Just So You Understand Where I Stand. Please Don’t Play With Me Politically, I Am Not Open To Hearing

hey… don’t watch those sad dog videos. y’know you’re gonna cry. i just finished watching them and crying, so just… don’t.

on contrast, you need something to cry about? search up Laika the space dog on tiktok or just google.

mutual tags @lil-stark @reids-gf @reidsmilf @reidslibrarybook @reidsbookclub @reidsacademia @meganskane @deadravenclaw @delicatespencer @buckleyhans @moreidsdaughter @halloween-is-my-nationality @spencerreidapologist @spookydrreid @ssahotchsbitch @writingquillsandpainpills @evilshags @girlspencer @safespacespence @writer-in-theory @leahseclipse

✶ THE EX EFFECT

summary: being oscar piastri's pr manager is... uneventful, to say the least. that is, until your most recent ex winds up the mclaren garage. in an attempt to prove him something, the arm you end up grabbing is oscar's. now the word is spreading around the paddock that you're his (fake) girlfriend and it turns into a beneficial pr opportunity for him and a perfect cover up for you. except oscar gets a little too good at it, and all the reminders in the world are not enough for you to keep in mind that this is fake.

F1 MASTERLIST | OP81 MASTERLIST

pairing: oscar piastri x pr manager!fake gf!reader

wc: 19.2k

cw: not proofread, past toxic relationship, annoyances/colleagues to lovers, fake dating, he falls first, sort of third act breakup, oscar is slightly ooc, very light angst, season timeline is fucked but who cares! romance! clichés! drama!

note: requested here, i know nothing about pr, this was supposed to be short but i couldn't stop myself so you have this monster of a fic! i kinda hate this. anyways, enjoy!

WHEN YOU FOUND out you’d aced your interview, you thought to yourself, the sleepless nights carrying group projects every other member had procrastinated were worth it. The number of social events you passed on to finish top of your class─valedictorian, Communications major with a Journalism minor─had paid off because you had just landed a job as PR manager in Formula One. Not just in any team, either: McLaren. You were ready to dive into the glamour, the glitz, and the hardships of the sport. To thrive in the pressure, the politics, the media storms. You were ready to shine.

Except you were managing Oscar ‘No Emotions’ Piastri, and nobody thought about telling you that.

Oscar Piastri, a quiet semi-rookie when you first crossed the headquarters’ threshold, who gave you five words max per interview, had a sarcastic comment to every command the team social media manager threw his way, and disappeared at every media opportunity like a ghost, deadpanning instead of showing enthusiasm. Needless to say, there wasn’t much for you to manage.

It’s not like you didn’t try. You nudged him gently at first: helpful suggestions, friendly reminders to loosen up a little. Be more engaging. Play the game. But every time you did, he looked at you as if you'd sprouted a second head and proceeded to swiftly ignore you. The first time it happened, you were offended, and maybe a little concerned. You complained to Charlotte, Lando’s PR manager at the time, and she gave you the wisdom of a woman who had seen some things: “Assert yourself,” she’d said.

It was your first month on the job. You were fresh out of university. You didn’t even know where the best coffee machine was. How were you even supposed to do that?

Still, you decided to try again.

During a long and taxing car drive to the McLarens’ HQ, one you were sharing with Oscar after a last-minute driver swap and a logistical disaster, you figured it was now or never. Assert yourself, Charlotte had said. Be firm. Be confident.

You went for humor instead. A joke. 

Terrible idea, in hindsight.

“You know,” you said lightly, breaking the silence that had stretched across three roundabouts, “you’re kind of boring.”

Oscar simply glanced at you, expressionless, so you clarified. “I mean, you’re not even letting me do my job. Throw me a bone here.”

And it was supposed to be playful. Oscar was supposed to quietly snort, asking how he could finally help you, and boom, you’d finally get to apply all that polished knowledge you’d studied for years.

Instead, he tilted his head slightly, puzzled, as if you’d just spoken in Morse code aloud, and said, “Imagine being boring and still more interesting than your ex.”

“What?” You blinked. Saying you’d been taken aback would have been a euphemism.

He didn’t even look away from the road.

“You talk in your sleep. Don’t nap in the common room again.”

Silence fell again, but this time it wasn’t peaceful. It was personal.

That was the moment you decided, with startling clarity, that you very much disliked Oscar Piastri.

You didn’t know you talked in your sleep. You didn’t even know he’d stumbled upon you squeezing a thirty-minute nap in the common room of McLaren’s headquarters. And you certainly didn’t remember the dream you’d had─ or why exactly it had featured your ex out of all people. All you knew was that, no matter what he heard, it was a low blow.

Especially when it came to the one man who somehow slithered his way into your heart just to shatter it from the inside out.

Disliking the person you were assigned to manage wasn’t unheard of in the world of public relations. It was practically a rite of passage. Most of the time, it came with celebrities who were a walking headline: strippers, drugs, arrests, rumors of twins with three different people. That, you could’ve handled.

Oscar wasn’t like that at all. Oscar was just… rude.

Not loud rude, or messy rude. Just… quietly, unbotheredly rude. He was unreadable, dry, and too clever. Not a PR nightmare, just a PR black hole. Just to you.

And if there was one thing you happened to be very good at─besides the job you weren’t even getting the chance to do─it was holding a grudge.

After that episode, you kept your interactions with Oscar to the bare minimum, or as much as you could without being fired. The paycheck was just too good, especially as a fresh grad still recovering from student debt.

Any advice or directions you had for him came during team meetings, always surrounded by enough people that he couldn’t hit you with his usual blank stare. When he messed up during interviews, which was sometimes inevitable, and you followed up with a politely scathing email, bullet points and all. Face-to-face convos were reserved strictly for emergencies… or if you happened to be seated beside him, in which case you communicated via foot. Strategic, silent, and sharp. You’d step on his sneaker under the eyes of all, and he’d keep smiling at the camera like nothing happened. Except for the tiny, throbbing vein on his temple─ oh, you lived for it. 

It was a perfect arrangement. Passive-aggressive peace, mutually tolerated detachment. It worked for both of you.

Sometimes, you caught him glancing your way, wondering why you were still here. But you didn’t care. You had a system, and it was stable. It would’ve stayed that way for a long time, until your or his contract expired, whichever came first.

But then your ex decided to show up, and that messed everything up.

It was a very nice Thursday, dare you say. The kind of morning that made you think the season wouldn't be so bad.

You’d expected Bahrain to be hotter, considering the furnace it had been last year during the start of your first season with McLaren. But today, the air was warm without being unbearable, a soft breeze threading through the paddock and playing with the loose strands of your hair. Your cardigan slipped off one shoulder, but it didn’t cling or suffocate─ just draped like it was meant to be styled that way.

Oscar had just rolled out of the garage, off to log laps and data and whatever mysterious things drivers did during testing, which meant you were officially off-duty for the next three hours. You had time for yourself, maybe for a proper coffee and a chocolate croissant. Eventually, a little conversation with Lando, if you ran into him.

Yeah. This was a good morning.

You should have known it wouldn’t last.

It should have hit you when the coffee machine didn’t work, so you had to walk all the way to Lando’s side of the garage to fetch yourself a cup. It should have hit you when you didn’t even see Lando, and they were out of your favorite chocolate croissant. It should have hit you when you passed by grown men in their forties gossiping like schoolgirls about the new additions to Oscar’s car engineering team, you never heard anything about. It should have hit you when the feelings in your gut made you hesitate near the orange-colored walls.

But it really, really hit you when he grabbed your elbow.

“Y/N?”

Your body locked up like someone had flipped your off switch. The voice was familiar in the worst way─ like a nightmare you thought you’d finally grown out of. You didn’t even need to turn around. Your body already knew. Still, you did, as if asking the universe for confirmation.

And there he was. Theodore Silva, in full McLaren uniform, lanyard slung around his neck. Dark brown hair, messy, tied up in a bun, with his characteristic three o’clock shadow. Your ex-boyfriend. Your heartbreak origin story that, somehow, had the nerve to smile.

You would have backhanded him if the shock didn’t make your mind go blank.

“Wow,” he said, and you felt like a funny coincidence. “Didn’t expect to see you there. Always knew you were the ambitious one.”

Oh, you knew that tone. That patronizing little tone he used when he wanted to seem impressed while reminding you he could always do better. As if you hadn’t told him a million times about your fascination with motorsports and all of its scandals. You weren’t 19 and easily diminished anymore.

You slapped on a polite, seething smile. “I could say the same. I wouldn’t have guessed they hired people with so little… experience. Or the grades to back it up.”

Theodore Silva wasn’t the richest man alive. No, that title was reserved for his father, who owned a few businesses that took off in the early 2010s and left him with an outrageous amount of money and too much to do with it─ including sending his incompetent son to a prestigious business school even though he could barely manage to keep up half of the average required. Even his father’s money couldn’t get him to graduate the same year as you.

