F1 & F2 Imagines

Bad-Boys/Bad-Girls [MV]

You stride through the barriers to the paddock, flashing your best smile at the security guards. This is going to be a great day. Your leather jacket caps off the ensemble of black boots and a light summer dress, while sunglasses give you the confidence to look at whoever you want without worrying about staring. And you'll be doing a lot of staring today, if you're lucky enough to find wherever it is the drivers hang out.

You conned your way in here under the pretence of being media, so you suppose you should head to the media tent to regroup before you go exploring. Inside you find an empty table and decide to make use of the complimentary buffet. A noisy group of men are shouting at each other in Dutch at a table near the entrance, so you suppose nobody will pay you any attention.

You take off your glasses and scroll through the news on your phone, reading about the couple of grid penalties which should make today more interesting. It is exciting to be here, but you're wishing more and more that you'd brought a friend along. It's getting a bit awkward to sit on your own doing nothing.

You look around the tent to see if anyone might notice you going up for a second helping of food. At that moment, a tall driver in a Red Bull t-shirt and shorts strides into the tent, greeting the Dutch reporters in their own language. Your heart jumps. That's Max Verstappen. You trail your eyes over his muscular arms and toned legs then look back up at his face. The blue of his eyes is piercing. His contagious smile winds its way into your own as you make eye contact.

He starts coming over.

"Did you just check me out?" He asks bluntly, leaning down onto your table.

"What? Uh... No," you stammer. Your sunglasses are lying on the table by your plate. You curse yourself for forgetting.

"I'm Max." He holds out his hand for you to shake. "I haven't seen you here before."

"I'm Y/N, I'm with Red Moon Media," you tell him your practised lie.

"What the hell is Red Moon Media?"

"Well uh... It's a newspaper."

You grind your teeth silently inside your head. This guy is picking apart your story. You're grateful the media tent is empty and nobody else has heard your conversation except the man in front of you.

Max nods slowly, clearly not believing you. You can either double down on the story or take this in a different direction.

"I'll let you in on a secret," you smile, "I'm not really supposed to be here."

"No shit." Max raises his eyebrows sarcastically. His eyes remain passive. "So what... You're a bit of a bad-girl then?"

"You could say that. I just wanted to get closer to the action, you know?"

Max smirks. "I know." Jesus, what does it take to impress this guy?

"Don't worry, I'm not going to interview you." You joke to try to change tack. Max stands up and stretches his arms out above his head, cracking his back.

"Great. See you around, then."

"Wait, where are you-"

"Byeee..." He waves over his shoulder. You thump the table quietly. You've missed your chance to get to know a driver, and slip-ups like this easily could blow your cover.

You decide to wander around the paddock with your notebook and pretend to do important media things for a few hours. Sneaking into a Grand Prix has turned out to be much more boring than you'd imagined. At one point you manage to get a few words out of Lando Norris, but he rushes into the McLaren trailer before you can strike up a conversation.