˗ˏˋ claire ˎˊ˗

“You absolutely screamed,” Arthur chimes in from the water, where he’s been floating on his back for the past twenty minutes. “I heard it from underwater.”

“It was a tactical warning shout.”

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

Charles laughs, the kind of loose, easy laugh that only comes during summer break when the championship standings feel like someone else’s problem. His mother had looked at him two weeks ago and said, “You need to rest, chéri. You look tired.” She was right. She’s always right. So here he is, doing absolutely nothing, and it’s perfect.

Lorenzo surfaces near Arthur with a splash that’s definitely intentional, based on Arthur’s indignant yelp. “There’s another yacht coming in,” he announces, shaking water from his hair.

“Okay?” Charles doesn’t open his eyes. Yachts come and go. That’s sort of how marinas work.

“Big one. American flag.”

“Très bien. Welcome to Sardinia, Americans.”

“She’s parking close,” Lorenzo adds, which is unusual because there’s plenty of space in this part of the bay, but whatever. Charles is too relaxed to care about maritime parking etiquette.

He must doze off for a bit because the next thing he knows, Joris is shaking his shoulder. “Mate. Charles. You have to see this.”

“See what?” Charles mumbles, not moving his arm from his face.

“Just trust me.”

There’s something in Joris’s voice that makes Charles actually sit up, squinting against the brightness. “What am I looking-”

And then he sees you.

You’re climbing out of the water onto the neighboring yacht’s swim platform, and Charles forgets how to finish his sentence. Actually, he might forget how to speak English entirely, which is concerning because he was relatively fluent in it this morning.

You’re laughing at something someone on your yacht said, head thrown back, water streaming down your shoulders, your curves, catching the sunlight like diamonds. Your bikini is tiny and red and completely devastating to his ability to form coherent thoughts. You’re not what anyone would call traditionally “yacht thin” — you’re soft and round and real in ways that make his mouth go dry.

“Charles?” Joris waves a hand in front of his face. “You okay?”

“I—yes. What?”

“You’re staring.”

“I’m not.” He absolutely is.

You wring out your hair, and the movement does things to your silhouette that should probably be illegal in international waters. You’re curvy in a way that makes him forget every type he’s ever claimed to have. His mind has gone completely blank except for a very loud internal voice screaming that he needs to meet you immediately.

“She’s pretty,” Andrea observes, coming to stand next to them.

“Pretty?” Charles finally tears his eyes away. “That’s—she’s-” What are words? He used to know words.

Joris grins, the bastard. “Oh, this is amazing.”

“What is?”

“You’ve forgotten how to speak.”

“I can speak fine.” Even as he says it, he knows it sounds defensive. “I speak very good.”

“‘Very good.’ Wow. Eloquent.”

Arthur and Lorenzo have pulled themselves onto the deck now, both tracking Charles’s line of sight. Arthur whistles low. “She’s not your usual type.”

“I don’t have a type,” Charles protests, but it’s weak. Everyone knows he has a type, or had a type, or thought he had a type until approximately three minutes ago when you climbed out of the Mediterranean looking like every summer fantasy he didn’t know he had.

“She’s American,” Lorenzo points out, as if this is a relevant concern.

“So?” Charles is still watching you. You’ve wrapped a towel around your waist now, though it doesn’t do much to help his concentration. You’re talking to someone who’s just emerged from the cabin. Older man, confident bearing, the kind of casual wealth that doesn’t announce itself.

“So your English gets weird when you’re nervous,” Arthur says.

“My English is fine.”

“Is it though?” Joris grins wider. “Say something complex. Right now.”

“I hate all of you.” But Charles knows they’re right. His English does get weird when he’s nervous. Or when he’s tired. Or, apparently, when there’s a gorgeous woman on the neighboring yacht who’s completely rewired his brain.

You disappear into the cabin, and Charles feels the loss like a physical thing.

“You should go over there,” Andrea suggests.

“And say what? ‘Hello, I forgot how to speak English because you’re in a bikini?’”

“Maybe more subtle than that.”

“Maybe lead with your name,” Joris offers helpfully.

Lorenzo leans against the railing. “The yacht is called Dynasty. Very American.”

“What does that mean?” Charles asks.

“Means they have money. Old money, probably.”

You reappear with a drink in hand, settling onto one of their loungers, and Charles watches you tilt your face up to the sun. There’s something unselfconscious about the way you move, like you’re not performing for anyone, just existing in your body with complete ease. It’s mesmerizing.

“Okay, new plan,” Joris says. “We throw a party. Tonight. Invite the neighbors.”

“That’s not subtle,” Andrea points out.

“It doesn’t have to be subtle. It has to get her on this yacht.”

Charles runs a hand through his hair, which is definitely not nervousness. “I don’t even know if she speaks French.”

“She’s American, she speaks English. You speak English. Mostly.”

“I speak perfect English.”

“Sure you do, buddy.” Arthur claps him on the shoulder. “That’s why you’re standing here like you’ve been hit by a car instead of going over there.”

“I’m not-” Charles stops. “I just. I don’t want to be weird.”

“Too late,” Lorenzo says cheerfully.

You laugh at something on your phone, and the sound carries across the water. It’s bright and genuine and makes something in Charles’s chest do a complicated thing that feels dangerous.

“She’s probably not even single,” he mutters.

“Only one way to find out.”

“By throwing a party?”

“By throwing a party,” Joris confirms. “Or you could swim over there right now and introduce yourself like a normal person.”

Charles looks at the gap between the yachts. It’s maybe fifteen meters. He could do it easily. He’s a good swimmer. He could just … swim over. Say hello. Be normal.

Except you’re standing up now, stretching, and the movement makes your towel slip a little, and Charles forgets how to swim. He forgets how to do anything except stare like an idiot.

“I’ll handle the party,” Joris says, pulling out his phone. “Andrea, you’re in charge of music. Lorenzo, Arthur — we need food. Lots of it.”

“What’s Charles in charge of?” Arthur asks.

“Not drowning in fifteen meters of water, apparently.”

“I hate you all,” Charles repeats, but there’s no heat in it. He’s too busy watching you settle back into your lounger, one leg bent, the other stretched out, like you’re posing for a painting titled Woman Who Has Destroyed a Racing Driver’s Peace of Mind.

Your father — it has to be your father — says something to you, and you respond with an animated gesture that makes it clear you’re telling a story. Charles wants to know the story. He wants to know all the stories. He wants to know why you’re in Sardinia and what you think about everything and whether you always laugh like that or if today is special.

“Charles.”

He blinks. “What?”

“You’re doing it again,” Joris says.

“Doing what?”

“The staring thing. It’s intense, mate.”

“I’m just—I’m looking at the yacht. It’s a nice yacht.”

“Sure. The yacht. That’s what you’re looking at.”

Someone from your yacht — crew member, probably — brings you another drink, and you thank them with a smile that Charles feels in his knees. This is ridiculous. He’s a Formula 1 driver. He’s been on podiums in front of hundreds of thousands of people. He’s done press conferences in four languages. He can talk to a woman on a neighboring yacht.

Probably.

Maybe.

You stand again, this time pulling off the towel, and Charles watches you dive into the water with a grace that seems impossible. You surface a few meters out, floating on your back, and he can see you’re comfortable in the water, natural in it, like you grew up on boats.

“Okay,” he says, surprising himself. “I’m going.”

“Going where?” Andrea looks suspicious.

“Swimming. It’s hot. I’m going swimming.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Near their yacht?”

“It’s a free ocean, Joris.”

His friends exchange glances that are extremely loud without being verbal.

“Don’t be weird!” Arthur calls as Charles moves to the swim platform.

“I’m not weird!”

He dives in before he can overthink it, the water cool and perfect against his sun-heated skin. He surfaces, shakes his hair out, and starts swimming in your general direction. Casual. Easy. Just a guy swimming in the Mediterranean. Nothing strange about that.

You’re floating maybe twenty meters from your yacht, eyes closed, completely relaxed. Charles swims closer, trying to figure out how to do this without seeming like a creep. Does he say something? Does he splash to announce his presence? Does he-

“If you’re trying to sneak up on me, you’re not very good at it.”

Your voice startles him so badly he actually inhales some water and has to cough, which is absolutely not the first impression he wanted to make. You’ve opened your eyes and are treading water now, looking at him with amusement that makes his embarrassment about eight thousand times worse.

“I wasn’t-” Cough. “I was just-” Cough. “Swimming.”

“Uh-huh.” You’re grinning now, and it’s not helping his ability to function. “You’re on that yacht, right? Sedici?”

“Yes. I’m-” Oh God, what’s his name? He has a name. He definitely has a name. “Charles.”

“Y/N.” You extend your hand, which is a funny thing to do while treading water, but he shakes it anyway. Your skin is cool from the sea, your grip firm. “Nice to meet you, Charles-from-Sedici.”

“Just Charles. Is okay. Fine. Just Charles is fine.” Dear God, someone end this.

But you just laugh, not meanly. “Okay, Just Charles. The water’s nice, huh?”

“Very nice. Yes. Perfect for …” What’s the word? What’s the thing you do in water? “… swimming.”

Your smile widens. “Swimming. Yeah, that’s generally what you do in water.”

Behind him, he can hear Joris and the others trying to contain their laughter. He’s going to murder all of them. After he figures out how to speak like a normal human.

“You’re here on vacation?” He manages, which is actually a complete sentence. Progress.

“Sort of. My family’s boat. We’re here for a few weeks. You?”

“Same. I mean, my boat. Not your family’s. My boat. With friends.”

“I figured it probably wasn’t my family’s boat.”

You’re teasing him. You’re definitely teasing him, and somehow that makes it easier. He finds himself smiling back, even though he’s pretty sure he sounds like he’s having a stroke.

“Where are you from?” He asks.

“Tennessee. You?”

“Monaco.”

“Fancy.” You flip onto your back again, floating. “Never been to Monaco.”

“Never been to Tennessee.” He wants to keep you talking. He also wants to rewind the last five minutes and start over with the ability to speak. “What brings you to Sardinia?”

“My dad wanted to cruise the Mediterranean. He’s obsessed with Italy. We’ve been island hopping.” You glance at him. “What about you?”

How does he explain summer shutdown without explaining Formula 1? Does he explain Formula 1? Do you know about Formula 1?

“Work break,” he settles on. “I needed to … not think for a while.”

“I feel that.” You’re quiet for a moment, just floating. “What do you do?”

Here it is. The moment where he has to decide. “I’m a racing driver.”

“Like NASCAR?”

“Formula 1.”

You flip back to treading water, looking at him with more interest. “Oh, shit. Really?”

“Really.”

“That’s so cool. I don’t know much about it, but my dad watches sometimes. Says it’s pure chaos.”

Charles laughs, and it comes out more natural this time. “Sometimes it is chaos, yes.”

“Do you like it?”

It’s such a simple question, but no one asks it like that. Everyone asks if he loves it, if he’s going to win the championship, if he thinks Ferrari can turn it around. No one asks if he simply likes it.

“Yes,” he says. “Most of the time.”

“And the other times?”

“The other times I come here and try to remember how to be a person who doesn’t think about tire deg and track limits.”

You laugh again, and Charles decides it’s his new favorite sound. “Tire deg?”

“Degradation. How the tires wear down.”

“That sounds stressful.”

“It can be.”

You study him for a moment, and Charles tries not to feel like he’s under a magnifying glass. “You seem pretty chill for someone with a stressful job.”

If only you knew that five minutes ago he forgot how to introduce himself. “Summer break is good for that.”

“Well, welcome to the neighborhood, Just Charles.” You start swimming back toward your yacht. “Try not to sneak up on any more unsuspecting swimmers.”

“I wasn’t sneaking-” But you’re already moving away, and he’s not sure if you’re dismissing him or just ending the conversation naturally, and his brain is too scrambled to figure it out.

He swims back to Sedici, where his friends are absolutely not trying to look like they weren’t watching the entire interaction.

“Well?” Joris asks as soon as Charles pulls himself onto the swim platform.

“Well what?”

“How did it go?”

“It went … fine.”

“Fine?” Andrea looks skeptical. “You look like you got hit by a truck.”

“Her name is Y/N. She’s from Tennessee. Her family is here for a few weeks.” Charles grabs a towel, trying to act normal.

“And?”

“And what?”

“And are you going to see her again?” Arthur demands.

“I don’t know. Maybe. She went back to her yacht.”

Lorenzo grins. “So the party is definitely happening.”

“The party is definitely happening,” Joris confirms.

Charles wants to protest, but honestly, the party is definitely happening. Because you’re on that yacht, probably drying off right now, probably not thinking about him at all, and he’s already trying to figure out how soon he can accidentally-on-purpose run into you again.

This is going to be a problem.

A wonderful, terrible, completely unavoidable problem.

***

Charles has changed shirts three times.

This is a fact that Joris will absolutely never let him forget, but here he is, standing in front of the mirror in his cabin, pulling off a linen button-down and reaching for a different linen button-down that looks essentially identical to the first one.

“They’re the same shirt,” Arthur says from the doorway.

“They’re not the same. This one is-” Charles gestures vaguely at the fabric. “Different.”

“Different how?”

“The color.”

“They’re both white, mate.”

“This one is more … cream.”

Arthur stares at him. “You’ve lost your mind.”

“I haven’t lost anything.” Charles pulls on the cream shirt — which does look better, actually — and tries to make his hair do something other than what it’s currently doing. “Is everyone here?”

“Everyone who said they’d come. Plus like fifteen people no one invited.”

“How did that happen?”

“Because we’re in Sardinia in the middle of summer and word travels fast when there’s a party on a yacht.” Arthur leans against the doorframe. “Also I think Joris posted something on Instagram.”

“He what?”

“Relax. He was subtle. Just a story with some music playing. You can’t even tell it’s a party.”

Charles highly doubts this but doesn’t have time to worry about it because according to his watch it’s already past nine and the party started at eight-thirty and you still haven’t come over and maybe you’re not coming at all and maybe this entire thing was a terrible idea-

“She’ll come,” Arthur says, reading his mind.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t. That’s why you’ve changed shirts three times.”

“Twice.”

“I’ve been standing here for the third one.”

Charles gives up on his hair. It’s going to do what it wants anyway. “How do I look?”

“Like you’re trying too hard.”

“I’m not trying at all.”

“Then mission accomplished, I guess.” Arthur grins. “Come on. You’re hiding in here and it’s your party.”

The deck of Sedici has been transformed in the six hours since Charles went for that disastrous swim. There are lights strung everywhere, casting everything in a warm golden glow. Someone — probably Andrea — has set up a sound system that’s playing something electronic and French that Charles doesn’t recognize but sounds appropriately yacht-party-esque. There are people everywhere, and Charles genuinely doesn’t know where they all came from.

“Who are these people?” He mutters to Joris, who’s holding court near the bar.

“Friends. Friends of friends. That Swedish model Arthur met yesterday. Her friends. Some Italians from the marina. A couple Brits from that catamaran.” Joris hands him a drink. “You’re welcome.”

“For what?”

“For making this look like an actual party and not a desperate attempt to get your neighbor to come over.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Charles. Mate. I love you, but you’re a terrible liar.” Joris claps him on the shoulder. “Just relax. Have fun. If she comes, she comes.”

But Charles can’t relax because he keeps looking at Dynasty, trying to see if there’s any activity, any sign that you might be getting ready to come over. The yachts are close enough that he can see people moving around on your deck, but it’s hard to tell in the fading light.

“Stop staring,” Andrea says, appearing with a bottle of beer. “You look creepy.”

“I’m not staring.”

“You’re literally staring right now. I’m watching you do it.”

Charles accepts the beer because his hands need something to do. Someone calls his name and he gets pulled into a conversation about the racing season that he absolutely doesn’t want to have right now. He smiles and nods and says something about next year being the year, which is what he always says, and tries not to obviously keep looking toward Dynasty.

Forty-five minutes pass. Then an hour. Charles is starting to think you’re not coming, that maybe you just wanted to enjoy a quiet night on your own yacht, that maybe that conversation in the water was just politeness and nothing more-

“Charles.”

He turns, and Lorenzo is grinning at him with an expression that Charles immediately distrusts.

“What?”

“Tender approaching.”

Charles very carefully does not run to the railing. He walks at a normal pace, like a normal person who is not desperately hoping to see a specific person stepping off a tender.

And then he sees you.

