Double Sided Tracks

white gold

Nora is sitting on the sofa in the (now) decorated living room in Amsterdam, it's halfway through the season and Max sometimes still pinches himself to make sure that everything is real. That Nora is here, and Lewis is no longer tied to her name. She hasn't showed up to any races in person, and Max is okay with that. They're taking it day by day, seconds by seconds. He's acknowledging that Lewis was a big part of her life at some point, that the scar he left was still there no matter how good Max has patch it up.

He's not one to judge, the scar Jos left on his whole body, personality and being is still there—no matter how healing Nora's presence is.

They went out on the sea before coming back to Amsterdam together, Brad and Angela trailing with them, Max is glad that Angela is still very much in her life—he doubt Nora wants to be with him (now that Ayesha is not here.) They were all staying in Max's penthouse, it didn't take much convincing on Angela's part, the woman loves her. Who doesn't?

They went further away from Monaco, further than what Max usually does. Even further away from Nice. He wanted the absolute privacy for all of them. The sun was beating on their skin, Nora smiling at him while doing his laps around the boat.

"Come in," he said while smiling, Nora gave him a teasing smile, made a 'maybe' gesture with her hands. "come on! The water is nice." He said it again.

"Come sit beside me for a few minutes," she requested and Max immediately swam towards her. Angela and Brad somewhere on the water with his jet ski. "You're very red." She whispered with a smile, eyes watching him.

"Are you having fun?" he asked, she nodded immediately.

"Thank you," she whispered.

They fell into a comfortable silent, it's always comfortable with her. He used to be scared of silence, whenever Jos is not yelling and screaming—silence meant he's getting the silent treatment. Which is somehow worse than being yelled at, because he didn't know how to fix it.

But between him and Nora, silence is like the night that washes over their fulfilling days. Nothing wrong with that.

"I used to think Pierre died," she said all of a sudden and Max almost had a whiplash, almost breaking his neck the way he turned to her quickly.

"What."

She's giggling, one of those giggles where her whole face scrunched and she turned red. Max sometimes worried she'll pass out, it overwhelmed him with fondness. He grabs her wrist and shook it gently to get her to continue with the story, but she continued laughing and that made him laugh.

"I watched this very sad edit of him, and I thought he died. But no—he was just moving to Alpine." She finished, still giggling. Whole body shake, she had to leaned her whole body to his side. No questions asked, Max wrap his arm around her shoulder, warmth blooming in his chest by just how domestic it is.

"Schatje, you're ridiculous." He said, shaking his head fondly.

They talked about edits on TikTok, and Max had to stop himself from telling her that he knows all those sad edits they made of him and Jos.

After both of their laughter died down, she scrunched her eyebrows and pushed Max away with no real heat, "Max! you're wet!" she shrieked and started laughing again. He noticed how her cotton jumpsuit is slightly damp.

Max does what he does best, which is to be a menace. He pulled her with him into the water, holding onto her waist tightly so she's not drowning. When they submerged she was giggling despite being soaked, some of her baby hair escaped her lazily tied scarf and Max fixed it with one finger. She smiled at the gesture, and Max felt overwhelmed with love.