#f12025

Chapter 2. Telemetry

Lewis stepped out of the sim room, stretching his arms. The vibrations from the session still echoed through his body. Charles was standing by a nearby screen, reviewing telemetry and comparing their lines. He looked up when Lewis approached.

“The car feels weird,” Charles said immediately, preoccupied.

Lewis raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think that?”

Charles sighed, running a hand through his hair. “It's slow, Lewis.”

Lewis frowned. “Slower than last year’s car?”

Charles nodded. “For sure. It’s hard to say where we really are until pre-testing in Bahrain. But right now… it doesn’t feel like we’re anywhere special.”

Lewis leaned over the screen, studying the telemetry briefly. “The car is completely different from what I’m used to. Feels like driving under entirely different regulations. The balance is weird, the PU response is… I don’t know… jagged? It’s like it doesn’t want to be driven your way.”

Charles gave a small, sympathetic shrug. “Yeah. Ferrari’s power unit is light-years away from Mercedes’. You’ll get the hang of it. Sooner or later. It’s just a matter of understanding what it wants from you, how it communicates through the wheel.”

“It's maddening the way this factory can produce the best road cars in the world and then do the shittiest job ever with F1 cars.” Charles sighed after a moment. “The hypercar for the WEC? Best thing I've ever seen. The new GT prototype? Even better.” 

Lewis looked up from the data, half-amused, half-curious.

“The GT prototype?”

Charles nodded toward the far end of the building. “Yeah. They brought it in last week, something they’re calling the 499 Evo GT. Proper beast. I saw it on track at Fiorano two days ago when I was finishing my fitness session.” He smiled faintly, a rare flicker of pride cutting through his usual frustration. “It’s stunning. Sounded like old Ferrari, raw, loud, angry. You’d love it.”

Lewis’s expression softened.

"It supposed to be their halo car for GT. Faster through corners than the 296 GT3, more stable under braking. The drivers say it’s closer to an F1 car than anything they’ve built for the track.”

"I saw it. Read the telemetry from the test they did. Talked to the driver." Lewis said.

"You mean Giulia?” Charles’s brows lifted, a small grin tugging at his mouth. “You talked to Giulia?”

Lewis shrugged, playing it off. “Only for a minute. She was coming in as I was heading out of the paddock. Didn’t realize who she was at first, just saw her pull in, helmet off, full focus. Didn’t even look at anyone.”

“That sounds about right,” Charles said with a laugh. “She’s intense. Proper racer. Doesn’t care who’s watching.”

Lewis leaned back against the console, arms folded. “I could tell. The way she handled the car - clean, precise. You can see it in the data. Late braking, smooth steering inputs, doesn’t overwork the tires. She’s confident, but not reckless.”

“Mm,” Charles nodded, scrolling through a line of telemetry. “That’s her style. Aggressive where it counts. She’s been with Ferrari since she was a kid. Academy, GT4, GT3 - always red. Never wanted to drive anything else.”

Lewis smiled faintly. “Loyal. That’s rare.”

Charles shot him a sidelong glance. “You’re finding that out now, huh?”

Lewis chuckled under his breath, shaking his head. “Yeah. Guess I am.”

For a moment, silence settled between them - only the hum of computers and faint echoes of engines from Fiorano filling the air. Then Lewis pushed off the console, glancing toward the frosted windows overlooking the track.

“She’s testing again today, right?”

Charles arched a brow, already amused. “Maybe. Why?”

Lewis grinned. “Just curious.”

Charles gave him a knowing look, arms crossing over his chest.

“Curious, huh? That’s what you say before trying the simulator at half power and scaring the engineers.”

Lewis laughed, that low, easy laugh that always disarmed tension. 

Charles shook his head, smiling despite himself. “And I’m guessing your curiosity involves a walk down to Fiorano, doesn’t it?”

Lewis just smirked. “If I happen to be around while a certain car’s on track, that’s just coincidence.”

“Of course,” Charles said dryly. “Completely innocent.”

He turned back toward the telemetry, pretending to focus, but Lewis could see the hint of a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“You should come,” Lewis added, tone half teasing, half serious. “We could both learn something. Might even steal a few aero ideas from the GT team.”

Charles exhaled through his nose, still scanning the data. “You go ahead. I’ll stay here and try to understand why our car behaves like a nervous cat under braking.”

