"I almost feel jealous that someone else got to mark you. If I had known you were looking I would've taken a shot," Charles says with a grin, ignoring the fact that drivers couldn't mark each other. There was this whole clause—
And then Charles left, walking away as though nothing had occurred between them just now, and like Charles hadn't admitted that he would've liked to court Max?
He hides for longer than he'd care to admit to anyone, only pulling himself out of the scent-drunk haze when his phone starts to ring.
Life has other plans, and Max wishes he could snap life's pencil or pen in half. Burn the pages. He finds himself staring at George Russell, waiting at the door to Max's hotel room. It's bad, that he's here at all, but he doesn't react to Max's quiet growl, just stands, quiet, watching as Max digs through his pockets and resists the urge to dump all of their contents onto the floor and walk away. When Max pulls open the door, George slips in like he belongs. A rage boils beneath Max's skin as he follows, slamming the door shut—as hard as he could, anyway. The thing doesn't let him, doesn't give any relief with a loud slam. Instead, it just lazily closes, a light air releasing from its mechanism.
"What do you want?" Max growls. He's already tired of this. George just appears to be brooding, eyes scanning over the contents of Max's room. It snares on the pile of clothes Max had dumped onto his bed in a fit this morning, like he had brought choices to wear at all. "If you're just going to mope, then you can get out."
George's eyes snap back to him, a sour sort of softness bleeding into his expression before its schooled away. "Why Charles?"
He can't help the disbelieving scoff that leaps from his mouth as he moves to sit, crossing his arms across his chest. "Why do you need to know? Maybe he wants to take me on a date before he bites," Max says with a shrug.
George doesn't bristle at the comment like Max wanted. He makes that stupid face he makes when the interviewer asks a dumb question, pursing his lips, looking at the hotel bed playing as a laundry bin. His hands hang at his sides, doing nothing. It is unnerving. He is too calm.
"And besides, cinnamon is nice. Reminds me of home," Max tacks on, but it sounds like a lie even to his own ears. Charles' lingering scent is leaving Max's nose feeling raw, like he needs to sneeze, unable to. Too much, especially with the full scenting the omega had given him. At Max's plea. If he is honest, George's scent reminds him of home in a way no one else's scent has. That fresh, clean water scent, like sitting at a lake on a nice summer afternoon. The sun on your skin and a cool breeze tickling at your face. But he couldn't be honest, not in this little story. "I might ask him to keep doing it," he continues.
That gets George's attention. "You won't…"
"I will,"
"He's a driver." George says it with more conviction than he deserves, Max thinks.
"So are you, Russell." Max raises a brow at George's hands curling into fists. "Besides, he didn't seem to care about that earlier today."
Maybe it was a bit wrong, to weaponize Charles' earnest comment from today, but it works well for his purposes. George's face falls into one of total disrepair, glancing between the floor and Max before he darts from the room, leaving the door to slowly snake its way shut again.
this wip is massive but god do i love it. this is "accidental" mating bite gax in a world where mating bites between drivers are disallowed due to a past incident which is going to be shown via an article (using ocs though, but i fell in love w the ocs too) sprinkled throughout the narrative. its not shown in this particular snippet but betas do not have scents unless they are marked by an alpha/omega and the scent develops to pair well with the one who marked them, max is a beta and was bitten by george and he asks charles to scent him to cover it, which leads into the above >:3