But after another year, it could apparently get him a job at McLaren.

Yet, Theodore still chuckled, brushing off your remark as if it were just another inside joke you two shared. “They just brought me on- engineering for Piastri’s car. Funny how life works out, huh?”

He was on Oscar’s team. You’d be obligated to see him, be near him, every day. You didn’t answer, just stared at him blankly, too busy cataloguing every sharp object in the vicinity, trying to ignore the twist of your heart.

“Small world,” he added to your silence.

You tried to smile again, but you knew it came out weird when the words that came out of your mouth sounded more like a screech than anything else. “Smaller than I’d like.”

Theodore tilted his head, studying you with calm eyes, as if he hadn’t watched you, arms dangling near his side, as you broke down in his apartment’s parking lot. “You look good,” he said softly. “I’m glad you’re doing well.”

You stared at him.

Hell no. He had that voice, wearing guilt like an optional accessory, looking at you like he was the one that got away. The nerves. You hated how your chest tightened, the smell of his cologne, and how he thought he could just waltz in, throw some compliments around, hoping to win you back.

Fuck him. “I’m doing very well, Theodore. Loving my job. How’s Anna?”

That landed. He physically winced, scratching his neck. “We, uh─ We broke up, actually.”

How surprising.

“So─”

You weren’t about to let him finish. You weren’t about to let him think he even had the sliver of a chance. He wasn’t about to wreck the life you built for yourself by simply being here, no. Instead, you did the sanest thing anyone would have done in your place.

You lied.

“I have a boyfriend, actually.” The words came out so fast you almost flinched, not registering them yourself.

Theodore paused, eyebrows lifting. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” you smiled, wildly too sharp for the context. “He’s great. Amazing, supportive. Emotionally available. You know─ faithful.”

He blinked, and his fake-casual mask slipped for a second. “What’s his name?” He asked, all lightness gone from his expression. 

That’s when it hit you. Unspoken panic rose in your throat because, believe it or not, you didn’t have a boyfriend. You barely even had a social life─ you spent most nights in bed with a sheet mask and Youtube videos. If you hesitated now, even for a second, Theodore would know. And he’d never let go, flashing you his smug little grin of his, strutting around the garage for a season, thinking he had a chance.

Not today, Satan.

The garage door behind you creaked open and footsteps echoed in your direction.

You didn’t look, didn’t think. You just grabbed the first arm that brushed against yours.

“This is him!” You said, an octave too high. “My boyfriend.”

And Oscar Piastri, your emotionally repressed, sarcasm-saturated PR headache of a driver, froze mid-step. As much as you wanted it, there wasn’t any way to back out now. His eyes dropped to your grip, white-knuckled, around his bicep. Then to you. Then to Theodore.

“... Sorry, what?” He said under his breath, just loud enough for you to hear.

“Babe,” you hissed between your teeth, eyes still set on Theodore and smiling like your life depended on it. “Go with it.”

Finally, your ex managed to speak up. He was frozen, mouth half-opened in shock. “This is your─ You’re dating─ Oscar Piastri is your boyfriend?”

Oscar opened his mouth, definitely to ask what was going on, but you beat him to it. “Yes! Yep. It’s, um─ it’s very new. A few months.”

You finally turned to face him fully.

His brown eyes, sharp and unreadable as ever, flicked across your face─ first your eyes, then your mouth, then down to where your fingers were still digging into his arm. There was confusion there, definitely, but also a kind of calculation unique to him.

“This is Theodore,” you added, swallowing thickly. “He’s one of your new engineers.” You hesitated. “... and my ex.”

That’s when something clicked.

You felt it. The subtle shift in Oscar’s expression─ the way his shoulders straightened or the brief flicker of understanding behind his eyes. He glanced at Theodore just once before looking back at you. You pleaded silently. With your eyes, with your fingers brushing lightly over the sleeve of his fireproof top, even with the part of your lips that whispered please without making a sound.

But the longer you stood there, the more the panic crept up your spine. Oscar didn’t owe you anything. The man barely liked you. He could’ve thrown you under the bus without blinking, called you out right there and made your life ten times harder.

Which is why you almost jumped when his hand, much larger, reached up and gently settled above yours.

“Ah, Theodore,” Oscar said, like the name physically bored him. “Nice to meet you. Sorry about my reaction,” he added, fingers tightening just slightly over yours. “I just didn’t expect… this.”

He turned to glance at you. An innocent smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth.

“Y/N’s told me a lot about you.”

Theodore snapped out of the shock that froze him into place, and his smile flickered. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Oscar said casually. “All the highlights.”

You blinked up at him, heart in your throat, unsure whether to laugh or sob. Was Oscar Piastri helping you?

“The highlights?” Theodore asked, dumbfounded.

Oscar hummed, thumb absentmindedly brushing over your hand─ just once, like punctuation. You weren’t dreaming, he was playing along. And the look on Theodore’s face was worth every single of it.

“Funny, she never mentioned you, or the fact she was dating an… F1 driver, as a whole.” As if you even talked to him anymore!

Oscar shrugged, way too relaxed. “That’s all right. We’re keeping it on the down low for now, I’m sure you understand. And we don’t do much… talking, anyways.”

Your jaw nearly hit the tarmac. You stepped on Oscar’s foot, a habit by now, and he barely flinched. Apparently, that was enough for Theodore. “Well,” he said slowly, eyes narrowing. “Guess I’ll see you two around the garage.”

“Guess I’ll see you around my car,” Oscar answered, a little too quickly.

Theodore just glanced at him before muttering, “Small world.”

“So small,” you nodded stiffly.

The second he was out of sight, you yanked Oscar by the wrist like a woman possessed, dragging him to the nearest utility alleyway─ dim, slightly greasy smelling, and blessedly empty. For how long, though? You didn’t know. “Okay,” you hissed. “Wow, what the hell was that line?! We don’t do much talking?!”

Oscar raised a condescendent eyebrow, arms crossed on his chest. “I don’t know, you tell me, Mrs. This Is My Boyfriend. I just followed along. You’re welcome, by the way.”

You groaned so loud it echoed, looking up to the ceiling, hoping answers will fall off it and solve your life, simultaneously pacing a short line across the floor. “I know what I did, alright? I just─ I panicked! That guy─ he… he cheated on me. With my best friend. In my own bed. And I just─ he looked so smug and self-satisfied standing here like I’d run back to him. I needed to shove something in his face, show him I’m fine. Better. And I didn’t look and you were there and your arm was right there and now I’m going to have an aneurysm─”

Oscar blinked. “Wow. Okay. That’s… a lot of information, considering we barely know each other.”

“Thank you so much for the support, Oscar. I wonder whose fault that is, exactly!”

“I’m just saying. That was a whole soap opera act in thirty seconds,” he snapped back, rolling his eyes.

You exhaled harshly. “Whatever. I didn’t actually mean to drag you into this, okay? I’ll fix it. I’ll… tell him it was a misunderstanding or… I’ll figure it out. I’ll PR my way out of this, because whether you like it or not, it’s actually my job─”

“It’s fine,” he said, cutting you off, eyes closing briefly like he needed to reboot.

You paused. “Huh?”

“I said it’s fine.” His eyes opened again, locking onto yours. “Now that he thinks you’re dating someone, his delusional ego’s going to spiral and he’ll leave you alone. Especially if it’s someone… above in station, let’s say. Not to stroke my own ego.” He tilted his head, tone flat. “He looks like the insecure type.”

“He is,” you aggressively agreed, pointing at him like he’d just cracked the Da Vinci code, and you swore you saw his lips pull up. “So we just… leave it alone?”

“Let it die down,” Oscar continued with a casualness you could only hope to replicate. “Maybe have a conversation here and there for consistency, but that's about it. It’s not like he’s going to go around bragging that his ex-girlfriend is dating the guy he’s working for.”

You snorted. “I think he’d rather die.”

Oscar’s mouth twitched, trying not to smile. “Exactly.”

You sighed, finally letting your shoulders drop as the tension bled out of you. The adrenaline was still rushing through your veins, waterfall-like, but slowly softening, giving way to a quiet panic that you could make do with until the end of the day. It’s fine, you told yourself, it’ll be fine. “Okay,” you murmured, giving him a small nod. “Thank you. Seriously.”

“Don’t mention it,” Oscar replied, already turning away. “Literally.”

“Deal,” you said. “Never again.”

The plan was to return to your regularly scheduled programming─ distant and professional. With the way Theodore worked (or more accurately, didn’t), you were pretty sure he wouldn’t last long in the McLaren garage anyway. Life would go back to normal soon enough. You were sure of it.

Rule number one of PR management: never assume anything. Certainty was a myth. Because as long as there was even a sliver of doubt, it could all go wrong. Maybe you’d gotten complacent in your ways, Oscar never gave you anything to work with after all, but you really thought that this time, it would be fine. You slept like a rock that night, the kind of sleep where your mind recharged so hard it forgot you had responsibilities in the morning.

