, finding him standing nearby some rack (as if he hadn't been quietly watching you). “Oscar, can I ask you a question?"
Oscar raised a brow, swiftly moving away from the rack he had been pretending to rummage through. "You know you don't have to ask that every time, right? You can just ask," he grinned, inching closer to you.
"Oh," you pursed your lips, blinking blankly as the heat in your cheeks grew. "Right. Sorry," you smiled lightly, looking back at yourself in the mirror. "What do you think of this?" You asked, gesturing to the sparkly skirt dangling over the hanger.
He swallowed. It was pretty thing really. Made him imagine things he didn't want to imagine. But as he had watched you, he couldn't help notice the light in your eyes missing. Or the frown of your lips. He shrugged. "You don't seem to like it very much."
You fell silent for a moment, eyes slightly wide while you blinked. How Oscar knew that... you had no idea. You sucked in a sharp breath, staring at the skirt in the mirror with a small pout. "Kimi likes these things."
There it was. The perpetrator behind everything miserable and unbalanced in your life. Of course, Kimi liked these things like this. Short and tight. It was a way to claim you in all those parties and night clubs. One hand always on your exposed leg or on the curve of your ass as he practically screamed, "Look at me."
Oscar bit his lip, pushing away the rousing annoyance in his chest. "What do you like?"
The question was simple. Yet it seemed to leave you stumped. Doe eyes a bit dazed. Lips parted. Like you had never really given that much of a thought. And that only worsened the ache in his chest.
You tilted your head, directing your gaze behind Oscar. "I think that's pretty," you murmured, eyeing the semi-long white sundress nearby.
Oscar turned his head. With no sly comment or look of distaste you usually recieved, he stepped towards it, grabbing the hanger with ease before bringing it back to you. "Then wear it."
You pursed your lips, unsurely flickering over the dress. "But—"
"Just try it. You won't know if you don't try," Oscar said, firm yet gentle as he took your previous shopping bags slung on your arm and moved them to his. He pushed forward the dress again. "Go on."
He watched you swallow awkwardly, gingerly picking the dress out of his hand before drifting towards the fitting rooms. He followed after you, stopping when you suddenly turned back to face him.
"Will you wait for me?"
Oscar blinked. He hated how foreign the idea sounded to you. That you actually had to question it because your piece of shit boyfriend couldn't spare one second that wasn't for him.
He smiled warmly, not missing a beat to respond. "I'll be right here. Don't worry."
You nodded thankfully as he took a few steps back, taking a seat while he waited. And with every second the passed, Oscar couldn't help but think of it. The few times Kimi would come with you. Probably when the fans were out or along with the paps. How he'd probably walk around, not paying attention to you. Picking out clothes that he liked. Standing there, convincing you that you liked it as much as he did.
The clothes were just one example. Oscar was almost a hundred percent sure it was Kimi who had gotten you to publicise your socials to get more coverage. Every second post being a photo of you together where you looked happy and Kimi looked like presumptous asshole he was.
Had Oscar spent an unhealthy amount of time looking at your account? Yes. Maybe. But he couldn't help it. It was almost intuitional. The more he found to despise about Kimi, the more he seemed to sink deeper into the world that was you.
"Oscar?"
Oscar blinked, head lifting up as though he had been called by a siren. He found you peeking out of the curtain with a fretful smile. He raised his brows curiously. "Yeah?"
"Do you think you can help me with the strings? Or find someone who can? I can't really do them by myself," you chuckled awkwardly, cheeks slightly flushing.
He was standing on his feet when you called his name. Walking as you asked. Without as much of a fight or resistance you usually experienced, he had said yes.
You breathed in, feeling the narrow confinements of the fitting room become even smaller as Oscar entered. You pursed your lips, eyes darting between anything and Oscar in the mirror. "Just... those ones," you murmured, hovering over the two long strings sitting at your lower back.
Oscar held his breath in his lungs, fingers stretching and curling around the two attached pieces. He told himself he shouldn't look up as he looped each string. Because if he did, he was scared to see what he'd find. But he did.
He wasn't sure what fucked up his brain chemistry more. The heat radiating between your bodies from something a simple as a little knot. Or the brush his fingers over the fabric of your dress. Or perhaps the bob of your throat as you caught his eye. Like he made you nervous. And that thought alone made him warm all over.
He fastened the last knot, watching your breath hitch. "There," he said, voice gruff and strained while he committed the sinful cling of the fabric to your body to his memory.
He kept quiet, observing your eyes drift over yourself in the mirror. He saw it. That missing light. The small look of approval in the quirk of your lips. "Buy it," he simply said. "If you don't, I will."
Your lips parted with nothing quite to say as Oscar excused himself from the room, finally taking a breath of fresh air. His lungs burned as if he had denied the right to breathe with you, happy to let you suffocate him.
"Jesus Christ," Oscar muttered to himself, pinching the bridge of his nose.
He was so fucked.
You swallowed tightly as Kimi threw his phone in front of you, left open with a picture of you and Oscar talking outside the store yesterday. He stood in front of you, arms folded with an incredulous smile on his face. "I called you here to help me," he said chuckled, shaking his head. "I mean... I can't believe you thought I was cheating. How hypocritical can you get?"
You blinked, scatter of red creeping up your neck and cheeks instantly. "I... we were just talking, Kimi. I bumped into him on accident."
The scoff from his lips made your eyes sting. Not an ounce of trust rested in him as much as it did in you.
"Accident?" He questioned, raising his brows with amusement. "Nothing accidental about that prick. Don't think I haven't noticed him being around you more often. I mean come on, ___. Are you his girlfriend or mine?"
You frowned. "Of course, I'm your girlfriend, Kimi," you instantly said, not missing a beat to respond. "Why would you even ask that?"
Kimi tilted his head. "You're asking me that? Then don't do things that make me question you, belle," he grunted, jaw tight. He sucked in a breath when he spotted the thin shine over your eyes. He almost rolled his own. Of course. You couldn't go a conversation without crying.
"Why are you being so mean?" You murmured, eyes brimming with tears, tip of your nose beginning to flush.
After a moment a sigh fell from Kimi's lips. He stepped forward, hands holding you at either side of your arms. He leaned forward, meeting your gaze, brown eyes suddenly gentle. "I don't want to be. You just make it difficult, belle. You know I love you so much, yeah? Don't cry. I hate seeing you cry."
You blinked, feeling Kimi's lips gided over your eyelids briefly. For a moment you felt like your soul had separated from your body. Like you were watching yourself from another plane. You breathed in, sniffling quietly to yourself as he pulled away, thumb grazing your cheek.
"You understand, hmm?" He hummed, tucking your hair behind your ear.
You smiled tightly, giving him a nod. "I understand, Kimi. I won't do it again," you promised, pressing a small kiss to his cheek. "Ti amo."
Oscar hated clubs. There was nothing more uncomfortable for him as an introvert. The loud music, flashing lights, sweaty bodies, and an unhealthy amount of alcohol. All features of a nightmare he's had time and time again.
But he was here. Under the strobe lights, music vibrating throught the floor he stood on while his eyes searched through the dancing crowd. He was here because you were here. A small detail you had slipped into your texts with him recently. A night out with the drivers and their partners.
Lando spotted him first, surprise evident on his face as he came closer. He eyed the blue jeans and black polo shirt his teammate wore and chuckled. "Well this is out of the norm. I wonder why."
Lando wasn't as daft as some made him out to be. Of course, things were a lot easier when his usually composed and calm teammate was riled up by the simple mention of you. Oscar had made the mistake many other drivers had once made. Everyone had seen you once Kimi moved up racing categories. No one was going to deny it. You were a gorgeous girl with a pure heart. But you were young. And that was always risky territory. That fact you were Kimi's... it rubbed everyone the wrong way. Where as everyone saw you for what you were, Kimi saw you as the shiny trophy to put his on his arm.
But no one had tried to go against him. The effort against someone so cocky and arrgoant was tumultuous. Formula One was already bad enough as it was. The last thing any driver wanted was an extra target on his back when they raced.
But it seemed Oscar had willingly taken it up. And it ws going well. By sheer luck or pure talent, he had finally thwarted the neverending Mercedes domination and Kimi's winning reign. With a few race wins up his sleeve, Oscar loomed over the championship leader with a confidence Kimi would almost find familiar.
"Shut up," Oscar rolled his eyes at Lando, returning his gaze back to the crowd. There was no question as to who he was searching for. And he found you where he had expected. On Kimi's lap. His chin nestled into your shoulder, hand over your thigh while he talked to Ollie like you weren't there. And there you were again, dressed in the clothes that your fingers threatened to tug down.
Oscar watched silently as your lips dipped towards Kimi's ear, whispering something that made him nod and made him loosen his grip on you. His own feet moved across the club before he knew it. But he wasn't so obvious, blending with the crowd as you seemed to near the bathroom. At least from Kimi's angle. But from his, he could spot the right turn towards the stairs immediately.
The strobe lights turned red as Oscar walked up the stairs. The atmosphere up there, though still loud, seemed different. Slower and slurred. Crowded yet less chaotic. And in the mix of it all he found you. Sitting in an empty booth, head in your hands, resting on the table.
"You okay?"
You lifted your head at the voice, ears perked instinctively. You breathed a little more calmly when you realised who it was. "Oscar," you greeted with a small smile though you didn't hide your surprise. You watched him slide into the booth, sitting across you. "What are you doing here? This doesn't really seem like your scene."
Oscar rested his arms on the table. "Doesn't seem like yours either," he simply retorted. He grinned at your pursed lips and briefly stoic face. Like he had caught you in a lie.
You sucked in a sharp breath, leaning back into the booth. "It's not," you admitted with a sheepish nod. The sheer amount of eyes and people made you want to throw up. "But—"
"But Kimi likes it... right?" Oscar bitterly finished, brows raised.
You smiled lightly, nodding once again as your eyes drifted across the dancing crowd, swaying a bit more softer to the electric beat. "I came up here to breathe a little," you mumbled. "It's better than down there. He would've found me outside."
It was silent for a moment. Just Oscar watching quietly and you basking in something that didn't have Kimi's name scrawled all over it.
"Can I ask you a question?"
You blinked, peeling your gaze away from the scene and back to Oscar. You furrowed your brows. That was usually your line. But hearing it come from his mouth was humouring. You smiled lightly, gesturing for him to continue.
"Do you like to dance?" Oscar asked. It was a bold ask. One that made him regret it almost instantly. Lodge his breath in his throat as he waited.
You folded your arms, pondering over his question. "At home. Usually by myself. Kimi doesn't really enjoy it anymore," you sighed sadly, corners of your mouth frowning. You had tried asking once or twice. But the outcome was always the same. He was too busy or too weirded out.
Your eyes fell to the outsretched hand in front of you and then to the standing Oscar. You raised a brow.
"Let's dance then," he breathed.
You swallowed tightly, thinking back to the night just weeks ago where you and Kimi had argued about Oscar. About the promise you had made. You rubbed your lips together, looking at him fretfully as your stomach churned. "I don't know if that's a good idea."
Oscar tilted his head at you. "Stop thinking about Kimi and think for yourself. If you want to dance, then dance."
You should've kept your hand to yourself. You should've gone back downstairs. Whether it was those brown eyes staring back at you or the determination in Oscar's voice, you couldn't decide. But you gave him your hand and let him guide you to the floor.
It was a tight fit with the occassional bump of a shoulder or body nearby. Your eyes locked under the flashing red lights as you stood in front of each other. The music you could feel through your heels. For a moment, you do nothing. Just stare at each other.
"Do you even know how to dance?" You asked with a small but teasing smile, eyeing his frigid posture. He was like a frozen block of ice. Unable to move. Cautious of the surrounding movements. The awkward tipped grin on his face told you everything. And it made you laugh. Earnestly and genuinely.
Oscar bit the inside of his cheek, preventing him from smiling too hard when he felt the brush of your head fall against your chest. He watched as you lifted yourself up, amusement littered all over your face. Your hair dishevelled, tresses flying in different directions. Eyes sparkling under the lights. Smile beaming at him. And he could've sworn his heart stopped.
"They say to just feel the music. Move your body," you advised, brows scrunched like you were trying to remember.
He raised a brow. "They?" He repeated with a grin. "Who's 'they?'"
You pursed your lips, shrugging. "Club people. You learn a thing or two when you just sit there."
Oscar snorted. There was something unexplainably enjoyable when you became a little more loose-lipped without Kimi nearby. He cleared his throat. "So... you just move your body? That what you said?"
You nodded, beginning to move your hands. "I think if you imagine yourself like a fish it works better," you wiggled your brows, trailing your hands across your body to the beat thundering around you.
For a brief second, Oscar laughed. But the picture of a fish dancing died in his head quicker as the rhythm filtered through his ears and his eyes fell to you. The world instantly lingered in his head. Siren. That's what you reminded him of. Every twist and turn of your body making the movement of your hair seem like some art.
He wasn't sure when he himself had begun moving. The bob of his chin. The shuffle of his feet. But he couldn't call it dancing. It was more the appreciation of you in front of him. Admiring how lost you were for just a moment in time.
He couldn't believe it.
How could Kimi deny this? Deny you?
To not dance with you was a sin in itself. The mere idea of missing this bright smile of yours... his fear grew stronger.
The gap between you and Oscar had substantially gotten smaller. Like it was the natural order of things. Heat radiated from every angle possible, the air thick with sweat and something you couldn't quite pinpoint.
You hadn't realised how close you were till you felt the glide of Oscar's hand against the curve of your waist. Your gasp was soft and barely audible. But you could feel the small electric sparks running down your body. You flitted your eyes to Oscar hesitantly and it almost made you take a step back.
He was looking at you already.
Darkened brown eyes strained with red underneath the lights. His large hand pulled you a little closer, letting you see the traces of his moles and freckles. Feel the heat of his skin against yours. The press of his fingers. The scatter of his breath. Any closer it would be his pacing heartbeat.
Oscar looked... good.
More than good. Hot. He looked hot.
You breathed in as he turned your body, leaving your back pressed against his chest. His arm curled around your waist. You pulled your lip between your teeth when you felt his lower half press into you. Not forceful or insistent. Just there. Teasing. And for some godforsaken reason, you couldn't bring yourself to pull away.
You swallowed hard, feeling his breath skim past your ear. His lips rested close by.
"The dress... Kimi's choice?"
Your thighs pressed together at his tight voice. As though he was struggling. You didn't understand the extent of the heat unfurling in your stomach. You had never felt this way. Not even with Kimi.
You cleared your throat, nodding against him. "Hate it?" You asked, breath shaky when you felt the tip of his nose graze the column your neck. You could've sworn your knees melted when you felt his smile lines ghost your cheek, lips brushing against the curve of your ear.
Your eyes widened slightly as you faced him once again. His hand never left you, snug and comfortably around your waist. Your body burned as he rested his head against yours, brown eyes holding your gaze so carefully. So heavily.
"I was taught that if I don't have anything respectful to say, I shouldn't say it at all," Oscar breathed tightly, jaw half clenched.
It was no ordinary beat your heart followed. With large gaps and ample opportunity to miss as you tried to decipher what he was saying. But before you could, it was Oscar who stepped away.
You struggled to catch your breath, staring back at him with your doe-eyes and your stomach churning.
Oscar blinked, brown eyes raking over you for one last time that night. Because if he stayed here a second longer, he'd do something he couldn't. He smiled at you, tight yet warm. "You're a good dance teacher, ___."
You hadn't talked to Oscar since the club. You couldn't quite bring yourself to. Neither did Kimi really let you, keeping you by his side at all times.
You were confused. You still didn't have a full grasp on what had happened. One moment you were dancing and then the other you were... God, you had no idea. You could just feel him. Hear him. See him. For a moment, everything was just Oscar.
But things had dampened down since then. You ocassionally saw Oscar here and there. You'd look. But you never quite did much more than that. Especially as Kimi fought with Oscar on track. Both contenders for a championship. Both their first. It was like a cat and mouse game. If Kimi won once, it was Oscar's turn the next.
And today, Kimi had taken back that victory chainmail, standing on the podium with a smirk so wide, you almost hadn't recognised him. Nor the extra clingy behaviour as he came off of it, kissing you, hand on your waist, and showering you with sweet little comments.
But you supposed this was why.
To have you all pressed up in the men's bathroom with rushed urgency after his media duties and debriefing. Shorts and boxers slung low around his legs. You propped up against the sink, skirt bunched up. His head tucked into your shoulder, groans and grunts muffled. Hips moving into you with desperation and pleasure.
It seemed Kimi had it all planned out.
Except for one little thing.
The door cracked open.
You weren't sure what it was. Whether he had genuinely forgotten or he thought no one was actually going to walk by. And well, if they did, it was only his ass that was going to be seen.
But you couldn't have counted for the possibility of Oscar passing by and stopping, frozen in his tracks.
Your heart almost stopped right there and then. Your eyes stuck with the brown orbs staring right back at you. Your lips parted. Perhaps with the intention to stop Kimi. But you didn't. You didn't understand why you didn't.
You hadn't been wet for the past ten minutes but now the slick was beginning to pile up. The squelch of Kimi's cock driving into you, lewd and obscene.
"Oh fuck," Kimi swore into your skin. "You're getting so wet for me, belle," he panted, grunting as his teeth nibbled into your shoulder. "So fucking wet."
You could see the bob of Oscar's throat. Like a deer in headlights. He didn't move either. Instead the press of his teeth against his lip made you moan against Kimi's ear. The first sound you had made since you had gotten in here.
You focused on the betraying pull of Oscar's brows at the sweet sounds pouring from your mouth. How his fingers curled so tightly against his side. You wondered what he could see. how much of you he could see. The thought only made you clench tighter around Kimi's cock.
"Cazzo," Kimi hissed, hands digging into your hips. "Doesn't that feel so good, baby? Yeah? I'm making you feel so good," he groaned, pushing deeper into you. The sound of your skin against one another now escaped the bathroom with ease.
You choked on the air, hand falling to Kimi's brown curls while you eyed the flush of Oscar's skin. How dark his eyes were. How they fell to where you and Kimi met, enchanted. And for a moment, your breath matched his. Every heave of your chest... it was like he was guiding you just metres away.
You could barely comprehend the heat in your core. All you knew was it was messy. Juices running down your thighs. So wet a ring of white formed around Kimi's cock as he pushed in and out of you. The soft sounds tumbling from your throat uncontrollably as you watched Oscar's tongue swipe his bottom lip.
Oscar should have moved. Like he had done all the other times he had heard the both of you. But he could see it in your eyes. With every praise Kimi gave himself or you... the only thing turning you on right now was him.
His shorts, unexplainably tight around his more than obvious large bulge, only worsened as he watched your hand move between your and Kimi's bodies. Your eyes never moved off of him. His own lips quirking when your fingers pressed against your desperately sore bundle of nerves.
Because Kimi couldn't get you off.
Oscar could have laughed if it wasn't for the situation he was in. Or for the fact he could see this new pleasure so clearly on your face. Your brows furrowed tightly, teeth sinking into your lip, cheeks red, eyes dazed... he could tell. You were close.
Kimi seemed to be too. Speeding his hips up against yours. Still in his own little fantasy where he was the one making you feel so good. He came quick, stuttering against you with his lust-driven grunts. He was decent though, still moving for you.
Oscar had to give it to him. If Kimi hadn't continued and left you there to fend for yourself, it would've been him taking out his own cock and making sure you saw stars.
It was wrong. God, it was so wrong. You knew it. Oscar knew it. But you had never felt like this. So... good. Still the mix of shame and pleasure coursed through you simultaneously, hand gripping Kimi's brown curls while your fingers pressed and rubbed your clit breathlessly. This was it.
"That's it. Cum for me, belle."
But it wasn't it Kimi you were listening to. At least not directly.
Your hazed eyes capturing the small, encouraging nods of Oscar's head. His uneven silent breaths. And you can see his lips mouth the words.
Cum.
Cum.
Cum for me.
Oscar wanted to fall to his knees as he watched the peak of ecstasy hit you. You were seeing white. He could almost fucking feel it with how tight your body locked up, your lips parted in pure awe. But especially as you ensured your eyes were on him for every goddamn second.
Holy fuck.
Oscar had to step away. Any moment now it would be Kimi turning around. And this... whatever it was, would be over.
The walk to his driver's room was faster than anything he had ever done. He did his bare duties; strained smiles and nods. A brush past the few team members packing up. His door was locked in an instant, back pressed against the wall, and his hand under his waistband.
It was a wonder Oscar hadn't cum right there and then as he looked down at his cock, hung with urgency. His red tip leaked profusely, throbbing with a need he had never succumbed to before.
He had been careful in the past few months. Not to get wrapped up with your name on his lips and his hand on his cock. Because that journey would never go down well for him. But that night in the club... his hand on your waist and your ass against him... it had ruined him. He had gone home, jerking off like it was the first time he had ever felt someone this close to him.
But this... this was different. Oscar's brain was rushing. No. Overflowing with what he had just seen. And he couldn't get it out of his head. The way your breath caught when he had walked by. The honey-like sounds falling from your lips. The obscenely wet sounds coming from your cunt. And the most damning fact of all—you had kept going after you had seen him.
Oscar bit down into wrist, face contorted with pleasure, moans muffled as he fisted himself. His eyes and hips rolled with as much desperation as you had just shown. It was almost mimickable how wet he sounded, shaft and tip just doused in his neverending pre-cum.
He couldn't decide what set him off. The orgasmic bliss on your face or the knowing that it was him. Him that made you cum. Maybe not physically. But it was not Kimi and his idiocy. Your fingers and his presence... that was what had done it.
Oscar's body convulsed, hips stuttering as the pleasure climbed over him rapidly. His teeth clamped harder into his skin, spurts of hot cum coming out in long strings. Leaving his hands and shorts stained with the mess you had created.
Removing his wrist from his mouth, he breathed silently and hard, staring at the idle components of his driver's room.
Jesus. He might have been fucked before. But there was no going back after today.
You couldn't count how many times you had been like this recently. And by this, you meant curled up somewhere and in tears.
You had been a mess since Kimi's race. What you had done... that was so wrong on so many levels. There was no beating around the bush. You had cheated. One way or another.
And it was humiliating. Because that was probably the best you had ever felt in your life. But not because of your actual boyfriend, Kimi. But because of Oscar.
You had skipped as much races as you could without Kimi getting suspicious. You couldn't look at him without feeling ashamed. Nor could you look at Oscar. He had sent you texts. Too many of them. So you had blocked him and deleted his number.
But you couldn't get out of this one. You could see the questions brewing in Kimi's head when he had asked you if you were coming. And you had run out of excuses.
You thought it would be fine. That you could get through this weekend without any tears or any fights. But much to your disappointment, you were wrong.
Kimi's fixation with winning had turned into agitation now that Oscar was taking even bigger chunks of points out of his lead. He wasn't happy with the car's performance during practice. He had given the team hell after it. And when that wasn't enough, you were the next available target.
You had lost count of the type of things he had said to you in front of the team. How you weren't supportive enough. That you never stuck through with him like he did with you. How it was your fault that his car, which you had no connection to whatsoever, was bad. That you had somehow bewitched Oscar into being good.
The message was clear: it was your fault.
Humiliation didn't even cover it. Mortified was more like it. The awkward gazes of the team. The tears ramping up in your eyes. Your flushed cheeks. You hated it. And you hated it even more because it was your fault.
So you sat on the dry concrete in Belgium, between the awkward space of two team suites, head tucked into your knees as wave after wave of anger and embarrassment hit you. Your tears had partially died down, caught on your trousers and shirt.
Your jaw clenched as you glared at the concrete, chewing your lip anxiously. Why did you have to go screw this all up? You should have listened to Kimi. You should have never accepted that dance because then you would've never found Oscar like this. So good. So ugh... you wanted to scream at yourself.
"Hey, hey," a familiar voice echoed into the air, making the hairs on your body stand up. “What’s happened?"
