jessie.

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yourusername me and london boy have made so many memories here together and i’ll cherish them forever ❤️. i love this sport and i love the people i've met in this sport. i'll always love it and them, but sometimes you have to take a step back and set your sights on new horizons. that said, neither of us will be competing in any events this year— endurance or otherwise. london boy will stay in richmond and continue to receive the best care possible from people who have grown to love him as much as i do, and in the meantime, i'll start looking to those other horizons.

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user wishing you the best of luck!! we’ll miss seeing you and london boy, but we know this decision wasn’t made lightly and we hope whatever you do will make you just as happy as riding does!!

user london boy lives a more luxurious life than i could ever hope 

↳ user real like why am i jealous of a horse 😭😭

↳ user knowing how well these horses are treated? we should all be jealous

↳ user some of these horses have rain coats that cost more than my entire wardrobe combined… the day i learned that was not a fun day… 😔

user honestly only ever tuned in to watch you both

user the events won’t be the same without you!!!

user I’LL MISS YOU LONDON BOY

user take all the time you need to explore other options! you can love something and still get burnt out on it. sometimes taking that step away can be the decision that allows us to continue loving something instead of growing resentful towards it. do what you need to do to be happy! 🫶

↳ user this is such a good way to put it!!

↳ user THIS. i did competitive jumping for ten years and towards the end of that time i started seeing it more as a chore than the sport i used to be so passionate about. you absolutely CAN love something and still get burnt out on it. taking breaks is so important.

user i’m sure london boy will miss you but you do you girliepop! take a trip or go on an adventure!

user oh to be a girl riding her horse across the beach at sunrise 🥲

↳ user IKR?!? talk about dream life, she’s literally living out scenes that i’ve only ever seen in movies

↳ user it’s london boy’s world and we’re all just living in it

user wait does this mean no more horse content???

↳ user i mean she’s not getting rid of her horse or even outright retiring, she just won’t be riding competitively for 2023

user is she leaving the uk or smth?? bc she said other ppl will be looking after london boy?? i know nothing about horses guys i’m sorry

↳ user london boy will be staying at the stables as per her caption! he will be looked after by many trained professionals who will ensure he is properly fed, watered, exercised, and groomed each day! it’s actually very common for people to board their horses at a stable since horses often need large fields to graze and exercise in, and not a lot of people have big enough backyards or own property to be able to provide that themselves. whether she’s leaving the uk or not, we don’t know, but it definitely sounds like her training with london boy will be put on hold for the time being!

user miss girl we’ll always remember you and london boy as the greatest duo in endurance racing history

↳ user REAL REAL REAL

user does this have to do with her falling off a few months back??

↳ user it could, she did mention the encounter leaving her pretty shaken

↳ user yeah but the possibility of something like this happening is so high that a lot of riders have accepted it as an inevitable occurrence in their career

↳ user even still, that doesn’t change the fact that she could very well be traumatized or experiencing lingering side effects

↳ user guys!! speculation will do us no good!! if she wants to tell us, she will!!

user YOU KNOW I LOVE A LONDON BOY 🗣🗣🗣

logansargeant wanna trade one paddock for another?

There’s a sort of terrifying uncertainty that comes with breaking a long-standing routine.

It’s like a fucked-up sort of package deal— you stop following the methodized schedule you’ve meticulously upheld for years, and in exchange, you receive more time than you know what to do with and an overwhelming responsibility to fill it.

The only question is: with what?

The muscle memory lingers, and you suspect that it’ll take some time for your body to un-familiarize itself with a sleep schedule that you’ve religiously held on to for years, but there’s no demands to maintain any of it and that makes any sort of attempt at continuing to run through the motions feel entirely obsolete. You may instinctively wake up at the ass crack of dawn, but without the necessity of a horse relying on your punctuality to get him fed, watered, and turned out to the paddock, there’s nothing you can do beyond filling the morning with something until your internal clock catches the memo and decides to let you sleep in for once.

“You know, when I invited you to tag along with me,” Logan begins in lieu of a greeting when he opens the front door and sees you standing on the stoep of his apartment, clad in athletic wear and a pair of well-worn running shoes, “I was under the impression that we both understood that to mean the traveling to races part and not necessarily the pre-season training.”

“‘My dearest sister,’” you sarcastically quip back in a mockingly deep voice, feigning heartfelt sincerity and pressing your hand melodramatically to your chest. “‘How good it is to see you after so long! I would be absolutely delighted if you joined me on my morning run today.’”

Your twin brother shakes his head in exasperation, but through the facade of annoyance, you can recognize the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Honestly, Logie,” You pretend to wipe a tear from the corner of your eye and add in a sniffle for extra flair, “you're too sweet. What would I ever do without you?”

“We saw each other a week ago at brunch,” he grumbles, reluctantly taking a step back from the door and allowing you to pass over the threshold into the warmth of the apartment and out of the winter’s frigid morning air.

“When?”

“Last Wednesday—”

“—did I ask? Oh! Boom! Gotcha!” You whoop out an exclamation of victory as you continue down the hall. “Gosh, I am four for four now. You gotta step up your game, Logie-bear, or this is gonna end in a miserable shut out for you.”

He heaves out a heavy sigh that carries with it twenty-two years of suppressed brotherly rage and the exhaustion that can only come from being reminded at every chance that he is, and always will be, a minute younger than you. “You're the bane of my existence, and I do sincerely hope you know this.”

“Aw, I love you too!”

You step into the small kitchen at the end of the hall. With the exception of a little potted cactus sitting on the windowsill— a housewarming gift from you— it looks nearly identical to how it was the last time you visited.

A month ago.

When he moved in.

There's a woven mat on the floor in front of the sink, an ashy green that contrasts nicely with the off-white cream color of the cabinets and laminate countertops. You can't really tell if Logan actually bought the mat, or if it came with the place, but it's cute nonetheless and serves as one of the few pops of color in the otherwise monochromatically beige apartment.

“I see that my cactus continues to reign supreme as the only individuality in this place,” you comment, glancing over your shoulder in time to see him appear in the doorway.

He shrugs at your words. “Yeah, well, you'd be surprised how busy you can get when you're preparing for everything you've ever dreamed about. No biggie.”

“Logan,” you turn to face him, “you'll do great. There are two other rookies on the grid—”

“And I'll be in the worst car out of all of them.”

“You don't know that,” you chide gently.

This side of Logan isn't unfamiliar to you— the anxiety and fear of failure. It's always existed, and you've known about it since the morning of his first kart race when he confided in you that he was so nervous he felt like he was going to be sick.

The insecurities surrounding his own skills have persisted and thrived with every new track, every new team, and every new series, and as you've grown alongside him you've found ways to challenge his self-doubt, but you've also learned to accept that there's only so much you alone can do.

You can debate it and challenge the self-deprecating thoughts all you want, but the voice in his head will always be there, no matter how quiet it occasionally becomes.

So you choose to drop the topic for now.

It's too early in the morning for an impromptu therapy session anyway.

You turn back around and scan the countertops until your eyes latch onto the container of pre-workout tucked away in the corner, nearly hidden amidst the mountain of vitamin and nutrient supplements.

“I thought it was part of Benny’s job to make sure you didn't have to use all this shit,” you comment, picking through the jars and eyeing them each with unapologetic distaste.

Logan reaches over your shoulder and plucks a packet of vitamin C tablets from your hand, “Sometimes these just work better.”