That’s probably the reason it took you so long to notice. First, it was the way people lingered as you passed. How engineers muttered behind their coffee cups and went dead silent when you got too close. You weren’t used to this level of attention─ as a whole, you were a pretty discreet presence in the paddock, so when the smiles came and the knowing smirks got thrown your way, you started becoming suspicious.

“Morningggg,” Lando sing-songed as you entered the McLaren hospitality tent.

“Good… morning?” You muttered, narrowing your eyes as you plopped down next to him. “What’s got you in such a good mood today?” You asked as you bite into the chocolate croissant you’d been craving since yesterday.

Lando studied you. Waiting.

“Do I have to guess, or…?”

The curly-haired man sighed dramatically, as if your question alone had aged him. “No, but I thought we were friends. Guess I was wrong, since I had to hear it from my race engineer. During briefing.”

You blinked. “Okay, what the hell are you on?” you admitted. “Have you been doing crack? Is that it?”

“Whatever, keep your secrets, Y/N,” Lando conceded, a smug little grin on his lips. “You’ll talk to me when you’re ready. Or I’ll just get the truth from Osc’. He seems… chatty, lately.” 

You couldn’t imagine Oscar Piastri being chatty to save your life. “What? What does Oscar have to do with anything?” But Lando was already up and walking off.

Alone with your chocolate croissant and your detonated sense of peace, you scanned the room, eyes darting in panic.

Across the tent, Oscar stood by the coffee station, talking to a staff member with his hands-in-pockets casual disinterest. His eyes met yours, and he paused mid-sentence, one eyebrow raised in that really? kind of way that made you want to slap him. There was a silent question in it. 

One you didn’t have an answer to.

The answer actually came knocking that night─ quite literally. Loud, incessant, unforgiving knocks at your hotel room door.

You were in the middle of taking off your makeup, cotton pad in one hand and dabbing at your under-eye concealer like it personally offended you. “Seriously?” You audibly commented, exhausted. It was nearly 10 PM. You’d done your job, answered more emails than anyone should in one day. The very least the universe could offer was twenty-four uninterrupted minutes of peace.

But the knocking didn’t stop, so you opened the door with a groan and a complaint on your tongue, only for the sound to die the moment you registered who was standing on the other side.

Oscar Piastri. In a hoodie, track pants, socks that did not match, and looking far too calm for someone who’d just banged on your door as if the apocalypse was tracking him down. You stared in confusion, words refusing to come out of your mouth no matter how hard you tried.

“Sooo… we might have a problem,” Oscar finally spoke in the silence stretching between you.

He walked in your room with no hesitation, without you even inviting him in─ the audacity! Sure, yeah, come on in, ruin my night, you thought. He glanced around, sizing your room and seemingly expecting paparazzis behind the mini-bar, before turning to face you with a flat look.

“What’s this problem that has you acting so dramatic for─”

“You’re trending on F1 Twitter. Well, we are,” he said simply, tone measured. “Someone took a photo. You holding my arm next to your ex. In the garage. And the caption is─”

He pulled out his phone. A screencap of big, red, capital letters: IS OSCAR PIASTRI SOFT-LAUNCHING HIS PR MANAGER?

It took a while for reality to set in. 

You stared at the screen blankly, eyes flicking from Oscar to the headline, erratic. Soft-launching. Soft-launching. You tasted blood in your mouth. Oh, no─ it was actually just your soul leaving your body. “This is not happening,” you mumbled, blinking rapidly. “It’s fake. This is fake. I’m hallucinating.”

Oscar hummed. “Want me to read you the quote tweets?”

You pointed a finger at him. “Don’t you dare.”

He shrugged and put his phone down. You sat down on your bed, hands flying to your temple. “Okay, okay. No big deal. I’ll just tell the team we were talking about… a car issue. A steering problem. Brake pedal feedback. That sounds fake, right? Like, real-enough fake.”

Oscar gave you a look. “You could try that,” he said slowly, “but your ex has apparently been sniffing around the garage asking people if we’re actually dating.”

“No way.”

“I overheard Lando’s race engineer telling him. He asked five different people.” A beat. “He’s not subtle.”

You could feel your eyes twitch. “Jesus Christ.”

Oscar crossed his arms, leaning back against the mini-bar, staring at you. “So I don’t think your little oh it was just a brake issue! excuse is going to cut it.”

“I’m going to end it all,” you said, dropping your face in your hands. “I’m going to crawl into my media kit and live there forever.”

He raised an eyebrow at you. “I’ll bring you snacks.”

“How are you not freaking out? Like, at all? It’s your face on every headline, and my job on the line!” You didn’t want to think about the repercussions this would have on any future jobs you might want, or your actual one. Future employers were going to Google you and find dating rumors about a fake relationship with a driver you were managing.

“Oh, I freaked out,” Oscar cut in smoothly, walking toward you. “Trust me, I had a whole mini-existential crisis in the elevator.”

“That’s good for you, Oscar. Why aren’t you still freaking out?”

“Because I figured this might be a job for my PR manager,” he said, toned laced with sarcasm. “Who also happens to be the cause of the PR disaster in the first place.”

You opened your mouth just to close it, and to open it again. “That’s fair.”

“And you said I was too boring.” Oscar gave you a dry smile, and weirdly, that was the moment it clicked.

You were his PR manager. This─whatever mess the universe had decided to dump in your lap─wasn’t just a disaster. It was an opportunity. A viral, narrative-controlling opportunity. The kind of chaos you could work with. You’d complained that Oscar gave you nothing: too quiet and acidic. Well, he certainly wasn’t that anymore, or almost.

You straightened up, the panic slowly morphing into focus. Your heart was still pounding, but now to the rhythm of the plan puzzling itself in your head. No one had trained you for what to do when you were the story but if anyone could improvise, it was. Your idea was wild, unhinged, even. But you knew better than anyone that the line between unhinged and brilliant was just the execution. And if you played this right, it could be exactly what the both of you needed.

You turned to Oscar slowly, the corner of your lips twitching into something almost insane. “Oscar,” you said carefully. “What if we didn’t let this go to waste?”

“Come again?”

“I mean, this,” you gestured vaguely toward his phone, screen down on the counter. “Oscar Piastri’s mystery romance unveiled, blah blah blah. It’s a mess, but it doesn’t have to be.”

Oscar’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “... You’re about to say something crazy.”

You got up from your spot on the bed to face him fully. “Fake dating.”

“There it is.”

“No, seriously, hear me out,” When he started taking a few steps back, you rushed toward him, hands animated. “People are already talking. We can’t undo the articles or stop the whispers, but we can own the story. It’s simple PR strategy: if the narrative’s out of our hands, we grab it back, shift the focus and make it work for us.”

“And what, exactly, would we be gaining from this?” Oscar looked deeply, deeply unconvinced.

You got closer to him and his eyes widened discreetly, quickly shifting from your eyes to your lips, and to the one finger you were holding up in front of his face. “One, you get press engagement. You’ve been called the human spreadsheet by more than one person─”

“Never heard of that.”

“Okay, maybe it’s only me, but my point still stands. This? It gives you dimension. Warmth. Personality. More people of all age groups rooting for you.”

Oscar raised an eyebrow. “Because I’m dating you?”

“Don’t flatter yourself too much. Two,” you continued without missing a beat, “I get a break from Theodore. He’s more likely to leave me alone if he thinks you’re in the picture long-term, or as close as we can get to it.”

“Isn’t that the reason you picked me in the first place?”

“I was desperate. You were here and tall.”

Oscar shrugged at your words, quietly agreeing with you, which egged you on for the last point of your argument. “Three, if this all goes up in flames, we just say we broke up. That wouldn’t be the ideal outcome until Theodore’s out of the picture, but if push comes to shove, we do this quietly. Classic ‘we ask for privacy during this time’, then ghost the media. End of story, and we go back to our ways.”

The silence stretching between the walls of your hotel room seemed to last a lifetime too long as the Australian studied you carefully, arms crossed on his chest. “You’ve really thought about this.”

“Actually, I just did. I’m that good.”

He exhaled loudly at your comment, dragging a hand down his face in exasperation, and you tried your best not to let a little quip past your lips. “And how long would this have to last?” Oscar asked, voice muffled by his palm.

“Until Theodore goes away, which shouldn’t be more than a few weeks knowing his talents. Enough to let the story peak and settle and it would include a couple public appearances, some social media crumbs─ low effort, maximum payoff for you.”

Hope swirled in your chest with the intensity of a storm when he dropped his hands, his dark eyes locked onto yours.

“And your ex leaving you alone would be the only thing you’d gain out of all this?”

You didn’t hesitate a single second when you answered. “That, and peace. Maybe a little petty revenge over him and honestly? A challenge.” Because this is what you’ve been dying to do ever since you stepped foot in the paddock a year ago.

