brightness & gratitude

Reason 8: Violet’s unsettling hobbies

Violet had hobbies.

This should have been good.

Healthy, even.

People were supposed to have hobbies. Lando had hobbies. Golf. Streaming. Annoying Oscar. Accidentally agreeing to Quadrant ideas that later became his problem. Perfectly normal things.

Violet’s hobbies were not normal.

Violet pressed flowers.

That sounded normal at first.

Sweet, even.

Until Lando found out that half the flowers she pressed were poisonous.

“Vi likes botany,” Oscar said, like this was supposed to be comforting.

“She pressed foxglove in a book.”

“It’s pretty.”

“It can stop your heart.”

“So can your driving sometimes.”

“That was unnecessary.”

Violet also embroidered.

Again, normal in theory.

Except she embroidered tiny skulls onto tote bags, black flowers onto handkerchiefs, and once, horrifyingly, a tiny anatomically correct heart onto the sleeve of one of Oscar’s hoodies.

Oscar loved it.

Of course Oscar loved it.

Oscar walked into the McLaren garage wearing it like Violet had stitched his name into the stars.

Lando pointed at the sleeve. “Is that a heart?”

Oscar looked down. “Yeah.”

“Like a Valentine heart?”

“No.”

“No,” Lando said slowly, staring at the little red embroidered organ. “Of course not.”

“Vi made it.”

“I gathered.”

“She said it suited me.”

Lando stared at him.

Oscar stared back.

“Mate,” Lando said, “your girlfriend embroidered an organ on your clothes and said it suited you.”

Oscar’s face softened. “Yeah.”

Lando turned away. “You’re beyond help.”

Then there was the taxidermy.

Not real taxidermy, Violet insisted.

Ethical taxidermy.

Which, according to her, meant she only collected things that had already died naturally.

According to Lando, that did not make it better.

It made it sound like she had terms and conditions.

He found this out at Oscar’s apartment.

Obviously.

Because Oscar’s apartment had slowly become less Oscar’s apartment and more Violet’s tasteful little gothic nature museum.

There were pressed flowers in frames.

Antique books.

Black candles.

A tiny cabinet full of bones.

Bones.

Lando had stopped in front of it and gone completely still.

Oscar, carrying drinks from the kitchen, said, “Don’t be weird.”

Lando pointed. “There are bones in your living room.”

“They’re Vi’s.”

“That does not help.”

“They’re cleaned.”

“Again. Not helping.”

Violet appeared beside them silently, because of course she did, and looked at the cabinet.

“They’re mostly from owl pellets,” she said softly.

Lando stared at her.

Violet looked back.

Oscar took a sip of water like this was a normal evening.

“Owl pellets,” Lando repeated.

Violet nodded. “Owls can’t digest bones and fur properly, so they regurgitate them.”

There was a pause.

Lando slowly turned to Oscar.

Oscar looked at him.

“Your girlfriend collects owl vomit bones.”

Violet’s eyes widened.

Oscar closed his eyes.

“I clean them first,” Violet said quickly.

“Oh,” Lando said. “Brilliant. That fixes everything.”

Violet’s mouth twitched.

Lando pointed at her. “Don’t laugh. This is deeply concerning.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“You’re doing it silently.”

“She does that,” Oscar said fondly.

“Stop being fond about owl vomit bones!”

Violet laughed then. A real little laugh.

Oscar looked delighted.

Lando looked at the cabinet again and decided there were some battles he would simply never win.

And then there were the books.

The books were a separate category of concern.

Violet’s books had titles like:

Victorian Mourning Rituals.

Poisonous Plants of Europe.

The Social History of Death.

Witchcraft, Women, and Medicine.

Funerary Jewellery and Memory.

Oscar said she liked history.

Lando said there were better historical periods to enjoy.

“Has she considered the Romans?” Lando asked once.

Oscar looked up. “They killed a lot of people.”

“Fine. The Renaissance.”

“Also a lot of death.”

“The moon landing.”

Oscar stared at him. “That’s not a period.”

“It has less embalming.”

Violet, sitting beside Oscar with a cup of tea, whispered, “Not necessarily.”

Lando went cold.

Oscar started laughing.

“No,” Lando said immediately. “No. I don’t want to know. Keep your moon embalming facts to yourself.”

Violet smiled into her tea.

That was the other problem with her hobbies.

They gave her facts.

Terrible facts. Unsettling facts. Facts nobody had asked for.

You could say something innocent, like, “I hate the smell of almonds,” and Violet would softly explain that bitter almonds were historically associated with cyanide.

You could mention wedding rings, and Violet would tell you about mourning jewellery made from human hair.

You could say, “That flower is pretty,” and Violet would say, “It can cause paralysis.”

Always gently. Always politely. Like she was offering someone a biscuit.

Lando began to fear educational conversations.

One afternoon, he found her sitting in hospitality with a small embroidery hoop, carefully stitching something black and delicate onto fabric.

Lando approached with caution.

“What are you making?”

Violet looked up. “A moth.”

Lando relaxed slightly. “Oh. That’s nice.”

“A death’s-head hawkmoth.”

Lando stopped relaxing.

Oscar, without looking up, said, “Don’t start.”

“It has death in the name.”

“It’s a moth.”

“It has a skull on its back.”

“It didn’t choose that.”

Violet looked down at the embroidery. “I think it’s beautiful.”

Lando opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

Because she said it softly, with such genuine affection, and suddenly the whole thing became annoying again.

Because yes, it was unsettling.

But Violet did not like these things because they were creepy.

Not really.

She liked fragile things. Forgotten things. Misunderstood things. Things people looked at once and decided were ugly or frightening or morbid before they bothered to understand them.

Poisonous flowers.

Snakes.

Moths.

Old mourning jewellery.

Tiny bones cleaned carefully and placed in glass jars.

Oscar.

Actually, that one made sense.

Lando looked at Oscar, who was sitting beside Violet, entirely comfortable in the middle of her gothic little ecosystem.

Oscar had one hand resting near hers on the table. Not touching, exactly. Just close enough that Violet could hook her little finger around his whenever she wanted.

She did.

Oscar’s thumb brushed over her knuckle.

***

Reason 9: Oscar was brainwashed

Reason 9 was the most disturbing reason of all.

Oscar was brainwashed.

There was no other explanation.

Lando had considered the evidence carefully, as any reasonable person would.

Oscar Piastri, who reacted to most things with the emotional intensity of a printer loading paper, had become soft.

Not generally.

Not in public.

Not with Lando, obviously, because Lando was apparently not worthy of gentleness despite being charming, funny, and essential to team morale.

But with Violet?

Oscar was gone.

Completely.

Tragically.

Embarrassingly gone.

He smiled at his phone.

He saved her the quiet seat in every room.

He carried her black tote bag without complaint, even though it had a tiny embroidered skull on it and made him look like an unwilling assistant in a gothic bakery.

He knew exactly how she liked her tea.

He could tell, from one tiny glance, when she was overwhelmed.

He listened when she whispered.

He leaned down so she didn’t have to speak louder.

He did not even blink when Belladonna was mentioned at the dinner table, which Lando thought was a very clear sign that Oscar’s survival instincts had been tampered with.

“He’s under her spell,” Lando told Max Fewtrell very seriously.

Max, who had unfortunately met Violet and decided she was “nice, actually,” did not look concerned enough.

“Maybe he just loves her.”

Lando stared at him.

“That’s what I said.”

“No,” Max said. “You said brainwashed.”

“Same thing.”

“It’s really not.”

“It is when she owns a snake named Belladonna.”

Max considered that. “Fair.”

Exactly.

Exactly.

But then the situation got worse.

Because Lando found the ring.

Not on purpose.

That was important.

He was not snooping.

He was not.

Oscar had asked him to grab a charger from his backpack. Those were the words Oscar had used. Can you grab my charger? It’s in the front pocket.

A normal request.

A teammate request.

A request that did not, in any reasonable world, suggest that Lando Norris would end up holding evidence of Oscar Piastri’s complete and irreversible emotional destruction.

The backpack was in Oscar’s driver room.

The charger was not in the front pocket.

Which was typical Oscar, because for someone who acted like a very organised spreadsheet, he was terrible at knowing where his own things were.

Lando opened the side pocket.

Nothing.

He opened the bigger pocket.

Still no charger.

He opened the smaller zipped pocket inside the bigger pocket, because at this point he was committed and also slightly annoyed.

There was no charger.

There was, however, a small velvet box.

Black velvet.

Of course.

Lando froze.

“No,” he whispered.

The box sat there innocently.

Too innocently.

Lando looked at the door.

Then back at the box.

He was not snooping.

He was investigating.

There was a difference.

Also, Oscar had put it in a backpack pocket and then sent Lando into the backpack unsupervised, which was practically entrapment.

Lando picked up the box.

It was heavy in his palm.

Not very heavy. Just heavy enough to feel ominous.

Like a cursed object.

Like something Violet would own.

“Oh no,” Lando whispered.

He opened it.

Then immediately shut it again.

Then opened it again, because his brain needed confirmation that it had not invented what it had just seen.

Inside was a ring.

An antique ring.

Not a normal shiny modern ring from a jewellery shop with clean lighting and champagne and sales assistants who said things like timeless elegance.

No.

This ring looked like it had a history.

A backstory.

A potential haunting.

It was Victorian-looking, all delicate gold scrollwork and tiny old-fashioned details, with little pale stones around the outside like stars caught in metal. But in the centre, where Lando assumed something normal was supposed to be — a diamond, a sapphire, maybe some romantic pastel thing — there was a black diamond.

A black diamond.

Deep and glossy and dark, catching the light like a secret.

Lando stared at it.

Then he stared harder.

Then, very calmly, he said, “Oscar Piastri, what the actual fuck.”

Behind him, Oscar said, “That is not the charger.”

Lando screamed.

Not a controlled exhale.

A scream.

The box nearly left his hand.

Oscar crossed the room in three long steps and caught Lando’s wrist before the ring could become a very expensive tragedy.

“Careful,” Oscar said sharply.

Lando clutched the box to his chest. “You appeared silently.”

“I walked in.”

“You and Violet are becoming one person and I hate it.”

Oscar’s eyes dropped to the box.

His face changed.

Not much.

But enough.

He reached out.

Lando held the box away from him.

“No.”

Oscar blinked. “Lando.”

“No. Explain yourself.”

“It’s a ring.”

“It’s a Victorian death ring.”

“It is not a death ring.”

“It has a black diamond in the middle.”

Oscar’s ears went slightly pink.

Oh.

Oh, Lando hated that.

“I changed the centre stone,” Oscar said.

Lando stared.

“You changed the centre stone.”

“Yes.”

“To a black diamond.”

“Yes.”

“On an antique Victorian ring.”

Oscar nodded.

Lando inhaled slowly.

“Right,” he said. “Right. Of course. Obviously. Why would you propose with something normal when you could give Wednesday Addams a ring that looks like it was pried from the hand of a tragic widow?”

Oscar’s expression went flat, but his ears were still pink.

“Vi will like it.”

That was the problem.

She would.

Violet would like it.