“Yeah, maybe if you don’t have a nutritionist being paid to quite literally curate a diet specifically to ensure that you don’t need to use these,” you gesture widely to the assembled mass of supplements. “But, last I checked, dear brother of mine, you do have a nutritionist— and a very good one at that— who would be horrified to learn you’re substituting real fruit for…” you squint down at the nutritional label of another one of the jars, but there’s very little that you recognize amidst the scientific jargon and long, five-syllable words, “little gummies that taste like fruit.”

He huffs, “Get your pre-workout or I'm leaving without you.”

“You wouldn't dare leave without me,” you grumble.

“I've done it before and I'll do it again,” he snipes, giving a brief yank on your ponytail and cackling when you swat behind yourself in futility.

There’s more he isn’t saying— there always is, nowadays— but you recognize the deflection for what it is. You want to claw him apart with questions and demand answers that bare every inch of his soul so you understand what he isn’t telling you and why he feels the need to keep it locked away even from you, but you know better than to keep pushing at something Logan clearly doesn’t want to talk about.

It makes you nostalgic for a time in your life when he’d sneak down from the top of the bunk bed after your parents had tucked you away for the night and slip under the covers with you, a well-loved stuffed bear hugged to his chest. He’d curl up beside you and you’d pull the blankets up to your chin and watch him with big, curious eyes until he’d whisper out into the darkness of your shared bedroom what he was worrying about.

More often than not it was a byproduct of a hyperactive imagination still plagued by the fears of childhood. Something about the space beneath your bed and— “What if there’s something down there? And the only way you can see it is by its glowing eyes? But what if it knows when someone is gonna look under the bed, so it closes its eyes so you can’t see the glow?” Or the curtains and— “You have to make sure they cover the whole window because what if you don’t and then something looks inside and it knows I’m not asleep and then it comes inside? I always hold really still and pretend to be asleep even when I’m not if the curtains aren’t closed.”

But sometimes it was about anything and everything else like the fox sitting in the bushes by the bus stop on the way home from school and whether or not it had water to keep it cool in the Florida heat, or the purple glitter pen Mrs. Moore used to grade his spelling test and how the girl sitting next to him had gotten her test graded with the green glitter pen, or— “I forgot my coat in Mr. Garrison’s class yesterday, and you went and got it for me and brought it to the car with you, and I didn’t say thank you, but I always feel bad when I leave my coat behind because what if it has feelings and felt really bad because it thought I was abandoning it, so thank you for getting my coat so it didn’t feel abandoned.”

But that was then and this is now.

You’re both adults, and you live in different apartments on different ends of the city, and you work different jobs that separate you by half the globe at times. There’s no more talk of foxes by bus stops or glitter pens, and certainly no more sentient coats with fears of abandonment.

When you look at Logan now, he isn’t wasting away, and really you owe it to him after you announced out of the blue a week ago that you weren’t just taking a break from competitive riding, but rather taking a break from riding as a whole. He didn’t press you on it then— still hasn’t pressed you on it despite having every right to do so. The least you can do now in return is respect the boundary he’s trying to set.

You mutter a few curses beneath your breath— words your mother would throw a fit over if she could hear you— and feign a scowl, but some of the tension in Logan’s shoulders has released and that's all you can ask for.

“If you leave me behind, I’ll leak a picture of your pathetic kitchen to the tabloids and let everyone tear apart your design choices,” you threaten, digging your knuckles into the tender spot of his arm where bicep meets shoulder and taking pride when he squirms away and beyond reach.

He flips you off. “You’re just jealous I have a cool cactus and you don’t.”

“Hey!” You give a lazy kick in his direction, but he sidesteps it easily with a laugh. “I gave you that cactus!”

“Tomato, tom-ah-to.” He flippantly waves his hand in your direction, laughing again at the indignant squawk you make. “Just hurry up and make your damn drink.”

As he makes his way out of the kitchen, presumably to grab his shoes, you unscrew the lid from the container and reach for the scoop.

Only to find it entirely empty.

“You asshole! There's nothing in here!”

Logan’s cackle echoes from another room.

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yourusername day 14 without london boy and i have officially succumbed to the boredom and willingly subjected myself to the presence of my arch nemesis (love you logie 🫶)

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logansargeant in my defense, you just showed up

user you could not PAY me to go out in this weather

user as a florida girlie myself, this is my nightmare

↳ user REAL

↳ user genuinely seeing this makes me so glad i live in a place where there’s no snow cuz yea, the view is pretty and all, but not even a gorgeous sunrise would make up for me freezing my ass off and having to wear seven layers just to keep the feeling in my fingers and toes

user i wish the most stressful part of my day was going for a morning run 😔

user calling logan her nemesis is so real i just know that man is a menace

↳ user the f2 clips of him and liam are proof enough

↳ user logan sargeant was a menace back in f3 💀 have you SEEN the prema videos with oscar and fred? bro is diabolical when he wants to be

↳ user i'm so excited for the chaos he'll bring to the grid this year

user the snow man is so cute!!

user “14 days without london boy” OH I AM ILL 😭😭😭

user ok but that view is gorgeousness

↳ user ikr?! winter sunrises are genuinely so pretty

user i’m still so confused as to why she isn’t riding anymore?? can someone pls explain

↳ user to be entirely honest, i’m not sure really what there is to explain. first and foremost, we aren’t owed any sort of explanation as to why she’s decided to take a step back from riding. it could be a personal decision, a career decision, or something else, but whatever it is we aren’t automatically entitled to it just because y/n has previously been very open and vocal about her and london boy’s training. second, she never actually said that she isn’t riding anymore. she said she’s taking a step back from competitive riding to focus on other things, and the “without london boy” part of her caption implies that she hasn’t seen him, but she could just be taking a prolonged break, or she could be focusing on something else that has prevented her from going to see him. but again, none of it is our business and she doesn’t owe us any further explanation to what she meant.

↳ user THIS THIS THIS!! as sad as i am to not have london boy on my feed, y/n is a grown adult with her own private life and we have to respect her decisions!! if or when she chooses to come forward about the specifics of her future plans and goals, then that’s great and i’ll continue to support her endeavors, but for the time being we all just have to be patient

user the selfie logan posted with you on his story was so cute!! 🥰

user she’s a runner she’s a track star

user i’ve missed the twin content!

↳ user me too!! i really hope that her taking a break from competitions (as much as i love london boy) will mean we get to see her actually going to more of logan’s races, especially now that he’ll be in formula 1!!

oscarpiastri if the rumours are to be believed, i look forward to getting to catch up at the races this year

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The car ride to the hotel is silent and subdued. Earlier that morning, the journey to the circuit had been buzzing with nervous anticipation━ the type of fidgety excitement that only comes from knowing you’ll be speeding through a straight and whipping around corners imminently━ but the atmosphere now lacks that euphoric enthusiasm and has settled somewhere between weary resignation and fatigued disappointment.

The car… is certainly a car. It isn’t bad, in the sense that it doesn’t seem to face the same struggles that other teams like Haas and AlphaTauri appear to be dealing with, but it fought you every step of the way throughout your session. The battle for dominance had felt more like you were trying to wrangle control of a wild stallion and less like you were attempting to navigate an understeering nightmare of a vehicle. With the added difficulty of now needing to anticipate every new challenge it could throw your way, driving it had left you feeling just as drained mentally as it had physically.

