Under the Microscope (Book One of Three)

Chapter 43

Not much to say apart from that I'm struggling to write the sequel lol might be slightly burnt out and so yeah...

But hope you enjoy it!

*****

The rest of the summer break passes pretty quickly, I end up getting roped into dinner with his family that evening, with his mum apparently not taking no for an answer after I dropped him at his flat before heading to Daniel's. So that evening we head to another of Monaco's fine institutions with his mum, sister, brother in law and Max's two nephews which was a lovely experience as we chatted and I got to know his mum despite the slight language barrier we suffered with, my Dutch still not being close to passable. Both women each showed off new Cartier jewellery pieces and tried thanking me for them until I explained that Max had picked them out all by himself, making both of them beam at him and thank him again. His eyes shone and I knew that he now understood what I had meant before about the process of gift giving, although my mind did wander to the third bag that he had picked up at Cartier, I chose to dismiss those thoughts, figuring that he was saving one for a birthday or something.

The next few days I was in Monaco, I ended up still hanging out with Max and his family most of the time. I was dying of boredom on day three though and headed on a secret run up the hill to take in the sights by myself and was caught by Max who threatened to tell JC about my adventures if I didn't go to dinner with them that night and so relaxing by myself before meeting up with them for dinner in the evenings was basically the plan for the next couple of days. But on the last day, we headed out on a much larger yacht and raced jet skis as well as other different water sports before having dinner on the water.

The whole time in Monaco, I felt like I was someone else. I was in holiday mode and everything felt different between Max and me. The subtle electricity we normally exchanged felt like it had been amplified and in all honesty, I was thankful when Friday rolled around and I was driving back to the airport, ready to put some much-needed miles between Max and me before I did something I would regret.

The rest of the summer break was simple, I went and did the podcast interview which was a lot of fun and then I stayed home and played games after much convincing from Max, Lando and George via our group chat, I even tried streaming a couple of times. The condition of it the first time around was that Max needed to play Valorant with me anyway, and he said he would but only if I streamed. As I was curious to try it, I finally agreed and we had a great time, it was a nice way to interact with the fans and Lando offered me some of his moderators to help make sure that chat never stepped out of line. After a week at home, and more media interviews than would have been preferable, although they were done virtually, I was in Lanzarote with my entire family including my brother's girlfriends as well as JC and Cameron at a sports resort called Club La Santa.

We used to come here a lot as a family because it's so sports-focused and meant we could all try different sports as well as train for what each of us did. The week was spent with me just outdoors doing loads of different sports, not just with JC but with my brother's helping to push me to be competitive. We also ended up running into Carmen and George who were also here with the same thought process, although we didn't see them much, I did play tennis against them with one of my brothers...we won. Then a few days later I was back in the simulator to prep for the upcoming triple-header, seriously excited for the next few races and doing catch-up interviews for Netflix on the move as well as my preparation for the second half of the season. Every race presented a new opportunity for me and Williams as I looked to capitalise and learn as much as I could in the last few races before the season ends. By the time I step off the plane with JC, Olivia and Cameron in Belgium on Wednesday, I'm feeling very prepared for the next few weeks.