SO AMERICAN | max verstappen

nineteen.

"Could you drop me off at home on your way out today?"

I furrowed my eyebrows when Ella walked up to me as Max and I were loading the rental car. "I mean, sure, but I thought Lando was driving you back?" He'd picked her up on his way in a few days ago so we didn't have as many cars at the beach house.

"His flight was earlier than he thought and I didn't want to get out of bed." Ella shrugged, leaning against the side of the car.

I couldn't help but smirk, just thinking of why Ella might not have wanted to get out of bed this morning. She caught onto my thought process fairly quickly, scoffing and slapping my arm.

"I was tired and not from what you think!" I burst into a fit of laughter as she stomped off toward the house again.

Oh, it was going to be way too much fun to tease her about Lando.

It didn't take us long to get everything together, say goodbye to the others, pick up Lili from my parents, and make it back to mine and Ella's house. As soon as we pulled into the driveway, Lili excitedly unbuckled herself, standing on the floor of the car directly behind me.

"This is my house, Lil!" She squealed and lunged for the door.

"I guess we're also going inside," Max groaned, shutting off the car and following his daughter up to the house.

I stayed behind to help Ella get her belongings from the trunk, joining the Verstappen duo shortly thereafter. Once inside, Lili ran off with Ella, begging her to show her around – Ella quickly agreed, enjoying the young girl's presence as much as the rest of us.

"This is nice." Max spoke quietly after a few minutes, the two of us just standing in the living room.

I looked up at him, trying to see by his expression if he was being genuine or sarcastic. For some reason, showing Max my actual home, felt like another step in our relationship. Thankfully, I couldn't find even a hint of sarcasm on his face.

He had meant it.

"Thanks, we tried really hard to make it feel like a home here." I spun in a slow circle, looking at everything we'd done here since we moved in. "It's probably my favorite place on earth."

Max raised an eyebrow, catching my gaze when I stopped spinning. "Not Monaco?"

"Monaco was my favorite place as a kid, for many reasons." I shrugged, eyes staying locked with his. "But nowadays, it's here in Wilmington. Probably because of how slow-paced it feels compared to every other aspect of my life."

He nodded, wordlessly saying that he understood what I meant.

I didn't resist when he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close to him. I don't think I'll ever get over how warm he was to the touch, his body heat always doing something to comfort me. He ran his nearly too-warm hand across my bare arm and I almost melted at the touch, feeling weird at the familiarity of it all.

"You think Monaco could ever be your favorite place again?"

I'm not sure I'm meant to respond to the question. What had he meant by it? Was he talking about the place or the people?

Thankfully, though, I was saved from the awkwardness of my silence by Lili running back into the room, shouting something about how the next time she came to America she wanted to spend the night here.

~~~~~~

Our days off in Monaco had gone by too quickly.

It was almost as if I had blinked and it was now the Saturday of the Spain GP. Time was going by fast.