Lewis clapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t be too hard on it. Maybe it just needs someone to whisper to it in Italian.”

That earned him a short laugh from Charles. “If that’s the case, you’re hopeless.”

Lewis grinned and turned for the door, the faintest hum of an engine already drifting in from the test track outside. It was deeper than the shriek of an F1 car, richer, layered with a kind of fury that came from muscle, not electronics.

He paused just before stepping out, glancing back at Charles.

“I’ll let you know if curiosity kills the cat,” he said with a wink.

Charles didn’t look up from his screen. “It’s not her I’m worried about, mate. It’s you. You might be Lewis Hamilton, but she's… on another planet.”

Lewis chuckled under his breath and pushed the door open, the sound of the GT car swelling around him as he walked toward the track.

The air outside the simulator building was crisp, tinged with the faint metallic scent of fuel and burnt rubber. Somewhere beyond the cypress line, the track was awake - a deep, throaty growl slicing through the stillness of Maranello.

Lewis followed the sound, hands in the pockets of his team jacket. It had been a few weeks since that first visit to the GT garage - that unscripted detour that led him to her. Giulia Moretti. Ferrari GT driver, confident, sharp-tongued, with eyes that looked straight through him. 

He’d replayed that moment more than once - her voice, the faint smudge of grease on her cheek, the way she’d spoken to her engineers as if the car was an extension of her body. There was something about her energy that had stuck.

Now, the same engine note that had drawn him in once before was calling again.

When he reached the paddock, the 499 GT Evo was just flying past the main straight - low, red, alive. The sound of it vibrated through his ribs. A few mechanics were watching from the pit wall, heads tilted in quiet admiration.

Lewis leaned on the railing beside them. “She’s running it again?” he asked casually.

One of the engineers glanced at him, recognition flickering in his expression. “Ah, Mr. Hamilton. Yes. Giulia wanted another session before the rain comes. She’s pushing today.”

“I can tell,” Lewis said, eyes tracking the car as it braked hard into the chicane. Smooth, minimal correction, back on throttle before the apex. “She’s quicker than last time I saw her.”

The engineer smiled. “She found something in the balance setup yesterday. Said she could feel more rotation mid-corner.”

Lewis nodded, impressed. “She knows what she’s talking about.”

“Oh, always,” the man said proudly. “She doesn’t like being told what the car feels like, she’ll tell you.”

Lewis chuckled softly. “Sounds familiar.”

Moments later, the GT roared back into the pits, slowing to a halt right in front of them. Mechanics rushed in, and Giulia killed the engine, the sudden silence almost jarring after the chaos of the lap. She pulled off her gloves, tossed them onto the dash, and unstrapped her helmet.

Her hair was pulled back today, but a few strands had escaped, curling slightly with sweat. She stepped out of the cockpit, her movements brisk and focused, no wasted gestures.

Lewis didn’t move, just watched as she immediately dove into feedback with her engineers. Rapid Italian. Hand gestures. The car was still ticking hot behind her.

Then, mid-sentence, she noticed him, standing there with that half-smile of his, arms folded, quietly watching.

For a moment, her expression didn’t change. Then, the faintest smirk tugged at her lips.

“Back again?” she called over, switching to English effortlessly.

Lewis shrugged, his tone easy. “Couldn’t resist. I thought I’d see how the best in Maranello does it.”

She raised a brow. “Flattery doesn’t work here, Hamilton.”

He grinned. “Good. I’d rather earn it.”

Giulia handed a clipboard to one of her engineers, then walked over, stopping just short of him. Close enough for him to catch the faint scent of fuel and leather clinging to her.

“You really do have a thing for showing up uninvited, don’t you?” she said, folding her arms.

Lewis tilted his head. “Depends on who’s worth showing up for.”

She rolled her eyes, but he saw the flicker of amusement there.

“You’re supposed to be working with the Formula 1 team,” she said.

He smiled. “I am. But sometimes the interesting stuff happens outside the sim room.”

Giulia shook her head, a small laugh escaping her. “You’re impossible.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly, “but at least I’m consistent.”

For a brief moment, she just looked at him -  steady, unreadable - before turning back toward her car.

“Come on, then,” she said. “You’re here. Might as well make yourself useful.”

Lewis blinked. “Useful?”

She smirked over her shoulder. “You know how to read telemetry, don’t you?”

He laughed, following her into the garage. “I might’ve picked up a few things over the years.”

