#km7

And there it is. The four words that act as the starting pistol for the demolition of a world. Your world. Your heart does a sick, slow lurch in your chest.

“Okay,” you breathe, placing your wine glass on the marble coffee table with a hand that has begun to tremble. “Talk.”

He takes a deep breath, the kind a driver takes before a qualifying lap. All-or-nothing. “I don’t think—I can’t do this anymore, Y/N.”

The words hang in the air, nonsensical. “Do this?” You repeat, a hollow echo. “What is this? Us? You and me?”

He nods, just once. The movement is jerky, unnatural. He looks pained. He looks like a stranger. “I need to focus. Completely. The championship … the pressure with the team … it’s everything. I’m giving everything to it, and I don’t have anything left over.”

You stare at him, trying to process the logic, trying to find the Charles you know in this rigid, distant man. “What are you talking about? We’ve always been a team. I’ve always been your biggest supporter. Since F2, Charles. Since before any of this,” you say, gesturing vaguely at the opulent room, the view, the life he’s built. The life you’ve built together. “When has me being here ever taken away from your focus?”

“It’s not you,” he says, and the cliché is so sharp, so insulting, it feels like a slap. “It isn’t. You are perfect. But I’m not. I am … I’m not in the right headspace. I need to be selfish. For my career, I have to be. The margins are everything. Every little percentage of focus, it matters. And this …” he gestures between the two of you, “this takes a part of me that I need for the car. I need for the fight.”

Tears are welling in your eyes, hot and immediate. You refuse to let them fall. “So that’s it? After five seven? You’re trading me in for a hypothetical extra tenth on the track?”

“Please, don’t make it sound like that.” His voice is pleading, but there’s no give in his expression.

“How else am I supposed to make it sound?” You ask, your own voice rising, cracking with a hurt so profound it physically aches. “You’re sitting here telling me that our life, that I am a distraction you need to eliminate. Like you’re adjusting the front wing. Am I just a piece of setup you’re changing for the next race weekend?”

“Of course not! Merde,” he swears, running a hand through his perfectly messy hair. He stands up and begins to pace, the restless energy of a caged panther filling the room. “You think this is easy for me?”

“I don’t know what to think, Charles! You’re not making any sense! We were fine this morning. We had breakfast. You kissed me goodbye before you went to the factory. What happened between then and now?”

He stops pacing and faces you, his jaw set. “It’s not about today. It’s been … building. I need to be alone. I need to put the racing first. Only the racing. There can be nothing else.”

The finality in his tone is what breaks you. This isn’t a negotiation. It’s a verdict. He’s already decided. You were just the last to know.

“Fine,” you whisper, the word tasting like ash in your mouth. You look down at your hands, clasped in your lap, to avoid seeing the pity that you know is now in his eyes. “If that’s what you need.”

The silence returns, heavier this time, thick with unspoken words and the ghost of seven years of laughter, arguments, and love.

“I’ll … I’ll pack a bag,” he says, his voice thick. “I’ll stay with Arthur for a while. Give you space.”

You just nod, unable to speak. You listen to his footsteps retreat down the hall, the soft clicks of drawers opening and closing. The sound of a life being neatly edited, with your part being cut out. He comes back a few minutes later with a single duffel bag. He doesn’t look at you as he walks to the door.

His hand is on the handle when he pauses. “I am so sorry, Y/N. I do love you. I just can’t …”

“Don’t,” you cut him off, your voice surprisingly firm. You finally look at him, letting him see the devastation in your eyes. “Don’t you dare say you love me right now. Just go. Go be selfish. Go find your extra tenth.”

He flinches as if you’d struck him. He gives a small, defeated nod and opens the door.

And then he’s gone.

The sound of the heavy door clicking shut is the loudest sound you have ever heard.

***

The next forty-eight hours are a blur of surreal, suspended numbness. The apartment is a museum of your relationship. The F1 helmet he gave you for your anniversary sits on the bookshelf. The photo of the two of you in Sardinia, sunburned and deliriously happy, is on the bedside table. His scent lingers on his side of the bed, a cruel, ghostly reminder.

You don’t answer your phone. The screen lights up with texts from Charlotte, from Pierre, from your mother. You ignore them all. What would you even say? Charles decided I’m less important than a qualifying position. It sounds insane. It feels insane.

You’re sitting on the sofa, staring at the same spot he was sitting in, trying to retrace the conversation, trying to find a loophole, a mistake in his logic, when your phone buzzes violently on the coffee table. It’s not a text this time, but a notification from Instagram. A post you’ve been tagged in by a friend. The caption is just a string of question marks and angry emojis.

Your finger hovers over the notification, a sense of dread washing over you. You open it.

It’s a gossip blog. The headline screams in bold, tacky font. CHARLES LECLERC MOVES ON: F1 STAR SEEN IN STEAMY CLINCH WITH MYSTERY dark brown IN MONACO.

The numbness evaporates, replaced by a firestorm of ice and acid in your veins. Your breath catches. There are three photos, all grainy, clearly taken with a phone from across a crowded room. But there’s no mistaking it.

It’s him.

He’s at Sass Cafe. Your Sass Cafe. The club you two always went to on a Thursday night for a quiet drink, hidden away in a corner booth.

In the first photo, he’s laughing with a woman. She’s beautiful, of course. Long, sleek dark brown hair, a backless dress. In the second, his hand is on the back of her neck, his thumb stroking her skin. In the third … the third photo shatters what’s left of your heart into a million irreparable pieces.

He’s kissing her.

It’s not a gentle kiss. It’s hungry, passionate. His other hand is tangled in her dark brown hair, pulling her closer. Her head is tilted back. They are completely lost in each other, illuminated by the flashing purple and blue lights of the club.

You zoom in, your thumb shaking. The timestamp on the article is from an hour ago. The photos were taken last night. Less than twenty-four hours after he walked out your door to “focus on his career.”

The lie is so blatant, so disrespectful, it steals the air from your lungs. It wasn’t about focus. It wasn’t about needing to be selfish for the racing. It was never about that.

It was about her.

A sob escapes you, a raw, guttural sound of pure agony. The betrayal is a physical weight, pressing down on your chest, making it impossible to breathe. He didn’t just leave you. He lied to you. He made you feel like you were the obstacle, when really, he just wanted someone else. He didn’t even have the decency to wait. He took her to your place.

Your phone starts ringing. It’s Pierre. You stare at his name on the screen. Pierre, his best friend. Your friend. But who is he now? Whose side is he on? Whose side is anyone on?

You decline the call.

It rings again immediately. Charlotte. You swipe to decline.

Then a text from Arthur, Charles’s younger brother, who has always felt like your own. Y/N, call me. What is going on? Charles isn’t making any sense.

You look around the apartment, and suddenly you feel like you’re suffocating. Every object, every memory, is tainted. This city, this tiny, glittering principality, is his. His friends are your friends. His family is your family. There is nowhere to go where you won’t be reminded of him, where you won’t see someone who will look at you with pity in their eyes. You’ll become the tragic ex-girlfriend in a story where he’s the hero.

A frantic energy seizes you. It’s a primal, instinctual urge. Flight.

You can’t be here. Not for one more second.

You stand up on shaky legs. You don’t go to the bedroom to pack a bag. You don’t grab your laptop or your favorite jacket. You walk to the small bowl by the door and pick up your car keys. You grab your wallet from your purse and slide your phone into the back pocket of your jeans.

That’s it. Keys, wallet, phone.

You walk out of the apartment, not looking back. You don’t allow yourself a final glance at the life you’re leaving behind. In the elevator down to the underground garage, you catch your reflection in the mirrored walls. Your eyes are red-rimmed and hollow, your face pale. You look like a ghost.

Your little Alfa Romeo is parked in its designated spot, nestled between Charles’s custom SF90 Stradale and his Purosangue. The sight of his cars sends another wave of nausea through you. You get into yours, the familiar scent of leather and your perfume doing nothing to soothe you.

You start the engine. The quiet rumble feels like the only steady thing in a world that has completely tilted off its axis.

You navigate the tight corners of the garage and emerge onto the streets of Monaco. It’s late, but the city never truly sleeps. The Casino de Monte-Carlo is lit up like a fairytale castle. The superyachts in the harbor bob gently, their lights twinkling on the dark water.

Every street is a memory.

There’s the corner where he pulled over to kiss you after your first official date. There’s the tunnel, the iconic Formula 1 landmark, where you’d always hold your breath as he drove through it too fast, making you scream and laugh. There’s the Rascasse corner, where the bar stands that you celebrated his first podium at.

Tears stream down your face now, hot and silent. You’re not just leaving a man; you’re leaving the only home you’ve known for five years. You’re leaving a life that was so intertwined with his, you don’t know where he ends and you begin.

You follow the signs for the A8 autoroute. France. Italy. The signs offer directions, destinations. You have none.

As you merge onto the highway, the city of Monaco shrinks in your rearview mirror until it’s just a cluster of brilliant, painful lights. You press your foot down on the accelerator. The engine whines as the car picks up speed, putting distance between you and the wreckage of your life.

The road unfurls before you, a dark ribbon under the moon. You don’t know where you’re going. You only know you have to go. You just drive. And drive. And drive.

***

The world outside your car is a smear of motion and light, a cinematic blur that you are no longer a part of. You are cocooned in the low hum of the engine, the smell of leather, and the all-consuming shroud of your own grief. The highway signs are suggestions you ignore. Marseille. Lyon. Geneva. They flash in your headlights and disappear into the darkness behind you, each one a step further away from the life that imploded just hours ago.

Your mind is a cruel and endless loop.

The photo. His hand in her hair. The way her back arched. Sass Cafe.

His words. I need to focus. It’s not you. The margins are everything.

The lie. The sickening, condescending lie. Did he think you were a fool? Did he think you wouldn’t find out? Or did he just not care? The arrogance of it is a fresh wave of agony, washing over the heartbreak, making it sharper, uglier.

The digital clock on the dashboard glows a malevolent red. 2:17 AM. 3:42 AM. 4:58 AM.

You don’t feel tired. You feel hollowed out, scraped clean of everything but a raw, buzzing nerve of pain. Your stomach is a tight knot. Your throat is sandpaper. You haven’t had a sip of water since that glass of wine you put down just before he shattered your world.

Sometime around 5:30 AM, the fuel light blinks on, an insistent orange eye in the darkness. You pull into a ghost-town of a service station, the only building for miles. The air is shockingly cold when you step out of the car, a clean, sharp scent of pine and damp earth replacing the stale air of the cabin. You’re in the mountains now. The sky is beginning to soften from black to a deep indigo, the first hint of dawn bruising the horizon.

You fill the tank on autopilot, your movements stiff and robotic. Inside the station, a sleepy-eyed attendant watches you with disinterest. Racks of chips and candy bars and brightly colored drinks line the walls. Your body knows it needs sustenance, but the very thought of putting something in your mouth makes you feel ill. You pay for the gas, your voice a rough croak, and get back in the car. You don’t buy a bottle of water. You don’t buy anything else.

Back on the road, the landscape is transforming. The winding coastal roads of the Côte d'Azur have given way to sweeping valleys and the formidable, dark silhouettes of the Alps. You’ve crossed a border at some point. A sign welcomed you to Switzerland. You barely registered it.

You are somewhere near Zurich, according to a sign you passed ten minutes ago. The name means nothing. It’s just another place that isn’t Monaco.

And that’s when it happens.

It starts with a stutter from the engine. A cough. Then a violent, metallic clank from under the hood that makes you jump in your seat. The car lurches, the power steering dies, and the wheel becomes heavy and useless in your hands. You wrestle the car to the side of the two-lane road as it rolls to a dead, silent stop.

You turn the key. Nothing. Again. Just a pathetic, defeated click.

A thin wisp of smoke curls up from the gap between the hood and the fender.

You stare at it, and a sound escapes your lips. It isn't a cry. It's a laugh. A single, sharp, hysterical bark of a laugh that holds no humor. Of course. Of course this would happen. The pathetic fallacy of it all is so on-the-nose it’s almost poetic. Your life has broken down, so naturally, your car must, too.

The last of the adrenaline that has been fueling you for the past seven hours drains away, leaving you feeling heavy and boneless. You are stranded. In a foreign country. In the middle of nowhere. At the crack of dawn. With a dead car, a dying phone, and a shattered heart.