Violet would probably look at this alarming little piece of jewellery with its old gold and its black diamond heart and its faint air of moonlit inheritance drama, and she would go completely soft.

Worse, she would probably cry.

Silently.

Into Oscar’s shoulder.

And Oscar would look at her like he had personally been entrusted with the last fragile thing in the world.

Lando suddenly felt ill.

“You’re proposing,” he said.

Oscar was quiet.

Then, very simply, “Yeah.”

Lando looked at him.

Oscar Piastri, standing in his driver room in McLaren kit, looking infuriatingly calm except for the pink at the tips of his ears and the way his eyes kept flicking back to the ring box like he needed to make sure it was still there.

“You’re proposing,” Lando repeated.

“Yes.”

“To Violet.”

Oscar gave him a look. “Yes, Lando.”

“With this.”

“Yes.”

“A Victorian ring.”

“Yes.”

“With a black diamond.”

Oscar’s mouth twitched. “You’ve covered the important details.”

Lando sank down onto the little sofa.

He still held the ring box.

Oscar did not take it from him immediately, which meant he was either very trusting or very stupid.

Possibly both.

“You are brainwashed,” Lando said faintly.

Oscar sighed. “I am not brainwashed.”

“You bought an antique gothic proposal ring for your girlfriend who owns a snake named Belladonna.”

“I didn’t buy it because of the snake.”

“That is not the defence you think it is.”

Oscar sat down beside him.

Carefully, he took the ring box from Lando’s hand.

Lando let him, mostly because Oscar was looking at the ring in a way that made jokes feel slightly more difficult.

Annoyingly.

“It was originally an old mine cut diamond,” Oscar said, quieter now.

Lando blinked. “You know ring facts?”

Oscar ignored that. “It was pretty, but it didn’t feel like her.”

“Right, because it wasn’t ominous enough.”

Oscar gave him a sideways look.

Lando shut up.

For once.

Oscar opened the box again.

The black diamond caught the light.

“It’s old,” Oscar said. “Not perfect. The setting’s a bit unusual. The jeweller said some people wouldn’t like that because it’s not symmetrical enough.”

Lando looked at him.

Oscar’s thumb rested against the edge of the box.

“But Violet likes things with history,” he continued. “And she likes things that other people think are strange before they bother looking properly.”

Oh.

No.

Lando hated this.

He hated Oscar’s soft voice. He hated the stupid ring. He hated that it suited Violet. He hated that Oscar had clearly thought about this for longer than he had ever thought about anything Lando said to him.

“I thought about getting something modern,” Oscar said. “Something easy. But she wouldn’t want easy.”

Lando swallowed.

“She’d want haunted,” he said, because he needed to say something.

Oscar’s mouth curved.

“Probably.”

“And the black diamond?”

Oscar’s eyes stayed on the ring.

“She likes black,” he said.

“Yes, Oscar, we’ve all noticed.”

“And she doesn’t like being looked at too directly. Big bright diamonds felt wrong.”

Lando went quiet.

Oscar turned the box slightly, making the stone flash darkly under the light.

“This felt like her,” he said. “Soft around the edges. Strong in the middle.”

(Oh, come on. Come on.)

That was illegal.

Oscar was not allowed to say things like that.

Oscar was supposed to be emotionally constipated and deadpan and slightly annoying. He was not supposed to sit there holding an antique Victorian engagement ring with a black diamond and say things like soft around the edges, strong in the middle about his terrifying gothic girlfriend.

Lando rubbed both hands over his face.

“You are so gone,” he said.

Oscar did not deny it.

That was worse.

He simply looked at the ring for another second, then closed the box.

“I know.”

Lando froze.

Oscar did not look at him.

His ears were pink again.

Lando stared.

“You know?”

Oscar shrugged one shoulder. “Yeah.”

“You admit it?”

“I’m not brainwashed.”

“But you’re in love.”

Oscar was silent.

Then, very softly, “Yeah.”

Oh.

Oh, no.

No, this was becoming sincere.

Lando did not do well with sincere. He could mock. He could tease. He could turn anything into a joke and then pretend the joke had not revealed something deeply emotional. But Oscar saying yeah like that, quiet and certain and not even embarrassed enough to hide from it properly, was a problem.

A serious one.

Lando looked away first.

Obviously.

He had to preserve himself.

“Disgusting,” he muttered.

Oscar huffed a laugh.

“You can’t tell anyone,” Oscar said.

Lando turned back to him, offended. “Do I look like someone who would ruin your proposal?”

Oscar just looked at him.

“That is hurtful.”

“You told three people when I changed shampoo.”

“It smelled different.”

“Lando.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Lando said. “Obviously.”

Oscar studied him for a second.

Then nodded.

Lando sat back, unsettled.

The ring sat between them in its black velvet box like a tiny gothic bomb.

“When?” Lando asked.

Oscar hesitated.

“Soon.”

“Soon?”

“After the triple-header. She hates big scenes, so not anywhere public. Not at a race. Not around cameras.”

Lando nodded slowly.

That made sense.

Violet would probably dissolve into the floor if Oscar proposed in front of people.

Or summon fog.

Either.

“I thought at home,” Oscar said. “After dinner. Just us.”

“Just you, Violet, and the snake named after poison.”

Oscar’s mouth twitched. “Belladonna will be in her enclosure.”

“That’s not the same as not being present.”

“She’s family.”

Lando pointed at him. “That remains concerning.”

Oscar smiled down at the ring box.

Idiot.

Complete idiot.

Brainwashed idiot.

And the worst part was that Lando could see it now.

Not the proposal exactly, because that felt private in a way even his imagination hesitated to intrude upon.

But the shape of it.

Violet in Oscar’s apartment, probably wearing black, probably barefoot, probably with her braids loose or half undone after a long day. Oscar making tea because Oscar always made tea when Violet seemed nervous. The quiet of it. The softness of it. Oscar, who could barely perform romance for a camera to save his life, kneeling down in their living room with an antique ring that looked like it belonged in one of Violet’s gothic novels.

Violet would go still.

Completely still.

Then her eyes would fill.

Then she would say his name in that tiny voice, like she could not believe someone had chosen her so precisely.

And Oscar would say something low and simple and devastating, because apparently he had that ability when it came to her.

Something like, It was always going to be you.

Lando groaned.

Oscar looked at him. “What?”

“I just imagined it.”

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t want to.”

“Then stop.”

“I can’t. It’s in my head now. You’re going to propose with a haunted ring and she’s going to cry and you’re going to look at her like that.”

Oscar frowned. “Like what?”

“Like she’s the softest thing in the world even when she’s reading about corpse flowers.”

Oscar looked down at the box.

His face softened.

“That,” Lando said, pointing. “Exactly that. Stop it.”

Oscar did not stop it.

Obviously.

Because he was useless.

Then, because apparently the universe had decided Lando had not suffered enough, the door opened.

Violet appeared.

Silently.

Of course.

Both Oscar and Lando jolted.

Oscar snapped the ring box shut so fast the little click sounded like a gunshot.

Violet stopped in the doorway.

She was wearing black, obviously. A long black skirt, black cardigan, black boots. Her braids were tied with little ribbons, and she held her skull tote bag against her side.

Her eyes moved from Oscar to Lando.

Then to Oscar’s hand.

Then back up.

“Is everything okay?” she asked softly.

Lando’s soul left his body.

Oscar, somehow, remained calm.

“Yes,” he said.

Lando nodded too quickly. “Yep. Normal. Very normal. We were just talking about chargers.”

Violet blinked.

Oscar slowly turned his head toward him.

Lando smiled.

Badly.

“Chargers,” Violet repeated.

“Yes,” Lando said. “Phone chargers. Electrical. Very modern. Not Victorian at all.”

Oscar closed his eyes.

Violet’s brows drew together.

Lando wanted to throw himself into the harbour.

Oscar stood, sliding the box into his pocket with a smoothness that frankly suggested he had been practicing hiding evidence from his terrifying girlfriend.

“Lando couldn’t find my charger,” Oscar said.

That, at least, was technically true.

Violet looked at Lando.

Lando looked at Violet.

For once, she did not look like a murder suspect.

She looked suspicious.

Which was fair.

Because Lando was acting like a man who had just been caught holding an engagement ring with a black diamond in a driver's room.

Which he had.

Violet tilted her head.

Lando panicked.

“I’m going to go,” he said.

Oscar said, “Good.”

Rude.

Violet stepped slightly aside to let him pass.

As Lando moved by her, she said softly, “Bye, Lando.”

He stopped.

Looked at her.

Black clothes. Braids. Pale face. Big dark eyes. Glossy black nails. Skull tote bag. Probably a book about death in there somewhere. Probably vegan snacks. Probably the emotional centre of Oscar’s entire universe.

Still suspicious.

Objectively.

But not dangerous.

Not to Oscar.

And maybe not to Lando either.

“Bye, Violet,” he said.

Then, because he had no self-preservation and possibly never had, he added, “Nice ribbons.”

Violet’s eyes widened.

Her hand lifted to one braid.

“Oh,” she said. “Thank you.”

Her cheeks went pink.

Oscar looked at Lando.

Not smug.

Not annoyed.

Grateful.

Again.

Absolutely unbearable.

Lando pointed at him. “Don’t.”

Oscar’s mouth curved. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking something.”

“Occasionally I do that.”

Violet made a tiny sound into her sleeve.

Lando narrowed his eyes. “You two deserve each other.”

Oscar looked at Violet.

Violet looked at Oscar.

And there it was again.

That stupid, quiet, obvious love.

Lando left before it could become worse.

But after that, Reason 9 changed.

Because yes, Oscar was brainwashed.

Or in love.

Whatever.

But Violet was not exactly escaping unharmed either.

Violet, who barely spoke to anyone else, spoke to Oscar like words were something she had been saving just for him.

Violet, who moved silently through rooms like a ghost trying not to disturb the living, always drifted toward Oscar.

Violet, who hid behind her sleeves and her braids and sometimes, absurdly, her black lace parasol, looked at Oscar like he was the safest place in the world.

And Oscar was planning to propose to her with a ring that understood her.

That was the part that kept bothering Lando.

Not because it was weird.

Although it was weird.

The black diamond was insane.

The antique Victorian setting was insane.

The fact that Belladonna would probably witness the proposal from her enclosure like a tiny scaly chaperone was insane.

But the ring was not random.

Oscar had looked at Violet — really looked at her — and chosen something strange and old and dark and delicate, because anything else would have been wrong.

That was harder to make fun of.

Lando still tried.

Obviously.

But it was harder.

One evening, after a long day at the track, Lando found them in the quiet corner of McLaren hospitality.

Oscar was sitting on one of the sofas, hoodie sleeves pushed up, phone abandoned beside him. Violet was tucked into his side, black skirt folded neatly over her knees, one braid falling across Oscar’s shoulder like it had decided to live there.

She was reading.

Oscar was not.

Oscar was just sitting there, perfectly still, one hand resting loosely over Violet’s, thumb moving in slow, absent strokes over her knuckles.

Lando stopped in the doorway.

Neither of them noticed him.

That was unusual, because Violet noticed everything.

