#exlovers

“Yeah now you are showering with MTV invitations,” Daniel joked shaking his head. It was true that their socials hardly ever combined being from two different fields. The only time they had, he had kept himself at a distance, one of the firsts events he had been invited with Kelly. And though he had seen her get up stage to receive an award he had hardly been near her. “I mean I imagined you were somehow avoiding her at the beginning – don’t we all?- , but I thought you had heard the songs and maybe they touched a bit too close home”.

“I wouldn’t know, I’ve heard some, the more popular ones, but well…” he admitted nodding, rubbing his face frustrated. “There’s this little moment when we go to the states … you know they always like to invite as many stars possible or bring someone for an event or two that I think she might come, but … it hasn’t been the case”. He understands now the mixture of dread, relief and disappointment he would usually feel when they gave him the program – the only one he would ask with time in advance for the whole year. 

“Well, what do you expect?” Daniel counters. “I doubt she would just drop to see how you are, if she doesn’t know she’s welcome. I could ask Geri…” Max’s eyes double in size.

“Are you fucking nuts?” he snaps. “And I what, introduce her to Kelly?”

“I’m not saying that, idiot,” the aussie snaps back quickly. “Talking about Ms Piquet… what’s the deal between you?” Max shrugs.

“We are ok, I guess,” Max mumbles, eyes focused on his drink.  

“Really?” Dani scoffs. “Heidi said she didn’t think so”. Max looks up and they battle for some minutes before he sighs in defeat.

“She wants a kid, I’m trying to ..” Max huffs and rubs his face. “Avoid the conversation? The subject all together?”

“Mate,” Dani begins but Max glares and his stops.

“I know,” Max concedes. “I have to talk to her”.  They drank in silence for some minutes, not sure how to continue.

“It’s been what four years?” Max looks up confused. “Since you broke up with her,” he begins, scratching his moustache. “Maybe the whole pending conversation one front is making you see others that might not have been as closed as you liked? As many psychologists I follow on Instagram, perhaps some self – sabotage?”

“Maybe,” Max replied shrugging, another old fashion gulp. He winced at the bitter taste. “I just…” He begins but doesn’t find the words. “Sometimes I think about what could have been if I hadn’t…”

The doorbell rings repeatedly, probably Lando arriving two hours after being summoned.

“Lando doesn’t know right?” Daniel checks as he walked to his front door. Max shakes his head and Daniel makes signs of zipping his lips.

“Hello bros!” Lando greets giving a high five to Daniel who receives it with half of his enthusiasm.

“We were about to fall asleep,” Max replied dryly.

“That’s because you’re old old men, it’s like ten for crying out loud!” Lando cheekily replies. “Old fashion?” he asks once he approaches the improvised bar. “See? Old old men!” he announces victorious. “Where’s the vodka?” Daniel sighs, avoiding quoting ‘too old for this shit’. He pulls out a bottle he gained from Mazepin a few years back that one smell could knock you down.

“Comes with warning,” he explains seriously, taking out small crystal shot glasses.

“Well, what are we celebrating?” Lando questions as he serves generous portions for the three small glasses, taking a curious sniff before buffing. “Fuck, this is strong!” Daniel nods in remembrance.

“Celebrating?” He returns.

“Yeah! Did Max get renovated for 20 years, even if they have to chain him to the car?” The youngster adds gathering courage for the shot. He takes it quickly, wincing and airing his tongue. “Damn!” he manages to screech. Daniel hoots, Max joins him, less thrilled, shaking his head and playing with the brim of the small shot.

“Nop,” Max offers. “We are just being old men reminiscing the good old days,” he continues as he considers taking the shot, but finally pushing it away. It’ll be difficult to explain to Kelly why he arrives drunk home when he has a debrief early in the morning. It will be worse to explain to Christian.  

“Gosh, reminiscing, what an old thing to say,” Lando says jokingly. “Anyways what could you be reminiscing about? World champion for the second time and the season is not over,” He raises one finger as he continues to number “…great car – if the rumours are true, and you can tell me I’d only tell everyone at McLaren – Kelly’s smoking…. Her personality evidently is very importante and she’s just not a body- hello?, should I continue?” he rambles not paying attention to Max’s glare or Daniel trying to hide his snickering.

Silence takes place as Lando steals Max’s shot, cursing in low breath at his pour choices, while Daniel joins with his shot.

“Dudes,” Lando begins in his very best American accent. “If distraction is what’s needed, and vodka is rejected,” shot glass nodded in Max’s direction. “I shall have to follow one of the bests distractors known to modern society… gossip!” He climbs one of the stools, refreshing everyone’s drink quickly.

“Paddock gossip?” Daniel wonders wriggling his eyebrows.

“Nah, that shit is dead now,” Lando rejects quickly, stabilizing over the stool. “I should probably have something to eat with this… I’m starting to get dizzy,” he stumbles out of his chair grabbing the first bag of chips he finds.  He takes a handful and tries to eat them all in a bite. It takes more minutes of awkward silence while Max and Daniel wait for him to resume what he knows. He swallows exaggeratedly taking a small sip of the glass closest to him – Max’s watered down old fashion-. “So, as I was saying, did you watch Anna Pearsons’ documentary last night?”

Before he said this, Daniel had mimicked the young driver and had his mouth full of chips, that he half spit when Max’s ex’s name came to the table.

