Daniel
The boat was in fact the perfect getaway after the last few months. Max was being a bit reckless with all of the flipping and the jet skiing, but we were just happy to really have him back. Pierre and Charles were pushing each other off the boat. Maeve was really enjoying her time here as well, or at least it seemed that way. Kate and Charlotte were loving getting to know Maeve and gossiping a bit about the paddock. I couldn't help but stare at her as she sat on the deck with the girls while I was sitting on the water platform waiting for my turn on the jet ski.
The bikini I ended up grabbing on a whim looked incredible on her. I could finally see all of her tattoos that coated her arms and legs. She had her hair up in a high ponytail as she talked with excitement to the girls. Her smile was infectious as she laughed, the smile bigger than I had seen in months. I had upset her just two weeks ago and made that smile fade. Now here she was with two girls she was just meeting, actually having a good time in the Monegasque sunshine. I couldn't be more thankful that she was back.
Those thoughts were unceremoniously interrupted by a spray of water that flew so far it even made the girls squeal as they received just the tail end of it.
"Stop staring Mate!" Max laughed as he and Michael flew by on the jet skis.
They both pulled up to the dock after circling back to trade with Pierre and Charles.
"Mate, seriously, keep staring and she's going to find out." Max sat down next to me on the platform. He had a towel in his hand and was rubbing the droplets off his skin from his short time on the jet skis. It was hard not to look at the massive scars on his legs as he ran the towel over them. Michael pulled me away from that thought.
"Shut up. I wasn't staring." Michael scoffed as he walked onto the deck and towards the kitchen. He had a different towel to wipe the stray droplets off and that left me with my teammate.
"That means you were. Really? You're hopeless." I sighed, looking back up at my best friend.
"I have to tell her. Like today. We keep having these weird moments and each time we just get closer." Max just chuckled, unceremoniously dropping the towel onto the floor at his feet on the deck.
"Not surprising. The second you guys are put in the same room for more than a handful of days you'd just do the deed and get it over with." I shoved Max, nearly into the water at his words. He just laughed as he righted himself. While all I could do was twiddle my thumbs to occupy my hands.
"That reaction alone should tell you I'm right. So how are you going to do it?"
Max stared at me and I knew then that I had not a single clue. How do you tell your best friend that you're in love with them? Over dinner? A movie? A walk on the beach? Do you tell them outright or do you walk them into it nicely? Maeve was always a very honest person until it came to me. Hence our issues with the team in the past month. That didn't help me with how to handle this situation.
"Daniel? Hello? Yoo-hoo earth to Daniel." Max snapped in front of my face and I blinked.
"Sorry. I was thinking." Max groaned, sitting back and laying his arms across the back of the couch.
"Yeah probably building a Barbie dream house with Maeve and the picture perfect family you'll have. Picturing two or three kids? One named Max, right? " I chuckled, that was never something that crossed my mind. At least not in the way Max was describing.
"No. Just thinking about how to tell her. Without ya know, ruining our friendship forever..." I scratched the back of my neck and winced, just the thought of that happening pained me.
"She won't do that. I'd be willing to bet my entire career and savings that she damn well feels the same." Looking back at Maeve, she was looking at me this time. A shy wave was all she gave me before Charlotte pulled her attention back to whatever they were talking about.
"I really hope so."
I watched her for another moment before an idea came to mind.
"What are you doing tomorrow?" I turned to Max suddenly.
"I need to do shopping. Jon will come with me since I'm not supposed to be going anywhere alone but I can be done early. Why?"
"Why don't you ask Maeve to go instead. Keep her out of my apartment. I know what I'm going to do."
Max agreed immediately and we joined the girls while Pierre and Charles were off doing stunts on the boat. They had been discussing their studies together. Of course the women of Formula 1 were our better halves in education. They were talking about the amount of work expected from their different post secondary education commitments. It was interesting to hear just how much work went into the other programs. When Charles and Pierre joined us, they were able to give more context on the education they received growing up. People like Michael, Maeve, and me didn't grow up in the center of culture like Max, Pierre, Charles, or the other girls. It was very eye opening to see just how much their parents pushed them to learn about different aspects of the world.