But her head was slightly bowed, her face softer than Lando had ever seen it, and Oscar was looking at her like the rest of the world had gone quiet for once.

Violet turned a page.

Oscar looked down. “Good?”

She nodded.

Then, after a moment, she tilted the book slightly so he could see the paragraph.

Oscar read it.

His eyebrows drew together. “That’s grim, Vi.”

Violet’s mouth twitched. “You say that about all my books.”

“Because all your books are grim.”

“They’re interesting.”

“They’re grim and interesting.”

She leaned a little more into him. “You still listen.”

Oscar’s face softened.

“Yeah,” he said. “Of course.”

Violet looked up at him.

And there it was.

The thing Lando had been trying very hard not to look at directly.

Love.

Not creepy gothic brainwashing.

Not snake-related enchantment.

Not whatever parasol-based spell Lando had originally suspected.

Just love.

Quiet and obvious and deeply inconvenient.

Violet looked at Oscar like he had found her in a world too loud for her and decided to lower his voice instead of asking her to be different.

Oscar looked at Violet like she had handed him all her sharp, strange, shadowy pieces and he had found every single one worth holding.

It was disgusting.

It was beautiful.

Lando hated it.

Mostly because he suddenly felt like an idiot.

A charming idiot, but still.

He cleared his throat.

Oscar looked up first.

His face immediately flattened into its usual public setting, which was rude because Lando had just witnessed softness and now Oscar was trying to pretend he was furniture again.

Violet looked up too.

For once, Lando did not feel like she was assessing his organs.

She looked nervous.

Not ominous.

Just nervous.

“Hi,” she said softly.

Lando looked at her.

Black clothes. Braids. Pale face. Big dark eyes. Glossy black nails. Book probably about death. Snake owner. Parasol enthusiast. Silent walker. Vegan gummy bear refuser.

Still suspicious.

Objectively.

But not dangerous.

Not to Oscar.

Maybe not to Lando either.

“Hi,” Lando said.

Oscar narrowed his eyes. “Why are you standing there like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’ve had a thought.”

“I have thoughts.”

“Occasionally.”

Violet made a tiny sound into her sleeve.

Lando pointed at her. “See? That. You’re getting meaner.”

Her eyes widened.

Oscar smiled. “She is.”

“I’m not,” Violet whispered.

“You are,” Lando said. “Quietly. It’s very unsettling.”

Her mouth twitched.

Then, to Lando’s complete horror, she looked almost pleased.

Oscar looked at her like he wanted to wrap her in a blanket and give her the moon.

Lando groaned. “Oh, for god’s sake.”

“What?” Oscar asked.

“You.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Sitting there all brainwashed.”

Oscar blinked. “Brainwashed.”

“By love.”

Violet went very still.

Oscar’s ears went pink.

Excellent.

Finally.

A reaction.

Lando folded his arms. “Don’t deny it.”

Oscar looked away.

Which was Oscar for screaming.

Violet looked down at her book, cheeks turning pink beneath the black curtain of her braids.

Lando stared between them.

“Oh my god,” he said. “You’re both useless.”

Oscar muttered, “Shut up.”

“No. I won’t. I’ve been living in fear for months.”

“Of Violet?”

“Yes.”

Violet looked up, stricken. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

And there it was again.

That softness.

That awful, earnest little voice.

Lando immediately felt like a monster.

“No,” he said quickly. “No, not like— I mean, yes, technically, but not in a bad way.”

Oscar stared at him. “How is that not in a bad way?”

“Because it was funny.”

“To whom?”

“To me, mostly.”

Violet blinked.

Then, very quietly, “I thought you didn’t like me.”

Oh.

Lando froze.

Oscar’s expression shifted.

Not angry.

Exactly.

But protective.

Very protective.

Lando swallowed.

“No,” he said. “No, I like you.”

Violet looked surprised.

Painfully surprised.

Which made Lando want to walk into the sea.

“I do,” he said, because apparently this was happening now. “You’re just… terrifying.”

Her mouth parted slightly.

Oscar closed his eyes.

Lando rushed on. “But in a good way. Mostly. Like a small, polite ghost. With baking skills. And alarming books.”

Violet stared at him.

Then her mouth twitched.

“You think I’m a ghost?”

“A polite one.”

She looked down, smiling now. “That’s nice.”

“It was not meant to be nice.”

“It still is.”

Oscar opened his eyes and looked at Lando with the most unbearable expression he had ever worn.

Grateful.

Lando could handle smug Oscar. He could handle sarcastic Oscar. He could handle blank Oscar, annoyed Oscar, and emotionally unavailable Oscar.

He could not handle grateful Oscar.

Absolutely not.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Lando said immediately.

Oscar’s mouth curved. “Like what?”

“Like I’ve done something good.”

“You have.”

“Stop.”

Violet looked between them, still pink, still smiling a little.

Then she reached for Oscar’s hand.

Not dramatically.

Just quietly.

Her fingers slipped around his.

Oscar turned his hand immediately and held on.

Like it was instinct.

Like breathing.

Lando watched them.

And suddenly the whole evidence board in his head rearranged itself.

The black clothes were not mourning clothes. They were armour.

The braids were not sinister. They were comfort.

The parasol was not a funeral accessory. It was something to hold when the world was too bright.

The silence was not judgement. It was shyness.

Belladonna was not foreshadowing. She was a rescued snake with a strong name.

The unsettling hobbies were not murder preparation. They were Violet loving strange, fragile, misunderstood things because maybe she knew what that felt like.

And Oscar?

Oscar was not brainwashed.

Oscar was in love.

Completely.

Stupidly.

Quietly.

Hopelessly in love.

And Violet loved him too.

That was obvious now.

In the way she looked for him first in every room.

In the way she relaxed when his hand touched her back.

In the way she saved her best sentences for him.

In the way she trusted him to understand the words she did not say out loud.

In the way Oscar’s whole world seemed to narrow down to making sure Violet never had to become louder than she wanted to be.

Lando hated how romantic that was.

He hated it so much he had to sit down.

Oscar watched him warily. “Are you okay?”

“No.”

Violet’s eyes widened. “What’s wrong?”

“You two,” Lando said. “You’re in love.”

Oscar stared.

Violet turned scarlet.

Lando pointed at them. “Disgusting.”

Oscar looked down at their joined hands.

Then, very quietly, he said, “Yeah.”

Violet looked at him.

Oscar looked back.

For one second, neither of them seemed to remember Lando existed.

Their hands stayed tangled together.

Violet’s eyes were wide and soft.

Oscar’s face was open in a way Lando almost never saw.

Then Violet whispered, “Yeah?”

Oscar’s thumb moved over her knuckles.

“Yeah.”

Oh.

Oh, that was private.

Lando stood up so fast the sofa squeaked.

“Right,” he said loudly. “I’m leaving before you start being emotionally sincere at each other.”

Oscar did not look away from Violet. “Bye, Lando.”

“Unbelievable. Months of concern for your safety and this is the thanks I get.”

Violet looked at him then.

She was still blushing, but she smiled.

A real smile.

Small, shy, and entirely un-haunting.

“Bye, Lando.”

He paused.

Then sighed.

“Bye, Violet.”

He made it three steps before turning back.

“For the record,” he said, “if you ever do murder him, I will still tell Netflix I saw the signs.”

Violet’s smile widened.

Oscar groaned.

“I won’t,” Violet said softly.

Lando narrowed his eyes.

Then she added, “Probably.”

Oscar dropped his head.

Lando pointed at her. “See? This is why the list exists.”

But he was smiling when he said it.

And Violet was smiling too.

Oscar looked between them like he could not decide whether to be annoyed or happy.

He settled, unfortunately, on happy.

Lando left before it got worse.

That night, he opened the evidence file one last time.

Reason 9: Oscar was brainwashed.

He stared at it.

Then deleted brainwashed and rewrote it.

Reason 9: Oscar was in love.

Supporting evidence:

One, Oscar smiled at Violet like an idiot.

Two, Oscar understood Violet’s silence better than most people understood full speeches.

Three, Oscar carried her skull tote bag in public without complaint.

Four, Oscar considered Belladonna part of the family, which remained concerning.

Five, Oscar looked at Violet like she was the softest thing in the world, even when she was reading about Victorian funerals.

Six, Violet looked at Oscar like he made the world less frightening.

Seven, Violet loved him too.

Lando stopped typing.

Then added the final footnote.

Additional note: Maybe I am going to survive after all.

He considered that.

Then added:

Further note: Still do not eat any unlabelled brownies without checking if they are vegan or cursed.

And finally:

Further further note: Violet is not going to murder me.

A pause.

Then:

Lando Norris was not a dramatic person.

This was, admittedly, a statement that several people in his life might have disputed. Loudly. With evidence. Possibly with screenshots.

But Lando knew the truth.

He was observant.

He was intuitive.

He was, in many ways, a man of science.

And science told him that Oscar Piastri’s girlfriend was going to murder him one day.

Her name was Violet, which Lando thought was, frankly, false advertising.

Violet sounded like someone who wore floral dresses and had a favourite kind of tea. 

Violet sounded like someone who owned pastel dresses and called people darling. Violet sounded like a girl who pressed flowers into books and maybe had an aesthetically pleasing Pinterest.

A person named Violet should have been soft and floral and maybe owned a lot of cardigans. 

Oscar’s Violet looked like Wednesday Addams had grown up, discovered Formula One, and decided the paddock was where she wanted to start her reign of psychological terror.

(Her surname was Graves. That was not false advertising. She was going to put Lando into a grave, mark his words.) 

Not Oscar.

Him.

Lando.

Specifically.

Probably in a very artistic, emotionally detached way that would somehow involve candlelight, a handwritten note, and possibly a Victorian mourning veil.

Lando had evidence.

So much evidence, actually, that he had started a note in his phone titled:

REASONS VIOLET PIASTRI? IS PROBABLY PLANNING MY DEATH

The question mark was because he didn’t actually know if she was going to become Violet Piastri one day, but Oscar looked at her like a man who had already picked out a mortgage, three children’s names, and a preferred matching pension plan, so Lando felt it was sensible to prepare.

(Lando had woken up multiple times at three in the morning and typed “signs someone is planning to murder you” into Google, which had not been as helpful as he had hoped. Mostly because the internet seemed to think he was the problem. Lando was NOT the problem.)

***

Reason 1: Violet Only Wore Black

Violet only wore black.

And Lando did not mean that in the normal way.

Not fashionable black. 

Not model-off-duty black. 

Not “I forgot to do laundry and this was the only hoodie that didn’t smell like airport lounge” black.

No.

Violet wore black like she had signed a lifelong contract with the concept of mourning.

Black boots. Black tights. Black skirts. Black jumpers. Black coats, even when the weather was warm enough that Lando personally considered passing away from heatstroke. Black ribbons tied neatly at the ends of her braids. Black nail polish, always perfect, always glossy, always sharp-looking in a way that made Lando suspect she could probably use her pinky finger as a weapon.

Sometimes there was lace involved.

That was when things became properly alarming.

Lando was not saying lace was inherently threatening. 

He respected lace. Lace had its place. On dresses, on fancy tablecloths, probably on things he didn’t understand but had been told were fashion.

