barely legal | max verstappen ✓

alone, together

She didn't communicate with her parents anymore, but she did it with their lawyers and her father's assistant: Esmee. After all, she was legally their beneficiary; they never changed that. It had come as a surprise for Sloane when Esmee contacted her to say her parents decided to put their house in Rotterdam for sale, that she was letting her know in case she needed to pack something from her old room before emptying the place.

The possibility of her mother letting go of that place never sounded like an attainable idea, because the house had been designed for her and her only, a couple of years before she married her father, only remodelled over the years. She wondered if the sale would finally trigger the divorce between them in the future. There was solace in the situation, but sadness too. That was her childhood home. She grew up there.

When she told Max about it, he offered to go with her in case she needed help with anything. The offer was a relief for her.

"It's big," Max mentioned when they crossed the main door. He looked at the glass windows leading to one side of the backyard. "You had a pool...wow." A very dirty pool now.

She snorted. "I kissed a girl for the first time in that pool. My mom never found out, I think." Sarina from school. It'd been an experience. "My pet rabbit almost drowns in there too, but my dad rescued it from that terrible fate."

"I do enjoy it when you just tell me stuff like that." She spilt information about her life at the most random times and it was very amusing, but he remembered all those details just in case. Like he'd probably get her a rabbit now if she asked for one. "I never tried to drown one of my pets but I always joke about not remembering if my first kiss was a guy or a girl."

"We're so made for each other." When she winked, he scoffed and softly squeezed her hand. "And I didn't try to drown my rabbit, he jumped into the pool." He pursed his lips, half-convinced. "I'll defend myself later, let's see if we find something important in my old room."

He followed her upstairs, still holding her hand. Unlike the rest of the house, lacking pictures or decorations, her old room seemed intact. They were giving her time to pack what she wanted to take before sending the rest to a depository. It served as a reminder that she had her own storeroom with stuff from her old flat as well. Her old piano was there, perhaps she could ask Esmee if her dad wanted it back. She let go of his hand when they walked inside.

The room was very Sloane, he thought. The colours, teen magazine cutouts, and a couple of band posters on the walls. It was her. Like a younger version of her loft in New York. There were also framed photos, of her as a child and of course, her and Aurora when they were teenagers. He took notice of all this while she walked around checking everything.

One of the things that caught his attention was a pile of magazines in a corner of the room. "Did you collect those?" Max asked, pointing at them.

Sloane turned to him, then took a glimpse at the stack. "Oh, that...my mom used to pick up all the magazines and catalogues I did when I was young. I started modelling at fourteen so there are quite a few."

"Should we take those with us then?"

"It'd be a nice memory, yeah." She smiled. Some of the campaigns were bad, but whatever. Memories were memories.

He bent down to lift the pile, it was a bit heavy but nothing he couldn't manage. It was placed on her desk, and whilst she decided what else to take with her, he checked one of the magazines. In one of the photos, Sloane modelled a jacket he swore he'd also seen in old pictures of his sister. He smiled.

The photos obviously were on the list of things she'd take. Most of the stuff would be gathered for sentimental value since it didn't have any real use anymore. Rummaging through a wooden box, she found a tulip flower made of paper. It was wrinkled, and the paper had lost its hue, but the little flower was intact in shape. She remembered getting those from school on Valentine's Day.