Foggy Mirrors | Max Verstappen

Chapter 16 - THE PRESENT

"There you are, I thought you would skip dinner altogether." Isa said as her sister returned, Max just a few steps behind her. They were gone for a while, Isa had seen them walking on the beach for a while.

Whatever he had said to make her come back, the younger Van der Verden was glad that he had been there to reign her back in. It wasn't so easy to make Leanne do something, but somehow even though she fought it most of the time, she listened when Max spoke. She did what he told her to do, even if reluctantly.

If Max said something, if he bothered to speak up, Leanne knew it had to be important, Isa was sure that was the reason why she gave in when it was Max who asked her to. It must have been the familiarity that Max meant for Leanne, the knowledge that he would never ask anything of her that would be too much for her to bear. The knowledge that he understood what was going on inside of her and how far he could push her.

Isa felt as if Max knew her better than she herself knew her sister, but she was glad that Leanne had at least someone, who could reign her back in when she was on a war path. Over all the years she had known her sister already, Max was the only one, who managed doing that.

"Do you want to go out?" Leanne asked instead of taking a seat at the table which was set for their evening meal, the food already ready waiting and by now cooling, but Isa's eyes lit up the moment her sister ask the question. Leanne never went out with her, she never let lose. Isa thought her sister too stiff for it and most of the time she was right, but right now all Leanne wanted was to get so blackout drunk, she would never remember the conversation she had with Max on that beach.

"Why don't we have something to eat first?" Max asked, from behind Leanne, which caused her to glance over her shoulder at him shortly, while Max moved to pull out the chair for Leanne to take a seat, but the younger Dutch ignored his effort in favour of looking at her younger sister.

"You mean right now? I need to change and get ready! Give me a few minutes!" She exclaimed, already out of her seat, the drink she had originally been sipping put down on the dinner table, before she moved to kiss Checo's cheek and a few moments later she had disappeared inside. The remains of her dinner left on the plate, ignored in favour of finding a cute outfit, a smile on her face Leanne had seen directed at her for a rather long time.

"I will go get ready than too." Checo said, after sharing a look with Max, who clearly gave him the instructions to get lost, which he gladly did.

He had no interest in getting included in whatever was going on between Max Verstappen and Leanne Van der Verden. All he actually knew about what was going on, was that it hadn't started yesterday. A few voices in the paddock even mumbled that it had started they very day Leanne was born. Bounding them together, in rivalry and something else no one dared to name. Checo wasn't interested in naming it either. That was pandora's box all over again. He would not open that. Not even if someone held him at gunpoint. He wouldn't dare to bring whatever this was over the entire paddock.

"Are you okay?" Max asked as he took the seat next to Leanne's which caused her to exhale slowly before sitting down next to him, a sad but gentle smile on her lips.

Leanne pulled her gaze from the ocean and looked at Max. The tears have dried, and the redness in her cheeks have decrease as well. Her hair was a bit messy due to the soft breeze, but it did no harm to her beauty at all. Leanne was radiant, as she gave Max a soft smile, short but it seemed real.

"Always." She promised, but Max knew that that was almost never the case. She was just good at hiding.

"I'm sorry about earlier." The Dutchman began to speak, his elbows leaned on his knees, his hands folded together.