You lifted your head slowly, reddened eyes meeting the concerned brown pair staring right back at you. It was Oscar, of course. Bent down, knees embedded onto the concrete and hands on the sides of your own knees. Your chest ached at the sight of him and yet the anger seemed to roar in your head when you thought about what you had done. You sighed almost annoyed, tilting your head back against the wall.
"Nothing. Just forget about it," you wiped your tear-stained cheeks with the back of your hand.
Oscar's brows mended together at your reaction. As if it was a crack in the perfect glass world you had been living in. "___, you know you don't have to be embarrassed around me—"
"This is embarrassing," you gritted out, hurt eyes drifting to him. "It's always embarrassing that you always finds me like this. Crying like some pathetic waste of space."
"No. That's not true," Oscar murmured, head shaking as he tucked your hair behind your ears. "Kimi should be the one that's embarrassed. Making you cry like this," he said, jaw twitching. He could only imagine what he had said to you. Piece of shit.
You chuckled dryly. "I'm a horrible girlfriend, Oscar. What I did that day... that's unforgiveable.,'" you whispered, eyes tearing up yet again. "I deserve this. It all makes sense now. The paddock was never boring. People don't talk to me because they know how bad I am."
Oscar almost wanted to laugh in disbelief. How bad you were? All you had done was dance a little and feel the best you had ever felt in your life. All you had done was live a little and here you were denouncing Kimi's actions like he had done no wrong.
"Sweetheart, people don't talk to you because of you. They don't talk to you because of Kimi. No one wants to tell you but I will," he swallowed the lump in his throat, chest sore at the sight of your reddened eyes.
You sniffled, confusion visible on your face. "What?"
"That Kimi doesn't deserve you."
Your brows furrowed, affronted in an instant. The memories seemed to hit you one after another. He was your first for everything. First kiss. First time. First boyfriend. First love. He was perfect, wasn't he? "That's not true. Kimi's—"
"An asshole," Oscar cut in firmly. "Someone who loves you doesn't hurt you. Someone who loves you doesn't make fake promises. Or put limits on how you act. Who you can see."
You shook your head. No. Your Kimi wasn't like that. "He's just protective—"
Oscar's hands moved to grab your face, holding your gaze so fiercely, for a moment you forgot to breathe. "___, someone who loves you doesn't make you question yourself."
You fell silent, not bothering to wipe the fresh tears spilling from your eyes. Your brows quivered and your stomach churning. Your heart echoed in your ears while your brain flashed between your altered memories.
It was like watching some sort of stained glass shatter right in front of your eyes. Your perfect Kimi no longer perfect.
"He wasn't like that at the start. I swear," you whispered, looking back at Oscar, lip trembling.
Oscar sucked in a sharp breath at the crack in your voice. Fuck. He sighed quietly, arms wrapping around you and bringing you to his chest, lips pressed to the side of your head. "I know, sweetheart. I know."
"Can you stop brainwashing my girlfriend?"
Oscar looked away from his trainer, conversation coming to a screeching halt. His eyes travelled around the room, ensuring it was still cladded in papaya. He smiled at Kimi. "Are you even allowed to be in here?" He raised a brow, folding his arms, leaning back in his seat.
Kimi tongued the inside of his cheek. He was sure he had never met anyone as obnoxious as Oscar Piastri. "Did you hear me? Stay away from my girlfriend. Or else," he glowered, jaw tight, turning on his foot.
"Or else what?" Oscar goaded, making the Italian stop dead in his tracks and his trainer sigh. He stood up from his chair, eyeing the figure in front of him with disgust. "Kimi, piece of advice. You should probably try treat your girlfriend better."
It was like something in Kimi had snapped. Turning around with such force, the air had bended as he stalked up to Oscar, his breath in his face. "Don't fucking tell me how to treat my own girl," he spat, chest heaving.
Oscar's mouth quirked. "You treat her like shit and come here acting like you don't," he chuckled, shaking his head, brown eyes hard with annoyance. "You don't deserve her. You don't deserve anything you have."
Kimi blinked, scrutinising the man in front of him before letting out a scoff. "I get what this is."
Oscar raised his brows, bored and tired. "Do you now?" He asked dryly, not so easily entertained by Kimi's smirk.
"You're jealous," Kimi deducted, smirk widening with every passing second as he thought back to the past year. His debut compared to Oscar's. "I'm so young and yet I have everything you were ever promised. The team. The car. The wins."
Oscar, the master of composure, remained stoic. Not a budge on his face to give him the true inkling—that he was right. That this was how it had started. But that wasn't going to be how it ended. "If that's all you can think about after treating her the way you do... you are exactly who I think you are," he muttered with distaste heavy on his tongue. "She's not yours, Kimi. She's her own person."
Kimi stood in front of him, unimpressed as his lips parted to retaliate. But Oscar leaned in, lowering his voice to a more inaudible frequency. "And even if she was yours, no honourable man would leave his girl to get off by herself," he murmured with a gentle smile, basking in the drop of Kimi's smirk.
Oscar patted Kimi's shoulder with feigned condolences, heading towards the exit of the McLaren suite. Leaving Kimi to stand by himself, pale in the face and sick to his stomach.
Kimi had crashed. it was horrible. Pieces of the car flying everywhere. The gasp of the crowd. The bang of his fist against the snapped halo. The replay was all you could think of as you finally made your way to the medical bay, eyes glossed with tears, stomach churning, and heart pacing erratically. You hadn't taken a breath until you opened the door, finding him sitting on the couch, icepack to his hand .
You sucked in a shaky breath, feet rushing before you could even think your hands flew to his face, frantically examining his entire body for something that maybe the doctor or nurse had missed. "Oh Kimi," you choked, tears spilling. "A-Are you okay? D-Do you want me to call anyone?"
A piece of your heart broke as Kimi slapped your hand away with his bandaged fist, icepack falling to the floor. He glared at you, disgust swarming in his eyes. "Don't do that. Don't pretend you care."
You kept your hand close to your chest, brows furrowed. "Kimi... what are you talking about? Of course, I care. I—"
"I crashed because of you."
You froze at his words. "W-What?"
He stood from the couch. He jammed his finger into your chest. "This is your fault," he gritted out, lip trembling with pure anger. " Oscar this. Oscar that. Oscar, Oscar, Oscar," he spat out.
"Kimi—"
"You might as well come out with it. Luring Oscar to mess with my championship. How could you do this to me? When I've been here for you since the very start?" Kimi exasperated, own eyes pricking with tears.
You swallowed the bile creeping up your throat as the tears seeped into your cheeks. You looked at him, repulsed and with your brows mended. Your skin ached where his finger landed, invisible bruises already forming. "You're really questioning my loyalty? Once. Only once did I ever question you. After all those signs... the looks to those other girls. I ignored it because I thought you really loved me. And I questioned you once and you ridiculed me. And you really think I did something as elaborate as tricking Oscar?"
"Who knows?" He heaved dryly. "You've changed, ___. Years ago, you would've stuck by me," Kimi hissed.
You chuckled despite the tears falling one after another. "I have been. Every single goddamn day. You’re the one who's changed, Kimi! I don't see the guy who stayed up all night outside my house to wish me happy birthday. Or protected me from the photographers. No. Now... with you it’s... it’s clubs. And parties. Cameras following our every move. You degrade me in front of your co-workers. Disrespect me in front of millions. You show me off like I'm some trophy and put me to the side when you don't need me."
"Right..." Kimi laughed bitterly, shaking his head with utter disbelief. "Oscar doesn't do that then?"
Your face burned with anger, lip twitching. How dare he...
"Well at least he doesn't make me cry!" You exclaimed with an exhausted sob, shoulders heavy and burdened. "That's all you ever do, Kimi. You make me cry, then you love me. You criticise me, then you love me. I do what you want and it's still never enough for you. I will never be enough."
And suddenly, you were young kids all over again. Facing each other outside of school under the blues skies and warm winds of Bologna. Your smile so bright for him, he promised never to make it go away. Eyes so full of light, he never wanted to see a single tear.
Kimi blinked, lips parting for a response but nothing ever came out. Just the croak of realisation as he stood in front of you, finally taking in your reddened eyes, tear stained cheeks, and flushed skin.
It was like a slap to the face.
That was his doing.
He had made you cry.
He had hurt you.
What had he done?
You wiped your cheeks hastily as he stepped forward, hand hesitantly reaching out. Your throat burned, raw and sore from yelling. "I'm done, Kimi. Don't call me. Or my parents. Don't come by my house," you sniffled, lip quivering with disgust. “I don't ever want to talk to you again."
Oscar had recognised your downbeat face in a heartbeat as you sat in the McLaren motorhome, in his room, waiting with a cup of hot chocolate in front of you. A familiar sight. But something was different. He could tell.
No longer could he see the awkward, nervous demeanour Kimi had elicited from you. Instead a frame of exhausted freedom in your sunken eyes. Tip of your nose red and cheeks flushed from crying.
Oscar could tell this would be the last time he'd ever let you cry.
He breathed in quietly, removing his cap as he took a seat next to you. For a brief moment, he didn't say anything. A minute of silence for what was gone. For all your efforts that had been disrespected in every manner.
"We don't have to talk about it," Oscar mumbled, grabbing your hand, frowning at your cold skin. Warming your hand gently, he took in another breath. "Or do anything. As long as you're happy, I'm happy."
You moved your eyes from the coffee table drearily to Oscar, your hand, and then back to him. "Can I ask you question?"
Oscar swallowed, nodding with a perfect ease. "Of course," he said softly.
"Would you ever make me cry?"
Not one second wasted to think when he already knew the answer. "Never," he breathed, moving to tuck your dishevelled hair behind your ear. "There is no world or universe where I could even fathom it."
You pursed your lips, searching his eyes, trying to understand the weight of his words. Waiting for a split second to see if you could find the lies you had ignored in Kimi. But you found none. Just his warm gaze and the feel of his hand on your cheek, resting.
The corners of Oscar's lips teetered. "Was that a good media trained answer?"
You couldn't help but laugh a little, chest just a bit lighter now. You nodded your head. "Nice job," you murmured teasingly, nudging him with your elbow.
Oscar smiled, boyish and gentle as his thumb grazed your cheek back and forth before tracing over the small crinkles near your eyes, raised from your own smile. His chest ached slightly. Happiness looked far better on you.
You watched Oscar's eyes dip, falling to your lips for a brief moment. A silent struggle he decided to shake away. You sucked in a quiet breath, gentle fingers raising to brush over his lips, making him freeze. Meeting those brown eyes, a new shade you had come to enjoy, you tilted your head up and leaned in, pressing your mouth to his briefly.
Oscar's breath caught and his pulse jumped as you pulled away a smidge, shy smile faint on your face. Without a second thought, he brought you right back to him, lips pressed against yours with a barely contained urgency. His nose knocked against yours, head tilting while he parted your mouth with a simple ease.
The air in your lungs seemed to burn, caught and stuck while your brain turned into mush. It had been a while since someone had kissed you like they had meant it. Not for any camera or audience. A moment just yours. Your breath to steal.
You shifted against him, feeling his hand move to your waist in an attempt to bring you closer. The soft noise from your throat made the both of you shudder. The thud against the couch was gentle as you fell on top of him, never quite parting. as though the taste of each other was all consuming.
Oscar begrudgingly pulled away, breath shaky as he rested his head against yours. He swallowed, trying to compose himself. A gentle laugh fell from his swollen lips, brown eyes flickering to you and your flushed cheeks. "I was supposed to take this slow," he sighed.
Your body shook lightly with an amused laughter. "You have all the time in the world to try," you teased. "I'm giving you my heart, Piastri. Don't screw it up."
Oscar softly blinked, smile slowly stretching onto his face. "I promise," he breathed, pressing a long kiss to the top of your cheek.
Radio silence. That all Kimi had heard from you. He had ignored your warnings. Called and called. Text after text to try and rectify his wrongs. But you had quickly blocked his number. And it wasn't the only gruelling problem in his life.
Kimi didn't know what was going on but he was losing. He was losing bad. Every race... it was like he was taking a thrashing. And each one from them coming from Oscar. From wins and podiums... he was stuck at the bottom of top ten towards the end of a season. His big point lead now heavily eaten into. His confidence on thin ice.
And it was all Oscar's fault.
It was driving Kimi crazy. Leaving him in tears. because nothing quelled his anger. No workout. No crash. Nothing. He was even beginning to hallucinate. Hoping to turn around in the paddock and see you nearby. Hearing echoes of your voice in the air. Anything to keep him sane.
But you weren't here. Because he had fucked up. because Oscar Piastri had decided to get in the way.
Here Kimi was. After all of it. Entering the paddock miserably for the third to last race of the season. One of the championship deciders. He hadn't gotten a wink of sleep on the plane. Long hours spent in silence and with his brain.
He needed to head towards the Mercedes' suite for a morning brief. Pick up any instructions from the communiations team, maybe train a little before he went off to complete his media duties for the day.
His smile was tight and dull for the nearby cameras, hand hanging onto the bag slung over his shoulder. He walked with no extra pep or ego in his step. No cocky cadence that he once exhibited. Only with a sliver of hope that he could win. Even by a single point. Because suddenly the season he had been dying to start was the same one he was dying to be over.
Kimi's brows furrowed at the surprised looks of the photographers and people nearby. Their eyes travelling to the scene behind him, wide and cautious. He paused in his steps, body slowly turning to satiate his curiosity. But what he saw made his heart freeze and his blood run cold.
He blinked once. Twice. And another two more times.
But the sight never changed.
Kimi wasn't hallucinating. It was you.
For a second, Kimi's heart soared. A genuine smile threatening to spring onto his face. But as his eyes dropped down to your hand intertwined with another, he followed the arm to the familiar face of Oscar's and whatever happiness he had felt for a brief second had been smashed to smithereens.
He watched silently. Forced to do so, if anything. Watched as Oscar did the opposite of everything he ever did. Guiding you through the hoard of photographers and fans, keeping you close by as you both meet with Lando nearby. Watched as Oscar noticed your untied shoe and bent down to tie them without a second thought. Coming back up to give you a gentle kiss on your cheek as you enthusiastically engaged with his teammate.
Respectful and gentle with you. Fufilling all the promises Kimi had once made.
You looked unexplainably happy. Talking to someone that wasn't him. Someone that was no longer afraid to reciprocate any conversation with you.
For the first time in a while, Kimi could see the very same light in your eyes and your bright smile under these blue skies. None of which were for him. And it was like a stab to the heart.
But nothing worse than the smooth swivel of Oscar’s head, brown eyes meeting his as he smiled at him. Not a grin. Or smirk. A smile. Innocent and kind on the outside was the gesture. But the lingering stare emphasised it all.
It was official.
His wins.
His podiums.
His reputation.
His happiness.
His first love.
Oscar Piastri had stolen everything Kimi once had.
oscar piastri x yn!childhood friend | request — here | masterlist
"And when I wake tomorrow, I'll bet, That you and I will walk together again" in which childhood bestfriends who everyone expects to be dating finally take the plunge...
face claim : pdm.clara
note — (manips by me!!) thank you for the request my angel <3!!!, hope you enjoy !!!! likes, reblog's and comments are appreciated ⟡˚౨ৎ⋆
Liked by oscarpiastri, evameloche and 238,362 others
yourusername how many times can i say i miss my best friend before it gets annoying..?
view all comments
user1 angel face wow
oscarpiastri not annoying if it's true!
->yourusername ugh so true
->user2 of course he's who she misses....
user3 very beautiful😍
user4 you look like a literal dream
user5 it's only annoying that you're saying bff instead of bf
->user6 lowkey...
->user7 give them a few months 😭
user8 a cute kitty too ❤!!
user9 the vibes are always so cozy <3 im obsessed
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Liked by user1, user2 and 48,746 others
OP81News Oscar details his friendship with Y/n L/n (yourusername) in new interview!
"We learned how to read together. We've been by each others side since we learned to talk, sent letters and emails when I went away for karting. She'd come to my races when she knew I was nervous and wouldn't make a big deal about it, but it was a big deal to me. I don't know a life without her, she's the best friend anyone could ask for."
view all comments
user1 "friendship".... that's what they're calling it nowdays?
user2 hey so that was his wedding vows!
->user3 LIKE 😭?!???
->user4 i swear they're in love
user5 i had no clue they've known each other for THAT long
user6 whoever he dates will be gods strongest soldier
user7 wonder which one of them already knows they're in love
user8 "i don't know a life with out her" oh my shaylas
user9 taking bets for when they'll start dating
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yourusername story !
view all story replies
oscarpiastri uh oh... what did i do?
->yourusername ?!?????
->yourusername you didn't do anything 😭
->oscarpiastri you sure..?
->yourusername i went to lunch with a guy
->oscarpiastri that bad?
->yourusername wasn't terrible
->yourusername but definitely never seeing him again lol
->oscarpiastri his loss
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Liked by user1, user2 and 173,628 others
enews Jacob Elordi seen having lunch with Australian Model and Influencer Y/n L/n... 👀
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user1 shes adorable
user2 not the australian i thought i'd seen her on a date with
->user3 truly.... i thought her and oscar were secretly dating for so long
->user4 i was today years old when i found out they weren't
user5 wait they're cute tho
user6 oscar piastri just fell to his knees somewhere
user7 well i don't think it was that good of a date based on her ig story
->user8 exactly what i thought of when i saw this pic
->user9 what did it say??
->user8 basically something about a man being a disappointment
user10 she's kinda too good for him 😬
user11 guys chilllll he's got an ex he can't stay away from
user12 is it bad to say i just can't see her with anyone but oscar...?
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Liked by user1, user2 and 252,754 others
F1Gossip Oscar Piastri and Y/n L/n (Model and childhood friend of Piastri) seen getting handsy recently.
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user1 YESSSS
user2 i've been waiting for thissss
user3 i can't get over these pictures
->user4 people eating each others faces has never been cuter
->user5 her hand in his hair!!!!!
->user6 he's never going to let her go 😭
user7 this is so important
user8 they've always been attached at the hip and now....
->user9 she's going to be sitting in his lap next race
->user10 actually have no idea what to expect, they're already so close 😭
user11 already so iconic LOVE THEMMMM
user12 oh he 100% got jealous seeing her on a date
user13 her hand in his pocket... im obsessed
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♬ Etta James ‧ At Last!
Liked by yourusername, alex_albon and 4,836,761 others
oscarpiastri 💞🏝
view all comments
user1 no exactlyyyy
yourusername who's the cutie in the 5th pic?
->oscarpiastri i have a girlfriend... sorry!
->yourusername lucky lady..
->oscarpiastri im the lucky guy!!
->user2 god they're cute I LOVE IT
->user3 going from friendship banter to dating banter is so freaking adorable
user4 y/n looks so beautiful im sickkkk
user5 they are now the only couple that matters
alex_albon FINALLY!!
->oscarpiastri 🙄
->user6 im crying even he was waiting for it
->user7 it was obvious to everyone but them
user8 CHILDHOOD friends to lovers!??? yeah they're getting married
user9 he looks SMUG i can't with him
user10 can't stop looking at how stunning y/n is holyyy
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✎…… got a little off track but i hope you like <3!!!
The Maldives was supposed to be a dream honeymoon for Max and Pietra. Unfortunately, thanks to a seafood disaster and one non-refundable booking, it turned into a “nightmare” for you and Lando Norris.
pairing. Lando Norris x fem! reader.
warnings. romance, humor, slow burn, fake dating -ish, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, 14k words. food poisoning; mention of throwing up. profanity, pet names. inspired by book the unhoneymooners by christina lauren.
soundtrack. non-refundable!, an official playlist.
THE WEDDING WAS PERFECT.
Too perfect—the kind of perfect that practically dares the universe to ruin it out of spite. And honestly, you should’ve known something was coming the moment the string quartet hit that suspiciously angelic high note.
At first, it was subtle. A couple of guests slipped off the dance floor, one by one, like they’d suddenly remembered they left the oven on at home. Someone else excused themselves with the kind of tight smile people wear when they’re trying not to vomit in public. Another guest went pale enough to blend into the tablecloth before disappearing entirely. Nobody panicked. It was a wedding. People drink too much. People overheat. People make questionable choices.
You didn’t think twice about it.
Because why would you? Everything was beautiful. Magical. Soft and glowing and full of love.
Well—except for one glaring exception.
Lando Norris.
Max’s best friend. His best man. The human equivalent of a migraine wrapped in a tux.
He was somehow still laughing, still talking, still managing to irritate you from across the room without even opening his mouth. It was a talent, really. You thought he was smug, insufferable, and entirely too pleased with himself for someone who hadn’t contributed anything meaningful to society except chaos and a few podiums.
As for what he thought about you?
You didn’t care. Truly. Deeply. Profoundly.
(And if you repeated that enough times, maybe one day it would even feel true.)
The only downside to Pietra marrying Max was the unfortunate, unavoidable reality that Lando Norris was now a permanent fixture in your life. A recurring character. A long-term problem. A headache with a lifetime warranty.
The thought alone made your skin crawl in a way that felt almost personal.
The weirdest part wasn’t the disappearing guests or the suspiciously pale groomsman who nearly face‑planted into the cake. No, the weirdest part came when you realized you hadn’t seen Pietra in… a while.
At first, you brushed it off. She was a newlywed. Newlyweds vanish. It’s practically a wedding tradition. Maybe she was touching up her makeup. Maybe she was having a moment with Max. Maybe she was hiding from Lando, which would be completely understandable and honestly relatable.
But something felt off.
Pietra wasn’t the type to disappear without a word, especially not from her own reception—the event she’d planned down to the color of the napkin rings. And the longer you went without seeing her, the more that uneasy little knot twisted in your stomach. It wasn’t panic yet, but it was definitely panic‑adjacent.
So, for your own peace of mind, you pulled out your phone and called her.
The line rang. Once. Twice. Three times.
Then it connected.
“P? Where are you? Are you okay?”
There was a pause—the kind that immediately tells you the answer is no.
When she finally spoke, her voice was thin and shaky, nothing like the glowing, ecstatic bride you’d been celebrating with an hour ago.
“Can you come to our room?”
That was it.
No explanation. No reassurance. No “don’t freak out.”
Just those six words.
The call ended a second later, leaving you staring at your phone like it had personally offended you.
And suddenly, that uneasy feeling in your stomach sharpened into something much closer to full‑blown panic—the kind that makes your heart thump too hard and your brain start listing every possible worst‑case scenario in alphabetical order.
Because if Pietra sounded like that on her wedding night, something was very, very wrong.
You hurried through the hotel hallway, moving as fast as your heels would let you—which, unfortunately, was not very fast at all. Your phone was still in your hand, screen glowing with the last call, and you were so focused on Pietra’s shaky voice replaying in your head that you didn’t even look up when you turned the corner.
Which is exactly why you slammed straight into someone.
“Ow!”
You stumbled back, clutching your phone like it might soften the impact. And then you looked up.
Of course.
Of course it was Lando Norris.
Because why wouldn’t the universe add insult to injury.
He steadied himself, then gave you a once‑over that somehow managed to be both annoyed and judgmental, like you’d personally offended him by existing in his path.
“Watch it,” he said.
“You watch it,” you shot back, because you refused to let him have the last word. Not tonight. Not ever.
You pointed a finger at him, ready to continue the argument you two had apparently been having since the day you met—but then you both reached for the same door handle.
Pietra and Max’s room.
You froze.
He froze.
“What the fuck are you—”
Before either of you could finish, a voice croaked from inside the room. Weak. Miserable. Dramatic in a way only one person could manage.
“Stop flirting and come in! Both of you!”
Max.
Or, more accurately, whatever was left of Max.
Lando grimaced so hard it looked painful. “If he says that again, I’m going to be sick.”
He shot you a look—the kind that said this is your fault somehow—before pushing the door open.
Honestly?
You felt the same way.
Instead of dignifying him with a response, you rolled your eyes so hard it was practically a workout and followed him inside.
Whatever was happening inside the room looked like something straight out of a low‑budget horror movie—the kind where you already know half the cast won’t make it to the sequel.
