You made room for his life before he even had to ask. You bent around the complicated edges of his world so naturally that, after a while, Max stopped noticing how much you were bending at all.

It was refreshing. Comforting, even. Being with you never felt like another obligation waiting for him when he got home. You were warmth, quiet, peace… but it also made it easy for Max to coast.

Because when you said you didn’t need flowers, he believed you. When you told him birthdays weren’t a big deal, he took your word for it.

When you said you didn’t mind that his attention was always half-distracted by Red Bull, his sim rig, his phone, or whatever new team crisis was unfolding in the background, he didn’t stop to wonder whether you meant it. He didn’t ask himself if you were genuinely fine with being loved in the gaps, or if you had simply learned to make your wants small enough that they never became inconvenient.

He didn’t notice that every time you said, “Don’t worry about it,” you were teaching him that he didn’t have to.

Until he saw the way your smile dimmed at Daniel’s girlfriend’s birthday party.

The boat was filled with champagne and noise, a private Monaco affair organised by Daniel, of course, because no one else could make a birthday party feel quite that excessive and still somehow charming. There was a neon sign glowing above the bar, a curated playlist that seemed suspiciously full of songs Daniel liked more than his girlfriend did, and custom cupcakes with everyone’s faces printed on them. Max didn’t even know you could do that.

You sat beside him with a drink in hand, your shoulder brushing his every now and then as the boat rocked gently against the water. To anyone else you looked perfectly fine, but Max had started paying closer attention now.

Your laugh came half a second too late, your smile faded too quickly, and your eyes kept drifting back to the couple across the deck.

Daniel’s girlfriend had her arms slung around his neck, his jacket draped over her shoulders, and a glittery tiara with Birthday Girl written across the front sitting slightly crooked on her head. Daniel kept adjusting it for her, grinning every time she swatted his hand away, and when she leaned into him, he kissed her temple without seeming to think about it. Thoughtless in the best way, like loving her out loud was simply instinct.

“You made it!” Daniel said, pulling Max into a hug before turning to you with even more enthusiasm. “And you look amazing. Seriously, come on, look at you.”

You laughed, a bit surprised, and looked down at yourself like you hadn’t expected anyone to notice.

Max noticed that.

Daniel’s girlfriend came over next, glowing, happy, adored. She hugged you tightly and thanked you both for coming, then turned to show you the bracelet Daniel had bought her. It was delicate and expensive, the kind of jewellery Max would never have picked out on his own because he would have convinced himself he didn’t know what he was doing and given up before trying.

“He surprised me with it this morning,” she said, beaming. “And he pretended he forgot my birthday for, like, ten minutes, which was evil, but then he had breakfast set up on the balcony.”

Daniel, overhearing, lifted his glass. “Romance is alive and well ladies and gentlemen.”

Normal Daniel. Loud, teasing, affectionate Daniel, who made a spectacle out of caring because he had never been embarrassed by warmth in the same way Max sometimes was, but then Max looked at you.

You were smiling. Of course you were smiling.

You were always polite. Always kind. Always good at being happy for other people, even when something inside you was quietly aching. There was something different about it then, something Max had never noticed before because he had never had reason to look for it.

Your smile didn’t quite reach your eyes.

You didn’t look devastated, you didn’t withdraw your hand from his arm or go quiet in a way anyone else would pick up on. You just looked at the bracelet on Daniel’s girlfriend’s wrist, then at the flowers, then at the wall of photos, and for half a second your expression morphed into something almost wistful.

Max felt it like a punch he had no right to react to.

The conversation moved on around him. Daniel was talking about the cake, someone else was laughing about how long it had taken to get the decorations right. His girlfriend was telling you how Daniel had been secretly planning it for weeks, badly, apparently, because he almost exposed himself several times.

You laughed at the story.

You said, “That’s really sweet.”

Max heard the softness in your voice.

For the first time all night, Max looked at the party properly. He looked at the flowers. The photos. The custom menu cards with her name on them. The cake Daniel had apparently taste-tested three times because the first one “didn’t feel like her.”