But when Violet wore black lace, with her hair braided down her back and her face completely unreadable, she looked less like Oscar’s girlfriend and more like someone who had personally attended Edgar Allan Poe’s funeral and judged the catering.

Harshly.

Once, because Lando had no survival instincts despite frequently accusing Oscar of the same thing, he had asked, very casually, “Does Violet own anything that isn’t black?”

Oscar had been eating a banana at the time, standing in the McLaren garage with his race suit half-undone and the unbothered expression of a man who had never once considered that his girlfriend looked like she belonged in a haunted oil painting.

He frowned thoughtfully.

“She has a dark grey cardigan.”

Lando stared at him.

“That does not help.”

“She likes black.”

“Serial killers also like patterns, Oscar.”

Oscar blinked. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Oscar continued eating his banana.

Lando continued fearing for his future.

The thing was, Oscar said it like it was simple. Like Violet liking black was the same as Oscar liking plain rice, or Lando liking hoodies, or Zak liking ways to put them in front of cameras when they were already spiritually deceased.

She likes black.

That was it.

End of discussion.

Except it was not the end of discussion, because Lando had eyes.

He had eyes and instincts and a deep appreciation for not being murdered by a girl who looked like she had an excellent working knowledge of Victorian poisons.

In Monaco, he once saw Violet wearing dark grey.

Not black.

Dark grey.

Lando had almost stopped walking.

It had been outside Oscar’s apartment building, early afternoon, the sun bouncing off the pavement and making everything look aggressively expensive. Violet had been standing beside Oscar, one hand tucked into the sleeve of her cardigan, her black hair in two neat braids, her expression soft in a way Lando rarely saw because usually she looked at him like she was trying to decide whether he was worth haunting.

The cardigan was grey.

A deep charcoal grey, admittedly, but still.

Grey.

Lando had opened his mouth to say something. Something helpful. Something kind. Something like, “Wow, branching out,” or “Look at you, embracing colour,” or possibly, “Congratulations on the personal growth.”

Before he could get a single syllable out, Oscar glanced sideways at him.

Not dramatically.

Oscar was not dramatic.

Oscar merely turned his head half an inch and gave Lando a look.

A warning look.

A very clear, very Australian, very Oscar look that said: don’t be annoying.

Which was rich.

Rich, coming from Oscar Piastri.

Oscar Piastri, who had brought a haunted Victorian doll of a girlfriend into Lando’s life and then expected him to behave normally about it.

Lando closed his mouth.

Violet looked between them, eyebrows drawing together slightly.

“What?” she asked, very quietly.

“Nothing,” Oscar said immediately.

“Nothing,” Lando echoed, because he wanted to survive the afternoon.

Violet blinked at them.

Lando tried not to flinch.

That was another thing.

The blinking.

Or lack thereof.

“She’s not haunted,” Oscar said one afternoon, without looking up from his phone.

Lando froze.

They were sitting in McLaren hospitality, waiting for a briefing neither of them particularly wanted to attend. Lando was slumped in his chair, Oscar was doing something on his phone with the expression of someone answering emails at gunpoint, and Violet was across the room beside the coffee station.

She was silently stirring a black coffee.

Black coffee.

Obviously.

She was wearing a black dress with long sleeves and a collar that made her look like she had strict opinions about candlelight. Her black-painted nails tapped once against the side of the cup. Her face was blank in a way Lando usually associated with people who either knew where bodies were buried or had buried them personally and were now at peace with it.

“I didn’t say she was haunted,” Lando said carefully.

Oscar looked up at him.

“You were staring at her like you think she crawled out of a well.”

“I was not.”

“You absolutely were.”

“I was observing.”

“You were staring.”

“There’s a difference.”

“Not when you’re doing it like that.”

Lando leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Oscar.”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“I do.”

“You don’t.”

“You’re going to say something weird about Violet.”

Lando sat back, offended. “It is not weird to be concerned.”

Oscar’s face did not change. “Concerned about what?”

Lando glanced across the room.

Violet lifted her coffee cup with both hands. She did not look at anyone. She did not speak to anyone. She simply stood there in her black dress, black boots, black braids, and black nail polish, existing like a person who had been summoned by a séance but was trying to be polite about it.

Lando lowered his voice further. “She doesn’t blink.”

Oscar sighed.

It was not a normal sigh.

It was Oscar’s Lando is being Lando again sigh, which Lando found deeply unfair because this was not him being difficult. This was him being vigilant. There was a difference, and one day, when the inevitable true crime documentary came out, everyone would regret not appreciating him.

“She blinks,” Oscar said.

“Not enough.”

“She blinks a normal amount.”

“She blinks when you look at her.”

“Yes, Lando. That’s usually how eyes work.”

“No, listen to me.”

“I am listening.”

“You are not. You’re doing that thing where your face looks like a wall.”

“That’s just my face.”

“Exactly.”

Oscar finally put his phone down.

This, Lando felt, was progress.

“Oscar,” Lando whispered, “your girlfriend looks like she knows Latin curses.”

Oscar stared at him for several seconds.

Then, very calmly, he said, “She took French at school.”

“THAT DOESN’T MAKE IT BETTER!”

Reason 2: Violet had braids

Violet had braids.

Two of them.

Dark, glossy, perfectly neat braids that fell over her shoulders like they had been arranged by someone with both excellent hand-eye coordination and a worrying amount of patience.

Lando did not trust people with that much patience.

Especially not when they wore black every day and had the resting expression of a girl who had once been asked to smile more and had responded by placing a hex on an entire bloodline.

The braids were important.

The braids were not a small detail.

The braids completed the whole thing.

Because without the braids, Violet might have simply been a quiet goth girl with a fondness for black clothes and unsettling jewellery. Still worrying, obviously, but manageable. Lando had met goth people before. He was modern. He was open-minded. He was not here to judge anyone’s aesthetic choices, except privately and with Oscar, who deserved it.

But with the braids?

With the two perfectly even, dark braids?

Violet looked exactly like Wednesday Addams if Wednesday Addams had grown up, moved to Monaco, and started dating a Formula One driver for reasons Lando did not understand and frankly did not trust.

She had the entire Wednesday Addams thing down.

Pale face. Big dark eyes. Straight posture. No unnecessary smiling. The general air of someone who had never once been surprised by thunder.

And the braids.

Always the braids.

Sometimes they were tied with black ribbons.

Sometimes they were tied with tiny black bows.

Once, at a race weekend, Lando had seen her with one braid pulled over her shoulder while she read a book in the back of the McLaren garage, and he had become convinced she was waiting for someone to wrong her so she could calmly add their name to a list.

“Vi’s reading Jane Austen,” Oscar had said when Lando mentioned this.

“That makes it worse,” Lando had whispered.

“How does that make it worse?”

“Because it means she understands social manipulation.”

Oscar had stared at him for a long time.

Then he had gone back to eating his pasta.

Which was typical.

The first time Lando met Violet, Oscar had brought her into the garage like it was normal.

Like it was casual.

Like he was not introducing McLaren to a woman who looked like she had stepped out of a haunted dollhouse after successfully overthrowing its previous owner.

It had been one of those afternoons where the garage was loud and hot and everyone was moving around with headsets and tablets and purposeful expressions. Lando had been minding his own business, which was rare and should have been rewarded, when Oscar appeared beside him.

With her.

“This is Violet,” Oscar said.

Just like that.

No warning.

No preparation.

No quick text beforehand saying, by the way, my girlfriend looks like a Victorian child ghost but don’t worry, she’s very nice.

Nothing.

Lando turned.

Violet stood beside Oscar in a black dress, black boots, black nail polish, and two perfect braids. Her hands were clasped in front of her. Her posture was immaculate. Her face was calm.

Too calm.

Lando looked at Violet.

Violet looked at Lando.

Violet blinked once.

Lando immediately forgot every human greeting he had ever learned.

“Hello,” she said quietly.

Very quietly.

Softly, even.

Which, again, should not have made things worse.

But it did.

Because it was not a nervous hello. It was not a cheerful hello. It was a quiet, level, very composed hello, delivered by someone who looked like she could win a staring contest with a porcelain doll.

Lando opened his mouth.

His brain, which usually had no issue producing words whether or not anyone wanted them, gave up completely.

“Please don’t kill me,” he said.

There was a pause.

A long one.

Not long in a normal awkward way.

Long in a the grandfather clock has stopped ticking way.

Oscar slowly turned his head.

Not toward Violet.

Toward Lando.

His face was blank, but Lando knew Oscar well enough to read the silence. It said: why are you like this?

Violet tilted her head.

Just slightly.

The braids moved with her.

Lando’s soul briefly attempted to leave his body.

Then he laughed, because obviously he had meant it as a joke. Mostly.

(About sixty percent as a joke. Maybe fifty-five.)

“Sorry,” Lando said quickly. “That was— I mean, obviously, you’re not— I just meant— You know. Because of the…” He made a vague gesture toward her entire person, immediately realised that was worse, and lowered his hand. “Aesthetic.”

Oscar closed his eyes.

Violet looked down at herself. Then back at Lando. Her mouth moved.

Not into a smile, exactly. More like the ghost of a smile had considered visiting and then decided the commute was too much.

“I’ll try not to,” she said.

Lando stared.

Oscar made a small strangled noise beside her.

Violet looked at him. “Was that wrong?”

Oscar pressed his lips together.

“No,” he said, and his voice sounded suspiciously tight. “No, that was perfect.”

Perfect? Perfect?

Lando looked between them, horrified.

That was not reassuring. That was not something a normal person said.

That was exactly the kind of thing a future murderer said so they could claim plausible deniability later. 

I said I’d try not to. I never promised.

Lando could see it already. He could see the true crime documentary. He could see the badly lit reenactment. He could see himself played by someone much shorter and less handsome, saying, “Please don’t kill me,” while the narrator said ominously, But the warning signs had been there from the very beginning.

***

Reason 3: Violet didn’t make a sound

Violet appeared silently.

All the time.

You would be standing there, minding your business, maybe eating grapes from the hospitality fridge even though you weren’t entirely sure they were meant for drivers, and suddenly she would be beside you.

No footsteps.

No greeting.

No warning.

Just there.

The first time it happened, Lando had made a noise that he would later describe as a controlled exhale and that Oscar described as “a scream.”

“I didn’t scream,” Lando insisted.

“You absolutely screamed,” Oscar said.

“It was surprise.”

“It was very high-pitched.”

Violet, who had been standing there holding a tote bag with a small embroidered skull on it, had looked at Lando with wide dark eyes.

Then, very softly, she said, “Sorry.”

And then she disappeared behind Oscar.

Literally behind him. Like a shadow retreating behind a larger, more Australian shadow.

Oscar had put a hand lightly against her back, murmured something Lando couldn’t hear, and Violet had nodded without looking at anyone.

Lando watched this exchange with narrowed eyes.

Because yes, maybe she seemed shy.

Maybe.

But assassins could also be shy.

***

Reason 4: Violet didn’t talk

Violet didn’t talk.

Well.

That was not strictly true.

She talked to Oscar.

Of course she talked to Oscar.