If the bikini earlier broke his brain, the dress you’re wearing now completely destroys it. It’s short and black and clings to every curve, and you’re wearing heels that make your legs look about a mile long, and your hair is down and loose and catching the light from the string lights, and Charles forgets English. Then he forgets French. Then Italian. Then every other language he’s ever known, including the ones he made up with Arthur when they were kids.

“Breathe,” Joris murmurs next to him.

Charles realizes he’s actually forgotten to do that too.

You’re climbing onto the swim platform now, laughing at something the tender driver said, and then you’re on the deck and looking around with undisguised curiosity. Your eyes land on Charles, and you smile — actually smile at him — and he’s pretty sure his heart does something medically concerning.

“Hi,” you say, walking over. “Hope it’s okay I crashed.”

“No! I mean yes. I mean-” Charles takes a breath. “You’re welcome. Very welcome. We’re happy you’re here.”

“We?” You tease, glancing around. “This is quite a party for someone who needed to not think for a while.”

“My friends,” Charles gestures vaguely at Joris and the others, “they are very social.”

“I can see that.” You accept a drink from Andrea, who’s materialized with impeccable timing. “Thanks. I’m Y/N.”

“Andrea. This is Joris, that’s Lorenzo, and Arthur you’ll meet when he’s done pretending he’s not staring at the Swedish girl.”

You laugh, and Charles wants to record the sound. “Quite a crew you’ve got.”

“They’re terrible,” Charles says, which makes you laugh again, and okay, maybe he can do this. Maybe he can be normal.

“So Charles-from-Sedici,” you say, turning those eyes on him fully. “Give me the tour?”

“Tour. Yes. I can do tour.” Subject and verb. He’s basically fluent.

He leads you around the deck, hyper-aware of how close you’re walking, how your perfume smells like something expensive and summery, how your dress moves when you walk. He shows you the main deck, tries to remember the names of the various pieces of equipment, and definitely says “helm” when he means “bow” at one point.

“You okay?” You ask, and there’s amusement in your voice but also something that might be concern.

“Yes. Good. Just-” He gestures at the party. “Loud.”

“We can go somewhere quieter if you want.”

This seems like a monumentally dangerous idea for his ability to form sentences, but Charles nods anyway. “Upper deck?”

You follow him up the stairs, your heels clicking on the steps, and Charles tries very hard not to think about the fact that he’s leading you away from the party to a quieter, more private space. This is fine. This is normal. People do this at parties all the time.

The upper deck is empty and quieter, the party sounds floating up but muted. You lean against the railing, looking out at the lights of the other yachts, and Charles stands next to you trying to remember how conversations work.

“This is nice,” you say. “The whole setup. Sardinia. Must be a good life.”

“Sometimes.” He takes a sip of his beer. “Your yacht is very beautiful too.”

“My parents’ yacht,” you correct. “I’m just along for the ride.”

“What do they do? Your parents?”

“My dad owns a football team. American football. The Tennessee Titans.”

Charles blinks. He knows that name. “That’s … big.”

“Yeah, he’s done pretty well for himself.” You don’t say it like you’re bragging, just stating a fact. “Old Southern money mixed with new sports money. It’s a whole thing.”

“And you?”

“Me?” You turn to look at him. “I’m still figuring that out, honestly. Just finished grad school. MBA. Not sure I want to do the corporate thing, though.”

“What do you want to do?”

You consider this, swirling your drink. “Something that matters. I don’t know what yet. Maybe work with the team, maybe something else. My dad wants me to learn the business side, but …“ You trail off. “Sorry, this is probably boring.”

“No.” Charles says it too quickly, too intensely. “Not boring. I want to know.”

You study him for a moment, and Charles tries not to feel like you’re seeing through every awkward word to the disaster underneath.

“What about you?” You ask. “Formula 1 driver. That’s got to be intense.”

“It can be.”

“Do you love it?”

There’s that question again. You ask it like it matters, like the answer is important.

“Yes,” he says. “But sometimes I think I love the idea of it more than the reality.”

“What’s the idea?”

“The speed. The competition. The feeling when everything goes right and you’re on the limit and it’s just … perfect.” He’s talking with his hands now, can’t help it. “But the reality is a lot of — how do you say — politics. And pressure. And people always wanting something.”

“Like what?”

“Wins. Championships. Perfection.” He laughs, but it sounds bitter even to his own ears. “Sorry. This is a party. I should not be so …“

“Honest?” You supply. “I like honest.”

There’s a moment where you’re both just looking at each other, and Charles thinks maybe he should say something smooth or charming or at least coherent, but then someone calls his name from below and the moment breaks.

“Charles! Where are you? Some guy wants to take photos!”

He sighs. “I should-”

“Go be famous?” You’re smiling. “It’s fine. I’ll come with you.”

Back down at the party, there is indeed some guy with a camera who wants photos, and then there are more people who want to say hello, and Charles gets pulled into conversation after conversation while trying to keep track of where you are. You’re talking to Andrea now, then Joris, then you’re laughing at something Arthur is saying, and Charles is stuck nodding along to someone’s opinion about Ferrari’s strategy calls while wanting to be literally anywhere else.

“-don’t you think, Charles?”

“Sorry, what?”

The guy — Italian, yacht owner, something about his family making tiles — looks mildly offended. “About the upgrades? At Silverstone?”

“Oh. Yes. They were … good. Better than before.” Charles has no idea what this guy just said. “Excuse me one moment.”

He extracts himself and finally makes his way back to you. You’re standing near the railing again, looking at the water, and something about your posture makes him think you might be ready to leave.

“Hey,” he says softly, not wanting to startle you.

You turn, and your smile is genuine. “Hey yourself. Popular guy.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s your party.” You set down your empty glass. “I should probably get going anyway. It’s late.”

“No! I mean-” Charles scrambles for a reason for you to stay. “We have food. Have you eaten?”

“I ate on the boat.”

“Dessert? We have dessert.”

You laugh. “Do you even know what dessert you have?”

He doesn’t. He has no idea. “Good dessert. Italian dessert.”

“Compelling argument.”

“Please,” he says, and it comes out more desperate than he intended. “Stay a little longer?”

You tilt your head, considering. “Okay. But you have to actually talk to me instead of getting pulled away every five minutes.”

“Deal. I promise. No more interruptions.”

He leads you to the seating area at the stern where it’s quieter, and Andrea — bless him — appears with what looks like tiramisu and two spoons without being asked. Charles makes a mental note to never make fun of Andrea’s organizational skills again.

“So,” you say, taking a bite of the dessert and making an appreciative sound that Charles definitely doesn’t think about. “Tell me something real.”

“Real?”

“Yeah. Not the PR version. The actual version.” You gesture with your spoon. “What’s it actually like? Formula 1?”

Charles takes a moment, trying to figure out how to explain it. “It’s like … you know when you dream you’re flying? And it feels incredible but also terrifying because you might fall?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s like that. But the fall is very public and everyone has opinions about it.”

“That sounds awful.”

“Sometimes it is.” He takes a bite of tiramisu. “But sometimes you nail a qualifying lap and it’s perfect and everything else goes away.”

“Do you get nervous? Before races?”

“Every time.”

“Really?” You sound surprised. “You seem so confident.”

“That’s the job. Confidence is part of the job.” He smiles. “Inside I’m usually thinking ‘please don’t crash, please don’t crash.’”

You laugh, and Charles feels absurdly proud of himself for making it happen. “I feel like that’s probably smart when you’re driving three hundred kilometers an hour.”

“Three-fifty sometimes.”

“Jesus.” You shake your head. “That’s insane. You’re insane.”

“Maybe a little.”

“Definitely a lot.”

You talk for another hour, maybe more. Charles loses track of time somewhere between you asking about Monaco and him asking about Tennessee and discovering that you’re funny in a dry, unexpected way that keeps catching him off guard. You tell him about growing up with football players the size of houses and learning that Southern hospitality is a specific kind of warfare. He tells you about karting as a kid and how his dad used to drive him all over Europe in a van.

“That’s sweet,” you say. “My dad just threw money at things.”

“Did it work?”

“I mean, I got an MBA, so I guess?” You shrug. “But I don’t know if it made me happy.”

“Are you happy?”

“Right now? Yeah.” You meet his eyes. “This is nice. You’re nice.”

Charles’s brain short-circuits again. “I—thank you. You’re nice too. Very nice. The most-” Stop talking. “Nice.”

You’re grinning now. “Did you just call me the most nice?”

“English is not my first language.”

“What would you say in French?”

“That you’re …” He switches languages without thinking. “Tu es belle. Et drôle. Et je ne peux pas penser correctement quand tu me regardes comme ça.”

“I don’t speak French.”

“That’s probably good.”

“What did you say?”

“That the dessert is very good.”

“Liar.” But you’re smiling, and Charles thinks maybe you know exactly what he said.

The party has thinned out significantly. People are leaving, calling out goodbyes, and Charles realizes with something like panic that you’ll probably leave too, and he still hasn’t—he needs to—he should-

“I should go,” you say, confirming his fears. “It’s late and I promised my dad I wouldn’t stay out too late.”

“Wait-” Charles stands when you do. “Can I—would you want to-”

You wait patiently while he tries to remember how to ask someone out.

“Tomorrow,” he finally manages. “Can I see you tomorrow?”

“Like from my yacht? You could wave.”

“No. I mean yes. I mean-” Deep breath. “Dinner. Would you want to have dinner? With me?”

“Are you asking me on a date, Just Charles?”

His heart is hammering. “Yes. I think so. Is it working?”

You laugh, and it’s not mean, just delighted. “Yeah. It’s working. Where?”

“There’s a restaurant. In Porto Cervo. It’s on the water. Very good food.” He’s talking too fast. “I can pick you up. With the tender. At seven?”

“Seven works.” You’re already walking toward the swim platform, and Charles follows like a puppy. “Text me the details?”

“I don’t have your number.”

“Then how will you text me?” You’re definitely teasing him now.

“I—can I have your number?”

You take his phone and type it in, and Charles watches your fingers move across the screen and thinks about absolutely nothing else. You hand it back, and your fingers brush his, and his brain flatlines.

“Text me so I have yours,” you say.

Charles types out a message with hands that are definitely not shaking. “Sent.”

“Perfect.” You step onto the swim platform, and the tender driver helps you in. “See you tomorrow, Charles.”

“Tomorrow,” he echoes.

You’re pulling away, the tender cutting through the dark water, and Charles stands there watching until your boat reaches Dynasty and you’re climbing aboard and disappearing from view.

“So,” Joris says from behind him. “That looked like it went well.”

Charles turns. His friends and brothers are standing there with identical shit-eating grins.

“How long have you been there?”

“Long enough to hear you completely butcher asking her out,” Arthur says. “That was painful, mate.”

“But effective,” Andrea adds. “She said yes.”

“She said yes,” Charles repeats, and it’s hitting him now that tomorrow night he has to actually take you to dinner and be charming for an entire evening and not sound like he’s having a stroke.

“You’re panicking,” Lorenzo observes. “I can see you panicking.”

“I’m not panicking.”

“You absolutely are.”

“What if I forget how to speak again?”

“Then mime,” Joris suggests unhelpfully. “Women love mimes.”

“I hate all of you.”

“You love us,” Arthur corrects. “And we just helped you get a date with the gorgeous girl from the neighboring yacht, so you’re welcome.”

Charles pulls out his phone and looks at your contact. You’ve entered your name as Y/N (the most nice) and he groans.

“She remembered that?”

“She definitely remembered that,” Andrea confirms.

“I’m never speaking English again.”

“Too late. You have a date tomorrow. In English.”

“Maybe I can convince her to learn French overnight.”

“That seems realistic,” Joris says. “Or, and hear me out, you could just relax and be yourself.”

“Myself forgets how to talk when she’s around.”

“Then be the version of yourself who remembers words. Fake it till you make it.”

Charles looks back at Dynasty. The lights are still on, and he can see figures moving around on the deck. Maybe you. Maybe not. Tomorrow he’ll know for sure. Tomorrow he has to pick you up and take you to dinner and somehow convince you that he’s worth a second date despite the fact that he apparently loses seventy IQ points whenever you’re within ten meters.

This is going to be a disaster.

A wonderful, terrifying, completely unavoidable disaster.

“I need to plan what to say,” he announces.

“Oh no,” Arthur mutters.

“I’ll make a list. Topics of conversation. In English. I’ll practice.”

“Please don’t do that,” Lorenzo begs.

“I have to do something. I can’t just show up and forget how to speak.”

“You could try just having a normal conversation,” Andrea suggests. “Like you did tonight. That seemed to work pretty well.”

But Charles is already pulling up his notes app, typing out conversation starters, and his friends exchange looks that very clearly say they think he’s doomed.

Maybe he is.

But you said yes.

And tomorrow night, he’ll figure out how to string enough words together to make you say yes again.

***

Charles has been awake since five-thirty in the morning, which is absolutely insane because the date isn’t until seven in the evening and he’s already running through everything that could possibly go wrong.

“You’re pacing,” Joris observes from where he’s sprawled on one of the deck loungers, wearing sunglasses despite it being barely sunrise. “It’s annoying.”

“I’m not pacing.”

“You’ve walked past me seventeen times in the last ten minutes. That’s pacing.”

Charles stops mid-step. “I’m just … thinking.”

“You’re spiraling. There’s a difference.” Joris pushes his sunglasses up to look at him properly. “It’s a dinner date. You’ve been on dates before.”

“Not like this.”

“What’s different about this one?”

Everything, Charles wants to say. The way you laugh. The way you looked at him last night like he was interesting instead of just famous. The way his brain stops working when you’re around. The way he’s pretty sure he’d drive the tender straight into a dock if you smiled at him while he was steering.

“Nothing,” he says instead. “It’s the same.”

“Terrible liar.” Joris closes his eyes again. “Just be yourself. The version of yourself who can complete sentences.”

“What if that version doesn’t show up?”

“Then you’ll have a very quiet dinner.”

Charles resumes pacing.

By noon, he’s tried on six different outfits. By two, Andrea has physically removed him from his cabin and forced him to go swimming to “calm the fuck down.” By four, Lorenzo has confiscated his phone because he keeps reading and re-reading your text messages like they contain secret codes.

“There’s nothing to decode,” Lorenzo says, holding the phone out of reach. “She said ‘looking forward to tonight’ with a smiley face. That’s good. That’s a good text.”

“But what kind of smiley face? Is it just polite or is it-”

“It’s a smiley face, Charles. It means she’s smiling. That’s literally what it means.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I understand that you’re being insane.”

Arthur appears with a beer. “Still spiraling?”

“Aggressively,” Lorenzo confirms.

“Maybe we should cancel,” Charles says. “I could tell her I’m sick. Food poisoning. Everyone gets food poisoning on vacation.”

“You’re not canceling,” all three of them say in unison.

“But what if-”

“No.” Joris sits up. “Listen to me. You are going on this date. You are going to be charming and funny and yourself. You are going to have a good time. And you are not going to fall into the ocean or forget your name or spontaneously combust.”

“Those are very specific concerns,” Arthur mutters.

“I’m covering all the bases.”

By six o’clock, Charles is showered, dressed in linen pants and a blue button-down that everyone agreed “brings out his eyes” (which felt like a weird thing for five grown men to discuss but here they are), and staring at himself in the mirror trying to remember how to be normal.

“You look good,” Andrea says from the doorway. “Stop messing with your hair.”

“It’s not sitting right.”

“It’s fine. It’s hair. It’s sitting the way hair sits.” Andrea comes in and physically turns Charles away from the mirror. “You need to leave now or you’ll be late.”

“What if I’m too early?”

“Then you’ll wait. Like a normal person.”

“What if-”

“Charles.” Andrea puts both hands on his shoulders. “Breathe. You’ve got this. She already likes you. She said yes to the date. The hard part is over.”

Charles nods, not at all convinced that the hard part is over. The hard part feels like it’s just beginning and will continue for the next three to four hours until he hopefully manages to get through dinner without embarrassing himself.

The tender is waiting, and Charles climbs in with legs that feel unreliably stable. Joris gives him a thumbs up from the deck. Arthur salutes. Lorenzo shouts something that sounds like “don’t drown!” which is extremely unhelpful.

The short ride to Dynasty feels both too long and too short. Charles’s heart is hammering as he pulls up to their swim platform, where one of the crew members is waiting.

