In the Spotlight (Max Verstappen - Book Two)

Chapter Thirty

You'll all be pleased to know that I think I found myself a way out of the rabbit hole I dug myself into 👀
Anyways here's a fairly long chapter, I'm going to try and upload another "Tell Tale Heart" chapter later today if possible but I'm back into the groove of writing this one at the moment!
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The rest of the week was as crazy as predicted. I only saw Max the next morning in bed before he got up early and went back to his room and we separately dialled in on the team debrief from the weekend, before separate ones with Sebastian and Dani which take me late into the evening, at which point Nick turns up and drags me down to the hotel gym to sweat out some of the toxins and do some reaction time workouts which I tried to avoid by pointing out my reaction times had kept me out of a wall in the previous weekend...however he was having none of it and so we worked out rather rigorously for two hours before I tiredly trudged back to my room and had a catch-up phone call with Pierre who had landed in the US earlier that evening.

The next day I obviously saw Max at the Castore store with fans where we did a huge signing and some media duties, but nothing too major. However, because we were in public the entire time and busy there was only room for professionalism and I got hurried away at the end to go and get ready for the Time Gala that evening as soon as we were done with our obligations. The only private interaction Max and I had that day was his reply to my story showing off the blue and black dress for the night which simply read: Stunning x

Towards the end of the Gala I was hurried out and transported a few streets over to the Jimmy Fallon interview which was a lot of fun as I got to talk about the MET Gala and the Time Gala, people I met and unveil my special edition helmet for the Miami weekend, a simple pink, orange and yellow ombre with sparkles and the logos of the sponsors all over it, keeping it simple.

The race weekend itself was mental and a big one in the end as George bought home his first win, Carlos came second and I came third with Max directly behind me in fourth. No one quite knew where George's performance came from but I guess being awkwardly stripped of the podium was enough to light a fire underneath him and he sure as hell celebrated his first victory in F1 to everyone's delight, although I was of course jealous. Max spent the evening reminding me that I was lucky to get on the podium and that it had taken George over a year with Mercedes to get his win...to which I reminded him that I wasn't George and to shut the fuck up whilst I mopped around, which he just laughed at and wrapped me in a hug and stroked my hair.

The podium was somewhat a good form of consolation, especially with a shit tonne of alcohol in the mix and an early escape for Max and I back to the hotel at around 1 am...but it still didn't feel enough.

I knew Max understood to an extent how it felt, but I was getting so tired of the third places'...a sentence I couldn't quite believe I was saying. It was keeping me in the fight for the championship, but every time someone else got the 25-point boost in the table and I was there picking up 15 was beginning to hurt. The best prize was that at least I had a trophy to show for each of the first six races and I was still fighting at the front of the championship with a lot of lovely podium bonuses coming my way at the end of the year alongside several fastest lap ones. When it came to salary, I had significantly less than Max, which made sense, he was a double world champion and I wasn't, but I had fought quite hard to get equal bonuses for things like podiums, pole positions and fastest laps and it was proving to be smart to have picked my battles there, with bigger bonuses coming for winning a race...which had to happen soon...right?

Either way, I had to move on from that race pretty quick and just take the happiness that I was in the lead in the championship when I left Max in my bed to head back to New York on Tuesday. Slipping into the car to do the drive, with Nick and Liv insisting that I was not to drive despite my arguments it would be much faster, we were listening to a sports radio show when the topic switched to F1.