And maybe Oscar saw the hellfire of determination in your eyes as he scanned you, either that or you sold your reckless idea with the confidence of a politician, because after long, skeptical minutes. He held out his hand, and the overwhelming weight pressing against your shoulders seemed to evaporate in the flight of a hundred butterflies.

“Fine, count me in,” he said, voice a little hoarse, “but if it all goes to shit, you’re taking the blame.”

You hastily took his hand, his rough palm fitting into yours, and you blamed the electricity rushing in your spine and the powdery pink of his cheeks on the ridiculous situation and the relief coursing through your body. “Deal, but it won’t go to shit if you keep up with me.”

The ghost of a smirk pulled at his lips, which made you smile. Your heartbeat was thundering in your chest and the heaviness of what you’d just agreed upon settled over you like a second skin.

Fake dating Oscar Piastri. How hard could it be?

First thing you did the next morning was to warn a handful of team members: there was no world in which running a fake dating scheme in secret wouldn’t come back to bite you and frankly, your job and reputation were already hanging by a thread due to yesterday’s PR earthquake. You and Oscar pulled Lando, Zak, and a few key staff members─social media, comms, and PR support─into the smallest available hospitality room you could find, locking the door behind you.

You explained the situation as fast as you could, hands raised in surrender under their gazes. How the rumors were technically true but not real, what conclusions you came to in such little time, and the thought process behind your idea, carefully excluding Theodore’s implication.

“Wouldn’t lying to the public make it worse?” Someone from comms piped up, deadpan.

You winced. “Damage control isn’t always about truth. It’s about optics, controlling the narrative before it controls us. We’ve assessed the risk, this buys us time to refocus headlines onto the cars, not the garage drama all while boosting Oscar’s popularity.”

Zak blinked at you as if you’d grown a second head. “You assessed the risk?”

“With me,” Oscar added from his chair, facing you. “I see the strategic upside. I’ll blow over in a few weeks, it’s fine. No harm done.” You sent him a silent thank you, holding his eyes just long enough for him to notice.

“Soo, when’s the wedding?” Lando piped up, leaning forward. “Or do we just have the break-up arc planned?”

You ignored him, preferring to explain the conditions of you and Oscar’s little agreement: no posts unless you greenlit them, no press comments and if anyone asked, yes, you were together. Happy. In love, but still casual. Social media staff were already scribbling notes or rapidly typing on their keyboards, and Zak looked like he might die of a heart attack.

So were you. Still, when you glanced at Oscar during one of McLaren’s CEO's silent breakdowns, you couldn’t help but share a silent laugh.

The following days were catastrophic, to say the least. Navigating the Bahrain paddock for the last of testing and media obligations for the first Grand Prix of the season the week after had turned into a minefield of knowing looks and suspicious stares. You and Oscar were learning how to walk the tightrope of fake affection with the grace of two toddlers. A few shared smiles, a shoulder brush, but every interaction felt rehearsed, taken off a badly written script. By some given miracle, it did work on some people but not all, and especially not Theodore. You could feel his eyes on you everytime you walked through the garage, narrowed as if waiting for a slip-up, but you’d rather die than prove him right.

By the end of the first few days, Oscar’s social media manager handed you a photo of the both of you to approve for Instagram─ one where Oscar had his arm slung around your shoulder awkwardly while you stood next to the car, all too aware of the massive lens pointed right at you. It was…

“It looks like we lost a bet,” you muttered, horrified.

Oscar leaned in over your shoulder to look at the picture. “Oh. Yeah, that’s bad.”

You threw your hands in the air, movements more powerful than words to transcribe the frustration elevating your blood pressure. Before a flurry of complaints and insults could slip past your lips, Oscar spoke.

“Okay, maybe it’s not very convincing, but it’s also because we haven’t figured out how to sell it correctly.”

“What a revolutionary thought.” He shrugged your comment off. 

“Well, I figured since we skipped the whole dating part and went straight to the whole madly-in-love thing, maybe it’s time we… backtrack?”

You felt the lightbulb switch on in your mind, eyes widening in realization. “Backtrack… like a backstory?”

Oscar nodded solemnly. “A timeline, yeah. How it started, how it’s going, first dates and everything. The whole fake fairytale.”

You couldn’t argue with that. You hated to admit he was currently beating you at your job, but Oscar was right. People were already speculating about the two of you a week in your fake relationship; everyone, including you, needed some foundations to be settled and fast. “Okay, alright. We can figure this out tonight, preferably in my hotel room since it apparently became the headquarters of this,” you made circle hand gesture between the two of you, “operation. Also because nobody will bust us in there.”

Oscar showed up at an ungodly hour of the evening─ the clock showcased numbers that hurt your sleep cycle, but nothing made the press talk more than going to your girlfriend’s room in the middle of the night, right? He knocked once before letting himself in, dressed in the same sweats and hoodie as a week ago, and holding a suspiciously large energy drink. “I come bearing poison,” Oscar announced, lifting the can.

You squinted at him from your spot on the bed-your hotel room lacking a desk-surrounded by a battlefield of notebooks and your wheezing laptop that was one short breath away from the grave. “Perfect, that’ll keep us up. We have work to do. Welcome to the Ted-talk-slash-lie-building meetup.”

Oscar kicked off his shoes, walking toward you. He eyed the chaos with a low whistle. “Oh wow, you weren’t kidding.”

You handed him a purple glitter pen without even glancing in his direction. “Sit your ass down and write with honor, Piastri.”

“Glitter? Really?”

“Don’t patronize me. I love glitter gel pens. Better memorize that if you want to be a good fake boyfriend.”

Oscar snorted but didn’t protest as he took the pen, sitting down next to an open notebook on the edge of your bed. He cracked the energy drink open with a hiss, and you took it from his hands before he had the time to bring it to his lips. “Jesus, you’re bossy.” You shot him a look. “Alright, alright. Where do we begin?”

You exhaled, eyes settling on your computer screen. A bright, pink page was showcasing Date Idea: Where To Take Your Beloved For A First Date? “With the basics. When we started dating, how we met, how many fake months we’ve been in fake love, which side of the bed you sleep in for continuity purposes.”

“Right side.”

“Wrong answer. It’s mine.”

You gradually settled in a surprisingly comfortable rhythm. Between the quiet clicking of the keyboard, the buzzing of Chinese nightlife outside your window, and the rhythmic scratch of the glittery ink on paper, you and Oscar brainstormed.

Ideas came slowly at first, awkward and stilted the way two kids forced together in a group project would work─ which it was, in a way. It didn’t take you long to realize you didn’t know Oscar at all, and he didn’t know you either, and the recognition of that fact put a certain strain on your interactions, as much as there already was. Yet, the tension softened as the minutes from midnight trickled away. You found yourself building a history out of thin air, questions after questions and jokes after jokes─ inside jokes that didn’t exist and justified why you laughed so hard at ‘soft tyres’, a first date that involved a tragically undercooked lasagna which Oscar and you had to fight over because neither of you wanted to look like a bad cook. You chose May 21st as the anniversary date because it sounded cute. Oscar protested, “How can a date even be cute? It doesn’t make sense.” He still settled on it.

Snorts, teasing looks as you drew a clumsy timeline in the middle of your designated ‘Relationship Basics’ notebook. “What about our first kiss?”

“Mmh, that’s a good one. People are going to ask.”

“Duh,” you fought the smile on your lips with little effort. “C’mon. You were wearing that hideous orange puffer, it was raining, and I was mad because you didn’t share your umbrella.”

“Oh right, and you were soaked and… okay, you said I owed you a kiss for compensation. Sounds like something you’d do,” Oscar replied, leaning forward in mock seriousness.

You made a sound, halfway between a gasp and a laugh. “You do remember!”

He laughed. A real one, warm and easy, going right through your chest. You quickly joined him, and his eyes lingered on you a second too long after the joke faded. “I made it up with hot chocolate later, though,” he added with a lazy smile that didn’t belong in any scenarios.

You scribbled that in your notebook. “Ew. We are sickeningly cute.”

And somewhere between a fabricated ski trip and the great debate of who said ‘I love you’ first, something shifted, just a little. Oscar had moved from the edge of the bed to sit beside you, arms behind his head against the headrest, legs stretched on the covers. His knees bumped yours every now and then, but you didn’t flinch away. The notebooks laid abandoned now, pens scattered across the duvet. Your laptop screen dimmed after an hour of neglect and your limbs were heavy with the sweet stickiness of fatigue that only came when you laughed too much and too hard.

You glanced over at Oscar and his hair was a little messy, eyes a little sleepy, softened by the light of the space. He was already watching you. “You know,” he spoke up. “For a so-called meeting, it suspiciously looks like a sleepover.”

