In the Spotlight (Max Verstappen - Book Two)

Chapter One

"Hey, Elodie, are you ready?" Annie asks, approaching me in the typical director's seat in which I've been sitting in for the last ten minutes waiting for the DTS crew to organise everything. I look up lazily from my phone which I have been messaging Daniel back and forth while waiting and nod. Olivia steps forward to grab my phone for me and she shoots me a wink, knowing how much I haven't been looking forward to the interviews starting again...especially since last season isn't due to air until we begin testing. I roll my eyes before sitting up straight and confidently directing my eyes toward the brunette producer, smiling brightly. "So, a lot has changed since we had our first interview last year, would you mind reintroducing yourself?"

I nod and shoot her a grin, eyes gleaming as I get to say the following words for the first time in an interview; "Absolutely. I'm Elodie Carter, 21 and I'm a driver for Oracle Red Bull Racing's Formula One Team."

"Feel good?" She asks, giving me a weird sense of deja-vu from last year and I nod.

"Feels great! Last year was a good introduction to Formula One, this year, I'm ready to go for it." I say confidently and it's true. Although I was doing something essentially the same as last year, it felt monumentally different, I had changed and grown a lot as a person and a driver in the last year and I felt more than ready for the season to begin. The months between Monza and now had been busy, but good.

Nick had formally joined my team full time from the Singapore race and JC stopped travelling with us after the Austin race and wasn't able to come to Abu Dhabi along with the rest of my family and friends such as Talia, Simon and Florence, whom I had been in contact with pretty regularly throughout the season. I had even begun streaming on occasion with both Simon and Talia which was really nice to have people outside the sport to talk to and hang out with sometimes. There was also a surprise guest appearance by Matthew Grant, the actor who had asked me out at the Valentino party and although he was with McLaren and not Williams he had gone out of his way to seek me out and try asking me out again.

In a moment of weakness, I had made a bet with him that if I managed to score points in the race then I would, but alas my car crapped out one last time halfway through the race and I ended up DNFing and just partying the night away, celebrating the end of the season with Williams as we had by some miracle, managed to move the team to finish in eighth ahead of HAAS and Aston Martin, as our understanding of the car grew exponentially and we made our way into the points several times over the last few races in the season.

I did genuinely think not going on the date was a shame, despite only having a few brief conversations with him, he served as a good distraction for me given how Max and I had left things. We'd ended up seeing each other casually, only going on around four dates total before it fizzled out somewhat, but the intimacy I'd been craving was sufficiently topped up and we kept on hooking up on the few occasions he was in Monaco. I had hoped that it would be enough to make my feelings for Max disappear into thin air...but it turned out that it wasn't enough to get the Dutchman out from under my skin, his face still appearing in my dreams regardless of whether or not I wanted him there.

After that night in Monaco, not much had changed although we mainly made sure to only hang out with other people around. I don't know if it was a conscious decision that he was making, but it was one that I made. Either way, we both stopped looking for excuses for the two of us to hang out alone and seemed to always make sure that we saw each other in either a professional or friendly environment. So that meant trips out on jet skis with Daniel and Lando in Monaco, the occasional boat trips with Charles and Alex, but I hadn't seen or spoken to him since before Christmas. Since the Christmas dinner.

"Can you tell us a bit more about yourself?" Annie asks, bringing my attention back to the room, obviously nervous about the fact that this is where I got stuck last year but thankfully due to personal growth over the last year, I had an answer for her this time.