By the time you’d crawled out from the cockpit, you’d been teeming with frustration and your body had coiled taut from the forced hyperfocus necessary to keep you from spinning off into the gravel at every turn.

Mick hadn’t fared any better. Your brother reported the same resistance following his own session later in the afternoon. He’d been red in the face both from the heat of the Bahrain sun and annoyance at the car’s less-than-ideal performance, and his voice had sounded clipped like he was trying his hardest to bite back the less polite opinions he had on how things had gone. He’d ended things by tossing his helmet into the arms of his frazzled trainer and storming back into the garage in a huff, and it’s plain to see that the irritation still lingers.

He sits beside you in the backseat now, his arms crossed over his chest and his glaring eyes pinned to the sprawling landscape passing by just outside the window. If looks could kill, you imagine whatever’s out in the desert between the track and your hotel would be a good six feet under.

Similarly, the stress of the morning still clings to you even now, hours later. No matter how far you press yourself into the seat, your shoulders feel tight with a soreness you haven’t felt in a long time and despite kneading at the muscles and tendons in your hands since the early afternoon, your fingers still ache from the force of your grip on the wheel.

Your trainer, Sofia, had done what she could to try and alleviate the discomfort while your brother had driven, but you’re halfway certain that the tension is all a psychosomatic manifestation of your apprehension towards the car and the precious little time you have left to get it race-ready. It would explain the mirroring throb of dull pain beginning to rear its ugly head in your temples.

Your mind wars with itself, torn between trying to forget about today and stubbornly focusing on what new struggles you’ll be forced to deal with all over again tomorrow. Just the thought of another morning full of the same straining attempts to grapple control feels like your own personal Hell on Earth. The only thing that keeps back the slew of curses on the tip of your tongue is you closing your eyes and imagining sinking into a hot bath when you get to your room.

It is, of course, never that easy.

When you get to the hotel, you bid a half-hearted good night to the Maserati team members who endured the exhausting ride back from the track with you and then you and your brother make your way inside.

The lobby is quiet. There’s an attendant at the front desk who seems more interested in whatever’s on her computer than the two of you, and a man having a hushed conversation on the phone off in the far corner by the bar, but you only spare each of them a cursory glance before you’re stepping into the elevator with Mick just a half step behind you.

The ride up to the fourth floor is silent, save for the mechanical hum of the elevator and the soft ring of the bell as you pass by each floor.

Mick, despite the furrow of his brows and clench of his jaw betraying the anger he can’t yet seem to rid himself of, reaches out and pulls you into a reluctant hug before he steps off.

When the doors close, it’s just you.

The peace lasts for a few fleeting moments as the elevator climbs higher up the building. You pass the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh floor, and only as the digital display flashes to eight do the doors open and━

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari’s golden boy and the fated “il Predestinato,” stands just outside the door to your room.

Seeing him crushes any hope you had of a potentially peaceful rest of your evening.

He lifts his gaze from his phone screen as the elevator chimes, and the smile that stretches across his lips is as dazzling as it is infuriating. A small part of you wants to smile back as was habit for so long, and the other half wants to scowl and demand to know what he thinks he’s doing waiting for you outside your door. He looks comfortable, like he’s already ready for bed, and you’re not sure if that makes it better or worse.

At the very least, you know better than to assume it’s a coincidence that he chose to wear the hoodie you gifted him for his twentieth birthday all those years ago. He wants something from you, it’s obvious, you just don’t know what.

You mentally kiss your hot bath goodbye.

“Leclerc,” you greet, stepping out from the elevator before the doors can close on you. You say his name not unkindly, but there’s an edge to your voice that you secretly hope he picks up on.

“Schumacher,” he greets back, smug at your exasperation.

You and Charles have a… track record, of sorts.

He was your first in many things. Your first kiss, in the parking lot outside Prema’s factory, early in the morning on a random Tuesday. Your first boyfriend, a secret kept from your friends and your family and your fans, a secret just for the two of you. Your first time, a soft moment hidden away in your bedroom, with gentle touches and whispered words, with the glow of the moon through the gaps in the blinds as your only witness.

Your first heartbreak.

“Is there a reason you’re standing outside my door?” You ask him, slipping your bag off your shoulder and pulling the keycard from one of its pockets.

Charles hums, “Do I need a reason to see my friend?”

“No, but I wasn’t aware you considered me such a thing,” you quip back, feeling the irritation from earlier this morning rise to the surface again. “I thought I was, as you put it, ‘a distraction.’”

He, at least, has the decency to look chastised.

“Is it really fair to use the words of my twenty-year-old self against me?” When your door clicks open, he follows you in. “I have changed in many ways since then, as have you.”

He isn’t wrong, though it pains you to admit. You have changed in many ways since that fateful year you spent as teammates. You prefer tea to coffee now, and the songs that were your favorite back then have since been filtered out of your most frequently played playlists. You listen to audio books when you’re stuck on long flights instead of scrolling through the movies on your seat’s screen, and your perfume is scented differently. You don’t like chocolate fudge anymore, and the thought of summer nights in Italy fills you more with dread than any of the giddy excitement it did all that time ago.

You’ve seen similar changes in him.

Six years will do that to a person.

Though, it would seem six years still isn’t long enough to change what matters.

“Can you blame me?” You let your bag fall to the floor and step over it to reach for a bottle of water on the counter. “I don’t think I ever got an apology for that, either.” Quite frankly, you have half a mind to kick him out purely for his audacity— how could you possibly forget the single most shameful night of your life? And how could he possibly think that you’d just forget it all when he hasn’t acknowledged the hurt he’s caused even once in the six years he’s had to fix his mistakes?

The comments on Instagram, the forced friendliness for the cameras, and the politeness for the sake of PR is one thing. It’s easy to follow the motions— shake a hand, give a smile, stand here, go there, say something polite but impersonal, stick to the script and everything will be fine.

But there are no cameras here in the privacy of your hotel room. No cameras, no microphones, no witnesses to your performances. There’s no need to adhere to the script and yet you cling to it like it’s your only protection. Probably because it is.

He steps over your bag and walks further into your room like it’s his own. When he turns back to you, it’s only after he’s lowered himself down onto the couch in the corner, legs strew out before him, arms spread out across the back.

“Sorry,” he says with a lazy shrug.

You feel your eye twitch.

“You know, Charles,” you abandon the bottle, opting instead to squeeze your hands into fists so tight your knuckles turn white, “for someone who clearly wants something from me, you’re not doing a very good job of convincing me to help you.”

He heaves a sigh and overexageratedly rolls his eyes, but you can see beneath the facade he’s fronting. He’s acting like an asshole because he knows it’s what’s expected from him— it’s the role he’s chosen to play in your story now, and no matter how much he, or you, long to go back to how things were, that moment has long passed. He, and you, have no other choice but to continue to play your new parts dutifully.

“I—” he clears his throat, suddenly finding his hands to be far more interesting than anything else in the room. “I just wanted to say congratulations. For making it to F1. I know this has been your dream for a while, and if anyone deserves to have a seat here it is certainly you.”

“Thank you,” you answer after a moment, startled. His words are strange— off script. They’re the type of thing he would’ve said to you when you were teammates, not now when you’re barely more than aquaintances with a history.

He’s broken character, but as fast as the mask falls away it’s put back in place just as quickly and the Charles he used to be is once again locked away in the recesses of your shared memories. Despite the brief moment of something, it seems he, too, is just as desperate to cling to the normalcy and protection of the distance that now exists between you two. He nods and rises from the couch, brushing imaginary dust from his clothes.