“Evening,” the guy says — American accent, probably early thirties, professional smile. “You must be Charles. I’ll let the family know you’re here.”

Family. Right. Your father is on that yacht. Your father who owns an NFL team and probably has very specific opinions about who his daughter dates and Charles is going to have to make conversation with him and/

“Charles!”

He looks up, and you’re there at the railing, and his brain immediately flatlines.

You’re wearing a dress that’s somehow both casual and devastating — white, flowing, with thin straps that show off your shoulders and arms, hitting just above your knee. Your hair is pulled back on one side, and you’re wearing gold jewelry that catches the early evening light, and Charles forgets every single conversation topic he spent all day memorizing.

“Hi,” he manages.

“Hi yourself.” You’re smiling as you make your way down to the swim platform. “Right on time.”

“I’m—yes. Time. I’m on it.”

You laugh, and Charles wants to die a little. Behind you, an older man appears — tall, broad-shouldered, the kind of presence that suggests he’s used to owning rooms. Your father.

“Dad, this is Charles,” you say. “Charles, this is my dad, Y/F/N Y/L/N.”

Charles extends his hand, trying to remember how handshakes work. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

“Likewise.” Your father’s grip is firm, assessing. “Y/N tells me you’re a Formula 1 driver.”

“Yes, sir. For Ferrari.”

“Ferrari.” Your father nods approvingly. “I respect that. Classic team. Though I’ve got to say, I’m more of a Mercedes man myself.”

Charles isn’t sure if he’s being tested. “They’re … very good. Very fast.”

“Dad, stop interrogating him,” you say, but there’s affection in your voice. “We’re going to be late for our reservation.”

“Just making conversation.” Your father looks at Charles. “You’ll have her back at a reasonable hour?”

“Dad.”

“I’m just asking.”

“We’re not in high school.”

“Humor your old man.”

You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling. “I’ll be back when I’m back. Don’t wait up.”

Your father chuckles and extends his hand to Charles again. “Take care of my girl.”

“I will, sir. I promise.”

Charles helps you into the tender — you take his hand and step down gracefully despite your heels — and then he’s starting the engine and pulling away from Dynasty while very aware that your father is probably watching them leave.

“Sorry about him,” you say once they’re clear of the yacht. “He thinks he’s intimidating.”

“He is a little intimidating.”

“Really?” You sound delighted. “I’ll tell him. He’ll love that.”

The restaurant is only about fifteen minutes away by tender, right on the water in Porto Cervo with a private dock for boats. Charles has been here before — the food is incredible, the atmosphere is romantic without being stuffy, and most importantly, it’s not the kind of place where people will bother him for photos every five minutes.

He’s pulling up to the dock when he realizes he’s been so focused on not crashing the tender that he hasn’t said anything for the entire ride.

“Sorry,” he blurts out as he ties off. “I should have talked. During the ride. I just—I wanted to make sure we didn’t crash.”

“Into what?” You look around at the completely empty water. “The air?”

“There could have been … obstacles.”

“In the middle of the sea?”

“It’s better to be careful.”

You’re grinning now as he helps you onto the dock. “You’re nervous.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“You’re definitely nervous.”

“I’m just—I want tonight to be nice. Good. Perfect.” He realizes he’s still holding your hand and drops it quickly. “Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.” You link your arm through his instead. “And relax. It’s just dinner.”

Just dinner. Right. Just dinner with the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen who makes him forget how to speak in multiple languages. Totally casual.

The restaurant is everything Charles hoped it would be — soft lighting, tables scattered across a terrace overlooking the water, string lights creating a warm glow, the sound of jazz playing quietly in the background. The host recognizes him immediately but is professional about it, just a quick “Welcome back, Mr. Leclerc“ before leading them to a corner table with a perfect view of the sunset.

“This is gorgeous,” you say, settling into your chair. “How did you find this place?”

“I came here last summer with my family.” Charles accepts a menu from the waiter. “The food is incredible. Everything is fresh. Local.”

“What do you recommend?”

“The pasta alle vongole is very good. And the branzino. Actually, everything is good. You can’t go wrong.”

“That’s helpful,” you tease. “So just point at the menu randomly?”

“Yes. Exactly. That’s a perfect strategy.”

You laugh, and Charles feels some of the tension in his chest ease. Maybe he can do this. Maybe it’ll be fine.

The waiter comes back, and you order the pasta while Charles gets the branzino, and they share a bottle of white wine that the waiter recommends. Once they’re alone again, you prop your chin on your hand and look at him in a way that makes him extremely aware of every single thing about himself.

“So,” you say. “Tell me about Monaco.”

“Monaco? It’s … small. Very small. You can walk across it in an hour.”

“Do you like living there?”

Charles considers this. “It’s home. But sometimes I miss … space. You can’t really have space in Monaco.”

“Do you need space?”

“Sometimes I think I do. Other times I like that everything is close.” He takes a sip of wine. “What about Tennessee? Do you like it?”

“It’s complicated.” You lean back as the waiter sets down bread and olive oil. “I love it because it’s home and my family is there. But it also feels … small sometimes. Not physically. Just like everyone knows who you are and has expectations.”

“I understand that.”

“Yeah?” You meet his eyes. “I guess you would. The whole F1 thing.”

“It’s not the same. Your father, he built something. I’m just driving a car.”

“Just driving a car.” You shake your head. “I watched some videos today. Of you racing. It’s insane what you do.”

Charles feels heat creep up his neck. “You watched videos?”

“Of course I watched videos. I wanted to see if you were actually good or just cocky.”

“And?”

“You’re actually good.” You tear off a piece of bread. “Also maybe a little cocky. You smiled at the camera after that overtake at — where was it? Austria?”

He remembers that overtake. Remembers the rush of it, the satisfaction. “That was a good move.”

“You went on the grass!”

“Just a little bit on the grass.”

“Your wheel was completely off the track!”

“But I made the corner.” He’s grinning now. “And I didn’t crash.”

“That’s your bar? Not crashing?”

“In Formula 1, that’s a very respectable bar.”

You laugh, and Charles thinks he could listen to that sound for the rest of his life and never get tired of it.

The food arrives, and it’s every bit as good as Charles remembered. You insist on trying his fish, so he tries your pasta, and somehow they end up sharing both plates between them while talking about everything and nothing — your MBA program, his training schedule, your complicated relationship with Southern society, his even more complicated relationship with Italian media.

“They love you or hate you,” he explains. “There’s no middle ground. One race you’re a hero, the next you’re the reason everything is wrong with Ferrari.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It is. But it’s also-” He searches for the word. “Motivating? When they say you can’t do something, you want to prove them wrong.”

“Spite as motivation. I respect that.”

“What motivates you?”

You think about this, swirling the wine in your glass. “Honestly? I’m still figuring that out. I did the MBA because it seemed like the smart thing to do. My dad wanted me to understand the business. But now I have it and I’m not sure what I want to do with it.”

“You have time to figure it out.”

“Everyone keeps saying that. But I’m twenty-six. Shouldn’t I know by now?”

“I’m twenty-seven and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.”

“You’re a Formula 1 driver.”

“But is that who I am or just what I do?” Charles surprises himself with the question. He doesn’t usually talk like this. “Sometimes I think if I stopped racing tomorrow, I wouldn’t know who I was.”

You’re quiet for a moment, and Charles worries he’s said too much, gotten too heavy for a first date. But then you reach across the table and squeeze his hand.

“I think you’d figure it out,” you say softly. “You seem like someone who would.”

The sunset has painted the sky in shades of pink and orange, and the lights of the other boats are starting to glow across the water. The waiter comes by to clear their plates and suggest dessert, and Charles orders the panna cotta because you can’t come to Italy and not have panna cotta, and you get the tiramisu because you’re “developing a tiramisu addiction since arriving in this country.”

“It’s only been a few weeks,” Charles points out.

“A few weeks of very good tiramisu. Don’t judge me.”

“I’m not judging. Tiramisu addiction is very reasonable.”

You talk through dessert, through coffee, through the restaurant slowly emptying around them until Charles realizes with a start that they’re one of only two tables left and it’s past eleven.

“We should go,” he says reluctantly. “Before they kick us out.”

“Would they kick out Charles Leclerc?”

“They would kick out anyone when they want to close.”

The tender ride back is different than the ride there. You sit close to him this time, close enough that he can smell your perfume over the salt air, close enough that when the boat hits a wave you grab his arm to steady yourself and don’t let go after.

Charles drives slower than necessary. He’s not ready for the night to end. Isn’t ready to drop you off at Dynasty and go back to Sedici and spend the rest of the night reliving every moment and analyzing every word.

“This was really nice,” you say as Porto Cervo’s lights fade behind you. “Like, really really nice.”

“Really really nice?” Charles glances at you. “That’s two reallys. That’s very many reallys.”

“It was a two-really kind of night.”

“Good. I wanted—I hoped it would be good.”

“Your English gets better when you relax,” you observe. “Earlier you were speaking in fragments. Now you’re using complete sentences.”

“Earlier I was terrified.”

“Of what? Me?”

“Yes. No. Not of you. Of-” How does he explain this? “Of messing up. Of saying the wrong thing. Of you deciding I’m stupid and boring.”

“Charles.” You shift to face him more fully. “You’re not stupid or boring. You’re sweet and interesting and funny when you’re not overthinking everything.”

“I overthink a lot.”

“I noticed.” You’re smiling. “It’s kind of endearing actually.”

“Endearing like a puppy or endearing like someone you might want to see again?”

“Definitely the second one.”

Charles’s heart does something complicated in his chest. “Really?”

“Really.”

“That’s only one really.”

“I’m rationing them. Can’t give you all the reallys on the first date.”

“What about a second date?”

“Are you asking me on a second date before the first one is even over?”

“Is that wrong?”

“No.” You touch his arm. “It’s actually really really really nice.”

“Three reallys.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

But Charles is grinning like an idiot, and he doesn’t even care. Dynasty is coming up ahead — he can see it lit up against the dark water, can see Sedici next to it, can see this perfect night coming to an end.

He pulls up to your swim platform as gently as possible, killing the engine and tying off. The crew member from earlier is there, offering his hand to help you up, but you ignore him and turn to Charles instead.

“Thank you for tonight,” you say. “For dinner and the boat ride and the conversation and everything.”

“Thank you for saying yes. For coming. For-” Charles’s brain is short-circuiting again because you’re very close and looking at him in a way that makes him forget how words work. “For being you.”

“For being me?” You’re smiling. “That’s smooth.”

“I’m not smooth. I’m the opposite of smooth. I’m—what’s the opposite of smooth?”

“Rough?”

“I’m very rough.”

You laugh, and then you’re leaning in, and Charles’s entire body goes rigid because is this happening? Is this actually happening?

You kiss his cheek — soft and quick and devastating — and Charles forgets he’s on a boat.

He jerks back in surprise, his foot catches on the rope, his arms windmill in a way that’s absolutely not graceful, and then he’s falling backward into the Mediterranean with a splash that’s probably audible from shore.

The water is shockingly cold and also he’s an idiot and also he’s definitely just ruined everything.

He surfaces, sputtering, to find you leaning over the edge of the tender with your hand over your mouth, eyes wide.

“Oh my god! Charles! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” He tries to sound casual while treading water in his nice dinner clothes. “This is fine. I meant to do that.”

“You meant to fall into the ocean?”

“It was hot. I was hot. This is … refreshing.”

You’re trying not to laugh — he can see you trying — but then you lose the battle and double over, and Charles can’t even be embarrassed because the sound of your laughter is worth being soaking wet in the middle of the night.

“I’m so sorry,” you gasp. “I shouldn’t laugh. Are you actually okay?”

“My pride is wounded but everything else works.” He swims back to the tender. “Can we pretend this didn’t happen?”

“Absolutely not. I’m telling everyone.”

“Please don’t tell everyone.”

“I’m already composing the story in my head.” You’re grinning as you reach down to help pull him up. “So there I was, on this romantic date, and I kissed his cheek, and he literally fell into the ocean.”

Charles hauls himself back into the tender, water streaming off him, his nice shirt completely ruined. “It was a very surprising kiss.”

“I can see that.”

“I didn’t expect it.”

“Clearly.”

“You’re very beautiful and I wasn’t prepared.”

You stop laughing at that, and something shifts in your expression. “You think I’m beautiful?”

“You—yes. Obviously. Very beautiful. Have you seen you?” Charles is shivering now, whether from cold or nerves he’s not sure. “The most beautiful. That’s why I fell. Because of the beautiful.”

“Because of the beautiful,” you repeat, and you’re not laughing anymore, just looking at him with soft eyes. “You’re soaking wet.”

“I noticed that, yes.”

“And you’re shivering.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“You should go back to your yacht and change.”

“I should.” But he doesn’t move. Neither do you.

“Charles?”

“Yes?”

“For the record, I think you’re beautiful too. Even when you’re dripping seawater all over your boat.”

His heart stutters. “Really?”

“Really really.”

“That’s two reallys.”

“I know.” You lean down — carefully this time, probably to avoid causing another maritime disaster — and kiss his cheek again, slower. “Goodnight, Charles.”

“Goodnight,” he manages.

You climb onto your swim platform, and the crew member is definitely trying not to smirk as he helps you up. You turn back once, wave, and then you’re gone, disappearing into Dynasty, and Charles is sitting in the tender soaking wet and probably in shock.

He somehow makes it back to Sedici where Joris is waiting on the swim platform.

“How did-” Joris takes in Charles’s soaked clothes and dripping hair. “What the fuck happened to you?”

“I fell in the ocean.”

“I can see that. Why?”

“She kissed me.”

“She kissed you so you jumped in the ocean?”

“I didn’t jump. I fell. There’s a difference.”

“That’s the difference you’re focused on right now?”

Charles climbs onto the deck, leaving puddles everywhere. “She said yes to a second date.”

“Before or after you fell in?”

“Before. Technically during? I don’t know. Time was confusing.” He starts walking toward his cabin. “I need to change.”

“Charles.”

“What?”

“Did you have a good time? Before the ocean incident?”

Charles thinks about your laugh, your smile, the way you held his hand across the table, the softness in your eyes when you called him beautiful.

“The best time,” he says. “The absolute best time.”

He’s halfway to his cabin when his phone buzzes. A text from you. Sorry for making you fall into the sea. Still want that second date?

Charles types back with shaking hands. Yes. Tomorrow?

Your response is immediate. Eager much?

Very eager. Too eager?

No. Tomorrow works. But maybe we stay on land this time.

Probably safer.

Definitely safer. Goodnight, Charles.

Goodnight, Y/N.

He falls asleep with his phone in his hand and a smile on his face, and if his dreams involve you and boats and not falling into the ocean, well, that’s between him and the Mediterranean.

Two weeks in and you’re still the slowest one in class, still tripping over your own feet sometimes, but you’re getting better. Your form’s sharper, more precise, more in control. Your punches sound less like hesitant taps and more like you mean it. You like the way it makes you feel… powerful, in a world that’s made you feel small lately.

Then one night he’s there.

You’re staying late because it’s the only time the gym is quiet enough for you to practice without fearing judgment. The gym's mostly empty just the rhythmic hum of the industrial fan and the creak of the old heavy bag swinging back at you.

You’re mid combo, jab, cross, hook, when you feel it. A shift in the air. Like electricity crawling up your spine.

You turn. He’s leaning against the far wall, half-shadowed. Arms crossed over his chest. Hood pulled low over his brow. Watching.

“Uh—” you fumble with your wraps. “Sorry, is this your time? I can go.”

“No.” His voice is low. Gravel and smoke. “Keep going.”

You blink. “You… work here?”

He steps out of the shadows and under the flickering lights you finally see him. Sweatshirt soaked at the collar. Tape unraveling from torn knuckles. Jaw sharp enough to cut glass. His face is all edges and intention, and his eyes, God, his eyes. Like a storm barely leashed. Something feral. Something alive.

You recognise him.

Not from class.

From whispers. From rumours. From the crowd’s roar behind warehouse doors. Underground fights. The undefeated. The king of the ring they call the lion. You’d heard the stories, brutal, unbelievable. A fighter who didn’t just win but devoured. You never put a name to the face until now, you just know instinctively its him.

“You’re Max,” you murmur.

His brow lifts, not entirely surprised you already know his name. “And you’re…?”

“Y/N,” you say, almost defensive. “I’m new.”