The wedding? Completely forgotten. Pietra’s dress was crumpled in a sad little heap on the floor, like it had given up on life. Max’s tux jacket was draped over a chair in a way that suggested he’d either thrown it or collapsed out of it. Hard to tell.
Pietra was curled up on the bed, pale and miserable, clutching a pillow like it was the only thing anchoring her to this world. Max sat hunched over at the table with his head in his hands, breathing like someone who had seen things. Terrible things. Things he would never emotionally recover from.
“For newlyweds, you two look horrible,” Lando observed, because apparently he felt the need to narrate the obvious.
As if the scene didn’t already scream we are dying.
“You have no idea,” Pietra groaned, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Never eating seafood again,” Max muttered into his palms.
You frowned, stepping further into the room. “What happened?”
“The seafood happened,” Pietra said weakly, like the words themselves were painful.
Max lifted his head just enough to confirm it. “It was bad. Everyone’s sick.”
“Everyone?” you repeated, because surely this couldn’t be as dramatic as it sounded.
“My parents are sick. Pietra’s cousins are sick. Half the wedding is sick.” He swallowed hard, face twisting. “I think I’m gonna thr—”
“Okay, mate, we get it,” Lando cut in quickly, hands up like he was warding off a demon.
Neither of you needed the visual.
A heavy silence settled over the room—the kind that comes right before someone admits something truly stupid.
And then Lando, because he physically could not help himself, added,
“I told you seafood was a terrible idea.”
Max slowly lifted his head, eyes dead, soul gone. “Not helping.”
“Just saying.”
Of course he was.
Suddenly, a thought hit you—sharp and obvious, like the kind of realization you really should’ve had ten minutes earlier.
You turned to Lando, narrowing your eyes.
“If everyone ate the seafood… why aren’t you sick?”
He looked at you like you’d just accused him of kicking puppies for fun. His whole face twisted, offended on a spiritual level.
“I hate seafood,” he said, dripping with disgust. Like it was common knowledge. Like it was printed on his passport. Like you were personally stupid for not knowing his dietary preferences.
Before you could roll your eyes hard enough to sprain something, he pointed right back at you.
“Could ask you the same. Why aren’t you sick?”
“I’m on a diet,” you said with a shrug, as if that explained everything.
His eyebrows shot up, and he looked far too pleased with himself as he looked toward Max.
“See? This is what happens when you order seafood even though half your guests don’t even eat it.”
“You two don’t mean half the guests,” Pietra muttered from the bed, rolling her eyes so weakly it was almost impressive she managed it at all.
“Well—but that’s not why you’re here,” Max started.
The tone in his voice shifted. Instantly. Like someone had dimmed the lights and added ominous background music.
This wasn’t a joke anymore.
Even Lando went quiet—which was honestly the most alarming symptom in the room.
“We can’t go on our honeymoon,” Max said weakly. “We literally can’t even stand, let alone fly to the Maldives.”
Pietra raised a shaky hand from the bed, like she was giving sworn testimony. “Also… it’s non‑refundable.”
As if that somehow made the situation more tragic.
Which, unfortunately, it did.
“And?” you asked slowly, because you already didn’t like where this was going. “What does that have to do with us?”
Max glanced at Pietra.
Then at you.
Then at Lando.
Then back at you.
“Since you’re the only ones who are able to go…”
No.
No, no, no.
Absolutely not.
Your stomach dropped so fast it felt like missing a step on the stairs.
Did they just—
Did they seriously just—
“Absolutely not,” Lando cut in immediately, shaking his head so hard his curls bounced.
For once, you agreed with him.
Violently.
Because there was no universe—none—where you and Lando Norris should be sent on a romantic, luxury honeymoon together.
Which, of course, meant that was exactly what was about to happen.
No.
No, absolutely not.
Your stomach dropped so fast you felt it in your toes. They weren’t actually suggesting this. They couldn’t be. This had to be a fever dream caused by secondhand seafood fumes.
For once, you were perfectly aligned with him. A rare, terrifying moment of unity.
But Max wasn’t done.
“It’s a private villa,” he said, voice wobbling. “Some newlywed activities—”
You stared at him like he’d just confessed to a crime. “Did you hit your head while eating the seafood too?”
Because that was the only explanation. Truly. The man had lost brain function. You were going to wake up any second now. Maybe you’d fall off a chair and snap back into the correct timeline. Or maybe you should hit your head and skip straight to the part where none of this was happening.
“It’ll go to waste if you don’t go,” Pietra added, sounding both tragic and dramatic, which was impressive considering she looked like she might faint at any moment.
Lando let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “Then let it go to waste. Problem solved.”
“Good thing we’re not asking you,” Max said, ignoring him completely. “We’re telling you.”
Silence fell over the room.
Not the normal kind.
The bad kind.
The kind that meant decisions had already been made without your consent.
“I already called the resort,” Max continued, like he was ripping off a Band‑Aid. “We told them we’re sick and can’t go. But our—also freshly married—friends will go instead of us.”
You blinked.
Once.
Twice.
No.
No.
Absolutely no.
What the actual fuck.
This had to be illegal. Or a prank. Or a shared hallucination brought on by the cursed seafood poisoning half the hotel.
Max was clearly too exhausted to keep talking. Pietra, unfortunately, was not. She pushed herself up just enough to finish his sentence, her voice thin but determined.
“We just changed the names,” she said, like that explained anything at all.
You stared at her, waiting for the part where she clarified. She didn’t.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Pietra smiled—weakly, proudly, and completely out of touch with reality. She looked like she might faint at any second, yet somehow she still had the nerve to look pleased with herself.
“From now on, you’re Mr. and Mrs. Norris!”
The words hung in the air like a bomb that hadn’t decided whether to explode or not. Too cheerful. Too final. Too insane to process.
For a moment, nobody reacted. The room went still, like even the walls were trying to understand what she’d just said.
Then everything reacted at once.
“I hope you’re fucking kidding,” Lando said, voice flat and sharp.
“No,” Pietra replied immediately, not even blinking.
“I’m not going anywhere with her,” he snapped, pointing at you like you were the problem.
“I’m not going anywhere with him,” you shot back at the exact same time, because if he was pointing, you were pointing too.
Silence fell again—heavy, miserable, the kind that made you want to walk straight into the ocean.
Max didn’t even lift his head. He just groaned into the table like he’d accepted his fate and yours.
Pietra sighed, sounding far too calm for someone who had just detonated your life. “Well,” she said, “good thing it’s already done.”
And just like that, your nightmare didn’t just have a name.
It had a reservation.
A villa.
A flight to the Maldives.
And a husband you didn’t even like.
When the realization finally settled between you and your apparently new husband, all you could do was let out a long, exhausted groan—the kind that came from deep in your soul, the kind that said I did not sign up for this. It was the only reaction your brain could manage. Your thoughts were basically just static and disbelief.
Lando, on the other hand, had plenty of energy left to complain.
“Mate, I love you,” he said, turning toward Max with the dramatic flair of someone delivering a eulogy, “but right now I hate you so much.”
Max didn’t even lift his head. He didn’t argue. He didn’t defend himself. He just sat there, hunched over the table like a man who had accepted every bad decision that led him to this moment.
Pietra gave a weak little wave from the bed, like she was blessing a doomed union. “You’ll thank us later,” she mumbled, which was bold for someone who looked like she might pass out mid‑sentence.
Lando exhaled sharply, then looked between you, Max, and Pietra with the expression of a man who had lost all hope in humanity. “Enjoy your free honeymoon,” he said flatly. A beat. “Lovebirds.”
You and Lando turned to each other at the exact same time.
“No.”
It came out perfectly synchronized—same tone, same disgust, same absolute refusal. If you weren’t so horrified, you might’ve been impressed.
And for the first time all night, even Max looked slightly amused. His mouth twitched, just barely, like he wanted to smile but didn’t have the physical strength to commit to it.
Which was great.
Fantastic.
Wonderful.
At least someone was enjoying the beginning of your shared nightmare.
────────────
The moment you stepped off the boat, you regretted not eating the seafood too. Honestly, at least then you’d be back at the hotel, curled up on a bathroom floor, dramatically begging for death like everyone else. Instead, you were here—in paradise—with the one person who could make even the Maldives feel like a punishment. You were at that stage of life where you would genuinely prefer food poisoning over spending any time alone with Lando Norris. And that said a lot.
The Maldives were gorgeous, of course. The water was so turquoise it looked fake, the sand was blindingly white, and the palm trees swayed like they were performing for a commercial. Everything around you was warm and soft and perfect, the kind of place people saved up for years to visit. It should have been paradise. It should have been peaceful. It should have been romantic.
But then there was the idiot standing next to you.
Lando looked around with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, somehow managing to look annoyed despite being surrounded by literal postcard scenery. His expression said he’d rather be anywhere else. You hoped he was regretting this as much as you were. Preferably more.
A pair of resort employees approached with bright, excited smiles—the kind of smiles people only have when they have no idea what kind of disaster they’re dealing with.
“Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Norris! Congratulations on your honeymoon.”
Your eye twitched so hard you were surprised it didn’t fall out. If one more person called you that, you might actually swim back to the mainland.
“Thanks,” Lando said smoothly, flashing them one of his signature smiles like he hadn’t spent the last 48 hours insisting he wasn’t going anywhere with you.
You shot him a look sharp enough to cut glass.
What happened to I’m not going anywhere with her?
He caught your glare and shrugged, all innocent and useless.
Traitor.
Not wanting to be rude to the only people here who hadn’t personally ruined your life, you forced a polite smile. Before you could correct them—or scream—one of the employees picked up your suitcase with cheerful efficiency.
“Come with us,” she said brightly. “We’ll show you your villa.”
The walk to the villa was painfully, almost comically silent. Not a single word passed between you. You stared straight ahead like you were being marched to your doom. Lando did the same, jaw tight, hands shoved in his pockets, looking like he was being forced to attend his own funeral. The two resort employees leading the way kept glancing back at you both, probably wondering what kind of honeymooning couple walked like they were on their way to court.
Eventually, one of them cleared her throat, clearly trying to break the tension before it swallowed all four of you whole.
“I’m sorry about your friends.”
You blinked, pulled out of your internal spiral. Right. Max and Pietra. The actual newlyweds. The ones currently dying in a hotel room.
“Yeah,” you said. “It sucks.”
“They were very upset when they called,” she continued gently. “But they seemed happy that you two could still enjoy the honeymoon.”
You nearly tripped over your own feet.
Happy.
That was certainly one way to describe it. Delusional was another. Criminally optimistic was a third.
Beside you, Lando made a noise—something between a laugh and a strangled groan. Honestly, it could’ve been either. Or both.
“And how long are you two married?”
You froze.
Well.
Eh.
You didn’t exactly have a script for this. You didn’t know whether to lie, tell the truth, or throw yourself into the ocean and let the fish sort it out.
Before you could decide, Lando spoke.
“Two months.”
You whipped your head toward him so fast you almost gave yourself whiplash.
What.
The.
Fuck.
Lando didn’t even look at you. He just kept walking beside you like he hadn’t casually invented an entire fake marriage timeline out of thin air. No hesitation. No shame. No warning. Just two months tossed into the universe like it was a normal, reasonable answer.
The employee beamed at the both of you, completely fooled.
“How lovely! Newlyweds.”
“Yeah,” Lando replied smoothly, slipping into the role like he’d been practicing in the mirror. “Still getting used to it.”
You stared at him, your brain short‑circuiting.
Still getting used to it.
Still. Getting. Used. To. It.
Was he insane? Was he actually insane? Because that was the only explanation for the confidence with which he delivered that line. You caught the tiny smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth—the smallest hint of amusement, like he knew exactly what he was doing and was enjoying every second of your suffering.
The bastard was enjoying this.
“Oh, absolutely,” you said through gritted teeth, forcing a smile so stiff it could’ve cracked. “Every day is a surprise.”
Lando finally glanced at you, and for a split second, you saw it—the spark of amusement in his eyes, the quiet little I’m having fun and you can’t stop me glint.
You hated it.
You hated him.
The villa was ridiculous.
Not just nice—insultingly nice. The kind of nice that made you question every choice you’d ever made in your life. The terrace stretched out over the water like it was showing off. There was a glass slide straight into the ocean, an infinity pool that blended into the horizon, an outdoor shower, two separate bathrooms (mercifully), and enough space to host three families, a wedding, and maybe a small cult.
It was paradise.
And you hated that you were seeing it with him.
The second the employees left, you spun toward Lando.
“What the hell was that?”
Lando dropped his bag onto the floor like he owned the place. “What was what?”
“‘Two months’?” you repeated, voice rising. “Where did you even get two months from?”
He shrugged, completely unbothered. “Sounded believable.”
“Believable?”
“What was I supposed to say?” he shot back. “‘Actually, we’ve known each other for years and can’t stand one another, but our friends got food poisoning and sent us on their honeymoon instead’?”
You opened your mouth.
Closed it. and opened it again.
“…Well, maybe not like that.”
“Exactly,” he said, like he’d just won a debate on national television.
“That doesn’t mean you get to invent an entire marriage!”
“Oh, come on,” he said, already wandering deeper into the villa like a man on vacation. “It’s harmless.”
“Harmless?”
“Yes.”
“You made me your wife.”
Lando paused mid‑step and turned, looking genuinely confused.
“You already were my wife.”
The room went still. You stared at him. He stared back.
Three long, painful seconds passed.
Then something flickered across his face—realization, horror, embarrassment, all at once.
“Oh.”
Your eye twitched. “Oh?”
“Okay,” he winced, “that sounded worse out loud.”
“You think?”
“I mean she called you Mrs. Norris first. She made you my wife,” Lando tried to defend himself.
Before you could continue tearing him apart, a knock interrupted you.
Both of you froze.
The door opened immediately—because apparently privacy was optional here—and one of the resort employees peeked in with an apologetic smile.
“Oh! Sorry, one more thing.”
You instinctively stepped away from Lando like he was radioactive. He noticed. Of course he did. The employee didn’t.
“Your first romantic dinner is at eight tonight.”
Silence.
“What?” you said.
“Romantic dinner,” she repeated cheerfully. “On the beach. Just the two of you.”
You slowly turned your head toward Lando.
He turned toward you. Then both of you turned back to her.
“We don’t need—”
“Wonderful!” she cut in. “See you at eight!”
The moment she left, you pushed open the bedroom door.
And immediately stopped. Of course.
Of course there was one bed. Not just any bed—one large, perfectly made, aggressively romantic bed positioned directly in front of the ocean like it was trying to prove a point. Rose‑petal energy without the actual petals. The kind of bed that practically whispered consummate something.
You just stared at it, frozen in place.
Lando leaned against the doorframe, peered inside, and let out the most dramatic sigh you’d ever heard.
“Oh my god,” he groaned, rolling his eyes. “There’s really only one bed in this big‑ass villa?”
“Well obviously,” you snapped. “It’s a honeymoon villa, dumbass.”
“Right,” he muttered, like the universe had personally wronged him.
Silence settled between you—thick, awkward, the kind that made everything feel ten times worse. You could practically hear the ocean outside judging both of you.
Then Lando nodded toward the bed with the seriousness of someone offering a noble sacrifice.
“I’ll happily take the floor,” he announced.
You blinked.
Once. Twice.
“Wow,” you said. “Generous of you.”
Then you turned fully toward him, crossing your arms. “I’m going to be kind and let you take the couch in the living room. You’re absolutely not sleeping in the same room as me.”
“Right,” he said slowly, glancing toward the living room. “The couch.”
He nodded like he was processing a complicated mathematical equation.
“I should’ve thought about that earlier.”
────────────
The restaurant was somehow even more ridiculous than the villa—which felt almost impossible, but here you were, living proof that the universe had a sense of humor and it wasn’t a kind one.
A table for two sat directly on the sand, candles flickering in the warm evening breeze while waves rolled onto the shore like they’d been hired for ambience. Fairy lights hung from the palm trees overhead, glowing softly against the darkening sky. Music drifted through the air, gentle and warm, the kind that made everything feel softer than it actually was.
And you…
You looked beautiful. A yellow summer dress, light and easy, catching the breeze just enough to move with you. Your hair had settled into soft waves, brushing your shoulders every time you turned your head. You definitely hadn’t taken extra time to get ready because of your “husband.” Absolutely not. That would be ridiculous.
It looked like a scene from a romance movie.
Unfortunately, you were starring in it with Lando Norris.
The hostess smiled as she pulled out your chair, glowing with the kind of joy only people who believe in love have.
“Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Norris. We hope you have a magical first dinner as newlyweds.”
You forced a polite smile, the kind that felt like it might crack if you held it too long.
“Thank you.”
Lando matched your expression perfectly, like he’d been trained for this exact moment.
“Very kind of you.”
The hostess practically melted on the spot.
“Oh, you two are adorable.”
The second she walked away, both of your smiles dropped so fast they might’ve left dents in the sand.
“She called us adorable,” you muttered.
“She also called us married,” Lando replied, sounding personally offended.
You stared at him.
He stared at you.
And for a moment, the two of you sat there in the middle of paradise, united only by mutual suffering.
You reached for the bread basket.
At the exact same moment Lando did.
Your hands collided in the middle of the table, a sharp little smack that made you both freeze. You pulled yours back instantly, like touching him might give you a rash.
“Watch it,” you muttered.
“You watch it,” he shot back, just as fast.
Before either of you could escalate, a waiter appeared beside the table carrying what looked like a tropical explosion in a glass—flowers, fruit, colors that didn’t exist in nature.
“For the honeymoon couple!” he announced proudly.
He set it down between you.
One glass.
Two straws.
A crime.
You and Lando stared at it like it had personally insulted you.
“No,” you both said at the same time.
“Oh, it’s complimentary!” the waiter beamed, completely missing the mutual horror, and vanished before you could protest.
Silence settled over the table again, warm and heavy like the night air.
“Well?” Lando said.
“Well what?”
“I’m thirsty.”
“So am I.”
Another long stretch of stubborn quiet passed—thirty seconds that felt like a challenge neither of you wanted to lose.
Finally, you both leaned forward at the same time.
And immediately bumped foreheads.
“Ow!”
You rubbed the spot, wincing, while Lando leaned back with a glare sharp enough to cut through the candlelight.
“Could you be any more dramatic?”
“You literally ran into me.”
“You ran into me.”
“You’re impossible.”
“And you’re annoying.”
The argument fizzled out only because you both leaned in and took a sip of the drink at the same time—careful this time, no forehead injuries—and neither of you dared admit it tasted incredible. Sweet, cold, perfect. A tiny piece of heaven in the middle of your personal hell.
The appetizers arrived a few minutes later, carried by a waiter who looked like he’d been waiting his whole life to serve a honeymoon couple. Every time he or anyone else walked by, you and Lando transformed instantly into the world’s most convincing romantic pair. It was almost impressive how fast the switch flipped.
“So, darling,” Lando said with a smile so bright it could’ve powered the fairy lights above you, “would you like the lobster?”
“No, sweetheart,” you replied just as sweetly, matching his tone like you’d rehearsed it. “You know I don’t eat seafood.”
The waiter’s face lit up.
“How lovely.”
The moment he walked away, your smile dropped. You kicked Lando under the table.
“Ow!” he hissed, jerking his leg back.
“Don’t call me sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me darling.”
“You started it.”
“You kicked me.”
“Good.”
Another waiter approached, moving carefully across the sand as if he were carrying something sacred. He placed two plates in front of you with a soft smile.
Steak and fries. Finally.
Separate plates.
Thank God.
You sat up a little straighter, almost relieved enough to forget who you were sitting with.
“Is everything all right?” she asked, her smile warm and hopeful, like she genuinely wanted your night to be perfect.
You returned it, stretching your own smile so wide your cheeks started to ache. “Everything’s perfect.”
Beside you, Lando nodded with the enthusiasm of a man who had fully committed to the bit. “Best honeymoon ever.”
The waiter beamed, delighted. “We’re so happy to hear that. Enjoy your evening!”
She walked away, leaving the two of you alone again—candles flickering, waves rolling in, the whole scene soft and romantic in a way that felt almost cruel.
The second the waiter disappeared, your foot shot out under the table and connected with Lando’s shin again. Maybe you were provoking him. Maybe you weren’t. Maybe the universe was simply guiding your leg. Either way, you weren’t about to admit anything.
He jerked back, glaring at you like you’d personally ruined his life.
“Can you fucking stop?”
“Stop lying.”
“You’re the one smiling.”
“I’m being polite.”
“You look psychotic.”
“Because of you.”
Lando stabbed another fry with his fork, then looked up at you with a confidence he absolutely did not deserve.
“You know,” he said, leaning back slightly, “for someone who supposedly hates me, you’ve been looking at me all evening.”
You scoffed, loud and sharp.
“Could say the same about you.”
And that was the first time since arriving that he actually went quiet.
Because you had noticed.
The little glances he kept sneaking across the table.
The way his eyes lingered a second too long before he looked away.
The absent-minded way he wet his lips whenever he was thinking.
The way he kept shifting in his seat like he was trying not to stare at you too openly.
None of it meant anything.
Obviously.
You weren’t delusional.
Still, something flickered across his face—something quick, something he tried to hide—before he straightened again.
“You’re imagining things,” he said.
“Am I?”
He held your gaze for a beat too long.
“Trust me,” he said, voice low and annoyingly confident. “If I was staring, you’d know.”
Your heart did something incredibly inconvenient—a tiny jump, a tiny skip, the kind of reaction you immediately wanted to throw into the ocean. You grabbed your glass instead, lifting it like it could physically reset your brain.
“God, you’re insufferable.”
“And yet,” he replied, reaching across the table to steal one of your fries like he had every right to, “you haven’t left.”
You narrowed your eyes. “That was my fry.”
He took a slow, deliberate bite. “Tastes better when it’s yours.”
You kicked him under the table. Hard.
He hissed, jerking his leg back. “Jesus—are you trying to break my leg?”
“Debatable,” you said, taking a calm sip of your drink like you hadn’t just committed violence.
Lando rubbed his shin under the table, glaring at you like you’d personally ruined his evening. “You’re a violent wife.”
Your mouth twitched before you could stop it. “You’re an annoying husband.”
A beat passed—warm, tense, too quiet.
Then he leaned back slightly, smirk tugging at his mouth, eyes glinting in the candlelight.
“You realize if you break my leg, you’d have to take care of me, sweetheart?”
You didn’t even blink.
“I’m gonna throw up.”
His smirk widened, slow and smug, like he’d been waiting for that exact reaction.
And the worst part?
Your heart did that inconvenient little jump again.
────────────
The morning started peacefully. Too peacefully. The kind of peaceful that made you suspicious, like the universe was holding its breath before dropping something heavy on your head.
You and Lando sat at the breakfast table like two people who had agreed to a temporary ceasefire. No shin‑kicking. No dramatic sighs. No sarcastic comments sharp enough to cut through the tropical air. Just quiet eating, the soft clink of cutlery, and the occasional scroll through your phones.
Almost normal.
Almost comfortable.
Then Lando opened his mouth.
“We’re going golfing,” he said casually, not even looking up, biting into a pastry like he was reading the weather report.
“No.”
That one word snapped his attention up instantly. He blinked at you, confused, like he’d never heard the word before.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean I hate golf.”
“That’s not a valid reason.”
“It’s a very valid reason.”
He sighed dramatically, like you had personally ruined his entire morning, his week, and possibly his life.
“I can’t play alone.”
“You absolutely can.”
“I can’t.”
You narrowed your eyes. He was lying. Badly. A man who drove cars at terrifying speeds for a living could absolutely survive a solo round of golf.
“You race cars for a living.”
“And?”
“You can function independently.”
He ignored that completely, like you hadn’t spoken at all.
“We’re going. It’s already booked.”
“I didn’t agree to this.”
“You’re my wife,” he said flatly.
You froze.
Slowly lifted your head from your plate.
Stared at him like he’d just confessed to murder.
“I’d rather swim back than be your wife.”
“From the Maldives?”
“Especially from the Maldives.”