When he passes you on his way out of the room, the sleeve of his hoodie brushes against your arm and there is a long suppressed part of you— a younger you, a you that’s still hopeful for what things could be, that sings at the memory of a softer, sweeter Charles— that wishes to reach out and ask him to stay. There is a part of you that wishes you could both drop the act for an hour, just an hour, and humor the longing of your heart if only for a little while.

The truth is, it’s safer to pretend that the love you felt for Charles— still feel for Charles— grew over time.

You can so easily imagine it as a slow process— a fledgling crush developing into something more throughout your season spent together as teammates. It’s built up brick by brick, solidified into something seemingly tangible with every post-race moment shared in the privacy of your own little world. Each adrenaline-crazed smile shone your way, each sweaty arm thrown around you in celebration, each glance that lingers for a moment too long on your lips to be purely innocent.

It’s easy to fantasize about the back-and-forth dance it becomes. The touches that stray a bit longer than they need to and the touches that are entirely unnecessary to begin with, passed off as an accidental brush of fingers or a clumsy bump of shoulders. The looks secretly and silently shared across a tittering crowd none the wiser, a sparkling gaze that speaks louder than the raucous celebrations, meant for two people and two people only. The endearingly inelegant attempts at flirting, with stuttered and stumbled words and cheeks flushed too pink to pass off as anything other than embarrassment.

The reality is much more simple.

You fell in love with Charles Leclerc when you shook his hand across the table in a random conference room and introduced yourself as his teammate, and you’ve continued to fall in love with him again every day for the last six years. Despite, or rather in spite, of everything that’s changed.

But the opportunity to ask him is gone, the moment’s already passed. He stands at the door, hand on the handle. All that remains is the lingering scent of his cologne.

It’s different than the one he wore six years ago.

“For what it’s worth,” he starts, pushing the door open, “I am sorry. For what I said.”

You nod. You don’t know what else to do. And then he’s gone.

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Lando places third in the Australian Grand Prix. The buzz of lingering adrenaline leaves him keyed up with pent-up energy and, coupled with a few mouthfuls of champagne from the post-race celebration, the part of his brain that stops and thinks through all of his actions before he does them is trapped in a thick, foggy haze.

You━ overjoyed to see him back on the podium and still thrumming with the nervous excitement that always comes from such a close race━ aren’t faring much better.

You’re thoroughly drunk on your happiness and Lando’s infectious exuberance when he meets you back in McLaren’s garage━ high on the euphoric bliss of his success━ only serves as an echo chamber that further encourages the thoughtless choices made under the influence of intoxicating glee.

The post-race glow that shrouds him doesn’t help, either. He’s damp with sweat and champagne, glistening beneath the lights of the garage as he’s all but manhandled around to receive a congratulating clap on the shoulder or pat on the head from every mechanic and engineer who can get their hands on him. His hair is plastered against his forehead, and his fireproofs cling to the curves and angles of his body. His cheeks are still flushed from the exertion of the race, an innocently rosy hue against his tanned skin.

There’s a grin splitting across his face, wide and unfaltering. His eyes squint with the force of it and you imagine his cheeks must be aching by now, but he seems undeterred and, when his gaze finds you tucked away in the corner with your camera poised to capture it all, it seems to grow even wider despite the seeming impossibility.

He approaches you with your name on his lips, whispered like a prayer that’s meant for your ears only. You don’t know if you actually hear him say anything at all over the din of cheers and chatter, or if you’re just remembering how he sounds in the solitude of a hotel room━ when you can pretend like the world outside doesn’t exist and let the pretenses of your relationship fall away to reveal the gnarled claws of your hearts reaching desperately towards one another.

He reaches for you now, a comforting warmth ghosting across your waist. You have just enough sense left to transform his intimate touch into a friendly hug, but the weight of his hand pressing against the small of your back and the tightness with which you wrap your arms around him betray the truth.

“Congratulations,” you murmur into his ear before pulling away. Your hands linger on his shoulders, and you can’t help it when your eyes flicker to his lips━ a deep urge settles within you, a desire to stake your claim here in front of the entire team and show them all that Lando is yours and you are his, despite what the articles written about you and Garrett might claim━ but you relinquish your hold on him when he’s beckoned away by Andrea and resign yourself to maintaining the secrecy still.

Cloak and dagger aside, being in a relationship with Lando has been surprisingly easy. Surprising in the sense that you expected there to be more conflict━ more lingering resentment or uncertainty from all that happened. But the reality is that you both slipped into your new roles rather effortlessly because the only real thing that changed was the label.

And the kissing, of course. There’s a lot more kissing.

Even still, there isn’t too much of a difference between curling up beside him in on a couch and running your fingers through his curls while listening to him gossip about the drama of the other drivers, and snuggling into his side and holding his hand while he talks about his day.

There are still things he’s making up for and he knows that, but somehow the jump between what you were before that night in Bahrain and what you are now, after, feels right.

You consider it, the jump, to be a leap of faith, and it’s brought you to the realization that the life you’d been living━ the life you’d convinced yourself to be content with━ hadn’t been enough and would’ve never been enough. There would’ve always been a part of you that remained empty, a part of you that you hadn’t realized existed until Lando soothed away the ache of its longing. You think, without him, it would’ve been left wanting and waiting for forever.

But that’s not a future that you can envision anymore, because you do have him, and he makes sure to remind you of that fact every night when you’re both safely hidden away from prying eyes.

You were, of course, still careful throughout the rest of your time in Bahrain. Maybe too careful, with the way you both avoided each other in the garage. The entire weekend of the Grand Prix, Oscar had looked like he’d wanted to ask about it━ to pick it apart and figure out how to put it back together like some sort of puzzle in a way that was so uniquely him. You’re better now, sometime during Saudi Arabia you both managed to find the middle ground between ignoring one another entirely and being so smitten with each other that you can’t look away. Oscar still looks like he wants to ask, but he also seems content to observe whatever he’s convinced himself he’s watching unfold on its own.

Everybody else is used to the closeness you share with Lando and the years of history backing your friendship. They don’t bat a lash at the fluctuations between the two of you. Most of them have seen, or at least heard about, the spats in the early days, but all of them have witnessed the attachment you share which makes it that much easier to slip, unquestioned, into Lando’s driver room.

He enters the room himself a few minutes later and seems entirely unsurprised to see you waiting for him.

He takes you in through pupils blown wide with euphoria. He’s still twitchy with the high of his win. “You gonna congratulate me for real this time?”

You beckon him closer with a curl of your finger, an instruction he’s eager to follow. He spares a fleeting moment to lock the door behind him, and then slinks over to where you’re leaned up against the wall opposite the door.

You pull him in by the collar of his fireproofs and press a slow, searing kiss to his lips.

They’re chapped━ he’s been licking them━ but it doesn’t take away from the sweetness of the champagne you can taste in his mouth or the heat that swells in your stomach when he makes a punched out, desperate noise.

His hands shake as they come up to clutch at your shirt and when you pull away, he’s breathing heavily. The pink tinge that had faded from his cheeks is back, and his gaze flickers back and forth between staring into your eyes and staring down at your lips.

“Congratulations, Lando,” you purr, before releasing your hold on his collar and gently pushing him in the direction of the bathroom door. “Now, go shower. The faster you do that, the faster we can get back to the hotel and we can celebrate.”