It's not that our parents didn't want to educate us on those things. They certainly did, at least I can speak for Michael and I since we grew up together. There is just something different about being in the place where history has happened to learn from it. The best we could do was a few pictures in a textbook. The best the others could do were field trips to see it physically. The lessons were the same, but they were much more in depth when you could teach from the actual places these things happened. Maeve couldn't help but look at Charlotte in awe as she described her first visit to the Eiffel tower in school. They took week-long trips to places like Rome and Berlin as they grew older, prompting core memories laced with a deep understanding of the world before them. It was something Maeve loved and had always wished to experience and suddenly I found myself wanting to experience them too.
Our conversation cut off when Max and Charles went to cook dinner. The sun was already setting and they had brought food to grill. Charlotte joined them to be with Charles while Pierre and Kate went to sit on the water platform to watch the sunset together. It left Michael, Maeve, and I alone on the wrap around couch on the upper deck.
"How French of him to be that romantic..." Maeve rolled her eyes as she sipped at one of many glasses of wine she's had during the day.
"Like you've never done that with someone you were dating." Michael laughed as he sipped from his beer.
"Never. Then again, I don't think I'll ever be in love with someone the way those two are." She tipped her glass to the couple currently embracing each other on the end of the boat.
"I doubt it. You just need to find the right person." The words left my mouth before I could stop them.
"Like you're one to talk. Unless you have a secret girlfriend that I don't know about?" She smirked at me, thinking she had the edge as she sipped her drink. Only she didn't.
"Well I actually have my eye on someone if you must know." I snootily replied before sipping my own wine.
"Oh yeah? Let me guess," she looked up in fake thought, moving her sunglasses to the top of her head," Megan Fox?" Michael and I laughed.
"An actual person I've been talking to, Maeve." She looked skeptical, but when I smiled her face fell.
"You've been talking to someone? How long?" She broke out into a smile, but it didn't meet her eyes. Something she must've realized as she turned to look at Michael.
"A while now. I just didn't know how to tell them my feelings but I think I'm going to soon." She nodded once, biting her lip before she looked back at me.
"What's her name? Where's she from?" Her happy face now fully on as she questioned me about someone she thought she didn't know.
"I'll tell you if it works out. She's got a lot of stuff she's dealing with and I don't want to jinx it."
I didn't want to scare her away more than I usually do when I talk about this stuff. Maeve has always been super supportive of my relationships, but until now I never realized how much her demeanor changed when I actually had full conversations with her about them. She had always honed in on the same questions, never deviating from the subject or trying to get me to change it myself. It was like she was forcing herself to be interested in the topic. It gave me hope that what Max said was correct.
"Well I'll expect a full report and a nice dinner together when the time comes." She gave me a smile before standing, taking her wine glass to the kitchen where she took up a conversation with Max since his cooking partner was busy with their girlfriend.
"I'm telling you that girl has feelings for you." Michael laughed as I sipped my wine with my eyes still on her.
"Even if that's the truth, someone's gotta break first and say something Michael. Then what? What if we're wrong? What if we're right? Do you have any idea how many hoops we are going to have to jump through to make this work?" Michael just stared at me. I could see it as he was sitting between me and where Maeve was hopping up on the kitchen counter next to Max. They had struck up a conversation quickly, most likely about Charles as Max rolled his eyes and pointed at the other man flirtatiously talking to his girlfriend.
"Like you haven't already thought of every answer to every question either of you could ask. Grow up and just tell her so all of your friends can yell finally together!" I glared at him as he raised his voice during the last few words of his sentence.
"Shut up." I whisper yelled at him as I saw the four in the kitchen area turn their heads away from the conversations they had been having.
"Soon I won't have to."
I hope Michael was right, but we had to get there first. The rest of the night was spent eating and drinking with friends. The two couples even had a nice little dance off on the back of the boat while the rest of us just laughed. It was obvious we were all far too drunk to make it back to our apartments while we were shoving each other into the water around midnight.