Giulia handed him a tablet, the screen already glowing with telemetry traces - lap deltas, brake pressures, cornering, throttle maps.

“Here,” she said, her tone clipped but not unfriendly. “Lap twenty-seven. The rear started to slide mid-exit in Turn 8, but the data says balance was stable. See what you think.”

Lewis studied the lines for a moment, scrolling with his thumb. He tilted the screen toward her. “It’s not balance. Look here - throttle pickup. You’re feeding it in perfectly, but the torque map’s giving you a late spike. The hybrid assist is kicking a split-second too aggressively.”

Giulia leaned closer to see, one hand braced against the desk. “You think it’s mapping, not tires?”

“Yeah,” he said. “If it was rear temps, you’d feel it gradually. This -” He pointed to the small jagged line on the graph “- this hits you like a punch mid-exit. Pure software behavior.”

She exhaled, a small laugh under her breath. “You really do know how to read telemetry.”

“Told you,” he said, smirking. “Picked up a few things.”

One of the engineers glanced between them, clearly amused, but decided to keep out of it. He walked off to adjust something on the laptop station.

Giulia watched the graph a moment longer, then looked at Lewis. “You noticed that from the sound?”

He nodded. “Partly. You can hear when a car doesn’t want to cooperate.”

She studied him for a second, her expression unreadable. “You sound like someone who’s been fighting one.”

He smiled wryly. “You could say that.”

Their eyes met for a beat too long - long enough for the hum of the cooling fans and the tick of the cooling engine to fill the space between them.

Then she broke the silence, turning back to the data. “Alright, so if it’s the mapping, I can talk to Matteo about a softer curve. I don’t want it neutered - just predictable.”

“Predictable’s overrated,” Lewis said. “You want a car that talks back a little.”

Giulia looked up at him again, brow arched. “You like arguments, huh?”

He grinned. “Only the kind that ends with me winning. In one way or another.”

She laughed quietly - the first time he’d heard the sound from her. It wasn’t loud, but it was warm, real. “You’re definitely not a GT driver.”

“Not yet. But I could be,” he teased.

Giulia shook her head, handing the tablet back to one of the engineers. “Careful, Hamilton. That sounded suspiciously like interest.”

He leaned against the desk, arms folded, that familiar half-smile tugging at his lips. “Maybe it is.”

She held his gaze for a moment, then turned toward the car again, her tone soft but measured. “GT racing’s not F1. It’s slower, dirtier, harder. You don’t get glory for perfection here - you earn it in the corners no one’s watching.”

“I think that’s exactly why I like it,” Lewis said quietly.

That caught her off guard. Her eyes softened - just slightly - before she looked away again.

“Maybe,” she said, “you just miss the feeling of starting over.”

He didn’t reply. But she was right.

Lewis stayed a while longer. He didn’t really need to - his sim session was done for the day - but he found himself drawn to the quiet rhythm of the GT garage. It was less formal than F1, less polished. People talked, laughed, and cursed. There was life in the air.

Giulia leaned against the desk beside him, scrolling through another set of data on the tablet. “You really don’t have to help with this, you know,” she said without looking at him.

“I know,” he replied easily, “but I want to.”

She gave him a sideways glance, as if trying to figure out whether he was serious. When she saw that he was, she passed him the tablet again. “Fine. Look at lap 32. The rear left was sliding under braking.”

He studied the lines for a moment, frowning slightly. “Trail-braking a little too deep,” he murmured. “You’re trying to keep the load balanced through turn-in, but it’s fighting you.”

They fell into a quiet moment, comfortable, surprisingly so. The garage was still buzzing around them, but it felt like they’d carved out their own small space within it.

“So,” she said after a beat, “you mentioned something earlier about your sim run. The F1 car is not feeling right?”

Lewis nodded, exhaling. “Yeah. The SF-25. It’s… I'm not connecting with it. I can’t find rhythm. The front end’s too light, and the rear feels dead until it snaps. It doesn’t respond the way the data says it should. Like I’m fighting the car instead of working with it.”

Giulia crossed her arms, listening intently. “That sounds frustrating.”

“It is. You spend years learning a car until it becomes an extension of you - then suddenly, you start from scratch. Different power delivery, different feel through the steering, new people, new everything. It’s like…” He paused, searching for the right word. “Like learning to speak again in a language you thought you already knew.”

