barely legal | max verstappen ✓

chapter 3 | ferrari guys

«If they knew what they said would go straight to my head. What would they say instead?»

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She was starting to think instead of bad luck, it was just straight-up karma. For what? She wasn't quite sure yet, but it was getting ridiculous. She wondered if mercury was in retrograde, or whatever astrology people said to justify their track of tragedies.

Because since arriving back in Europe that was how everything had felt: like a tragedy.

Sloane stared at Vivianne as if her life depended on it. Her mouth was a little open in either surprise or annoyance. Her manager didn't look back at her though, she was scrolling through her iPad, her attention long gone from Sloane. She moved her body to the side in an attempt to let Vivianne know that she was still staring. The chauffeur's gaze fell on them through the rearview mirror from time to time, she could feel it. Most likely due to some of the words that were being dropped in the conversation before her manager decided to go silent.

"You said I was doing the pictures with the Mercedes guys," Sloane said, and it sounded a lot like a complaint.

Vivianne finally eyed her and locked her iPad, placing her hands on top of the screen. "I said you might be doing the pictures for the Mercedes collection." Her manager explicitly pointed out the keyword in her sentence. "They changed their minds. You know that happens all the time."

"But Ferrari?" Sloane dragged the words along with a whine. Vivianne deeply sighed.

They were booked with Puma, again, which wasn't weird. The agency and the sports brand had tight relationships and all of that. The business was business. The thing was, it wasn't about modelling some cute sports clothes or a random football jersey, it was for their motorsports branch. Something about a special collection, whatever, she didn't read those parts of the contract, that was Vivianne's job. Sloane had been reluctant at first, but it was Puma, and Vivianne had said she'd do her best to get her to do the Mercedes shoot. But now apparently she was nowhere near doing the Mercedes shoot. She was booked for the Ferrari shoot.

It was a tragedy for her.

"Irina is doing the Mercedes shoot," Vivianne informed her. "You and Salma got picked for the Ferrari shoot."

Her brows slightly furrowed. "I could have perfectly done the Mercedes shoot. Irina and I are basically the same height." That was the only thing they had in common. Irina was a fucking blue-eyed blonde who looked like an Eastern European fairy, and Sloane wasn't anywhere near that. "And why does Ferrari have to do it with two models? Salma could've taken that one by herself."

Her manager just shrugged. "Creative decisions. That's what the photographer and director wanted. The concepts are different, I think."

She folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the car seat. "You know people are going to say things."

"More interactions for them then." Vivianne simply said. Sloane looked at her. "I'll try to get you to do the shoot with Carlos. Is that alright?"

She dropped her shoulders, turning her attention to the view outside the window. "That's alright. Yes."

They fell into silence again. Vivianne typed on her iPad whilst Sloane scrolled through her different social media. Sometimes she read the comments, Vivianne always said that wasn't good, but she did it anyway. Most of her pictures with Aurora had been getting a lot of comments. Sloane did not check those. Not everybody was mean and annoying, some people were nice, but still the bad outweighed the good.