Then Max looked at you.

You were standing beside him with nothing from him except your own practiced understanding.

No flowers.

No post.

No planned birthday dinner he hadn’t rescheduled.

No little public signs that he was proud to love you.

No evidence, really, that Max Verstappen had ever looked at the woman beside him and thought, she deserves to feel chosen.

His stomach twisted, because suddenly he remembered your last birthday with a clarity that made him feel slightly sick.

He had been in Milton Keynes for simulator work. He’d called you late, later than he meant to, and you had answered in bed, face lit softly by your phone screen. You had smiled like you were happy just to hear from him. He had apologised again for not being able to be there. You had said it didn’t matter and he had promised to make it up to you. You had said, “Don’t stress, honestly. I had a nice day.”

Had you?

Had you really?

Or had you said that because it was easier than admitting you had wanted him there?

He thought about the flowers you always claimed not to need. The birthdays you said weren’t important. The dates you never demanded. The posts you never asked for. The attention you pretended not to miss.

Beside him, you glanced up. “You okay?”

Max blinked, pulled out of his thoughts by the gentleness of your voice. That made it worse somehow, even now you were checking on him.

“Yeah,” he said, too quickly. “Fine.”

You studied him for a moment, clearly not convinced, but you didn’t push. You never pushed. You simply nodded and looked back towards the others, your shoulder brushing lightly against his sleeve.

Max hated that too. He hated that you gave him space even when maybe he deserved pressure.

He hated that you had made yourself so easy to keep that he had forgotten keeping you was still something he had to actively do.

For the rest of the night, he couldn’t stop watching you.

He watched Daniel’s girlfriend pull you into photos, watched you laugh as someone handed you a party hat you refused to wear for about ten seconds. He watched you compliment the decorations, watched you ask questions about the planning, watched your fingers lightly brush over one of the flower arrangements when you thought no one was looking.

You liked flowers.

Of course you liked flowers.

Maybe not in the over-the-top, expensive, social-media way, but you liked them. He could tell by the way you touched the petals carefully, the way your face warmed when Daniel’s girlfriend told you Daniel had chosen them because they reminded him of a dress she once wore in Monaco.

Max stood there, silent and increasingly irritated with himself.

How many things had you convinced yourself you didn’t need simply because he had never offered them?

How many wants had you softened into jokes so they wouldn’t feel like demands?

How many times had you made yourself smaller around his life and called it love?

Later, when everyone gathered around the cake, Daniel made a speech. A terrible speech, because it was Daniel, so half of it was jokes and the other half was him pretending not to get emotional. Then he spoke about how his girlfriend made his life better. How she put up with him. How she deserved more than one night of being celebrated, but he hoped this was a decent start.

Everyone laughed.

His girlfriend cried.

You smiled.

Max felt like the worst boyfriend in the world.

He complimented you in private, usually quietly, usually after you’d done something for him. He told you he loved you, yes, but often in bed, or before hanging up, or in passing when one of you was leaving. He assumed you knew. He assumed choosing you privately counted the same as making you feel chosen.

On the drive home you were quieter than usual.

Your head rested against the window, city lights sliding over your face in brief flashes. Your heels were in your lap because you had taken them off the second you got in the car, and your fingers played absently with the strap like your mind was somewhere else.

Max kept glancing over. Usually he liked quiet with you, it was comfortable and easy, you didn’t need to fill every silence.

Tonight the quiet felt full of everything you weren’t saying.

“Did you have a good time?” he asked eventually.

You turned your head, smiling faintly. “Yeah. It was lovely.”

Lovely.

The word sat between you.

Max swallowed. “Daniel did a lot.”

“He did,” you said, and your voice was warm. “It was really sweet.”

There it was again. That careful admiration.

Max’s hands flexed around the steering wheel. “You like that kind of thing?”

You looked at him properly then, brows lifting a little. “What kind of thing?”

He shrugged, trying to sound casual and failing. “All of it. The flowers. The photos. The big party.”

You looked away and gave a small laugh, the kind that tried to make a truth sound harmless. “I mean, I don’t need all that.”