Not that it seemed to matter, but with there being only one bed on the boat everyone had to fend for themselves. Pierre laid out a blanket for him and Kate on the water platform. Charles and Charlotte took up one of the couches drunkenly wrapped in each other's arms. Michael slept in one of the chairs by the grill, fast asleep before we even tried to figure out where the rest of us were sleeping. He did have those old man tendencies.
"I'm sleeping in a bed. I'm injured." Max argued as the remaining three of us were trying to find places to sleep. He sat to Maeve's left, me to her right as we stared at the city from the front of the boat.
"I think we should share then because I already have neck and back issues from the car and I can't risk tweaking my neck sleeping on a couch." Maeve smirked, thinking that would be the final say.
"Well I could make that argument too! Plus Max and I have shared before. It makes sense for the two of us to share!" Her only response was to shove me as we all sat at the very front of the boat so as to not disturb the others in the back that were already asleep. In a drunken stupor, her shove held no power and only pushed her into Max on her left. He only laughed since her much smaller body barely had an impact on him.
"You know what?," Max stood, brushing his hands off before looking at the two of us," you two can argue about it. I have PT tomorrow and need to get some sleep. No one fall into the water. I don't feel like dialing emergency." We both laughed at him as he carefully walked along the edge of the boat to the side entrance below deck.
"We do realize that there's a sitting area down there too with a sweet pull out couch right?" She suddenly turned to me, shocked at my words.
"This wh-whole time we were fighting for nothing?!" Her words were drawn out and sluggish, but I caught all of them.
"Well everyone was focused on the bed!" She glared at me while I laughed.
"I swear sometimes you just want me to be fru-frust, fuck, mad." Ironically being frustrated with saying the word made her curse and switch as I just cackled beside her.
"For being the most intelligent person I know, when you're drunk you're basically an idiot." She just frowned at me with big puppy dog eyes while I laughed.
"An idiot? No... just durnk." A lazy smile and glassy eyes were staring at me, looking for the response to her comical answer. I was happy to smile back.
"Well you're the best durnk idiot I know. Don't forget it." I poked her nose as I spoke, making her laugh.
"God I love you." My heart hiccuped hearing those words from her as she stared out at the city and harbor in front of us. We've said it in passing, but nothing so definitive like she had said.
"What?," she looked up at me, leaning her head on my shoulder," you got real quiet." Taking a chance, I wrapped my left arm around her shoulders.
"Just thinking about something I have to take care of. Nothing to worry about." She smiled at that, settling against my side as she looked back at the harbor. The city was well lit up in front of the boat and from here you could see almost all of it. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't breathtakingly beautiful.
"Maybe I should move here. Just be a driver. If a team wants me that is." She gave a single dry laugh, meaning that while her words didn't sound sarcastic they definitely were.
"Why not just be a driver? You can be a driver without having to analyze data and still work on the outcome of the car during testing..." she didn't say anything, just staring out at the city and its reflection in the water.
"I know....," she looked back up at me. Meeting my eyes that never left hers," what if I'm not good enough? Or worse, what if I win?" I narrowed my eyes, confused as to why winning would be worse.
"Don't get confused on me now Joseph." I rolled my eyes, her favorite drunk time nickname of mine.
"Well, I just don't understand how winning would be worse." She sighed, moving out from under my arm so she could face me by turning her body towards me as she brought her knees to her chest.
"This is a man's sport, Daniel. If I lose, I'm just the sideshow. If I win, I turn into the disgrace of the sport." I raised an eyebrow at that, turning my body to face hers as well.
"That's absolutely not true and you know it. You win and you'll be celebrated. You'll be the first woman race winner. The first of many that is. You work just as hard as the rest of us, if not harder with your actual work needing to be done and school." She didn't say anything as I spoke. She let me continue to rant, staring down between us until I ended my words by reaching out for her hand and lacing our fingers together.
"None of us would call you a disgrace. We are your friends and we will always have your back, D. Don't you dare let those kinds of worries prevent you from doing something you want to do."