He steps closer and your breath stumbles in your throat. He smells like leather and sweat and something darker. Not cologne… experience.

“Yeah,” he says, gaze dropping to your stance. “I figured. You hit like someone trying not to.”

Your stomach twists. “I am trying.”

“I know. That’s why I stayed.”

You tilt you head. “What do you mean?”

He shrugs. “Wanted to see if you’d give up.”

You straighten, muscles stiff with pride. “Why would I give up?”

He smiles, small, amused. “People usually do when it hurts.”

“It already hurts,” you mutter, wrapping your wrist tighter. “I just want it to matter.”

That makes him pause.

He watches you like he’s trying to figure out what kind of flame you are, the kind that warms or the kind that burns. You don’t even realise you’re holding your breath until he nods once and moves past you, right behind the bag, holding it steady.

“Then hit it again,” he says. “This time like you mean it.”

So you do.

That’s how it begins.

He doesn’t train you.

Not officially. Not in any structured, planned, or spoken way. He’s not your coach, he’s not on payroll, and no one else in the gym seems to expect him to do anything but haunt the space like a silent, dangerous ghost.

But he’s always there.

Every night you stay late, which is most nights now, he appears. Sometimes already leaning against the wall when you walk in, hood up, arms crossed, gaze unreadable. Other times he arrives a few minutes after you’ve begun, his footsteps barely making a sound across the matted floor as he moves to the edges of your periphery, close enough to make your pulse spike, far enough to pretend it’s coincidence.

He doesn’t say much at first. Most nights he doesn’t speak at all, just watches. His presence is a pressure in the air, a weight between your shoulder blades, a constant reminder that you’re not alone in the dark anymore. On other nights he’s more vocal, offering sharp, precise observations that cut through your form like a knife, not unkind, but never sugarcoated. His voice when it comes is low and sure, and it always finds you mid-swing, mid-sweat, mid-thought.

“You’re dropping your shoulder,” he says one night, voice sudden and smooth as he moves behind you without warning.

You jump, startled by the nearness you hadn’t noticed until his breath was practically at your ear.

“Jesus,” you gasp. “You scared me.”

“I don’t mean to.”

You laugh. He doesn’t. But there’s a flicker of something soft in his eyes when you smile.

“You ever get tired of pretending you’re not interested?” you ask one night, somewhere between breathless and bold, wiping sweat from your brow with trembling hands after a long set that’s left your knuckles raw and your heart pounding.

His head tilts slightly, slow, almost feline in its calculation.

“In fighting?” he asks, as if that’s what you meant.

You glance at him sideways, giving him a look. “In watching me.”

That gets his attention.

He turns to face you fully, stepping in close, too close. Close enough to feel the heat coming off his chest. Close enough to smell the leather of his gloves, the salt of his skin, and the dangerous edge that always seems to cling to him.

“Do you want the truth?” he asks, voice quieter now, almost coaxing, like he’s asking if you can handle it.

Your throat goes dry, but you don’t step back. “Maybe.”

He doesn’t smile, not really, but his gaze drops first to your mouth then back to your eyes and something inside you twists. He doesn’t look at you like you’re delicate. He looks at you like you’re a challenge. A question he hasn’t figured out how to answer.

“I’m not scared of any man in that ring,” he says, and every word feels like it’s being peeled from some deeper part of him, something rarely touched. “But you…”

His eyes stay locked on yours.

“You’re different.”

You let out a sound, half laugh, half disbelief, because what could he possibly mean by that? You with your trembling fists and half-learned footwork and emotional baggage heavy enough to anchor a ship?

“Me?” you say, like it’s absurd.

He nods, slow. Measured. Dead serious.

“You don’t flinch,” he says softly. “Not when I look at you. You hold your ground like you’ve got something worth protecting. Like you’ve already been broken once, and now you dare anyone to try again.”

You go still.

“I’m just…” you start, but your voice falters. “I’m just here to heal.”

He studies you. “You’re already stronger than you think.”

Over the next few weeks the gym becomes your haven, not just a place to train, but a kind of sanctuary carved out of sweat, bruises, and silence.

The world outside still stings sometimes, the wrong song in the car, a passing couple laughing too loudly, the loneliness that curls around your ribs in the quiet hours of the night, but here, beneath flickering lights and the smell of chalk and rubber mats you begin to feel solid again.

You’re still not fast enough.

Still not perfect.

Your punches don’t always land clean, and your form gets sloppy when your mind drifts but you’re not afraid anymore.

Not of the bag. Not of the pain.

More importantly not of being seen.

Max becomes something like a shadow.

Always nearby. Always watching.

Then somehow, impossibly, he becomes a friend. Or maybe something that skirts the edges of friendship, standing too close to something else neither of you have the language for yet.

You start learning things about him in bits and pieces, never offered up like casual facts, but revealed in the quiet in-between moments, like loose change dropped by accident.

You find out he hates early mornings with a passion that borders on theatrical, grumbles about them like they’ve personally wronged him.

"Nothing good has ever happened before ten.”

You raise an eyebrow, mid-wrap. “Sunrises? Pancakes?”

“Blinding, and deceptively dangerous if you burn them.”

You just snort.

You find out that he doesn’t drink coffee, says it makes his hands shake and he can’t afford that. You learn that the long, pale scar along his left side came from a street fight he won in under a minute, a win that should’ve felt like triumph but still seems to sit heavy in his memory.

Then there are the softer things.

The things you're not sure he mean to let slip.

You find out he loves cats. That he used to sneak food to a stray outside his old apartment until it trusted him enough to curl up on his lap.

You mention offhand how your mom's been texting pictures of her rose bushes again, proud, unsolicited updates with captions like “First bloom of the season!” as if the flowers were children on their first day of school.

You expect him to brush it off, or maybe offer a quiet nod, but instead he lights up in this quiet, unexpected way, eyes soft like you’ve said something that reached a part of him you didn’t know was listening.

“My gran’s like that,” he says, shifting slightly closer. “She sends me photos of her garden every week. Sometimes every day if the weather’s good.”

You smile. “Really?”

He nods, pulling out his phone like it’s instinct. “Look.”

He scrolls for a second, then turns the screen toward you. It’s a picture of a large flowerbed, a little overgrown, the colours soft and unruly, like something out of an old storybook. The caption underneath is typed in careful all-caps: “STILL NO SIGN OF THE BEGONIA THIEF. I’M WATCHING.”

You let out a quiet laugh, but it’s not teasing. “It’s beautiful.”

“She works so hard on it,” he says, almost to himself. Then, after a beat. “She texts me a lot just to check in. It’s… nice. Makes my day better.”

You glance over at him and he’s looking at the photo like it’s something sacred.

“She sounds really special,” you say.

He nods once. “She is.”

You catch glimpses of the man underneath the reputation.

The so-called lion of the underground, the undefeated, the feared, with knuckles like iron and a jaw carved from stone… who also lights up just the tiniest bit when you mention a childhood pet, who goes quiet when you say you’ve had a hard day, who listens like it matters.

You feel it again, the slow, steady cracking open of someone who’s been closed off for a long, long time.

But there’s one thing he never talks about, not directly, not even sideways.

He never tells you why he fights.

Not what started it. Not what keeps him in the ring.

Still, he listens when you talk.

The first time you bring up your ex, it’s barely more than a whisper, something you didn’t mean to say aloud.

"He just made me feel invisible."

It slips out like a secret, and for a second you regret it, heart pounding, wondering if Max will brush it off, make a joke, or worse, pity you.

But he doesn’t do any of that.

Instead his entire body stills like your words struck something in him. His gaze sharpens, eyes narrowing not in judgment but in something that looks a hell of a lot like anger. Not at you, never at you, but at the idea of someone making you feel small. Forgettable. Unseen.

You can feel it radiating off him, that quiet, dangerous rage simmering just under the surface.

“You’re not,” Max says finally, voice low and steady, but so serious it makes your chest tighten. “Invisible.”

The way he says it… like it’s an unshakable truth, like it’s carved in stone… it makes your heart ache.

After that he walks you to your car. Just falls into step beside you, quiet and watchful, the way he always is when the night settles in and the gym empties out.

He doesn’t touch you, doesn’t even let his arm brush yours, but he stays close. So close. Like he’s afraid that if he does touch you, even accidentally, you might vanish and disappear like smoke.

He doesn’t say much else that night but the silence between you hums with something unspoken.

Something careful.

Something new.

And it stays with you long after the engine turns over and you drive away.

One night he doesn’t show up.

At first you tell yourself it’s nothing. People miss days. Even him.

But then another night passes, and another, and still no Max.

You try not to notice. Try to keep your focus on the rhythm of your gloves against the bag, the sharp exhale of each punch, the way your muscles burn with familiar ache.

But the air feels different. Heavier. Colder. The shadows in the corners of the gym seem to stretch longer without him standing in them, and every creak of the floor makes your heart catch in your throat with hope only for it to fall again.

You don’t ask anyone where he is.

You’re not even sure you have the right to.

By the fourth night something in your chest is tight enough to crack. You’re standing at your usual spot, halfway through wrapping your wrists, trying to shake the sick weight of dread in your gut, when the front door groans open on its hinges.

Your head snaps up.

Max.

He's here... and he’s a mess.

He’s standing just inside the doorway, barely upright, his hoodie soaked with sweat and something darker. There’s dried blood on his temple, a vicious bruise is blooming along the edge of his jaw, and his cheekbone has a nasty cut. One of his hands is cradled against his ribs like it hurts just to breathe.

For a moment you can’t move. You can only stare.

And then you’re running over.

“Jesus,” you breathe, reaching him in seconds, your hands hovering uselessly at first before finally gripping his arms, trying to steady him. “Max—what the hell happened?”

He grunts as you guide him toward the nearest bench, his body heavy with exhaustion.

“Fight went bad,” he mutters, the words slurred around pain. “Didn’t see the right hook.”

He lowers himself down with effort, a hiss slipping through clenched teeth.

Up close he looks even worse. His knuckles are raw and torn, and there’s blood caked all over him. He’s shaking slightly, whether from adrenaline, pain, or something deeper, you can’t tell.

“You should be in a hospital,” you whisper, crouching in front of him, eyes scanning every bruise like they’re puzzle pieces you’re desperate to put back together.

“I should be dead,” he says softly not looking at you.

Your hands freeze where they’re gently brushing the blood from his brow.

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m serious,” he says, voice rough and low. “It was bad. Real bad.” He swallows hard, and when he finally lifts his gaze to meet yours there’s something there you’ve never seen before. Not just pain. Not just exhaustion.

Need.

Then, after a long beat, his lips twitch the faintest ghost of a grin. “Still won though,” he rasps, trying for lightness, for you.

You just shake your head, torn between relief and disbelief, but the corner of your mouth betrays you with the smallest, broken smile.

“I didn’t want to go anywhere else,” he says. “I wanted to see you.”

The words knock the air out of you.

You stare at him, your fingers stilling against his cheek. His skin is hot, scraped raw in places, but it’s the look in his eyes that undoes you, that bare, broken honesty, like he’s holding himself together by a thread and you’re the only thing keeping him from unraveling.

“…Why?” you ask, barely above a whisper.

He looks at you like you already know.

Like he can’t believe you’re asking.

Like he’s spent weeks standing beside you, aching in silence, wondering if you’d ever see the war he’s been waging inside his own chest.

“Because you’re the only thing that doesn’t hurt.”

The silence between you stretches, thick with things unsaid.

You don’t answer him with words.

Instead you reach for the first-aid kit in the back room, hands trembling as you return. You clean the blood from his skin, slow and careful, your fingers brushing the slope of his cheek, the curve of his jaw. Every touch is an anchor, for him, and for you.

He doesn’t flinch.

He just watches you, breath shallow, lips slightly parted. His eyes track every movement, dark and hungry, like he’s memorising you the same way he does when you’re at the bag.

He’s watching like he’s afraid to blink and lose this moment.

When you’re done your faces are inches apart.

You’re both breathing hard, not from effort, but from whatever it is that’s coiled between you, electric, unspoken, inevitable.

The air is thick with it, heat rising in waves off your skin.

Then he does something he’s never done before.

He lifts his hand, the one that isn’t shaking and gently brushes his thumb against the edge of your jaw, tilting your face toward his.

He doesn’t kiss you.

Not yet.

He just looks at you, gaze flicking between your eyes and your mouth, waiting. Silent. Asking.

His eyes search yours with a question… Is this okay?

You nod, once. Barely. But it’s enough.

The kiss comes like a dam breaking.

It’s not soft. It’s not tentative.

It’s desperate.

He kisses you like he’s starving, like he’s been holding back for weeks, months, and now that he’s started, he doesn’t know how to stop. His hands come up to cradle your face, tentative at first, then firmer, pulling you closer.

You kiss him back with the same urgency, like you’ve been waiting for someone to see you, all of you, without flinching. To want you exactly as you are, bruised, burning, flawed and whole.

His mouth moves against yours with aching hunger, with the kind of tenderness that comes from someone who doesn’t know how to be gentle but is trying anyway, just for you.

He kisses like he fights, with everything he has.

When he finally pulls away, just enough to breathe, he presses his forehead to yours. His skin is slick with sweat, his pulse thudding hard beneath your fingertips, but all he says is:

“You deserve better than me.”

Your heart twists. You reach up, fingers curling around the line of his jaw and into his hair. You tilt your face until he’s looking at you again and you say, without hesitation:

“I want you.”

There’s another moment where he just stares at you. Silent. Still. Vulnerable in a way that has nothing to do with the blood on his skin and everything to do with the crack you’ve made in his armour.

And then he nods.

Once.

Sharp. Decisive.

Because Max Verstappen has never been afraid of fists or fury or pain. He’s taken beatings that would buckle most men. He’s stood toe-to-toe with monsters and never blinked.

But you?

You’re the fight he never trained for.

The one he didn’t see coming.

And he’s never wanted to win something so badly.

“Godverdomme…” 

“Oh my god, oh my god, I am so sorry.” Kimi.

A scoff interrupted Kimi’s blabbering worry. “Relax. He’ll be fine, he just has to walk it off.” George. 

“Just shut up–I’m talking to you, George.” He could barely squint his eyes open, just enough to catch a glimpse of the clear sky above. He felt a shadow appear, shading his aching face.

“Boys, use your big heads and go grab some ice.” 

“Hey–” 

“George.”

“Whatever…” He slung an arm around Kimi. “I can’t believe she’s bossing me around now.” 

Kimi looked back at her, exchanging an "I can’t believe this guy" face. “She’s literally your sister.” 

“Yeah, younger sister.” Their footsteps faded as they ascended the wooden stairs up to the beach house. 

She looked back at the man lying out like a starfish; his muscles were tense, unconsciously flexing his abs. 

“You alright?” Crouching down closer to him, she gently lifted his head, sliding a folded-up towel underneath. 

Max groaned in agony. 

“Okay, drama queen.” Gentle hands brushed a stray strand of hair out of his face. 

His second, now successful, attempt to peer at his savior left him even more breathless. Maybe the volleyball sloshed his brain around a little too much. George’s sister–he forgot about the George part completely–leaned protectively over him, stroking his hair in a calming manner. 

The view left his mouth watering at a very inappropriate time. Framed by a skimpy piece of striped cloth, her breasts spilled out of her bikini, making him ravenous. His eyes were definitely contradicting all the gentlemanly mannerisms his mother taught him. She obviously noticed.

“Seriously?” A playful lilt to her voice teased him. “Take me out first.” 

A wolfish grin appeared. “Tonight?”

“Let’s make sure you don’t have a concussion first.” 

Since then, there’s been a few texts. A few half-hearted excuses. Enough distance to make him think maybe that night was the sort of temporary madness you’d both agreed never to name out loud. 

Oscar pulls his hood up, fingers brushing over his headphones, ready to escape into the evening when the knock comes.

He freezes.

The sound is small, hesitant. He knows it’s you before he even checks the peephole. He opens the door, and you’re there. Date-ready. Hair smoothed, eyes lined in careful strokes, lips with the faintest sheen of gloss. A dress he’s never seen before, soft fabric skimming your thighs. It’s unfair, the way you look; it’s as if you’ve been painted in brighter colors just to remind him of what doesn’t belong to him.

He clears his throat. “Date’s over?” His voice is neutral, practiced. It’s the only way he knows how to speak to you now.

You shift your weight, the heel of one shoe scuffing against his doormat. “Yeah.”