You pull out your phone. The battery icon is a sliver of red. 11%. You scroll through your contacts, a gallery of ghosts. Pierre. Charlotte. Arthur. Lorenzo. Every single name is a direct line back to Charles, back to the life you are running from. Who could you possibly call? “Hi, sorry to bother you, I know my ex-boyfriend just humiliated me in front of the entire world, but could you please help me find a tow truck in Switzerland?”

The thought is so absurd it brings fresh tears to your eyes. They spill over, hot and silent, tracing cold paths down your cheeks. There is no one. You are utterly, completely alone.

So you do the only thing you can think of. You get out of the car. You don't take anything. You don't even lock the doors. You just turn and start walking along the shoulder of the road, in the same direction you were driving. Towards nothing.

The morning air is biting cold. You’re wearing nothing but jeans, a thin silk blouse, and a pair of ballet flats — an outfit for a casual dinner in Monaco, not a pre-dawn trek through the Swiss countryside. Goosebumps pebble your arms, and you wrap them around yourself, a poor substitute for a jacket.

The world is waking up around you. The sky is now a pale, ethereal blue. Birds are beginning to sing in the dense forests that line the road. The beauty of it feels like a personal insult. How dare the world be this lovely when yours has ended?

You walk for what feels like an hour. Your feet are aching, the thin soles of your shoes no match for the gravelly shoulder. A few cars pass, their drivers giving you a curious glance before speeding on. You keep your head down, your tear-streaked face hidden by your hair. You don’t know what you’re looking for. A house. A town. A sign of life.

And then you see it.

Set back from the road, almost hidden by a curtain of ancient, weeping willows, is a wall. A high stone wall, and in the center of it, a pair of immense iron gates, wrought into an intricate, modern design. They look impenetrable. There’s no house visible, just the wall, the gates, and a small, sleek intercom box mounted on a stone pillar.

It's your only option. Your legs feel like they’re about to give out. You’re so tired you could lie down on the damp grass and sleep for a century. You push yourself forward, your feet crunching on the gravel as you approach the gate.

Your hand is trembling as you press the button on the intercom. You half expect it not to work. But after a moment, a crackle of static breaks the morning silence. A voice comes through, and it’s nothing more than a low, clipped mumble. Not even a word, more of a sound.

“H-hello?” You stammer, your voice hoarse from crying and disuse. “I am so, so sorry to bother you. My car … it broke down. Just back there on the road.” You’re rambling, the words tumbling out in a desperate rush. “My phone is about to die, and I don’t know where I am. I don’t speak German. Could you … could you possibly help me? Just to call a tow service? Please?”

Silence.

A long, unnerving silence from the other end. You can hear nothing but the chirping of the birds and the frantic thumping of your own heart. He’s hung up. He thinks you’re crazy. You’re about to turn away, to sink down onto the ground in defeat, when you hear it.

A loud, metallic CLANK.

Followed by a low, electric hum.

Slowly, majestically, the huge iron gates begin to swing inward, opening onto a long, winding driveway. No voice says a word. No one tells you to come in. The gates just open.

For a moment, you hesitate. This could be a terrible idea. You’re about to walk onto the property of a complete stranger who hasn’t even spoken to you. But what other choice do you have? Freezing to death on the side of the road? You take a deep, shaky breath and step through the gates.

The driveway is paved with smooth, grey stone and lined with perfectly manicured gardens. It curves gently, so you still can’t see the house. It feels like you’re walking into another world, a secluded, private kingdom. The quiet is absolute. As you round a bend flanked by enormous fir trees, the villa finally comes into view.

It takes your breath away.

It’s not a traditional Swiss chalet. It's a stunning piece of modern architecture, all clean lines, dark wood, and vast panes of glass that reflect the morning sky. It’s sprawling and luxurious, but it blends seamlessly into the lush, green landscape. It’s beautiful and intimidating all at once.

You make your way up the last stretch of the driveway to the front entrance, your cheap, worn-out ballet flats feeling utterly inadequate for the setting. You reach a massive front door made of a dark, rich wood. You raise your hand to knock, your knuckles hovering inches from the surface.

Before you can make contact, the door swings silently open.

And standing there, silhouetted against the warm light of the foyer, is Kimi Räikkönen.

The Iceman.

Your brain short-circuits. Time seems to slow down. He’s not in a race suit or team gear. He’s wearing a plain black t-shirt that stretches across his shoulders, a pair of faded jeans, and socks. No shoes. His hair is messy, sleep-tousled. He looks groggy, like he was pulled from a deep sleep, and his famous ice-blue eyes are narrowed slightly against the morning light.

He looks at you, his expression a perfect blank slate. You can see the gears turning behind his eyes. He scans your face — the tear tracks, the smudged makeup, the exhaustion. And then, a flicker. A tiny, almost imperceptible spark of recognition. He knows you. Of course he knows you. You’ve been a fixture in the Sauber and then the Ferrari hospitality for years. The ever-present, smiling girlfriend of Charles Leclerc.

Another piece of your old life. Another person connected to Charles.

He is the last thing you expected and the very last thing you can handle.

The sight of him, a familiar face from a world that no longer belongs to you, is the final, crushing blow. The fragile dam of control you’ve been desperately maintaining for the past eight hours doesn’t just break, it explodes.

A raw, guttural sob tears its way out of your throat. Your entire body convulses with it. You cover your face with your hands as the full, catastrophic weight of your situation crashes down on you. The breakup. The lies. The public humiliation. The flight. The breakdown. The hopelessness of it all. It pours out of you in a storm of breathless, wrenching tears. You can’t stop. You are a wreck, a disaster, a crying stranger on Kimi Räikkönen’s doorstep.

And Kimi … Kimi just stands there.

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. He just watches you, and his expression shifts from neutral confusion to a look of profound, stoic horror. This. This right here. A hysterical, crying woman on his property before he’s even had his morning coffee. This is Kimi Räikkönen’s personal version of hell.

He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He looks over your head at a tree. Then he looks down at his socks. He looks anywhere but directly at you. The silence is broken only by your ragged sobs. An entire minute passes. It feels like a year.

Finally, he lets out a long, slow sigh. It’s a sound of pure, unadulterated resignation.

“Okay,” he says. His voice is a low, gravelly rumble, thick with sleep and his Finnish accent.

Another long, agonizing pause while you try, and fail, to stifle your crying.

“You come inside,” he states. It’s not a question. It's a command born of someone who has assessed a bad situation and chosen the most logical, least-effort path forward.

You can’t speak, you just nod pathetically, your face still buried in your hands.

He waits for you to take a shuffling, hesitant step across his threshold. Then he adds, almost as an afterthought, “Or you can stay out here. Is same for me. But is getting cold.”

You stumble inside, and he closes the heavy door behind you, plunging the foyer into a soft, quiet dimness. The interior of the house is as clean and minimalist as the exterior. White walls, polished concrete floors, sparse but expensive-looking furniture. It’s immaculate, except for a small, bright pink toy car lying on its side near the staircase. A tiny, humanizing detail in the stark perfection.

You stand there dripping with misery, not knowing what to do, where to go. You feel like a stray animal that has wandered into a museum.

Kimi doesn’t offer a hug. He doesn't ask if you’re okay. He doesn’t ask what’s wrong or even who you are, though you know he knows. He just looks at you for one more second with that pained, trapped expression.

Then he turns and walks away without another word.

You listen to his socked feet padding softly across the concrete floor. He disappears into what you assume is a kitchen. You hear the clink of a ceramic mug, the sound of a cupboard opening, and then the loud, reassuring gurgle and hiss of an espresso machine firing up.

He’s decided to deal with the most immediate, practical problem. Caffeine.

And you are left standing alone in the foyer of Kimi Räikkönen’s house, wondering if you have finally, completely lost your mind.

***

You follow the sound of the espresso machine into a vast, open-plan kitchen and living area. The space is a testament to minimalist design. A huge, grey sectional sofa faces a fireplace that’s more of a sculptural art piece. The kitchen itself is a sleek expanse of stainless steel and dark cabinetry, dominated by a massive island topped with a single slab of white marble. The only warmth in the room comes from the morning sun pouring through a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass, revealing a breathtaking panorama of rolling green hills and the distant, steely blue of a lake.

Kimi is standing at the counter, his back to you, focused on his task. He moves with an efficient, no-nonsense economy of motion, tamping the coffee grounds, locking the portafilter into place. He doesn't speak. You stand awkwardly by the entrance to the room, feeling small and out of place, your dirty ballet flats a sacrilege on the polished concrete floor.

He pulls two shots of dark, fragrant espresso into small white cups. He picks them both up and turns, his expression as unreadable as ever. He jerks his head towards the island, where two simple wooden stools are tucked underneath. It’s a silent order to sit.

You obey, sliding onto one of the stools. The marble is cool beneath your forearms. He places a cup in front of you and then takes the spot opposite, the island a wide, white expanse between you.

The silence that settles is profound. It’s not a comfortable silence, but it’s not entirely hostile, either. It’s just … a Kimi Räikkönen silence. A vacuum devoid of pleasantries and small talk. The only sounds are the ticking of a clock you can’t see and the gentle hum of the high-tech refrigerator.

You wrap your cold hands around the warm ceramic cup. The steam smells like heaven. You take a sip. The espresso is strong, bitter, and shockingly good. It’s a jolt to your exhausted system. You glance up at him over the rim of your cup. He’s not looking at you. He’s staring out the window, his gaze distant, his jaw working silently as he sips his own coffee.

Minutes stretch by. You finish your espresso. He finishes his. He takes your empty cup, along with his own, and places them by the sink. He still hasn’t said a word about your dramatic arrival. For all he knows, you could be a dangerous lunatic. But he seems completely unconcerned, as if this is a boring, routine weekday morning.

You watch him, your mind struggling to reconcile the man from the legends — the party animal, the monosyllabic F1 champion, the Iceman — with the quiet stranger in socks who is currently rinsing out coffee cups with meticulous precision.

He dries his hands on a towel, then leans back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. He finally looks at you. His blue eyes are piercing, analytical. He’s finished his coffee. He has rebooted his system. He is now ready to deal with the problem that has invaded his home.

“So,” he says, the single word dropping into the silence like a stone.

You wait. He seems to be formulating his next sentence with the same concentration he’d give to finding the apex of a corner.

He sighs, a barely audible puff of air. It’s the sound of a man being forced to do something he finds deeply unpleasant, like filling out paperwork or attending a marketing event.

“What is the problem?” He asks.

The question is so blunt, so devoid of sympathy, it catches you off guard. There’s no “Are you okay?” or “What happened?” Just a simple, mechanical request for data.

You open your mouth, but only a shaky breath comes out.

He waits, his patience seemingly infinite. He adjusts his stance slightly. “Your car is broken,” he states, as if listing the known facts of an accident report. “You are here. In Switzerland. You were crying.” He pauses. “Why?”

And just like that, the dam breaks again. The directness of his approach, the lack of coddling pity, makes it feel safe to just … tell him. It’s like talking to a machine. A very stoic, Finnish machine.

“Charles …” you start, your voice cracking on the name. “He broke up with me.”

Kimi’s expression doesn’t change. He just nods once, slowly, processing the first piece of information.

“Two nights ago,” you continue, the words starting to flow, tumbling over each other in their haste to get out. “He said … he said he needed to focus. On his career. That he couldn’t afford any distractions, that he needed to be selfish to win. He said it wasn’t me, it was him, all of it …” You trail off, the memory of the insulting clichés making your throat tighten.

“Okay,” Kimi says. It’s not an agreement. It’s a prompt. Continue the data transfer.

“So I’ve been a wreck, obviously, just holed up in the apartment, not knowing what to do … and then last night … last night, my friend sent me something.” You have to stop, swallowing hard against a rising wave of nausea. “There were pictures. Online. From a gossip site.”

You look up at him, needing him to understand the gravity of this next part. His gaze is steady.

“It was him. In a club in Monaco. With another woman.” The word feels like poison on your tongue. “He was kissing her. He had his hands all in her hair, and they were—it wasn’t—it was from the night before. Less than twenty-four hours after he told me he needed to be alone to focus on racing.”

The whole sordid, humiliating story is laid bare in the quiet, sun-drenched kitchen.

“He took her to Sass Cafe,” you whisper, the final, petty detail feeling like the most painful of all. “That was our place.”

You’re shaking now, the adrenaline of the confession vibrating through you. “I couldn’t … I couldn’t be there anymore. My phone was blowing up. Pierre, Arthur … all of his friends, our friends. I felt like I was suffocating. So I just … I got in my car. I didn’t pack anything. I just drove. I didn’t even know where I was going, I just needed to get away from Monaco, from him, from all of it. I drove all night.”