Lando all but stumbles into the washroom, sparing glances over his shoulder as he goes like he’s worried you’ll disappear. You give him a wave before he lets the door close behind him, and then you wait.

It feels like your fault. You know it isn’t━ or, if it is, then Lando carries just as much blame as you do━ but it feels like you should’ve known better.

You’re the one who set the rules, you’re the one who established the necessity of being careful. No PDA in public, whether it be hand holding, kissing, hugging or whatever. No anything anywhere that someone might be able to see, no matter how inconceivable it might be. It was for Lando’s safety as much as it was for yours, because you were desperate to keep him as far away as you possibly could from the danger of Garrett Ward and his fans.

But you got comfortable. You should’ve put your foot down when he’d crowded against you━ should’ve waited until you were inside the hotel at the very least and not standing in the middle of a parking building━ but you didn’t, too wrapped up in the heat of the moment and still buzzing with the rush of desire from the implication of more that you’d promised in his driver room. Now, you’re staring down at undeniable evidence of a secret that has the power to leave you ruined, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Honestly, it was all going well━ too well.

You don’t typically believe in the luck or karmic balance, but it feels hard to deny their existence now when you’re faced with proof of their work. With so much good fortune used up in such a short amount of time━ your fledgling romance, being able to keep it hidden so well, and now Lando’s win━ you feel like you should’ve anticipated some sort of catastrophe to strike and balance it all out again.

Garrett Ward’s name flashing across your screen is the harbinger of your continued misfortune. He’s made himself scarce the last few weeks and the radio silence on his end has been an enjoyable vacation away from the almost constant reminder of the deal you’re trapped in, but the incoming call from him leaves you shaken and uneven, like your legs have been kicked out from beneath you and now you’re in freefall.

When you answer, he gets straight to the point.

“We had an agreement.”

“Garrett━”

“So,” he interrupts, voice stoney and cold. “Care to explain why I woke up this morning to my agent informing me of a very incriminating picture of you and Lando Norris sucking each other’s faces off?”

You aren’t “sucking each other’s faces off”, but the picture is incriminating. There’s no denying that it’s you wrapped up in another man’s arms and kissing someone who is very obviously not Garrett. You could try and argue that the kissing isn’t technically on the lips, but you doubt that would make much of a difference when the intimacy is plain as day.

“That’s a stretch━”

“Stretch or not,” he interrupts again, “you have royally fucked up and I expect you to find a way to fix it. Unless, of course, you’ve forgotten about why you agreed to this all in the first place?”

You’ve never heard Garrett ever sound so angry before. He’s been annoyed and pissy, and he’s snapped at you with cutting remarks and sneering derision like your presence alone pains him, but he’s never been angry. The dark undertone of how he speaks and the thickening of his sharp accent forces something cold to settle in your chest.

“I don’t care that you got what you wanted out of this whole scheme, Y/N,” he continues, snarling your name. “Quite frankly, if I cared any less about you and the happiness you’ve found with Norris, I’d stop breathing. But I haven’t gotten what I’m after, yet, so you better not fuck this up anymore than you already have or you can say goodbye to everything━ Norris included.”

There’s a finality to the way he says it, like he’ll personally ensure your happiness is destroyed if he doesn’t get his own.

Garrett is aware of what he can get away with. You’ve learned this through the time you’ve begrudgingly spent with him. He doesn’t fear the consequences of his actions because the likelihood of there ever actually being any consequences is slim, and he has such an obsessively devoted fanbase that they’d turn a blind eye to any wrong doings he’s accused of.

All Garrett has to do is tell them to jump and they’re tripping over themselves to ask him how high.

You can’t believe you ever thought you could get anything out of him. It seems so unforgivably stupid now, to have tried to stoop to his level out of your pettiness towards the situation with Lando. The fact that you ever felt it justified to risk admitting your feelings on the matter with him is appalling. Garrett is a conniving, manipulative prick and you think the only person truly capable of loving him would be his mother out of a maternal devotion to her child. There is nothing redeeming about him or what he does. He is useless in every way, and you’re tired of him having so much control over you, especially when a good chunk of that control was handed to him through your own fears.

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this, Garrett.”

He scoffs, like it’s obvious. “Because I can? Because I’ll do whatever it takes? Manchester City is my team, and I’ll be damned if I let them kick me off because a few people take issue with how I keep my company.”

“I don’t think it’s all that unreasonable to not want to associate with someone who’s a notorious prick,” you bite back.

“Maybe I am a prick,” you can practically hear the sneer in his voice, and it doesn’t take much to envision what it looks like on his face. “But I’m a prick who plays for the greatest English team in the world. The trophies prove as much.”

It feels like a slap in the face to the players that actually got those trophies for the club. Players like Jack, Erling, Kevin, Bernardo, and so many others━ who actually put in the blood, sweat, and tears that were necessary to earn them their Treble win in the prior season. Players who care about their club and team beyond the notoriety the name gives them, or how good it’ll look in the future when their Wikipedia page says they played for Manchester City under the tutelage of a legend like Pep Guardiola. Players who care about the people behind the scenes━ the coaches and physios that ensure they can do their job and do it at peak performance, and the staff like you who don’t really affect their ability to play but who still have a role in keeping everything in motion.

“You didn’t even help them get those trophies!” You exclaim, happy Lando left earlier that morning when the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon and Melbourne was bathed in the dawning light. It gives you the ability now to tear into Garrett without his concerned hovering, to be as viscious and cutthroat as you want without fear of Lando judgement.

“You were on loan to a Championship team all of last season,” you continue, “and you only got called back because of your injury. You weren’t game ready until February of this year, and even now you don’t start. You’ve been back on the pitch a whopping two times, and both of them were for the FA Cup when Pep wanted to rest up the players that actually matter. Everything City has gotten they earned without you. They don’t need you at all, Garrett. You’re useless to them, and you’re useless to everyone else without them.”

He’s silent for a moment, and you can tell you’ve struck a nerve. As much as Garrett pretends to be infallible and nonplussed, he is still a human and he has insecurities of his own, and you’d bet every chunk of change you’ve ever earned that you just managed to find his.

When he speaks again, his voice is low and dangerous. The blazing inferno of your anger dwindles down to a flickering candle flame in the face of his own rage, like you’ve been doused with a bucket of frigid water.

“And you’re useless to me━” he says, “━if you don’t find a way to fix this mess you’ve created. So either you do what you’re told, or I’ll follow through on what I promised and make you so miserable that you’ll never feel even a fragment of happiness ever again. Have I made myself clear?”

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?”

He laughs. “It’s nothing personal, love. I’ll be in touch. Cheers.”

INSTAGRAM.

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tagged: garrettward

yourusername i was made aware today of a set of photos going around featuring me and my coworker in a situation that could be mistaken as compromising. i’m coming here to tell you that me and garrett are still very much together and still very happy to be with one another. lando is a long time friend of mine and i was congratulating him on a well deserved victory. a kiss on the cheek is not implicit of romantic interest, and i will not be made to feel ashamed for supporting my friend in a way that is unique to us. we, like all friends, have quirks to our relationship, and those quirks are no one’s business but our own. lando is very dear to me, but i can have male friends and still be very much in love with my boyfriend. as proof, here are pictures of the day me and garrett spent in london on a date after i got back from melbourne.

view all 2,145 comments

user i was actually kind of excited at the idea of her being with lando… 🫤

↳ user IKR??? idk, her relationship with garrett has always seemed to surface level. her and lando have YEARS of friendship under their belt and i gen thought they were already dating when i got into f1

↳ user so glad i’m not the only one who thought this!! seeing the pictures of her with ward actually shocked me bc i thought her and norris were in a not-so-secret secret relationship already

user THEY COULD NEVER MAKE ME HATE YOU Y/N 🙌🙌🙌

user if my bf kissed another girl on the cheek and hugged her like that, congratulations or not, i’d be livid.

