In the Spotlight (Max Verstappen - Book Two)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

"What are you doing here?" I ask confused as I walk into the simulator room and see Max next to the sim with the engineers around it.

"I'm having my sim day today?" He says, not even looking up at me and I clench and unclench my fists.

"No...I'm on the simulator today...I have to be at Silverstone tomorrow so I need to go today." I say as I walk over and I see all the engineers stop what they're doing, watching their two team drivers argue.

"You don't get what you want, there is no first driver in this team," Max says coldly, still not looking up and I want to practically rip his head off.

Clearly, both of us have moved to anger in the five stages of grieving.

"No, but there is common sense and when one of the drivers can't do a day because of commitments, then you make it so that both get a turn. What are you, dumb?" I ask tauntingly and I finally get the reaction I'm searching for.

An angry Max.

Which feels great because I am still quite frankly pissed off with him.

He pursued me. He told me he wanted me and that none of the rest mattered. Then he had a few bad results and breaks up with me?

I was still pissed.

And right now away from the fans and after a long day with many more coming up, I didn't have time to soothe his ego.

"You can't talk to me like that!" He shouts back, eyes flashing with anger as he turns his back to the engineers to face me fully.

"Says who? Someone needs to give you a fucking reality check, Max. Why is it that you think you're so hard done by, huh? A few mediocre race results and you fall apart?" I yell back, to the surprise of I think everyone, Max and myself included. "Everyone's to blame but you."

"Because you're so innocent huh? F1's Golden Girl." He says mockingly and this time my blood boils.

"You know how fucking hard I worked to get here, Max. I'm hardly F1's golden girl, they don't even want me in the fucking sport. So don't come at me with that. If you can't perform that is entirely your own issue! Not mine! I'm sorry if you're jealous or having a crisis of confidence but it is not my fucking fault you petulant littl-" Liv puts a hand on my chest, stepping between us as we had both taken steps towards each other in our anger.

"You might not be in public, but there are engineers here," she whispers as my chest heaves up and down and my eyes finally leave Max's and I see the engineers have naturally all stopped their work and are now fully focused on the two of us and I immediately calm down.

"As fucking usual, appearance first...go away Elodie," Max says, clearly much calmer but still angry as he turns around, focusing on the simulator and I huff, turning on my heel and leaving the room.

"We're not actually leaving are we?" Liv asks concerned as she rushes after me, practically jogging to keep up.

"Hell no," I say firmly as I make a beeline straight to the boss's office. "Max is being an unreasonable asshole," I announce to Christian as we walk straight through the door of the office and I see a sight I wasn't expecting. Jos Verstappen sat across from Christian. "What the hell is he doing here?" I ask annoyed as I look at Jos, still riled up by the recent confrontation with Max.

"We're having a meeting, what, what's the matter?" Christian looks worn down from whatever conversation he was just having.

"I need to be on the simulator today, but Max has engineers setting it up for him. I can't be on it tomorrow because I'm doing press - for the team! He's being entirely unreasonable!" I say quickly and I just see Christian put his head in his hands.