You gesture weakly, a summary of your pathetic journey. “And then the car died. And I started walking. And I saw your gate.” You finish your story with a final, shuddering breath. “And now I’m here.”

The confession hangs in the air between you. Kimi remains silent, his arms still crossed. He’s processing. You can almost hear the whir of the gears in his mind, fitting all the pieces together: The Breakup. The Lie. The Other Woman. The Escape. The Breakdown.

Having said it all aloud, having given voice to the full scope of the betrayal, is too much. The fragile composure you’d gathered crumbles into dust. A fresh sob rips through you, and you bend forward, hiding your face in your hands, your shoulders shaking with the force of your renewed grief.

You feel, more than see, a shift in the room. When you dare to peek through your fingers, he’s no longer leaning against the counter across from you. He’s standing beside your stool. He hasn’t said a word. He’s just … moved closer. He’s standing there awkwardly, like he’s been summoned but hasn’t been given his instructions yet.

In that moment, your desperation outweighs all sense of propriety. You need an anchor. You need something solid to cling to in the storm. Before you can think about it, you surge off the stool and do the most unthinkable thing you could possibly do to the Iceman.

You hug him.

You wrap your arms around his torso, burying your face against the soft cotton of his black t-shirt, and you just let go. All the pain, all the humiliation, all the exhaustion erupts in a tidal wave of tears. You are sobbing, loud and ugly, your whole body trembling. Snot and tears are soaking into his shirt, and you’re vaguely aware of how disgusting it is, but you can’t stop.

For a terrifying second, Kimi is completely rigid. He is a statue. His arms are locked at his sides. You can feel the tension in his entire body, a man confronted with his worst nightmare. You think he might just push you off.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, after a moment that stretches into an eternity, one of his arms moves. It comes up slowly, hesitantly, and then his hand lands on your back. And he begins to pat.

It’s the most awkward, mechanical pat in the history of human comfort. It’s rhythmic, steady, and completely devoid of emotion. He’s patting you like you’re a piece of malfunctioning equipment that might respond to a percussive reset. He says nothing. He just continues to stand there, a human wall for you to cry on, thumping your back with the detached air of someone trying to dislodge a trapped piece of food.

And strangely, it’s exactly what you need. It’s so absurd, so perfectly Kimi, that a tiny, hysterical giggle bubbles up through your sobs. Crying on the Iceman while he pats you like a dusty rug. The situation is insane.

Eventually, the storm passes. Your sobs subside into shuddering breaths and pathetic little hiccups. The adrenaline is gone, leaving behind an ocean of bone-deep weariness. You become acutely aware that you are still clinging to Kimi Räikkönen and that his shirt is now a biohazard.

You pull back, mortified, wiping at your face with the back of your hands. “Oh my God,” you mumble, your voice thick and clogged. “I’m so sorry. Your shirt … I’ve ruined it.”

Kimi looks down at the sizable wet patch you’ve left on his chest. His expression is neutral, as if he’s examining a dent on a car.

“Is okay,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “Is only a shirt.”

He turns, walks to a drawer with the unhurried calm of a man who was most definitely not just used as a human tissue, and pulls out a clean, folded kitchen towel. He hands it to you. You take it gratefully, pressing the cool, clean cotton to your swollen eyes.

He goes back to his spot, leaning against the counter, and crosses his arms again, resuming his previous position as if the entire, mortifying embrace never happened. He is quiet for a long moment. You can see he has finished processing the data. The verdict is in.

“So,” he begins, his ice-blue eyes locking onto yours. “He tells you he needs to focus on the racing.”

You nod meekly, dabbing at your nose with the towel.

“But two days later,” he continues, his voice flat and factual, “he is in a club with a new girl.”

You flinch but nod again. “Yes.”

Kimi considers this for another second. His expression doesn’t change, but his tone becomes one of absolute, unshakeable certainty, as if he’s stating a fundamental law of the universe.

“He is an idiot.”

The words, so simple, so blunt, so undeniably true, slice through the fog of your heartbreak. He doesn’t offer pity. He doesn’t say, “you deserve better” or “it’s his loss.” He just states the obvious, objective truth. It wasn’t some grand, tragic sacrifice for his career. It wasn’t some complex emotional turmoil. It was simple, straightforward idiocy.

And hearing it from Kimi Räikkönen, the man of famously few words, makes it feel like the most profound wisdom you’ve ever heard. 

It’s so simple, so definitive, it acts as a strange sort of balm on your raw nerves. The smile that flickers on your face feels alien, like a muscle you haven’t used in years. It’s weak, watery, but it’s there.

Kimi watches this small transformation, his expression unchanged. He has delivered his verdict and now considers that part of the problem-solving process complete. He pushes himself off the counter. The phase of emotional assessment is over. It is time for logistics.

“Where is the car?” He asks.

You blink, pulled from your reverie. “What?”

“The car,” he repeats, his voice flat, patient. “Where did you leave it?”

“Oh. Um, back on the road. I don't know, maybe a kilometer or two from your gate? It’s a grey Alfa Romeo Giulia.” The make of the car is another small, cruel twist of the knife, a reminder of the F1 team he once drove for, the world you once inhabited.

He nods, already moving towards a drawer near the pristine kitchen sink. He pulls out a small notepad and a pen. “License plate?”

You tell him the Monaco plate number from memory. He jots it down in a surprisingly neat, compact script.

“Keys,” he says. It’s not a question.

You fumble in the back pocket of your jeans, your fingers closing around the familiar, cool metal. You pull them out and hold them up. The little prancing horse keychain attached to them feels like a branding iron against your palm.

He walks over and plucks them from your hand, his fingers brushing yours for a fraction of a second. His touch is cool and dry. He drops the keys on the marble island with a soft clink, then turns and retrieves a cordless phone from its charging base on the wall. He presses a few buttons and brings it to his ear, turning to face the wall of windows, his back to you once more.

You hear him speak, and the language is not one you recognize. It’s a fluid, melodic string of sounds that you assume must be Finnish. Then it switches to crisp, perfect German. You watch his reflection in the glass as he talks. He’s gesturing with his free hand, a short, chopping motion, as he describes the location of the car. He is all business. There is no wasted energy, no wasted words. He gives the license plate number, describes the make and color. He is efficient, competent, and completely in control. Everything you are not.

You sit there on the stool, clutching the kitchen towel like a lifeline, feeling the full, crushing weight of your helplessness. Less than seventy-two hours ago, you were planning a dinner party in your multi-million-euro apartment in Monaco. You had a life, a future, a partner you loved. Now you’re a charity case in a stranger’s house in Switzerland, unable to even organize a simple tow truck for yourself. The disparity is so vast it makes you dizzy.

He ends the call with a clipped, “Danke, tschüss,” and places the phone back on its charger. He turns back to you.

“Okay,” he says. “They come in one hour. Maybe less.”

“Thank you,” you whisper, the words feeling utterly inadequate. “Really, Kimi. I … thank you.”

He gives a slight shrug, as if to say, what else was I supposed to do? He walks over to the high-tech refrigerator, the one that’s been humming softly this whole time, and opens it. The interior light illuminates a space that is as organized and minimalist as the rest of his house. Bottles of water, cartons of milk, some vegetables, and a few containers of what looks like yogurt.

“You are hungry,” he states. It’s not a question. It is a diagnosis.

Your stomach clenches at the thought of food, but you also know he’s right. You’re running on empty, on nothing but grief and a single shot of espresso. You haven’t eaten in well over twenty-four hours.

“I-I don’t know,” you stammer.

He closes the fridge and looks at you, his gaze lingering on your pale face, the dark circles under your eyes. “You need to eat,” he says, his tone leaving no room for argument. “And you need water.”

He retrieves a tall glass from a cabinet, fills it with water from a dispenser in the fridge door, and places it in front of you on the island. “Drink.”

You drink. The water is cold and clean, and it’s the best thing you’ve ever tasted. You drain half the glass in one go, your parched body soaking it up gratefully.

He watches you for a moment, then seems to come to another decision. Without another word, he turns and walks out of the room, his socked feet silent on the concrete. You are left alone again in the vast, quiet space. The sun is higher now, flooding the room with a brilliant, clean light that makes you feel even more grimy and dishevelled. You can see the dust motes dancing in the sunbeams.

You finish the glass of water and look around the room properly. There are no photographs. No clutter. No personal trinkets, save for the single pink toy car you saw earlier, which you can now see is parked neatly beside the leg of a sleek, low-profile media console. The whole space feels less like a home and more like a luxury hotel suite that has been meticulously prepared for a guest who has yet to arrive. It is the home of a man who lives an uncomplicated life. A man who, you suspect, actively purges any and all potential complications.

And you are a walking, crying, five-foot-something complication that has just been deposited in the middle of it.

The sound of his returning footsteps makes you jump. He comes back into the kitchen holding a phone to his ear. He’s listening intently, his expression impassive.

“Ja … ja, ich verstehe,” he says into the phone. “Okay. Wie lange?” He pauses, listening. “Drei tage? Minimum?” Another pause. His eyes flick over to you, a quick, unreadable glance. “Okay. Schicken Sie mir die Details. Danke.”

He hangs up and places the phone face down on the counter. The finality of the sound echoes in the quiet room.

“That was the garage,” he says.

“And?” You ask, your voice barely a whisper, though you think you already know the answer. Bad days do not suddenly turn good.

“The engine is a big problem,” he says, delivering the news with the same emotional investment he’d use to report the weather. “They need to order a part from Italy. It will not be fast.”

“How … how not fast?” You ask, dreading the answer.

He looks you straight in the eye. “Three days,” he says. “Maybe four. If you are lucky.”

Three or four days.

The words sink in like stones. Three or four days stranded here. With no car, no clothes, no plan. The idea is so overwhelming you feel a fresh wave of panic begin to rise in your chest. A hotel. You’ll need to find a hotel. You can call a taxi. You have your wallet. You can handle this. You’re not completely useless.

You start to slide off the stool, a frantic energy seizing you. “Okay. Okay, a hotel. I’ll just call a taxi. Is there a hotel nearby?”

Kimi just watches you, his head tilted slightly, like you’re a particularly confusing species of animal. “A hotel,” he repeats, his tone flat.

“Yes, I can’t impose on you any longer. You’ve done so much already. I just need to get to a hotel, and I’ll figure it out from there.”

He doesn't move. He just continues to look at you, his arms crossed over his chest. He takes in your appearance: your tear-swollen face, your tangled hair, the fine tremor in your hands, the way you’re still clutching his kitchen towel like a security blanket.

He lets out one of his long, slow sighs. The sigh of a man whose peaceful, orderly existence is being systematically dismantled.

“Okay,” he says. “So. Your car is broken for three, four days. You have no clothes. You look …” he pauses, apparently searching for the right word. He settles on, “… not good. You have no hotel. You do not speak the language.” He lists these facts off, one by one, a calm, rational inventory of your pathetic situation.

He lets the weight of his assessment settle in the air between you.

Then he delivers the logical conclusion.

“You stay here.”

It’s not an invitation. It’s not a question. It is an instruction. A solution to a problem. He has identified the variables and calculated the most efficient outcome. You will stay here.

You stare at him, speechless. “What? No, I can’t. Kimi, that’s too much. I’m a stranger.”

“I know who you are,” he says simply. “Is easier if you stay. A taxi to a hotel is … a complication. Finding a hotel is a complication. You here,” he gestures around the vast, empty house, “is not a complication.”

The logic is bizarrely sound. You are clearly in no shape to take care of yourself. Navigating a foreign town, checking into a hotel, being completely alone with your thoughts for three days sounds like its own special kind of hell. Here, at least, there is … Kimi. A strange, silent, stoic guardian who seems to have reluctantly decided you are his problem to solve.

“I don’t know what to say,” you stammer, overwhelmed by the absurdity and the unexpectedness of the offer.

“Say nothing,” he replies, already turning away, the decision made and the discussion, in his mind, clearly over. “Come.”

He starts walking towards the grand, floating staircase you saw when you first came in. You hesitate for a second, then scramble off the stool and hurry to follow him, trailing in his wake like a lost duckling.

He leads you up the stairs. The second floor is a long hallway with the same polished concrete floors and white walls. He stops at the first door and pushes it open.

“Guest room,” he announces.

The room is beautiful, of course. It’s as minimalist as the rest of the house, but it feels softer. A large, low-slung bed is covered in a fluffy grey duvet. A plush, cream-colored rug covers a portion of the floor. One wall is entirely glass, looking out onto a dense forest of pine trees. It is serene. A calm, quiet sanctuary.