“Hear me out! Hear me out!” Lando continued quickly misunderstanding Daniel’s reaction. He took out his phone and began browsing his phone quickly “I didn’t watch it only because she’s hot! Which of course she is, I would say yes even if she only wanted me to follow her around to give her bottles of water. She’s one of the biggest song writers active right now, has broken many records and she’s in all an important character of our generation!” Max gives him a look that he once again misunderstands. “OK ok, but I think she will be! And look look!” Remote in hand he turned on the tv now in synch with his phone to immediately put a talk show neither Daniel nor Max recognized.

Max had not seen the rest of the documentary the day before, Penelope had woken from her nap and he had been playing with her for some of the afternoon while Kelly left with some friends for dinner leaving them for an early night. She had joked with him that he had to wait for her for them to finish it together. He had nodded with no intention of following through. He had no intention of finishing it, not pleased with the pitch in his stomach that had taken residence in his chest since he had first seen Anna on TV. It had taken him years to stop feeling the knot after they had broken up, he felt incredibly weak and stupid for feeling like this over an exposee of his ex-girlfriend. What would his father think.

“And also, apparently she’s single!” Lando added pressing play, breaking Max’s thoughts. “Was it this one?” Lando muttered to himself.  

“I mean she wrote to him what’s probably the most romantic album of our generation! Am I supposed to believe that love exists after this?” A young commentator said in disbelief. There are about six people seating in a room, most of them younger than Lando, only a women in her forties is at the middle acting like some sort of moderator.

“How could he do this to her?” Another asks.

“Men are assholes!”

“Wait! Wait,” an older female reporter interrupts the talk. “No one has said who left who, we only know that Roberto waited ‘til the end of the first part to be dropped before saying anything, which yes is a little sketchy” she tried to reason. “We don’t have anything that says what happened between them, Ms. Pearson’s team has not given any statement. There will be no crucifiction of character while I’m on the show”.

An image of Anna wrapped around a tall, wide brunet came up. “--- in fact, this is the only official confirmation we ever had they were even together”. A series of no more than ten photos of her and tall dark and handsome apparently actor showed consecutively through the back of the show. It ends with a capture of an Instagram post that reads something along the lines they had broken  up and the asked for the press to leave them alone. Dani snorted besides him.

“It is so douchy! They have never talked to the press about them and now he gives a f** (a bleep interrups) communicate without sharing it with her first?”

“We still don’t know if they talked it previously!”

“I mean she wrote songs that we call classics!” The first of the commentators returns to attack.

“Even if they were not for him, even if as she says she inspires from many situations not only one love, dude we are talking about the girl who sang the Can’t help falling in love rendition not breaking eye contact with him,” Another interrupts.

“He was the actor hired for the rendition, of course she had to stare at him!” Another counteracts.

“Rumours say they had been together as far as 2019,” A snort scaped Max, because that little he knew wasn’t true. “So even Last Kiss could be his!”

“And she was the one who made them hire him!”  The older reporter’s face revealed to feel the chat was going out of control, keeping herself out of the latest exchange of opinions when Lando stops it.

“This one isn’t helpful,” He mutters as he checks another video. “I saw a good one yesterday that spilled all the dish!”

“I loved this album because I gave myself the licence to write from different perspectives, to return to my beginnings,” Anna’s voice comments as a photo of a girl – her – no older than 10 was in a big desk writing away. “I used to write stories before I wrote songs and now, I feel this album is honouring that”. She raises from the chair and the camara gives a bigger plane of where she is. A quick assistant hands her a guitar once again. “This is an old one, but a good one…” She begins strumming.  

“We were in the backseat,

Drunk on something stronger than the drinks in the bar…”

 “This one is good,” Lance muttered in drunken appreciation. She kept playing in the back, camara closing the frame around her face and the top of the guitar.

“I hope I never loose you,

I hope it never ends,”

“Lando?” Dani interrupts, half amused looking at the younger pilot’s infatuated face and noticing Max was paying attention too closely at his ex as if she had been in his living room instead of his TV. Lando hummed confirming he was listening. “What’s the dish?”

“Oh she’s probabily going to be main artists in one of the F1 european stops,” Lando rambled breaking the spell of the situation.

“What?”  Max splutters.

“Yeah probably second half of next season,” He continues. “Apparently they are backing her to some old contract they had with the company that represents her”.

“Oh!” Daniel huffed. “I doubt after the last time she would be so willing to come back”.

“You are old! She came like four years ago, apparently it was a two-year contract that she summoned some clause to break it, they have been delaying and she only has ‘til next year before penalties”.  

“Maybe she prefers the penalties?” Daniel snickered not missing Max’s face at the news. Lando however drunk he was, his eyes narrowed information being processed.

“What do you mean?”

Max openly glares at Daniel.

“What happened?” Lando continued skipping between both older drivers to see if something scaped. Then he got lucky, Max was avoiding staring at him and Daniel was having a field day. “It’s not like you two …. Dated right?” Then Dani couldn’t hold it anymore and burst out laughing. Max’s face was all Lando needed for confirmation. “Nooooo!” He cried almost falling from the stool. “How the fuck did no one know?” Lando’s eyes seemed ready to pop outside. “Shakira has barely showed twice and we all knew she and Lewis are a thing”.  

“It’s not like no one knows, it was winter break, we ar- were very discreet and … Christian knows, Dani knew,” Max shrugged, knot tight. “It didn’t last long”.

“You fucking bastard!” Lando cried slapping Max on the back not sure if congratulating him or in envy, taking a quick shot. “Dani dude, you can’t have shit like this at home!” He turned to Dani sniffing the half empty bottle with fake disgust.