Arriving swiftly at his father's home, Max anticipated an empty living room, assuming that all family members would be deep asleep. To his surprise, the driver was met with an unexpected scene. An intervention. The living room hosted not only his father but also his step-mother, who engaged in an intricate conversation with Kelly.
At the sight of his presence in the house, everyone fell silent, quickly turning their attention to him as if they had been anticipating his arrival.
"What is this?" Max asked, leaving his shoes by the door.
Jos slowly stood up and moved to meet Max by the entrance, "I sent the jet to get her earlier today. I think you need some relaxation."
Max stood in shock; he had not expected to see Kelly anytime soon, especially not now. The last thing he wanted was to be tied to her, to this house. When their eyes met, she seemed to understand that Max wasn't exactly happy to see her, and her gaze quickly shifted down like a child being scolded.
"What?" Jos asked, following her gaze, "did you cheat on her?" He whispered, trying to grasp Max's attention, "Just say sorry and make up; she will forgive you," he tapped his shoulder, "you can have anyone you want; she won't give that up."
Max clenched his jaw, reluctantly taking in the situation, finding himself trapped in a corner. Avoiding answering his father, Max moved past him, finding Kelly, who somehow played a perfect part in pretending there was no bad blood between them.
Kelly stood up and reached out for his shoulder, pressing a kiss on his cheek. "Hi, honey," she mumbled, a tense air crowding the room, "you look tired," she said, caressing his cheek.
"Yeah..." Max averted his gaze from her, discreetly turning his face away from her touch. "Goodnight," he said, looking back to his father and his wife. He then moved on to push Kelly's waist, guiding her further into the house to the guest room he was staying in.
Once they were in the privacy of their room, Kelly snapped away from his touch, putting distance between them. "Where were you?" she snapped, her soft demeanor suddenly gone.
"Do you really want to know?" Max raised his eyebrows, taking his coat off.
"What is that supposed to mean?" She argued angrily, ready to start a discussion.
"Let's talk about this tomorrow, I'm tired," Max insisted, undressing himself.
Kelly wanted to speak, but she knew she'd have no way around Max, as he genuinely seemed tired. Still angered by the situation, she complied hesitantly, letting the room rest in complete silence until the two of them were in pajamas and in bed. With their backs turned to each other, contrary to Max, Kelly struggled to fall asleep.
She ran all possible scenarios through her mind about what Max had been doing, who he had been seeing, but she never seemed to come to any conclusion. It was only when the sun rays began to cross the window that Kelly finally realized she had spent the whole night awake, her mind racing with made-up scenarios of Max with some other woman.
Deciding to make a trip to the bathroom as to break herself from her relentless overthinking, Kelly heard the soft sound of a phone vibrating against the sink. Her eyes curiously followed it to spot Max's phone, and flashing on the screen was a notification from an unknown number.
"I'm at the cottage. I have a surprise for you :)"
Kelly widened her eyes at the sight, quickly glancing back to check whether Max was still asleep. Once she felt safe enough to move, Kelly quickly dressed herself, making as little noise as possible —she knew exactly which cottage the message referred to.
As she left, she found the keys for it in the pocket of the pants Max had left thrown on the floor of the bathroom and quietly made her way out of the house unnoticed.
Upon arriving at the said location, the reality of the situation finally fell onto her shoulders. During her drive to the Verstappen family cottage, she had hoped it had all been a misunderstanding, her hope still lingering. Yet, when she saw an additional car she did not know parked by the entrance, she knew her worst fears had come into reality.
Hesitating to leave the car, Kelly tried to hold in her tears as she stared at the cottage, "whoever is inside it is the woman he's leaving me for," she told herself. After a few minutes collecting her courage, Kelly stepped out of the car and headed to the main door, ready to face her replacement.
With the key in the knob, the door was soon pushed open, and Charles walked over, ready to embrace the other man.
To his complete shock, it was not blond hair that poked in through the entrance. The dark, straight hair was on a shorter frame and the piercing blue eyes that held nothing but anger in them could not be mistaken for anyone but Kelly.
Occasionally, Charles would contemplate the excuses he would give if he and Max were to get caught together. However, usually, he envisioned such scenarios in the context of secret hotel meetings, which he could play off as quick hangouts. The expression on the woman's face and the display of breakfast waiting for Max made it abundantly clear that Charles was not there as a fellow driver hoping to catch up.
"I can explain," he lied, the sentence itself incriminating him. Kelly's face changed from one of anger to one of confusion, and momentarily, Charles could even pinpoint some disgust on it.