Max’s chest tightened.

That wasn’t what he had asked.

“I didn’t ask if you needed it.”

Your fingers stopped moving against the shoe strap and for a moment you said nothing. Then you looked down and smiled again, but this one was worse than the one at the party because it was meant only for him, meant to reassure him, meant to protect him from feeling bad about something he had already done.

“I just think it’s nice,” you said carefully. “For her. Daniel clearly put a lot of thought into it.”

Max nodded once, jaw tense.

Thought.

That was the word that stayed with him.

You didn’t need a private room full of flowers or a custom cake or a wall of photographs. You probably didn’t even want something that big, but you wanted thought. You wanted evidence that he had paused, considered you, and chosen to make you feel loved on purpose.

Max, who could analyse tyre degradation over fifty laps, who could remember tiny setup changes from races years ago, who could spend hours perfecting a sim lap by half a tenth, had somehow convinced himself he was incapable of remembering to buy you flowers.

“I should have done more for your birthday,” he said.

You went very still.

The car felt smaller suddenly.

“Max…”

“No,” he said, because he knew that tone. He knew you were about to let him off the hook again. “I should have.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

You exhaled quietly and looked out of the window again. “I told you it was fine.”

“I know you did.”

“Then why are you bringing it up?”

Because I finally saw your face, he wanted to say. Because I finally realised you have been asking for so little that I stopped giving you even that and I do not know how to forgive myself for not noticing sooner.

But Max had never been good with words when they mattered most.

So he said, “Because I think you say things are fine when they're not.”

Your mouth pressed together. That tiny movement cut through him more than any argument would have.

You weren’t angry, but part of him wished you were. Anger would have given him something to meet, something to fix, something loud enough that he couldn’t ignore it, you just looked tired and that was worse.

“I don’t want to be difficult,” you said after a while.

“You're not difficult,” he said immediately.

You gave him a small, sad smile. “I know. I just mean… your life is already a lot. You have so many people needing things from you all the time I never wanted to be another thing on the list.”

“You are not a thing on the list.”

“Aren’t I?” you asked softly.

Max didn’t answer fast enough, once again words failed him, he hated himself for that.

You turned your face back towards the window, and the reflection showed him the truth he had been avoiding all night. You weren’t crying or making a scene. You weren’t asking him to turn the car around or apologise in some grand dramatic way. You were simply sitting there beside him carrying a hurt that had clearly existed long before tonight.

He figured you’d be home from your errands by now.

Probably curled up somewhere in the apartment, wearing one of his hoodies like you always did when he was away for more than a few days. Maybe on the sofa with your knees tucked beneath you, scrolling mindlessly through your phone, or half-watching one of those comfort shows you liked to put on in the background while you waited for him. The thought came easily, warmly, and Max found himself smiling before he had even opened the door properly.

He liked coming home to you.

He liked the small signs of you scattered through his space. Your shoes by the door, your hair tie abandoned on the coffee table, your mug in the sink because you always forgot to rinse it. Your presence had softened the apartment in ways he hadn’t realised he needed, turning it from somewhere he slept between races into somewhere that actually felt like home.

The apartment was quiet when he stepped inside, but not empty.

Max kicked off his shoes and shrugged out of his jacket, already turning toward the living room when he heard your voice from the bedroom. Then he heard your best friend’s name, and realised you were on the phone.

He didn’t mean to eavesdrop. He was about to call out, to let you know he was back, but something about your tone made him stop before the words left his mouth. So he stayed quiet, halfway down the hall, one hand still resting against the wall.

“I’m not upset he did all that for her,” you were saying. “It’s sweet. It is.”

There was a pause.

Max’s body went strangely still.

He knew, instantly, what you were talking about.

“It’s just…” You exhaled shakily. “He’s never done anything like that for me.”

The words hit him hard. Max stared at the floor, heartbeat slowing into something heavy and uncomfortable.

“I don’t ask for much,” you continued, and your voice was smaller now, like you were embarrassed to even say it out loud. “I know I don’t. I never wanted to pressure him or make him feel like he had to go out of his way when his life is already so much. I thought if I was easygoing and low-maintenance, it would make things easier on him.”