He opened his mouth, probably to say something smug, but you cut him off with a raised hand.
“And I’d make it.”
He snorted. “You’d get eaten by a shark.”
“Better than golfing with you.”
Twenty minutes later, you were standing in the golf club lobby anyway. You still weren’t sure how it happened. One moment you were saying no, the next you were being dragged into a shuttle like a hostage. Against your will, obviously. Completely against your will.
Lando was at the counter, talking to the staff like he owned the place, arranging equipment and carts as if this was his idea of a perfect morning. He looked relaxed, confident, annoyingly at his element.
You slipped away toward a small souvenir shop tucked beside the path.
Just for a moment. Just to breathe.
Inside, everything was glossy, overpriced, and aggressively tropical. Shelves full of shell necklaces, handmade bracelets, tiny carved wooden animals, and bright fabrics that probably cost more than your entire suitcase. The kind of things tourists bought when they were sun‑drunk and sentimental.
Then you saw it. A necklace.
A simple one—a thin cord with a small carved turtle pendant hanging from the center. It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t dramatic. It was just… cute.
You picked it up, letting the pendant rest in your palm. It made you smile before you could stop yourself.
You flipped the tag over and your smile died instantly.
You frowned. Hard.
“You like it?”
Lando’s voice came from behind you.
You jumped slightly, turning to see him leaning in the doorway, holding two golf clubs in one hand and the cart keys dangling from the other. He looked annoyingly casual, like he hadn’t just snuck up on you.
“It’s cute,” you said, “but the price is not cute.”
“How much?”
You held it up for him to see.
He squinted, leaned in a little, then let out a laugh—loud, surprised, real.
“Jesus Christ. That’s the price of the whole honeymoon.”
You huffed. “Exactly.”
You placed the necklace back carefully, almost gently, like it had personally betrayed you but you didn’t want to hurt its feelings. Way too expensive for something that would end up tangled in a drawer anyway.
“Be right back,” you said, already backing away from him. “Bathroom.”
“Don’t get lost,” he muttered without looking up.
“Try not to choke on your ego,” you shot back, turning before he could respond.
The bathroom was exactly what you expected from a place like this—unnecessarily fancy, spotless, and scented with something soft and expensive you’d never be able to justify buying in real life. You lingered longer than you needed to, letting the quiet settle over you. It wasn’t the bathroom you needed. It was the break from him.
When you stepped back out, the sun was brighter, the air warmer, and Lando was still near the shop.
Except… something was off.
He wasn’t doing anything dramatic. He wasn’t pacing or fidgeting or causing chaos. He was just standing there, a little too still, a little too focused on nothing. And the second he saw you, his eyes flicked up fast, scanning you like he was checking for something.
“What?” you asked, narrowing your eyes as you walked toward him.
“Nothing,” he said too quickly.
That was worse. Lando never said nothing quickly. If anything, he usually dragged it out just to annoy you.
You frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m just waiting.”
“For what?”
He shrugged, already turning away, heading toward the golf carts like the conversation bored him. “Nothing.”
You watched him for a moment, trying to figure out what that tiny shift in his expression had been. Something flickering behind his eyes. Something he clearly didn’t want you to notice.
But you decided you didn’t care enough to dig into whatever weird Lando thing this was.
Probably just him being annoying.
You followed him anyway, even though you told yourself you weren’t following him at all—you were just walking in the same direction.
Coincidentally.
Obviously.
The golf course looked like it had been designed specifically to humiliate you. Endless stretches of perfect green, artificial lakes sparkling in the sun, and way too much open space for you to miss shots in front of strangers. It was beautiful in a smug, taunting way.
Lando, unfortunately, looked right at home.
“Okay,” he said, handing you a club like he was already regretting every life choice that led him here. “Just don’t hit anyone.”
“I’m going to hit you.”
“You’re not strong enough.”
That alone made you swing harder than necessary.
The ball went approximately nowhere. It hopped. Maybe. Barely.
Silence.
Then Lando clapped once.
Slowly.
“Fantastic.”
“It moved,” you said defensively.
“Barely.”
“It moved.”
He shook his head, stepping up beside you with the confidence of someone who had been waiting all morning to show off.
“Okay, watch and learn.”
You crossed your arms. “Impress me.”
He didn’t even bother hiding the smirk. It stretched across his face, warm and smug, like he’d been born for this moment.
“One day you’re going to have to admit I’m good at something.”
“Not likely.”
He swung.
Perfect form. Perfect sound. Perfect shot.
The ball sailed clean across the course, cutting through the air like it had been personally trained by God.
Of course it did.
You hated that. You hated how easy he made it look. You hated the way his shoulders relaxed after the swing, the way he exhaled like he’d just done something casual instead of showing off in front of you.
“Show-off,” you muttered.
Lando didn’t even look at you. “Jealousy doesn’t suit you.”
“It’s not jealousy. It’s disappointment.”
“In me?”
“In the universe for letting you be this confident.”
He finally turned, leaning on his club like he had all the time in the world, like he wasn’t actively ruining your morning.
“You know, for someone who keeps insulting me, you’re very invested in my performance.”
You scoffed. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“I’m not,” he said easily. “Just observing.”
“Stop observing. It’s creepy.”
“You started it.”
“I did not start it.”
“You literally tried to hit me ten minutes ago.”
“That was character development.”
He laughed under his breath, shaking his head.
“You’re impossible.”
“And you’re insufferable.”
“A perfect match, then.”
You shot him a sharp look.
“Don’t get delusional. This is a forced golf situation, not a personality assessment.”
He stepped closer—not much, just enough to make the air feel warmer—lowering his voice like he was letting you in on something you didn’t want.
“Careful,” he said. “Keep talking like that and people might start thinking you enjoy my company.”
You rolled your eyes. “In what world?”
He tilted his head, smirk tugging at his mouth.
“The one where you’ve been watching my swing for the last ten minutes.”
“That’s because I’m hoping you fall into one of those lakes.”
“Sure,” he said, smirking wider. “Keep telling yourself that.”
You opened your mouth to fire back—
But he cut in, casual, careless, like he wasn’t dropping a verbal grenade at your feet:
“Relax. I promise I’m not trying to get you into bed over a golf lesson.”
You froze.
Then stared at him.
“…What is wrong with you?”
Lando blinked, like he genuinely didn’t understand the problem.
“What? I was being nice.”
“That was not nice.”
“It was honest.”
“That makes it worse.”
“Gimme the keys. I’ll drive,” you said, holding out your hand like you were doing him a favor he didn’t deserve.
“Absolutely not.”
“You race cars for a living,” you reminded him, already leaning toward the ignition with far too much confidence for someone who had never driven a golf cart before. “And you’re scared of a golf cart?”
“I’m not scared of it. I’m scared of you driving it.”
“You should be,” you said with a small, satisfied smile as you climbed into the driver’s seat. “Get your ass in there or walk.”
Lando let out the kind of long, dramatic sigh that suggested he was reconsidering every decision that had led him to this moment. “Do you even have a driving licence?”
“I do.”
You absolutely did. Unfortunately for him.
He hesitated for a beat too long before climbing in beside you, gripping the side of the seat like it might suddenly eject him into the bushes. The second you pressed the pedal, the cart lurched forward—not dangerously, not wildly, just enough to make him tense like you’d launched a rocket instead of a glorified toy car.
“You’re overreacting,” you said, steering them down the path with what you considered perfect control. The breeze was warm, the sun was bright, and the cart hummed along peacefully. “You’re sitting in a golf cart, not a missile.”
“I’m observing risk factors,” he muttered, eyes fixed ahead like he was preparing for impact.
“That’s exactly what someone driving like you would say.”
“Relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
He was absolutely not relaxed. His shoulders were tight, his jaw clenched, and he kept shifting like the seat was made of spikes. You took a slightly sharper turn—not reckless, not even fast, just sharper—and the cart tilted a little to the side.
Lando jolted.
His hand shot out without thinking, grabbing your thigh to steady himself.
Both of you froze.
The warmth of his hand lingered for a second, heavy and unexpected, before he snatched it back like it had betrayed him. His face was tight, his voice too quick.
“…That was balance,” he said, staring straight ahead. “I was balancing.”
You looked down at his hand, then back at him, unimpressed and far too aware of the moment. “Put that away.”
“I didn’t mean to—it slipped.”
“Sure it did.”
“It did.”
You didn’t argue. You didn’t tease him. You didn’t even look at him again. You just kept driving, eyes on the path, pretending the moment hadn’t happened. And you definitely didn’t mind that it had.
Not that you would ever admit anything.
────────────
The boat rocked gently over the turquoise water, sunlight bouncing off the surface so brightly it almost hurt to look at. It should have been peaceful, the kind of morning people wrote postcards about. But unfortunately, part of the honeymoon package included couples snorkeling—something that would have been lovely if your “husband” wasn’t Lando Norris.
You sat beside him with your legs tucked under you, still mid‑argument from the pier, still annoyed, still refusing to let him win even a single point.
“No, I’m telling you,” you said, pointing at him like you were presenting evidence in court, “you cheated yesterday.”
“I did not cheat,” he replied flatly, not even blinking. “You just don’t understand basic physics.”
“I understand physics perfectly fine, actually.”
“Clearly not.”
“You literally aimed your ball into a bush and called it strategy.”
“It was strategy.”
Before you could continue, another couple sitting nearby—around your age, relaxed, sun‑kissed, clearly enjoying their vacation—turned toward you with amused smiles. They had that look people get when they stumble into entertainment they didn’t pay for.
“Are you two always like this?” the woman asked, still smiling.
Lando didn’t hesitate. Not even a breath.
“Yes.”
You cut in immediately, shaking your head. “No.”
That earned you a side glance from him, sharp and quick, like he couldn’t believe you’d contradict him in public.
The couple laughed, clearly delighted.
“You’re on your honeymoon, right?” the man asked.
Silence.
A very suspicious silence.
Lando nodded slowly, dragging the word out like it physically pained him. “Unfortunately.”
You kicked his foot under the seat, not gently.
The man looked between you both, still smiling, clearly enjoying the chaos you and Lando brought with you like it was part of the entertainment package. The boat rocked gently beneath you, warm wind brushing your face, but the question he asked cut straight through the easy atmosphere.
“So… why did you get married then?”
It hit a little too directly. A little too cleanly. You didn’t even think before answering.
“Because he’s rich.”
Lando’s head snapped toward you so fast you genuinely thought he might fall off the boat. His eyes were wide, offended, and a little betrayed.
“What?”
The couple laughed, assuming it was a joke—because of course they did. No one sane would say that seriously on a honeymoon boat.
You waved your hand quickly, trying to soften it. “I’m joking.”
“Mostly,” Lando muttered under his breath.
You elbowed him, but the couple didn’t seem to notice. They were still smiling, still entertained, still convinced they were witnessing some adorable newlywed banter instead of two people barely holding their fake marriage together.
“Fair enough,” the man said with a shrug, still amused. Then he leaned forward Lando slightly, curiosity bright in his eyes. “So what do you do, then?”
Your eye twitched at the word husband. It felt too heavy, too sharp, too wrong in your ears.
Lando answered before you could even inhale.
“I drive.”
The man blinked. “Like… cars?”
“Yeah.”
There was a beat—a tiny pause where the man’s face went blank, like his brain was flipping through a mental Rolodex. Then his eyes lit up all at once.
“Oh! Formula 1?”
Lando nodded once, calm on the outside, but you saw the tiny shift in his shoulders. The man’s expression changed instantly, excitement blooming across his face like someone had just handed him front‑row tickets to something huge.
“No way—Lando Norris? My brother is a huge fan! He never shuts up about you.”
Lando froze for the briefest second. It was small, barely there, but you noticed. Of course you noticed. You always noticed the little things he tried to hide.
“Oh,” the man continued, grinning even wider now, “I didn’t know you were married, mate.”
The silence that followed could’ve sunk the boat. It stretched between you and Lando like a rope pulled too tight. You both turned to look at each other at the exact same time, eyes locking in a silent, panicked conversation neither of you wanted to have out loud.
Then, without missing a beat, Lando smiled.
“It was a small wedding, y’know. Kept it private. I like keeping some things to myself.”
The lie rolled off his tongue so smoothly it was almost concerning. He didn’t even blink. He didn’t hesitate. He just… said it.
The man nodded approvingly, buying every word, then turned to you with a warm smile.
“Well, you’re lucky. Having a world champion at home.”
Pardon?
Absolutely not.
You smiled sweetly, matching his tone with practiced ease. “He’s the lucky one.”
Lando glanced at you, something flickering in his eyes—surprise, amusement, maybe a hint of something softer—but you didn’t give him time to process it.
“He’d be hopeless without me,” you added, completely unfazed.
“Oh, absolutely,” Lando replied, his grin returning, though it was a little tighter this time. “I’d forget where I left my trophies.”
The couple laughed, delighted, convinced they were witnessing a charming, playful honeymoon moment.
They had no idea you were both lying through your teeth.
Five minutes later, another problem appeared—one that had nothing to do with fake marriages or curious strangers. The snorkeling mask refused to cooperate. You adjusted the strap once, then again, then a third time, each attempt somehow making it sit even more crooked against your face. The elastic kept slipping, the plastic pressed awkwardly against your cheek, and the whole thing felt like it had been designed specifically to test your patience.
“For God’s sake,” you muttered under your breath, tugging at the strap like it had personally wronged you.
Lando looked over from where he was already wearing his own gear, mask perfectly fitted, snorkel in place, looking like someone who had never struggled with anything in his life. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to make this stupid thing fit,” you snapped, still wrestling with it.
He watched you for a few seconds—long enough to be annoying, long enough to make you feel judged—before letting out an exaggerated sigh that carried across the entire boat. “C’mere.”
“I can do it myself.”
“Clearly.”
You shot him a glare sharp enough to cut through the ocean breeze. “I said I can do it myself.”
“Just come here,” he said, already holding out his hand like he’d made the decision for you. “I want to look like a decent husband while I’m apparently married. The last thing I need is gossip pages saying I abandoned my wife before she even got in the water.”
“How embarrassing,” you muttered, rolling your eyes so hard it almost hurt.
He ignored the comment completely. Instead, he reached out, gently catching your wrist with warm fingers, pulling you the last step closer before you could protest again. The movement was soft, almost careful, and your argument died somewhere in your throat before you could shape it into words.
He reached behind your head with the confidence of someone who absolutely believed he knew what he was doing. His fingers brushed your hair as he tried to fix the loose strap, and within two seconds you felt a sharp tug at your scalp.
“Ow! Stop pulling my hair!”
“I’m not pulling your hair,” Lando said immediately, like the accusation offended him on a personal level.
“You are pulling my hair!”
“Then stop moving!”
“I’m not moving!”
“You’re literally flinching.”
“Because you’re yanking it!”
A couple of snorkelers nearby glanced over, clearly wondering if they needed to intervene. You forced a bright, strained smile, teeth clenched so tightly it almost hurt.
“Everything’s fine,” you said, voice pitched a little too high. “Totally fine.”
Lando didn’t even look up. He was still tangled in the straps, still muttering under his breath like you were the problem and not his complete lack of technique.
“It is not fine,” he grumbled. “You have the coordination of a broken GPS.”
You stared at him, offended on a spiritual level. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
He tugged again.
“Ow—Lando!”
“Relax, I’m fixing it.”
“You’re making it worse.”
“I’m literally not.”
“Yes, you are.”
He paused, leaning back just enough to look at the mask like it was a failed engineering project he’d been assigned against his will. His brows pulled together, his mouth flattening into a line that told you he was already blaming you for whatever he saw.
“…Okay, I see the problem.”
“You are the problem.”
He ignored that completely, like he’d trained himself not to hear your insults anymore. Instead, he shifted closer again, this time slower, more careful, his fingers brushing your hair aside so he could get to the strap properly. The boat rocked gently beneath you, and for a moment the world felt strangely quiet—just the warm air, the soft slap of water against the hull, and his hands working behind your head.
“Stop moving,” he said again, but his voice was quieter now, less irritated and more focused, like he was trying not to mess it up this time.
You went still.
Not because he told you to.
Definitely not.
It was just easier than arguing while he was this close, while his fingers were sorting through your hair with surprising gentleness, while the sun warmed the back of your neck and made everything feel a little too noticeable.
After a few seconds of concentrated effort—the kind where he muttered something under his breath that you pretended not to hear—he tightened the strap properly and stepped back, letting his hands fall away.
“There,” he said, sounding far too proud of himself.
You tested the mask with a small tug.
It didn’t move. Not even a little.
“…Huh.”
“Yeah,” he said, smugness blooming across his face like he’d just solved world peace. “Miracles do happen.”
You narrowed your eyes at him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a smile.
“Don’t get used to it.”
He grinned, bright and unbothered, the wind catching his hair as the boat rocked again.
“No promises, wife.”
The boat slowed to a stop, the engine cutting out until all you could hear was the soft slap of waves against the hull. It rocked gently over the open water, turquoise stretching in every direction, sunlight so bright it turned everything into glitter. It should have been peaceful. It should have been romantic. It should have been the kind of moment people remembered forever.
But you were here with Lando.
A guide stepped forward with an easy smile, gesturing toward the water. “Alright everyone, this is one of the best spots. Coral reef just below, lots of fish. Stay in pairs, enjoy yourselves, and don’t wander too far.”
“Stay in pairs,” Lando repeated under his breath, just loud enough for you to hear. “Heard him, wife?”
You shot him a warning look. “Don’t start.”
But he was already smirking, already enjoying himself far too much for someone who’d spent the entire morning annoying you.
Before either of you could argue, the guide clapped his hands. “Okay—snorkeling time!”
You turned to adjust your mask one last time, fingers brushing the strap—
And Lando shoved you. Hard.
There was no time to react. No time to yell properly. Just a sharp gasp and the sudden, shocking drop as the world tilted.
You hit the water with a splash that swallowed the sound instantly. Cold, bright blue wrapped around you, rushing over your head, filling your ears, stealing your breath for a moment. The ocean felt huge, endless, everywhere at once.
You resurfaced seconds later, coughing, hair plastered to your face, mask askew.
“Lando—!”
He was already in the water beside you, laughing so hard he had to wipe his eyes. The sun caught the droplets on his face, turning him into something annoyingly golden and carefree.
“You were taking too long,” he said, still grinning.
“I hate you!” you yelled, already swimming toward him with more force than necessary.
He only laughed harder, kicking away just enough to stay out of reach, the water rippling between you.
You made it exactly two strokes before something brushed your foot again. It was light, barely there, just a soft flick against your skin—but it didn’t matter. Your entire body locked up instantly, every muscle going stiff like you’d been hit with electricity.
“Nope—nope—nope—” you sputtered, kicking upward in pure panic.
“Relax,” Lando called, still laughing, still floating like this was the easiest thing in the world. “It’s just fish.”
“I don’t care what it is!”
Another brush—this time against your ankle, quick and cold.
That was it.
You didn’t think. You didn’t plan. You didn’t even breathe. You just launched yourself forward on instinct, arms flailing, legs kicking, heart pounding so loudly you could hear it in your ears—
—and you basically jumped straight into his arms.
Lando caught you automatically, the impact pushing him backward a little in the water. His hands came up around you without hesitation, steadying you, holding you up as you clung to him like the ocean was trying to drag you under.
For a second, he didn’t move. He just stood there in the water, arms half‑raised, eyes wide, like he wasn’t sure what version of reality he’d just stepped into.
Then he looked down at you.
“…Are you hugging me right now?”
“No.”
“You are literally attached to me.”
“I am stabilising myself.”
“Against my chest?”
“Shut up!”
His laugh came immediately—bright, loud, helpless—the kind that shook his shoulders and made the water ripple around you. He tilted his head back, still laughing, like he couldn’t believe this was happening.
And even though your heart was still racing, even though your legs were still wrapped around him more than you wanted to admit, even though you were absolutely not letting go yet…
You felt something warm slip into your chest.
Something you refused to name.
────────────
By the time the snorkeling trip ended, you had decided—very calmly, very rationally—that you deserved a drink. Preferably several. The kind that came in tall glasses with too much ice and not enough sense. The resort bar overlooked the ocean, the sky turning soft shades of gold and pink as the sun dipped lower. Music drifted through the warm evening air, blending with the sound of waves and the low hum of guests laughing around candlelit tables.
Lando stood a few steps away, somehow already deep in conversation with his new friend from the boat. They were talking with their hands, laughing too loudly, probably bonding over Formula 1 or golf or whatever else inflated his ego. You didn’t care enough to find out. You just wanted something cold, something strong, something that would make the memory of fish touching your legs fade into the background.
You leaned against the counter and ordered the strongest cocktail on the menu. The bartender slid it toward you with a practiced smile, the glass sweating in the warm air. You wrapped your fingers around it, grateful for the chill, ready to take the first blessed sip—
When a voice spoke from beside you.
“Try smiling a little.”
You turned your head slowly, already tired, already annoyed. A man stood there, a few years older, wearing a shirt that tried too hard and a smile that tried even harder. He looked at you like he’d just delivered the most charming line in the world, like he expected you to melt on the spot.
You looked at him. Then at your drink. Then back at him.
“Try minding your own business a little.”
“I’m just being friendly.”
“Then be friendly somewhere else.”
He laughed, the kind of laugh men use when they think you’re playing hard to get instead of trying to end the conversation. His elbow slid onto the bar, his posture loose, confident, practiced.
“That attitude won’t get you very far.”
“I’m already exactly where I want to be,” you said, lifting your drink like a shield.
“You sure?” he asked, leaning in just a little. “You look lonely.”
You opened your mouth—ready to shut him down properly this time—when a warm hand settled lightly on your waist.
Not gripping.
Not pulling.
Just… there.
“Everything okay, baby?”
Lando.
You turned so fast you nearly sloshed your drink over the rim. For what might have been the first time since this entire ridiculous honeymoon began, you felt something close to relief wash through you. His presence cut through the moment like a lifeline you didn’t know you needed.
The stranger blinked, looking between the two of you, confusion flickering across his face.
“And you are…?”
Lando didn’t hesitate. Not even for a breath.
“Her husband.”
He said it smoothly, easily, like it was the most natural thing in the world. His hand stayed on your waist, warm and steady. The stranger’s expression shifted, surprise tightening his mouth before he stepped back a little.
“Oh,” the man said after a moment, blinking like he’d just been handed information he didn’t know what to do with. “Didn’t know she was married.”
Lando offered a small, polite smile—the kind he used in interviews when he was pretending to be patient.
“She is.”
The conversation should have ended there. It should have drifted off into the warm evening air and disappeared like every other awkward bar interaction on vacation.
Instead, the man chuckled and looked right back at you, like he hadn’t learned a single thing.
“You should teach her some basic manners, man.”
The easy smile vanished from Lando’s face so fast it was almost impressive.
“What?”
The stranger shrugged, casual, careless, like he was commenting on the weather. “She’s got quite the attitude.”
“And so what?” Lando shot back, voice sharper now. “She doesn’t owe you a shit.”
The man lifted a brow. “Doesn’t mean she can act like a bi—”
“Hey!” Lando stepped forward so quickly the man actually leaned back. “Don’t talk about my wife like that or I’ll beat the shit out of—”
He was too close now. Way too close. His shoulders were tight, jaw clenched, eyes locked on the guy like he’d forgotten this was supposed to be an act. You didn’t even know if he was pretending anymore.
“Lando,” you said quietly, reaching for his wrist. Your fingers brushed his skin, warm and tense. “Drop it.”
He didn’t look at you right away. He stayed there for a heartbeat longer, breathing hard, anger still simmering under the surface.
Then, slowly, he stepped back.
Not because the man deserved it. But because you asked. The irony wasn’t lost on you—the one time he actually acted like a husband was the moment you needed him to stop.
“You okay?” Lando asked.
You blinked, because the question caught you more off guard than the argument ever had. It wasn’t the words themselves—it was the way he said them, low and tight, like he’d been holding them in since the moment he stepped between you and that guy at the bar.