"That's rich," she spoke with a menacing laugh, taking in Charles's shocked appearance, "this must be some kind of joke."
Kelly walked past the driver, looking further into the house as if she was trying to find someone else, "where is she? I've never judged Max as someone who would be into threesomes, and especially not with you." She commented as she opened the door to the main room, finding it empty.
It was only when she had inspected the whole house that she finally came into the realization that there was no one else there but the two of them, "hah.." she scoffed, eyeing the breakfast table. "There isn't anyone else in here, is there?" she spoke, her jaw dropping in disbelief, "are you two...fucking?"
There was no answer that Charles could come up with that would be a plausible explanation for him to be at his rival's familial cottage, having made breakfast and expecting his swift return. It was a moment of shock, and in the panic of the moment, his body froze, contrary to the instincts he would display on a track. Charles was selfishly afraid of what this could mean for their careers. If the woman was upset enough, which most people would be under the circumstances, there was nothing stopping her from screaming it out to the world that they're together. Coming from Max's partner, there would be enough credibility to have people run the story for months to come. Their teams would have to face the repercussions of it, potentially leading to the end of their contracts, as there are laws forbidding homosexuals from racing in certain countries in which Formula One is present.
Charles was a good bit taller than Kelly, but her presence was demanding and took control of the room. Her stare made him feel as if he wasn't anyone aside from some sort of mistress.
"I can leave," Charles avoided the question, walking around her to look for his keys.
"You're not going anywhere," she stated, stepping back to take a seat at the table. "If you leave, I'm going to tell everyone you two have an affair," she said, a bluff she hoped would go through, "and trust me, I'd gladly ruin both of your careers," she spoke, pouring herself some coffee.
"Sit down," she pointed to the seat across from her, "let's have a conversation while he doesn't arrive."
"It all makes sense now," she spoke, adding some sugar to her mug, "I thought it had been so weird how he worried about you the day of your accident, how he crashed into Carlos yesterday..." she continued, stirring the coffee. "I know Max better than everyone, better than you and better than himself even," she raised her eyebrows, taking a sip of the coffee again. "I know he'd have never done anything like that if he didn't have a reason behind it, but I couldn't really pinpoint what was going on."
"Tell me, what is it that you want from him?" Kelly's possession of this newfound information now offered her a powerful leverage, a card to be played for as long as their Formula One careers endured.
Charles took his seat at the table, none of the food appearing appetizing anymore and instead making him feel sick to his stomach from everything going on. He knew that now wasn't the time to stay quiet or fight back with a witty answer, he was at a loss when it came to what he was supposed to say.
"Kelly, I'm sorry," he began, knowing that any answer coming next was going to be about her boyfriend and something no person in a relationship would ever want to hear.
"I don't know exactly what you're asking, but I want what I assume most people who start affairs want," he hated using the word, but at the end of the day, both of them were being disloyal to their respective girlfriends, and that was a fault he had to accept. "I want to be near him," he answered as vaguely as he could, feeling guilty, knowing that they have hurt her. However, the expression on her face didn't scream heartbreak, and this intermission looked almost like an inconvenience to her, if anything.
Kelly could feel her pale skin grow red with anger; she could barely believe the situation she was in, much less having to hear from another Formula One driver confirm that they did indeed have an affair. "Don't make me laugh," she mumbled, refusing to take in the words of the Ferrari driver.
Taking another sip of her coffee, Kelly downed the full content of the mug as she gathered the words she intended to use against Charles. She snapped at him, "Do you take me for a fool?" and set the mug down emphatically. "You might have fooled him, but you don't fool me one bit."
Pausing, she set the empty mug away and continued, "Might seem surprising to you, but I know way more about the world of Formula One than any of you do. My father was a champion, my brother raced, the father of my child raced, and now my current boyfriend does too," she listed out her extensive history in the sport as if it was pedigree. "I know the politics of this sport involve much more than cars racing each other on the track; there's way too much money, ego, testosterone, and ambition involved for people not to play dirty."
Reaching out to pour herself another cup of coffee, she maintained her assertive tone. "My brother once crashed in a race on purpose to help his team. Do you think I can't spot a crash on purpose when I see one? Max would never crash on accident. And I'm sure you know that, don't you?"
Kelly took a deep breath, attempting to cool down her growing wave of anger, "we all do things to get to where we want to be, sure, and Max is included in that list." Firmly holding her ground, she addressed Charles directly, "I know you seduced him with that pretty-boy face of yours, and you think you got him on a leash, but you're wrong. Max might be following along and helping you win for now, but you don't know him."
