Forbidden

62. Somewhere Only We Know

Wednesdays meant it was back to business for the bulls. Specially in Max's home Grand Prix, that meant extra publicity to shoot. Max shot a lot of interviews, did some promo videos driving on the track, Red Bull were filming this type of documentary with Max and Checo, and Olivia got to eat dutch waffles at the paddock while all of this was happening. 

The atmosphere of the dutch fans was incredible. Even on a Wednesday you could already see people trying to get on the grandstand, all wearing orange, carrying around huge banners supporting Max or Red Bull. They were also so nice, Olivia loved the energy they had, their love for Max and their team. They spent basically all day at the garage: riding bikes along the track, testing it, Yuki crashed a car, taking videos, Olivia took photographs of absolutely everything. She realized she had never taken this much photos at any other Grand Prix. 

The next day was Thursday, media day, and even though every driver hated media day, Olivia could tell that Max was happy to be at his home grand prix. This great mood however ended after qualifying. After a roller coaster of free practices, Max managed to get pole anyways. Since they were still keeping their relationship away from the cameras, Olivia waited until she was with him in his driver room to congratulate him.

"You did amazing!" said Olivia as she hugged him tight, and he hugged her back with a bright smile.

"Thank you Olivia" he said as he took in the smell of her hair, he never got tired of the smell of Gardenias she brought everywhere. 

That's when Max's phone rang. It appeared as a private phone number. Max looked at it with his brow furrowed and then answered.

"Hello?" he spoke into the phone. Olivia could not hear the conversation but Max's furrowed brow relaxed and his face turned to one of realization. "Sure, I have a minute" he added. Then he turned to Olivia and whispered "it's the Belgian police", the confusion was still visible on his face, Olivia was also confused. Why were they even calling him?

She looked at her phone and didn't have any missed calls. She signaled this confusion to Max and he put the phone aside for a moment and whispered "they say they want to make a few questions" and then he was back on the phone. Olivia shrugged and whispered to him "I'm gonna go see Checo" as she signaled to the room next door. 

After that, Max switched. When Olivia left Checo's driver room and they were ready to go home she couldn't find Max. She figured he was off to the post-qualifying interviews but she was told by Alice he had skipped them, said he was feeling ill and wanted to get some rest so he had gone back to the hotel. 

OLIVIA

5:57 pm

Hey, what's wrong?

Alice said you were ill

Do you need anything??

MAX

6:05 pm

I'm not feeling great

Don't worry about it

I just need to rest

I'll see you tomorrow

Olivia took that as a "I'm spending the night by myself, please don't sleep here" kind of conversation. She guessed it was alright, if she were really sick she wouldn't want to get Max infected, or for Max to see her in some terrible condition. Although after everything Max had seen at the hospital with Olivia, she doubted it could get any worse. Still she respected that he wanted to be by himself.