↳ user just say you’re insecure and move on. not everyone is out to cheat on their partner, but it says a lot about you that your first instinct when you see two friends sharing a moment is that you automatically assume they’re romantically involved 🙄

user ok but those pictures look pretty damning…..

↳ user i ain’t never seen “friends” hold one another like that is all i’m saying 👀👀

↳ user friends can be intimate without the intimacy being romantic, but in this singular case i do think there was mayhaps a bit more going on than just friendly congratulations

user ooooooh I know Lando has got to be fuming rn 😂

user seeing this comments makes me so afraid for the future generation. since when did we condone cheating?

↳ user are you actually fucking blind?? 🤨🤨 you’re commenting this on a post where she is literally telling us she didn’t cheat and that her and lando are just friends. it’s literally a he-said-she-said situation between the paparazzi and her and lando, and quite frankly i’m choosing to believe the people actually involved because the paparazzi are notorious for capturing things without context and painting situations in a certain light purely to drum up drama and excitement.

↳ user yeah but if someone’s cheating and they get caught they aren’t gonna admit to cheating? especially if they can just use the excuse that they’re friends with the person they’re having an affair with?

↳ user i think it’s super telling how the media views women if the first impression is to assume a woman with a male friend is cheating on her partner. god forbid women have friends that aren’t exclusively female 🙄😮‍💨

user GARRETT GET OUT OF HERE LET US Y/NLANDO GIRLIES HAVE OUR MOMENT OF TRUTH 😭😭😭

user i know my girl y/n wasn’t a cheater

user is it morally wrong to hope that y/n really is cheating on garrett? I’ve always gotten a bad vibe from him from the beginning, especially when he did nothing to defend her when his crazy fans were bashing her in the comments and literally sending her death threats. I’m not saying cheating is okay, but i don’t think i would blame her in a situation like this, especially when lando is her best friend and has been since like 2019

↳ user i don’t think it’s morally wrong persay… i don’t think i would blame her either for cheating in this situation, but i also don’t want her to be associated with the type of stigma that comes from being exposed to the public as a cheater. especially since her career is as public as it is and relies so much on having an online presence

↳ user honestly i just hate garrett ward and i’ve wanted her and lando together since 2021 🤷‍♀️

user why does the caption to this post seem so scripted…?

INSTAGRAM.

liked by oscarpiastri, mclaren, and 594,950 others

landonorris can’t tag who took these pictures for me cuz we might get accused of cheating 🤷‍♂️

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oscarpiastri do you think people suspect we’re also having an affair? 🤔

↳ landonorris they can never stop our love, oscar! 😩

user MR NORRIS DID NOT COME TO PLAY 🫢🫢

user i love you lando pls never change

user i just know bro was FUMING when he saw y/n’s post denying the rumours

↳ user mans has been trying to shoot his shot with a babe like her since 2019 💀 if i were him i would be too

user okay so do we think there’s actually smth there or are they really just friends?

↳ user my two cents is that they’re together and garrett knows but doesn’t care and just doesn’t care so long as the public doesn’t find out about it

↳ user what??? no wtf why would any guy, but especially a guy like garrett ward, let his girlfriend be with another man???

↳ user because garrett ward is an infamous cheater and he probably is seeing other women too? because garrett would be a hypocrite to condemn his gf if she cheats when he’s cheated on several women in the past and not even faced any consequences?

user god what I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall when all this drama is happening

↳ user I have never wanted to be in the room where it happens more than this moment right now

user 🧡🧡🧡 LANDO PODIUM LET’S GOOOOOOO!!! 🧡🧡🧡

user bro got the trophy and (almost) got the girl

↳ user he’ll have his first win AND the girl by the end of the season, i’m calling it

user so disgusting to see you condone cheating. what happened to bro code??

↳ user be so fucking frrrrrr omg. he’s not condoning cheating, he’s making fun of ppl who think he’s having an affair with someone who has a boyfriend just bc they’re friends, bc for some reason society forbids boy-girl friend duos. grow up. “bro code” is so middle school.

user bro wants us to know it was real so bad but he knows he’d get in trouble if he out right told us

user lando is either telling us we’re all dumb for thinking they’re together, or they’re actually together and we’re all dumb for not knowing

↳ user he’s a paradox and his only purpose in life is to make things chaotically confusing for the rest of us 🤦

user the filters on these photos just SCREAM y/n...

━━ tags: @maih23 @urfavnoirette @leclercsluv @f1luvur @formulaal @a-disturbing-self-reflection @starlightpierre @chezmardybum @marshmummy @405rry @sideboobrry11 @d3kstar @mcmuppet @happylittlereader @casperlikej @5starl1ght @bellezaycafe @whentheautumnleavesfall @mess-is-my-aesthetic @ssprayberrythings @landosgirlxoxo @lifelessfan @81ja @wcnorris @a-disturbing-self-reflection (CLOSED).

The first coherent thing you say the morning after, as you tug your sweatshirt back over your head and resolutely ignore the sculpted planes of Lando’s abdomen while he lounges in bed and watches you, is: “This can never happen again.”

He makes an inquisitive sound. “Can this maybe wait until I’m actually awake?”

You look over your shoulder just in time to catch him yawning into his elbow, and for half a second find the drowsiness to be endearing━ the way his knuckles rub languidly at his half-lidded eyes, his scratchy morning voice, and the wild case of bedhead that’s got his curls sticking up in every direction. It’s only when your gaze finds and latches onto the dark bruise sucked onto his collarbone that you remember you can’t be entertaining this anymore than you already have, adorable sleepy morning habits be damned.

“Lando.”

At his name, he opens his eyes again and meets your stare.

“This━” you gesture between yourself and him, “━can never happen again.”

You do feel sympathetic for trying to have what’s intended to be a serious conversation so early in the morning, especially when he’d really only been woken up by you practically throwing yourself out of bed, but the gravity of the situation had slammed into you the moment you’d opened your eyes to see his peacefully slumbering face across from yours.

There isn’t actually a clause in your contract that forbids you from entering a romantic relationship with anyone else on the team━ technically, there aren’t any mentions at all about anti-fraternization rules━ but just the thought of how badly this could fuck things up for the both of you has you preemptively planning to take an ibuprofen or two the minute you make it back to your own hotel room in preparation for the nasty headache you’re sure to get.

Firable offenses aside, McLaren could just as easily cite some other reason to decide not to renew your contract at the end of the year if they deem the “partnership” between you and Lando to be too detrimental to his performance ability. You might be a good photographer, but Lando’s a great driver and he’s certainly more valuable to the team than you are. He’s a one of a kind, and you’re one of plenty in a market saturated with young talents desperate for a chance to make it big.