Oscar got the soft Violet. The quiet little smiles. The murmured comments. The hand curled around his wrist. The way she leaned into his side when she thought nobody was looking. The way she tugged lightly on his sleeve when she wanted to leave somewhere crowded, and Oscar immediately looked down at her like she had just handed him secret state intelligence.

With Oscar, she was apparently capable of full sentences.

With everyone else?

Nothing.

Just silence.

Heavy, atmospheric silence.

(The kind of silence that made Lando feel like he was being evaluated for weaknesses.)

He had tried to be friendly.

He really had.

Contrary to what Oscar said, Lando was very good with people. He was charming. He was funny. He was approachable. He could make conversation with almost anyone if given enough caffeine and the promise that there would be no surprise marketing content involved.

But Violet was different. Violet didn’t give him anything.

No nervous rambling. No awkward small talk. No fake laugh. No polite paddock chatter about the weather or travel or how busy the weekend had been.

She simply existed.

Quietly. Watching. Occasionally blinking. (Like a very pretty crow.)

Oscar insisted she talked all the time.

Lando had literally never seen evidence of this.

“She talks,” Oscar said one afternoon, sounding deeply tired already.

Lando pointed across the garage.

Violet was sitting in the corner, all in black, her braids falling over her shoulders, a book balanced neatly in her lap. She had been there for nearly twenty minutes and had not said a single word to anyone. Someone from comms had offered her a drink. Violet had smiled politely, shaken her head, and returned to reading.

No sound. No words. Just a tiny smile and the immediate restoration of silence.

“She has not spoken more than 3 sentences today,” Lando said.

“She doesn’t know them.”

“She knows you.”

“Yes.”

“And me.”

Oscar looked at him.

Lando narrowed his eyes. “She knows me.”

“She knows of you.”

“That is worse.”

Oscar’s mouth twitched.

Lando did not appreciate that.

He glanced back at Violet.

She was not scrolling.

Not texting.

Not pretending to be busy on her phone like a normal person avoiding social interaction.

She was reading.

An actual physical book.

The cover was black.

Of course it was.

Lando, because he was brave and also very bad at leaving things alone, walked over.

Oscar looked up immediately. “Lando.”

“What?”

“Don’t be weird.”

“I am never weird.”

Oscar’s silence was offensive.

Lando ignored him and stopped in front of Violet.

Violet looked up slowly.

Her eyes were large and dark and calm.

Too calm.

The kind of calm that made Lando feel like she had known he was coming for three minutes and had already prepared six possible outcomes.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” Violet said softly.

Progress.

Good.

Words had happened.

Lando gestured at the book. “What are you reading?”

Violet blinked.

Then she looked down at the book, as if surprised anyone had asked.

For one second, her face changed.

Not much. It never changed much. But there was a tiny flicker of uncertainty there, her fingers tightening on the edge of the cover.

Then she held it up.

The title was something about Victorian funerary customs.

Lando stared at it.

Victorian.

Funerary.

Customs.

Of course.

Of course Oscar’s silent girlfriend was sitting in the McLaren garage reading about old funeral traditions like that was a normal way to spend a Thursday.

Lando looked at Violet.

Violet looked at Lando.

The silence stretched.

Lando nodded once.

“Cool,” he said.

Then he turned around and walked away.

Oscar watched him return.

“What did you do?”

“I asked what she was reading.”

“And?”

“You’re going to be found dead one day,” Lando said, sitting down heavily, “and I’m going to have to tell the Netflix cameras that I saw the signs.”

Oscar sighed. “Vi is just shy.”

“Oscar, she looks at me like she’s deciding which one of my organs to harvest first.”

“She doesn’t.”

“She does.”

“She told me yesterday she thinks you’re funny.”

Lando paused.

He did not like that.

Somehow, that was worse.

“She said that?”

Oscar nodded.

“Out loud?”

“Yes.”

“With words?”

“Yes, Lando.”

“To you?”

“Yes.”

Lando leaned back in his chair, unsettled.

Because that was the truly disturbing part.

Violet did talk to Oscar.

Lando had seen it.

Not often. Not directly. But enough to know Oscar was not lying.

Violet was silent around everyone else, all stillness and black lace and watchful eyes, but with Oscar, something unlocked.

Oscar would say something completely normal, like, “Do you want tea?” and Violet would look up at him with the softest expression Lando had ever seen on another human person.

Her whole face changed.

The corners of her mouth lifted.

Her shoulders relaxed.

Her eyes warmed.

She would lean toward him like a plant toward sunlight.

And then she would say, “Yes, please,” in the tiniest voice imaginable.

Oscar would smile back at her.

Oscar Piastri.

Smiling.

Like an idiot.

Like a man unaware that love had compromised his survival instincts.

Then Violet would take his hand, and Oscar would let her tangle their fingers together, and Lando would stand there watching in horror because apparently the haunted doll had a favourite person and it was his teammate.

His stupid, emotionally constipated, Australian teammate.

It was terrible.

It was also, unfortunately, fascinating.

Because Oscar understood her.

That was the annoying thing.

Violet could say almost nothing, and Oscar would still know what she meant.

If she looked at the door twice, Oscar would say, “Do you want to go?”

If she touched the inside of his wrist, Oscar would shift closer.

If someone asked Violet a question and she went very still, Oscar would answer smoothly, not over her exactly, but around her, giving her space to join in if she wanted and an exit if she didn’t.

Lando hated how good he was at it.

Mostly because Oscar was terrible at so many other things.

Media banter. Showing enthusiasm on command. Understanding memes quickly enough. Pretending he cared about whatever nonsense Lando had sent him at two in the morning.

But Violet?

Oscar read her like telemetry.

One tiny change in expression, and he knew.

It was disgusting.

One afternoon, Lando watched Violet drift closer to Oscar during a particularly crowded sponsor event. She did not say anything. She just appeared at his side and touched two fingers lightly to his sleeve.

Oscar turned instantly.

Not eventually.

Not after finishing his sentence.

Instantly.

His eyes dropped to her face, and his voice went quieter.

“Too loud?”

Violet nodded once.

Oscar looked at the McLaren staff member they had been talking to. “We’ll be back in a minute.”

Then he put a hand lightly at Violet’s back and guided her out.

No fuss.

No explanation.

No making her ask twice.

Lando watched them go.

Then he looked at the comms person beside him.

The comms person sighed dreamily. “They’re so sweet.”

Lando pointed toward the door. “She didn’t even say anything.”

“And he understood her.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“That’s romantic.”

“That’s surveillance.”

The comms person looked at him strangely.

Lando took a canapé and left.

***

Reason 5: Violet carried a black lace parasol

Violet carried a black lace parasol in the sun.

A parasol.

Not sunglasses.

Not a cap.

Not one of those little handheld fans people bought at tourist shops and then abandoned after five minutes because they realised they were more effort than they were worth.

A parasol.

A black lace parasol.

In the paddock.

In broad daylight.

Lando had seen a lot of things in Formula One. He had seen grown men nearly cry over tyre degradation. He had seen engineers argue with printers. He had seen Daniel Ricciardo commit psychological warfare with nothing but a grin and a well-timed compliment. He had seen Max Verstappen eat an amount of tomato soup that made him question human biology.

But nothing had prepared him for the sight of Oscar’s girlfriend walking through the Monaco paddock beneath a black lace parasol like she was waiting for a funeral procession to begin.

It was sunny. Beautiful, even. One of those annoyingly perfect Monaco afternoons where the sea glittered, everyone’s sunglasses cost more than Lando’s first kart, and the paddock looked like someone had spilled money across a harbour and called it a sport.

And there was Violet.

All in black.

Braids over her shoulders.

Black boots.

Black dress.

Black nail polish.

And the parasol.

Open above her head, lace casting little shadow patterns over her face.

Lando stopped walking so abruptly that a McLaren media assistant nearly walked into the back of him.

“What,” he said.

Oscar, beside him, glanced up from his phone. “What?”

Lando lifted a hand and pointed across the paddock.

He did not mean to point.

Pointing was rude.

But sometimes survival instincts overruled manners.

Oscar followed his gaze.

Violet was standing near the edge of the walkway, half-shielded from the sun, speaking very softly to one of the hospitality staff. Or, at least, Lando assumed she was speaking. Her mouth moved slightly. The staff member leaned in. Violet gestured once with one black-painted hand, delicate and careful, like she was either explaining where to find the coffee machine or issuing instructions for a séance.

Oscar’s face softened.

Obviously.

Because Oscar had no sense of self-preservation.

“She brought the parasol,” he said, sounding pleased.

“The parasol,” Lando repeated.

“Yeah.”

“You say that like that’s a normal sentence.”

“It is.”

“It absolutely is not.”

Oscar looked at him. “It’s for skin protection.”

Lando turned slowly. “Skin protection?”

“She burns easily.”

“She looks like she’s waiting for a funeral procession to start.”

Oscar sighed. “Lando.”

“She looks like she knows where bodies are buried.”

“She volunteers at an animal rescue.”

“That makes it worse, actually.”

“How does that make it worse?”

“Because everyone trusts animal rescue volunteers.”

Oscar stared at him.

Lando leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Exactly. That’s how she gets away with it.”

Oscar’s expression flattened.

It was his I regret introducing you to people face.

Lando knew it well.

“She rescues injured hedgehogs,” Oscar said.

“Classic cover.”

“And kittens.”

“Even more classic.”

“She cried when a three-legged dog got adopted.”

Lando paused.

That information did not fit neatly into the evidence file.

He disliked that.

“How do you know it wasn’t a performance?” he asked.

Oscar blinked.

Then he very slowly put his phone into his pocket, like he needed both hands free to process the idiocy in front of him.

“Because she cried into my hoodie for twenty minutes.”

Lando opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

Oscar lifted an eyebrow.

Lando changed strategy.

“She carried a black lace parasol while doing it?”

“No.”

“Would have helped my case.”

“You don’t have a case. You have anxiety and too much access to horror films.”

“I have evidence.”

Oscar pinched the bridge of his nose.

Lando felt no sympathy. Oscar had brought this into their lives. Oscar had chosen to date a woman who looked like she had strong opinions about moonlight and revenge. Oscar could not now complain that Lando was reacting appropriately.

Someone had to be vigilant.

Because nobody else seemed to understand the threat level.

Zak thought Violet was “lovely.”

This was alarming on several levels, mainly because Zak was a businessman and therefore should have been trained to recognise danger in human form. Instead, he had met Violet once, watched her quietly thank a catering assistant for finding oat milk, and declared her delightful.

Andrea thought she was “very polite.”

Which, again, was exactly what people said about mysterious women in black right before discovering the locked room in the east wing.

“She is very respectful,” Andrea had said, with the calm confidence of a man who had never once considered that politeness could be weaponised.

“She doesn’t speak above a whisper,” Lando said.

“Some people are quiet.”

“Some people are haunted.”

Andrea had smiled, because apparently everyone had decided to be useless.

Max had met Violet once and immediately declared her “adorable.”

Adorable.

Max Verstappen.

Four-time world champion. Professional menace. Man who could detect weakness in a braking zone from three postcodes away.

Adorable.

Lando had stared at him. “Are you serious?”