That’s all you give him. No explanation. No mention of Lando’s name. Just yeah.

Oscar steps back, lets you in. He doesn’t say anything about how you smell like wine and night air, or how the curve of your wrist looks delicate as you shrug off your jacket. He doesn’t comment on how you’re beautiful in a way that feels deliberate tonight, not accidental like when you used to sprawl across his couch in joggers and a hoodie. 

Instead, he nods toward the kitchen. “Want some water?”

You glance at him, searching his face for something he doesn’t offer, and then you nod. “That would be nice,” you say with devastating, uncharacteristic gentleness. 

Oscar turns, every movement measured, deliberate. He doesn’t let himself look too long at the way your dress rides up when you sit on his kitchen stool, or how your knees press together like you’re still wound tight from the evening. He just fills a glass and sets it in front of you.

It feels like waiting. Again.

Oscar leans against the counter, arms folded, watching the way condensation gathers on the glass you haven’t touched. The silence stretches, taut as fishing wire. He lets it spool out until it feels almost unbearable, then cuts it clean with a simple question. “So,” he starts, “how was it?”

You look up, startled, as if you hadn’t expected him to ask. Your lips part, gloss catching the light, before you settle into a shrug. “It was fine,” you say. “Dinner was nice. Lando picked a place by the port, really good seafood.”

“Sounds riveting.”

You shoot him a look, but there’s no heat in it. “He was funny,” you add, softer. “He made the waiter laugh more than me, which was kind of impressive. And he—he opened doors. Pulled out my chair.”

“Chivalry’s not dead,” Oscar murmurs. He watches the way you twist the edge of your napkin-creased jacket on your lap. “What else?”

You glance away, as if cataloguing the evening in your head. “We walked after. Down by the water. He told me about some race weekend stories. Stupid ones, mostly. Stuff he probably shouldn’t tell a first date, but…” You pause, a small smile flickering before it slips. “That was it.”

Oscar hums. He waits, patient, until the question itches out of him anyway. “Anything happen?”

The words hang there. He doesn’t clarify. He doesn’t need to.

Your expression shifts, frustration surfacing in the downturn of your mouth. You set the glass down harder than you meant to, water sloshing against the rim. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t what I thought it would be.”

There’s a furrow in Oscar’s brow now. “What do you mean?”

You draw in a breath, shaky. Your nails tap against the counter, a restless rhythm. “I don’t know. I thought it would feel different. Special, maybe,” you huff. “But it was just… dinner. Talking. Laughing. The whole time I kept waiting for something to click, and it didn’t.”

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. He only watches you, the weight of your words settling heavy in the space between you, like the air before a storm. He stays very still, the kind of stillness that costs him effort. You’re watching the countertop when you finally come clean.

“It felt different when Lando… when he tried things.”

His chest tightens. “Different how?” The words come out flat, careful.

You shake your head quickly, defensive. “I don’t know. Just—different. Not the same.”

Oscar’s jaw works, a muscle twitching. He keeps his tone even. “You can be honest.”

“I am being honest,” you protest, but your voice is small. Your fingers knot in the hem of your dress like you’re afraid it might betray you.

He pushes off the counter, crossing the space between you in slow, measured steps. Close enough that he can see the flush creeping along your neck, the uneven rise and fall of your chest. Close enough to feel the static hum of your nerves.

“Tell me,” he says lowly. “What did he do?”

Your eyes dart up, wide, then away again. “He… he held my hand first. Brushed his thumb over my knuckles. It should’ve been sweet…” You trail off, frustrated, as if the words won’t line up.

Oscar reaches down, takes your hand gently in his, thumb dragging once over the ridge of your knuckles. Slow. Patient. He watches your breath stutter. “Like this?”

You nod faintly. “Yeah. But when you do it, it feels—different.”

Oscar doesn’t answer. He only watches you, expression cinched, while his thumb continues its quiet path across your skin. You inhale shakily, grazing your own forearm in a way that’s almost hesitant, “Then he… he touched my arm. Here.” 

Oscar mirrors it immediately, his fingers gliding along the same stretch of your skin. He notes the way goosebumps rise under his touch, the way your shoulders stiffen and then loosen in the span of a breath.

“Like that?” 

“Yeah,” you whimper. “It didn’t—it didn’t feel like this.”

“What else?”

You hesitate, cheeks heating. “He tried to put his hand on my thigh.”

Oscar’s eyes drop, briefly, before returning to your face. He waits for your permission, silent but present. When you give the smallest nod, he lowers his hand, resting it carefully over the fabric of your dress, just above your knee.

The room goes very quiet. 

His palm is warm, grounding. His voice is barely above a whisper. 

“Here?”

You release a breath that trembles. 

“There. Exactly.”

Oscar doesn’t let himself react. Not yet. He only presses a fraction more firmly, thumb brushing once against the inside of your knee. “Keep talking,” he says softly. “Tell me everything you he did.”

You speak carefully, as if each word costs something. “After dinner, we… we walked back,” you stutter. “To his apartment.”

The words knock something loose in his chest. He tightens his grip without meaning to, fingers pressing harder into the fabric of your dress. He draws in a sharp breath through his nose, tries to even it out. “What happened there?” The question lands harsher than he intends, clipped at the edges.

Your eyes flick up to him, gauging. “Not much. He—he tried. He touched me again. Higher.” Your hand gestures vaguely toward your hip, uncertain.

Oscar’s jaw is set, but he obliges. His hand slides upward with a deliberate pace, heat trailing in its wake. It’s not smooth this time; his touch borders on rough, betrayed by the envy he’s choking on. You don’t flinch. If anything, your breath catches in a way that makes restraint harder.

“And?” 

“He leaned in. His face—t’was close. His breath on my neck.”

Oscar closes the space without thought, lips brushing the line where your shoulder meets your throat. The contact is soft, but his breath is unsteady, his mouth lingering too long to pass as imitation alone.

“Did it feel good?” Oscar asks, even though he’s not sure if he wants to hear the answer. 

You nod, barely. You sound frustrated when you repeat, “But it was different.” 

The word scrapes him raw. Different. He keeps his mouth at your neck, lets the silence stretch, teeth grazing lightly in a moment he almost doesn’t control. His lips hover, ready to retreat.

“Did you kiss?” The question is strangled, not neutral this time. 

You stammer, something shameful burning in the pause. “I… well—when he—Osc…”

Oh. There it is. 

Oscar had every part of you except that. You’d let him use your mouth, let him eat you out and make you come more than thrice, but that’d been your line. No kissing. You’d been so adamant on saving that for Lando.

It’s enough to make Oscar pull back, breath drawn through his teeth, face shuttering. Hurt threads through the restraint, makes him shift as if to step away.

But your hands snap up, clutching at his shirt, holding him there. “Don’t.” Your voice trembles with urgency, raw enough to strip his defenses. “Don’t go, Osc. I—I’m sorry. I need you. Need you to make me feel good.”

Your grip moors him, the plea louder than the warning bells in his head. He stays where he is, chest rising and falling in sharp bursts. He’s close enough to feel your heartbeat thrumming against his own, his own control threatening to crash and burn.

Oscar reads the frustration etched into your face. The tension in your jaw, the restless shift of your hands. He makes a choice. 

Without a word, he guides you toward the couch. His grip is firm but careful, a silent insistence, and when you sink onto the cushions he urges you onto your back. The air between you tightens, charged with everything unsaid, every flicker of doubt folded into silence. “You want to feel good?” he exhales, resolving himself to this. 

He leans over, lips brushing your skin in a scatter of deliberate touches. Your temple, your jaw, the line of your throat, the slope of your collarbone. Never your mouth. The discipline is calculated, punishing for him, but necessary. His voice weaves between the kisses, low and even, a steady counter to your anxious form.

“Breathe. I’ve got you,” he mumbles into your shoulder. 

Each kiss is an anchor, each word a tether. You keen softly, the sound breaking like relief, as though his touch is holding you together where you might otherwise unravel. His hand settles over your chest, palm spreading warm against the swell of your breast. The weight steadies you, and the subtle pressure draws out a shudder. When his thumb ghosts across your nipple through the fabric, the sound you make trembles on the edge between sob and sigh.

“Easy,” he murmurs, though his own control feels stretched thin, fraying at the edges with every soft plea from you. “Let me take care of you, yeah?”

He trails lower, mapping a path with his mouth. A slow, devotional descent. Each press of his lips feels catalogued, a point of reverence along your body. Your dress rides higher under his hands, and your body arches, seeking the path of his mouth. By the time he reaches the band of your underwear, your breathing is ragged, your body taut as a bowstring.

Oscar pauses there, a deliberate hesitation, lips brushing the edge of the fabric. He inhales once, catching the warm scent of you, and then mouths over the thin cotton, tasting heat through the barrier. 

Your hips jerk helplessly at the first press of his tongue, the fabric dampening under his insistence. He keeps his pace unhurried, deliberate, savoring each broken sound torn from your throat. There’s something obscene about this—Oscar, eating you out through your underwear. His nose bumps against your clothed clit and you end up gasping, the sound going straight to Oscar’s cock. 

“P-please.” Your voice cracks on your words as you squirm. “Oscar, please. Take them, hng, off.”

He lifts his head just enough to look at you, eyes dark, searching, as if confirming that you mean it. When he sees nothing but your absolute wreck of an expression, he obliges without hesitation, sliding the fabric down your thighs, letting his fingers trace as he goes. He tosses it aside, then returns to where you need him without so much of a preamble.

When his mouth closes over you properly, the difference is devastating. His tongue works with a precision that borders on cruel, deliberate strokes, designed to unravel you piece by piece. He revels in the way you break apart almost instantly, body seizing around the edge of pleasure before he’s even slipped a single finger inside. The sound you make cuts through him, raw and pleading. 

Maybe you’re all wound up. Maybe Oscar’s just that good. But you’ve barely gotten out your warning of “I’m c-close,—I’m coming!” before you’re finishing on his tongue, coating the lower half of his face with slick. Oscar hisses, hips jerking uselessly against the bottom of the couch as his cock blurts precum into his boxers. 

Your cry vibrates against his skin, and he slows, intending to retreat, to give you air. But then your legs clamp tight around his head, pulling him closer with surprising strength. Your hand fists in his hair, tugging him down, your voice wrecked and demanding.

“Don’t stop,” you say, delirious and wretched. “More, please.”

Oscar exhales hard against you, the sound swallowed into your skin. “Greedy,” he grunts, his fingers curling into the cushions. “My greedy, greedy girl.” 

Despite his taunt, he surrenders to your demand, his restraint dissolving under the urgency of it. His tongue moves deeper, firmer, coaxing new sounds from you, while one hand steadies your hip against the couch and the other slides lower, testing the threshold of your body. 

He presses a finger inside at last, slow but inexorable, careful even as desire frays his patience. Your body clenches around him immediately, another tremor racing through you, sharper, stronger. “Fuck,” you whine. “Fuck, fuck, fuuuck.” 

He feels the way you pull him deeper, the way your thighs shake against his shoulders, and knows—knows with absolute certainty—that you won’t let him leave you unfinished, won’t allow him distance or mercy until he’s given you everything you’re begging for. 

And so he obeys, mouth and hand working in rhythm, every movement tuned to the breaking point of your need, every sound you make pulling him closer to the edge of his own restraint.

Oscar works you open, his fingers moving with careful deliberation, easing into your heat as if he has all the time in the world. He keeps his eyes fixed on your face as he sucks at your puffy clit, reading every flicker of response. Every now and then, he pulls away from your cunt to coax at you. “Relax,” he says. “Don’t think too hard.” 

You clench around him, body betraying every ripple of sensation. When he adds a second finger, his pace remains unhurried, letting you stretch around the intrusion. His thumb brushes absently against your hip as if grounding you. Then, almost casually, his voice slips into something sharper.

“Did he get to touch you like this?” 

The question makes you seize, walls fluttering around his fingers. Oscar notices instantly. His mouth curls faintly, a trace of humor at the corner of his restraint. “No?” he hums. “Thought so.”

You whimper, eyes squeezing shut. He gives you a reprieve, his tone softening, coaxing again. “Don’t hide. You’re fine, baby. You’re doing so well for me.”

Your hips lift helplessly into his hand, each motion caught between desperation and shyness. He resists the pull to lean up, to kiss you where your mouth waits. Instead, he lowers his head, mouth brushing the swell of your breast through the thin fabric of your dress. His tongue drags slowly over the outline of your nipple, and he feels the shiver ripple through you.

“I remember you said you liked it here,” he murmurs, almost to himself, before catching the peak gently between his teeth through the cloth.

You arch beneath him, the sound you make breaking high. His fingers never stop, stroking deep and steady, dragging you toward the edge with a patience that borders on cruel. Every time you falter, his mouth presses reassurance into your chest, lips moving over you in silent comfort.

When you finally splinter apart again, the sound is half cry, half sob, your body convulsing around his hand. Oscar holds you through it, fingers working you down from the peak, his mouth still warm against the front of your dress. He doesn’t rush, doesn’t pull back. He stays exactly where you need him, watching you unravel, the taste of control sharp in his own mouth.

Eventually, Oscar eases his fingers from you slowly, careful not to startle the sensitivity still clinging to your body. He straightens, dragging in a breath, and shifts as though to stand. “I should get something. Clean you up,” he says, already calculating where he left the towels.

But you’re faster, desperate in the way your hand fists into his shirt and pushes him back down onto the couch. His body lands with a muted thud, surprise flashing across his face. it’s quickly replaced by something darker when he sees the look in your eyes.

“I don’t want that,” you say, voice ragged. “I want—let me… let me do something for you.”

Oscar opens his mouth to protest, but you’re already tugging at the hem of his shorts with clumsy urgency. The fabric resists, and you wrestle with it, your impatience almost endearing. He doesn’t help you. He only watches, lips quirking, chest rising with controlled breaths. Deadpan, he manages, “Careful. You’ll rip them.”

You glare up at him briefly, flushed and determined, before dragging the shorts down in a single tug. His thighs flex as the fabric gives way, and the moment his boxers are revealed there’s no hiding the strain of him, pressed against the thin cotton, already thick and demanding. There’s a wet spot where he’s been leaking since the moment he started touching you. 

Oscar doesn’t flinch under your gaze, unembarrassed by his own arousal. If anything, there’s a flicker of satisfaction in the way your eyes widen slightly, the way your breath hitches.

“It’s not your first time seeing it,” he points out. 

“I know,” you say, “but it’s still a fucking monster.” 

God, you’re going to be the reason why Oscar’s ego swells. You sink to your knees before him, hands trembling. The sight coils heat low in his stomach. When you reach for him, tugging his boxers down just enough to free him, Oscar has to resist the urge to finish then and there.

For a second, he considers teasing again, a quip already at the tip of his tongue. But then your mouth closes over him, tentative and eager, and the air leaves his chest in one hard exhale. His head tips back against the couch, jaw slackening.

You’re clumsy, a little unsteady, but you remember what he showed you that first time. How to take him in slowly, how to hollow your cheeks, how to use your hand where your mouth can’t reach. The effort makes his stomach tighten, every shift of your tongue pulling another groan from his chest.

Oscar’s hand finds the back of your head, his touch featherlight. Not to force, only to guide. His voice, rougher now, doesn’t even sound like him. “Good. Just like that,” he praises. “You remember.”

His breath stutters when you hum around him, your inexperience outweighed by the urgency in every movement. He keeps his eyes half-shut, fighting the wave of pleasure threatening to undo his composure, clinging to the rhythm you’re building with every pull of your mouth.

Oscar lets his head fall back against the couch, thighs tight, breath staggered. You’re on your knees between them, clumsy but determined, your mouth stretched around him in a way that sends him perilously close to unraveling. He keeps his voice low, guiding, the same steady tone he used that first time.

“Yeah, that’s it. Hand at the base, keep the rhythm slow. Use your tongue—good. Just like that.”

You hum at the praise. He forces himself to keep speaking, because silence might ruin him faster. “You’re doing so well. ‘S exactly how I like it.”

But then the thought slithers in, uninvited: Lando. 

Oscar should keep it buried, but his chest tightens, his jaw clenches, and before he can stop himself, the question bursts out in between restrained gasps. “Did you and Lando… did you get this far?”

You still instantly. 