He walks into the room and opens another door, revealing a sleek, modern en-suite bathroom. “Bathroom is here,” he says, pointing. “Towels are in the cabinet. There is soap. Everything.” He pauses, his gaze sweeping over your rumpled silk blouse and jeans, the clothes you’ve been wearing for more than a day. “You should shower.”

It’s a suggestion, but it feels like another one of his non-negotiable instructions. And he’s right. You feel disgusting. A film of grime and grief coats your skin.

“Okay,” you say softly.

He nods, seemingly satisfied. He turns to leave, but pauses in the doorway. He looks back at you, a flicker of something in his eyes.

“Do not worry about the car,” he says. “Is just a car.”

And then he’s gone, pulling the door quietly shut behind him, leaving you alone in the silent room.

You stand there for a full minute, just breathing. The quiet is a balm. The room feels safe. You walk over to the glass wall and press your forehead against the cool pane, looking out at the endless green of the forest. For the first time since Charles said those four fateful words, you feel like you can breathe again. Just a little.

You turn towards the bathroom, peeling off your dirty clothes as you go. You leave them in a sad, crumpled pile on the floor. In the bathroom, you find a stack of thick, fluffy white towels in a cabinet, just as he said. You turn on the shower, and the water pressure is incredible. You step under the steaming hot spray and let it wash over you.

You wash your hair. You scrub your skin. You watch the grime and the sweat and the last twenty-four hours of misery swirl down the drain. You cry a little more, but these are different tears. Quieter ones. Tears of exhaustion and release, not of sharp, agonizing pain.

When you finally step out, wrapped in one of the enormous, soft towels, you feel almost human again. You dry your hair as best you can with the towel, your reflection in the fogged-up mirror still a stranger — puffy-eyed and pale, but cleaner.

You walk back into the bedroom, and you stop.

Lying neatly folded on the foot of the bed is a set of clean clothes. A soft, grey t-shirt and a pair of black athletic shorts. They are simple, clean, and clearly his.

A lump forms in your throat. He had gone and found you something to wear. He hadn’t mentioned it. He had just done it. Another problem identified, another solution quietly executed.

You pick up the t-shirt. It’s impossibly soft and smells faintly of clean laundry and something else … a subtle, clean scent that is uniquely him. You pull it on. It’s huge on you, the hem falling to your mid-thighs, the sleeves loose on your arms. The shorts are equally big, but they have a drawstring you can pull tight.

Dressed in his clothes, feeling small and swaddled in them, you feel a strange sense of security. You look ridiculous, but you are clean, and you are comfortable.

You pad barefoot out of the room and back towards the stairs. As you descend, a new smell fills the air. A rich, savory, delicious smell that makes your long-dormant stomach rumble loudly in protest.

It’s the smell of bacon.

You reach the bottom of the stairs and walk back into the kitchen. Kimi is standing at the stove, his back to you again. He has a pan sizzling on the cooktop. Beside it, another pan holds four perfectly frying eggs. A rack of toast is cooling on the counter.

He is cooking you breakfast.

He hasn’t made a sound. He has simply anticipated your needs and met them, one by one. Tow truck. A place to stay. A shower. Clean clothes. Food. He moves with a quiet competence that is both baffling and deeply comforting. He is, you realize, taking care of you. In his own strange, silent, Iceman way.

He must hear you because he glances over his shoulder. He sees you standing there, dressed in his clothes, your hair damp and combed, your face scrubbed clean. He gives a single, almost imperceptible nod of approval. The problem of the crying, hysterical woman on his doorstep is slowly being downgraded to the more manageable problem of a quiet, sad houseguest.

“Sit,” he says, jerking his chin towards the island. “Is ready now.”

***

The days that follow fall into a strange, quiet rhythm, dictated not by conversation, but by a series of unspoken routines. Life inside Kimi’s minimalist sanctuary is calm, predictable, and blessedly free of drama. It is the exact opposite of the life you just fled.

He is, you learn, an early riser. You wake on your first morning to the distant, comforting scent of coffee already brewing. When you emerge from your room, still swimming in his oversized t-shirt, you find a mug placed on the kitchen island at your usual spot, steam gently rising from the dark liquid.

He’s already dressed in jeans and a fresh t-shirt, staring out the vast glass wall at the lake, his own mug in hand. He doesn't greet you with a “good morning.” He just gives a short, sharp nod in your direction, a silent acknowledgment that the day has begun.

This is how he shows he’s caring. It’s never in words. It’s in actions, a series of quiet, practical gestures that speak volumes. He notices you don't have a phone charger, and a little while later, a universal charging block with multiple cords appears on the counter beside your mug. He sees you shivering in the air conditioning, and a soft, grey blanket appears on the arm of the sofa. He doesn’t ask if you’re hungry for lunch; he simply starts making sandwiches at noon and places one on a plate in front of you.

He demands nothing from you. He doesn’t push you to talk. He doesn’t ask how you’re feeling. He seems to understand, in his own innate, logical way, that you are a system that has suffered a catastrophic failure and requires a period of quiet diagnostics and basic refueling before you can even begin to function again. He provides the quiet. He provides the fuel.

You spend most of that first day in a daze, curled up on the enormous sofa under the blanket he provided, staring blankly at the news on a muted television. Your phone sits on the counter, charging. You can’t bring yourself to look at it. You know it will be a minefield of pitying texts from friends, missed calls from your mother, and, most terrifyingly, either a wall of silence or a string of hollow excuses from Charles. For now, ignorance feels like survival.

Kimi leaves you to it. He disappears for hours at a time, either into a room down the hall that you assume is an office or outside onto the sprawling property. You hear the faint roar of what sounds like a go-kart engine at one point, and the sound is so familiar, so tied to your old life, that it sends a fresh pang of grief through you.

Late in the afternoon, you finally summon the courage to pick up your phone. You have thirty-seven missed calls and over a hundred messages. Your thumbs tremble as you scroll through them. Most are from your friends in Monaco, a cascade of “Are you okay?”, “Where are you?”, and “Call me RIGHT NOW.” There are frantic, worried messages from your parents. There are even a few from people on Charles’s team, from his press officer, from his trainer.

And from Charles? Nothing. Not a single call. Not a single text.

The silence from him is somehow more damning than the photos. It’s an admission of guilt. It confirms that he doesn’t care, that he has simply deleted you from his life with the same ruthless efficiency he’d use to drop a struggling race engineer. The coldness of it chills you to the bone. You feel a fresh wave of tears threatening, and you quickly put the phone back down, face-down on the counter, as if you can physically block out the hurt.

You’re trying to pull yourself together when Kimi walks back into the kitchen. He sees your stricken face, his eyes flicking from you to the phone and back again. He says nothing about your tears. He just walks to the fridge.

“Salmon for dinner,” he announces, pulling out two large fillets. “And potatoes.”

His refusal to engage with your emotional turmoil is, you realize, the greatest kindness he could possibly show you. He’s not ignoring your pain, he’s simply building a world for you where that pain is not the most important thing. In this house, the most important thing is that dinner will be ready in an hour.

He is, as it turns out, an excellent cook. In a simple, no-fuss kind of way. He seasons the salmon perfectly, roasts the potatoes until they are crispy, and steams a side of asparagus. He works with the same quiet competence he applies to everything else.

He sets two places at the island. When he brings the plates over, he also brings two small, heavy-bottomed glasses and a bottle of vodka, slick with condensation from the freezer. He places it on the counter between you.

You stare at it. “Vodka?”

“Yes,” he says, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. He uncaps the bottle and pours a generous shot into each glass. “Is good with salmon.”

You don’t know if that’s true, but you’re certainly not going to argue. You pick up the glass. The vodka is icy cold and clean. You take a sip, and the sharp, clean burn is a welcome shock to your system.

Dinner is eaten in their now-customary silence. But it feels different tonight. Less awkward. More companionable. The shared meal, the surprising shot of vodka, it feels like a tentative step towards something resembling normalcy.

***

The second day is when you learn about his children.

You’re helping him clear the breakfast dishes — a task he allows you to do after you insist, though he watches you with a critical eye to make sure you put everything in the dishwasher correctly — when you notice it. Taped to the door of the otherwise immaculate stainless steel fridge is a child’s drawing. It’s a crayon rendering of two stick figures, one big and one small, standing next to a red car. The sun in the corner has a smiley face. It’s the single most personal, chaotic object in the entire house.

“Who’s the artist?” You ask, your voice soft.

Kimi follows your gaze to the drawing. A flicker of something crosses his face. It’s not quite a smile, but the hard lines around his eyes soften for a fraction of a second.

“Robin,” he says. “My son.”

The information surprises you. You knew he had been married, of course, the F1 paddock being the gossip mill that it is. But his private life was always a black box.

“And who’s this?” You ask, pointing to the smaller stick figure.

“Rianna. My daughter.”

“It’s a good drawing,” you say, tracing the wobbly outline of the red car. “Is this a Ferrari?”

“Of course,” he says, with a tone that implies it couldn’t possibly be anything else.

“Where are they?” You ask, realizing as soon as the words are out of your mouth that it might be too personal.

But he doesn’t seem to mind. “In Finland. With their mother,” he says, his voice matter-of-fact. “They come here next week.”

He falls silent, but there's a new quality to the air. You remember the small pink toy car you saw on your first day, parked by the television. Suddenly, the sterile, minimalist house feels different. It is not the empty shell of a bachelor pad,it is a home waiting for its children to return.

“You must miss them,” you say quietly.

He just grunts in response, but it’s an affirmative grunt. He closes the dishwasher with a definitive click. “They are good kids,” he says, almost to himself. “Fast. Like me.”

The pride in his voice is unmistakable. In that moment, you see a glimpse of the man behind the Iceman persona. A father. A man who loves his children wholeheartedly. And you realize that his quiet, gruff kindness isn’t so strange after all. It’s the protective, practical language of a parent.

Later that afternoon, you’re scrolling through your phone again. The news of your breakup with Charles is now everywhere. Celebrity gossip sites, F1 fan forums, even some mainstream news outlets have picked it up. They’re all using the same grainy photo of him kissing the brunette. Her name, you learn, is Margot. She’s a model. Of course she is.

The articles are full of speculation. Sources “close to the couple” claim the split was “amicable” and that Charles “wishes her all the best.” The hypocrisy makes you want to throw your phone against the wall.

Kimi walks in as you’re staring at an article with the headline LECLERC'S NEW LAP OF LOVE: F1 ACE MOVES ON AT RECORD SPEED!

He glances at your phone screen. A look of profound disdain crosses his features.

“He talks to the media before he talks to you,” Kimi states, shaking his head slowly.

“His press officer probably released a statement,” you say, trying to defend a man who doesn't deserve your defense. It’s an old habit.

“Is the same thing,” Kimi says, dismissing the excuse. He looks at the phone again, at the picture of Charles and Margot. “He thinks with the wrong head.” He walks to the fridge to get a bottle of water, his verdict delivered. The conversation is over. But his simple, crude, and accurate assessment makes you feel a little stronger. He doesn’t suffer fools. And he has officially, unequivocally, classified Charles Leclerc as a fool.

***

It’s the third night. The day before your car is supposed to be ready.

The reality of your departure looms over you. Tomorrow, you will get your car back. And then what? You can’t go back to Monaco. Not yet. Maybe ever. Where will you go? The questions spiral in your mind, bringing with them a familiar sense of panic and hopelessness. The calm, safe bubble Kimi has built around you is about to burst.

You feel a desperate need to not think about it. At least for one more night.

Kimi seems to sense your mood. Or maybe he’s just decided that the evening’s menu calls for it. When he starts cooking dinner — simple grilled chicken and a fresh salad this time — the bottle of freezer-chilled vodka makes an early appearance.

“A long day,” he says by way of explanation, pouring two very generous shots.

“A long few days,” you agree, picking up your glass.

You drink the first shot quickly. The burn is familiar now, almost comforting. He immediately refills your glass.

“The car is ready tomorrow,” he says, flipping the chicken on the grill pan. “At noon.”

“I know,” you say, your voice small. “Thank you … for letting me know. And for everything.”

“Is nothing,” he says, his standard reply.

But tonight, it doesn’t feel like nothing. It feels like everything. He has saved you. Maybe not in a grand, dramatic way, but in a quiet, essential one. He has given you a sanctuary when you had nowhere else to go. He has fed you, sheltered you, and, in his own way, protected you.