“I’m fine,” you said quickly. “I had it handled.”
Lando let out a short laugh, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It didn’t even come close. “Yeah. I could tell. You were doing a great job being harassed at the bar.”
Your jaw tightened, heat rising in your chest. “I didn’t need you to save me like that.”
“Right,” he said, nodding once, sharp and clipped. “So next time I should just stand there and let him keep going?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“That’s what it sounded like.”
“I didn’t ask you to play my husband.”
That one landed differently—you felt it the second it left your mouth. Lando went quiet, the kind of quiet that wasn’t defensive or angry, just… wounded. He exhaled through his nose, looking away toward the ocean like he needed a second to reset whatever expression had almost slipped through.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “Fair.”
You took a sip of your drink, more out of habit than thirst, trying to steady yourself, trying to find the right words before the wrong ones kept spilling out.
“I can handle myself,” you added, quieter now, softer, because you meant it but you didn’t want it to sound like a wall.
“I know you can,” he replied immediately.
That made you pause.
He looked back at you then, the sharpness in his expression easing just enough that you could finally see the truth sitting underneath it—not anger, not irritation, but something quieter.
“I just didn’t like the way he was talking to you,” Lando said, voice low, steady, almost too honest.
You scoffed lightly, because that felt safer than acknowledging whatever was happening in your chest.
“Since when do you care?”
That earned you a small, humorless smile—the kind that didn’t reach his eyes, the kind that told you he’d already had this argument with himself long before you opened your mouth.
“I don’t,” he said. “Usually.”
A beat.
“But he was being a dick.”
You rolled your eyes, but it wasn’t as strong as you wanted it to be. It felt flimsy, thin, like you were trying to hold onto a version of the conversation that had already slipped away.
“And you decided that made you responsible for the entire situation?”
“I decided,” he corrected, leaning back slightly, shoulders tense, “that I didn’t want him standing there talking to you like that.”
You studied him for a second—the set of his jaw, the way he kept glancing at the ocean like it might give him an escape route, the way his fingers tapped once against his thigh before he stilled them. He wasn’t posturing. He wasn’t trying to win. He was just… telling you the truth.
“Still didn’t need to act like that,” you said, quieter now.
“Neither did he.”
Another pause—heavier this time, stretched thin between you like a wire ready to snap.
Then Lando tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing just a fraction as he looked at you.
“You’re really going to stay mad at me for this?”
The question wasn’t defensive.
It was something else entirely—something that made your breath catch, because suddenly it felt like he wasn’t asking about the bar anymore.
He was asking about him. About you. About whatever the hell had been simmering between you long before tonight.
You opened your mouth again, still riding the leftover adrenaline from stopping him.
“I just think you don’t get to—”
“Shut up.”
You stopped. Blinking. “Excuse me?”
“I said shut up.”
“I’m literally in the middle of talking.”
“Yeah,” Lando said, stepping a fraction closer, eyes locked on yours, “I noticed.”
You frowned, heat rising in your chest. “Don’t tell me to—”
He cut you off. Not with words.
He just kissed you.
Quick. Firm. Completely unexpected. It wasn’t gentle, and it wasn’t planned, and it definitely wasn’t something either of you had agreed to in any universe where you were still pretending to hate each other properly. It hit you like a spark—sharp, bright, over before you could even process it.
It lasted maybe two seconds.
Then he pulled back like nothing had happened, like he hadn’t just short‑circuited your entire brain.
You stared at him. He stared back.
Then, very calmly, he said, “I said shut up.”
Your brain lagged, trying to catch up, trying to make sense of the moment, the heat still buzzing on your lips.
“…Norris, what the fuck?”
He didn’t answer right away. His chest rose and fell once, slow, steady, like he was trying to pretend he wasn’t affected at all.
But his eyes told a different story.
A very different one.
Lando didn’t even blink. “What?”
“You just—” you gestured wildly between the two of you, your voice climbing without your permission. “You just kissed me.”
“Yeah.”
“‘Yeah’?” you repeated, staring at him like he’d lost his mind.
He frowned slightly, like you were the one being dramatic. Like you were the unreasonable one here.
“You were overthinking it,” he said, tone maddeningly calm. “Overthinking’s bad for you, baby.”
That made you pause. You hated that it made you pause. You hated the way the word baby slid under your skin like it belonged there.
“…Right,” you said slowly, trying to gather your thoughts. “Doesn’t mean you can just kiss me.”
“Pretty sure I can,” he replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
You narrowed your eyes at him, crossing your arms, trying to rebuild whatever dignity you had left.
“Hm. Don’t think this means anything though.”
“I would never,” Lando said immediately.
Too immediately.
The kind of immediate that wasn’t casual at all. The kind that sounded like he’d rehearsed it. The kind that made something warm twist low in your stomach.
You studied him, searching his face for even a flicker of something he didn’t want you to see.
He held your gaze without flinching, jaw set, eyes steady, like he was daring you to call him out. “…Good,” you said finally, lifting your chin. “Because it doesn’t.”
“Of course not.”
His voice was smooth. Too smooth. Like he was trying to convince himself as much as you. And the worst part? You weren’t convinced either.
────────────
The villa was suspiciously quiet, the kind of quiet that made every thought in your head sound louder. You sat on the edge of the outdoor couch with your legs pulled in, staring out at the dark water. The waves moved in slow, steady lines, catching bits of moonlight and breaking them apart. It should have been calming.
It wasn’t. You were trying not to think. Which, of course, only made you think more.
About Lando. About the kiss. About the way he’d looked afterward—too calm, too steady, like he hadn’t just scrambled your ability to act normal around him. About how everything had been… different since then. Not worse. Not better. Just different in a way neither of you had dared to name.
And about how today was the last day. The last night of this ridiculous honeymoon.
Behind you, the sliding door opened.
You didn’t turn. “Go away,” you mumbled.
“I live here too,” Lando said, dropping onto the couch beside you. He didn’t look at you. He just stared out at the ocean like he’d been doing it long before he walked outside.
Silence stretched between you, warm and heavy.
Then, after a minute—
“Well.”
“Well,” Lando echoed.
You exhaled slowly, eyes still on the water. “At least tomorrow we can go back to normal.”
He finally glanced at you. “Normal?”
“You know,” you said, still refusing to look at him. “You hating me. Me hating you.”
“Right.”
But he didn’t sound convinced.
And the worst part? Neither did you.
The breeze moved through the villa again, soft and warm, brushing over your skin like it knew something you didn’t want to admit. Lando shifted beside you, just enough that you felt the movement, not enough to call it anything.
Normal. You said it like you wanted it. But the word didn’t sit right anymore.
The silence fell again, stretching out between you like a thin thread. But this time, Lando was the one who spoke first.
“This trip wasn’t that bad.”
You let out a quiet laugh, shaking your head. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Hm.” You looked back at the water, the moonlight breaking across the waves. “At least we survived.”
A beat.
“Now we’ll just go back to avoiding each other like before.”
“Yeah,” Lando said.
Then, after a pause that felt a little too long—
“Yeah,” he repeated, quieter. “That’s the problem.”
You finally turned your head. He wasn’t smiling anymore.
His jaw was tight, his eyes fixed on the horizon like he didn’t trust himself to look at you. The warm breeze moved through the villa, brushing over your skin, but it didn’t soften the moment. It only made it clearer.
For the first time all night, you couldn’t tell if he was joking.
Or if he meant it.
And the way he sat there—shoulders tense, hands still, breath a little uneven—made something in your chest shift in a way you weren’t ready for.
You swallowed, the words catching in your throat.
“…Lando?”
He didn’t look away from the ocean. But his voice was low, honest in a way that made your heart stutter.
“I don’t want to go back to that.”
You looked at him, confused.
“What?”
Lando kept staring out at the water. And for the first time since you’d known him, he looked nervous. Actually nervous. His shoulders were tight, his jaw working like he was trying to choose the right words and failing.
“I didn’t want to come here,” he said quietly.
“I noticed.”
“I thought it’d be the worst week of my life.”
You smiled faintly. “Again, noticed.”
A small laugh escaped him—soft, almost embarrassed.
Then—
“But somewhere between you nearly killing me with a golf cart…”
“You grabbed my thigh.”
“Not helping.”
You let out a quiet huff of laughter despite yourself. “Continue.”
Lando exhaled, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m serious.”
“I know.”
A beat passed—warm, heavy, stretching between you like a held breath.
He didn’t look at you when he spoke again.
“It stopped being annoying.”
Your smile faded a little. “…When?”
Lando shrugged, like the answer wasn’t important even though it clearly was. “Dunno.”
Silence settled again. The ocean kept moving, steady and calm, like it didn’t care that something between you had just shifted in a way you couldn’t undo.
Then he finally looked at you. Really looked.
“And now I don’t really want it to end. Us.”
Your breath caught—just a tiny, sharp inhale—but you masked it quickly with a scoff, like you could pretend the moment wasn’t sitting between you, warm and terrifying.
“Somewhere between pushing you into the ocean and kissing you to shut you up…” Lando said, his voice quieter now, steadier in a way that made your stomach twist. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He wasn’t hiding behind jokes or smirks or that stupid confidence he wore like armor. He was just looking at you—really looking—and it stripped away every layer of distance you’d been pretending still existed.
“I think I fell in love with you.”
You stared at him.
For a moment, your brain simply refused to cooperate. The words sat there in the air, warm and heavy, like a language you almost understood but couldn’t quite translate. You blinked once. Then again. Your heart thudded in your chest, too loud, too fast, like it was trying to catch up to something your mind hadn’t processed yet.
“…That’s actually really embarrassing for you,” you managed, because your mouth was apparently determined to save you from sincerity at all costs.
Lando didn’t move. Didn’t laugh.
Didn’t roll his eyes or shove your shoulder or call you dramatic. He just stared at you like he couldn’t believe you’d said that. Like you’d knocked the air out of him.
“Are you serious?” he asked, voice flat, almost stunned.
“A little.”
“I just told you I love you.”
“I know.”
“And that’s your response?”
You exhaled softly, something nervous and warm and terrifying settling in your chest all at once. You felt it rise up, felt it push against your ribs, felt it spill into your throat before you could stop it. And then your mouth betrayed you—not with sarcasm this time, but with a smile.
A real one. A soft one.
The kind you didn’t give to people you hated.
“Good thing I love you too.”
The words left you before you could second‑guess them, before you could hide them behind a joke, before you could pretend you didn’t mean them. They hung there between you, gentle and impossible to take back.
Lando’s breath caught—just barely, just enough for you to notice. His eyes softened, the tension in his shoulders loosening like he’d been holding something in for days.
Lando didn’t move for a second.
Just stared.
Like he was waiting for a punchline that didn’t come. Like he was bracing for you to laugh or shove him or turn everything into a joke the way you always did when things got too close.
Then, quietly—
“…What?”
You let out a breath, half‑laughing, half in disbelief at yourself, because you couldn’t believe you were actually saying this out loud. “I said I love you, idiot.”
His expression shifted immediately. The shock didn’t disappear, but it softened into something raw, something unguarded, something he clearly wasn’t used to showing anyone. His eyes searched your face like he was trying to make sure he’d heard you right.
“You can’t just say that like it’s—”
“What? A prank?” you cut in, shaking your head. “No. Unfortunately for both of us, it’s real.”
Silence again.
The ocean kept moving. The wind didn’t care. The whole world stayed exactly the same while your heart tried to beat its way out of your chest. You looked down at your hands, then back at him, because avoiding his eyes wasn’t helping.
“You were pissing me off the entire trip,” you admitted, your voice softer than you meant it to be.
That got a faint, incredulous laugh out of him—the kind that slipped out before he could stop it. “Cheers.”
“It’s true,” you said quickly, pointing at him like it helped your argument. “You were annoying. Arrogant. You shoved me into the ocean. You called me a violent wife.”
“I was right about that one.”
“Shut up.”
But your voice wasn’t sharp anymore. It wavered slightly, like the truth underneath it was pushing its way through.
“And I really did hate you at the beginning,” you added, quieter now. “Like, properly.”
Lando’s gaze didn’t leave you. Not for a second.
“But?”
You hesitated.
That part was the hardest one. The part that felt like stepping off a ledge and hoping he’d catch you.
“But…” you exhaled, looking away toward the water like it might make this easier. “I think it started changing when you defended me at the bar.”
He went still.
Your fingers tightened slightly in your lap, the memory hitting you harder now that you were saying it out loud.
“That guy was being an asshole,” you continued, your voice softer, steadier. “And I was handling it, or trying to. And you just… stepped in.”
A small pause.
“And I remember thinking you were so angry,” you said, almost like you were discovering it again. “Like actually angry. Not joking, not teasing. Just… protective.”
You glanced at him again.
“That confused me more than anything you did on this entire trip.”
A faint breath left Lando, like he didn’t know what to do with that. His shoulders dropped a little, the tension easing in a way that made him look younger, more open, more real.
Then he finally spoke.
“I just hated the idea of somebody talking to you like that.”
His voice was quieter than before. Not defensive. Not playful. Just honest in a way that made your chest tighten.
A beat passed.
He gave a small shrug, like he was trying to pretend it didn’t matter as much as it did.
“I don’t know,” he added. “It pissed me off.”
The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable anymore. It didn’t feel sharp or heavy or awkward. It was just… full. Like something had finally settled into place between you, something neither of you could pretend wasn’t there anymore. The air felt warmer. The night felt closer. And for the first time, you didn’t feel like you were waiting for the moment to break.
You swallowed slightly, still looking at him, still trying to understand the way your chest felt too tight and too light at the same time. “…Thank you,” you said quietly.
Lando gave you a small, almost confused glance, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard you right. “For what?”
You let out a soft breath, half a laugh, half something else. “For… all of it, I guess.”
That earned you a look from him you weren’t used to—soft, steady, not trying to twist into a joke. He didn’t hide behind anything this time. He just looked at you like he was letting himself be seen.
Then he shifted slightly, reaching into his pocket. “I have something for you.”
You blinked, watching as he pulled out a small silver chain. A turtle necklace. The same one you’d stared at in the shop. The same one you’d pretended you didn’t want.
Your breath caught. “…You bought it?” you asked, taking it carefully from his hand.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“You said it was cute.”
“But it was so expensive!”
“And?” he said simply, like the answer should’ve been obvious. “Do I look like I care?”
Your fingers closed gently around the necklace, holding it like it might slip away if you weren’t careful. The charm felt warm against your skin, like it had been waiting in his pocket for this exact moment.
“…You didn’t have to,” you said again, quieter now, the words almost slipping out on their own.
“I know.”
A beat passed.
“But I wanted to.”
That was it. No joke. No smirk. No dramatic line to cover the truth. Just him. Just honesty. Just the kind of softness you never expected from him and didn’t know how to handle.
You looked at him for a second longer than you meant to—long enough to feel something shift in your chest, long enough to feel your breath catch again.
Then you moved before your brain could talk you out of it.
You grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him in.
The kiss was softer this time. Not rushed. Not defensive. Not a reaction to anything. Just real. Just warm. Just the two of you finally letting something happen that had been building all week. His hand came up to your jaw, gentle in a way that made your heart stutter, and for a moment the whole villa felt still.
When you pulled back, you were both slightly breathless, and for once neither of you pretended it meant nothing. You stayed close, your forehead almost touching his, your breath mixing with his in the warm night air.
“Thank you,” you whispered, the words brushing against his lips.
Lando let out a quiet breath of a laugh, soft and disbelieving. “Yeah,” he said, voice low. Then, after a beat—one that felt like it stretched forever—he added, “I love you.”
Your heart stuttered. For a second, you just stared at him, like you were making sure you hadn’t imagined it, like you needed to see the truth in his eyes before you let yourself believe it.
Then your mouth softened into a small smile, warm and helpless. “…You’re so annoying,” you murmured.
He frowned slightly. “That’s not an answer.”
You exhaled, still smiling, still feeling that strange, steady warmth spreading through your chest. “I know.”
A pause.
Then, quieter—completely sure this time: “I love you too.”
And this time, neither of you joked your way out of it. Neither of you looked away. Neither of you pretended it didn’t matter. It mattered. And you both knew it.
babsie radio ! had so many problems while editing this I hit the damn 1000-block limit way too soon!!! I literally wanted to write one more last scene where they come back and P and Max are so confused because they don’t hate each other anymore 😩 I’m so annoyed! I might write a short oneshot of that if you guys want. I hope you enjoy this! This story is so dear to me <3 first fic of summer 2026! 💗
SUMMARY: Lando Norris taught Y/N that sometimes love isn't enough to overcome fear. Max Verstappen, however, seems determined to prove that love was never supposed to be so complicated.
After years of believing her place in the world made her impossible to choose, trusting someone who chooses her so easily might be the hardest thing she'll ever do.
WORD COUNT: 11K
NOTE: Hi! Thank you so much for all the love and support you've shown my Max stories. I have to admit he's one of my favorite drivers to write about, and I absolutely adored writing him in this one. I really hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed creating it. English isn't my first language, so you may come across some grammar or wording mistakes.
masterlist
The first time I realized there were people who were born in places different from mine, I was eight years old.
It wasn’t because someone explained it to me. It was because I overheard two of my grandmother’s neighbors talking while they played dominoes in her backyard.
“That little girl’s mother sends money from England, doesn’t she?” one of them asked in a raspy voice as she placed another tile on the table.
“She does.”
“Poor thing… Growing up without a father, and with her mother raising other people’s children instead of her own.” The woman took a long drag from her cigarette before continuing the game, as if she had just made the most ordinary comment in the world.
I kept drawing in the dirt with a stick, pretending I hadn’t heard a thing. Children learn very early which conversations aren’t meant for them.
That night, while my grandmother peeled potatoes for dinner, I couldn’t keep the question to myself any longer.
“Grandma…”
She looked up for only a second.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Is it true that my mom takes care of other children in England?”
Her hands froze over the cutting board for a few seconds.
“Your mother works.”
“But… taking care of other children?”
“Yes.”
I lowered my eyes to the concrete floor. I remember staring at a tiny crack, unable to understand why such a simple answer hurt so much.
“Then why doesn’t she take care of me?” I whispered.
My grandmother didn’t answer. She simply set the knife aside, walked over to me, and gently stroked my hair with a rough hand, worn by years of hard work. Then she quietly returned to the kitchen as if nothing had happened.
As I grew older, I learned that some silences weigh far more than any answer ever could.
When I was twelve, the sweet woman who had raised me my entire life passed away.
Something inside me froze that day. Not even the hot cup of coffee one of our neighbors handed me made me feel anything.
The house was filled with people who, until that moment, had never bothered to show up, and suddenly everyone seemed to have an opinion about what should happen to me.
“She can’t stay here alone.”
“She’s still just a child.”
“Someone needs to call her mother.”
No one asked what I wanted. It was as if being twelve meant I had no right to make decisions about my own life.
Two days after the funeral, my mother arrived carrying a single small suitcase, making it painfully obvious she had no intention of staying for long.
“Tomorrow we’re going to take care of some paperwork,” she said. Those were the first words she spoke after settling into my grandmother’s bedroom.
“What are we going to do?” I asked quietly.
“We’re getting your documents ready. You’re coming back to England with me.” Her voice left no room for questions.
So I stayed silent and let the woman who had spent years away come back and rearrange my entire life.
When we arrived at the Norris family’s house, I finally understood why my mother had chosen to build a life here instead of coming back for me like she’d always promised.
The house was beautiful—bright, spotless, and full of life. It couldn’t have been more different from our little concrete home back in our country, which always felt dark and cold.
My mother showed me the bedroom we’d be sharing, and without another word, she left to begin her daily chores around the house.
I was alone. So I wandered outside into the enormous backyard. Everything felt so unfamiliar… so cold… so depressing.
Or maybe that was simply the way I saw the world now that my grandmother was gone.
My relationship with my mother had always been distant. While we lived in different countries, our conversations rarely lasted more than ten minutes. We spoke only about practical things, never about feelings. That’s why I didn’t trust her enough to tell her everything that was happening inside my head.
My thoughts were suddenly interrupted when a football ball slammed into my arm.
“Ow.” I immediately rubbed the sore spot.
When I looked up, I found myself staring at a green-eyed boy wearing an apologetic smile.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. Those were the only words I understood.
I didn’t speak English. To me, everything else sounded like an endless stream of meaningless sounds.
“I… don’t speak English,” I managed to say.
“Oh…” His eyes widened with understanding. “Lucía?”
He cradled his arms as if rocking a baby, and I quickly realized he was asking if I was Lucía’s daughter.
I simply nodded. I thought that would be the end of our interaction. Instead, he stayed exactly where he was.
First, he pointed at himself.
“Lando.”
Then he pointed at me.
“Y/N,” I replied.
His smile grew even wider, clearly pleased that we’d managed to communicate despite the language barrier.
He bent down, picked up the football ball that had been forgotten on the grass, and held it out toward me. Then he pointed his thumb toward a makeshift pitch a few yards away.
He was inviting me to play.
I wanted to say no. But the simple kindness of someone making such an effort to communicate with me, despite neither of us speaking the other’s language, awakened a warmth in my chest that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. So I said yes.
After that day, our friendship blossomed.
Lando was the one who practically taught me how to speak English, while I taught him bits and pieces of Spanish.
We spent countless afternoons playing on his PlayStation or running around the backyard whenever the sun was out. When my mother grounded me and refused to let me leave my room, he’d sneak candy under my bedroom door. Whenever he got into trouble, I’d do the same for him.
As the years passed, our little friendship slowly became something else. Somewhere along the way, the flame of love had ignited within my heart, and from the way Lando looked at me, I was certain that it burned just as intensely within his.
One ordinary afternoon, in the middle of one of our usual games, we shared our first kiss. It was shy, awkward, and over almost as quickly as it had begun.
Afterward, we avoided each other for days. Neither of us knew how we were supposed to act after crossing that line.
Eventually, though, we slipped back into our old routine. We depended on each other too much to let a single kiss ruin everything, so we quietly agreed to pretend it had never happened.
Until the day we crossed a line no friendship ever should.
We slept together for the first time.
The next morning, Lando tried to act like nothing had changed. He laughed, joked, and spoke to me exactly the way he always had.
But eventually, the weight of the question hanging between us—What are we now?—became too much for him to ignore.
“I’m sorry, Y/N,” he said quietly. “I never meant for this to happen. You mean so much to me, and I don’t want us holding onto hopes we both know can’t become reality… You know we can’t be together.”
As he spoke the most painful words my sixteen-year-old heart had ever heard, he couldn’t even bring himself to look me in the eye.
I simply nodded and forced a small smile. It hurt more than I could ever describe, but I understood. Someone like him—someone with endless opportunities, someone destined to conquer the world—could never be with someone like me.
The daughter of the housekeeper.
The years that followed were some of the hardest of my life. Lando threw himself completely into his racing career, and little by little, we stopped spending our days together.
At home, things weren’t any easier.
My mother became unbearable. To this day, I don’t know whether it was my teenage hormones or her constant need to control every aspect of my life, but every conversation between us turned into another argument.
By the time I turned eighteen, our relationship had reached the point of no return. One fight escalated until it became physical. So I packed the few clothes and belongings I owned, walked out of that house, and never looked back.
For the first time in years, I was ready to start over. Free from my mother’s control and free from the feelings that had kept my heart tied to Lando for far too long.
(…)
Eight long years had passed since that day.
Time had brought maturity with it, and I had managed to heal many of the wounds I’d carried inside me.
Life hadn’t become any easier after leaving the Norris household. I’d had to work incredibly hard just to support myself, and although I still hadn’t reached the goals I’d set for myself, I could finally say I was stable.
My relationship with my mother, while still complicated, had improved somewhat. At the very least, we could now have a conversation without arguing. Sometimes we even laughed together.
Things with Lando were much the same. Every now and then we’d call each other to ask how life was going, but that was the extent of it. I couldn’t even say we were friends anymore. We were simply two people who shared the nostalgia of the past we’d share together.