You pull back, lips swollen, breath uneven. Your eyes meet Oscar’s, and then they avert. Something dangerous sparks inside of Oscar’s chest. “Oscar,” you say, “I—I’m sorry—”

He doesn’t want to hear it. Doesn’t need the details of how you were on your knees for another man mere hours ago. Oscar instead cups the back of your head and pushes himself back past your lips, shutting you up. The first thrust is shallow, cautious. He checks himself, checks you.

“You stop me if you need to,” he rasps. “Understand?”

You nod around him, eyes wide, obedient. Only then does he let go.

Oscar moves with care but without hesitation, hips rolling slow and deliberate, feeding himself into your mouth. The wet sounds of it fill the room, obscene and intimate. He watches your throat work, the tears at the edges of your lashes as you fight to keep up, the spit slicking your chin. Each time you gag, he withdraws slightly, only to guide you back down with a rougher groan.

His thoughts blur between what is and what isn’t. Between your mouth now, and the unbearable image of you on your knees for someone else. “Did you make those sounds for him?” Oscar hisses. “Did he know how desperate you get when you’re full?”

Your fingers claw at his thighs, head shaking in futile denial, but you don’t stop Oscar. You take it, all of it, until he feels your breath hitch in sync with his own. He knows he’s close. Too close.

He drags you off at the last second, jaw clenched. His hand fists over himself in rapid, desperate strokes. He comes hard across your dress, streaks of white catching on the fabric that only minutes ago had been pristine from your date.

For a moment, there’s nothing but the sound of his breath, ragged and uneven, and the sight of you below him. Knees on the floor, lips parted, dress ruined. His pulse thrums with jealousy, with relief, with something he refuses to name.

His mind clears, and he’s immediately mortified. “Shit,” he spits. “I’m sorry. God, I’m—” 

Oscar’s working through his apology when you get to your feet. He blinks as if stunned, because instead of recoiling at the ruin of your dress, you tug at the straps and peel it off your body in one fluid motion. 

The fabric lands in a heap at the floor, forgotten. He’d taken off your underwear earlier, and—Jesus Christ—you’re not wearing a bra. It means you’re left in nothing, naked in Oscar’s living room with his cum across your collarbone. 

“Don’t apologize,” you say, your voice quick, almost breathless. “I don’t care about the dress. I just… I want this.”

You climb over him, straddling his lap, and the press of your bare skin against his leaves him winded. His cock twitches despite him having just finished, the line of him sliding against your folds as you start to move. The slick drag makes both of you shudder.

“I want this,” you murmur, grinding down harder, your voice fractured. “Hold me?”

His hands find your waist automatically, holding you steady as if you might slip through his grasp. The friction is unbearable, almost too much, and Oscar feels his eyes sting, vision blurring at the corners. It’s too close, too raw, and still he doesn’t let go.

“You feel… fuck, you feel good,” you gasp, burying your face against his throat. “This is what I needed.” 

Your words lance through him sharper than the drag of your body. He tightens his grip, near desperate now, whispering into your hair as your rhythm falters into primal need. “Take what you need,” he says raggedly. “Take all of me.” 

Oscar braces himself as you move over him, the steady grind of your hips unrelenting, intent. He can feel every shiver of heat dragging across him, every fractured breath you spill against his skin. It’s catastrophic in its simplicity. How you don’t ask for more, don’t demand what he can barely restrain from giving.

Instead, you work yourself against his lap until your body seizes again, breaking open on top of him.

He’s hard, painfully so, but he leaves it, neglects the throbbing insistence in favor of wrapping himself around you. His mouth finds your shoulders, the curve of your neck, his lips ghosting where words won’t reach. He breathes you in, steadying himself against the weight of your release. Your trembling ebbs, little by little, your breathing dragged back into rhythm as though he’s guiding you down from the height with each kiss he presses to your skin. His control feels thin, stretched, but it holds, because he’d rather let you come apart in his arms a thousand times than take a single step too far.

Eventually, you lift your head. Your faces are close, so close he can count the flecks in your eyes, the flush still blooming across your cheeks. The pause hangs sharp between you, a silence taut with everything he’s refused himself.

“Oscar,” you whisper, and he’s convinced his name has never sounded this good. 

You lean in, decisive, breaking the line he’s held so stubbornly. Your mouth finds his, soft and insistent.

Oscar’s breath stutters, heart collapsing into the space you’ve crossed. 

The kiss doesn’t end quickly. It stretches, deepens, becomes something unruly in its patience. Your mouths fit, pull, linger, testing how far the line bends now that it’s been broken. Oscar’s hands cradle your back, your jaw, like he’s afraid you might vanish if he doesn’t hold every part of you. The air tastes of want and restraint, of everything he’s been trying to keep buried.

When you finally break for breath, your voice is small and uncertain. “Do you… want it to happen here?”

Oscar almost laughs, a dry sound caught between disbelief and need. “On my couch?” he says. “Not a chance. You’re not having your first time like that.”

Before you can protest, he’s already shifting, sitting up with you still wrapped around him. His arms tighten, lifting you with an ease that makes you breathe out a giggle. The movement is careful, deliberate, his control stitched into every step toward his bedroom.

He lays you down gently against the sheets. You’re sprawled there, bare, the trust in your eyes knocking the breath out of him more than your body ever could. He strips his shirt without ceremony, the fabric tugged over his head and discarded to the floor. 

You reach for him instantly, tugging him down until his weight settles against you. Your mouth finds his again, hungry, pulling him deeper into the choice you’ve already made.

Oscar doesn’t give in to your urgency, not yet. You can feel the weight of him pressed against your thigh, the undeniable strain of his body saying he wants it as much as you do, but his hand moves first. His fingers slip between your legs, familiar now. The touch is enough to make you whimper, enough to make your plea stumble out again.

“Oscar,” you pout, “I want it now.”

He grins a bit. “And you’ll get it,” he laughs. “But not until you’re ready. I’m not ruining this for you by rushing.”

Two fingers slide in, slow, deliberate. You clutch at his shoulders, nails dragging lightly over skin, every inch of you fighting between relief and impatience. He keeps the pace unhurried, his voice steady against the tremor of your breath. 

“Let me do this,” he says. “You’ll thank me for it.”

When he works a third finger into you, the stretch draws a gasp, your body tightening around him. He leans in, lips brushing your ear, tone quiet but merciless. “That’s it. Open up for me, baby. If you can’t take this, you can’t take me.”

You cling harder, muffling a moan against his throat. He takes the sound as surrender, his free hand guiding yours down to his cock.

“Touch me while I’m touching you,” he instructs. “Wrap your hand around me—there, good. I want to, ah, feel you while ‘m working you open.”

Your movements are hesitant at first, but his groan betrays how quickly you’re finding him. He praises you between breaths, the restraint in his tone fraying. “Good girl,” he grunts. “That’s perfect. You’re perfect.”

His fingers curl inside you at the same time you squeeze him in your hand, the rhythm pulling him closer to the edge of patience. Still he doesn’t let go of the pace, steady and sure, determined to shape you to him.

“I’m going to finish again,” you warn, voice shaking with pleasure and impatience. 

Oscar laughs breathlessly. “Do you prefer I start edging you?” 

“You wouldn’t dare.” 

Oscar withdraws his hand abruptly, the sudden absence making your body clench around nothing. You start to protest, the sound caught in your throat, but then you see him reaching toward the nightstand. His intent is obvious, clinical—responsible in the way you always knew he would be. A condom. Of course.

Your hand shoots out, catching his wrist. His eyes flick to you, brows raised. You hesitate, then force the words past the heat rising in your chest.

“I… I want to feel all of it.” The admission is soft, halting. “I’m on the pill. I just—” Your voice falters, nervous under the weight of what you’re asking. “I want it like that.”

Oscar stills, every line of him taut. For a moment, he looks at you as if trying to read whether you understand the gravity of it. His throat works, but no objection comes. Instead, the hesitation breaks into something rawer, hungrier.

He surges forward, the restraint he’s clung to unraveling in one pull of his mouth against yours. His hands frame your face. When he finally pulls back, breath ragged, his voice is rough with certainty. 

“You don’t have to worry about anything,” he grunts. “I’m the cleanest driver on the grid.” 

Oscar holds himself above you, every muscle drawn tight, his eyes fixed unflinchingly on your face. Not on your body, though the sight of you spread beneath him is enough to undo him entirely, but on your expression. The subtle flickers of nerves and want, the way your lips part around a breath that doesn’t quite make it out.

The first push is only his tip, and already you’re thrashing under him, your hips jolting, your breath breaking apart in little gasps. He stops instantly, teeth gritted, forcing his own body into check. His voice comes out broken. “Breathe, baby,” he coaxes. “Let me in.”

“I’m trying,” you choke out.

Your legs tighten around him, a plea and a tether both, and he presses forward again, his chest brushing yours as if the closeness alone might ease you open. He whispers between kisses at your temple, your cheek. “You’re fine. You can take me. We’re gonna make you take me, yeah?”

Each inch feels impossible, a stretch that makes your nails dig crescents into his back. He winces, but it anchors him, sharp pain grounding him against the molten pull of your body. He eases in further, patient even as his control frays, every fraction of movement wrung out with care.

By the time he bottoms out, he’s trembling with the effort of holding still, your nails sunk deep into his skin. He presses his forehead to yours, swallowing hard against the rush of heat and relief, and murmurs, “There. You’ve got all of me now.”

Oscar stays still, every nerve alive, forcing himself into patience. Your body tightens, then loosens by degrees, your small sounds shifting from ragged gasps to something softer. He keeps whispering into the space between you, his voice low, coaxing. “Okay?” 

For a moment, it feels endless, this suspended stillness. But then you nod, eyes opening to meet his. “I can take it,” you say shakily. “You can move.”

He exhales like it’s a prayer answered. The first motion is cautious, a shallow pull and press, barely any distance at all. He watches every twitch of your face, every flicker of response, adjusting to each of them as though you’re speaking without words. The restraint is brutal, but he clings to it, steady as he eases into a rhythm.

“How do you feel?” His voice is strained, though he tries for evenness.

Your arms are tight around him when you whisper back, almost breaking on the word. “Full.”

Something inside him gives at that, a low groan caught against your throat. He presses deeper, still careful, but there’s no hiding how the praise slips free of him now. “That’s what I wanted you to feel,” he pants. “You’re taking me so well. Hold on, okay?”

You cling tighter, nails biting into his skin, your body arching up to meet his slow thrusts. Every movement is tempered with care, yet each one builds, layering want against want against want. And through every shiver, every tremor, he stays with you, guiding you through the rhythm as though the only thing that matters is that you feel exactly how completely you belong here, wrapped around him.

Oscar keeps himself buried inside you, but the tension beneath his restraint is starting to fracture. He reads the nerves in you easily—the way your nails bite deeper into his shoulders with every whispered praise, the way your gaze flits between his face and the place where your bodies are joined. 

He softens his voice, keeps it steady, but something slips through, unguarded. “Did you ever imagine Lando…?” 

The name lands like a stone. Your body jerks, clenching tight around him, your voice breaking into a startled sound. “Don’t,” you start, but it’s too late. 

The reaction shoots straight through Oscar, sharp as a blade. Jealousy floods him, sudden and unrelenting, and the careful pace he’s kept wavers. He drives into you harder, sharper, as though punishing the question, punishing the thought, punishing himself for even letting it out.

Your eyes widen, shame flickering there, but your lips part only to release a choked whimper. Oscar’s jaw locks. He knows you’re innocent—knows he has no claim over you, not yet—but the flare in his chest won’t quiet.

“You probably did,” he grits, but he doesn’t slow. If anything, his rhythm grows more pointed, his hips snapping with a certainty that shakes the frame of the bed. “But it’s, ah, me you’re in bed with right now, isn’t it? You let him sit there thinking he had a chance.”

He feels the shift in you before you even make a sound. The sharp edge of pain softens, melts into something that has you arching into him rather than shying away. Your muscles spasm around his cock, and the sensation drags a hiss from his throat. He’s watching your face, the tremor in your lip, the way your lashes tremble like you can’t decide whether to keep your eyes on him or shut out the weight of what you’re feeling. Every flicker of your expression is another pull at the tight wire of his restraint.

He doesn’t give you the chance to retreat. His words press harder than his body does, voice curling against your ear like a hand forcing you open. “Is this what you wanted from him? For him to fuck you like this?”

You shake your head, desperate, breath breaking as you whisper, “Don’t mention—please don’t—” The plea collapses into a moan, traitorous in how it curls upward, shivering with pleasure. The contradiction only fuels him. His chest tightens with the knowledge that you can’t control how your body answers for you.

“Why did you even go?” His voice is low, rough, each thrust punctuating the question, each movement heavier than the last. “Why let him put his hands on you when this—” He pulls nearly all the way out before sinking back in, groaning when you grip down on him. “—is what you needed?”

Your thighs quiver around his hips, caught between wanting to deny him and wanting more of what he’s doing to you. Your head tips back against the pillow, throat tight, a cry caught halfway between shame and want. You manage another broken, “Stop—” but it’s ruined when you keen at the very next stroke. 

Oscar’s mouth twists into something almost like a smile, except there’s no humor in it, only disbelief at how much he wants you undone, how much he’s willing to press until you admit it. “You don’t want me to stop,” he hisses against your jaw, his teeth grazing lightly before he pulls back enough to see your expression. “You’re clenching around me just from hearing his name. Fucking pathetic.”

The words make you shudder, your voice faltering, caught between begging him not to speak and begging him not to stop. Tears catch at the corners of your eyes as you writhe beneath him, pulled taut between shame and unbearable want. Your nails leave crescents on his back, dragging against the sweaty heat of his skin, your body betraying every protest your mouth tries to form.

His jealousy distills into possession, every thrust stamped with claim. “You feel that?” His hand slides higher up your thigh, gripping hard to pull you open wider for him. His voice carries both accusation and hunger. “This is mine. Not Lando’s. Not anyone’s. Just mine.”

You writhe, nails dragging red crescents into his back, and he swears you’re holding onto him like the words themselves tether you in place. Your head tips back, throat bared, and the sounds you make tumble out helpless, unrestrained. Each noise cuts through him, proof that the truth is already written into your body.

“Tell me,” he pushes, eyes narrowing as he watches every shift in your expression. “Tell me this is what you want.”

“Yes—” The word bursts out of you like air from underwater. “It’s you, Osc. Only you.”

The admission strikes him deeper than he expects. His chest feels tight, almost painful, but the drive in him doesn’t falter. He leans down, fucking you with a rhythm that borders on desperate. His breath comes ragged, his words breaking between thrusts. “Good. I’m going to make sure you don’t forget that.” 

You’re shaking now, clinging to him as if he’s the only thing holding you together. Oscar watches you unravel beneath him, every gasp and tremor etching itself into him like proof. His jealousy burns into reverence, frustration transmuting into a kind of worship he can’t disguise. He moves with a force that feels inevitable, each stroke declaring what he can’t stop repeating in his head—you’re his, his, his.

The sound of your moans mixes with his labored breathing, the room thick with the truth neither of you can take back. Oscar, locked on your face, feels the words steady inside him as certain as the rhythm of his body: this is where you belong, and he’ll carve that into you until there’s no space left for doubt.

Oscar feels the rush building, heavy and urgent, the rhythm of your body pulling him closer with every clench, every tremor that runs through you. His jaw locks as he watches you, the way your chest heaves, the way your thighs tremble, the way you give yourself over despite the fracture of your voice. He buries himself once more, feels the fluttering heat of you clamp around him, and it nearly breaks his control. 

With a groan, he drags himself out at the last second, fist tight around his throbbing cock as he spills hot over the trembling swell of your cunt. The sight of it—your body marked, flushed, spasming for him—makes his chest cave with something tighter than relief, something dangerous in its pull. His stomach knots, heat spreading in waves as he drags his release across your skin, unable to look away.

His breath comes ragged, his hand steadying against your thigh as though he’s holding himself up. His chest heaves, sweat dripping down his temple, his eyes locked on you even as he fights to catch air. He’s still watching you, as though the mess he’s made of you isn’t the end but only the beginning of something he can’t stop wanting, can’t stop chasing.

Oscar doesn’t catch it at first. Your voice is thin, words running over themselves, half-formed and tumbling out too quickly. It’s only when your hand presses against his chest like you’re holding him back from some invisible blame that he realizes—you’re apologizing.