The vodka works its magic quickly on your empty stomach and frayed nerves. The sharp edges of your anxiety begin to soften. The kitchen fills with the savory smell of cooking, the comfortable silence punctuated by the sizzle of the chicken and the clink of your glasses.

You have a second shot. Then a third. By the time you’re eating, you’re feeling a warm, pleasant buzz. You’re talking more than you have in days, telling him a stupid story about a trip you took to Japan, and he’s actually listening, the corner of his mouth twitching in what might be the beginning of a smile.

After dinner, he refills your glasses again.

“Kimi,” you say, your words slurring slightly. “You’ve been … you’ve been so good to me. I don’t know how to thank you.”

He looks at you, his blue eyes surprisingly clear and focused. “Is not necessary,” he says. “He was an idiot. You needed a place to go. Is logical.”

“No, it’s not logical,” you insist, feeling bold from the alcohol. “Logical would have been calling me a taxi and sending me to a hotel. Logical would have been not letting a crying, crazy stranger into your house. That was … kind.”

He considers this for a moment, swirling the vodka in his glass. “Maybe,” he concedes, which for Kimi is a seismic admission.

You’re both leaning against the island, the empty dinner plates pushed to the side. The kitchen is dark now, the only light coming from a soft, recessed glow above the counters. It feels intimate. The rest of the world has faded away. There is only this quiet room, the lingering scent of dinner, and the icy burn of the vodka.

Your eyes meet across the counter. The silence that falls this time is different. It’s not empty. It’s charged with something new, something you can’t quite name. The professional, platonic distance he has so carefully maintained for three days seems to be dissolving in the alcoholic haze.

He looks at your mouth. It’s only for a second, but you see it. And your breath catches in your throat.

He pushes himself off the counter and starts gathering the plates. The moment is broken. Or so you think. He stacks them by the sink, then turns back to you. He doesn’t return to his side of the island. He stops on yours. He’s standing close. So close you can feel the warmth radiating from his body. You have to tilt your head back to look up at him.

“You should go to bed,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “You have a long drive tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to drive tomorrow,” you confess in a whisper. “I don’t want to leave.”

You hate how pathetic you sound, but it’s the truth. Leaving means facing the wreckage of your life. Staying here means … safety.

He looks down at you, his expression unreadable in the dim light. His famous icy gaze seems to have melted into something softer, darker. He reaches out, and you flinch, expecting him to pat your shoulder or do something equally awkward and paternal.

But he doesn’t.

His hand comes up to your face, his thumb gently brushing away a tear you didn’t even realize had fallen. His touch is warm and surprisingly gentle. It sends a shiver through your entire body.

“Kimi,” you breathe, your voice trembling.

He says nothing. He just lowers his head, slowly, giving you every opportunity to pull away. You don't. You can’t. You are rooted to the spot, caught in the gravity of his gaze.

His lips meet yours.

The kiss is not what you expect. It’s not hungry or passionate like Charles’s had been in that horrible photo. It’s slow, and deep, and questioning. It tastes of vodka and a quiet, profound loneliness that you recognize because it mirrors your own.

You lean into him, your hands coming up to grip his t-shirt. You kiss him back with all the desperation and confusion and gratitude that has been building inside you for three days. It’s a kiss that says thank you. It’s a kiss that says I’m so lost. It’s a kiss that says please, just for tonight, don’t let me be alone.

He seems to understand all of it. He deepens the kiss, one hand moving from your face to the small of your back, pulling you flush against him. You can feel the solid, steady beat of his heart against your chest.

When he finally breaks the kiss, you’re both breathing heavily. He rests his forehead against yours, his eyes closed.

“Is a bad idea,” he murmurs, his breath warm against your lips.

“I know,” you whisper back. “I don’t care.”

He opens his eyes, and the conflict is clear in them. The logical, sensible man is at war with something older, more instinctual. For once, instinct wins.

Without another word, he slides his arm around your waist, his other hand finding yours, and leads you out of the kitchen and towards the stairs. He leads you past the guest room door, past the long, quiet hallway, all the way to a door at the very end. His room.

His bedroom is as stark and simple as the rest of the house, dominated by a huge, low bed. He doesn’t turn on the lights. The moonlight streaming through the glass wall is all you need.

There is no awkward fumbling. There are no declarations. There is only a quiet, mutual shedding of clothes, a shared sense of purpose. It’s a silent, desperate search for human connection. When you are under the cool, crisp sheets of his bed, and he is beside you, his skin warm against yours, it feels less like a seduction and more like a homecoming.

It’s a quiet, desperate collision of two lonely people in the dark. And as you lose yourself in the feeling of his arms around you, his body over yours, you manage, for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, to not think about Charles Leclerc at all.

***

You wake slowly, drifting up from the depths of a dreamless, heavy sleep. For the first few blissful seconds, there is nothing. No grief, no panic, no searing memory of betrayal. There is only a profound sense of peace, a quiet warmth you haven’t felt in years.

Then, you become aware of the body next to you.

The events of last night come rushing back not in a torrent, but in a soft, hazy wave. The vodka. The kiss. The silent, urgent journey to this room. You are in Kimi Räikkönen’s bed.

You open your eyes.

The morning light is filtering through the vast glass wall, painting the minimalist room in pale, gentle shades of grey and gold. The room is as stark and clean in the daylight as you imagined, but it feels different now. Warmer. Lived in. Your crumpled clothes are a messy heap on a sleek leather armchair in the corner, a chaotic splash of color in the otherwise perfect space.

You turn your head on the pillow. Kimi is still asleep, lying on his back, one arm thrown over his head. His face, usually a mask of stoic indifference, is completely relaxed in sleep. He looks younger. The hard lines around his eyes and mouth have softened. His breathing is a deep, steady rhythm beside you. In this moment, he is not the Iceman. He is just a man.

You lie there, perfectly still, just watching him, listening to the quiet sounds of the house waking up around you. A bird sings outside the window. The house is silent. You feel a strange, protective urge to not disturb this peace, to let this moment stretch on for as long as possible. Because you know what comes next.

Reality.

Today is the day your car will be ready. Today is the day you are supposed to leave.

The thought sends a familiar jolt of anxiety through you. Leaving means driving away from this strange, quiet sanctuary and straight back into the chaos of your imploded life. It means finding a hotel, dealing with the logistics of moving out of the Monaco apartment, and facing the soul-crushing silence from the man you thought you would spend your life with. The prospect is exhausting.

You carefully, slowly, slide out from under the heavy duvet, trying not to wake him. The cool morning air raises goosebumps on your bare skin. You tiptoe over to the chair to retrieve your clothes when a low, gravelly voice stops you cold.

“Where are you going?”

You turn. He’s awake. His eyes are open, that piercing ice-blue fixed on you. He hasn’t moved a muscle, but his gaze is alert, watchful.

“I … I was just going to get dressed,” you stammer, feeling suddenly exposed, vulnerable. “I should probably—I have to go pick up my car at noon.”

You say the words, and they hang in the air between you, a stark reminder of the temporary nature of your stay. The bubble is about to burst.

Kimi continues to look at you, his expression unreadable. He pushes himself up, leaning back against the headboard, the grey sheet pooling around his waist. He doesn’t say anything for a long, heavy moment. He just watches you, and you feel like he’s seeing right through you, to the panic and the fear you’re trying so hard to hide.

This is it, you think. The awkward morning-after. He’ll give you a polite nod, maybe offer you coffee, and then you’ll be on your way. Last night was a fluke, a vodka-fueled moment of shared loneliness. A bad idea, as he himself said.

But then he speaks, and the word he says is not one you expect.

“Stay.”

It’s not a question. It’s not a command. It’s … something else. A plea, delivered with the blunt force of a man who does not know how to plead. The word is quiet, but it lands in the room with the weight of a dropped engine block.

You stare at him. “What?”

“Stay,” he repeats, his voice a little rougher this time. He shifts, sitting up straighter. This, you realize with a jolt, is a display of emotion. For Kimi Räikkönen, this is the equivalent of a grand, heartfelt speech. He is visibly uncomfortable, out of his element, but he is not backing down.

“Kimi, I can’t,” you say, your voice barely a whisper. The kindness of the offer makes your throat ache. “You’ve been incredible, but this isn’t—I can’t just hide here forever. I have to go get my life together.”

“Your life is not together in Monaco,” he states, his logic infuriatingly simple. “Idiot is there. Paparazzi. Is not good.”

“I know that,” you say, a fresh wave of despair washing over you. “But I can’t just move into your house. I have a job. I have clients. I have responsibilities.”

This seems to genuinely pique his interest. The logical, problem-solving part of his brain kicks in, overriding the uncharacteristic emotional display. The tension in his shoulders eases slightly. He is back on familiar ground: data acquisition.

“A job?” He asks. “What is your job?”

“I’m an interior designer,” you tell him.

A beat of silence. You can practically see the gears turning in his head. His eyes light up with a sudden, brilliant idea. A solution. A way to make you stay that fits within his logical framework.

“Perfect,” he says, his voice full of a strange, triumphant finality.

You’re confused. “Perfect? What’s perfect?”

“You have a job,” he says, as if explaining something to a small child. “Here. With me. You are hired.”

You stare at him for a full ten seconds, and then you burst out laughing. You can’t help it. The laughter is a release of all the tension, all the absurdity of the last few days. It’s a real, genuine laugh, and it feels incredible.

“You’re hiring me?” You manage to get out between giggles. “Kimi, have you looked around this house? It’s stunning. It looks like it was ripped from the pages of a magazine. You don’t need an interior designer. Whoever designed this place already did a perfect job.”

You gesture around his beautiful, minimalist bedroom. “What could I possibly do? Pick out a new throw pillow?”

This is where he starts to fumble. He’s been so confident in his brilliant solution, he hadn’t thought this far ahead. His eyes dart around the room, searching for a flaw, for a project, for any justification for his ridiculous offer. You can see the panic begin to set in. He looks at the sleek, custom-built wardrobe. He glances at the perfectly appointed en-suite bathroom. Nothing. The place is flawless.

He’s completely cornered. And then, he finds it. The one thing. The only thing. He looks back at you, his expression now deadly serious.

“The … laundry room,” he says.

You stop laughing. You just stare at him. “The laundry room?”

“Yes,” he says, his voice gaining confidence. He latches onto the lie with the tenacity of a driver defending his position on the track. “Is no good. The … the flow. Is all wrong. The machines are in a bad place. The … folding area,” he says, clearly inventing the term on the spot, “is not efficient. It needs to be redone. Completely.”

The lie is so transparent, so wonderfully, hilariously bad, it makes your heart ache. The Iceman, the master of unflappable cool, is inventing a laundry room crisis to convince you to stay. He would rather lie about the logistical efficiency of his linen care than admit, simply, that he wants you around. And in that moment, it’s the most romantic, most endearing thing anyone has ever done for you.

You decide to play along, a slow smile spreading across your face. You cross your arms, looking at him with a mock-professional expression. “The laundry room, you say? A major design flaw.”

“Yes,” he insists, nodding seriously. “A disaster.”

“And you want to hire me, an expert, to handle this … critical renovation?”

“You said you need a job,” he points out, his logic a perfect, closed loop. “I have a job. You do the job. You stay here. Problem is solved.”

You walk over to the edge of the bed and sit down, facing him. The sheet is still pooled around his waist, and you have to resist the urge to reach out and touch him. “Okay, Mr. Räikkönen,” you say, your voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Let’s talk terms. What’s the budget for this … laundry room disaster?”

He doesn’t even blink. “Whatever,” he says.

“And the timeline?”

“As long as it takes,” he replies, his gaze intense.

You look at him, at this stubborn, ridiculous, unexpectedly wonderful man. You weigh your options. You can go. You can drive away in your repaired car and face the music, face the empty apartment, face the suffocating pity of your friends and the crushing silence of your ex. You can be strong and independent and miserable.

Or.

You can stay. You can accept this absurd, transparent, and incredibly sweet offer. You can stay in this quiet haven, with this quiet man who makes you feel safer than you’ve felt in your entire life. You can work on the most pointless, most romantic renovation project in the history of interior design. You can give yourself a minute to breathe. To heal.

It’s not even a choice.

“Alright,” you say, a real, happy smile lighting up your face. “You’ve got yourself a designer.”

A look of relief washes over his face. It’s a subtle shift, a slight easing of the tension in his jaw, but to you, it’s as clear as a checkered flag. He won.