One ordinary Sunday, I was invited to the Norris house for a small lunch.
Lando was there with his new girlfriend, along with several of his friends.
Watching him be so affectionate with her made my stomach twist. I wasn’t in love with Lando anymore—that had been left in the past—but I couldn’t help mourning what we might have become if social class hadn’t mattered so much.
I was helping my mother clean up in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. Since no one seemed to hear it from the backyard, I decided to answer the door myself.
“Good afternoon,” a blond man with striking blue eyes greeted me.
He looked strangely familiar.
“Hi. How can I help you?” I asked, studying his serious expression.
With that same curiosity, he began studying mine.
“Max! I thought you weren’t going to make it!” Lando’s cheerful voice broke the strange silence between us.
I looked back at the blond man, and suddenly his face clicked into place.
Max Verstappen.
Just like Lando, he was a Formula One driver.
I stepped aside to let him in. He gave me one last lingering glance before following Lando toward the backyard.
The afternoon passed without anything particularly remarkable happening.
Everything felt perfectly normal… Except for the fact that Max Verstappen kept looking at me.
We were all scattered around the garden. Lando’s girlfriend settled beside him on the outdoor sofa and intertwined her fingers with his the moment I walked over to set a few plates on the table. The gesture was far too deliberate to be accidental.
I chose to ignore it or at least, I tried to.
“So, what do you do for a living?” she suddenly asked me.
“I work as a dancer at a theater, and from time to time I also work at art exhibitions.”
I conveniently left out the job that actually occupied most of my time: working as a barista at a coffee shop.
“Really?” She smiled. It was a beautiful smile, but completely hollow. “That’s interesting. I honestly thought you’d still be working here with your mom.”
The silence that followed was almost imperceptible. But it was there. I could feel several pairs of eyes turning toward me. I took a slow breath before answering.
“No. I’ve been living on my own for years.”
“I see…” She took a sip of her drink. “I suppose growing up here must have opened a lot of doors for you.”
She hadn’t raised her voice. She hadn’t said anything openly offensive. But every single person there understood exactly what she was implying.
That anything I’d achieved was because of the Norris family. Not because I’d earned it myself.
Lando opened his mouth.
“She got her job on her own—”
“I was only saying she’s been lucky,” his girlfriend interrupted with a flawless smile.
I didn’t want to stay there anymore.
I picked up my glass and announced that I was going to the kitchen for another drink before turning away, not giving anyone the chance to stop me.
The moment I stepped into the kitchen, I had to take several deep breaths to keep my anger under control.
Who the fuck did that bitch think she was?
Who had given her the right to judge me like that?
I’d worked my ass off these past eight years to build a life for myself. No one had ever handed me anything on a silver platter… Like they most likely had with her.
Stupid bitch.
Stupid Lando.
A few years earlier, I probably would’ve destroyed her with a comeback so brutal everyone around us would’ve been clutching their pearls.
“You’re actually pretty nice, you know? If I were you, I wouldn’t have let that slide.” A deep, raspy voice pulled me out of my murderous thoughts.
I turned around to find Max filling a glass with water.
“Are you trying to start a fight?” I asked, crossing my arms as I looked at him with amusement.
Max simply shrugged.
“Only if you want to.” He took a sip of water as if he’d said nothing unusual.
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Half disbelief, half amusement.
“I don’t think the Norris family—or my mother—would appreciate me starting a fight in their backyard.” I sighed. “So I’ll just stay in here until I calm down.”
“Then I’ll stay with you,” he decided, pulling out one of the kitchen chairs.
We talked about everything.
Anyone watching us would’ve assumed we’d known each other for years instead of having met barely an hour earlier.
He told me a little about his life, his racing career, and the end of the previous championship.
I told him about my home in my country and all the different jobs I worked.
“How do you manage to have three jobs?” he asked, frowning.
It genuinely seemed impossible for him to understand how anyone could take on that much responsibility.
“Well, I only work at the theater on Friday and Saturday nights,” I explained before taking a sip of my lemonade. “Sometimes Sundays too, if Monday’s a holiday. I only have rehearsals two evenings during the week, which leaves my weekdays free to work at the coffee shop. As for the art galleries, I only work whenever there’s an exhibition, usually on weekend mornings and afternoons.”
Max looked genuinely horrified. I couldn’t help laughing, it wasn’t the first time someone had looked at me that way.
“Trust me,” I said with a shrug, “it’s not as bad as it sounds. It helps knowing it’s only temporary. I’m saving as much money as I can, and once I have enough, I’ll find a job that isn’t nearly as demanding.”
After that, our conversation drifted toward lighter topics. Nothing serious or complicated.
The truth was, Max was an excellent conversationalist, and I found myself genuinely enjoying his company.
We talked until late into the night, until almost everyone had gone home and only the two of us—and a couple of others—remained in the garden.
When we finally said goodbye, it felt like we were old friends. In my mind, I told myself it would be the first and last time we’d ever see each other; but deep down my heart hoped there could be something more.
The next morning, the first person to question me was my mother, as always.
“Remember your place when it comes to men like them. They have money, power, and connections, and they look for women of the same caliber to be with. Don’t get your hopes up over nothing.”
With a disapproving frown, she made it very clear what she thought about how close Max and I had seemed the day before.
“I know that, Mom,” I replied, rolling my eyes as I stirred my bowl of oatmeal with my spoon.
“It didn’t look that way yesterday. Open your eyes, Y/N. You’re far too old not to realize that men like them only want a one-night stand with you.” My mother continued her lecture.
Before I could answer, Lando’s voice interrupted us.
“Can I steal her for a minute?” he asked my mother, nodding in my direction.
She picked up her coffee mug.
“I’m going upstairs to take care of a few things.” Without another word, she left the kitchen.
Lando walked over to the coffee maker, poured himself a cup, and took a slow sip. I simply watched him, trying to figure out what was going on inside his head.
“So…” he began, leaning against the counter. “What did you think of Max?”
Lando was so predictable that I almost laughed.
“I actually liked him.” I took another spoonful of oatmeal, deliberately leaving it at that.
Lando simply nodded and kept watching me.
“What?” I finally asked after a few moments of silence.
“He’s a good guy,” he said after a brief pause. “But…”He stopped, searching for the right words.
I gestured with my hand for him to continue.
“He can be very impulsive.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“When he wants something, he usually goes after it without thinking too much. And I don’t want you to get hurt.” He set his mug down and leaned against the kitchen island so we were face-to-face.
I rolled my eyes with a quiet sigh.
“Lando… you don’t have to worry, okay? I know how to take care of myself. I’ve been taking care of myself for practically my whole life, and I’m doing just fine.” I motioned toward myself as if presenting proof that I was perfectly alive and well.
Lando let out a long sigh.
“It’s just…” His voice softened. “You mean a lot to me. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I want your heart to stay safe.”
For a moment, I could see the sixteen-year-old boy I’d fallen in love with reflected in his eyes. The warmth in his gaze made my stomach twist. I swallowed discreetly before forcing a small smile.
“Don’t worry. We only had one conversation yesterday. It’s not like we’re going to get married.” A nervous laugh slipped from my lips.
(…)
A few days later, it was Tuesday.
Tuesdays were usually the most boring days at the coffee shop. It was always half empty, and time seemed to move painfully slowly. I was restocking one of the display cases when Elena, one of my coworkers, walked over to me.
“There’s someone at that table asking for you.”
She pointed her thumb toward a table tucked away in the corner, occupied by a man sitting with his back to us.
Confused, I made my way over. Customers almost never requested a specific server.
“Good morning. How can I hel—” The words died in my throat before I could finish.
The man looked up calmly and offered me an easy smile.
“Good morning.” His deep voice sent a shiver down my spine.
“Max?” I blurted out. “What are you doing here?” The disbelief in my voice was impossible to hide.
He slowly closed the menu.
“Having coffee.” He tilted his head ever so slightly “Isn’t that obvious?”
I stared at him for several seconds, completely dumbfounded. Shaking my head with a small laugh, I took his order and walked behind the counter to prepare it.
There was no way this was actually happening to me.
A few minutes later, I placed his drink in front of him, unable to hold back the question that had been bothering me.
“How did you find this place?”
“You told me where you worked.” He shrugged before taking his first sip.
“No, I’m sure I didn’t.” I frowned, folding my arms across my chest.
“You told me what neighborhood it was in,” he replied casually. “That was enough. There weren’t that many coffee shops around, so it wasn’t hard to find.”
He took another sip while looking at me over the rim of his cup.
He was lying. We weren’t close to downtown, but this wasn’t some hidden corner of the city either there were plenty of cafés around. There was no way he’d found this one that easily.
“So why did you come here?”
“Because I wanted coffee.” He shrugged like it was the most obvious answer in the world.
But that smile… There wasn’t a single innocent thing about it.
“I don’t believe you.” I narrowed my eyes.
“Fine.” He raised both hands in surrender. “I wanted to see you.”
He admitted it without hesitation. Without embarrassment. Without the slightest trace of shame. It was as if he’d just commented on the weather.
“You’re weird.” I laughed, mostly out of surprise.
“Why?” he asked, genuinely confused.
“Because we barely know each other, and you’re doing… this.”
“Exactly.” He adjusted himself in his chair until he was sitting perfectly straight. “It’s hard to get to know someone if you never see them again.”
I couldn’t argue with that logic. So I laughed once more and went back to work.
Even as I moved around the café, I could feel his eyes following me. He watched every movement carefully, and every time our eyes met, he’d give me the smallest smile.
“When are you finally leaving?” I asked, growing increasingly frustrated with his relentless staring.
“Wow.” A laugh escaped him. “Customer service isn’t exactly your strongest skill.”
When my expression didn’t change, he added,
“I’ll leave as soon as you give me your number.”
For a moment, I was speechless. The man had absolutely no shame.
“Does this little performance usually work on women?” I finally asked.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I’ve never tried it before.”
He said it so naturally that I found myself laughing again. It was impossible to tell when he was joking, but I had a feeling he wasn’t.
“Are you always this straightforward?”
“Yes.” He answered without the slightest hesitation.
“It’s a little intimidating.” Now it was my turn to admit something.
“Do you want me to stop?”
I studied him carefully. I expected a grin. A joke. Something. But there was nothing, he was simply waiting for my answer.
I slowly shook my head.
“No…” Then I caught myself. “Well… yes. I don’t know.”
A quiet chuckle escaped him.
“Make up your mind.”
“Don’t change the subject.” I pointed a finger at him.
“I’m not.” He defended himself immediately.
I sighed.
“Do you always get what you want?”
“No.” He paused to think. “But I can be very persistent.”
I couldn’t help but remember my mother’s words.
Men like them look for women from their own world.
Then I remembered Lando.
We can’t be together.
Two men from the same world, the same social standing. And yet, they seemed to speak completely different languages.
In the end, I gave him my number. Only so he’d finally leave me alone or at least, that’s what I told myself.
He stood up, took out his wallet, and paid for his coffee. Before leaving, he said with the same calmness he’d arrived with,
“See you in a few days.”
I watched him open the door and disappear before I could even think of a response. I stood there for several seconds, completely frozen.
Elena appeared behind me with the biggest grin on her face.
“Did that man just shamelessly flirt with you?”
I kept staring at the door, still trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.
(…)
Sunday of that same week arrived with the usual chaos that came with exhibition days.
People drifted in and out of the gallery, the constant murmur of conversations about artists most of them barely knew, and the clinking of wine glasses every few minutes. It was exhausting, but it was also the only job where I never felt like I was pretending to be someone else.
Here, I wasn’t the daughter of a housekeeper. I wasn’t the barista who served coffee all week. I wasn’t the charming, flirtatious dancer.
Here, I was simply someone talking about something she loved.
I had just finished explaining one of the pieces when I excused myself from the group to get a glass of water.
“So this is where you disappear to on Sundays.” The voice made me turn around immediately.
For a split second, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me.
But it wasn’t.
Max was standing beside one of the sculptures, his hands tucked into his pockets and wearing such a calm expression that it looked like he’d been waiting for me for quite a while.
I couldn’t help smiling.
“What are you doing here?”
His gaze wandered slowly around the gallery before settling back on me.
“I came to see you.” He said it with the same ease most people would use to say good afternoon. He didn’t even try to dress it up.
A strange warmth tightened in my chest.
I shook my head, somewhere between amused and bewildered. There was something deeply unusual about him.
He didn’t flirt the way other men did. He didn’t try to impress me. He simply showed up, like wanting to see me was reason enough.
I motioned for him to walk with me as I resumed my tour of the gallery.
For nearly an hour, he didn’t interrupt me once. He simply followed me with his hands in his pockets, listening to every explanation with an attentiveness that genuinely surprised me. Every now and then, he’d stop to study one of the paintings for a few moment. But somehow, his eyes always found their way back to me.
It was unsettling.
When the last group moved on to the next room, I let out a relieved breath.
“So?” I asked as I walked over to him. “What did you think?”
He studied the painting in front of him for a few seconds.
“I didn’t understand much of it.”
I laughed.
“I figured.”
“But I liked listening to you.” The answer caught me completely off guard.
“Why?”
This time, he didn’t answer immediately. He looked at me with that infuriating calmness that seemed to define everything he did.
“Because you’re different here.”
Almost instinctively, I looked around. He was right.
Here, I didn’t measure every word before I spoke, I didn’t worry about being judged, I simply existed.
“It’s the only place where I feel like I know exactly what I’m doing.”
He nodded, like my answer had confirmed something he’d already suspected.
We continued walking among the artwork.
The silence wasn’t awkward. With Max, it never seemed to be.
Until my eyes landed on a group of elegantly dressed women chatting over glasses of wine. They all looked like they belonged there.
Then I looked down at myself. I was wearing a simple black dress I’d bought on sale nearly two years earlier. I felt out of place.
“I don’t understand what you’re doing here with me.” The words escaped before I could stop them.
Max barely turned his head.
“I already told you.”
I slowly shook mine.
“No…” I swallowed. “I’m not the kind of woman men like you usually go for.”
I expected anything, a smile, a compliment, a ‘Don’t say that’. Instead, he simply frowned, like he was genuinely trying to understand what I meant.
“And what kind is that?”
A short laugh escaped me.
“Max…” I gestured around the gallery. “Look at them.”
He did. For several seconds, he watched the women talking nearby before looking back at me.
“What about them?”
I sighed.
It was difficult to explain something I’d believed since I was a teen.
“They belong in your world, I don’t. I spend my week serving coffee just to pay my rent. My mother spent half her life cleaning other people’s houses, and she’s still cleaning your friend’s house too. So I hope you can understand why it’s hard for me to believe that someone like you would show up at two of my jobs just because he wants to get to know me.”
The silence that followed was brief, much shorter than I expected.
“I don’t understand.” His answer was so firm that it completely disarmed me. “Because all of that seems important to you. Not to me.”
Something shifted inside my chest. All my life, I’d been taught that the differences between people were impossible to ignore, that sooner or later, they always outweighed everything else.
Lando had taught me that without ever having to say it aloud.
But Max… Max seemed incapable of understanding why we were even having this conversation.
“You’re used to making decisions for other people.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“You’ve spent the last five minutes telling me what kind of woman I should like.” He took a single step closer, not enough to invade my space. Just enough to make sure I was listening. “And you still haven’t asked me what I want.”
I didn’t answer. Because, I didn’t have one.
A faint smile appeared on his face. The small one he seemed to reserve for only a handful of moments.
“It’s a lot simpler than you’re making it.”
And just like that, the conversation was over.
He didn’t insist, didn’t try to convince me. He simply turned his attention to the next painting like we’d just been discussing something as ordinary as what he planned to have for dinner.
Oddly enough that was what unsettled me the most. Because while I’d spent my entire life turning the differences between us into an impossible mountain to climb, Max didn’t seem capable of seeing that the mountain even existed.
(…)
My third job was, by far, the hardest one to explain.
Everytime I told someone I danced at a late-night theater, they always gave me the same look. The look of people who assumed far too much without asking a single question.
Eventually, I stopped explaining.
The pay was good, I loved dancing, and no one had the right to decide what I did with my own body to make a living.
Friday performances were always sold out.
The theater transformed completely after nightfall. Warm lights replaced the starkness of the stage, and the air filled with the scent of perfume, alcohol, and makeup.
By then, I’d learned how to tell the difference between the customers who came for the performance and those who mistook a stage for an invitation.
I was adjusting the last garter on my stockings in front of the mirror when one of the dancers gave me a playful nudge.
“There’s a really handsome man asking for you.”
I laughed.
“Which one?”
“No… this one’s different.”
I peeked through the side of the courtain and nearly choked on my own saliva.
Max.
Sitting at a table near the stage with a glass of whiskey in front of him.
He was wearing an immaculate dark suit and observing the room with the same quiet calm he seemed to observe absolutely everything else with.
The moment our eyes met, he lifted his glass ever so slightly in greeting.
I shook my head, fighting back a smile.
He was officially a stalker.
I’d never been embarrassed to step onto that stage. Not because I was an exhibitionist. But because, over time, I’d learned that my body could be an artistic instrument instead of something I should be ashamed of.
The music began and he lights did the rest. For several minutes, I completely forgot Max was sitting in the audience. Until one of the choreographies had me walking almost the entire length of the runway.
As I passed his table, I looked at him.
He wasn’t smiling. He didn’t have that smug expression so many men wore when they walked into that place. He was simply watching me, like he was trying to memorize every movement.
And for some reason that look made me far more nervous than all the whistles coming from the rest of the room.
The show ended nearly an hour later and that was when everything went to hell.
I slipped a satin robe over my costume and stepped outside the dressing room to get some fresh air.
I hadn’t even finished closing the door behind me when a man stepped in front of me, blocking my path.
“You dance beautifully.”
I smiled politely.
“Thank you.” I tried to walk past him, but he stepped in front of me again.
“Are you always this hard to get?”
A knot formed in my stomach.
“Excuse me, I need to get back inside.”
This time, he grabbed my wrist hard.
“Five minutes. I’m just trying to talk to you.”
Before I could react, someone forcefully pulled his hand away from my arm.
“She said no.” Max’s voice was colder than I’d ever heard it before.
The man let out a drunken laugh.
“And who the hell are you?”
“The one telling you to let her go.”
There wasn’t any more conversation. Everything happened too fast.
One shove.
Then another.
Then the first punch.
And suddenly several people were trying to pull them apart while someone shouted for security.
“Max!”
It was useless, he didn’t even seem to hear me.
The last thing I saw before walking away was a chair flying through the air.
I turned around. Not because I didn’t care, but because I knew that kind of chaos far too well. I’d spent too many years watching men decide that violence could solve everything and I wasn’t about to stand there and watch another one. I ended up sitting on the curb in the parking lot.
I couldn’t even remember when I’d started crying.
My makeup had to be completely ruined. I was wearing false eyelashes, red lipstick, a sparkly dress underneath a satin robe and I was crying in a parking lot at two o’clock in the morning.
What a depressing picture.
I heard footsteps approaching, I didn’t bother looking up because I already knew who it was.
“If you’re here to explain why you got into that fight, don’t bother.”
A brief silence followed.
“Okay.”
I frowned slightly. I had been expecting an argument, not obedience.
“You’re not going to insist?”
“You said you didn’t want to hear it.”
I finally looked up.
Max’s lip was split open. The corner of his mouth was still bleeding, and a cut above his eyebrow had already begun to swell.
I sighed.
“You look like shit.”
He wiped the blood away with the back of his hand.
“He looks worse.”
I couldn’t help laughing through my tears.
“You’re an idiot.”
For the first time since he’d walked out of the theater he smiled.
He sat down beside me without saying a word. For several minutes, neither of us spoke. We simply listened to the distant sound of passing cars, until I was the one who finally broke the silence.
“So…” I looked over at him. “Did you win?”
He turned toward me.
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“At some point they stopped punching me and started holding me back with four guys.” He shrugged. “I guess that counts as a win.”
I burst into laughter. Completely inappropriate laughter.
He ended up laughing too.
Suddenly, all the drama from the last twenty minutes felt absurdly ridiculous. I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand.
“Now tell me.” I looked at him “Why did you do it?”
His expression turned serious again.
“Because he grabbed you.”
That was it, no speech, no heroic explanation. Just those four words.
Something shifted inside my chest. No one had ever reacted like that because of me, not even the people who’d actually had the right to.
“I’ve spent my whole life trying not to be a burden to anyone.”
He tilted his head slightly.
“You’re doing a terrible job.”
A laugh escaped me.
“Was that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.” He looked completely serious. “Just an observation.”
I laughed again. It was impossible to stay dramatic around him for very long.
I took a deep breath.
“I’m hungry.”
Max blinked.
“I want sushi.”
He looked at his watch.
“It’s two in the morning.”
“I know.”
“Now?”
I nodded. He stared at me for a few seconds before standing up.
“Alright.”
“Seriously?” I hadn’t expected him to agree.
“Yeah.” He lifted his car keys “Let’s go get sushi.”
I followed him across the parking lot. Halfway to the car, he looked me up and down.
“Are you really going in dressed like that?”
I looked down. High heels, a satin robe over a sequined costume, and mascara streaked all the way to my chin.
I laughed.
Then I looked at him.
His suit was wrinkled, his lip was split open. There was dried blood on the collar of his shirt.
“And you?”
He shrugged.
“We make a pretty good pair.”
I completely agreed.
Half an hour later, we were sitting in a tiny all-night sushi restaurant.
The waitress looked at him, then at me, then back at both of us. Finally, she asked as casually as if nothing were unusual,
“Extra soy sauce?”
Max looked at me. I shrugged.
“Obviously.”
She nodded without asking a single question. I waited until she’d walked away before turning back to him.
“We just ordered sushi dressed like we walked out of a fight in a cabaret.”
Max opened the box of gyoza.
“Because we did walk out of a fight in a cabaret.”
That night I laughed until my stomach hurt.
(…)
After that chaotic night, an unusual calm settled over my life.
Max stopped showing up unexpectedly at my jobs, and as much as I hated to admit it, something inside me withered a little.
Every time the café door opened, my heart would race only to sink the moment I realized it wasn’t him.
I forced myself to forget about him and buried myself in work. It was obvious that, for him, I’d been nothing more than a brief distraction before returning to his real life.
Three weeks passed.
Then one night, while I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep, my phone buzzed.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Hi. How have you been?
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Sorry I didn’t text you sooner. Somehow I lost your number.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: I had to fight with this piece of crap technology just to get it back.
I frowned as I read the messages.
Who the hell was this?
ME: Hi, who is this?
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Seriously? 🙄
ME: Well, if I wasn’t serious, I wouldn’t be asking 😒
UNKNOWN NUMBER: I’m the love of your life and your future husband.
The smile I’d been missing for the past few weeks returned instantly. Like an idiot, I kicked my feet beneath my blankets before immediately saving his number to my contacts.
ME: Jacob Elordi?
MAX: He’s dating Kendall Jenner, so I doubt he’d be texting you something like that.
ME: A girl can dream 🥲
ME: How have you been, Max?
MAX: So you did know it was me. Does this mean you’re admitting that I really am the love of your life and your future husband?
ME: I’m admitting you’re the only lunatic I know who genuinely believes that’s possible 🙂↔️
MAX: Ha. Ha. Ha. 🤡
MAX: You’re hilarious 😒
MAX: But seriously, I’m sorry I didn’t text sooner. I really couldn’t find your contact.
ME: Don’t worry about it. Although I was starting to think you’d given up on me.
MAX: That’s not a word in my vocabulary. At least not when it comes to you.
My heart skipped a beat as I read the message. He had an incredible ability to send shivers down my spine without even trying. I knew that probably wasn’t a good thing, but I couldn’t help it.
MAX: I’m in Monaco. I had to come back because I have to spend a certain amount of time here every year. You know… taxes and all that.
ME: Yeah, it’s pretty much the same with Lando. I get it.
A couple of minutes passed without another message. I assumed that was the end of the conversation.
Then the three little typing dots appeared.
