Wednesday, November 14th, 2018- Monte Carlo, Monaco
The Penthouse
It's early when his phone rings, the shrill ring jarring in the quiet, pinked tinged morning light, knocking Max into consciousness with all the gentleness of a bull in a china shop, forcing him to tumble out of bed still half awake and bleary eyed to stumble across the room to where he'd left it on charge on top of the dresser last night in a matter of seconds.
He prioritizes ensuring that the two still slumbering forms curled up on the mattress behind him remain the way they are, still bundled up together beneath the down duvet to ward off the slight chill of the November's winter's day, silencing the ringing phone and take a moment to make sure both you and Kaia are still peacefully asleep before he even bothers to answer the call itself.
As far as Max is concerned, anyone calling him at this hour can sit on the other end of the line listening to the incessant rings for the space of time it takes him to wake up and check on his girls, and it would serve them right if by the time he did finally pick up, they'd either hung up or been greeted by his voicemail, since God fucking knows, he's crossing his fingers that as he finally answers the call and raises the phone to his ear, the other person won't still be there.
"Yeah?" It only occurs to him now, a beat too late that he hadn't thought to check who the fuck it was calling him at 7 am on a Wednesday, but at the point, Max doesn't try and remedy that as he flops down onto the sofa, too tired to do anything other than wait and see, "you've reached me, Max."
He doesn't have a single clue why out of everything he could have said that this is what his brain had gone with but whatever, he figures it is what it is, knowing that anyone with his personal number so unconcerned with the societal expectations of proper work or visiting hours to have called him this morning no longer has any disillusions about the grandeur of his character and will be rightly expecting a barely functioning Max to answer, if they even get that much.
"I take it you weren't already up and about to head out for jog before I called then," the gruff voice the man on the other end is instantly recognizable since he's received enough of these calls to identify them in his sleep, a skill he'd obtained in the time before he'd become a father, in what feels like a different life, when he would have been tripping over his own feet to put on a whole show and dance of having been in the midst of a work out when his phone had rung.
But now, he doesn't waste his energy on such things, not budging from the spot he'd landed in, finding he much prefers to assess the room around him which looks more like a home than it ever had in the past, scattered with children's toys and dress up clothes, books piled on every other available surface, to forcing himself to go through that whole anxiety riddled, adrenaline fueled charade at the moment.
"You would be correct, Helmut, I was not," he says plainly, "I was asleep in my bed where everyone else in the house still is."
Max can't help it, the way he grimaces at his reflection in the oversize flat screen television mounted on the living room wall in front of him, when his own words echo in his ears, the implication plain, easily inferred by even the most rudimentary of minds. All he can do is hope Helmut will opt to ignore it and refrain from commenting.
The man seems to be in a forgiving mood this morning so perhaps he'll luck out and escape being skewered for his slip of tongue- Max wouldn't put either eventuality past him, especially not under present circumstances, where what little of his good reputation that still remains, what has been salvaged by some miracle, must be protected and preserved at any cost.
"How wonderful... anyway, there's a reason I'm calling, this isn't a pleasure call, it's a business one," Helmut declares, circumventing the silly little source for potential content that Max had concocted in his head deftly but without much grace, which was a mainstay in the older man's character that he'd always liked, if perhaps only because it felt familiar, always reminding him of himself but mostly of his father, a fact which in its own twisted way had meant it felt safe.