“But,” you add, holding up a finger, “I am a professional. My first order of business will be a full on-site consultation. I’m going to need to see this disaster of a laundry room for myself. Immediately.”

A rare, small smile plays on his lips. The kind of smile that feels like a secret you’re both sharing. He looks at you, then at the rumpled sheets, then back at you.

“Later,” he says, his voice a low, husky growl. “The consultation can wait.”

Before you can react, he reaches out, grabs the front of your borrowed t-shirt, and pulls you down onto the bed with surprising strength. You let out a squeal of laughter as you tumble into the soft duvet.

He rolls over, caging you in with his arms, his body warm and solid above you.

“First,” he murmurs, his lips brushing against yours, “breakfast.” He pauses, his mouth hovering just inches from yours. “After one more round.”

You laugh, wrapping your arms around his neck, and pull him down to you. The laundry room could wait. For the first time in a long time, you felt like you were exactly where you were supposed to be.

***

A year can change everything.

A year ago, your world was a silent, minimalist villa owned by a stranger, a sterile sanctuary from a life that had just been publicly detonated. Now, that same villa is your home. And it is no longer silent.

It is filled with the sound of a little girl’s infectious giggles as she runs through the living room, her bright pink socks slipping on the polished concrete floor. It is filled with the low hum of a go-kart engine being meticulously tuned in the garage by a father and his quiet, focused son. It is filled with the scent of your baking, a warm, sweet counterpoint to the clean, modern lines of the kitchen. It is filled with life. Your life.

The laundry room, for the record, is a masterpiece of logistical efficiency and aesthetic calm. It was your first project, a ridiculous, wonderful monument to the lie that started your new life. After that, the changes were smaller, more organic. A plush, deep blue velvet sofa replaced the cold, grey sectional. A gallery wall of framed photographs — Kimi holding a laughing Rianna upside down, you and Robin covered in mud after a motocross session, the four of you squinting into the sun on a boat in a Finnish lake — now covers the vast white expanse of the main wall. There are plants, and books, and a worn, antique rug in the hallway that you found in a little shop in Zurich.

You have taken Kimi Räikkönen’s perfect, sterile house and you have made it a home. And he has, in his own quiet, steady way, helped you rebuild your heart.

“Robin, have you seen your pass?” You call out, holding up a lanyard with a VIP credential attached. “We can’t get into the paddock if you lose it!”

Your voice echoes slightly in the high-ceilinged space. You’re in the midst of the controlled chaos that is trying to get two children and one famously unhurried former Formula 1 World Champion out of the door on time.

Robin, a miniature version of his father with the same serious eyes and quiet intensity, appears from the hallway. He doesn’t speak, just points to the pocket of his little jacket.

“Okay, good,” you say with a relieved smile, ruffling his hair. “Rianna, sweetie, shoes!”

“But I want to wear the sparkly ones!” Comes a determined voice from the direction of the sofa.

Kimi emerges from the kitchen, holding a bottle of water and a half-eaten apple. He looks at you, a tiny, almost imperceptible smile playing on his lips. He is dressed in his usual uniform of jeans and a black t-shirt, but he looks different than he did a year ago. Softer. The constant, low-level tension he used to carry in his shoulders is gone.

“The sparkly shoes are not for the race track,” he says to his daughter, his voice its usual gravelly monotone. “Too much walking. You wear the trainers.”

“But Isä!”

“He’s right, Ri,” you interject, crouching down in front of her. “The trainers are much better for running away from scary reporters.”

This makes her giggle. “Okay!” She agrees, suddenly compliant.

You stand up, and Kimi is watching you, his expression one of quiet contentment. He hands you the bottle of water.

“You are ready for this?” He asks. It’s the closest he’ll get to acknowledging the potential awkwardness of your return to the F1 paddock.

You take a sip of water and smile at him. “It’s just a race, Kimi.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “People are the same. Mostly idiots.”

You laugh, leaning in to kiss him. The kiss is soft and familiar, a comfortable punctuation mark in the conversation of your life together. A year ago, the thought of returning to this world, the scene of your greatest humiliation, would have sent you into a spiral of panic. Now? Now it feels like a field trip. Your real life is here, in this house, with this man and these children. Everything else is just noise.

***

The Monza paddock is exactly as you remember it, only a thousand times more so. It’s a sensory overload of noise, color, and controlled chaos. The roar of an engine being tested in a nearby garage, the smell of burning rubber and high-octane fuel, the frantic energy of people marching with purpose, headsets on, clipboards in hand. And above it all, the passionate, ever-present hum of the Tifosi, the sea of red-clad fans chanting on the other side of the barriers.

This is Ferrari’s home. Charles’s home.

You feel a brief, phantom pang of the old anxiety, a ghostly echo of the girl you used to be. Then you feel a small hand slip into yours. You look down to see Robin looking up at you, his expression serious. You squeeze his hand. On your other side, Kimi is holding Rianna’s hand, who is pointing excitedly at a passing television camera.

You are a fortress, the four of you. A solid, hand-holding, impenetrable unit.

You walk through the turnstiles, your VIP passes beeping your entry into the inner sanctum. The plan is simple: say a quick hello to Kimi’s old friends at Alfa Romeo, grab a famously bad paddock coffee, and then watch the qualifying session from their hospitality suite. In and out. Minimal fuss.

Of course, that is not what happens.

The first domino falls as you pass the glowing red monolith of the Ferrari motorhome.

A pair of senior engineers, men you knew well from countless dinners and victory parties, are standing outside, deep in conversation over a data screen. One of them, a kind, balding man named Lucio, glances up. His eyes widen in recognition.

“Y/N?” He says, a huge, surprised smile breaking out on his face. “Ciao! Che sorpresa!” He takes a step toward you, his hand outstretched.

And that’s when he sees him. The man whose hand is linked with yours. His smile freezes. His brain visibly short-circuits, trying to process the impossible image in front of him. You, plus Kimi. And then his gaze drops to the two small children between you. You. Kimi. Children. A family.

Lucio stops dead in his tracks.

The other engineer, who was still looking at the data screen and walking forward, is not prepared for the sudden stop. He walks directly into Lucio’s back with a comical oof. The tablet he was holding goes flying, skittering across the asphalt. A third engineer, rushing out of the garage with a tray of espressos, swerves to avoid the flying tablet, trips over a power cable, and goes down in a clattering, coffee-splashing heap.

It’s a multi-engineer pile-up, a tangle of red uniforms and bewildered expressions.

“Isä, those men fell down,” Rianna observes, her voice full of childish curiosity.

“Yes,” Kimi says, not breaking his stride. “They forgot how to walk.”

You bite your lip to keep from laughing, pulling Robin along as Kimi leads your little parade away from the spreading puddle of espresso.

The second domino is a mechanic. A young guy you vaguely recognize, who always had a bit of a crush on you, is walking towards the garage carrying a front wing — a multi-million-dollar piece of carbon fiber. He spots you, his jaw going slack. His eyes follow you, completely mesmerized. He doesn’t see the partition wall for the tire bay.

THUMP.

The sound of his head connecting with the solid wall is sickeningly loud. He slides down to the ground, dazed, the precious front wing still clutched in his hands like a holy relic. A group of his colleagues rush over, torn between concern and hysterical laughter.

By now, your little procession is starting to draw attention. People are staring, whispering. The former girlfriend of Ferrari’s golden boy, holding hands with Ferrari’s last World Champion and his children. The gossip is spreading through the paddock at the speed of light.

And then comes the third, and perhaps most spectacular, domino.

Lewis Hamilton is cruising towards you on his signature paddock scooter. He’s dressed impeccably, as always, in some avant-garde designer outfit that probably costs more than your first car. He sees the commotion around the Ferrari garage, the dazed mechanic, the pile of engineers. He looks over to see the source of the disturbance.

He sees you. He sees Kimi.

The seven-time World Champion, a man famous for his precision and focus, a man who can place a racing car on an apex with millimeter accuracy at 200 miles per hour, completely forgets how to operate a scooter.

His eyes are wide with a mixture of shock and what looks like pure glee. He turns his head to get a better look, but he forgets to turn the handlebars. The scooter continues straight, veering off the pristine asphalt, over the curb, and onto a small patch of decorative grass. There’s a soft whump as the scooter tips over, dumping one of the greatest drivers of all time onto the lawn in a surprisingly clumsy tangle of limbs and expensive fabric.

He’s unharmed, but he sits up, looking bewildered, as if he can’t quite believe what just happened.

You are now the undeniable center of a three-ring circus of chaos. You look at Kimi, your eyes wide with a mixture of horror and amusement. He just looks at the scene, at the fallen engineers, the dazed mechanic, the sprawling World Champion, with an expression of mild, detached curiosity. To him, this is just further proof of his long-held theory.

And then you see him.

He’s walking out of the back of the Ferrari garage, his trainer at his side. He’s already in his race suit, zipped down to the waist, his helmet tucked under his arm. He has that look on his face, the one you know so well. The intense, pre-qualifying focus, where the rest of the world just melts away.

His trainer says something, and Charles glances up, his eyes scanning the paddock. And then they land on you.

Time slows down.

His step falters. The focused mask drops, replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated shock. He sees you. And he sees that you are not the ghost he has likely been picturing for the past year. You are not sad. You are not broken. You are smiling, your face glowing with a quiet, confident happiness he has never seen before.

His gaze slides from your face to the large, familiar hand holding yours. Kimi. A former Ferrari driver. His predecessor. A man he respects. The confusion on his face deepens.

And then, his eyes drop lower. He sees the two small children. He sees Robin, quiet and serious in his little jacket. He sees Rianna, who chooses that exact moment to wave at him with her free hand.

You. Kimi. Children. Holding hands. Smiling.

The equation does not compute. His brain, a finely tuned instrument designed to process thousands of points of data per second on a race track, cannot solve this one, simple, human problem.

You watch as the color drains from his face. His skin goes from its usual healthy Monegasque tan to a pale, clammy white. His green eyes, usually so bright, go wide and then seem to lose focus. His mouth opens slightly, but no sound comes out. Andrea, sensing something is wrong, puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Charles? Are you alright?”

But Charles doesn’t hear him. He takes one last, uncomprehending look at the happy, solid family unit you have formed with another man. And then, with all the grace of a sack of potatoes, he faints.

It’s not a dramatic, swooning faint. It’s a sudden, complete system failure. His knees buckle, his eyes roll back in his head, and he just … collapses, a heap of red race suit and shock on the paddock asphalt.

Pandemonium erupts. His trainer shouts his name. Medics come running. People are yelling.

You stand there, in the quiet eye of the hurricane you have unintentionally created, and you feel … nothing. No, that’s not right. You feel a quiet sense of closure. The last, withered vine connecting you to your old life has just been decisively severed.

Kimi has watched the entire scene unfold with the impassive air of an inspector at a crash site. He has analyzed the data and reached a conclusion.

Rianna tugs on his hand, her little face a mask of concern. “Isä,” she asks, her voice piping high above the noise. “What’s wrong with that man in the red pajamas?”

Kimi looks down at his daughter, then back at the chaotic scene of Charles being attended to by a frantic crowd. He considers the question for a moment, his expression thoughtful. Then he gives his official, expert diagnosis.

“Bwoah,” he says, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. “The car must be really bad this year.”

You stare at him. At this absurd, impossible, wonderful man. And you finally let yourself laugh. It’s a full, deep, joyous laugh of pure liberation.

Kimi watches you, and the corner of his mouth quirks into the smallest, most secret of smiles. He’s seen enough. This complication has been dealt with.

“Okay,” he says, giving Rianna’s hand a little squeeze. “We go. Ice cream now.”

He steers the four of you away from the mess, away from the gasps and the cameras and the ghost of your past life. You walk away from the chaos you created, a little island of calm in the storm.

"Mm, even after a few hours?"

"Eight hours is more than a few." he insists.

You smile to yourself. "I love you."

"And I love you." he says, "How was your day?"

"Boring," you sigh, filling him in on your cramps, work drama and how your work friend had had another awful date the night before. He gives you more attention than your stories justify, shooing you away from the cooking the moment he hears about your headache, insisting you should just rest, reminding you that the two of you are meant to be babysitting tomorrow night. You sit on one of the stools, watching him cook with pure fondness, and laughing when he insists on eating in front of the TV.

With your plates left on the coffee table, he lies between your legs, absentmindedly stroking the cat while he lays his head on your chest as you watch a new Netflix film that neither of you are particularly interested in; he keeps trying to guess what will happen, and blushing when you tease him for his hilariously inaccurate predictions.