MAX: Anyway, I wanted to ask if you’d like to come spend a weekend with me. I know you have work and everything, but do you think you could get a few days off?
ME: Max… Work isn’t really the issue. It’s just I can’t exactly afford to pack my bags and fly to Monaco on a whim.
What the hell did he think? That I was rich? I worked three jobs, and even then, if I went two months without work, I’d probably end up homeless.
MAX: Y/N, please. You didn’t actually think I’d let you pay for any of it, did you? What kind of man would that make me? I’ll pay for everything, I just want you to come visit me and spend some time together, not make your life any harder.
ME: Don’t you think that’s a bit much? I can count on one hand how many times we’ve actually seen each other.
I tried to reason with him. Although I already had a pretty good idea of what his answer would be.
MAX: So? I already know your family, I know where you work. Why does it matter how many times we’ve seen each other?
ME: This is all happening way too fast.
MAX: Not at all. If it were up to me, we’d already be married. I’m just trying to move at your pace.
A laugh of complete disbelief escaped me.
This man was insane. But it was the kind of insanity that felt oddly refreshing. Being around him made me feel something I hadn’t experienced in years.
Comfort.
Joy.
A sense that maybe life didn’t always have to feel so heavy. I didn’t want to admit it, but I wanted more of that feeling.
The last few years of my life had felt like I was constantly one step away from falling apart. And somehow, Max felt like a breath of fresh air.
ME: You’re going to have to do a lot more than that. But, lucky for you I accept. So when’s the trip?
It was that very same weekend. Max didn’t want to waste any time or risk me changing my mind. Which, if I was being honest, I had almost done a couple of times.
When I arrived, Max picked me up in Nice, and from there we took a helicopter to Monaco.
Everything about it was completely new to me. I tried my best not to let my amazement show, but it was obvious Max noticed.
He just laughed every time.
It was Friday, and Max had a few media interviews to get through, so he introduced me to a woman who turned out to be a fashion stylist.
Yes.
Max had arranged an entire afternoon of shopping for me.
I wanted to refuse. It felt like this was far too much, but he hadn’t exactly given me a choice, considering the stylist was the one picking out everything and insisting I try it on.
If I tried on a thousand outfits that afternoon, I still think I’d be underestimating it. Once our shopping marathon was finally over, Max came to pick me up and took me back to his apartment.
The moment I walked through the door, I threw myself onto the bed with every intention of sleeping until the next morning.
Max, however had other plans. He practically forced me out of bed and told me to get ready because we were going out for dinner.
I ended up wearing one of the beautiful dresses he’d bought for me earlier that day.
Max looked incredibly handsome himself.
That night was wonderful.
We laughed and drank far too much. By the end of the night, Max decided it was smarter to leave his car in a parking garage.
The two of us practically stumbled all the way back to his apartment.
It must have been a ridiculous sight. Anyone watching us would’ve had no idea whether I was helping Max walk or if he was the one helping me.
On Saturday, we went to the casino.
On Sunday, we spent the afternoon on a yacht.
I felt like I was floating, completely relaxed. Without a single worry in my mind.
Max was the funniest, kindest man I’d ever met. Which was exactly why, on Sunday night, as I packed my suitcase to return to my complicated reality, the apartment felt like sadness itself had settled into it.
“I don’t want you to leave.” Max’s voice was barely above a whisper.
I turned to look at him. He was leaning against one of the bedroom walls, watching me.
“I don’t want to leave either.” My voice caught slightly “But I have to go back to work.”
The moment our eyes met, I had to look away. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold his gaze without bursting into tears.
Max walked over and sat down beside me on the bed.
“Stay this week.” His words came so easily that they sounded less like a suggestion than an inevitability “Take a few more vacation days. There’s still so much I want to show you.”
He smiled softly.
“You can go home next Sunday.”
I looked at him, trying to figure out whether he was joking. He wasn’t.
His face showed nothing but determination.
“Max…” I shook my head. “It’s not as easy as you make it sound.”
“It is.” He crossed his arms. “Unless you just don’t want to spend more time with me.”
Then he looked away with a deep frown, looking every bit like an offended child.
I almost laughed.
“No, that’s not it.” I reached over and took one of his hands. “I do want to stay with you.”
“Then stay.” His voice softened “Please.”
The way he asked completely melted my heart. After letting out the deepest sigh imaginable I gave in.
The smile that spread across Max’s face was so wide it looked like he’d just won the lottery.
I contacted all three of my jobs to let them know I’d be extending my vacation. Fortunately, none of them had a problem with it.
The days that followed were just as wonderful. We did everything. We wandered through Monaco without any real destination.
We visited a nearby town and spent the day sightseeing.
Every moment felt effortless, I felt like I was living inside a dream. But nothing in my life had ever stayed perfect for long, sooner or later reality always found me.
It was Thursday when Max asked me to accompany him to a charity dinner. The event didn’t allow media or unauthorized cameras, so he assured me that my presence wouldn’t attract much attention.
What neither of us had taken into account was that several of the other Formula One drivers would be there.
Including Lando.
Some time after we arrived, my eyes met another pair that I recognized instantly. Lando’s girlfriend, Marie.
The moment Marie recognized me, she raised an eyebrow and looked me up and down. She let out a quiet laugh before leaning toward the man I immediately recognized as Lando and whispered something in his ear.
He turned sharply in my direction, but before our eyes could meet, I looked away.
Max had stepped aside to greet someone, so I forced myself to pay attention to the elegant older woman who had been talking nonstop for nearly five minutes about the venue’s décor. Out of politeness, I smiled a couple of times and made a few meaningless comments.
My heart was racing. I held onto my wine glass so tightly because I was terrified someone would notice my hands trembling.
When the woman finally excused herself, I nearly cried with grief. I didn’t want to be standing there alone.
I was about to go find Max again but that was the exact moment Lando decided to walk over.
“Out of all the places in the world…” His familiar accent caught me off guard. “I never expected to run into you here.”
I turned toward him and offered him a slightly shaky smile.
“It’s a small world.” I shrugged like it was nothing.
Marie appeared beside him wearing the same perfectly practiced smile.
“What a surprise to see you here.” Her eyes slowly traveled over my black lace dress. “I never imagined events like this were the kind of places someone like you would attend. No offense.”
She tilted her head ever so slightly. Not once did her smile leave her face.
Bitch.
“You’re right,” I replied at last. “I usually avoid places with fake people and events like this tend to be full of them.”
Lando covered a laugh with a fake cough. For the briefest moment, Marie’s smile lost some of its shine.
“Did I miss something?” Max’s calm voice interrupted us. His eyes moved from me to Lando and finally to Marie.
She smiled at him with that same rehearsed kindness.
“I was just telling Y/N that I was surprised to see her here.”
Max nodded once.
“I’m not.”
Marie blinked.
“You’re not?”
“No.” He picked up a glass from a passing server’s tray. “Wherever she is, the atmosphere usually gets a lot better.”
Heat rushed to my face.
Marie let out a short laugh.
“That’s very sweet.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.” He answered with complete calm before taking a sip of his drink. “I was just saying what I think.”
As he spoke, his hand came to rest lightly against the small of my back. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Lando’s gaze immediately follow the movement.
“You came here together?” he asked, unable to hide his surprise.
I opened my mouth to answer but Max beat me to it.
“Yes.” He offered no further explanation.
“I had no idea you’d become this close.” Lando’s jaw tightened ever so slightly.
If I hadn’t spent half my teenage years watching him I probably wouldn’t have noticed. But I knew exactly what that gesture meant.
He was uncomfortable.
And somehow his discomfort became mine. I hated seeing him like that.
I shifted my weight and took another sip of my wine, hoping it would settle the knot in my stomach.
Apparently, Max noticed. Because without saying another word, he came up with an excuse to pull us away toward another part of the ballroom.
As we walked away I could still feel Lando’s eyes burning into the back of my neck.
(…)
The awkwardness disappeared as soon as we got back to Max’s apartment and our mouths found each other.
Our hands didn’t stay still for a single moment, and with some effort we managed to get out of our clothes.
Max bent me over the couch, pulled the thin fabric of my underwear aside to get better access to my wet pussy, and without much consideration, thrust into me hard. My eyes fell shut as I felt him hit the deepest part of me.
His thrusts were hard and rhythmic. The pleasure was so overwhelming that moans began spilling from his mouth, and with a quick movement, he gave my ass a hard slap.
That made me arch my back even more, and matching his rhythm, I began moving to meet every one of his thrusts.
At one point, I stopped lubricating and began to feel a slight burning sensation that drove me even crazier. My moans of pleasure grew louder, which made him lose himself in the pleasure even more.
We changed positions a couple of times until the pressure building inside me became too much, and I came hard.
A few more thrusts from Max, and he came too with a guttural sound. He spilled the result of his orgasm across my stomach.
It was the first time we’d had sex, and the son of a bitch had passed the test.
A while later, we were already in bed. Max was asleep beside me, but I couldn’t fall asleep.
My mind kept racing, and with a growing sense of concern, I replayed everything that had happened throughout the evening.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one feeling restless. A few minutes later, my phone lit up with a text message.
From Lando.
LANDO: Can we talk?
LANDO: I’m outside Max’s building. Please come down.
My heart immediately began pounding. This couldn’t be happening.
I looked over at Max.
He was fast asleep, one arm stretched across my side of the bed, a faint crease between his brows like he somehow managed to overthink even in his sleep.
I let out a slow breath.
I grabbed a jacket, scribbled a quick note telling him I’d gone out for a walk, and took the elevator downstairs.
Lando was leaning against his car with his hands buried in his pockets. When he heard my footsteps, he looked up. For a moment neither of us spoke.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked at last.
A tired smile crossed his face.
“I guessed.”
We walked in silence until we reached the edge of the harbor. The lights from the yachts shimmered across the dark water.
“Are you having a good time?” he asked suddenly.
“Yeah.” I nodded.
Silence settled between us again. I knew this kind of silence far too well.
Lando’s silences were never empty, they were always filled with questions he didn’t know how to ask.
“So…” He finally looked at me. “What’s going on between you and Max?”
There it was.
I slipped my hands into my jacket pockets.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
I slowly shook my head.
“We haven’t talked about it.”
“But you’re together.” He pressed a little harder.
“We’re spending time together.”
I watched his jaw tighten.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Maybe not to you.”
His eyes locked onto mine.
“And to you?”
I lowered my gaze to the water.
The truth was I didn’t know how to answer. All I knew was that, with Max, I never felt the need to question where I belonged.
He simply made room for me.
“You don’t have to answer.” His voice was noticeably colder this time “I’m just trying to understand.”
I smiled sadly.
“Understand what?”
“What’s happening.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
His breathing changed ever so slightly.
It was barely noticeable. But it was enough for me to realize he was losing his composure.
“Do you like him?”
I didn’t answer.
“Y/N.”
“I don’t know.”
It was a lie. Of course I knew, I just wasn’t ready to say it out loud.
“So you do like him?”
I sighed.
“Lando…”
“Answer me.”
I looked up.
“Why?”
The silence stretched between us. Because he couldn’t answer that question without admitting something he’d spent years burying.
I slowly shook my head.
“You don’t have the right to ask me that.”
I watched his expression change.
“Why not?”
“You’re seriously asking me that?” A bitter laugh escaped me. I took a step toward him. “You have a girlfriend.”
Another step.
“And years ago, you made it painfully clear that there could never be anything between us.”
My voice remained calm.
That was the worst part. I didn’t even have to raise it anymore to remember how much it had hurt.
“Y/N…”
“No.” This time, I interrupted him “Do you know what the hardest part was?”
A knot tightened in my throat.
“It wasn’t losing you. It was spending years believing there was something about me that made me impossible to choose.”
The words poured out on their own. As if they’d been waiting years to be spoken.
“After that day, I started looking at everyone like they belonged to different worlds. I started believing there were doors meant for other people but never for me. That I could work twice as hard, push myself three times harder, and I’d still always be nothing more than the housekeeper’s daughter. Because the only man I’d ever fallen in love with taught me exactly that.”
Lando closed his eyes.
“I never wanted you to feel that way.”
“But you did.” My voice barely rose above a whisper.“And the worst part is I understood. I never hated you for choosing that path, because even I believed you were right.”
He swallowed hard.
“Things changed.”
“No.” I slowly shook my head. “They changed for you. I was the one who had to learn how to live with what you left behind.”
For several long seconds the only sound was the water lapping against the dock.
Then he spoke again.
“You think Max is different.”
I frowned.
“He is.”
A bitter smile appeared on his face.
“No, Y/N. He’s just more impulsive.”
A terrible feeling settled in my stomach.
“What do you mean?”
“When he gets bored, he’ll move on with his life, like everyone else. He’s not taking you seriously.”
My chest tightened.
“Don’t talk about things you know nothing about.”
He took a step closer.
“Do you honestly think a guy like Max Verstappen is planning to marry you?”
The question landed between us like a stone.
“Lando…”
“He takes you on trips, he buys you beautiful clothes, he brings you to events. Don’t you see it? For him, you’re…” He hesitated for only a fraction of a second. “…an accessory.”
Something inside me shattered. But he still wasn’t finished.
“A pretty girl he can spoil for a while. His sugar baby.”
The slap echoed across the silent harbor. I didn’t think, it just happened.
Slowly, Lando lifted a hand to his cheek.
I struggled to catch my breath, tears blurred my vision.
“Never…” My voice broke. “Never degrade me like that again. Because if there’s anyone who knows how hard I fought to build the life I have it’s you.”
He opened his mouth, but I didn’t let him speak.
“For years, I thought my last name was the problem, my mother, my money, my background. But tonight you proved something. The problem was never where I came from. The problem was that you never found the courage to choose me and now you’re trying to convince me that no one else ever could.”
I slowly shook my head.
“I don’t believe that anymore.” I turned around before he could answer.
I didn’t want to go back to the apartment. Not yet.
I needed to walk.
I needed the wind to remind me that I was still breathing. So I kept walking along the harbor without looking back while the tears washed away what little makeup I still had left.
I have no idea how long I walked.
The gentle sound of the water against the docks was the only thing keeping the chaos in my head from swallowing me whole.
My tears had dried a long time ago, but the weight in my chest hadn’t gone anywhere.
“I’ve been looking for you for twenty minutes.” Max’s voice startled me.
He was walking toward me quickly, his hair completely disheveled and a hoodie hastily thrown over the T-shirt he’d fallen asleep in. He stopped in front of me and took a deep breath.
“What happened?”
I shook my head.
“Nothing.”
“No.” His answer came immediately. “Don’t lie to me.”
I looked at him for a few seconds. I’d never seen him like this before.
He didn’t look angry, he looked scared.
“Y/N…” His voice softened. “What happened?”
The knot in my throat returned.
“I talked to Lando.”
I watched his jaw tighten. But he didn’t say a word, he simply waited.
“He texted me… so I went downstairs to talk to him.”
I told him everything. How Lando had come all the way to the building. How we’d walked along the harbor. How, at first, he’d only asked questions. Then I told him about the jealousy. About our teenage years together. About the way he’d rejected us before we’d ever really had a chance. About the argument we’d had that night and finally about the words that still echoed inside my head.
“His sugar baby.” I couldn’t repeat that part without my voice breaking.
Max stood perfectly still through my entire story. He didn’t interrupt me once, only after I’d finished did he finally speak.
“He said that to you?”
I nodded.
He let out a slow breath.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“No, you’re not killing anyone.” A laugh escaped me through my tears.
“Alright.” He corrected himself with complete seriousness “Then I’m just going to break his nose.”
The image was so absurd that I laughed, for real this time.
He frowned slightly.
“I wasn’t joking.”
“I know.”
“I’m completely serious.”
“Please don’t.” I shook my head as I wiped my cheeks.
He sighed dramatically.
“You’re no fun.”
Silence settled between us again. Then he took a step closer.
“Look at me.”
I did.
“Did you actually believe him?”
I didn’t answer. Because part of me had. And, of course he knew it.
“Y/N…” He shook his head in disbelief. “Do you know what the very first thing I thought when I saw you?”
I slowly shook my head.
“That you were beautiful.”
Heat rushed into my cheeks.
“And then I thought you were far too smart to ever end up talking to me.”
I stared at him, completely confused. A small smile tugged at his lips.
“I was wrong about the second part.”
“Idiot.” I lightly punched his arm.
“A little.” His smile slowly faded. “But I never once minded how much money you had, where your mother was, where you worked. Not once.”
He took a slow breath before continuing.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t see everything you do. I do, I know you work harder than anyone I’ve ever met, I know you’ve spent years building your life on your own and I know nobody handed you anything.”
His voice remained calm. So calm that it hurt.
“What I don’t understand…” He paused. “…is why you still believe any of that makes you worth less.”
I lowered my eyes.
“Because for a long time It was true.”
“No.” His answer was immediate. “For a long time, people convinced you it was true. That’s not the same thing.”
The words hung between us. No one had ever put it that way before. I’d spent my entire life believing my insecurities were simply the logical consequence of my circumstances.
It had never occurred to me that they might also be a lie I’d heard too many times.
“Lando didn’t stop loving you because you were the housekeeper’s daughter.”
My head snapped up.
He continued before I could speak.
“He stopped fighting for you because he was afraid and fear always finds elegant excuses to hide behind, sometimes it’s money, sometimes it’s family, sometimes it’s social class. But underneath, It’s still fear.”
My eyes filled with tears again.
Not because I was sad, because I felt relieved. For the first time someone had separated my worth from the choice Lando had made all those years ago.
“What if one day you’re afraid too?” The question came out so quietly I almost regretted asking it.
Max smiled. That same calm smile that somehow managed to frustrate me and comfort me at the exact same time.
“Of course I am.”
I blinked. I hadn’t expected that answer.
“You are?”
“Terrified.”
“Of what?”
“That one day you’ll get tired of me.” He slipped his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.
A disbelieving laugh escaped me.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged “But that fear doesn’t make me want to push you away. It makes me want to be closer to you.”
Something inside me finally gave way or maybe finally settled into place. I still wasn’t sure which.
“I’m not Lando.” His voice was quieter than ever. “And I’ll never ask you to make yourself smaller just to make my life easier. If this ever ends…” He pointed to himself “It’ll be because I did something wrong. Not because your last name is different from mine, not because your mother cleaned someone’s house and certainly…”
He shook his head, almost offended by the thought.
“…not because anyone thinks you can be bought with a dress or a trip. You’re not something that can be bought, you’re not a thing. You’re the woman I’m falling in love with.”
The world seemed to fall completely silent.
There was only him and me.
For years, I’d confused one man’s rejection with my worth as a woman.
I’d allowed a decision born from fear to define the way I saw myself and now, standing in front of me, was another man.
A man who came from that exact same world. But who had never once asked me to change who I was to make room for me in his life.
He had simply made room for me.
I smiled through my tears.
“I think you’re completely insane.”
“I already knew that.” A grin spread across his face.
I laughed, shaking my head.
“And for some reason I still don’t understand I think I’m starting to like all that insanity of yours.”
His eyes lit up instantly.
“Does that mean I can officially say I’m your future husband now?”
The laugh that burst from my lips echoed across the entire harbor.
For years I’d mistaken fear for reality. I’d believed love always came with conditions, with explanations, with sacrifices.
That night, I finally understood something. When someone truly wants to stay they stop looking for reasons to leave. And Lando’s decision had always spoken about his limits.
Never about mine.
(…)
Eight months later, I still found it absurd that anyone could call a paddock “home.”
And yet, there I was.
A cup of coffee in one hand, a paddock pass hanging around my neck, and a team radio that I understood absolutely nothing from, waiting for Max to finish the pre-qualifying engineering briefing.
One of the mechanics walked past me.
“Five more minutes.”
I nodded like that information had been meant for me. Leaning against one of the garage walls, I watched the organized chaos unfolding around me.
The first time I’d ever stepped into the paddock, I’d felt completely out of place.
Now I didn’t.
I still understood barely half the conversations about setup changes, tire degradation, or telemetry, but I’d stopped feeling like I needed to understand everything to deserve being there.
“Have you been waiting for long?” Max had just stepped out of the garage, zipping up the top half of his race suit as he walked toward me.
“Seven minutes.”
He glanced at his watch.
“It’s been nine.”
“I was giving you a little margin so you wouldn’t feel bad.”
“How thoughtful.” A quiet laugh escaped him.
He stopped in front of me and, without saying a word, took my coffee from my hands. He took a sip before casually handing it back.
“Thanks.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“That was my coffee.” I frowned.
“It’s our coffee now.”
“That’s not how that works.”
“It worked.”
I rolled my eyes.
I’d learned that arguing with Max was an absolute waste of time. Not because he was always right, but because he never seemed interested in winning. He simply kept talking until the other person gave up.
One of the engineers appeared at the garage entrance.
“Max. Time to go.”
He lifted a hand to let him know he’d be there in a second. Before leaving, he turned back toward me.
“Where are you going to be?”
I looked at him, confused.
“Here.”
“Good.” He nodded once “That way I’ll know where to find you when I’m done.”
And then he was gone.
There was no kiss.
No I love you.
He didn’t even look back.
He simply disappeared into the crowd of engineers like it had never crossed his mind that, when he came back, I might be anywhere other than exactly where I’d said I’d be.
And I would be.
I smiled without realizing it. Sometimes I forgot there had once been a time when I believed love meant waiting for someone to find the courage to choose you.
With Max there had never been any waiting.
He had simply shown up.
First at a coffee shop, pretending he’d driven halfway across the city just because he wanted a cup of coffee.
Then at an art gallery, listening to me talk for hours about paintings he probably wouldn’t remember.
Later, sitting beside me on a curb at two in the morning with a split lip, like getting into a fight was the most natural ending to a first date.
And now I was the one showing up at racetracks.
Waiting for him among engines, radios, and stacks of tires, in a world that had once felt completely out of reach but had, little by little, made room for me.
I suppose, in the end we became each other’s favorite coincidence.
“Verstappen!” one of the mechanics shouted from inside the garage. “Move it! Your future wife isn’t going to do qualifying for you!”
Laughter immediately erupted from inside the garage.
I rolled my eyes automatically.
I didn’t even have to look to know exactly what expression Max had on his face.
Pure satisfaction.
I buried my face in my hands as I laughed.
For the first time since I was a little girl, the future no longer felt like a place I needed permission to enter.
Because, in the end, love hadn’t come into my life to give me a place in the world.
It had come to remind me that the place I belonged had always been mine.
summary: Oscar never wanted to be on this yacht. After losing a bet to Lando, he found himself at a party in Monte Carlo… and met you. It all starts as reluctant eye contact and ended with a kiss that would never have happened if it weren’t for that silly game “spin the bottle”.
pairing: Oscar Piastri x fem!reader
word count: 4 500+ k
raiting: Mature
genre: fluff, from stranger to lover, intense mutual tension, rich college students AU, romance, jealousy, kiss with tongue.
warnings: quite detailed and passionate kisses (with tongue, moaning, and physical contact), explicit references to arousal and sexual tension, alcohol, a party, jealousy, possessiveness, mild eroticism without full-fledged sex scenes.
author note: So… I’ve written something again 😍 This story is a little different from everything else I’ve written because it’s written entirely from Oscar’s POV. I don’t know why, but I liked how it turned out. I don’t know if you’ll like this format, but I’m going to keep this story as part of my library anyway 🥰 For the first time, I’m not writing a one-shot with detailed sex scenes. This story doesn’t include such a scene because I decided it just didn’t fit here. Although… maybe… you think it does fit, and I should write Part 2? 🤔 I don’t know—it depends on how much you like this story (which might just end up standing on its own)! In any case, I enjoyed writing this 🧡 I’d love to hear any feedback ❤️🔥 Thank you all for your love and support 🤍 It means the world to me 💗
Oscar stood by the railing at the stern of the luxurious yacht, almost ignoring the noise and loud music behind him. The champagne glass pleasantly chilled his fingers, and the night lights of Monte Carlo, glittering like golden sparks on the dark water, were truly mesmerizing.