His throat tightened.

“But sometimes—” Your voice broke so softly he almost missed it. “Sometimes I wish he’d do something without me having to ask.”

Max’s fingers curled around the edge of the wall.

He could feel every careless assumption he had ever made beginning to turn over in his head, one after another, each one worse than the last.

You didn’t care if he forgot plans, if he came home distracted, if he said he would make it up to you and then didn’t, because something else came up and you smiled like it was fine.

“Maybe I enabled it by alway saying I was fine... but I don’t need grand gestures,” you went on, voice wobbling now. “I know that’s not really him, and I don’t want him to be anyone else. I don’t want a big show just for the sake of it, but it would be nice to feel special sometimes… to feel like he thought about me without me having to ask.”

Max’s chest ached.

He looked toward the bedroom door, but he couldn’t move.

“I just want to know he wants to do those things for me,” you whispered. “Not because he’s apologising or because someone else did it first… because he loves me enough to notice.”

Max couldn’t breathe properly.

He hadn’t known.

He really hadn’t known.

He thought you meant it when you said you didn’t care about birthdays, anniversaries, flowers, or all the romantic things he had always been bad at. He had thought that was part of what made you you. Unbothered by the kind of performative relationship stuff he had never known how to do properly.

The conversation ended a few minutes later.

He heard the soft rustle of sheets then your footsteps moving across the bedroom floor. Max reacted too late, still trapped in the weight of what he had heard and only barely managed to step back into the hallway before you came out.

You stopped when you saw him.

For one awful second, neither of you said anything and then he smiled and wrapped you in a hug pretending like he hadn’t heard a word.

That night Max sat alone in the dark of the living room for a long time, head in his hands. He couldn’t bring himself to move, couldn’t bring himself to do anything except sit there in the silence and let every word he had overheard replay in his head until it felt carved into him.

He kept hearing your voice.

“to feel like he thought about me without me having to ask.”

He pressed the heels of his hands harder against his eyes.

God.

How many moments had you swallowed your disappointment before he could even notice it was there, dimming yourself down just to be easier to love?

It gutted him.

You hadn’t asked him for the world. You hadn’t asked him to become someone he wasn’t. You only wanted to feel considered. Somehow he had made the best thing in his life feel like she had to be grateful for whatever was left of him at the end of the day.

You deserved fireworks, even if you were the kind of girl who said she didn’t need them. You didn’t want more from him. You just wanted to matter enough for him to give it anyway.

You didn’t expect anything to change.

Max was always kind, attentive in the ways he knew how to be. He noticed when you were cold and passed you his hoodie without making a big thing of it. He reached for your hand in crowded places because he liked knowing exactly where you were. He remembered how you took your coffee, which side of the bed you preferred, the shows you put on when you needed background noise. He loved you. You knew he did.

So when he suggested you take a weekend off together “Somewhere quiet, just us” you didn’t overthink it. You figured he wanted to disappear for a couple of days, somewhere without cameras, team radios, sponsor obligations, or someone asking him about tyre degradation.

It wasn’t until you stepped onto the lakeside dock in Switzerland that you realised something was different.

The cottage was small but charming, tucked away by the water with warm wood walls, soft cream blankets, and floor-to-ceiling windows that made the whole place glow with the late afternoon light. It wasn’t flashy, it wasn’t the kind of place chosen to impress anyone, it felt private, thoughtful, almost painfully intimate.

Inside there were your favourite snacks arranged in the kitchen. Your favourite wine chilling in the fridge. Your comfort blanket folded over the armchair by the window. Your favourite book was already resting on the bedside table, the old, worn copy you had once told him you reread whenever your head felt too loud.

You frowned, turning slowly back to him. “Did you… did you set this up?”

Max leaned against the doorframe, hands in his pockets, trying for casual and not quite managing it. “Maybe.”

You narrowed your eyes, sceptical. “What’s going on?”