-

The nausea doesn't subside the next morning – not that you tell Kylian that – but it's relatively low-key, so you go to work anyway, smiling every time Kylian sends you an update on his day – a selfie of him and Hakimi, a photo of his lunch, a little rant about a pop song he can't seem to escape. You send him some of your own updates, despite the teasing you get from your friend when you send him a picture of you at lunch with her.

Amélie offers her sympathies over your apparent illness, agreeing that it's probably some combination of your period and a mild bug, though not without a throwaway joke about you being pregnant – "You and Kylian have been wrapping it before tapping it, right?" she had teased.

Leaving the café after parting ways with your friend, you began to wonder – you and Kylian had stopped using condoms pretty quickly after you got together, opting to rely on your birth control pill and his pullout game, but you found yourself wondering if you had forgotten any lately, or if it simply hadn't worked. But no, you weren't pregnant.

Nevertheless, you stop by the pharmacy on the way back to the office, buying a pack of two tests to take later.

You were jittery all afternoon, googling pregnancy symptoms on the toilet and asking your older colleague about her pregnancies, careful not to raise any suspicions.

When Kylian texted you to say he'd pick you up in five minutes, you put the tests at the bottom of your bag, not wanting to have that conversation with him until you'd confirmed that you weren't, in fact, pregnant. It would be a good way to bring the conversation about kids back up – just to check he still wanted them, and that you were still on the same page about leaving it for a couple of years.

He kisses you as you get in the passenger seat, leaving his hand on your lower thighs as he navigates the city, the conversation light.

Your brother drops your nieces off at your flat not long after you get home, the two girls are more than pleased to be spending time with their aunt and uncle. You love how much they love him, how they seem unable to stop laughing when he's near, or the fact that he let's them drag him into all kinds of silliness – tonight, they insist on giving him a makeover, asking you for nail polish and makeup while he sits in the living room, looking more than a little apprehensive. You give them some pink nail polish and some of your older, cheaper makeup, having learnt your lesson from the time the elder of the two, Rosie, bit through your favourite lipstick.

Rosie decides to start with eyeliner, while Poppy starts to cover Kylian's fingers with hot pink polish, getting as much of the stuff on his skin as on his nails, while he sits there and takes it, pouting when you giggle or take photos to send to your brother. The girls are having the time of their lives however, putting enough blush on his cheeks to turn him as red as their namesakes, highlight streaking over his cheekbones and lipstick getting almost to his chin with the messy application. His nails are all pink, as he obediently waits for them to dry while your nieces giggle and start trying to put it on each other – you only intervene when Poppy tries to use the nail polish as lipstick, opting to take it off them and let Kylian entertain them with something more suited to him – a game of hallway football – a favourite of everyone but the cat, who's hiding from the grabby hands of your nieces in your bedroom.

You persuade him to let you take a picture of his fully made up face, unable to stop laughing at the sight of him. If you are pregnant, you hope every evening is like this. You sit in the kitchen, listening to the loud smacks of the football against the wall as the two girls try to get the ball to hit the bedroom door behind him, Kylian doing his best to act as a goalkeeper. The shouts and gleeful cackles from the hallway make you smile – your brother has done so much to give his kids a better childhood than the one you shared, and suddenly you can't wait to do the same with Kylian. You sink down into the sofa, thinking of the pregnancy tests at the bottom of your handbag; you can already imagine the family Christmases, Kylian splurging on their birthdays and getting protective the moment their old enough to think about relationships; the kids' football games that they'll inevitably play in, the other mums being taken with him while you stand there, knowing he's yours.

You pull yourself from the thought, reminding yourself that you wanted to wait a couple of years and that the test was most likely going to be negative and your cramps were probably just your period.

"Auntie Y/N?" Poppy asked, apparently having left her sister and Kylian to the hallway football. You pick her up and change the TV from an adult comedy to a kids’ channel.

"Yeah, sweetie?"

She cuddles up to you, "Rosie says Uncle Kyky's famous."

You smile at her, nodding. “Yeah, he’s a pretty big deal.”

The toddler frowns, "Why?"

"Uncle Kyky plays football in big stadiums." you say, not entirely sure how to explain to a barely-three-year-old that her ‘Uncle Kyky’ is a world famous footballer when she barely knows what football is.

She frowns. "Can I be famous?"

"If you want to." you say.

"Are you famous?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"I don't really want to be." you say, "Uncle Kyky gets enough attention for the two of us."

She thinks about it for a long moment. "I think I pooped."

You're too busy laughing at the sudden switch up to be concerned with the fact that she's sat in your lap and may well have gotten poo all over your new jeans, your roaring laughter confusing her as it gets Rosie and Kylian's attention, the two of them appearing from the hallway, frowning at you as you lift Poppy off your lap, glad to see there aren't any stains on your clothes or the sofa. "God, that's stinky." you tell her, still laughing.

After getting her changed out of her poopy clothes and into her pyjamas, you start to wind down for the evening, trying to bore the two girls out so they'll go to bed; they do so eventually, Poppy snoring away on Kylian's shoulder as you watch some comedy, Rosie bright and attentive as Kylian takes her little sister to the spare room to go to bed. Rosie goes not long after, and you make sure to keep her as quiet as possible when you tuck her into bed beside her sister, the two girls curling up in the bed, a much too big king sized bed, and all those thoughts of parenthood come right back. This could be you and Kylian's life, everyday, poo and all.

In the living room, you lie with your head in his lap as he plays Fifa with the volume right down. He absentmindedly strokes your hair between games, sensing you getting more tired by the minute; eventually, he suggests you go to bed, making sure to leave the door to the spare room ajar in case the girls wake up, and joining you in the ensuite bathroom so you can brush your teeth together. You reflect, while listening to Kylian change in your room, that the night has been incredibly domestic, though in a way so different to your usual routines. You join your boyfriend in the bedroom and change into one of his tops.

"I'm gonna leave the door open in case one of them needs us." you say, conscious that they still wake up in the night fairly often, and Kylian beckons you to join him in bed, the two of you settling so that his bare chest is pressed into the cotton of your shirt, drifting off with his body heat encapsulating you, glad you don't have work in the morning.

-

When you wake up, Kylian's gone, a dent left in the mattress from where he had been; the clock says it's past ten, so you drag yourself out of bed and pull on some of his joggers, brushing your teeth while you check your texts, confirming that your sister-in-law would pick up the kids in forty-five minutes and seeing the results of one of the Premier League matches on your feed – your algorithm clearly aware of your vested interest in football. In the kitchen, your nieces are giggling their socks off at Kylian's poor attempts at flipping pancakes, each equally covered in Nutella from pancakes they had, apparently, already had.

"What's this?" You ask, alerting them of your presence.

"Pancake Saturday!" the three of them say in unison, as though it's completely obvious.

"Pancake Saturday?" You repeat.

"Papa always makes us pancakes on Saturdays." Rosie tells you.

"Does he?" You murmur, knowing that Kylian had been taken for a fool – your brother couldn't make a pancake if his life depended on it.

You move to the coffee machine, brushing sleep from your eyes, but Kylian stops you, pressing his lips to your forehead. "Your coffee's on the counter."

You smile, sipping it as Kylian successfully slips the pancake, eliciting a cheer from his audience. He gives it to you, so you join your nieces at the table and cover it in Nutella, rolling it and taking a bite, the chocolate spread sticky and runny from the warmth of the pancake.

When you've all stuffed yourselves with pancakes, you go to get the girls changed while Kylian washes up the mess he made, your nieces reeking havoc as you sort out their belongings, Kylian answering the door to their mum just as Rosie finishes ‘plaiting’  Poppy's hair, completely tangling it and nearly giving you an aneurism when you see the state of her hair.

Helene finds you brushing out the knot in her daughter's hair, Rosie watching curiously as though she's never seen a hairbrush before.

When they're gone, the flat feels utterly silent. Kylian cuddles up to you on the sofa, a residual smile still on his face from your babysitting fiascos. "Mm, I love you." he says, his hands flat on your back under your shirt, cold on your skin.

"I love you too. I love seeing you with them."

"One day our kids will be having sleepovers with them so we can have date nights like your brother." he tells you, making you smile.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I can't wait to have kids with you, but I'd need you all to myself sometimes."

You mull his words over. You'll need to take the pregnancy tests eventually, to find out whether there's any point to your theorising. "What do you want for lunch?" You ask, afraid to stay on the subject.

"I was thinking pasta." he says, words humming through your ribs.

-

You take the test that evening, while Kylian's on the phone to his nutritionist, already dressed for the dinner you're having with Achraf and Hiba, and nearly cry when it comes back positive. You're not sure how to feel, just that the two lines fill you with anxiety, and that you’re glad that, on some level, all the thoughts you’d been having about starting a family with Kylian weren’t for nothing. You stash the test at the bottom of your makeup bag, checking your lipstick as Kylian comes back into the bedroom, complimenting your dress, hands finding your hips as he kisses you.

"We need to go," you say, "The taxi's waiting."

He follows you out, letting you pull him out the flat and onto the street, but insists on opening the car door for you, always a gentleman.

The traffic is mild for a Saturday night, so you manage to get to the restaurant before your friends, though you're drastically slowed by a bunch of football fans who ask for Kylian's photo or signature, because Kylian doesn't have it in him to refuse. In the end, you're only waiting for Achraf and Hiba for a couple of minutes before they arrive, immediately diving into a story about their sons reeking more havoc – as always.

The waiter appears, asking for orders, taking everyone's food and drinks, and Hiba sends you a quizzical look when you order mocktail rather than your usual wine – you don't respond, just turning the conversation to an upcoming PSG dinner you're all meant to be attending. You can tell she's waiting to ask though, watching you like a hawk all night, right up until you head to the bathroom.

When you leave your cubicle to wash your hands, she's leaning on the edge of the sink. "Y'know, people pee a lot at the start of pregnancies, because your kidneys start producing way more liquids."

You start to wash your hands, "I knew you'd figured it out immediately."

"Does Kylian know?"

You dry your hands. "I've known for barely two hours, so, uh, no."

She smiles at you. "This is exciting – the boys will be so happy to have a new playmate."

"Hold your horses, I don't know what he's gonna say yet."

"He wants kids though, right?"

You shrug. "Yeah, we've talked about it, but we were – or are? I don't know – planning to wait a couple of years."

She nods. "You'll do what's best for you, you're sensible like that. Only you can tell you what to do with your body."

You think about it for a few long seconds. "Yeah. Yeah, I hope so."

"C'mon, they'll start thinking we've left if we don't go back."

The rest of the meal goes smoothly, with Hiba sending you subtle looks every time her sons are mentioned, making you all the more anxious to go home and talk this whole thing out with your boyfriend, whose hand seems to be permanently attached to your thigh.

Eventually, after splitting the bill and bidding farewells, you find yourself pressed into Kylian's side in the back of a taxi, internally cursing the horrid January cold, and after what feels like forever, you're changing out of your dress while Kylian is in the loo, talking to you while he washes his hands.

You come into the bathroom while he's drying them, smiling when he greets you with a peck to your cheek, preemptively handing you your makeup wipes: always knowing your next move.

Bored, he starts to inspect the products in the bathroom cabinet, picking them up to read the labels while you exfoliate, watching him out the corner of your eye, seeing him get slowly closer to the makeup bag where the positive test is stashed, unsure whether or not to stop him before he discovers it.

"What's retinol?" he asks, picking up a small bottle.

"It keeps your skin clear." you say, not sure how to explain it because you're not really sure yourself.

"Doesn't, like, everything in this cabinet do that?"

"No." you say weakly, making him chuckle.

You hear the clatter of your makeup bag being picked up, and the sound of different objects knocking together. "What's – oh."

You turn around; he's staring at the test, apparently dumbfounded. You feel yourself blushing, unsure how to navigate the moment. "Yeah. I took it just before we left earlier."

He looks up at you, still in shock, yet to say anything. "That's why you ordered the mocktail."

You giggle. "It's also why Hiba took me hostage in the bathroom."

"We were wondering where you'd gone," he admits. "What are you going to do?"

You stare at him for a few seconds before correcting him. "What are we going to do?"

He holds your gaze. "It's your body, not mine. You know I'd love to have this child, but that's not my decision to make."

You can feel the tears threatening to spill – why do you have to decide? He wraps his arms around you, encasing you in his scent, overwhelming you. Tentatively, you wrap your arms around his waist. "You don't have to decide now," he reminds you, "You have time."

You nod, inhaling deeply. "Do you want this? Like, really truly want this?"

