❝ you deserve to be loved the way i can't love you ❞
✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊ- a story in which two former mercedes juniors find themselves reuniting again in the bitter circumstances of him finally climbing up to the pinnacle of motorsport that she's spent the pa...
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ੈ♡˳ TWO evil
"I COULD THINK OF maybe nine other things i'd rather be doing right now."
"i thought we agreed we were leaving your antisocial ass at home today," rose complained. "c'mon, you promised."
"and now i'm going back on it," cato mumbled, "'cause i genuinely cannot think of anything worse right now."
though the monegasque sun was quite warm, the chill winter snap was still hanging around. rose had rugged herself up in the cutest warm outfit she owned: a white cable sweater with the ralph lauren logo embroidered into it, and navy blue flare pants. she fit in beautifully in the principality, each step filled with nothing but class. half the time she had more people thinking she was a high-end entrepreneur rather than a race car driver with the w-series title and a formula one seat under her belt.
"okay, look," rose stopped walking and spun to face cato, who had been dragging behind. she placed her hands on the blonde's shoulders, her dark eyes deadly serious as she locked them on cato's. "this is super important to me, cates, and i really need you there."
cato could only hold eye contact for so long before she glanced sideways to the shops along the footpath to break it. "sorry," she nodded once, "i'll stop complaining now."
rose sighed softly, a small smile starting to pull at her lips. "i love ya, y'know," she dropped her hands from her shoulders, "and if you wanna leave at any point, feel free, but . . . i just want you to meet him first."
"i know, i've been looking forward to it," she promised sincerely. the longer they stood in the sun, the warmer cato felt. the cool air was drifting in through the large rips in her baggy jeans, brushing against the tattoos peeking out through the ones on her thighs. "sorry, rosie."
rose's kind eyes turned sharper for a second, a silent 'stop apologising' passing through that cato was used to. they'd known each other too long to need words anymore.
it was an unlikely friendship. at surface level, a quite prickly cato verstappen and the grid's sweetheart rose lovett. the only connection they really had was that they were both child prodigies from racing families; jos verstappen who entered formula one, and marigold lovett ( formerly jones ) who dominated motogp. but beneath the iceberg, they were as close as best friends could get. cato had helped rose score a seat in formula one as a reserve years back after her w-series title, and they'd been inseparable since. the short-term stay rose was supposed to have in cato's apartment had become long-term back in 2020, and over three years on, they remained roommates.
rose had spent the last two months talking to the guy that cato could just see the back of in front of a quaint cafe. his name was dylan junqueira, and rose had met him at the fia prize giving ceremony two years ago. not long ago for the last ceremony, they'd reconnected and really hit it off. cato had only heard his name around a few times: dylan, at twenty-eight, was an ex-indycar driver forced into retirement after a crash had crushed his legs and no one was sure if he was going to walk again. they'd been proven wrong when he spent years getting motion back in his legs, and now he ran lessons on teaching safety to young, aspiring racing drivers.
