Forbidden

16. First Date

For the rest of the week Liv had been politely ignored by Max. He mainly focused on the pre-season testing and allowed Liv to take pictures of him throughout the day, offering her a smile here and there. But apart from a "good morning" or a "hey" they didn't really talk much anymore. 

Liv thought there were two possible reasons for this, the most likely one was that he was simply keeping a distance to try shake off the feelings that were there. Olivia could understand this, it would be impossible to give his and Ashley's relationship a fair shot if he hanged out all day with Olivia. 

However, Olivia's intrusive thoughts kicked in every once in a while, she started thinking maybe Max never felt strongly about her, maybe he just did not care as much as he had said he did.

Either way, she knew she should also stay away from him. There was no point trying to force any type of conversation he did not care on having. As painful as it was to her. What was the point of talking anyway? It would just tempt them to be together when they very well knew they couldn't be. 

Pre season-testing came and went. When Liv was leaving the paddock on Saturday someone yelled out to her. "Liv! Hey!" she knew that accent well by now, Charles caught up to her on her way out. 

"You haven't forgotten about our date tonight have you?" he joked.

"How could I?" she replied with a smile "I'll see you at 8".

"Perfect, I'll see you at the lobby then" he said beaming. 

Charles and Liv were still F1's 'newest couple'. Even though it wasn't actually true since they had only been in one date that ended up being crashed by Max. They had barely seen each other the rest of the week but they did chat every time they ran into each other, and it always ended up all over Instagram and TikTok.

Charles and  Liv had spent the last few days sending each other TikToks of the most dramatic and romantic edits. They both thought it was hilarious and would even comment on some of them to mess with people. They would tag each other on posts and comment hearts as a joke, but people would go crazy over it. 

Carlos had hanged out with them a lot too. Out of everyone, he was the person who loved the edits the most and even created a DM group with Charles and Liv to send them videos and posts he thought were hilarious.

Once Olivia got back to the hotel she had a shower, put on a black simple dress and golden heels. Her hair was in a slick pony tail and she added some eye liner and brown eye shadow to her usual natural look. When she stepped out of the elevator on the lobby she ran into Max.

"Wow" Max said looking at her. Olivia didn't have a chance to answer.

"Liv! Right here" Charles called out from one of the couches at the entrance while he stood up.

Olivia just shot Max a small smile and walked over to Charles. As she was walking to him Charles called out to Max "Sorry mate, you cannot crash this dinner" he joked and let out a little laugh.

Max laughed, it seemed physically painful to him. Olivia just had a tight lipped smile on her face,  she was clearly uncomfortable and Max could see it. 

"Don't worry, it's an early night for me" he said. He turned back around and pressed the elevator button. 

"Are you ready? You look incredible Liv" said Charles turning to Liv.

"Thanks" she said with an honest smile "let's go"

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Olivia had never been to Bahrain before so Charles picked the restaurant he liked the most and it was beautiful. They sat them at a reserved table on a private corner of the restaurant.