On top of that, you’re not even sure how ethical it is to sleep with your coworker, all things considered. It’s your job to follow him around every week and take pictures that you plaster all over social media. You’ve already gotten a glimpse of how difficult things can be in the midst of an argument, but if things turn serious━ assuming, of course, that Lando is after something serious and that this isn’t just a bit of fun meant to keep him entertained with the added convenience that you’ll be traveling with him for the foreseeable future━ what sort of added ramifications would an argument have then? You’re not sure the professionalism the two of you have managed the last few weeks prior to making up would be able to survive a messy breakup.

“You’re spiralling,” he comments, sliding out from beneath the covers of the bed. He’s very nonchalant about his nakedness.

You avert your eyes.

“So maybe it’s morally grey territory,” he continues, leisurely collecting his clothes from where they wound up strewn across the floor after being discarded amidst the night’s activities. “But we’re both consenting adults━” he tugs his sweatpants back on, “━and so long as we both stay consenting adults I don’t see what the problem is. I don’t really have any plans to be magically turned into a baby anytime soon. Unless you did?” 

You stare at him incredulously, ignoring the fact that he’s still shirtless and now that he’s standing and facing you it gives a clear view of all the hickeys painted across his skin. Hickeys that you left there, and that you can remember leaving there despite attempting to shove the memories down and forget them.

He stares right back.

“In case you suddenly forgot, I’m supposed to be in a committed and exclusive relationship with someone else,” you hiss.

“Yeah, but it’s not real. You aren’t actually dating him,” he answers back with a shrug. “It’s a PR stunt, you said.”

You don’t actually care about Garrett Ward or the fake claim of faithfulness between the two of you. If there weren’t guaranteed to be nasty consequences for you, you’d let the staged relationship crash and burn in a blaze of vengeful glory. But that’s exactly what’s stopping you━ the consequences. It isn’t just your reputation on the line like it would be if you were some no-name fan who somehow managed to score lucky. If you go down, your career goes with you and that also means waving goodbye to Lando and Formula One as a whole.

Even if you managed a miracle and didn’t lose your job, the media would not look favorably upon you. At best, there would be a smattering of fans from people like Jack and Lando speaking up on your behalf who would defend you for a month or two, maybe a media outlet with a more present stance on women in sports would try to lessen the blow if the right people said the right thing. But the reality is that you could sit down and regale the whole story about Garrett’s blackmail━ starting from the very first call asking you to dinner and detailing the proof of his threats and manipulation━ and there would still be people out there painting you as the villain in his story.

You’d be designated another “bitch” who ruined the career of a perfectly good athlete, and they’d speculate into your motives, into why you chose to tear him down. It would discredit the actual wrongness of Garrett’s own actions and instead pin the blame on you and your jealousy. Or, whatever else they’d attribute it to.

So no, you don’t care about Garrett Ward or his rotten excuse for a heart. His feelings can go fuck themselves for all you care. But even still…

“The public doesn’t know that, Lando,” you start to explain. “I can’t be seen with you because, fake or not, do you know how horribly it would end for me if I were painted as some adulterous slut? They already tore me to pieces just because I was with him in the first place, can you imagine how bad it would be if it got out that I’d supposedly cheated on him? Do you know how much meaner these people would get if they somehow believed they’d been proven right about me? That the things they were saying were right all along?”

He’s silent now.

“There’s a reason I haven’t tried to get myself out of this situation already,” you continue, beginning to pace the length of the hotel room. “Like I told you yesterday, even if he makes his claims and I manage to prove him wrong, the damage to my reputation would ruin me. I’m lucky that I had McLaren to come back to and that’s what made it easier to push back on his demands, but can you imagine if I didn’t have anything lined up after that City gig? I would’ve been even more desperate to get any sort of work and Garrett absolutely would’ve capitalized on that. And I can’t keep banking on the fact that McLaren will save the day because what if one day they don’t?”

Lando crosses the distance between you and rests his hands on your shoulders, bringing your harried pacing to a stop. He looks like he’s about to give you a pep talk, and the absurdity of the thought is almost enough to make you forget about the seriousness of this entire situation and laugh. Almost. You are, unfortunately, still painfully aware of the line you’re now walking and how terrifyingly thin it is.

“McLaren would never get rid of you, so you don’t have to worry about that,” he says after a moment.

“You don’t know that,” you tell him, shaking your head and pulling free from his grasp to resume your nervous treading in another section of the room. “You can’t know that. Honestly, the backlash this could have would probably be enough to get McLaren to fire me on the spot. If not immediately, then there’d at least be enough harassment from Garrett’s fans for them to eventually decide letting me go would be the best course of action for the sake of their own reputation.”

He crosses the distance between you again, and this time pulls you into his arms entirely. He’s still warm from being beneath the covers and you soak up the comfort as much as he’s allowing you to, burying your face into the crook of his neck and reciprocating his hug by wrapping your own arms around him and grabbing at the back of his shirt.

“Obviously, this is something you’ve thought about a lot,” he starts, running his fingers up and down your back soothingly. “And it clearly stresses you out. But I really like you, Y/N. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. I’ve fancied you since I met you. You walked in and it was like one of those dumb romcoms you’ve made me watch. I just… I just knew. And I wanted you to like me, too.”

You hum in acknowledgement and sag deeper into him, clutching tighter at his shirt. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“Because you hated me,” he answers simply with a tiny shrug. “Or, at least, I thought you did. And then you didn’t, but we were still so new to being friends that I didn’t want to do anything to fuck it up. I got so anxious thinking about what would happen if we broke up. It would ruin the friendship, but it would also potentially ruin your career if we couldn’t both do our job and I didn’t want to fuck that up for you. So, I was content to just have you close, honestly. That was enough.”

“Until it wasn’t?”

He sighs. You feel the rise and fall of his chest more than you actually hear it. “Garrett Ward is a raging prick and I stand by all the things I’ve said about him, but maybe some of it was influenced by me thinking he’d taken you away from me. And, when I called you that night piss drunk at Daniel’s, I was projecting the anger I felt towards myself onto the people around me. I didn’t take any risks, and because of that I was convinced that I’d lost you in every way that mattered.”

He holds you a bit tighter, “And we know how I handled that.” It’s quiet and he sounds miserable. You pull back just enough to see him looking piteously out the window, a pained look painted across his features.

You release your hold on his shirt and trail your hands across his body until you can grab his face and turn his gaze back on you.

When he’s staring into your eyes, you say, “I want this, Lando. You and me. I really do, I promise. But I can’t.”

His face falls. “If you let his influence over you control every aspect of your life, then hasn’t he already won? He’s gotten what he wanted. He doesn’t need you to be desperate for a job, because he has control over you anyway.”

If it were said in any other context or by any other person, you’d bristle at the accusation that you’re letting Garrett take whatever he wants without at least attempting to put up a fight. You’ve pushed back where you can, where it’s safest, but you have to prioritize your livelihood too and if that means asking how high when he says jump, you’ll do what you must. Not that it feels good to bend to the whims of a man who gets what he wants through fear.

“I just mean━” he hurries to correct himself, as if sensing you offense, “━you shouldn’t have to sacrifice everything that brings you joy just because you’re afraid of what he might do or how the media will perceive it due to his presence in your life. You have every reason to be hesitant to fight back against the power he holds over you, you just shouldn’t have to be.”

You pull him back in and sink into his arms again, pressing your face into his chest to hide the shine of tears in your eyes.

