Hot off the Press | Charles Leclerc | F1

f o r t y - t w o

Charles was gone when Fia woke up, the imprint of his body still warm on the mattress beside her. She pulled on his t-shirt, which was in a heap at the end of the bed and padded into the living room.

"Charles?" she called.

Nobody answered.

His apartment looked different in the daylight. Everything was brighter and bigger, even further from the world of shabby second-hand furniture and threadbare carpets she was accustomed to back home.

She walked into the kitchen and blinked slowly. It was enormous and well-stocked but looked like it had never been used, which was nothing short of a crime. The marble counters sparkled in the morning sun.

Fia rummaged in the cupboards for a glass and poured herself some tap water. She and Charles hadn't thought this through, she realised, thirstily chugging the water—her presence in his home when it was light outside, and anyone would be able to see her leaving. Then again, practical considerations hadn't been on their minds when they'd undressed each other in the living room, caught up in a moment of desire that had rendered them both senseless. Her knees were sore with carpet burn; her lips still tingled at the memory of his mouth claiming hers.

Wandering back into the living room, she stared at the evidence of their transgressions: a pile of sofa cushions scattered on the floor, their clothes crumpled and discarded in a heap. They were in a kind of limbo, caught between the certainty of Charles' job contract and the question mark over hers. A liminal space where they could act like two people in love, in a relationship that wasn't forbidden by several lines of legal text in a contract. Maybe they were playing make-believe, pretending this was sustainable. Fia wasn't sure at what point she'd decided she no longer cared.

She put her glass down and spent a few minutes tidying, rearranging the cushions and returning their clothes to the bedroom. Satisfied with the results, she decided to explore the rest of the apartment while she waited for Charles. There were only two doors she hadn't opened. Behind one was a second bedroom—neat and inoffensively bland, clearly reserved for guests—and behind the other was Charles' infamous sim room. Which, she discovered, doubled as a trophy room.

Hundreds of medals and trophies adorned the shelves, perfectly organised like a museum exhibit. The plaques on some commemorated wins stretching back to the early days of Charles' karting career. Fia already knew he was a generational talent, but the number of prizes stacked before her quantified his skill in a way that numbers and words simply couldn't. They gave context to the sheer amount of graft that had gone into his race craft.

"Impressive, isn't it?"

Fia's whole body went cold. With her heart in her mouth, she slowly turned to find a woman standing in the doorway. She had silver-blonde hair styled into a chignon, tiny jewels dripping from her ears and wrists. A silk shawl was draped over her shoulders, and when she moved, it sent a waft of delicate perfume across the room. On her face, which was lined with age but had the kind of softness afforded by an expensive skincare routine, she wore a severe expression.

The woman—clearly Charles' mother, Pascale—looked at Fia's bare legs with an arched eyebrow. Charles' t-shirt barely covered the tops of her thighs. She tugged it down, too stunned to feel embarrassed.

"I suppose you are one of my son's..." Pascale cast about for an appropriate word, her nose scrunched like all the options smelled bad, "friends."

The way she said it made it sound like she meant something much worse.

"I—uh—no, not exactly." Fia wished Charles would get back from wherever he'd disappeared. There had to be something she could do to salvage what was quite possibly the most embarrassing situation of her life. Half-naked wasn't how she'd envisioned meeting her not-quite-boyfriend's mother.