He pulls back so he can look at you properly. "I love you, and I would be happy either way, but I'd love to have this child with you – I'd love to."

You nod. "I can't believe I'm gonna be a mum."

His face breaks into a smile, "Yeah?"

"Yeah, fuck yeah."

He kisses you, keeping you close. "God, I'm so excited."

You can't help but smile at the thought of him, a dad.

"Can we go to my parents' house tomorrow? To tell them?"

You nod, still crying.

-

Fayza is delighted to have you both over again, asking about your siblings and nieces, apparently forgetting that her son is standing beside you, sulking about not being the centre of attention. She offers you wine, and frowns but doesn't push when you refuse, then cooks the best meal you've had in months. Ethan greets you when he gets back from seeing his friends, taking the first opportunity to take the piss out of his older brother. You're happy to watch the family be amongst themselves, wondering about what they'll be like with the baby, how they'll react, what they'll say and ask.

You're sort of waiting for Kylian to bring it up – it's his family, after all, but it's starting to feel like it'll never happen. As always, he senses your anxiety, squeezing your hand under the table while you all eat, earning a shy smile. Ethan raises an eyebrow at the interaction, pausing his eating. "Okay, seriously – what's going on?"

Kylian clears his throat. "Uh, well, Y/N and I are expecting."

"'Expecting'?" Ethan repeats. "What are you, fifty?"

"Oh piss off," Kylian groans, rolling his eyes, "There go your chances of being the godfather."

Fayza is staring at you. "You're serious? You're pregnant?"

You nod slowly, relief washing over you as she smiles, getting up from her seat to hug you, congratulating you as she does so.

Later, as you're sitting watching the news, Kylian's dad clears his throat. "You'll need to announce it at some point."

Kylian glances sideways at him, his arm over your shoulders. "We have time – I don't want to rush into any announcements. It needs to be as smooth as possible, right?"

"Stress is bad for the baby!" Fayza chides, appearing from the kitchen with a cup of herbal tea for you.

"Stress is bad for the baby." Kylian repeats, making his dad chuckle.

"Of course, take your time, talk to the media team at PSG and all of that, but I'm just reminding you."

You sip the tea, holding the mug in one hand while you google how far into pregnancy you're meant to stop having caffeine and finding out you're now limited to only two cups a day – less than 24 hours into getting the positive test, and you've already had to say goodbye to smoking, drinking, sushi and salami, and – less reluctantly – cleaning out the cat's litter box, and finding out you'll have to get a handle on your caffeine addiction is only more upsetting. Kylian kisses your hairline, "Thoughts?"

"About announcing?"

He hums.

"I don't know. We've always been private, and I don't think I want the world to know about this just yet."

"We'll wait as long as you like, chérie."

You press closer into his body. "That doesn't mean you can't tell your mates though, you know."

He makes another noise of agreement. "Are you tired?"

You nod, thankful that he noticed your fatigue.

"We'll go soon."

-

You’re sitting in the office, scrolling through a webpage about the first trimester of pregnancy, looking up every few seconds in case one of your colleagues walks past, curiosity overcoming your concerns about having your pregnancy discovered prematurely. You’re still fatigued, and the morning sickness is starting to ramp up, but it’s not too bad – not bad enough that you feel like you can’t go to work, anyway. The time in the corner of your screen reads at quarter past five, so you decide to call it a day – you’re going to your brother’s house to announce the pregnancy, and the traffic will make it a forty minute drive.

“Where are you off to?” asks your older colleague from two desks away, Cynthia.

“My brother’s,” you say, “I’m getting picked up in a minute.”

She leans back in her chair as you shrug on your coat. “Ah, the footballer.”

You roll your eyes. “Yes, Cynthia, the footballer.”

“Hmm, I don’t know why you’re still working when your man’s on a €90 million salary.” she muses.

“Believe it or not, I quite like working here.” you say teasingly.

She frowns. “The boss isn’t here, there’s no need to lie.”

You laugh, gathering up the last of your belongings and checking you’ve got your phone and keys. “See you tomorrow, Cynthia.”

She salutes you as you head to the list, checking your notifications – Kylian’s outside, and your parents have announced on the family group chat that they are coming to dinner with your brother after all.

Kylian kisses you as you get in the car, smiling as you settle into the passenger seat beside him and reminding you to do your seatbelt.

“So, my parents are coming after all.” you say, earning a badly stifled groan. “I know, I know. They want to see the girls before they go to Rome.”

You divert the conversation from your parents to ask him about his day, listening to his stories about tripping Hakimi up in a drill and the conversation he had with Marquinhos after training. “Oh, and my mum dropped by this afternoon,” he says, “she had a load of pregnancy books from the 90s, and one of those name dictionaries.”

You smile at the thought. “I’ll ask my brother if he has any more modern books.”

He squeezes your knee, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

You nod, “Jesus, I know. I can barely look after myself – I have no clue how I’m going to look after a whole other human as well.”

“We’ll figure it out, chérie.” he assures you, pulling into your brother’s neighbourhood and finding a parking space a few houses down.

“My parent’s car’s already outside.” you say, trying to hide the frustration in your voice. It was fair to say your relationship with your parents hadn’t always been smooth sailing – moving out at eighteen had made your life a thousand times easier – it was easier to love them from a distance. Sure, they were still fairly local, but their decision to move 90 minutes from Paris at least put some distance between you.

“I wonder if they’re staying over?” Kylian asked as you approached the driveway, walking between the two parked cars and ringing the doorbell. You could hear the distinctive peals of laughter from your nieces as the heavier footfall of your brother sounded through the house as he came to open the door, greeting you both and putting your coats on hooks. You pushed your shoes off and made it into the living room, where your nieces were running circles around your mother, who went to hug you immediately, kissing you on each cheek and leaning back to look at you, her hands on your arms. “Is that how you wear your hair these days?”

You can practically feel Kylian tense beside you. Your father interrupts the tension completely obliviously, barreling in from the kitchen to greet you both, distracting your mum from her nitpicking by not-so-subtly sneaking his granddaughters some sweets as you ask them about their weekends. She starts to fuss, allowing you a moment to breathe as your dad traps Kylian into a conversation about football.

In the kitchen, Helene looks just about ready to pull her hair out as she fusses over timings, your brother dressing a salad beside her; she kisses you on each cheek and rejects your offer of help, insisting she’s got it all covered.

“Y/N, ma chére, doesn’t Kylian have a match tomorrow?” your mum asks, an unsubtle way of asking if he has to be here.

“Well that doesn’t mean he can’t eat dinner.” you say, turning to your brother, “Did I see what I sent you about his nutritionist’s instructions?”

“Yeah, and I told you not to worry about it,” he says, “We’re perfectly capable, you know.”

“I know Helene’s capable, the verdict’s still out on you.”

He makes a face at you, rolling his eyes as he looks away. Your mum sips her wine, “Y/N, how’s Kylian been since, you know, the World Cup?”

You make eye contact with your brother. “Why don’t you ask him, Mum?” he asks.

“I don’t want to overstep. Y/N?”

“Well, we have been together for nearly-”

“I meant about the World Cup. How is he?” she asks.

“Oh, yeah, no, it’s been tough, but he’s alright. Been spending lots of time with Achraf.”

“Ah, the other footballer.” your mum says, sipping her wine again.

Your dad comes in from the living room. “Y/N, Kylian is so good with the girls.”

“Yeah, Dad, I know.” you say, “What drinks do you have?”

“Alcohol or not?” Helene asks you, reaching for the bottle of wine.

“Uh, non-alcoholic, I’ll probably be driving.”

She nods, “There’s some coke in the fridge, or juice, or water?”

You get yourself some water, peeking through the door at Kylian, who’s being wrestled by Rosie and Poppy, apparently taken aback by their strength-to-size ratio. You lean in the doorway, watching them for a moment before your mum distracts you, instructing you to lay the table while your brother gets out the glasses. In your typical fashion, the two of you bicker through the whole process, the kitchen becoming more crowded when Kylian brings in your nieces, who insist on the attention of their grandparents and keep trying to sneak food.

Once you’re sat at the table, sandwiched between Kylian and Rosie, you start thinking about how to go about announcing it; how do you segue into the topic? How do you do it without inviting criticism about the timing or the fact it’s unplanned.

You can feel Kylian’s nerves beside you, now in the exact position you were in only days ago. Rosie takes a potato off your plate, biting into it before you’ve realised she’d grabbed it. Helene starts to laugh, gently scolding her daughter through the table’s laughter. “God, one of the hardest things about having kids was learning to share food, you know.” your mum muses, “Your brother was such a little thief.”

He looks over at her, “Maybe I was hungry?”

“I don’t know, you were always more interested in eating from anyone’s plate but your own.”

“I wonder where Rosie gets it from.” Helene jokes.

You look over at your mother, sitting at the head of the table. “So, Y/N, how’s work? Any promotions we should know about?”

“Uh, no, it’s the same as ever.” you say, sensing the beginning of an interrogation.

“Well there must be something.” she says, continuing even when you shake your head. “D’you know, I worry that all of that academic talent just went nowhere after you graduated.”

“Mum, it’s not like my job isn't challenging.” You defend.

She hums, “Well, I just think if you’re waiting a few years to have kids –” she sends a pointed look at Helene – “you might as well push in your career.”

“Well, Mum, actually-”

“After all, we can’t all be lawyers,” a pointed look at your brother, “or footballers.”

You swallow, listening as she keeps pressing on about your lack of ambition, feeling Kylian’s hand find yours under the table. “Mum, I’m pregnant.”

The table ruminates in your outburst for a long few seconds. She stares at you, trying to compute your statement; your dad is the first to move.

He stands up, coming around the table and beckoning for a hug; you push the chair out and accept his embrace, appreciating his congratulations. By the time he’s stopped hugging you, Helene and Y/B/N are kissing your cheeks and asking questions – how far along are you? How long have you known? How did you find out?

Your mum is the last to congratulate you, pressing her hand to your stomach. "I'm telling you now, it's a boy."

"Mum, it's like the size of a sesame seed." you groan as you all sit back down.

She shrugs. "You know, I thought you'd gained weight."

"Jesus, Mum, give her a break!" your brother groans, earning an appreciative smile from Kylian – who you think must have had enough of your family's shit to last him for the next year.

“So you’re getting married now, right?”

“Mum!”

In the car on the way home, he turns to you. "God, they’re a lot.”

“My mum’s a lot.” you correct. “It’s not the worst it could have gone.”

He sends you a pointed look – you know how he feels about your parents, but you’ll always maintain your line; it’s easier to love them from a distance.

-

At lunch with Amélie the next day, after you tell her the excitement of the week and mention that you're four weeks pregnant, she sets her gin and tonic on the table, one brow raised. "Wait, that means this kid was conceived while you guys were in Qatar."

You do the mental maths. "No, wait, holy shit."

She smirks, raising her gin and tonic as toast. "This kid's so fucking lucky already, man. Imagine being able to say you were conceived at a World Cup."

“Imagine being able to say your dad is the Kylian Mbappé.”

She shrugs, “Hey, you can literally tell people he’s your baby daddy, I don’t want to hear it.”

You smile at the thought. “I can’t believe I’m pregnant. There’s literally a foetus inside me right now.”

She glances down at your stomach. “I can’t believe you're pregnant. I swear we were like eighteen living off pot noodles like a week ago.”

You smile at the thought of your university days – pre-Kylian, independent for the first time, figuring out how to function independently. “Don’t make me feel old.”

She grins, “In a year, when you’ve given birth and recovered and everything, we’ll go clubbing.”

“I don’t think I’ll be up for clubbing when I’ve got a three-month-old or whatever, but we’ll make our own fun.” you point out. “I hope it’s a cute baby.”

She frowns, “Fuck that, I hope they’re a funny kid. I would not want to carry a child for nine months, push it out of my vagina and then look after it for years only for them to be a boring twat.”

You return her frown. “I’m glad you’re not the pregnant one.”

She raises her glass again, “Preach.”

-

“How was lunch with Amélie?” Kylian asks midway through an episode of Love is Blind.

“Good, she’s well. D’you know what she pointed out?”

“Hm, what?”

“The baby must’ve been conceived in Qatar.”

He looks over at you, also doing the maths. “After the England game?”

“That’s what I thought.” you said, “Funny, huh?”

“He’s a winner, at least.” Kylian says. “Gonna be a footballer.”

“‘He’?”

Kylian shrugs. “I think so.”

“Well at least you and Mum agree on something.” you tease.