Giulia was quiet for a moment. Then she said softly, “I get that. You lose your rhythm, your confidence. You start doubting things that used to be instinct.”

He looked at her. “Yeah. Exactly that.”

She gave him a small smile, one that didn’t feel forced. “It comes back, though. Eventually. But only if you stop trying to make the car what it was. You have to let it tell you what it is.”

Lewis studied her face for a second, genuinely impressed. “You sound like someone who’s been there.”

“I have,” she said simply. “Every time I change cars. Every time someone tells me I need to ‘adjust.’ They don’t get it — driving isn’t adjusting. It’s understanding. The car always tells you who it is. You just have to listen.”

Lewis smiled faintly. “You really love this, don’t you?”

Giulia’s eyes flicked toward the car — still cooling under the dim lights. “I don’t know if it’s love or addiction. Maybe both.”

“That sounds about right,” he said quietly. “I used to think I drove because I loved it. Now I’m starting to think I love it because I don’t know who I am without it.”

Giulia looked at him for a moment longer, the air between them still. “That’s the most honest thing I’ve heard anyone say about racing,” she said.

He chuckled softly. “You spend enough nights staring at a ceiling after losing a race - or a championship, and you start thinking about things differently.”

She smiled again, not a racing smile, not polite, but something warmer, sadder. “Well, for what it’s worth,” she said, “you don’t sound like someone who’s lost. You sound like someone who’s still listening.”

He tilted his head slightly, his eyes holding hers. “Maybe I just needed to hear the right frequency.”

Their eyes met again, the hum of the fans and the faint ticking of the engine filling the silence between them. Neither said anything for a few seconds.

Finally, Giulia pushed off the desk, straightening. “You should probably get back before someone wonders where you’ve disappeared to.”

He smiled. “Probably.”

But he didn’t move. He studied her for a moment. The realization of how drawn to her he was feeling dawned on him. For a moment he forgot everything else. Her dark brown eyes were everything he saw.

Then, the bubble exploded the same way it had formed, with the low, loud rumble of an engine coming to life. Giulia looked away first, shouting in Italian something about treating her baby right.

Lewis smirked as Giulia slipped her gloves back on, the sound of velcro snapping breaking the tension between them. She moved toward the car with that same natural confidence, unhurried, but sharp, as if the machine were already listening to her footsteps.

Lewis watched her climb in, every motion smooth and practiced, no hesitation anywhere. The harness clicked into place, her visor dropped, and just like that, she was gone again, swallowed by purpose.

He stayed where he was, arms crossed, the heat from the exhaust washing over him as the 499 GT Evo rolled out of the garage. The deep growl of the engine filled the space, reverberating off the walls.

The sound didn’t just echo, it lingered.

He found himself smiling without meaning to. There was something magnetic about the way she switched so seamlessly from calm, collected precision to unrestrained aggression the second the wheels touched the asphalt.

“She’s something else, huh?” one of the engineers said beside him.

Lewis didn’t look away from the pit wall. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Something else.”

They both watched as the red car hit the first corner, low and alive, the rear twitching before settling. She was pushing it already, no warm-up, no hesitancy. Pure instinct.

“She always drives like that?” Lewis asked.

“Only when she’s showing off,” the man replied with a grin. “She knows you’re still here.”

Lewis huffed a small laugh, though part of him wondered if that was true. Maybe she was just being herself and maybe that’s what made it impossible to look away.

He leaned against the rail, eyes following every corner she took. There was a rhythm to her driving, not mechanical, but emotional. It wasn’t perfection for perfection’s sake; it was expression. Every brake, every throttle input, every correction felt personal.

By the time she pulled back in, the air was thick with the smell of burnt rubber and fuel.

Giulia climbed out, breath heavy, hair clinging to her temple. She pulled off her gloves with her teeth, tossed them onto the car, and turned toward the engineers.

Her smile was small but triumphant. “Better,” she said in Italian, “but she still doesn’t like the low-speed corners.”

Lewis stepped closer, catching her words, her tone, the energy radiating off her.

She noticed him again — that flicker of awareness sparking between them. “You stayed,” she said, almost surprised.

“I said I wanted to learn,” he replied.

Giulia smirked, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “Learn, or watch?”

“Maybe both.”

She gave a soft laugh, shaking her head. “You really are curious, huh?”

