Adrenaline: A Lestappen Story

𝟏𝟎 - 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧'𝐭 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩

Listening to the other man's plans, Charles accidentally let slip a small noise of discontent as he didn't like the idea of being apart. If they were both arriving on Wednesday it left very little time for them to even see each other in any context aside from on the track. The boy had long let himself be lost in the little illusion of the moment, settling into Max's arms and not caring that every part of what they were doing screamed with the intimacy of a couple who couldn't bear to be apart.

"Will you be alone again?" Charles asked softly, finally opening his eyes and turning his head slightly to look up at Max. They both knew why he was asking and as they lay there in each other's arms it didn't come as a surprise that Charles was grasping at straws for the possibility of more moments like it. While he waited for an answer, the boy kissed a spot on Max's neck that he kept gravitating towards and one that if he was able to leave marks, he'd have done so by now. "I want to keep seeing you," he confessed while not meeting his eyes. Charles blamed the intimacy of the moment on his sudden ability to sound so vulnerable— making requests that he knew better than to.

Inhaling deeply, Max drew the tranquility of the moment into his being, fully aware that such instances were unlikely to repeat with frequency. "I'll be alone," he acknowledged, nodding as his eyes briefly closed, surrendering to the warmth of the bathtub and the comforting weight of the other man leaning against him. Without reservation, Max posed a candid question, his unfiltered nature shining through. "Why do you keep bringing her to every race? Your girlfriend," he inquired, his straightforwardness a characteristic trait, seldom hesitating to speak his mind.

As he thought over Max's question, Charles didn't have an answer that immediately popped into mind. It wasn't something the couple had discussed but it was brought up at some point, that the best way for them to spend time together was if she followed him to every race and from then on it just sort of happened.

"It's convenient," he replied with a small shrug, "if I'm gone all the time then she'd see me as distant and it wouldn't work out in the end because I have trouble with keeping up with texts and calls. I'm distant enough while spending everyday together so without that I guess the relationship would just disappear," he answered, having difficulty putting his relationship with Alex into words but there was an almost platonic feeling to them.

"Does it bother you?" Charles asked, resting his cheek on Max's shoulder while looking up at him, admiring the way his face looked when he looked at peace.  Charles hoped that Max would be honest with him. In any other setting he was sure the man might have brushed the comment off and teased him for thinking that at all but since it was just the two of them, he looked at him expectantly. "If it was Kelly I would be a little bothered," he admitted, knowing that what they discussed that night would be just for the two of them.

Max eyed the edges of the bathroom trying to prepare an answer for the equally direct question coming from the brunette, but to his luck the comment that followed it was just enough to bring the blond into chuckling at the Ferrari driver. "You would be bothered?" he asked rhetorically as he unwrapped his arms away from the brunette, the comment sounding absurd enough for him to not truly take it seriously. "What would you be bothered about?" he furrowed his eyebrows, the tone of his voice carrying the insinuation of mockery to it.

The sudden change in atmosphere caused the Ferrari driver to tense up as the other man removed himself from him and began to spit mockeries at him— leaving the boy at a distance from him and unable to say anything in return, once again ruining something that was good by speaking what he was truly feeling. He usually knew better than that and could censor himself, the media training having engraved itself into him but there had been a false aura of safety around Max that Charles had wrongfully chosen to trust.