You couldn’t help but giggle at that, tiredness winning over your resolve. “It’s almost four,” he continued,  voice lower in the hush of your hotel room. “We’ve officially survived our first week of fake dating. Well, we did four hours ago, but…”

“And we haven’t accidentally gotten married in Vegas like they do in movies. I’d call that a win.”

“Oh yeah, that’s definitely not because of our amazing chemistry.”

A huff escaped you again, and your head fell back against the pillows. Shanghai still hummed outside the window, quieter this time, and the city lights threaded through the thin curtains you pulled. The room was just as still, if warmer─ you could feel the tired blush on your cheeks and the heat of Oscar’s thigh against yours. “You know, you’re not as annoying as I thought,” you said, a lazy sigh curling into your words.

It came out like an offhand casual observation, but you didn’t meet his eyes. Truth be told, you were ashamed. The whole year you’d convinced yourself Oscar Piastri was a nuisance and a stain on your work life had been shattered in the shine of glitter pens and the drafting of a romance novel-worthy story. Because he was actually kind of funny, and even though he delivered his jokes like he was bored half the time which you used to interpret as condescance, they still made you laugh. He listened when you spoke. He had a dry, understated charm you were starting to recognize as very authentic.

And he hadn’t complained once tonight. Not when you made him pick an anniversary date for the third time, or reenact a fake first meeting with your best friend. He was just… there.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he replied, but his voice melted at his usual edges. “You’re alright too. Surprisingly.”

When you turned your head, you found he was already looking at you for the second time, and a moment passed. You gave him a smile, barely there, and he looked away. “Guess we do make a decent team,” Oscar mumbled.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” you mimicked him. He snorted.

You walked him to your door after an exchange of soft chuckles and breathy goodnights. Fake dating Oscar would be harder than you thought, but it definitely wouldn’t be as bad as you made it out to be.

You weren’t sure what it was between the sleep deprivation, the amateur acting, or the emotional whiplash of building an entire relationship with a guy you were only acquainted with, but something about it shifted the rhythm you’d gotten used to. Whatever happened during that night, being Oscar Piastri’s fake girlfriend became easier after it.

It started with texts. You couldn’t remember which one of you sent the first non-work related one, but it became a daily occurrence of linking the other pictures the press took of the both of you.Oscar would often comment something along the lines of Do I look like a man held hostage or a man in love? Be honest. You’d roll your eyes everytime, answering: All I can say is that I’m not flattered. At first, it was mostly logistical─ scheduling photo ops, making sure neither of you veered your scheme off the track. But somewhere between sarcastic captions and oddly flattering candids, the conversations grew longer. It became a way to kill time, a habit.

Oscar was easy to talk to, which was a thought that would’ve originally terrified you. Except the conversations carried off screen, and you found yourself enjoying them an awful lot.

Along the lines of your ruse, you started saving seats beside each other during lunch breaks or waiting up for the other to go back to the hotel together─ not for the cameras or Theodore’s heinous stare, but for a reason as simple as the enjoyment of the other’s company. Oscar was more than a colleague by that point, he became something else that you couldn’t quite call a friend the way you called Lando one. You stopped overthinking every step you took beside him, every glance and sentence. You had your script, sure. But more than that, you had a quiet kind of understanding. He knew when to press his hand to the small of your back when it was needed, and you knew when to lean in just enough to sell the look of something intimate. 

It wasn’t perfect, but it was practiced. Comfortable, even. Maybe, just maybe, a little fun. Which is why you couldn’t tell when the little things started to feel not as little anymore.

Rare were the times you arrived late to a team briefing, but a late-night spiral reviewing articles about your little charade had stolen more sleep than you’d expected, and for the first time since you started out at McLaren, your alarms lost the battle. You slipped in your seat next to Oscar, a movement you barely thought about anymore, breathless, cheeks warm from your run across the paddock and the drizzle misting your hair. Your pants were drenched, there was a pounding behind your eyes and you were thirty minutes away from biting someone’s head off if they even dared mention your tardiness.

Oscar didn’t say anything at first, just glanced your way as he often did, eyes flicking up and down once. You braced for a comment, a joke, preparing to hold yourself back from doing something you’ll regret doing to your fake boyfriend in public.

Instead, he leaned down, reaching for a paper bag next to him, from where he pulled out a steaming paper cup and a chocolate croissant that he slid toward you without a word. Your name was scribbled across the side of the wrapper along with your very specific order, down to the temperature.

You looked at Oscar. At your breakfast. Then at Oscar again. “How─”

“You weren’t answering my texts,” he said, still looking forward. “Figured you’d be late, so I got you this. You get cranky with no sleep or caffeine in your system.”

“I don’t get cranky,” you muttered, wrapping your cold hands around the hot beverage. “You get sassy when you don’t sleep.”

“Sure,” Oscar said casually, meeting your eyes for the first time since you sat down. “There’s extra vanilla, by the way.”

You didn’t answer, just rolled your eyes, but his gaze was still on you when Zak burst through the door. The fact he remembered that you took extra vanilla syrup in your extra hot latte and that your favorite pastry was a chocolate croissant should be nothing, because you’re sure you told him at some point during your many one-on-one briefings. Except it wasn't. Not really.

Then, there was the flight. There was nothing the fans and the media loved more, and Theodore despised just as much, than couple apparitions at airports, which led to Oscar’s social media manager to nudge you into the believable. That’s how you found yourself catching the same flight as Oscar, Lando and a few others on their jet. It had become recurrent in the past few weeks and you’d never admit it out loud, but there were non-neglectable perks: fewer crying babies, more space, and the occasional poker game where you absolutely obliterated Lando’s ego. You know I’m just that good at acting, you’d said, throwing a cheeky smile at Oscar that he gave you right back.

This time, though, none of you had the energy to talk, let alone play cards. It had been an exhausting and emotional race weekend─ back-to-back media obligations underneath the fire of reignited on-track rivalries, rain delays, and disputes amid the team you couldn’t legally disclose. The jet was unusually quiet as it took off into the night sky, everyone slipping into their respective silence.

You hadn’t meant to fall asleep. You usually didn’t in airplanes, they stressed you out too much─ you’d just leaned against the window for a little moment, eyes fluttering closed. The buzz of the engine and the soft cabin light blurred the world into static and you drifted away in a split second, as soon as the city was turned to insignificant holes in the black tapestry underneath you.

After a while, you felt a warmth, subtle at first. There was something solid against your shoulder, enough to make you crack one eye open.

Oscar’s head was resting against yours, and you were tucked comfortably against him. At some point, he’d dozed off too, and the both of you had slumped toward each other in your sleep. You could’ve moved, you know you would have a few weeks back, but you didn’t. You let your eyes close again and let yourself drift in and out of sleep along the quiet sync of your breath. His arms wrapped around your waist, your legs rested on his knees, and you weren’t quite sure how long you stayed like that─ten minutes, an hour─but when you finally woke up again, it was to the obnoxious flick of Lando’s phone camera and his barely contained laughter.

It was the accumulation of those little things, the seemingly insignificant moments that, piled together, made them bigger than they should have been. It was when Oscar took the habit of sleeping in your hotel room after qualifications to watch a movie under the pretense of simulating ‘passionate encounters’. It was when, one morning, bleary-eyed, you accidentally threw on his hoodie with his number printed on the back, and his hands lingered on the small of your back a little more possessively that day. It was when you were running low on your orange glitter gel pen and a full set was mysteriously delivered to your door, even if you didn’t need one. In the way his pupils dilated ever so slightly when you caught him staring, when he pointed right at you after his podiums, how your skin fizzed with heat for hours after he kissed your cheek in front of the cameras.

But what really blurred the line was the night in Spain.

It hadn’t been a particularly thrilling race─ tame from lights out to chequered flag. Oscar had finished P3, Lando snagged P2, both holding their qualifying positions with sharp determination. But the crowd had been wild, the champagne flowing and before you knew it, Lando dragged you and Oscar into Carlos’ plans for the night. All that happened after was a blur of neon lights and ear-shattering singing.

The walk back to the hotel was your idea- just a short stroll through warm cobblestone streets, the air sweet with late night chatter and the slow beginning of summer. You and Oscar snuck out the back entrance of the club, the latter clearly not fitting in the Spanish nightlife, your heels dangling from your fingers and his cap pulled low to hide the flush of his cheeks. Both of you were just tipsy enough to feel invincible, shoulders brushing as you exchanged anecdotes and very real inside jokes, something about not-much-talking, laughter echoing against the dead of the night.

It was quiet for a moment after that, the comfortable kind that sometimes settled between you. Oscar decided to break it.

“You know,” he started, softer than usual. “I’ve been meaning to ask─ why didn’t you like me at first?”

You turned your head up slowly, the reality of the question dawning on you. You raised an eyebrow. “What made you think I didn’t like you?”

“Come on.” Oscar gave you a look, and in the dark of his eyes you swore you saw the polite, Shakespearean insults you sneaked in your emails, the harsh tap on your foot on his, flashing in the quarter of a second. You couldn’t help but laugh.

