Domesticating Max

Max vs. the Iron

Dan and Max sat down for an interview together before the latest race. After the two had their microphones hooked up, Max yet again tried to smooth out his shirt.

"That's quite a wrinkly shirt there, Max." Dan teased with his signature smile.

"It got all messed up in my suitcase," Max explained and blushed as he looked down at the rumbled creases on his shirt. "It doesn't look too bad, does it?"

Dan shrugged. "It's good enough; we can still read the sponsor's names, and that's all that matters really." He grinned teasingly again, and before Max could react, the interviewer arrived.

Max self consciously tried to smooth out his shirt throughout the interview, much to Dan's amusement, and nearly missed a few questions in doing so. By the end of their interview, Dan felt a little bad, and decided to help Max out once again.

"Listen mate, why don't we go back to the hotel after this, and I can show you how to use the iron?" Dan suggested, though to Max it sounded more like 'I'm going to teach you how to use the iron.'

Max nodded sheepishly and thanked Dan. "That's probably a good idea."

When they arrived at the hotel, Dan fidgeted as they got in the elevator together. They stopped at Max's floor, and Max got out and turned slightly to look at Dan.

"I'll be down in like 10 minutes," he nodded back at him, and the doors slid shut. He pulled out his phone and called Chloe.

"Help!" He blurted out when she answered the phone.

"What is it? Did you forget to pack any clean socks again?" Chloe laughed to herself.

"No, I have plenty of socks. But I told Max I'd help him iron his shirt -because it was all wrinkly during our interview- so I offered to teach him how to use the iron in the hotel."

"That's kind of you, teaching the kid how to iron."

"But I don't know how to use the iron, it's different than the one we have at home," Dan sighed helplessly as he got off the elevator.

"Hmm...what kind is it?" Chloe asked.

"One sec," Dan entered his room and went to the closet to find the iron. He picked it up and scrunched his eyebrows together as he inspected it. "I'm not sure, it's foreign."

"Can you send me a picture?"

"Good idea." Dan snapped a picture of the iron and its controls, and sent it to Chloe.

"Well, for starters, you turn it on by just turning the dial to the right to the correct heat position. The lever above it adjusts the amount of steam....and it looks like you can fill it up with water at the top there."

"Where?" Dan turned the iron to look.

"That cap at the top?"

"Oh, okay. Thanks, that should be enough. Thank you so much, you've saved my ass."

"Anything for little Maxie!" Chloe said jokingly. "He reminds me of my little brother a bit."

"Yeah, he does," Dan smiled warmly. "Well, I'd better get going. I told him I'd be down in ten minutes."

"Good luck!"

Dan looked over the iron once more before leaving his room to find Max. When Max opened the door, Dan noticed he'd already set up the ironing board, and had the wrinkled shirt laid over it.

"Ready to go, I see," Dan laughed.

"Yeah, I thought I'd get it set up," Max laughed nervously.

"Alright, let's have a look at this." Dan picked up the iron and his heart froze. 'Shit. It's different than the one in my room' he thought and tried to look calm. He could figure it out, right? They must be similar enough, right?

"Do we need to plug it in? There's an outlet right over here." Max pointed out an outlet nearby.

"Yeah - er, no we should put water in it first," Dan corrected, and tried to figure out where he was supposed to put the water.

"Water?" Max asked.

"For steam, it works out the wrinkles. That's why people sometimes bring their clothes into the bathroom with them when they take a shower, so the steam will help them unwrinkle. Not like, in the shower, but hanging up on the door or something." Dan explained, and gave up looking. "Nevermind, I don't think we need that for this kind of shirt anyway. So, yup, let's plug it in and get it turned on. What kind of fabric is this?"

"Umm..." Max picked up the shirt and looked at it. "Cotton?"

"Let's check the tag while the iron heats up. Hmm..." Dan stared in bewilderment at the tag on the neck of the shirt for some kind of hint. "Low heat, see that there? So we'll set the iron to low, so it doesn't damage the material."

"Okay, so here?" Max turned the dial to what must be 'low'. "Ouch!" He pulled his hand away quickly.

"Are you okay? Did you burn yourself? You should run that under cold water," Dan advised, and realized that like Chloe, Max reminded him of his little brother. Except Dan didn't have a little brother.

"No, it's fine, it's just a little hot."

"Right, so we'll just spread the shirt out on the ironing board so it's flat, like this," Dan demonstrated. "And now that the iron is hot we can start..." He demonstrated to Max how to move the iron of the shirt to work out the wrinkles. Except, the instant the shirt touched the iron, it started to melt. "Shit, that's not supposed to happen." Dan chuckled and pulled the iron back.

"Is it too hot?" Max worried and double checked the temperature he had set it to. "Oh, um..." He'd read the dial backwards, and set it to high heat. "Oops. I suppose I'll have to get a new shirt now," he laughed, and eventually, Dan laughed and smiled.

"Christian will be mad you ruined a team shirt," Dan teased.

"What?" Max raised his eyebrows.

"Nah, don't worry about it. I probably did the same thing when I was your age." Dan laughed, and Max relaxed a bit. "Let's forget about this and grab a drink."

A/N: Sorry for the long delay between chapters! I didn't realize it had been so long, sorry about that! I've run into a bit of writer's block (even though I knew exactly what I wanted to write this chapter).

I forgot to ask last time, but what do you think of Chloe?

What should Max learn next? I'm thinking he needs to go back to the kitchen for another lesson or two xD

Thank you for reading, commenting, and voting! : D

PS: Credit to whomever made the header image. I found it on tumblr, and it was perfect for this chapter!