The sound of it is almost frantic, defensive. “It was good,” you’re saying, “so, so good. I don’t know why—why I didn’t—” 

For a moment, he just stares at you. And then he laughs, low in his chest, the sound warm and unbelieving. He leans down until his breath touches your cheek, where he plants a chaste kiss. “You think that matters?” he says, affectionate even now. “You think that changes what this is?”

“I didn’t—” you start, voice cracking. “I thought I was supposed to. I don’t want you to think I can’t—”

He kisses you before you spiral further, steady, grounding, as if he can bring you back into yourself. When he pulls away just far enough to speak, his voice carries that clipped, dry calm he uses when he’s stating the obvious. “Not everybody finishes from penetrative sex. Doesn’t mean you won’t. Doesn’t mean I’m leaving you like this.”

“But it was good,” you insist, almost pleading, your eyes wide on his. “I swear it was. I don’t want you to think you didn’t—”

“I know it was,” he cuts in softly, thumb brushing your jaw. “I could feel you. I know.”

Your confusion flickers in your eyes, brows drawing, lips parting like you’re about to question him. He doesn’t let you. 

His hand slides lower, steady and practiced, and then you gasp when his fingers press into the swollen heat of your clit. You jolt under him, body clenching again, impossibly sensitive. “Oh my God. Oscar.” The words spill out helpless, half a whimper, half a plea.

He’s using what he left on you, slick and messy, his touch circling slow until you’re trembling. He spreads his cum over your clit, using it as lubrication. “You don’t have to—” you try to protest again, but your voice breaks into a moan, betraying you. “Oh, that—d-don’t stop, please—”

Oscar covers your mouth with his, kissing the sound away, swallowing every broken noise like he’s collecting proof. He doesn’t waste time. He already knows where to go, what to touch, how to have you spiraling under him, and he gives it to you. 

His hand cups your breast, thumb teasing over your nipple until it pebbles; the way you arch into his palm makes heat flare sharp in his chest. He bends his head, mouth closing over the soft swell of you, sucking your nipple between his teeth just to hear the strangled gasp you give. Every sound you make feels like it brands him, burns straight through to the core. Your fingers claw against his shoulders, needy, almost frantic, and it only spurs him on.

His other hand works between your thighs, sliding through the mess there with slow, unhurried strokes, each one sinking deeper, curling until your back bows. The glide is obscene, slick with his cum and yours together, the sound wet and shameless. His cock twitches against your thigh, leaving streaks of warmth, and he grinds it there deliberately. Just so you feel every throb of him, just so you know what you’re doing to him.

“Look at that,” he mutters, voice rough, caught between reverence and taunt. “Taking me back in. You’re so selfish, aren’t you? Can’t get enough of me, even now.”

He presses deeper, fingers curling hard, knuckles dragging against your walls until your whole body trembles around him. His cock smears more of himself over your skin, leaking hot against you. “That’s it—suck my fingers in, take it all,” he pants. “You like that, don’t you? Me pushing my cum inside of you.”

You moan something that could be his name, cracked and broken, your thighs trembling around his wrist. The sound pulls a low laugh from him, muffled against your breast where he leaves another sharp bite. “Let’s use our words, baby. Do you like the way I fill you up? Do you like it when I use you?”

Your voice stumbles over itself, wrecked, words tumbling free without shape until finally, you choke out, “Please—yes, I love it, I love it—”

The admission guts him. His cock throbs helplessly, smearing precum down your thigh in messy streaks as his fingers drive harder, deeper, fucking his cum inside you. He can feel how soaked you are, how your body can’t decide whether to cling tighter or push for more. His mouth roves hungrily across your skin—breast, collarbone, throat—kissing, biting, soothing as though he can’t bear to leave any part of you untouched.

“That’s it,” he rasps, need fraying his voice. “So fucking tight on my fingers. Drenched for me. You’re going to come all over me, aren’t you? Going to fall apart—the way Lando couldn’t get you to.”

The pressure builds quick, relentless, your body clutching at his hand as though terrified of losing it. You’re babbling again, high and frantic, words dissolving into cries that he swallows with desperate kisses. His thumb circles your clit, merciless, coaxing the tension until it breaks sharp and overwhelming.

Your body locks hard around his fingers, pulsing, dragging every spasm out of yourself against the unyielding curl of him. The sound you make is ragged, shivering straight into his mouth as your nails rake down his back, carving him open. 

He keeps working you through it, dragging you over the edge until the last tremor leaves your thighs quaking, your body limp beneath him. When he finally pulls back just enough to look at you, your face is flushed, damp with sweat, lips parted and wet from his kisses. His fingers are still inside you, glistening, holding the mess of both of you there as though he doesn’t want to let go. His cock presses hot and swollen against your thigh, twitching with every shallow breath he takes, but he doesn’t push it further. Not yet.

Later, steam fogs the small bathroom, curling around Oscar as he steadies you under the warm spray. His hands are careful, washing away every trace with a gentleness that surprises even him. You sway, drowsy on your feet, so he holds you closer, lips brushing your temple. He rinses you slowly, as though there’s all the time in the world, as though this moment deserves to stretch itself out and live in memory.

He doesn’t let you lift a finger after. He steers you to the kitchen, pressing snacks into your hands before you can protest, watching with satisfaction as you eat what you can. There’s a stubborn part of you that insists you’re fine, that you don’t need this much fuss. “It was just sex,” you huff, cheeks tinged with pink. “It’s not like I’m sick or anything.” 

He only shakes his head, that small, flat smirk pulling at his mouth. “Humor me.”

When he’s finally satisfied, he shepherds you into his bed, piling blankets over you until you’re swaddled in them. You laugh at the absurdity, muffled under the layers, but he only tucks the edges tighter, leaning down to kiss your cheek. 

“This is ridiculous,” you protest.

“Not ridiculous,” he says matter-of-factly. “It’s necessary.”

You end up face-to-face, eyes soft and heavy-lidded. The air hums with something softer now, the tension dissolved into intimacy. His fingers trace idle shapes against your arm, a rhythm meant to soothe. You search his expression, trying to pin down what comes next, but he beats you to it.

“We don’t have to know right now,” he says, voice low, steady. “We’ll figure it out in the morning. Whatever this is.”

There’s nothing left in you to argue. 

Warm, fed, and cocooned in him, you let your eyelids drift down. 

Just before sleep pulls you under, you murmur drowsily, “You’ve ruined me for anyone else.”

He only smiles, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. He’s not even sure if you’re awake to hear his response. 

Monday morning had risen with a yawn from the sun, as though it were remembering only now that June was well underway but the streets remained chilly. Weak light shimmered over the fire escape when you’d drawn your curtains open. Ramen was sitting on the railing, licking his cream paw and staring at you with unimpressed nonchalance, and you’d grinned. Ramen—your downstairs neighbor’s cat, a sandy little imp whose real name you’d never found out but had baptized so after he’d stolen your instant dinner right off your kitchen counter—only showed up on mornings with importance. Like the day you’d aced Introduction to Statistics with nothing but two hours of sleep and five Monsters.

This was a good omen.

So yes, you were enthusiastic by the time you got home from class, scrambled together an omelet, and disemboweled your apartment looking for your favorite earrings. You were optimistic, and that sometimes sounded like the worst thing anyone could be in New York City.

But this first date promised to be nothing like the others, your inner voice hammered home as you tried to cram your feet into shoes half a size too small. He was cute, funny, not a fascist, he waited exactly the right amount of time in between replies—neither psychopathic nor disinterested—, and he’d told you to dress up because it was only fair that real-life art should match the paintings on the wall. After half a dozen insipid dinners at every other pizza place in Little Italy, and as many ghostings, a museum first date sounded more promising than you’d dared to hope.

Even though he dropped off the radar at ten p.m. the prior evening. Even though you shot him a bubbly, “you said 2:30pm right? can’t wait!” at eleven (the appointed time was but a scroll away, but you just needed to say something, diffuse the nerves somehow). Even though you double-texted him at two fifteen, “omw!”. 

But Ramen was there this morning, blinking his slow blinks at you. The date had to go well.

The sun was fully awake, undeniable, blazing above the trees and endless spires piercing the sky beyond Central Park, by the time you sat down on the steps in front of the museum. Alone.

It wasn’t until two fifty-seven that you accepted to face the glaring truth. 

First miss for Ramen.

You collected yourself in a clumsy torpor. Nothing to do with your heels, or the stupidly long dress you’d picked out and whose skirt you now had to lift with every step—this was the inescapable, crushing feeling of disappointment.

Of course New York City would punish the optimistic. The naïve. The superstitious, who put the outcome of their days into the hands of some feline apparition, scan the sky for four-leaf clover clouds. Served you right for still believing in things falling into place.

Your face burned from the sun and the humiliation, eyes prickling from unshed tears as you stuffed your phone into your purse. Pretended not to notice the group of tourists snapping shots of you, perhaps thinking you some roaming Millais muse. Disappeared into the shade of 103rd Street station, green gown flowing behind you like a pennon.

Every step down the long stairway stung more than the last, but you kept your gaze firmly to the ground, careful not to trip—and bury any ounce of dignity left in you for good. Blend in with the jaded city folk, you thought as you swiped your Metrocard; act as if you know exactly where you are going and go there with purpose, even if you could not be more stranded. Where to now? Back to your disordered, sweltering apartment, its haphazard pile of dishes in the sink and Ramen gauging you silently from the windowsill? Or to the campus library, trying to glean whatever productivity lies within heartbreak? And risk bumping into your friends, who’d teased you all day about the giddy bounce to your step, and having to explain you weren’t even worth showing up for?

“Excuse me?”

You looked up and met hazel. A mop of chestnut hair, that he had manifestly tried to arrange before giving up; discreet moles on an otherwise pale face, and brown eyes where danced flecks of gold and the most gripping kind of urgent resignation. The stranger was cute, and for some incomprehensible reason he matched you: he, too, was dressed to the nines like he’d run off from some wedding, and he also distinctly looked like he wished more than anything for the Earth to swallow him.

“Are you going to the F1 movie premiere?”

“What?”

“The, uh, the F1 movie red carpet thing? Are you going there right now?”

You were starting to worry your foreign-accent (British, or perhaps Australian?) comprehension skills had gotten alarmingly bad, or maybe the shrieking of MTA wagon brakes had finally rendered you deaf. 

“No, uh... I…” Oh, what the hell. Like there was any use lying to a beautiful stranger who seemed like he was somehow having a worse afternoon than yours. “I got stood up by my date. F1, you mean like Formula 1?”

What a formidable and ridiculous scene you two must’ve painted—two kids in formalwear, standing in the middle of a New York City subway platform, stuck amidst the pungent smell of piss and nonsensical conversation.

“I’m sorry about your date, they sound like a bit of a dropkick,” the stranger replied, and although you weren’t entirely sure what a dropkick was you were surprised to find him genuine. “But, uh… I think I’m lost, and I hoped you might help me, or else I’m gonna be the one doing the standing up. On about two thousand people.”

You had no time to furrow your brow, or chew on his words. Suddenly everything clicked with an audible bang, right in sync with the train doors closing to your left. The reason you’d felt so familiarly drawn to that cherub face, and why he had mentioned Formula 1… None of the downright lubricious Instagram edits your best friend had ever sent you featured him in a suit, but he was unmistakable.

“Oh my god, you’re Oscar Pia—”

“Please don’t tell all of Manhattan,” Piastri interrupted, grimacing as he glanced around the platform. You suffocated your voice, though found his dread of being heard a little pointless. Two people standing idly in black-tie garments as metros passed them by were eye-catching, for sure, but nowhere near NYC eye-catching standards. “It’s already pretty bad how late I am to my own premiere, I don’t want to have to take selfies in the subway.”

A million questions jostled about inside your head, but all you could do was stare at him, mouth agape in incomprehension. You didn’t keep up with Formula 1, hardly saw any point in cars going in circles, and perhaps a McLaren (was it McLaren or Mercedes?) superfan might have known better than you what the fuck Oscar Piastri was doing there. Not the film premiere gimmick, you were willing to believe that was the kind of fanfare F1 drivers spent their off-days doing—what the fuck he was doing alone at three in the afternoon, asking for your help in some acrid station on Lexington Avenue. 

“Couldn’t you just drive to the damn premiere?”

“Oh, right, so I should just steal a car off the street?” he deadpanned.

“No, I mean… don’t you have a chauffeur? An… an agent or something? A team? How do you even end up…” you trailed off, finding no words that wouldn’t bring you to astonished frustration. Instead, you opened your arms wide, encompassing all of New York’s rickety railways. “Here?”

Piastri parted his lips to retort with one of his impassive quips, but his whole face fractured then with tremendous vulnerability.

“I’ll tell you if you help me find my way. Please?”

He did not look like the type of man who’d ever begged anyone to do anything for him—you expected a high-adrenaline junkie like him to pray for neither forgiveness nor permission—and the contrast made you consider. That, and the sheer absurdity of the situation. And the fact the only other way you could see your afternoon ending was with an onslaught of messages from some guy assuring you life had gotten “sooo hectic” in the last ten to twelve hours.

Piastri was much cuter than him anyway.

“You know what, yeah, sure, what the hell,” you shrugged with a growing smile. “I’ll help you. I could use the good karma. I’m Y/N, by the way.”

This whole plan was utterly ridiculous, and you had no idea how you’d possibly explain that to your friends when they’d ask how your date had gone, but the way Piastri deflated with relief, like his whole body was exhaling, had you convinced you’d made the right call.

“Thanks, Y/N.” He said your name with the slightest of accents, and you caught yourself wishing he could say it again. “Maps said this was the shortest path to Times Square, but I think it’s a little confused—”

“Times Square? Oh, you’re not getting anywhere near that on the 6. We need to get to Central Park North. You coming?”

You tilted your head to the side, to the staircase drenched in hazy summer light, and Piastri seemed to be weighing the pros and cons for a split second—you couldn’t fault him, to be fair; you could’ve been a stalker, or a lunatic, or the lowest echelon to a weird MLM scheme. Still, he must’ve decided whatever you were recruiting him for was less dangerous than missing this premiere, because he took off after you.

When he billowed out of the station and back into the city, Piastri winced, and at first you assumed it due to the piercing sunlight reverberating on glassy panels, or the cacophony of horns and engines. However, you quickly noticed him glancing at the passersby with frantic interest… and looking puzzled at their utter disinterest in him.

“Relax, no one’s looking at us,” you reassured him, striding down the street on autopilot. He jogged two steps to catch up.

“You sure?”

“Certain. There’s so many people in New York City, and so many of those people do weird shit, that practically anyone can go unnoticed. I assure you that this,” you gestured down at your long dress, catching the light like rippling topazes, then at the silver cufflinks on his jacket, “does not even make the top 5 weirdest things any of these people have seen today.”

But the Australian looked unsure still, twisting his thin lips in a crooked zigzag, so you stopped in your tracks and hailed a young lady passing you by on the sidewalk, Airpods firmly bolted inside her ears.

“Excuse me, do you know who this guy is—”

She strode past you with the most furtive glance biologically possible and a mechanical Nothankyouhaveagoodday. You turned back to Piastri.

“See? No one cares.”

He chuckled, face breaking like dawn, and you chuckled too with no real reason. You weren’t too sure what was funny about typical New York callousness, but the way Piastri’s eyes crinkled, still somewhat strained from stress but illuminating all his features, made you all fuzzy inside. Up close and under sunlight, he looked even younger than you’d thought, no more than twenty-five, and the shadows on his face had lifted, rounding the angles and softening the corners. Like he’d been oil-painted on canvas, ochres and whites melting into each other at the edges.

“Okay, I guess you’re the local,” he conceded, and you resumed your brisk walk.

Maybe you really were at the museum, after all.

“So,” you spoke up after a bit. “I was promised a story.”

“Right,” he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, clearly regretting his bartering skills.

“How do you, Oscar Piastri, end up late to a movie premiere and alone in a subway station?” You stepped across a grate on the sidewalk, careful not to wedge your heel in the holes. “They just left you behind? Did you oversleep or what?”

No reply, but his dry laughter morphing into a cough was a flagrant enough response.

“Oh my God, Piastri,” you gasped merrily. “Did you seriously sleep through your movie premiere?”

“No! … It’s not over yet. I’m just late for the red carpet part. I can still make it to the screening.”