“Okay, maybe I didn’t. At first.” 

He kept his eyes on you, waiting. You sighed, tipping your head back to look at the night sky─ no stars were visible, but it didn’t take away from the beauty of it. “You were just─” You paused, choosing your words carefully. “Honestly, you were rude, smug and condescending. I felt like you were trying to make my job harder than it should be by just- not doing anything. People were talking about you as this nice, quiet boy and I secretly wanted to bash your head against a wall.”

A beat. “Wow. That’s brutal,” he simply answered. “I don’t get how I gave that impression. I always thought you were the one being rude to me.”

Your head whipped in his direction and you could physically feel the disbelief splashed across your features. “Me? You started it!”

“How?”

“That one car ride in my third month,” you deadpanned. “You made a very snobbish comment about a dream I had about my ex. You said, and I quote─” you cleared your throat dramatically, dropping your voice to the flattest Oscar impression known to man, “‘Imagine being boring and still more interesting than your ex.’” Oscar was half-laughing by that point. “Oh, don’t you dare! You also said something about how I shouldn’t sleep in the HQ again, but for the record? It was my first triple-head─”

He held a hand up in mock surrender, mouth agape in stupor. “Is this what started this whole… passive-aggressiveness?”

“Uh… yeah? It was unnecessarily arrogant!”

Oscar made a face. “Unnecessary, sure. I get it. But you know what was also unnecessary? The intimidating, pretty new girl at McLaren─who also happened to be my new PR Manager─calling me boring to my face.”

The words hung in the air between the two of you. Your froze, caught off-guard by the ease with which the compliment slipped out. Oscar was continuing with his rant, either completely oblivious or choosing not to care. You cut him off. “... You thought I was pretty?”

That’s when he faltered, his lips parted in a half-word as if he hadn’t realized what he said before you pointed it out. Oscar’s gaze flicked to yours, then away, suddenly far more interested in the cracks of the sidewalk than anything else. “Well, yeah,” he took off his cap and brushed a hand through his hair like it might undo the sentence. “I mean, you still are. It’s not like that changed.”

It would be lying to say you had considered the possibility that you caused the tension between you and Oscar in the first place. While your sad attempt at humor might have been the catalyst, something must’ve already been simmering under the surface for things to go cold so quickly after it. Your heart gave the tiniest, traitorous jump, chest pulling in a reluctant way, at the thought he’d noticed you then. You despised how easy it was to smile, to fall into the warmth of the possibility.

“Oh,” you said softly, and it explained everything and nothing all at once.

“I’m just saying,” Oscar added quickly, flustered, “it didn’t feel great.”

You couldn’t tell if the red of his cheeks was from the heat, the alcohol, or the embarrassment, but what you could tell was how hopelessly cute you found him in this moment. You tried to play it cool, despite the fact your heartbeat had skipped a full chord. “Noted. And for the record, now I know you aren’t boring,” you added, teasing, playfully nudging your shoulder with his. “You’re just… private. Or mysterious. A sardonic brick wall, if you will.”

It successfully had him looking up, a light-hearted scoff slipping past his lips - you could see the relief in his facial traits. “I’ll take mysterious. It’s better than boring.”

When you got into your hotel room, Oscar slipped past your door as he normally would, and you collapsed onto the bed with your legs tangled together like always─ but something was different now. The air around the mattress was slower, stuck in time, warm in the way his breath ghosted over the nape of your neck when he settled beside you, eyes already fluttering shut.

For the first time since this whole agreement began, you had to consciously remind yourself that it wasn’t real. The comfort in your chest wasn’t made to stay. The steady rhythm of his breathing next to yours, the way your body naturally molded into the other─ it was all pretend. 

At least, that’s what it was supposed to be.

Like silk curtains flowing with the breeze, the change was discreet but there nonetheless, in the shared silences that felt less like pauses and more like instances captured with a polaroid. There was hesitation, once again, but unlike the one you chased away before─ in how you touched, how you laughed, how you glanced at each other and closed the gap under the bright flashes. You were both tiptoeing around something fragile and new.

Neither of you said anything, but it was something too heavy not to notice─ at least, you hoped Oscar did as well: the reluctant awareness of how hazy the lines had started to get and the stunned realization that maybe they’d never really been that straight to begin with after Oscar’s tipsy confession in Spain. You were still doing everything to showcase your relationship to the media, Theodore’s presence in the paddock still overwhelmingly present and Oscar’s popularity sky-rocketing. You were still holding hands and tucking yourself to his side in the garage between two meetings, carefully weaving the continuation of the story you made up together. Yet, when no one was watching, it didn’t feel as plastic. Not when Oscar whispered in the crevice of your ear in a crowded room, or when your heart jumped at the sound of his laugh. When it started to hurt, just a little, when he pulled away.

The day he called you at five in the morning from Canada was confirmation enough. The switch from the heat of Spain to the rainy weather of the United Kingdom for work had taken its toll on you, and you had to call in sick for the Montreal race weekend. Tucked in your covers with a cup of coffee and an inability to sleep due to your clogged nose, you watched your phone screen lit up with his name. You answered with a hoarse, “Why are you awake?”

Oscar chuckled, his voice slightly muffled by the hotel air conditioning in the background. “Why are you?”

“Respiratory betrayal,” you said, dragging your blanket further up your chin. “What’s your excuse? The race’s tomorrow.”

You talked about everything and nothing for a little while. Oscar told you how the track felt a little underwhelming, how the social media team messed up with their main Instagram account, and of Lando’s endless complaining about the lack of your presence─ apparently, the paddock was too quiet now. You nodded in your pillow with a smile like he could see you.

Eventually, the conversation drifted away, like it always did now. Oscar asked what you were listening to lately and you told him of a song that sounded like spring and reminded you of long drives at night, especially the instance when he drove you home after Monaco. He said it sounded like something you’d play to get out of your own head. You said it was. He told you about this stupid childhood habit he had of organizing cereal boxes in alphabetical order and you laughed so hard it triggered a coughing fit.

Oscar’s voice dropped. “I wish you were here.”

It wasn’t dramatic or purposeful in the slightest. He said it as if he was realizing it at the same time he pronounced the words. It was your case too when you answered, “Yeah, me too.”

Your chest ached, because there was no camera to capture the softness of the moment and you just found out you preferred it that way.

And then you came back for the Austrian Grand Prix. You didn’t see Oscar much that weekend. You’d barely touched the ground before you were swallowed whole by emails, debriefs, documents you missed during your sick leave and Theodore side-eyeing you every time you so much as coughed next to him. There was no time for soft moments, not even time to stop and just glance at Oscar even if you wanted to.

He crossed the line in P1 that day. You were mid-conversation with Zak, animated with excitement even during your lengthy talk about the following media duties, when arms pulled you in so strongly you lost track of what you were saying. You recognized him by touch alone: Oscar was wrapped around you, body sweaty and warm from his maddened laps. He held the helmet in his hand, still catching his breath when his head dropped on your shoulder. 

“You’re back,” he said, voiced laced with something a lot like relief.

“Of course I’m back,” you whispered back, fingers twitching on the back of his race suit. He sounded like you were gone for years and somehow, it really did feel like it. You could’ve stayed there for hours, you thought, until Zak obnoxiously cleared his throat next to you.

Oscar pulled back, eyes brighter than his usual post-race exhaustion, the glint of something you couldn’t name just yet dancing in his pupils. His hands came to rest on your wrist, barely brushing your hands. “Stay with me?” He asked, and your heart might have stopped just there. Realizing how it sounded, Oscar quickly corrected, “For the interviews. I’ve been dodging the media since you weren’t there.”

“I will,” you smiled. Your feet were already moving anyway.

He kept glancing sideways everytime the journalists asked about strategy and pace, and the little tug in your guts told your mind you were enjoying it, even though shamefully missing the feeling of the circle his thumb drew on the inside of your hand. When the interviewer asked about the less than discreet glances, making a comment on the obvious chemistry you two shared and how well you worked together─as colleagues and as a couple─Oscar didn’t laugh it off like you always practiced. He nodded, bashful and sure.

The sentence kept blinking in the back of your head like a warning sign: this was all fake. But even telling yourself that wasn’t enough anymore because your heart apparently didn’t get the memo. The touches and the sleepovers made your dreams spiral and your cheeks warm. You became his phone wallpaper for authenticity and his picture became yours as well without as much as a second thought, every little attention as natural as the cycle of seasons.

You were falling for your own fake dating ruse. Which meant you were quietly, miserably falling for Oscar Piastri in the process, in the realest and most literal way known to man. That was terrifying.

Never, in your short but hectic PR career, had you ever experienced that.