He smiled, that quiet, measured kind of smile that never revealed too much. “You have no idea.”

For a moment, she just looked at him, the kind of look that says I’m not sure if I should take that as a challenge or a warning.

“Then maybe next time,” she said, turning back toward the car, “you’ll bring your own helmet.”

He raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Are you offering me a drive?”

Giulia grinned. “Not yet. You’ll have to earn that.”

And before he could respond, she handed the helmet to a mechanic and walked off toward the changing rooms, leaving only the echo of her laugh and the smell of burnt fuel behind.

Lewis stood there a while longer, the faint trace of a smile still tugging at his lips.

She was under his skin now and he knew it.

MEET THE CHARACTERS

Max Verstappen 09/30/1997 Dutch-Belgian Red Bull Racing F1 Team Driver/ Four-time World Champion

"All that I did to try to undo it

All of my pain and all of your excuses

I was a kid but I wasn't clueless

Someone who loves you wouldn't do this"

Rosemary Hall 06/12/1999 British Sport Journalist

"She ain't got no money

her clothes are kinda funny

her hair is wild and free

oh but love grows

where my Rosemary goes

and nobody knows like me"

SOUNDTRACK

Max's Playlist

Family Line - Conan Gray

Matilda - Harry Styles

Call Your Mom - Noah Khan

Daddy Issues - The Neighbourhood

FE!N - Travis Scott (feat. Playboi Carti)

Von Dutch - Charlie XCX

Swim - Chase Atlantic

Rosemary's Playlist

Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) - Edison Lighthouse

Rumor Has It - Adele

Hit The Road Jack - Ray Charles

Is It Love - Loreen

Break My Heart - Dua Lipa

Iris - The Goo Goo Dolls

Satellite - Harry Styles

Max and Rosie's Playlist

Love Of My Life - Harry Styles

The Alchemy - Taylor Swift

Thinking Out Loud - Ed Sheeran

There You Are - ZAYN

Valentine - 5 Seconds Of Summer

Dress - Taylor Swift

ACT 1

ACT 2

ACT 3

ACT 4

Chapter 5. Wanting

Giulia felt it before she ever admitted it to herself.

It was small things at first.

The way her pulse shifted gears every time he walked into a room.

How she became hyper-aware of her own body whenever he stood near her, like her skin registered him before her mind did.

Lewis moved quietly, but she always knew when he was close.

A shift in the air. A warmth at her back. The faint scent of something clean and sharp, expensive cologne layered over engine oil and a day spent in the garage.

Her blood reacted faster than her thoughts, spiking in her throat, her chest, the tips of her fingers.

He didn’t do anything on purpose.

That was the problem.

He treated her differently, not because he treated her special, but because he treated her seriously.

She had spent her whole career navigating rooms where men either underestimated her or overcompensated to hide that they had.

Lewis did neither.

He spoke to her like a driver.

Asked her questions like a colleague.

Listened to her as if her opinions weren’t optional, they were essential.

And that alone made something in her tighten.

After Japan, when the team returned to Maranello for a short reset before the Middle East races, she found herself in the simulator room late at night. Reviewing telemetry. Re-running scenarios. Trying to figure out how to give them an edge in a season already slipping through their fingers.

She didn’t hear him enter.

But she felt him.

A quiet step behind her, the shift of fabric, the soft exhale of someone settling in close.

“Still at it?” His voice was low enough that it vibrated down her spine.

She didn’t turn right away. She couldn’t, her heartbeat was suddenly too loud in her ears.

When she finally did, he was leaning over the back of her chair, one hand resting casually, dangerously, on the armrest. Close enough that the warmth of his skin brushed her arm.

Her breath caught. Just slightly. Just enough that she hoped he didn’t notice.

He did.

But he didn’t pull away.

Instead, he leaned a little closer to look at the screen. He hovered a little, leaning closer to the screen. Giulia tried to move out of the way to prevent them from touching but there wasn't a lot of space she could move to. She felt his chest brush against the back of her shoulder. 

She felt his cologne enveloping her, his arms boxing her in. She looked up to study his face. He was focused on the screen, indifferent to her presence. 

She hated how her body reacted.

The spark up her arm spread all the way up her neck and her cheeks. She blushed. For the first time since she was a teenager.  

The heat bloomed low in her stomach.

She had to consciously remind herself to inhale. It made things worse. His perfume became the only damn thing her mind could focus on.