If one ignored exactly how Oscar had ended up on this deck, one could say the evening was perfect.
Suddenly, someone behind him let out a wild, loud scream. Oscar sharply turned his head. Lando, with a girl whose name Oscar couldn’t remember thrown over his shoulder, was cheerfully spinning around the deck. Her beautiful white dress was so short that it now barely covered her ass, and Lando shamelessly placed his palm on her buttocks and playfully tried to bite them. The girl squealed, struggled, and kicked her bare legs in the air, embodying protest that contained not a drop of real anger.
The rest of the guests — a small group of guys and girls, roughly equal in number as if specially selected so everyone had a pair — watched this scene with excitement. They laughed, whistled, and cheered Lando on. The amount of expensive alcohol in their blood turned any foolishness into a comedic masterpiece.
Oscar involuntarily grimaced as he watched Norris openly groping a girl he had known for maybe three hours at most. Piastri himself would never have ended up here voluntarily. He didn’t even know who owned this three-deck yacht, who all these people around him were, or where Lando had dug them up from. Oscar was supposed to be at home. But one damned poker game had decided everything — a game that had seemed destined to end in his absolute victory.
It had happened a few days earlier in England. Their elite college crew — the “golden children” who hung out together both at the prestigious institution and outside it — had gathered at the Norris family’s country estate. That evening was almost no different from the others: expensive drinks from Mr. Norris's collection, conversations about girls, parties, events in college, and cards.
Oscar had joined this group completely by accident. He had nothing in common with these heirs to billion-dollar fortunes who only thought about clubs. He was the son of Mr. Piastri, one of the leading power unit engineers, and Oscar dreamed of following in his father’s footsteps. That’s why Oscar studied brilliantly, spent hours poring over blueprints and formulas, and burned with the idea of inventing an advanced system for internal combustion engines. He loved sports, passive relaxation, and calm, predictable evenings.
But with Lando’s appearance in his life, Oscar had completely forgotten what peace and quiet meant. They studied in the same group, and when the professor paired them for a complex engineering project, they unexpectedly became friends. Since then, they had been inseparable, even though their friendship resembled an alliance between fire and ice. Lando — charismatic, hot-tempered, impulsive party animal. Oscar — his complete opposite: reserved, sarcastic, calm like the sea in calm weather.
And that evening at the estate had started so ordinarily. Oscar calculated every move, analyzed his friends’ facial expressions, and confidently moved toward victory. On the final deal, he held an ironclad royal flush. Oscar was already mentally celebrating his win when Lando, squinting slyly, threw his cards on the table.
Oscar still thinks it was cheating that he simply didn’t notice. But when Lando laid down a full house, his jaw genuinely dropped. The stake in this game was a wish that could not be refused. And what irony of fate that it was Oscar who ended up the loser.
The wish turned out to be terrible:
“You’re coming with me to party without any objections. Wherever I say. And when I say, and of course you stay there until the very end,” he had said then, as if pronouncing a sentence. Oscar hated parties. They were loud, full of alcohol and debauchery. It was a waste of time that Lando and his friends adored so much — something he would never understand. But he had no choice. He had to fulfill his friend’s wish.
Oscar had only clenched his jaw tightly then, mentally cursing the moment he agreed to sit at the table.
His indignation and displeasure knew no bounds when, literally the next day, Lando burst into his room shouting:
“Are you ready to hang out, my great poker master? Dad is flying to Monaco on business for the weekend, and we’re flying with him on the private jet! Monte Carlo awaits!” Oscar tried to get out of it, offered to repay the debt in any other way, but Norris was unrelenting. A deal is a deal. There was something irritating in how sweetly Lando enjoyed finally dragging his “nerd friend,” as he called him, to an elite party.
That was the reason he was now also watching his friend’s wild behavior. The girl on Lando’s shoulder continued to protest. Oscar’s gaze slid over those present and stopped on you.
You were laughing, and your pink cheeks and slightly glazed eyes indicated that you, like everyone else, were already in the right condition.
Oscar couldn’t look away. You seemed even more beautiful to him than the moment he first saw you. At the beginning of the evening, you had clearly felt exactly the same as he did. Your closed-off posture and short but exhaustive answers to other guests clearly showed that you had ended up on this yacht almost against your will, just for company. But after drinking a little more than half a bottle of champagne, you had noticeably gotten tipsy, relaxed, and finally started smiling sincerely. It wasn’t that Oscar was counting exactly how much you drank, but that’s how it turned out: watching you all evening, his analytical mind automatically recorded every detail about you.
During these three hours, you had talked alone several times, stepping away from the noisy crowd. You told him that you were studying in England but were currently on a break from your studies and had come here for a vacation with your friends. You had ended up on this yacht completely by chance — at the invitation of one of their boyfriends.
Oscar was struck by how easy it was to talk to you. Amid all this pretentious crowd, you were as simple as he was. Your light sarcasm, intelligent thoughts, and soft voice had literally saved him from deadly boredom. All evening his eyes had searched only for you, and even now, watching Lando’s latest antics, Oscar was still looking at how beautifully your eyes were illuminated by the night lights.
Suddenly you tore yourself away from watching Lando, turned your head, and caught Oscar’s gaze. Your lips spread into a warm, slightly tipsy smile. You cheerfully raised your glass and waved at him, inviting him to come closer to the group, which had already settled on the large soft sofas in the lounge area.
Oscar didn’t need to be told twice. Wanting only one thing — to be near you again — he smiled, pushed off the railing, and walked confidently toward the sofas.
He sat down in the free seat next to you, feeling the subtle scent of your perfume, and the whole company unexpectedly found itself together around a common table laden with drinks.
The conversation jumped from one topic to another. Lando, finally releasing the poor girl, heavily plopped down on the sofa next to her, directly opposite you two. He actively participated in the conversation, joking so that everyone laughed. None of you noticed how he picked up an empty bottle of the pink champagne you had just finished from the table and started spinning it.
Oscar had noticed several times how Lando was listening to the conversation and spinning the bottle, but he had no idea what his friend was about to suggest.
Suddenly, interrupting a tall blond guy, Lando shouted:
“Hey everyone! I’ve got an idea!” He jumped up, probably to make sure all the attention was on him. “Let’s play spin the bottle!”
Oscar froze when he realized what his drunk friend, who was already starting to sway from the alcohol, was talking about.
He couldn’t be serious. Oscar wanted to stand up, sit Lando back down, and say that no one wanted to play such a stupid, teenage game. He was sure that at least half of the group would support him. But he was wrong. Loud and unanimous shouts of approval said otherwise.
Everyone wanted to play spin the bottle for kisses. And even you were not against the fun game. Oscar silently shook his head and wished he could punch his friend for yet another stupid idea that would cause discomfort. He didn’t want to kiss anyone here… well, maybe only you, but what were the chances you would land on him?
Of course, thanks to Lando, this wasn’t the typical spin the bottle where it spins and picks a pair to give a quick peck.
The rules were thought out: to avoid any force majeure, the guys sat on one side of the sofas (which had been moved closer together), and the girls on the other. When a pair was chosen, they would kiss with a light peck on the lips. If the same pair came up twice, they had to kiss properly. If the same pair came up a third time, they had to kiss with tongue but only for a few seconds. But the pair that came up a fourth time had to kiss with tongue for a full minute. The pair that came up the most times would win.
The company around them livened up, picking up the idea with loud laughter and whistling. Under the influence of alcohol and the night vibe of Monaco, everyone craved excitement. The girls, chatting cheerfully, began moving to the opposite side of the sofas. You, slightly embarrassed by the tipsiness and general attention, stood up and sat down directly opposite Oscar.
Oscar leaned his elbow on the back of the sofa with displeasure, but still glanced into your eyes with some excitement. He really didn’t want to participate in this teenage chaos. But when Lando started persuading him again, shouting, Oscar noticed your interested, slightly expectant look. Your cheeks, pink from the champagne, and that soft smile affected him in an unexpectedly enchanting way. Next to you, his ironclad rationality began to fail.
The glass spun, blurring in the light of the yacht’s bright lamps. The first few spins passed with loud shouts: some got quick, awkward pecks, someone laughed, and Lando had already managed to kiss the same girl in the white dress several times. Oscar watched all this completely detached until it was the guys’ turn to spin again.
Someone gave the bottle a push. The green neck began to slow down, spinning across the marble table. Oscar lazily followed its trajectory. The bottle stopped. The neck pointed clearly and uncompromisingly at you. And suddenly his heart beat faster.
The crowd around exploded with whistles and shouts. Your eyes met, and he noticed that your cheeks flushed even more, and your gaze darted to the side for a second. Your shyness amid the completely uninhibited party seemed irresistibly attractive and at the same time the sweetest thing he had seen in his entire life.
Oscar leaned forward, resting his palms on the table. His face remained calm, but inside everything tightened like a string. You also leaned forward. When your faces were just a few centimeters apart, Oscar looked into your eyes as if asking for permission. According to the rules of the first round, it was supposed to be just a quick, innocent peck on the lips.
He leaned forward a little more and gently touched your lips with his.
The kiss lasted only a second. Your lips were soft, warm, and had the sweet taste of that same pink champagne. Oscar pulled away as calmly as he had begun, but his fingers on the table clenched almost imperceptibly. He desperately lacked that one second. He returned to his seat, trying to catch your gaze, but you, completely embarrassed by the awkwardness, lowered your eyes to the floor, hiding a smile.
And that somehow added inner confidence and arrogance — like he had a claim on you.
The game continued. The next few times the bottle passed Oscar by, choosing other guys and Lando with various girls. The game dragged on because they still wanted to drink. And also because of the discussion of the kisses.
Oscar switched back into observer mode, but now his attention was exclusively fixed on you.
And then, after a few more spins, one of the girls spun the bottle. The glass spun wildly and… once again smoothly stopped with the neck pointing at you. The bottom of the bottle clearly pointed at Oscar.
“Whoa! Repeat match!” Lando shouted, clapping his hands. “Guys, you know the rules!”
Yes. Oscar remembered the rules. If a pair came up a second time — no just touched lips. You had to move your lips. That was exactly what he wanted.
Everyone around grew even louder than the first time. Oscar felt excitement beginning to boil in his veins. He looked at you again — you were looking at him, and in your eyes, tipsy boldness was already fighting with embarrassment.
This time Oscar didn’t wait. He decisively leaned across the table. You also leaned in to meet him. When his lips touched yours again, he acted much more confidently. Oscar gently took the initiative, slightly turned his head, and made several deep, sensual movements with his lips, drawing in your lower lip. It lasted only a few seconds, as the rules required, but the chemistry between you flared up so strongly that Oscar momentarily lost his breath. You responded to his movement, and it made his heart race wildly.
When you pulled away, the company literally roared with delight. Lando was shouting something about Oscar hiding his talents, but Piastri didn’t hear him. He was looking at your clouded eyes and heavy breathing. Oscar suddenly realized clearly: he desperately, madly loved kissing you. And he wanted more.
The game no longer seemed stupid to him.
The bottle spun again.
Oscar took a sip of champagne, feeling his heart wouldn’t calm down. He begged for the bottle to stop on you again. But in his wish, he didn’t specify exactly who would be opposite you.
The bottle stopped on you, as Oscar had mentally asked, but the bottom landed a little further past him — directly on Lando.
“Ooh, my turn to kiss this doll!” Lando exclaimed, jumping up from the sofa.
Oscar leaned back against the sofa, and his face almost turned pale, turning into a cold stone mask. His calm was now hanging by a thread. He was forced to watch as Lando — his best friend, who usually didn’t take anything seriously — leaned toward you.
You no longer looked shy; you were laughing cheerfully because it was your turn again. This stung Oscar a little. When Lando approached your lips, Oscar couldn’t stand it and looked away. He pretended it was uncomfortable to sit and shifted several times, acting as if he was choosing a comfortable position.
Barely surviving this unexpected surge of jealousy (for him), he continued to watch the bottle.
It chose different pairs. But when the bottle stopped on you and Lando the next two times, he felt that burning pain in his chest again.
Oscar forced himself to watch as you and Lando kissed the second and third times… According to the rules, the kisses became longer and deeper.
Inside Oscar, a wild, dull irritation began to boil. The rationality that had always helped him control his emotions could not now overcome the primal jealousy.
During the time the game continued, Oscar had a few other girls from the group land on him, and he followed the rules, but during those kisses Oscar didn’t even look at them — he tried to catch your reaction.
He wanted to see if you were jealous. But you stubbornly looked to the side or at your knees, ignoring his glances. This irritated him even more.
The emotional peak came when Lando, pulling away from you after the third kiss, breathed heavily and suddenly announced loudly:
“Holy shit… Y/N, you kiss incredibly well! I can’t wait for the bottle to land again. The next round is already minute with tongue, I have to try it!”
A hum of approval and guys’ chuckles rolled across the deck.
At that moment, something finally snapped in Oscar’s head. The calm Piastri evaporated. A mad flash of anger and possessive instinct engulfed him completely. He couldn’t allow Lando to touch you again, especially so intimately. Oscar had to stop this damned game immediately, by any means.
He sharply leaned forward, interrupting someone’s laughter, and his voice sounded surprisingly loud and sharp:
“Listen, what’s with the drinks? The alcohol is running out. Maybe we should take a break — I’ll go get more champagne from the bar?”
It was an extremely clumsy, atypical attempt for Oscar to save the situation, and Lando noticed it instantly. Norris raised an eyebrow in surprise, looking at his friend with a light expression of irony and a sly smile.
“What are you talking about, Osc? There’s still plenty on the table,” one of the guys brushed it off. “What break? We’re just getting started! Keep spinning!”
“Yeah, Oscar, don’t wimp out, let’s continue!” your friend, as he knew, supported.
Oscar mentally swore and sat back down. He felt awkward and angry.
Lando spun the bottle. It spun for a long time, as if mocking Oscar. The tension in the circle reached its maximum. And when the glass finally began to slow down… the neck smoothly pointed at you, and the bottom — directly at Oscar.
He wanted to shout “yes,” as if he had scored a goal in football or hit the ball correctly in cricket. But he restrained himself. Without wasting a second, he decisively leaned toward you to kiss you for the third time during the game.
According to the rules, it had to be with tongue. When Oscar’s lips touched yours, his tongue immediately touched them as well. It was as if he was asking permission to enter, and you let him in without objection. Your tongues intertwined, and it felt like an explosion of fireworks that neither of you had expected. Oscar completely lost control. His tongue slid deeper, exploring you. He was going to erase from your lips any hint that Lando had kissed you before. He was branding you as his, taking your breath away and making your fingers involuntarily grip the edge of the marble table.
When Oscar finally pulled away, the company around literally roared with delight. The guys whistled, and Lando, whose ironic expression suddenly changed to genuine surprise, loudly clapped his hands:
“Whooooa! That wasn’t a kiss, that was straight-up adult movie material!”
Oscar breathed heavily, looking at your swollen, wet lips and clouded gaze. You barely noticeably swallowed air, and this time you didn’t lower your eyes. In your gaze, he read the same shock at how strongly both of you had been pulled into this whirlpool. Now Oscar knew for sure: you felt the same. And that brought back that same arrogant confidence.
He felt something hot and dangerous spreading in his chest — a mixture of triumph and the desire for this game to finally end and leave you alone.
“Well, folks, shall we continue?” Lando rubbed his hands, clearly anticipating. “Next time we might get a full French kiss for a minute and victory.” Lando looked at Oscar and smiled slyly, “May the luckiest win,” and winked.
Oscar felt his jaw tense. He threw a quick glance at you. You were nervously twirling the stem of your glass. Lando’s words touched Oscar’s pride. The stake wasn’t just about winning the game. Oscar couldn’t allow Lando to kiss you more times that evening than he did. He wouldn’t be able to watch if his friend kissed with tongue, so intimately, the girl he liked.
Oscar nodded confidently and shifted his gaze to the bottle. The next spin passed in tension. Oscar barely breathed. When the glass finally slowed and stopped… the neck pointed at another girl, and the bottom at one of the guys. The company made noise, but Oscar felt relief and automatically looked at you.
You raised your gaze to him. And in your eyes, he saw what he wanted: relief and the desire for the bottle to choose you two again.
The game continued for a few more minutes, but every new spin felt like torture to Oscar. When it was finally his turn to spin, he spun the bottle as if everything depended on it.
The bottle spun like a living thing. Everyone fell silent. Even Lando stopped joking. Oscar knew what Lando wanted — to win you — but he wanted it even more strongly.
The glass spun… and spun… and slowly, almost mockingly, stopped.
Neck — on you.
Bottom — on Oscar.
The fourth time.
For a few long seconds, it became strangely quiet on the yacht. Even the music coming from the upper deck seemed to recede into the background. All eyes were fixed only on the bottle.
“Noooo!” Lando was the first to break the silence, theatrically placing his palm on his forehead. “Wasn’t it supposed to be me?”
Oscar raised his eyes to you, and in an instant the world around him ceased to exist. Whistles and encouragements to start the kiss could be heard around them, but neither you nor Oscar heard anyone.
Something tightened in Oscar’s chest.
He had always considered himself a person who could control any situation. Before exams he didn’t get nervous. In sports competitions he didn’t lose his cool head. Even now, among a crowd of drunk students, his face remained almost impassive.
But inside…
Inside, everything was completely different.
Strange.
Just a few hours ago, he had been mentally counting the minutes until the end of this ridiculous party.
Now he caught himself thinking that he was grateful for that one single poker game.
“This is already a problem.” He even smiled to himself. “I’ve only known her for a few hours.”
And that should have been nowhere near enough.
Catastrophically not enough.
But his brain had long stopped working according to its usual laws. He didn’t understand that his attention, which only studying or passion for formulas and calculations could capture, had been brazenly stolen by you. You, who had barely appeared in his field of vision, had become more interesting than anything else in the world.
“Well?” Lando exclaimed impatiently. “Are you going to keep staring at each other until the wedding?”
Laughter rolled through the company. Oscar threw what seemed like a quick, calm glance at his friend, but Lando instantly shut up. He stood up from his seat. Sitting on opposite sides of this wide table and reaching toward each other for such a kiss would simply be ridiculous.
Every step he took around the marble tabletop was accompanied by encouraging shouts from the company, but Oscar heard only the loud, rhythmic beating of his own heart. His face remained impassive on the outside, but inside a real storm was raging, sweeping away all his rational barriers.
When he approached you, you looked up at him a little uncertainly. Your breathing was quick, and you smiled to ease the tension between you that had reached its peak.
Oscar extended his hand, and when you, obeying his silent call, placed your palm in his, he gently but extremely decisively pulled you toward him, making you stand up.
Now there were no obstacles between you. Only a few millimeters of hot Monaco night air.
“Time starts now,” someone shouted.
Oscar wasn’t going to wait for permission or say anything soothing. He placed one hand on your waist, authoritatively pulling you flush against him, and with the other gently buried his fingers in the hair at the back of your head. His lips covered yours with open, burning hunger.
This was nothing like the previous times. This was a real all-consuming moment. His tongue immediately parted your lips, shamelessly and deeply invading inside. The hot, wet, and incredibly sensual kiss instantly erased everything around you from reality.
“Mine,” was the only clear thought beating in his head as he greedily explored every millimeter of your mouth, wildly intertwining his tongue with yours and finally erasing any traces of Norris’s touches.
You quietly moaned right into his lips — a sound that sounded sweeter to him than anything he had heard that day. Your hands landed on his chest and then slid higher, wrapping around his neck. You pressed even closer, responding to the kiss with no less passion, and this movement became the very trigger that launched an irreversible chemical reaction in Oscar’s body.
Through the thin fabric of your dress, he felt the heat of your body. His hand on your waist involuntarily slid lower to the border of your lower back and buttocks, his fingers almost painfully digging into your skin, pressing your hips against his. Oscar realized with horror and at the same time wild delight how sharply and suddenly he had become aroused. This kiss, which was supposed to be only a condition of a stupid game, had turned into something dangerously real, heavy, and deep.
He tilted his head at a different angle, deepening the kiss to the absolute limit. He lightly bit your lower lip, pulling it toward him, making you moan again. Oscar felt everything inside him tightening from the pulsating desire. The rational, always perfectly restrained guy now wanted only one thing: to scoop you up in his arms, carry you to the nearest empty cabin on this damn yacht, lock the door, and not let you out until morning.
The surrounding noise had long turned into a dull background.
“…Five, four, three…” through the haze of passion, Lando’s voice counting down barely broke through.
But Oscar wasn’t going to stop. When “zero” sounded and the crowd exploded with applause, celebrating the end of the game, Piastri continued to kiss you — slowly, deeply, lingeringly, with open pleasure, as if showing everyone present that this was no longer a game. This was territory where entry was forbidden to others.
Finally, when oxygen in his lungs became critically low, Oscar reluctantly tore himself away from your lips. He didn’t release you from his embrace, only pulled back a few centimeters and looked into your eyes.
His chest rose and fell with rapid breathing. His eyes, which now hypnotized your face, had darkened with unconcealed, open desire. Your lips were flushed, swollen, and wet, and your gaze was just as clouded as his.
Oscar took a deep breath, futilely trying to calm his racing heartbeat and hide how strongly his body had reacted to your closeness.
“Congratulations on the victory,” he said to you in a low, quiet voice. Your eyes were magnetically drawn to his lips as he spoke to you. And when you, after spending a second to process the words, smiled, the tension disappeared.
liked by olliebearman, isackhadjar, pierregasly, and others
yngasly MY BEAR AND MY BEST FRIEND ARE GOING TO F1 AND I AM, TOO!!!
pierregasly: best addition to the social media team, ma pomme. i’m so proud of you
isackhadjar: WOO HOO
olliebearman: so proud of you, pretty. i love you ❤️
| yngasly: olliebearman i love you so much, my bear ❤️
kimiantonelli: AND KIMI WILL BE THERE ALSO
| yngasly: kimiantonelli AND MY BEAR’S BOYFRIEND WILL BE THERE ALSO
| kimiantonelli: yngasly thank you
maxverstappen1: i’m looking forward to media duties, actually
| yngasly: maxverstappen1 omg maxie. i am honoured
charlesleclerc: remember to get my good side
| yngasly: charlesleclerc remember to have a good side
♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡
f1 | 2025
liked by fan, fan, fan, and others…
f1 your 2025 rookies are here!
fan: they’re cheesing so hard
fan: ollie is BLUSHING
fan: just a bunch of kids, aw
fan: f1 admin really upped their photo skills
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ob.priv 🔒 | 2025
tagged: yn.jpg
liked by yn.jpg, notkimi, eyezak.priv, and others…
ob.priv my baby is coming to f1!!!
yn.jpg: now i get PAID to follow around the world AND show the world how beautiful my bear is!!
eyezak.priv: you two are disgusting
♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡
f1.jpg | 2025
f1.jpg f1 photographer & admin assistant has been granted permission to share all the photos that don’t make the official page. enjoy!
fan: oh my god i love you admin
| f1.jpg: fan i love YOU🥺🤍
fan: that max photo should have made the cut
| f1.jpg: fan he vetoed it :(
fan: bearenelli forever
| f1.jpg: fan don’t encourage them
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f1fan | 2025
liked by fan, fan, fan, and others
f1fan i need to know WHO f1 hired on the photography team this year. ollie bearman is in a constant state of heart eyes, max is LAUGHING, isack is pouting, pierre is annoyed. what is happening
fan: i have theories and they all involve yn gasly
| fan: fan huh?
| fan: fan she’s been at every race, is always seen with a camera, and has known most of the drivers for years. plus, she has an f1 paddock pass, not a team.
| fan: fan so what i’m hearing is admin team has their own personal 2025 rookie
| fan: fan OH MY GOD ADMIN TEAM HAS THEIR OWN PERSONAL 2025 ROOKIE
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f1 | 2025
tagged: photographer1, admin1, yngasly, and others…
liked by fan, fan, fan, and others…
f1 today we gave the cameras to the drivers to show you the lovely team who makes the content happen. we love you, social media admin team!