Max shrugged. “She reminds me of a cat.”

“That is not helping!”

But the most damning betrayal had come from Nicole Piastri.

Oscar’s mum loved her.

Loved her.

Lando had thought Nicole would understand. Nicole was sensible. Warm. Kind. Sharp in the way mothers were sharp, where they could see everything and politely not mention half of it until exactly the worst moment.

Surely Nicole would take one look at Violet’s black lace parasol and wonder whether her son had accidentally become a boyfriend to a haunted governess.

Instead, Nicole took one look at Violet and melted.

Absolutely melted.

It happened in the McLaren garage.

Violet had been standing beside Oscar, one hand holding the folded parasol against her chest, the other tucked into the sleeve of her black cardigan. She looked nervous, which Lando only recognised in hindsight because at the time he had mistaken her stillness for quiet pre-murder composure.

Nicole came in with Chris, bright-faced and happy to see Oscar, and Oscar immediately did that thing where he became slightly less of a robot in the presence of his family.

“Mum,” he said, “this is Violet.”

Violet went very still.

Not murder-still, maybe.

More like someone had turned the volume of the world up too loud and she was trying to remember how her hands worked.

“Hello,” she said softly. “It’s really nice to meet you.”

Nicole’s face did the thing mothers’ faces did when they had decided someone was to be adopted immediately.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Nicole said, and hugged her.

Hugged her.

Without warning.

Lando, watching from a few metres away, genuinely feared for Nicole’s safety.

Violet froze for half a second.

Her eyes went wide.

The parasol was trapped between them.

Oscar shifted, just a little, like he was about to step in if Violet needed rescuing.

But then Violet carefully — very carefully — lifted one arm and hugged Nicole back.

It was stiff at first.

Awkward.

Painfully gentle.

Like she was not used to human affection and might accidentally break someone’s ribs if she got the angle wrong.

Nicole squeezed her anyway.

Violet blinked very fast over Nicole’s shoulder.

Oscar’s face softened so dramatically that Lando wanted to file a complaint.

Everyone cooed.

The mechanics. The media people. Oscar’s dad. Possibly a passing FIA official.

Lando watched from behind a stack of tyres.

Not hiding.

Observing.

There was a difference.

“Mate,” Oscar said, appearing beside him.

Lando nearly died.

“Jesus Christ.”

Oscar looked at him, then at the tyres, then back at him.

“Are you hiding from my girlfriend?”

“No.”

“You are literally crouching.”

“I dropped something.”

“What?”

“My survival instinct.”

Oscar stared at him.

Lando stared back.

Oscar was not holding the parasol, but Lando felt the parasol’s presence looming over them spiritually.

After a long moment, Oscar said, “Violet thinks you don’t like her.”

Lando straightened so fast he nearly hit his head on the tyre rack.

“What?”

Oscar’s expression shifted.

Only slightly.

But Lando knew him. Oscar was not laughing now.

“She thinks you avoid her because you don’t like her.”

Lando looked past him.

Violet was still with Nicole, though the hug had ended. Nicole was holding both of Violet’s hands now, talking animatedly. Violet was listening with her head slightly bowed, cheeks pink, looking entirely overwhelmed and entirely pleased.

The parasol was folded neatly against her arm.

For some reason, Lando felt bad.

Which was irritating, because he had been having a very good time being correct.

“I don’t dislike her,” Lando said.

Oscar’s eyebrow moved.

“I don’t,” Lando insisted.

“You hide behind tyres when she’s around.”

“I avoid her because I think she’s going to kill me.”

Oscar’s face did something complicated.

Mostly, it looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh and slightly trying not to be annoyed and a tiny bit fond despite himself.

“That’s not better,” he said.

“It’s honest.”

“It’s insane.”

“It’s a valid fear.”

“She bakes, Lando. She doesn’t plot your murder.”

Lando narrowed his eyes. “What does she bake?”

Oscar sighed. “Biscuits. Cakes. Brownies.”

“Black ones?”

Oscar stared at him.

“With poison in them?” Lando clarified.

“No, Lando.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I eat them,” Oscar said, with exaggerated patience. “And I am still alive.”

“Exactly. Maybe she’s building your tolerance.”

Oscar pressed his lips together.

It was his little almost-smile. The one he did when he was trying to remain the mature, sensible one in the conversation, which Lando found deeply offensive because Oscar was younger than him and therefore had no right.

“She is not building my tolerance to poison, Lando.”

***

Reason 6: Belladonna

Belladonna.

That was the snake.

The snake.

Oscar’s girlfriend had a snake named Belladonna, and somehow, somehow, everyone expected Lando to behave normally about this information.

(He would not. He could not.)

There were certain things a person could reasonably be asked to accept in life. Flight delays. Media days. Zak Brown appearing with a camera crew and saying, “This’ll be fun,” when it absolutely would not be fun. Oscar Piastri answering heartfelt questions with the emotional range of a toaster.

But Oscar’s girlfriend owning a snake named after a poisonous plant?

No.

That was not something Lando could simply absorb and move on from.

He had found out during what had, until that moment, been a very normal conversation.

A boring conversation, even.

They had been sitting in the McLaren motorhome between sessions. Oscar was in the chair opposite him, scrolling through his phone, one ankle crossed over his knee, face doing that blank Australian thing where he looked like he was thinking about nothing but was probably cataloguing tyre data or silently judging someone’s sandwich choices.

Lando was bored.

This was often when problems began.

Oscar’s phone buzzed.

Oscar looked down.

And then his face changed.

Not dramatically. Oscar’s face did not do dramatic things unless someone had asked him to film TikTok content after a bad qualifying.

But it changed enough.

His mouth softened. His eyes warmed. The corners of his lips moved in a way that was almost a smile, which, for Oscar, was basically him standing on a balcony during a thunderstorm and declaring undying love.

Lando noticed immediately.

Obviously.

“What’s she saying?”

Oscar tilted the phone away. “Nothing.”

“You smiled.”

“So?”

“So that means it’s either about your girlfriend or food.”

Oscar ignored him.

Which meant Lando was right.

Lando leaned farther over the table. “Is she sending you nudes?”

Oscar finally looked up.

Slowly.

With the exhausted expression of a man who had been teammates with Lando Norris for too long and had begun to wonder whether early retirement might actually be peaceful.

“No,” Oscar said.

Lando wiggled his eyebrows.

Oscar’s expression went flatter.

“She sent me a picture of Belladonna.”

Lando froze.

He did not know why he froze.

At that point, he did not yet know what Belladonna was. It could have been anything. A dress. A book. A bakery. A weirdly named candle. Violet seemed like the sort of person who owned candles called things like Mourning Mist or Widow’s Breath.

But something in Oscar’s tone was wrong.

Fond.

Too fond.

Suspiciously fond.

Lando narrowed his eyes.

“…Who is Belladonna?”

Oscar’s face softened again.

“Her snake.”

Lando stared at him.

Oscar stared back.

The room went silent.

Not actually silent. Somewhere nearby, someone was talking into a headset. There was the low hum of machinery, the distant clatter of catering, a laugh from one of the engineers.

But to Lando, everything stopped.

The world narrowed down to Oscar Piastri sitting across from him, holding a phone, looking far too relaxed for a man who had just revealed that his girlfriend had a snake.

“Her what?” Lando asked.

“Her snake,” Oscar repeated.

As if that was normal.

As if that was information you could simply drop into conversation without a warning siren, a safety briefing, and possibly a priest.

Lando slowly sat back in his chair.

“Your girlfriend has a snake.”

“Yes.”

“Named Belladonna.”

“Yes.”

“As in the poisonous plant?”

Oscar shrugged. “She thought it was pretty.”

Lando opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

Nothing came out.

This was rare enough that Oscar should have been more concerned.

“She named her snake after poison, Oscar!”

“She’s not poisonous,” Oscar said. “She’s a ball python.”

“I don’t care what kind of pasta she is.”

Oscar blinked. “Python.”

“Whatever.”

“She’s harmless!”

“That is exactly what someone says before the snake eats their neighbour!”

“Ball pythons don’t eat people.”

“Not with that attitude.”

Oscar sighed.

Deeply.

Annoyingly.

Like Lando was the unreasonable one in this situation.

Then he went back to looking at the photo.

The photo.

Of the snake.

The snake named Belladonna.

Lando stared at him in disbelief. “You’re just going back to the picture?”

“She’s cute.”

“The snake?”

“Yes.”

“The snake named after poison?”

“Yes.”

“You think the snake is cute?”

Oscar turned the phone around.

Lando flinched.

He did not mean to flinch. He was brave in many circumstances. He drove Formula One cars for a living. He had gone wheel-to-wheel with Max Verstappen. He had survived British weather, Twitch chat, and Daniel Ricciardo’s impulse control.

But he was not emotionally prepared for a snake photo.

On the screen was a dark, patterned snake curled around Violet’s wrist.

Only Violet’s hand and forearm were visible. Black sleeve. Black nails. Snake.

Of course.

The snake’s little head was resting near Violet’s thumb, and its tongue was flicking out.

Lando recoiled.

Oscar frowned. “What?”

“It’s looking at me.”

“It’s a photo.”

“It knows.”

“It absolutely does not know.”

“You don’t know what snakes know.”

“I know they don’t understand phone cameras.”

“That’s what they want you to think.”

Oscar stared.

Lando stared back.

Oscar turned the phone back toward himself. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“No,” Lando said, pointing at him. “No, this is a perfectly normal reaction. Your girlfriend owns a snake called Belladonna. That is not a pet. That is foreshadowing.”

“Vi rescued her.”

Lando paused.

He hated when Oscar provided context that made things inconvenient.

“She what?”

“Rescued her,” Oscar said. “Belladonna belonged to someone who couldn’t care for her properly. Violet took her in.”

Lando narrowed his eyes. “That sounds like something a villain says in Act One to make you sympathise with the snake.”

“She was underweight.”

“Oh, don’t do that.”

Oscar looked up. “Do what?”

“Make the snake sad.”

“She was.”

“I don’t want sad snake lore.”

“She had mites.”

“Oscar.”

“She’s much better now.”

Lando pressed both hands over his face.

This was a nightmare.

A snake named Belladonna was bad enough. A rescue snake named Belladonna with a tragic backstory was much worse. Now Lando could not even fully commit to being against her, because apparently she had overcome adversity.

Like a tiny scaly protagonist.

Lando hated his life.

***

Reason 7: Violet didn’t like Sweets

Violet didn’t like sweets.

This, to Lando, was one of the most alarming things about her.

Not the black clothes. Not the braids. Not the black lace parasol. Not even Belladonna, the snake named after poison.

(Well. Maybe Belladonna.)

But the sweets thing was high on the list.

Because Violet refused sweets with the same calm politeness she used for everything else, which somehow made it worse.

Lando had offered her a gummy bear once.

A perfectly normal, friendly, non-threatening gummy bear.

Violet looked at it. Then at him. Then she said, very softly, “No, thank you.”

Lando stared.

“You don’t want one?”

“No, thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

Oscar, without looking up from his phone, said, “Lando.”

“What? I’m asking.”

“She said no.”

“Yes, but she said no to a gummy bear.”