“You’ve got good instincts,” he murmured, eyes still on the data. “You're a great driver.”

“Most don’t think so,” she replied before she could stop herself.

He finally looked at her, and something in his expression softened. It wasn’t pity, but recognition.

Understanding.

Respect.

“I’m not most.”

Her chest tightened.

Too much. Too fast.

She turned back to the screen to ground herself. Because if she looked at him just a second longer he would know exactly what was going on in her head. 

But he didn’t move away.

He stayed close, warmth pressed into her side, his presence steady and unshakeable.

“That's my data review from Japan,” he said, matter-of-fact.

Giulia nodded.

“Why are you reading it?”

“I was trying to understand why it doesn’t talk to you.” Giulia said, “I didn't find an answer yet. But I'm not backing down.”

Lewis leaned back, fingers rubbing the bridge of his nose. She finally could breathe again, and turned to look at him. 

“Everything’s new,” he admitted quietly. “New systems. New processes. New people. Even the way the car communicates… It's nothing like what I’m used to. And I don’t want to bring my old habits here. I want to learn this place. Learn them.”

“And you are,” she said gently. “But you’re allowed to feel lost sometimes.”

He watched her for a long moment.

Something softened in his gaze.

“You make it sound easy.”

“It’s not easy,” she said. “It’s just real.”

He breathed out, slow, as if letting go of something that had been choking him.

Then he added, almost as an afterthought, but she felt the weight behind it.

“I don’t talk to most people like this.”

She swallowed. “I'm not most either.”

Lewis’ expression faltered. 

She was the first person in months who made him feel like he wasn’t drowning.

Not in expectations.

Not in legacy.

Not in the constant, suffocating pressure of being Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari, a headline, not a man.

With Giulia, he could breathe.

There was no performance, no image to uphold.

When she spoke to him, it wasn’t to flatter or impress.

She challenged him, disagreed with him, pushed him, sharp, direct, fearless.

She reminded him of driving at its purest: instinctive, alive, and stripped of every distraction.

And that was dangerous.

Because it made him forget himself.

It made him forget the reality:

She was young.

Too young.

With time on her side and a career still unfolding, bright and fierce and undeniably upward.

She wasn’t like this because of who he was as a man.

She was like this because he was Lewis Hamilton, the driver she had admired since she was a kid. Because she was dedicated to Ferrari, to excellence, to the cause they both served.

He told himself that the spark in her eyes was devotion to the badge, not to him.

That the electricity he felt whenever her hand brushed his was accidental. Coincidental. Imagined.

And even if he was wrong, even if she did feel something, he had no business indulging in it.

He’d lived too long with lines he could not cross. He’d learned the cost of slipping.

The media didn’t forgive. The paddock didn’t forget. And she… she didn’t deserve to be dragged into that storm.

So he practiced restraint like it was a craft he had mastered.

When she looked up at him with those bright, burning eyes, he forced himself to hold steady.

When she leaned closer to point at a line of data on the screen, her shoulder brushing his, he locked his body in place and didn’t react.

When she smiled, real, wide, unguarded, something inside him pulled tight enough to hurt.

And he still stayed still.

He kept his voice even, kept his hands to himself, kept a bare inch of space where he wanted none.

He reminded himself of the rules he had lived by for years:

Don’t take advantage.

Don’t interfere with someone’s future.

Don’t let loneliness confuse you.

But the truth was quieter and more brutal:

For the first time in a very, very long while, someone made him feel human again.

And he couldn’t let himself reach for that.

Not when reaching meant risking her,

her reputation, her dreams, her place in a world already too cruel to women like her.

So he built walls around the softness she brought out in him.

He hid his reactions behind professionalism.

He convinced himself that what sparked between them was one-sided, imagined, a byproduct of stress and gratitude.

He told himself these things because the alternative, that she felt it too,

that she saw him not as a legend but as a man, was too tempting.

And temptation was something he could not afford.

Not with her.

Not now.

Charles noticed it early on.

It started small, the kind of detail only someone who spent half his life reading teammates like telemetry would catch.

Lewis would walk into the break room, and Giulia’s posture would change.

Not dramatically, nothing obvious, but her shoulders straightened, her eyes sharpened, like she was suddenly tuned to a different frequency.

And Lewis, who usually moved through Maranello with the calm, deliberate ease of someone who’d learned to hold the world at arm’s length, became subtly different too.