She laughed sarcastically "he'll absolutely destroy you once he realizes what you are trying to do, and trust me, he will. Max is not stupid, you stab him in the back once and he'll stab you ten times in return," she declared, taking a sip of her coffee. "So if I were you, I'd drop... all of this, and go try to win some other way. I already caught you on it."
Charles was quick to catch on to the accusations being made, and for the first time in a while, anger seeped through him. He felt offended by both the implication that being with Max couldn't mean anything to him and the insinuation that winning required such deceit. If the woman had immediate plans to expose them to the world, she wouldn't be sitting with him, offering a rundown of what she believed was happening. If someone wanted something out of Max, it was her.
"You're right. He isn't stupid," Charles agreed, wiping the apologetic look off his face. Though he was smart enough not to assume she wouldn't follow through with exposing both of them, he decided to assert his stance. "If the reason you want me to drop him is that you think there's an ulterior motive happening, then I think it's best for him to decide how we go forward from here, because you're wrong. You're surrounded by people who cheat to get the upper hand, but my own parents actually engraved morals in me," he spoke with a composed tone.
Feeling himself going too far, especially with someone who held the upper hand, Charles found the backbone he didn't always possess, "If your brother fought dirty, then it's because it's what he knew," he continued. The dismissal of his own feelings for Max, painted as something tainted by a need to win, fueled his determination to speak up. "If I'm going to win, it's going to be because I deserve it. If I'm seeing Max, it's because I enjoy being with him. I know it's hard to believe that everyone isn't walking around with ulterior motives, and even now I can tell you're not convinced in the slightest, but it's the truth."
Despite the realization that he was being rude, Charles couldn't suppress the words. She had thrown the first stone, and if it didn't involve Max, he would have allowed her to continue throwing personal digs at him without ever speaking up. However, this was too far.
Charles tried to maintain his composure as the girl continued with her assertions. "Max is free to leave whenever he wishes. I don't have him under some kind of spell. But I do hope that he never does," he asserted, unwilling to beg for her understanding if she was convinced of a different narrative.
The girl laughed dismissively, as if Charles had made a joke, "you're not with Max. I'm his girlfriend; you're just for fun," she declared, her pride evident as she anticipated little resistance from Charles.
"Alright," she settled her hands on the table, "I'll play your game, then. Assuming you're involved with no ulterior motives and you genuinely enjoy being around him. Do you like him? Because if you do, then there are even more reasons for you to cut all of this short." She paused, leaning in closer to the table as if sharing a secret. "If you care about him, you'd know how much this championship matters to him, and that you're causing him to lose focus. Yesterday was proof of that. You'll never be good for him because you're the very thing keeping him from winning his championship, Charles," she stated, leaning back onto her chair as her voice softened, adopting the tone of someone offering a life lesson. "Max belongs with me. I'll support him to get what he wants. And you belong with your girlfriend, far away from us."
"He is not going to leave me for you, if that's what you're thinking. If I ask him to stop seeing you, he will," she lied, confidently presenting her version of the situation. "I gave him a family. I'm someone he can trust, and someone who will never stand in his way. You're the contrary of all that."
Her words struck Charles where it hurt, and the harsh reality was that she was correct. Max wasn't his to keep, and Charles had deluded himself into believing that their relationship held more significance than Max's official commitment to Kelly. Lost in a fantasy where the feelings they shared were deemed stronger, Charles faced the painful truth that Max belonged to someone else, and he couldn't alter that fact. The malicious words carried a painful truth - even though Charles hadn't been directly involved, Max's race had been impacted when Carlos sought advice on how to pursue a relationship with Charles. His presence created obstacles, forcing Max to divide his focus between their complicated dynamic and the impending championship.
Here he was, expressing sentiments about what Max meant to him, but the reality was that Charles was being selfish, holding on to Max despite causing him harm.
"Don't ask him that," Charles pleaded, once again feeling under Kelly's control. The idea that she could simply demand Max to cease seeing him, abruptly ending everything they shared, turned his stomach. Charles was skilled at holding back tears, but the gloss in his eyes was unmistakable. Kelly had struck him where it hurt the most, and all Charles desired now was to leave. If his time with Max had reached its conclusion, he couldn't bear the thought of it being because of her. He needed to hear it directly from Max. She had given Max so much while all he'd managed to give him was obstacles. He didn't need a list of comparisons to know that she was the choice that made the most sense.
"I have to go," Charles muttered, no longer able to meet her eyes. He swiftly grabbed his keys and made his way to the exit, waiting for the sanctuary of his car before allowing himself to be engulfed by the heartbreak that the cruel words had inflicted upon him.
—
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