Violet’s cheeks went slightly pink. “I’m okay.”

That was not an explanation.

That was an evasion.

Lando slowly withdrew the gummy bear.

Oscar glanced up then, his expression already flat with warning.

“Don’t,” he said.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re making your thinking face.”

“I don’t have a thinking face.”

“You have several, and this is the stupidest one.”

Lando ignored him and looked at Violet, who was sitting beside Oscar in her black dress, hands folded neatly in her lap, looking like she had never once experienced the joy of eating Haribo in an airport at midnight.

“You don’t like sweets?” Lando asked.

Violet hesitated. “Not really.”

Lando looked at Oscar.

Oscar shrugged. “Vi doesn’t really eat them.”

Lando sat back.

Right.

Of course.

Of course Oscar’s girlfriend didn’t like sweets.

Of course she wore black and had a snake and rejected gummy bears.

“She bakes,” Oscar added, as if that helped.

Lando pointed at him. “That makes it weirder.”

“How?”

“She bakes sweets but doesn’t eat them.”

“They’re not all sweets.”

“What does that even mean?”

Oscar looked at Violet. Violet looked at Oscar.

Something silent passed between them.

Lando hated when they did that.

It felt like being excluded from a secret club where the membership requirements were emotional repression and gothic accessories.

“Vi makes really good lemon biscuits,” Oscar said.

“I know,” Lando said. “I ate twelve.”

“Fourteen.”

“That’s not the point.”

Violet’s mouth twitched.

Lando narrowed his eyes. “See, she finds this funny.”

Violet looked down, smiling into her sleeve.

Later, Lando caught Oscar eating one of Violet’s brownies and immediately pointed at him.

“Aha.”

Oscar paused mid-bite. “What?”

“She does eat sweets. You said she doesn’t.”

“This is mine.”

“She baked them.”

“Yes.”

“For you.”

“Yes.”

“But she doesn’t eat them?”

Oscar blinked. “No.”

Lando leaned closer. “Why?”

Oscar stared at him for several seconds.

Then he said, very slowly, “Because they have eggs and butter in them.”

Lando stared back.

There was a pause.

A long one.

Oscar waited. Lando waited.

The information floated between them.

Then Lando said, “And?”

Oscar closed his eyes.

From across the room, Violet made a tiny sound.

Lando looked over.

She was laughing silently into her hands.

Oscar sighed. “Vi is vegan, mate.”

Lando froze. “Oh.”

Violet’s shoulders shook harder.

Oscar looked at him with deep, personal disappointment.

Lando cleared his throat.

“Well,” he said. “That would explain the gummy bear.”

“Yes,” Oscar said.

“And the brownies.”

“Yes.”

“And the biscuits?”

“She makes vegan ones for herself.”

Lando sat back.

Right.

Fine.

That made sense.

Annoyingly.

Violet finally looked up, cheeks pink, eyes bright with quiet amusement.

“I do like sweets,” she said softly. “Just not yours.”

Oscar snorted.

Jersey waits, steadying the ball and then her tongue pokes out of her mouth as she carefully winds her leg back, grunting with effort as she send the ball back to Nico. It’s only a few feet between them, so the ball doesn’t get a chance to stray off course before he’s toeing it back to her.

“Good touch, Papa!” She cheers, bounding in place impatiently as the ball comes back to her. Nico can’t help but laugh, proud and so endeared by his little girl. Sometimes he can’t believe how big she is now. He used to press his hands into your belly, feel the shape of Jersey’s feet nudge against his palms, kicking fiercely, and he duck to tell her, “hey, no kicking mama.”

Now, those same feet kick the soccer back to him, still a little Bambi-legged, still learning to balance right, but this time he says, “good kick, Jersli!”

She beams at him, dimples in her sun-kissed cheeks and tiny baby teeth stained red from too much watermelon and strawberries (and the sucker he’d given her on the trip over to the lake).

“Like Messi?” She asks, slurring the -s into a -sh, but it’s too adorable for Nico to correct her. She’d just learned about Messi a few weeks ago, curled up on his lap and chewing on Snoopy’s ear as they watch the World Cup. She’d been disappointed to not see red on the field, offended that Nico would watch any game but Suisse, until he told her he watches Argentina for Messi, the best soccer player of all time.

He hated calling it soccer, but living in the States and being around Luke and Jack has confused her. She knows football as the brown ball game they play on Thanksgiving, the one with the pretty cheerleaders that hold glittery pom-poms.

Argentina, she decided, was okay, and then she spent the whole game asking what Messi’s number is. She never remembered, instead asking him if every player in blue and white on the screen was him.

“Just like Messi,” he promises, nudging the ball back to her. Squinting into the sun, he looks over to the lunch setup he’d left you with. It’s only a few feet away, the big picnic blanket and basket of food laid out close enough that he would be able to hear easily if you called for him.

You’ve always been very self-sufficient and capable, but the rounder your belly grows with the newest Hischier baby, the more he wants to hover. He almost missed Jersey’s birth, and he wasn’t around when your water broke or the first contractions hit, wasn’t there to hold your hand and get you to the hospital safely.

This time, he’s determined to do better, even though you’ve never blamed or faulted him for before.

Loose blue jeans and a baby pink t-shirt stretched over your belly, your face is hidden under the baseball hat you’ve got on, but you look perfectly at ease putting together Jersey’s plate, carefully picking items out of the wicker basket he’d snagged from his parents house for this.

Him and Jersey pass the ball a few more times before you look up, face bright and glowy in that way he only saw on you during pregnancy. You’ve always been bright and beautiful, jaw-dropping gorgeous in the way he knows Jersey inherited from you, the way that comes deep from within, but there’s something different about you when you’re creating life everyday.

“Jersey, come eat and cool off, darling.”

Lazily, Jersey kicks the ball back towards the picnic setup, and then skips over to Nico. Her little crochet shorts have grass stains on the butter yellow fabric and she dripped watermelon juice on her white shirt, but she looks like the most perfect mess when she holds her arms up for him. She smiles pleadingly, pink tongue bitten between her teeth. She looks so much like you, radiates the same inner beauty and strength.

It makes his chest ache in the best way.

“Just a sec, my love.” Nico calls back, and instead of picking Jersey up he takes her little hand in his and guides her closer to the lake. She looks up at him in confusion and Nico holds a finger up to his lips. The gesture twists her frown into a mischievous grin. She knows what that finger to the lips means. It’s extra helping of dessert when you pretend to not look. It’s sneaking out the Swiss chocolate he keeps hidden in the kitchen that you pretend to not find.

It’s Nico and Jersey shenanigans.

Crouching down, Nico’s bare knee settles in the damp grass. Jersey doesn’t need to hunch down, but she does anyway, curling into him and squeezing the two fingers she got her fist wrapped around.

“Look,” he points to baby wildflowers peaking out between thick blades of grass, and then he carefully plucks out a yellow one “for mama.”

He picks another, bunching them together and then motioning for Jersey to do the same. He shows her how to grab the stem, reminding her “gentle fingers, baby. Yeah just like that” and then he bunches together the flowers she picks until they’ve got a decent sized bouquet of little wild flowers.

“Pretty, papa” Jersey murmurs, ghosting baby fingers over the pollen center of a flower. He nods his agreement, then plucks an overgrown blade of grass.

“Then you wrap it together,” he explains, showing her how to knot the makeshift tie around the stems of the flowers. The grass splinters a bit, but it holds steady enough that he can hand the flowers to Jersey.

“Go show mama,” he nods back towards the picnic blanket and you, “pretty flowers for our pretty mama, huh?”

Tongue poking out of her mouth, Jersey nods and takes off across the grass to you. Nico rises back to his feet, wiping his grass stained hands off on his shorts. Jersey got a wobbly head start on him, but he manages to catch up to her in just a few steps.

Flowers tucked behind her back, Jersey screeches at you “Mama! Mama! Look!”

You look up at her, hands on your stomach and eyes growing comically wide, clearly selling to the little girl that you have no idea what she might so excited about. Always turning a blind eye to Nico and Jersey shenanigans.

“What is it, darling?”

She stops a couple feet from you, sneakers bunching up the blanket beneath her feet and shows you her hand.

“Look what I learned to do!”

She’s squeezed them a little too tight, the stems crushed and droopy and Nico winces in apology as he sits down behind Jersey. You don’t mind though, smiling wide and gasping with shocked affection.

“Wow, Jers! They’re so pretty!” You carefully take them from her, holding the flowers gently in your hand. “Who taught you that?”

“My daddy!”

His stomach flips with enamor.

“Your daddy? He’s a smart daddy, huh?”

“Uh-huh!”

“What else does your smart daddy teach you?” You ask, catching his eye over Jersey’s shoulder. His face is warm, smile undeniable.

“He teaches me Messi!”

“Wow!” You laugh, and Nico fights back his own amusement “do you love your daddy?”

Jersey hops in excitement, “Yes!”

Then she spins around, leaping into Nico’s lap and kneeing him dangerously close to somewhere that he prefer never be kneed. He hugs her around the wince though, wrapping two strong arms around her whole body as she clings to his neck.

Nico smacks a big kiss to her cheek. “I love you too Jersli,” he swears, then “do you love your mama?”

Jersey nods, stepping all over his thighs. “Love mama.”

“You love the baby too?”

“Yes! Love baby!”

He grins, “what should we name the baby?”

“Messi!”

You groans as he cackles.

“Nico,” you scold, “we are not naming the baby Messi!”

Jersey giggles, two hands grabbing for Nico’s stomach like she’s expecting to find the baby kicking there, “natillas!”

The start of summer is in the air, the weather starting to turn nice—nicer—and you think there’s no better way to kick it off than with a yacht party, this one in particular some kind of post-first wedding, pre-next wedding celebration for Charles and Alexandra. You don’t even know what to call it exactly, long ago having stopped trying to make sense of these things in society like this, so you’re just happy to be here for the occasion and to enjoy it with Lando at your side.

There’s enough free-flowing champagne that some of the guests have moved on from the elegant flutes being passed around on platters to sipping out of entire bottles, but you’ve already had your fill, a couple glasses of it fizzling pleasantly through you. It’s nice, simply talking and laughing without any pressure to be the center of attention or the object of wandering eyes and long camera lenses.  

The deck has become so busy that you’ve shifted over onto Lando’s lap to make space, the seating limited on the yacht chartered to accommodate a crowd like this. A mix of people have come by to join you on the encircled bench seats and deck chairs, flitting in and out of conversation, mostly friends who run in Charles’s other social circles, people you vaguely recognize from the Monaco who look like they just stepped off a fashion runway, a few other drivers and their partners.

It’s so pleasant you’re content to stay out here even while the sky goes fully dark, the lights of the city glittering off the water and the scent of Lando’s cologne mixing with the sea salt air. While there’s really nowhere to go, most people have started to wander off now that the stunning show of the sunset is over, to the bow or inside, down to the lower levels where there’s probably heaps of canapes the size of buttons that probably each cost more than you want to know.   

You get ready to stand up and go explore what else there is, fixing your dress, straightening the straps and tugging down the hem that’s ridden up, wanting to rejoin the rest before you get accused of being antisocial or spending too much time alone with him, but before you can, Lando grabs your waist. 