More alert.

More present.

At first, Charles chalked it up to professional respect. Giulia was talented, brilliant in the sim, promising in a way that made even veterans pay attention. It made sense that Lewis liked speaking to her. And Lewis was the living legend of motorsport - of course, she'd want to talk to him.

But then the patterns started to look less like professionalism and more like gravitation.

Like orbiting.

Like two bodies that couldn’t help but drift closer.

He’d walk past the sim room and find Lewis there even on days where he had no scheduled work, leaning against a console while Giulia animatedly dissected something on the screen. Lewis listened to her with a softness Charles had rarely seen, nodding, asking questions, looking at her like she was telling him something important. Sometimes she would slip into Italian without notice and Lewis would just stare at her, eyes wide, until she would eventually notice, apologize and go back to English.

Giulia looked at Lewis like he was pure sunlight.

Warm, grounding, pulling her in whether she meant to move or not.

Charles didn’t make a comment the first week. Or the second.

He watched. Observed. Filed things away with that quiet, slightly amused patience he’d perfected over the years.

He noticed how Lewis always stepped back when she leaned too close, like the space between them was a rule only he remembered.

How Giulia flushed when their hands brushed passing datapads between them. 

How Lewis’ voice softened whenever he said her name.

He noticed, too, how Lewis pretended he didn’t notice any of it.

One afternoon, after debrief, Charles caught the moment perfectly.

Giulia walked past, offering a quick “Ciao, ragazzi,” her smile brushing over both of them.

Lewis’ eyes followed her for half a second too long.

Charles didn’t say a word until she was well out of earshot.

Then he raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms.

“You know,” he said casually, “for someone who claims he’s terrible at Italian, you understand her very well.”

Lewis didn’t look at him, but the slight tightening of his jaw was answer enough.

“It’s not like that,” Lewis muttered.

Charles’ smile was slow, knowing, far too entertained for Lewis’ liking.

“Isn't it?,” he said simply, and walked away before Lewis could protest again.

And that’s when Charles knew.

The season might have been rough, the car inconsistent, the pressure suffocating.

But whatever was happening between those two?

It was the most inevitable thing he’d seen all year.

Lewis felt the difference the moment he walked into the garage, the saturday of the Miami GP.

The energy was the same, engineers buzzing around monitors, the clatter of wheel guns, the low thrum of generators, but something was missing.

Someone.

She didn’t even come to Grand Prixs. But he just missed her in his space. 

He reached for the small drawer under his workstation, and opened it. There it was.

The notebook. Her notebook.

Black cover, slightly frayed at the edges, a red elastic band keeping it shut. The one she always carried around Maranello, full of tight, sharp handwriting and diagrams that looked halfway between art and engineering.

He’d taken it without meaning to. Not stolen, borrowed, forgotten, clung to.

She’d left it on the simulator console the day before he flew out. He’d picked it up to bring it to her. Then never let go.

Now it lived in the drawer like a hidden confession.

He slid it out slowly, almost reverently. His thumb traced the indentation where she pressed too hard when she wrote. Instinctively, he flipped it open to the page he’d read so many times he could’ve recited it.

The car feels unsettled in slow entry. Front left feedback inconsistent. Check damper curve.

Driver tendency: adapts, but compensating too much.

Solution: front roll stiffness + aero balance tweak.

Her writing, neat, angled, purposeful, pulled something tight inside his chest.

His engineers thought the notes were his.

He didn’t correct them. 

Because the moment he admitted they were hers, he’d have to admit why he kept them so close.

A knock on the doorframe.

Charles.

Of course.

Lewis shut the notebook immediately, sliding it halfway under a set of gloves as if it were contraband.

Charles raised an eyebrow. “You’re hiding something.”

Lewis forced a calm expression. “Just preparing.”

“For FP3?” Charles lifted his chin, eyes flicking to the edge of the notebook peeking out. “Or for something else?”

Lewis didn’t rise to it. He didn’t trust himself to.

Charles sighed, stepping closer, lowering his voice.

“You miss her.”

Lewis inhaled sharply through his nose. “She’s part of the team.”

“Not ours,” Charles agreed softly. “And that’s not what I meant. You know it.”

Lewis didn’t answer.

He couldn’t.

Because he could handle pressure.

He could handle doubt.

He could handle the entire world expecting him to perform miracles in red.