Not the newfound feelings you were harboring for your fake boyfriend, no. You tried your best to think about that as little as possible─ if you didn’t look at them, maybe they wouldn’t look back. Right now, you were talking about the diplomatic ambush you and the F1 grid and staff just walked into. The hotel hosting the drivers and half the sport’s staff for the Silverstone weekend had decided to organize a charity gala. Last minute. Mandatory, if you had any desire to keep your reputation intact.

It was a smart move─ brilliant, even: Host a fancy event for a cause, pick a night when the entire motorsport world is under your roof, and leak just enough information to the press so no one can afford to skip it. Declining? Not donating? Refusing to schmooze with the hotel owners? You’d be crucified online by breakfast. Genius, really. You respected the play. 

But damn, give a girl some warning. You didn’t have anything to wear.

Apparently it was the case of everyone else as well, which made you feel less self-conscious. When you walked out your hotel room the morning of FP3 and qualifying, the hallway wasn’t buzzing with race talk but with chaotic murmurs about last-minute outfits, shoes emergency and the drama of Max Verstappen only packing team merch─ which, much to his dismay, was absolutely excluded from the dress code.

You were promptly swept away by a group of female staff members from different teams, mostly working in comms or PR, determined to save you from showing up in jeans and a prayer after a heated conversation around the breakfast table. It turned into a surprisingly wholesome mission: shared complaints, budding friendships, and a chorus of tender laughter when you found the dress. “Your boyfriend’s going to be a happy man!” one of the older women teased, earning cackles from the others and a fiery blush from you.

You were, admittedly, very lucky─ as much as someone in a fake relationship could be.

Especially when Oscar knocked on your hotel door later that evening, fresh from his post-quali shower, hair a little messy, still buttoning up the blazer of his suit and eyes flickering with something unreadable when you opened the door, ready.

You’d be lying if you said you weren’t expecting a reaction. When you were tearing down your skin with your scented body scrub and carefully smoking out your eyeliner in the mirror, you told yourself it was for you only─ but faced with Oscar’s eyes roaming over you, you knew you were clearly lying to yourself.

For a moment, he didn’t say anything. He silently took you in, and you feared that maybe you didn’t achieve the effect you hoped for. Maybe a hair was out of place, or the dress looked awkward on you. But Oscar’s lips parted in a discreet intake of breath and the way his mind blanked out was painfully visible on his features. Quietly, “You look…” He trailed off, clearing his throat and rubbing the back of his neck as if he could try to scrub off the red climbing out of his collar. “You look really nice.”

Really nice. That wasn’t quite what you expected, but his reaction was telling enough for you and knowing Oscar, you knew you weren’t getting anything more unless he was under a copious amount of alcohol or sleep-deprivation. You rolled your eyes at him, biting back a satisfied smile. “You don’t look half bad either.”

And he did. Devastatingly so. His suit was tailored within an inch of its life, cinched right at the waist and the lapels hugging his chest, his frame striking in the color. It was all very James Bond of him, minus the reckless charm─ though tonight, he seemed to be toeing the line. Your gaze dropped to his tie, and your fingers twitched at your side when you realized the shade was an exact match to your dress. You hadn’t said anything about your outfit ahead of time so you didn’t believe it was on purpose, but when your eyes met his again, there was a flash of something knowing and boyish─ almost proud that you noticed.

“Come on,” Oscar finally broke the silence. “You’re setting the bar too high. Everyone’s going to think I’m the lucky one tonight.”

“That’s because you are.”

The hallway was quiet as you two walked down together. You could feel it again─ that invisible thread pulling tighter, a weightless tension lodging in your chest and the incessant smile pulling at your lips. This was fake. Totally fake, you repeated to yourself again as you stepped with Oscar in the elevator, arm slithering around his bicep, ready to make your entrance.

The hotel hall was drenched in gaudy decorations, shimmering chandeliers and overly sparkly dresses, the kind of excessive elegance that only made sense in photoshoots and unnecessarily overpriced galas. Everywhere you looked, sequins caught the light and laughter echoed over the clink of crystal glasses. You weren’t in your element at all, Oscar wasn’t either and clearly, none of the drivers or the team principals who showed up wanted to be there. But in the name of keeping up appearances, you spent the evening with Oscar and a glass of champagne, stepping on his foot from time to time for old time’s sake. You knew how to mingle, after all it was everything you studied for four years.

You drifted through conversations in tandem. His hand stayed on the small of your back, occasionally brushing lower in ways that felt more unconscious than performative, or maybe it was just wishful thinking. When you’d lean into him to talk, he always dipped his head to hear you better on instinct. When Lando started tagging along, he was quick to complain about third-wheeling.

The whole evening was spent like that: finding amusement where you could in the middle of obligations, which was often spent sending sharp comments Oscar’s way, which amused him greatly, or Lando’s with Oscar’s help, which definitely amused him less. But gossiping could only get you so far, and soon enough the height of the heels you chose and the weighty ambience was enough to uncomfortably tighten your ribcage. You were quick to excuse yourself to the empty entry of the hotel, where you collapsed on a chair with a sigh.

You took a slow sip of your almost empty glass, letting the fizz of the bubbles distract you from the uncomfortable twist in your chest. Oscar would have followed you if you didn’t ask for some alone time, and God knows you needed some away from him. You were trying to find a distraction, anything to make you stop thinking about the brush of his fingertips or how you could have sworn his gaze lingered a second too long on your lips when you laughed at one of his jokes.

You didn’t expect, and especially didn’t want, Theodore to be that distraction.

His voice cut through the fog. “Tired?”

The glass nearly slipped from your fingers. Your body tensed, and you jumped to your feet out of reflex, ready to leave at any given moment. “Oh wow, didn’t mean to scare you like that,” he raised his hand in mock surrender. You rolled your eyes.

Theodore had the same haircut, same smug face, same cologne that lingered like melted plastic. The longer you looked at him, the longer of an eyesore he became─ nothing about him stood out: not his suit, the false casual way he was holding his blazer in his hands, and certainly not his demeanor. You couldn’t help but draw a silent comparison to Oscar.

That’s when you realized: you hadn’t seen much of Theodore the past week around the paddock. You hadn’t paid a lot of attention to his presence in general, too caught up in Oscar and the torment of your own conflicting feelings to even grace him with acknowledgement. You voiced the first part of your thought, casually sipping your drink.

His expression tightened as he forced a smile. “Ah. Yeah, well, they… they let me go. Budget cuts, you see.”

It took all your will and decency not to explode in laughter. Budget cuts. Ah, yes. Incompetence must have had a change of definition in the Oxford Dictionary recently. “So… why are you here?”

“My dad knows the hotel owner. I got an invite last minute.”

“Oh,” you said with a mocking tilt of the head. “So nepotism and unemployment. Got it.” The fake niceness you sported on during your first interaction at the start of the season had vanished out of thin air─ you weren’t going to put up with this pathetic excuse of a man any longer than you had to, precisely now that you had no reason to anymore.

Theodore laughed. Your hand prickled with the need to punch him in the nose. “You know, it’s not even that important that I lost my job at McLaren.” Said no one ever, you thought. How far did his privileges go? “I─ well, I only took it up because I learned you were working there. I thought… maybe if I was around again, we could fix things.”

You must have hit your head, this had to be a fever dream. The words reaching your ears made no sense to you whatsoever. 

“Fix─?” You scoffed, eyes widening. “That job was supposed to be your redemption arc? Is that it? Oh my god, Theo. You slept with my best friend and you thought I’d fall back in your arms because you barged into my career?”

“I made a mistake─”

“You made a choice,” you spat.

“I didn’t think it would matter this much to you!”

“Did I not cry enough the first time or do you want me to reenact it? Were you really hoping I’ll welcome you with open arms, open legs and a memory loss?”

“Well─”

“Don’t answer that. Actually, stop talking.”

Theodore threw his arms in the air, taking a step forward as he hurled his jacket on the chair you sat on a few minutes ago. “I just thought maybe seeing me again would remind you of what we’ve had!”

Rage and indignation alike rose in your throat like vomit, and your hands shook imperceptibly as you answered. “It did. It reminded me that what we had was never good enough to keep me from building something better. So thanks for the little nostalgia trip, but I’ll pass.”

Something in Theodore’s gaze darkened, dangerous and petulant, and before you could step back, he leaned in. “Oh, I get it now,” he snarled at you, voice dropping into something bitter. “It’s because of Piastri, isn’t it?”

“Back off, Theodore.” Your back had straightened instinctively. Discomfort crept under your skin like cold water─ you didn’t like the way he hissed his name and how close he was getting.

He didn’t back away. Instead, he took another step. “Didn’t realize you’d fall for the first man who gave you attention after me. Guess I underestimated how lonely you─”

“Everything alright there?”

His voice, warm and familiar, sliced through the tension and your shoulders slumped in relief. Oscar.

He was standing just behind Theodore, who turned around comically slow. Oscar’s expression was unreadable. You never saw him angry, but you did know how to recognize the calm before a storm.

“Yeah,” Theodore answered, too fast. “Just… catching up.”