You stared, unconvinced, and he stared back, unconvincing. Biting the inside of his cheek, he watched your smile grow wider until he couldn’t take your teasing anymore. For heaven’s sake—you’d known him a grand total of five minutes and were already tormenting him!

“What?”

“How do they let you get away with this?”

“I was racing in Canada yesterday! God forbid a guy wants a nap,” he stressed the last as though it were some capital punishment and rolled his eyes.

Something in his demeanor was fabulously amusing. He was all relaxed tension, calculated coldness akin to what you’d expect from a person who’s constantly scrutinized; yet there was something more, a sort of agitation bubbling within, under the pores of his handsome face. Feeling so deeply and letting a stranger see so much was not in his nature, that much was clear. Every microexpression, in the lift of his brows, the curve of his lips, the arc of his eyes betrayed a kind of imbalance. He was losing his footing, like a glacier abraded from the top by the sun.

New York City had trained you for all sorts of people, including still waters like him. How to ripple their surface.

“Does this happen to you often?”

“No. Never.”

“Never missed a flight?”

“Just once. My mom woke me up screaming one hour before boarding the second ti—watch out.”

Swiftly, he grabbed your elbow and switched your spots on the sidewalk, pushing you closer to the wall. Before you could open your mouth to protest, the ground rattled from a firetruck barreling past you, ruffling Piastri’s hair and the lapels of his jacket.

“But I set three different alarms on my phone and I figured, Lando will probably break my door down if I sleep through them, so I’m safe,” he resumed, entirely unfazed. You looked up at him like he’d just performed actual magic. “But… apparently not. I woke up… twenty minutes ago?” That explained the slim, red pillow mark on his face you’d mistaken for a fading sunburn. “I wanted to call a taxi, but they’ve cut off traffic. It’s a big deal, you know? Brad Pitt’s gonna be there.”

The way he said Brad Pitt, with a tone so level it became thick with meaning and the littlest of jazz hands, made it abundantly clear there were few people on Earth Oscar Piastri would’ve been less excited about than Brad Pitt.

“Are you in it?”

“What?”

“The movie. Are you even in it?”

“Uh, my elbow is. Minute fifty-three.”

“Wow,” you giggled, arching your eyebrows in a playful wave. “So am I talking to Oscar Piastri the pro athlete, or Oscar Piastri the movie star?”

“Eh, just Oscar Piastri’s fine,” he shrugged, non-committal, though the glint of a smile now flickered uninterrupted on the corner of his lips, almost real enough to remark upon.

Your steps had carried you to the subway entrance north of Central Park already—too soon, far too soon, you thought with a faint ache in the chest. Piastri stirred in your body some kind of early-summer warmth, soft and shimmering like a drowsy morning. As soon as he would vanish to the far side of the platform, only the icy wind would remain, howling endlessly through the corridors…

Piastri, however, did not seem set on giving you up. At least judging by the tiny, tentative steps he took as he walked up to the turnstile, as though the machine could eat him the way it did cardboard tickets. You saw him take out a small, green-lettered card from his pocket… and stopped him.

“Wait, that’s not gonna work.”

“Huh?”

“Your ticket, it’s a single ride. You used that back there on Lexington, right?”

“Uh, I guess?”

“You don’t have a Metrocard?”

He turned to you, puzzled, and almost slammed into a hurried businessman in the process. Thankfully for Piastri, even assault was too inconsequential to reroute the average New Yorker, and the man just breezed past the turnstile and into the guts of the Earth with a nasty glare and a taunting beep!

“Why would I have a Metrocard, Y/N, I’m in this city about twelve hours a year.”

You glanced toward the entrance, where a faint trickle of light still seeped in. A flock of little old ladies, perhaps en route to a high-stakes bingo showdown, had laid siege to the terminals. Judging by their furrowed brows and squinting eyes, no one else in the station would be seeing so much as a hint of a ticket anytime soon.

Goodness gracious. Your helpfulness would be your undoing.

“How late are you to this thing?”

Piastri checked his watch. “Very.”

“And how much do you care about being late to this thing?”

“Normal dude Oscar Piastri? Not so much, to be honest. Formula 1 driver Oscar Piastri…”

“Say less.”

Veritable horror surfaced on Piastri’s face at your confident strides, as if he imagined you were about to vandalize your way through the gates.

“Come on! Hop over,” you signaled.

“Uh…”

“Or we could wait in line. Your call.” Like trying to get a puppy to jump through a hoop. What was he waiting for, a treat?

Or perhaps the patrol of inspectors coming down the hallway at the exact same second as Piastri gathered momentum and jumped the turnstile. That, too, seemed like a sensible thing to be on the lookout for.

The two men cried out right as his dress shoes hit the ground.

“Oh come on!” you whined. “They’re never here!”

“What do we do?!” he cried.

“What do you mean, what do we do? Just book it!”

You heard a cacophony of footsteps behind your back, promptly echoed by lighter sounds as Piastri ran down the corridor. Without a second glance, you pushed down on your hands, swung your legs forward, and… came to an abrupt halt mid-air. Looked down. Sage green fabric had wrapped around the metal blades of the turnstile, like snakes constricting their branches.

“Oscar!” you yelped.

If you’d had any doubt Oscar Piastri was the real racing deal until now, they were all silenced at once from the way he spun on his heels, ran back to you and, without a split second’s hesitation, not even the span of a breath, picked you up from your perch and took off. Instinctively your arms wrapped around the taut base of his neck as you felt his clammy hands slide down your back: the glossy fabric offered no grip to hold on to, yet his strong arms held you into place as tightly as they could. You gritted your teeth, prayed to God your heels would not fall off, and watched in stunned silence as Oscar raced down the stifling hallways.

It seemed like but an instant had passed when Oscar threw himself into the belly of the train, its imminent departure chime his very own chequered flag, and the old doors rattled shut behind you. For the first time, New Yorkers shot you strange looks. Finally you had crossed their threshold for urban bizarrerie.

And you were still in Oscar’s arms, flushed and panting even though he was the one who’d done all the running. And had barely broken a sweat.

You were about to clear your throat and kindly—begrudgingly, perhaps?—request he put you down… when the announcer’s perky voice began chirping out the next stops through the loudspeakers. You snapped your head at the line map above the doors. No matter what language she said it in, your next stop was always wrong.

“Oscar,” you murmured.

“Yeah?” he breathed out.

“We got on the wrong way.”

“There’s no oil in New York City.”

Oscar remained silent for a few seconds, as if in a trance. His jittery leg did not.

“What?” he mumbled when he broke out of his reverie.

You simply pointed at his knee, bouncing up and down since he’d sat.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to drill a hole in the ground with your shoe for. There’s no oil in New York City. If there was, Trump would’ve sucked it dry already.”

Oscar sighed, throwing his head back against the glass panel, but your heart swelled with satisfaction when you caught a glimpse of his smile.

Rippling anyone’s surface had seldom proven as easy as it was fun.

You leaned a little closer to him, and he closed his eyes with a faint grunt. His leg, however, was now still.

“Why are you so nervous about being late? You’re the main attraction, it’s not like they’re going to hold it against you.”

Hearing his reply proved difficult over the train’s thundering racket, glass windows and moist handles vibrating within their sockets like charged electrons. His eyes, mercifully still closed, allowed yours to linger on his mouth—to decipher each word as it formed, and to savor the quiet contemplation.

“Being fashionably late usually draws more attention than I like to get.”

“So why bother going? You don’t look like you enjoy being in the public eye that much anyway.”

Only one eye opened, tentatively so, and met your small, expectant smile, chin resting on your fist and your crossed legs imperceptibly brushing his. Any story he could’ve told you right then would’ve been riveting, it seemed, and for the first time in weeks Oscar found that for you, he did not mind sharing one.

“I told Lando I’d go. We collided yesterday on track and they thought it would maybe look bad if one of us showed up and not the other. Like we’re avoiding each other or something. I don’t know, PR stuff. But I promised Lando, so.” He pursed his lips then, and blew air through his nose, holding back a giggle. “Also, I don’t know, I felt like I had to go. I had a… a premonition.”

“A premonition?”

“Yeah, I don’t know, some kind of hunch. In my cereal.”

You stared at him long, assessing him and the likelihood of a lie, but he was a master of the unreadable smile, the one that could mean anything from I’m one look away from bursting into laughter to I have never dissociated more than I am currently, and even, perhaps, I wish this train ride with you would never end.

“In your cereal?”

“This morning, at the breakfast buffet, I had cereal and there was this kinda cornflake clump that looked like a clapperboard. You know,” he mimed it with his hands and the click of the tongue to match. “So I thought that was some… sign? The universe was telling me to go to this premiere, or something.” His neck tensed abruptly as he suddenly remembered himself. Who he was, and what he believed in. “But uh, that’s a little stupid. Forget it.”

The subway doors opened and closed, chimes rang and accordion tunes from the platforms faded in and out of the background chatter. You had close to lost count of how many stops were left until Times Square. The incessant ballet of New York’s illustrious unknowns would still play out, with or without your attention.

When Oscar looked down at you, almost entirely hunched over his lap and taking him in like he was an August rainshower, he found you beaming.

“No, I totally get you. This date I was supposed to go on before I ran into you… I went because Ramen showed up, even though there were so many red flags that I could’ve seen coming.”

“Who?”

“Ramen.”

“Who’s Ramen?”

“The neighbor’s cat. That’s not his real name, just what I call him.”

Oscar stared at you, expression frozen in one of delightful incomprehension, the one you get when you are not entirely sure a miracle is destined for you just yet. And you stared back, awaiting his next words for as long as it’d take them to come.

“So you went on a date because a cat told you to?”

“He didn’t tell me anything, silly, he’s a cat,” you retorted like it was the most obvious thing in the universe, to which Oscar rolled his eyes and muttered Of course. “He just stared, and every time he does it, I know I’m gonna get lucky that day. He’s never failed me before. Well, until today.”

A beat passed, during which you refused to elaborate further out of fear you’d betray the words lingering at the front of your mouth. Maybe this hadn’t been a miss for Ramen, after all. Maybe his magic had worked in unexpected ways. Oscar, on the other hand, just basked in the whole of you, and his lips slightly parted without a sound, as though they didn’t quite know where to begin.

“What?”

“It’s just… My job, this whole universe I live in, there’s no room for good luck charms or silly little superstitions. They’re just… distractions. All the answers are in the data. Our only faith is in the numbers.” And you sensed him about to say something else, something he had to wring out of the very cloth of his ribcage, but suddenly the deep wells in his pupils were sealed off with his favorite lid of deadpan humor. “Well, except the Italians. But they suck, so I wouldn’t take them as an example.”

“Oh my God, Oscar,” you gasped, “you can’t say that, do you know how many Italians there are in New Y—”

A sudden jolt shook the entire train, knocking the carriage back onto its breathless tracks; the momentum sent a teenage girl flying into a tall gym guy, who in turn crashed into you—your hands were too slow to catch you, not lighting-fast and gloved in greatness—you fell on top of Oscar, your nose buried against the open buttons of his shirt.

You were upright in less than a second, locked in a litany of Oh my God sorry’s to which Oscar replied his own recitation of No worries it’s not your fault’s. The train resumed its journey through the depths of Manhattan as if nothing had happened, and truthfully nothing had—except you were now a little closer to each other than you’d been before, and you hoped with all your might that he wouldn’t notice the way your eyelids fluttered, or how your fingertips had started burning up, or how the air was now thicker, or maybe you hoped he did, so you wouldn’t have to speak it aloud—nothing had happened, and truthfully everything had.

“Why did you think I was going to the F1 premiere back there?” you asked softly, not sure why that was the question you’d elected to go with now.

Oscar’s face was impassible—he’d found his calm, collected control back. But he didn’t know, or didn’t care to know, that you could hear his heartbeat louder than the railroad racket below.

“You looked funny.”

“Okay, you’re literally wearing a bowtie, and it’s crooked, by the way.”

“No, I mean, you looked pretty.” The faintest flick of his tongue showed above his bottom lip, undoubtedly accidental. “You looked really pretty, so I assumed you were a guest or something.”

Maybe what you’d heard and thought was his heart pulsating in sync with the wobbly tracks had not been his, but yours. Somewhere indistinct, the lady’s mechanical voice crackled something about Times Square. 

“Thank you,” you smiled, with no mischief attached, this time.

“I’m… pretty glad that your date didn’t show up in the end, huh,” he laughed half-heartedly.

“Oscar, Times Square,” you sprung to your feet, nearly twisting your ankle. “That’s you!”

The doors almost chewed down on the hem of Oscar’s pants when he jumped out of the train. Without so much as a glance back or a single word of forgiveness, all the carriages vanished into heavy shadows, and the world was back to normal again.

Or almost. If there was anything even remotely normal about Times Square.

Every single light blinded you—no matter how many times you came you could never wrap your head around how the place managed to dazzle you even in broad daylight—as you both exited the metro station. Summer lay heavily on the commotion of cars, police whistles, loud music, and… screaming bloody murder?

“Ah, I think that’s my cue.”

Oscar held his hand over his eyes as he took in the scene, and only then did you notice the race cars parked in the middle of the street, some fifty meters ahead. It was probably a fair assumption, then, that the thousands of people massed near the makeshift stage, underneath gigantic screens, were all waiting for him. A fair assumption, and an incredibly odd one; to think you had spent such a mundane moment with the man they would soon shout themselves hoarse for!

“Yeah, good luck with that, I’m not going any nearer,” you forced between clenched teeth. “I hope you don’t get into too much trouble.”

When you spun on your heel, you found Oscar extending his hand out for you to shake, squinting his eyes against the sun. Or maybe it was an excuse not to have to look you in the eye more than absolutely necessary. In the same way you couldn’t tell whether your hand was slightly clammy from the heat or the nerves.

“Thanks for saving the day. Or at least mine,” he said, a little too solemn, a little too final. Like this was a farewell rather than an acknowledgment.

“Thanks for saving mine,” you replied, hoping the little smile you forced on your lips looked appropriately warm, and not inexplicably aching. “Maybe I’ll see you around?”

To anyone else Oscar would’ve replied the truth—Probably not—but that was not what his bowl of cereal would have wanted of him, so he said:

“Maybe.”

He gave you a wink half a second too long, and immediately looked horrified at what he’d done, which made you double over in a flurry of giggles. When you opened your eyes, he was a few steps ahead, waving you goodbye, and you returned the salute. You watched him jog the distance to the first cameras until he was but one more black and white dot in a sea of elegant millionaires, your throat hollow save for a funny kind of longing.

Then you walked back the way you came, carrying the end of your skirt down the stairs of the metro station.

Thirty minutes later, as you rummaged through your purse for your keys in front of your apartment complex, you noticed your phone lighting up. Usually, when you went on a date, you’d put it on Do not disturb so as to not be tempted—basic education, you reckoned, and something not many dates of yours had had the courtesy of reciprocating—, but you always sent your best friend your location beforehand and allowed her and only her to go through. She knew better than to text you unless it was life or death.

Clearly, this was of the utmost importance, and the fact there were only three messages instead of the fifty-seven you were expecting did not reassure you one bit.

“bitch” “who tf is that with oscar” “and why tf is it you??????”

A link to a TikTok came up mere seconds later.

The sage green gown was unmistakable. Anything else could’ve been explained otherwise, maybe blamed on some uncanny resemblance, a fortuitous angle—it looked like the video had been shot from very far away, and the protagonists not at all aware of the recording; but you would’ve recognized that lilypad-bright dress anywhere. Just like you knew that the blurry mass of pixels near the man’s face was a pathetic excuse for a wink, and the woman doubling over for no reason was actually laughing. That she’d watched him disappear into the crowd, immobile and longing, to commit to memory the very way his bones moved when he walked.

“Oscar Piastri’s Mystery Date Gets Cold Feet Right Before Red Carpet Debut?? 👀”

You stared at your phone even as it kept going off, its vibrations tickling your palm. A series of interrogation marks, each its individual message, popped up one after the other on your notification bar, and all you could do was clutch the screen as though you could shatter it with your bare hands.

This meant nothing, you calmed yourself down. This would blow over soon, you swore. As soon as they realized Oscar Piastri would never be seen again with this mysterious woman, and that it was never anything serious. Anything at all, even. That the New Yorker in apple green was just a mirage on his path, pertaining only to him and for a split instant.

And even if things didn’t smooth over… you had a feeling Oscar’s team would have no problem tracking you down.

©musicallisto, 2025