“I can’t promise that there won’t be backlash,” he continues. “But I can tell you that McLaren will stand behind you. I’ll make sure of it. And if they don’t, I’ll walk.” He says it likes it’s nothing━ like he isn’t saying he’ll give up everything he’s worked for just for you. “I can get you a really nice lawyer, too. If you’d want one. Or, you know, if you’d want to come out about what all Ward’s done.”

The idea sounds impossible and yet it’s so close━ close enough that Lando is practically offering it to you on a silver platter. The idea of just coming out with it all and exposing the horrible things Garrett has done. You know on top of Lando’s support, Jack and the other Manchester City boys would side with you, too, and the other members of the team behind the scenes who you worked closely with throughout your time at Etihad Campus. It’s a lot of people, and by proxy you’d probably have a large amount of their fanbase as well.

It seems too good to be true.

But Lando’s offering you the chance to make it a reality.

“I’m supposed to still be mad at you right now,” you mumble into his shirt.

He huffs out a laugh, “Being mad at someone and being in love with them aren’t mutually exclusive feelings.”

“Who said anything about being in love with you?” You tease, though you’re practically melted into his arms.

“I mean,” he starts, and just from the sound of his voice you can tell he’s about to say something stupid and cheeky and it’ll make you want to slap him upside the head. “The way you treated me last night kind of implies that you at least like me pretty seriously.”

You groan in feigned annoyance, pulling away from him just in time to catch the dazzling grin splitting his face. It’s a beautiful sight that you don’t think you’ll ever get tired of no matter how many times you see it. You recall the caption of a post made what feels like ages ago, but the words ring just as true now as they did then, and you stand by them. A smiley Lando is the best Lando.

“If we’re really doing this,” you start, somberly after another moment, “we have to be careful. Like, really careful. No PDA in public. No PDA anywhere unless we know for a fact that we’re alone and there aren’t any cameras. And no telling anyone unless we absolutely have to for health or security reasons, or something. We can’t have this blow up on us, because if they catch you you’ll be just as much of a target for the hate and I will not have you get caught in the crossfire with this, Lando.”

He finagles around a bit until your hands are held in his and he’s pressing a gentle kiss to your knuckles. “I promise,” he whispers against your skin.

It feels like the start of something perfect.

INSTAGRAM.

liked by user, user, and 561,816 others

footballfansofficial BREAKING: Manchester City Forward Garrett Ward, a victim of infidelity?! Ward and his girlfriend Y/N L/N first revealed their romance to the world on the 5th of January. Since then, they’ve regularly shared photos of one another across the social media platform Instagram, and have been sighted on dates around Manchester and London. Though the couple have not recently shared any new posts of one another, fans believed this was due to schedule differences, as nothing has been said to indicate an end to their relationship. With the Champions League back in full swing, Ward has been constricted to a busy schedule of matches in Europe, and similarly as a photographer for Formula One team McLaren, L/N has been traveling across the globe. However, she’s apparently more than just friends with McLaren driver Lando Norris! Pictures from the 24th of March at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne reveal L/N and Norris sharing an intimate moment. Check the link in our bio for the full article!

view all 19,815 comments

user oh… that’s not….

user that is NOT garrett ward for sure 🫢🫢

user honestly a cheating scandal was not on my 2024 bingo card

↳ user i mean i’m not surprised but i definitely thought of the two of them it would be ward tbh 👀

user WHAT DID WE FUCKING SAY

↳ user WE ALL SAW THIS FROM A MILE AWAY

user fucking slag 🙄

user ugh!!! us REAL garrett ward fans KNEW this would happen but everyone called us crazy!!! 😠😠 he deserves someone who ACTUALLY cares about him and we knew from the beginning that she wasn’t it!! honestly just the thought that anyone could POSSIBLY do this is SICKENING!!! garrett is such a loving person and he deserves the WORLD!! i hope he doesn’t let this stop him from finding REAL love some day!! 🥺🥺🫶🫶

↳ user ikr?!?! it’s so not fair that he’d choose her when she’d just use and abuse him when he has so many loyal fans that would treat him so much better and would actually love him and all he has to offer. she totally must’ve manipulated him or something!!

user damn… i wasn't l/n’s biggest fan in the beginning but i kinda hoped she’d prove me wrong… yet here we are…

user this is seriously so disappointing to see

user SLUT 🤬 SLUT 🤬 SLUT 🤬

user long distance is not an excuse to cheat and this is such a horrible thing to do to a partner. garrett ward has been exceptionally nice to her, and this is what she gives in return? so many ppl tried to warn him about her closeness to lando norris too. i’m disappointed but not surprised that this was the result. girls like this truly have no shame and no dignity. they don’t know loyalty at all.

↳ user we tried to warn him and this is what happens? like we tried, but you ignored us and called us crazy. make it make sense 😮‍💨

↳ user the fact that he was genuinely so sweet by taking her on dates and posting her on his socials and she turns around and stabs him in the back like this… my heart hurts for how upset he must be right now. and honestly, this lando norris guy is just as much to blame for garrett’s pain too.

↳ user i’m willing to give norris the benefit of the doubt if only because we’ve seen girls like this before who manipulate athletes into giving her what she wants and if they don’t then they move onto the next. obviously ward wasn’t going to just roll over for her every whim, so now she’s moving onto the next guy and is trying to manipulate him the same way she did ward. norris is as much of a victim as ward is.

user WHORE BEHAVIOUR I CALLED IT FROM THE GET GO GUYS

user she really said “hold my beer” and went to go prove us all right about our initial assumptions 👀👀

user knew i should’ve trusted my instincts when they told me she was bad news…

user AINT NO WAY INFAMOUS WOMANIZER GARRETT WARD, AS IN NOTORIOUS CHEATER GARRETT WARD, GOT CHEATED ON BY THE FIRST GIRL HE WAS IN A SERIOUS COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP WITH 😂

user lowkey had high hopes for them bc i gen thought ward garrett was changing his ways and was trying to settle down

↳ user me toooooooo i thought she was gonna be a good influence on him 😔

user can you blame her tho?? you try moaning “garrett” in bed and see how that goes for you

user just because they haven’t said anything about ending their relationship doesn’t mean they haven’t ended it privately! honestly who are we to judge them for not telling the public every detail about their personal lives? this was obviously not a moment intended for us to see and was meant to be shared between l/n and norris, and i honestly find this account in general to be incredibly invasive as most if not all of the photographs the articles are written about are from paparazzi and look as though they were taken without the consent or knowledge of the people in them.

↳ user THANK YOU!! 🙏 i’ve been trying to say that for so long!! speculation is so dangerous and harmful to the very real people that are involved and it can have consequences on them and their careers. these pictures do look very damning, but we’re lacking context into l/n and ward’s lives and we shouldn’t judge anyone involved in this before we have the full story. for all we know, the relationship was ended and this is l/n’s new partner, in which case we should be respectful of her choices to be with someone else and should also respect their privacy and take into consideration the fact that there was probably a reason her and ward didn’t announce a split.

↳ user the only comment of sense on this entire post. istg, some of these ppl just have too much time on their hands and spend it all worrying about the love lives of celebrities that don’t even know they exist. y/n and garrett are both adults and can make decisions for themselves without needing the support or backing of people who don’t actually know anything about them beyond the persona they put on for the public. even if she did cheat, garrett’s a big boy and can take care of himself. he doesn’t need an army of women and girls either half his age or double it coming to his defense. be so fucking for real and maybe go touch some grass while you’re at it.

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