His smirk softened a little. He just looked at you and there was something unusually careful in his expression, something that made your chest tighten before he had even said a word.

“I listened,” he said.

You blinked. Max glanced down briefly, like the words felt awkward in his mouth, but when he looked back up he didn’t look away again.

“I didn’t realise how much I’d taken for granted,” he continued quietly. “How much you gave by never asking. You made it easy for me, but that doesn’t mean I should’ve stopped trying.”

Your throat tightened.

“Max…”

“No, let me say it,” he murmured, taking a small step closer. “You always said things were fine. That you didn’t need flowers, or birthdays, or plans, or all the extra stuff and I believed you because it was easier because it meant I didn’t have to think about whether you were only saying it so I wouldn’t feel bad.”

You swallowed hard, looking away before your face could betray too much.

He walked you further inside, his hand warm at the small of your back, and that was when you noticed the little table by the window. It had been set for two, facing the lake as the sun began to lower behind the mountains. Candlelight, flowers, two plates, homemade pasta that looked slightly lopsided and very clearly like his doing, and a little folded note beside your place.

You stared at it for a second before picking it up.

In his messy, all-caps handwriting, it said:

I SHOULD HAVE MADE YOU FEEL SPECIAL BEFORE NOW. I’M GOING TO DO BETTER.

Max’s face shifted immediately, concern cutting through the nervousness. “Schatje…”

You shook your head quickly trying to laugh it off, but your voice came out thin. “I wanted to be cool,” you whispered. “I wanted to be the girlfriend who didn’t care about all that stuff. I thought if I asked for too much then I’d just become another pressure for you.”

Max stepped closer and cupped your cheeks, his thumbs brushing away the tears that slipped out despite your best efforts.

“You are the most important person in my life,” he murmured. “You always are.” His voice dropped softer, rougher. “I wish I could give you the world and I’m sorry it took me this long to show it.”

You looked at him then, really looked at him, at the nervous set of his mouth and the careful way he held you, like he understood now that easiness was not the same thing as not needing anything.

Then you finally kissed him.

Later that night you were curled against his chest with the fireplace crackling softly in the background, the cottage wrapped in that quiet, golden kind of warmth that made everything outside feel very far away.

Max had one arm around you, his hand resting beneath the hem of your sweater, fingers tracing slow, absent patterns against your skin.

You smiled into his shoulder, cheek pressed against the soft fabric as you listened to the steady beat of his.

“So,” you mumbled, voice sleepy but teasing, “is this a one-time gesture or…”

Max’s chest moved beneath you as he chuckled. “Oh no.”

You tilted your head slightly. “Oh no?”

“No,” he said, tightening his arm around you. “You’re getting so much romance now it’ll annoy you.”

You looked up at him trying and failing not to smile. “Really?”

He nodded solemnly, like he was discussing race strategy. “Really. I’m talking airport reunions. Flowers for no reason. Random poetry.”

“Poetry?” you repeated, laughing already.

“Bad poetry,” he corrected. “Very bad. Rhymes way too much.”

“Oh, God.”

“And a cheesy playlist,” he added, completely serious. “Maybe several. One for the car. One for when I’m away. One with songs you’ll make fun of me for.”

You laughed properly then, burying your face in his neck as warmth spread through your chest. It was never about the playlist, or the flowers, or whatever terrible poetry Max Verstappen might attempt in the name of love.

It was that he was thinking about it. That he had finally understood the difference between you not needing to be spoiled and you still deserving to be cherished.

Max turned his head and pressed a kiss into your hair. “I’m serious,” he murmured, quieter now. “I don’t want you wondering anymore.”

Your laughter softened. You lifted your face again, looking at him through the firelight. “Wondering what?”

“If I think about you,” he said. “If I notice. If I care enough to try.”

Your throat tightened, but this time the feeling wasn’t painful. Max brushed his thumb along your cheek. “I do,” he said. “I’ll show you better now.”

For a moment you just looked at him, then you leaned in, pressing a slow kiss to the corner of his mouth before tucking yourself back against him.

“That sounds perfect.” you whispered, smiling against his neck.