“Baby,” he groans. “You can’t move.”

“What do you mean?”

He leans his forehead against the juncture of your shoulder, and the subtle shift lets you feel him, hard, through his dress pants.

You can’t help the giggle that rises out of your throat, and Lando gives another pained moan in response.

“How am I not supposed to when you look like that—” You follow the line of his eyes to your chest where your boobs are practically at eye level. “And when you feel like that.” He strokes his thumb across the silk covering your hip.

The lights are dim so it’s probably dark enough, but just in case you reach below the cover of the skirt of your dress, hand hidden to rub over him, and you feel him get even harder beneath the fabric.

“That’s not helping,” he whines.

“Oh?” You scrunch your expression in mock confusion. “What do you think would help?”

He leans his head back on the cushion, the entirety of his thick neck on display, and he swallows so you see the bob of his throat. “Going for a long run. A cold shower. You off in some other country, maybe. For starters.”       

“Well, none of those things really seem like possibilities right now, sooo…” You press your palm into his length to hear him hiss and you grin. It never gets old, the thrill of how his body responds to your touch.

“You have to stop,” he huffs.

“What if I don’t?” You say it teasingly at first, then repeat it again more serious the second time around, and to follow it up you loop your free arm around his shoulders, thread his hair through your fingers, and tilt his head so he looks up at you.

You feel more than hear the groan that catches in his chest—he always likes your hands everywhere, but especially there.

“What if I don’t want to stop?” you whisper against the shell of his ear, and when you pull back, you can see his eyes are dark.

Lando clings to you like you’re the life preserver across the way that’s emblazoned with the long, French name of this boat that you can’t even begin to attempt to pronounce properly. “Yeah?”

There’s a light, floaty feeling swirling through you, not just because of the buoyancy of the boat, so you answer him with reaching up to open another button on his shirt. He already had the top couple undone, not completely indecent, but it borders on it now, at least for the present company.  

It’s gotten chilly since the sun has gone down, but his skin is hot to the touch when you spread your hand across it, feel the thump of his heart. You slowly slide over his chest, lingering on each one of the muscles there, and you let your thumb skim across his nipple on one of your passes, and he sucks in a breath, squirms in response. The wind lifts the material of his shirt so no one will see exactly how you make him feel, but you do, you know, and that makes something molten spark inside you.

His fingers grip your hip, and you can feel the breath of his sigh against your collarbone, and then his lips, dragging kisses, and then his teeth, leaving the slightest indent.  

“Want you,” he says, like it’s not obvious, his voice dropped so low you can barely hear over the breeze.

You nod almost imperceptibly and scan the scene, wonder how you can extricate yourselves without drawing attention, or worse, invite an interruption. Inspired by the lingerers who are doing the same, you pull out your phone, pretend to take some selfies with the glittering city in the background and the ambiance of the low lights.

Then finally, in a lull between groups, you sense an opportunity. “Ready?” you murmur.

And in a second Lando’s up like the five red lights have gone out, your hand in his, dragging you behind him into the darkness under the eaves of the yacht.  

Instead of taking the stairs up to the smaller decks that are presumably more private or down to where you can hear the din of lively chatter, he takes you into the hallway straight ahead. You’re not sure if the first door he opens is to a bedroom or if this yacht even has such a thing or what, but there’s a couple already in there, and he hastily closes it with a quick “sorry” and continues on.

The next one is hardly more than a supply closet, but it’s empty of other inhabitants at least, so it’ll do. You hardly have time to take in the contents beyond a bunch of stacked boxes, some fire extinguishers, and reams of coiled rope before Lando slams the door shut and leans back against it, and you drop to your knees for him in a second.

You wonder if you can do this quickly, take him over the edge he’s already on, go back and rejoin the party, but you know it won’t be that easy—well, easy, maybe, but not that quick since before you do, you know Lando will make sure you get yours too.

He whimpers—actually whimpers—when you unzip his pants and stick your hand down them, wrapping around him, enjoying the feeling of him hard and hot in your hand and a little bit wet already at the tip, and you pull him out all the way, freeing his cock from the layers of his clothes.  

You stroke it a few times until you stick out your tongue and let just the head graze across. His cock jumps at that first touch, and you take it slow, swiping over all the most sensitive places, making everything as wet as you can just like that. You use it to gently slide back the soft skin until you can wrap your tongue around the crown of his cock, and only then do you take him into your mouth.  

It’s no secret he’s big, and you wrap your fingers around the rest you can’t fit. You let him simmer there for a few moments while you adjust until you start to move, coordinating the movements of your hand with each pass of your tongue.

You pull back just enough so you can lick over the slit. Liquid leaks out onto your tongue, a salty burst cutting through the sweetness of the champagne from earlier. You can feel sweat beading at your temples, makeup smearing, and you know you’ll leave here a mess, but it’s worth it for the way he groans. It’s one of your favorite things, when he comes apart for you like this, makes it clear how he wants you so much.

There’s a noise out in the hallway beyond the door, some kind of muffled commotion, and you draw off.

“Don’t tease,” he moans, though given the time and place, you know he also likes that. “Can’t take it.”

You roll your eyes because you know he can, that sometimes games like that only make him want it more, but you don’t let up with your hand, and when things go quiet again, you bend back and take him even deeper than before.  

Lando gathers up your hair and wraps the length of it around his wrist while his other hand is set lower, keeping the zipper part from digging into his balls. You had pulled it up in a sleek ponytail out of practicality, not seeing any sense in wasting time doing any other kind of styling that the sea breeze would muss anyway, and it works for this too.

He doesn’t tug, doesn’t twist you into an angle he wants, and you can tell even though he’s desperate, he’s trying to be good, attempting to avoid thrusting down your throat. It endears you even more to him like always, so you reward him by swallowing him down even deeper before you switch to shallow again, tracing along the vein that runs beneath the underside of his cock.

“Baby, I…”

You look up at him and his head is tipped back against the doorway, chest rising and falling, eyes squeezed shut, and that image alone makes you clench around nothing.

“I’m gonna—where should I—” he breaks off on another gasp.

“That’s okay, I want you to,” you tell him, working your hand faster in the absence of your mouth. “Wanna taste you.”

He whines and his cock throbs in your grasp, and you drop your free hand to cup his balls, to feel them pull up tauter before he comes, spilling long and hot while you don’t let off.  

When you glance up, slowly easing back, he looks wrecked, panting and still hard, and then he blinks his eyes open again. They’re dark, and it takes him a second to focus, but once he does he reaches out to run his thumb along your jaw, across your chin, wiping away the wetness gathered there.

You sway when you stand up, not sure if it’s the motion of the yacht or the desire that’s swirling inside you, and he steadies you with his hands on your hips.

He spins you around and now it’s you pressed up against the door. From here you can hear the ambient noise of the hallway outside, far-away laughter, voices that aren’t so far away, footsteps traipsing up and down the hall, or maybe they’re on the deck above. You can’t be bothered to wonder about that for long, though, because Lando starts kissing down your neck.

“Your turn,” he murmurs, sliding his hands up your sides to palm your breasts.

“Lando—” You cut off on a moan as he strokes his fingers down the inside of your thighs to push them apart. “You don’t have to—we should go back out there—”

“I’m enjoying more in here,” he says, and with a grin, he sinks to his knees and flips up the hem of your dress.   

There’s not nearly enough room for him to fit in the space like you had, but he doesn’t seem to care, and you hope that the way he’s contorting himself won’t ruin his back for the rest of the season.

He doesn’t touch you first to see how wet sucking him made you, doesn’t waste any more time. He shoves your underwear aside and makes his tongue wide on the first swipe, and it’s immediately so overwhelming that your knees nearly buckle, but he holds you up, licks into you and draws you in closer like he can’t get enough.

Pleasure curls through you, and deliriously you wonder if there’s a name for this, like the mile high club but instead out to sea. It’s way, way too logical of a thought to be having right now, so you push it away to focus on the sensations instead—the heat of his mouth when he takes a breath, the way he’s spreading you apart, the scratch of his beard against the soft skin of your thighs.

He adds his fingers, two already because you can definitely take them, and curls them a bit since he knows what you like. Only then does he go for your clit, sucking on it then sliding off when it becomes too much, smearing your wetness around your folds, repeating that cycle in turn, each pass of it making you more insane.

“Oh, fuck, Lando,” you sigh, or at least you think you do, not even really sure what you’re saying anymore. You know that there’s no way if anyone overhears you that they’ll have any doubt about what you’re doing in here, but you can’t bring yourself to care about that either, especially not when he reaches up to grab your hand and presses it into his hair.  

Lando glances up at you from beneath his eyelashes, watching your reactions, and you also know he’s a sucker for the validation, so you encourage him on, telling him how good it feels and how you can’t get enough of him, and when your words fail, you let your gasps and moans do the job instead.

His fingers sliding in and out of you make a squelching sound, which would almost be embarrassing except it’s drowned out by Lando’s groans when he laps up the rest with his tongue, the vibrations reverberating through your body. You can feel him using the tip of it to circle the base of his fingers where they press into you, focusing on the seam of where they disappear into your cunt.

He moves higher again, adding gentle pressure on your clit with his thumb, pressing harder in circles, and that’s it, right there, and you concentrate on that feeling and how it seems to coil, layering itself when he doesn’t let up on keeping the same rhythm, how between your legs everything feels full and hot and slick, and then you’re coming against his tongue, squeezing around his fingers, thighs shaking, and this time you have to use your hold in his hair and the door behind you to stay upright.  

The feeling fades slowly, and he waits for it to fully wind down, taking his time easing away and pulling his fingers free, and when he does, he sticks them in his mouth and groans.  

“So much better than that champagne out there,” he moans and wipes them on the expensive material of his dress pants, and somehow both those things make the flush rise on your cheeks more than anything else this evening.  

Still, once you disentangle yourself from him, you try to put yourself back together, or as much as you can while acknowledging your hair’s a lost cause and you’ve probably sweated through the silk of your dress. Maybe a trip up to the higher decks where the wind might have picked up in your absence can give you some plausible deniability.

It’s completely unfair that Lando looks hardly worse for the wear tucking himself back into his pants, still not yet all the way soft. He leaves the buttons on his shirt the way you opened them, tan skin and the faintest wisp of hair there on display, and he scrubs a cursory hand through his hair, but if anything, you’re pretty sure your fingers had rearranged his curls into an even more natural style.

You wait till it seems reasonably quiet outside to open the door, but before you can enter the hall, Lando’s hands, with his quick reflexes, reach out to grab you.  

The door across the way creaks open at the exact same time, and Alexandra and Charles, lipstick smudged across him, peek out.  

You look them up and down and they do the same to you, and you should probably offer some kind of apology or come up with an excuse, but all you can do is laugh.

Charles clears his throat. “We won’t tell anyone if…?”

“Deal,” Lando says from behind you.

“Not going to shake on it, mate,” Charles smirks, and you’re pretty sure he’d add on a wink if he was able to.  

“It’s a really lovely party,” you finally manage to find your voice. “Congratulations again.”