"It just throws me back to doing music stuff. People were so mean when I started on the arena tours. They said I was too young and didn't deserve it. They said I was sleeping around when I hadn't dated anyone the entire time I was on those tours. It was vicious. I don't think I could handle it all over again..." tears came to her eyes, something she rarely did as she stared at me.
"It wouldn't be like that. People can be cruel in this business, but you'll always be surrounded by your friends. We always have your back. Hell, I'll always be here for you..." I squeezed her hand and she just gave me a sad smile as her eyes met mine again.
"You've always been there for me, Daniel. You're my best friend and I wouldn't be out here in the most expensive harbor in the world on a boat I could never afford without you." I chuckled, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.
"Not true. Remember, I know what you make now." She scoffed, using the hand that wasn't in mine to wipe under her eyes.
"Yeah and so far all my paychecks have all gone back to the crew. I'm basically broke still." I shook my head. She was making millions this year and still found a way to spend it on everyone else.
"Maeve, I think you're only broke because you want everyone else to have the best even if it means you don't have anything." She pursed her lips.
"No," she let go of my hand, but I just held on to hers," I'm broke because someone rear ended me in Baku." I rolled my eyes.
"Well done Baku as they say..." I picked up the discarded beer I had sitting precariously on the edge of the boat against the rail and took a sip.
"Yeah. Thanks. Plus I have loans to pay off. American Education is such a scam sometimes." She shook her head and I groaned as I placed the beer back down.
"This is why I didn't go to university. No one even cares if you have a degree these days." Her eyes widened and I realized that was the wrong thing to say.
"Sure! Unless you're in charge of making sure two idiot drivers can vroom vroom the fastest in weird shaped circles around the world while taking into account the environmental differences, friction variables, and shitty engines that you also have to fix. Yeah. No one fucking cares." She ripped her hand from mine and stood before I could stop her.
Maeve was an angry drunk sometimes. It was rare, but when she was like this, she ran.
"No, no, no." I grabbed her forearm before she could get too far, lurching my body forward and accidentally knocking over my beer to spill down the side of the boat in the process.
"Let me go, Daniel. I'm going to bed. That was a low blow." I hauled myself up to stand in front of her while she tried to make me let go of her.
"I meant for me, D. Your degree is important and you're gonna change the world. The idiot from Perth that drives in odd shaped circles doesn't need a degree." She glared at me for a moment as I stood in front of her, but her eyes softened.
"I know. This is just all I have to show for my entire life. I don't know what I'd do if it was a waste." I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in for a hug. Her head immediately rested against my chest. I could feel the warmth from her alcohol-flushed cheeks as she did so.
"It's not a waste and you've done so much for where you are in life. How many people get to say they reached the top of not one, but two industries all while going to school? Maeve, people will have to start addressing you as doctor Maeve Dragon come next year. How fucking cool is that?" She didn't say anything as I stood there holding her.
"Which is another reason not to drive full time. Then I don't get to use all those fancy doctorate things I know." I shook my head and stepped back.
"No," I looked out at the city's reflection in the water, trying to think of the best way to help my best friend here," it's just something to look forward to when you're done driving. You will always be able to come back to a team as an engineer. Your experience is invaluable to a team. Literally any team."
She just shook her head.
"This conversation is extremely existential for two drunk idiots. Can we just not talk about this and go to bed? I'm gonna have a ridiculous hangover tomorrow..." she tried to walk off, but I grabbed her arm to stop her again.
"No. You can't go to sleep until you break this ridiculous ideation that you're not good enough to do something you've always wanted to do." She opened her mouth to argue, but I just put my hands up.
"No. No bull shit about just wanting to be happy. You've always wanted to drive and the dev driver slot was the perfect way for you to do that and stay out of the spotlight that you've seen torture me. But you're really good and this is something you've always wanted. The damage is done. Just see how far you can go instead of letting everyone else make you paranoid that you won't make it." I was practically scolding her as I stepped closer to her so we were almost chest to chest.
What I didn't expect was her wrapping her arms around my neck and resting her head against my chest again.
"Thank you, Danny...." My face softened as I wrapped my arms around her waist.
"Of course, D. I'll always have your back, so don't worry about anyone else when you've got me."