But what he couldn’t handle, what unnerved him more than any braking zone or corner entry, was the hollow ache in his chest every time she wasn’t there.

Her laugh wasn’t echoing through the garage.

Her sharp eyes weren’t watching the monitors.

Her calm voice wasn’t in his ear between runs, saying exactly the thing he didn’t know he needed.

He opened the notebook again, pretending it was just for the data inside.

But it wasn’t the data.

It was her handwriting.

Her presence stamped into the page.

The memory of her standing beside him, close enough that her arm brushed his when she leaned over to write.

Charles watched him quietly, then said,

“She grounds you.”

Lewis didn’t look up. “She knows racing.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Lewis’s jaw clenched. “It doesn’t matter.”

Charles huffed a small sigh, sympathetic, not judging. “It matters because you look at her like she's oxygen.”

Lewis closed the notebook very carefully, as if it were fragile.

Or he was.

“She deserves simplicity,” he murmured.

“She deserves her career. Her future. Not…”

He trailed off, swallowing.

Not a man who comes with a history written in headlines.

Not someone who should know better.

Charles nodded slowly.

“And yet… you keep her world in your hands.”

Lewis didn’t answer.

Charles placed a hand on his shoulder — gentle, brotherly.

“Just… be honest with yourself, mate.”

He left.

And Lewis stayed there a long moment, hands resting on the closed notebook, pulse slow and heavy.

He wasn’t sure what terrified him more:

How much he missed her.

Or how much he liked that he missed her.

Lewis sat in the hotel room after the GP, freshly showered, physically exhausted, mentally buzzing.

The notebook sat on the nightstand.

He should have returned it in Japan.

Should have left it with a mechanic.

Should have mailed it back anonymously.

But he didn’t.

He picked it up again, thumb tracing the corner, careful, almost reverent.

Her handwriting was unlike anything—quick, sharp, full of instinct and momentum.

He could hear her voice in certain notes.

He could feel her in the annotations, the underlines, the small angry arrow she drew when she disagreed with a calibration choice.

He closed it and stared at his phone.

Her number.

He shouldn’t have saved it.

He did anyway.

He typed:

Hey. I think I have something of yours.

He stared at it.

Too formal.

He deleted it.

He tried again:

Found your notebook, want me to drop it off?

Delete.

Again:

Don’t worry, your notes are safe with me.

Jesus.

Delete.

He ran a hand over his face. He was a forty years old multiple times world champion and he was behaving like a teenager with a crush on a woman he shouldn't even be looking at.

He sat back, breathing out, feeling a tightness in his chest he didn't want to examine.

He typed one last time:

You okay?

His thumb hovered over send.

Why would she be anything other than okay?

He had no right to check in.

No right to want that connection.

He deleted the message.

Locked the phone.

Turned off the light.

The notebook stayed on the nightstand, and he kept glancing at it in the dark like it was something forbidden.

It happened on a Wednesday morning.

Quiet. Early. The HQ still smelled faintly of cleaning products and coffee.

Giulia walked into the telemetry room and froze.

Lewis was already there.

He turned at the sound of the door, and the look on his face, soft surprise, something warmer hiding underneath, hit her harder than it should have.

He held the notebook in his hand.

Her breath caught.

“You,” she said, trying for a joking tone that came out too breathless, “have something of mine.”

His mouth twitched.

That controlled, careful almost-smile that infuriated and thrilled her in equal measure.

“I was going to return it sooner,” he said quietly. “I… didn’t want to lose it.”

Lose it.

Or lose her?

She stepped closer.

He extended the notebook.

She reached for it.

Their hands touched.

Not brushed.

Touched.

Warm skin against warm skin, contact that lasted one heartbeat too long.

She didn’t pull away.

Neither did he.

Her pulse kicked into a sprint.

His breath hitched, barely, but she heard it.

Finally he let go, slowly, like he was afraid of breaking something delicate.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

His voice was low, rougher than she’d ever heard it when he said:

“Anytime.”

Silence stretched between them, thick and charged, the air practically humming.

Giulia clutched the notebook to her chest.

Lewis shoved his hands into his pockets like restraint alone was keeping the world from tilting.

Then she stepped back, cheeks warm.

And he stepped forward, just half a step, as if pulled by gravity before he stopped himself.

No words. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. 

Something passed between them, 

undeniable, dangerous, electric.