Cold as Ice → Max Verstappen

XXXii| Beautiful

Talking off, Anneli was quite interested to see how Max would be with her family. He was staying with Anneli at the family house while he was in Switzerland, along with helping Anneli find a house she wanted. It turned out that he was really serious about buying her house, though Anneli wasn't sure how she was supposed to accept it with feeling no guilt. 

She knew Max had more money than he knew what to do with, she couldn't imagine how much he had just from bonuses from each race win let alone his salary. Even so, Anneli didn't like to take money off people no matter how rich they were.

"Neli!" Kimi called to his daughter.

"Dad," Anneli replied in Finnish as she hugged him. "Please play nice."

"I always play nice," Kimi replied with a smile.

"Liar," Anneli crossed her arms. "This is different. You know Max."

"It will be fine as long as he does not know Finnish," Kimi joked, patting her on the back and realising her from the hug.

Truth be told, Kimi liked Max. Max was honest and made Anneli a lot happier than Elijah ever did. Anneli showed more love to Max in the short time than she ever did to Elijah and that was something that put Kimi at ease.

"I am excited for my racing friend to meet my hometown friend," Anneli commented. "They no nothing about racing so it should be refreshing for you all."

"As long as they're fun, it should be fine," Max said with a grin. "Are they nice?"

"They are very nice, even though they always make me drive," Anneli said in amusement.

"She drives a truck," Kimi added, glancing at Max from the driver's seat.

"Oh?" Max hummed. "I can picture that."

"She's a better race driver than a road driver," Kimi joked as Anneli rolled her eyes.

"If her driving is like when we went rally car driving, I'm terrified—"

"Oi, I'm a great rally car driver!" Anneli whined, hitting Max's shoulder. "I beat you!"

"Barely—"

"I'd like to see you have an ego like that after we go snowboarding," Anneli muttered.

"Oh no, she's taking you snowboarding?" Kimi mumbled. "I am sorry for your loss."

"What?" Max's mouth partner in confusion.

"Snowboarding against me is the one race you cannot win," Anneli smirked. "If you do, I will retire from my racing career, never snowboard again and move to live on a remote island in the middle of nowhere."

Max looked between Anneli and Kimi, both of whom seemed happy with themselves at Anneli's words. She wasn't joking and Max wasn't sure if he should be scared or amused. Max wasn't even sure what Kimi meant by 'sorry for your loss' but neither seemed to elaborate.

Anneli knew. It was the loss of Max's confidence.

Then again, Max was more scared Felipe was going to push him off the cliff before he even had a chance to race Anneli.

As they pulled up at the house, Anneli let a happy sigh out. She adored being back home, especially when snow littered along the ground since it was her favourite weather. She was also glad to be with her siblings.

"Rianna! Robin!" Anneli yelled as she walked through the door. "Hurry up!" 

"Neli! Hi!" The Finnish voice sounded as the little blonde girl came running at Anneli.