Oscar’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Well, I think you’ve done enough catching up for tonight.”

He walked toward you, and you subtly stepped to his side, his heat grounding in the absurdity of the situation. He didn’t look at you─ his eyes were locked on Theodore’s, cold and measured. “If you’ve said your piece,” he started, “I think you should head back to whatever table your father pulled strings to get you to.”

Theodore scoffed, his features twisting into something ugly, but he didn’t push his luck. He wouldn’t be winning this fight. After a beat of tense silence, he turned and stormed off the entry hall, muttering something beneath his breath you didn’t bother catching.

The moment he was out of sight, you could feel the rigidity in your body melt away. You hadn’t even realized how tightly you’d been wound until now, standing frozen in place. You reached out instinctively, gripping Oscar’s sleeve in order to keep you on your feet. “Shit,” you whispered. “I didn’t expect him.”

Oscar’s hand closed gently over yours and how thumb drew slow circles across your knuckles. You could feel his eyes on you attentively. “You okay?”

You sniffled, breathing fast as a breathy, nervous laugh slipped past your lips. “God.” You wiped your cheek, pausing when you saw the glint of moisture on your fingers, “I didn’t even realize I was crying.”

Oscar didn’t say anything right away─ he reached up with his other hand and brushed your tear track, cradling your cheek with the gentlest touch, like you’d break if he pressed too hard. “He’s a real dick,” he murmured, brows drawing together. “Trust me, he’s never coming near you again.”

That made you laugh─ quiet, and undeniably tired, but real. You looked up at him, something vulnerable sitting openly between you now. “Thanks for stepping in,” you breathed out. “You know, you’re awfully good at being a fake boyfriend. You nailed the attitude down.” You tried to make light of the situation, but the words stung when you got them out. You regretted uttering them as soon as you felt the frail openness in the air retract. Something in Oscar’s eyes dimmed a little, but they didn’t move from yours. 

“Always, that’s my job,” his tone dripped with a strange kind of acerbity. “Now, let’s get you to your room. I think we’re done for the night.”

You couldn’t agree more.

The way to your room was spent in silence, apart from the click of your heels on the carpet and the faint sound of breathing. The quiet was now oppressing, seeping with an anxiety that took you back to when he shook your hand in a similar hotel room a few months ago. When you released his arm as you reached your door, you half-expected him to mutter a polite goodnight and disappear at the end of the hallway.

Instead, Oscar leaned against the doorframe, hands shoved in his pockets. “Can I ask you something?”

You gave a small nod.

“What made you say yes to him?” He asked. Faced with your confused expression, he clarified, gaze flicking down. “Theodore. Why did you date him?”

There wasn’t a trace of judgment in his voice, just a searching sort of curiosity. The answer sat heavy on your tongue, unfamiliar and painful, but still, the question pulled something sharp through your chest─ you didn’t know why you were suddenly so self-conscious about it. 

“I’d like to say I don’t know but…,” you leaned back against the wall next to him, folding your arms to hold yourself together and eyes fixed on a point somewhere past his figure. “I think… I was tired. I used to put everything into school, so much that I skipped out on everything else. I didn’t even know who I was beside the pressure and achievements, and Theodore… just happened to be there during that confusing time of my life. My roommate’s, and ex-best friend’s, friend. I thought he was charming, in his own sort of way. He was persistent, used to leave flowers by my dorm room every morning.” You chuckled sadly. “They weren’t even my favorite - turns out they were hers.”

You heard Oscar exhale. “It still made me feel noticed, like I mattered to something outside of studies. Like someone actually saw me, you know? So I fell in love. And turns out he didn’t see me at all─ he sure as hell doesn’t now either, if he thought showering Zak with dollar bills and side-eyeing me across the paddock would be enough to win me back. That’s without mentioning the cheating.”

The silence of the hallway was deafening, your words echoing against the walls. It wasn’t uncomfortable, just dense. Until Oscar broke it.

“I don’t get it,” he murmured, “how anyone could cheat on you. It doesn’t make sense.”

It made you look at him. You’ve gotten used to turning around and finding his eyes already on you; it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise, but your chest still tightened when you met the darkness of his irises. You waited for him to reply, lacking any explanation yourself of why it couldn’t meet the simple principles of logic in his head, why he couldn’t find the flaws in you that lead Theodore to another woman.

Oscar’s answer came under a different form. “For what it’s worth,” he said, gaze steady. “I like to think I see you.”

You blinked. “Do you?”

The question slipped out before you could stop it, and the moment it did, the answer came rushing in. He did. You knew it in the way his head tilted slightly to the side, like he was still trying to see more of you, even now.

Oscar knew your coffee order by heart, the temperature and how much milk to ask for when you were too tired to speak it aloud. He knew which bakery carried your favorite pastry and what time he had to sneak away from media duties to grab it for you─ especially when the paddock version tasted like cardboard. He noticed when your hands got cold before you did, kept spare hand warmers in his bag in colder countries because “you’re always freezing.” He sent you stupid memes during long flights because he knew take offs made it hard for you to sit still. He carried spare glitter gel pens in his bag, and never teased you about it─ just handed you another one when you absentmindedly noticed yours was running out.

He remembered that you always got motion sick if you sat in the backseat of a car for too long. That you needed silence when thinking. That you hummed when you were concentrating and tapped your pen when you weren’t.

And suddenly, you weren’t just asking if he saw you the way you’d always wanted to. You were asking if he’d always been seeing you, even when you weren’t looking.

“I do,” he answered, barely above a whisper.

You nodded. There couldn’t be anything more true than that.

Just like that, the air tilted. Toward him, engulfing you both in a fragile, sacred space. Everything narrowed down to Oscar and the small buzz between your two bodies─ dense and electric, full of every feeling that had been lurking beneath the surface. His eyes flickered to your lips for the briefest of seconds. Back to your eyes. 

He moved subtly, like he wasn’t sure you’d let him, the idea of losing the moment scarier than not having it at all. Your body was still, breath hitching and heart racing, as his hand reached up to cup the side of your face, thumb brushing softly over your cheekbone, memorizing the shape.

And when he finally leaned in, he hesitated just inches from your lips, close enough for you to feel the warmth of his breath and the tremble in yours. “Is this okay?” He whispered.

You closed the space.

The kiss was gentle at first─ careful and tentative. The gentle, kind sweep of two people trying to find their footing, but the electric shock of the feeling brought everything back to you: the months of tension, the stolen glances, the fumbled excuses to stay close. Your mouths crashed over each other, deepening in the split of a second, slow and aching in the pants you let out and the touch of roaming, curious hands. You breathed into his mouth, seeking his air to make it yours.

Oscar’s other hand slid to your waist, pulling you impossibly closer and your back flush against the wall as your fingers curled into the lapels of his jacket. You could feel his heart hammering under your palm, fast and desperate, mirroring yours. His tongue demandingly slipped past your lips, and he kissed you like he had wanted to for a long time, and there was no denying he had. Raw and needy, you felt stripped bare by the small whine he let out when you bit down on his bottom lip.

You thought, the world could fall apart tomorrow and this would have been everything you needed to go peacefully.

When you finally pulled apart, both breathless, he didn’t move far. You wouldn’t have let him anyways, the heat of his body too comfortable, the weight of his mouth branded on your own. His forehead rested against yours, eyes closed and lips swollen.

“You have no idea how long I wanted to do that,” he whispered, voice hoarse and rough with honesty.

You fingers tightened in his jacket, and you brushed a strand of hair off his forehead. “Trust me, I think I do.” He laughed against your lips and you kissed him again. Because after all of it─all the pretending, the teasing, the overthinking─you didn’t have to lie to yourself anymore, to convince yourself. You couldn’t make up the way he was kissing you back.

Yet, you still went to bed alone.

You hadn't planned on it─ well, not exactly. After the emotional whirlwind of the evening, the kiss, the honesty, the confession, you’d invited Oscar into your room without really thinking. It had been an instinct, comfort-driven by the nights already spent together, even if everything was entirely different─ including your intentions and his. But Lando had to barge in, clumsily looking for his room next to yours, doing a double-take at the sight of you tucked into Oscar’s side, your makeup smudged from tears and kisses like a hormonal teenager, Oscar looking all too rumpled and embarrassed next to you.

“Jesus,” Lando muttered. “I’m just─ you know what, we’ll unpack that later. Good night. Please don’t make too much noise.”

Oscar laughed, arms wrapping tighter around your waist when your friend disappeared, whispering, “I’ll come back tomorrow. After I take you out on a date. A real one, this time.”

You’d smiled. “You better.” He kissed you again, quick and soft and annoyingly perfect, more than your dreams made it out to be, and you went to bed glowing, with his name lighting your phone screen with sweet nothings and promises of conversations tomorrow.

But tomorrow never came, because the knocks that woke you up were giving you a sickening déjà-vu. They were urgent, a trumpet announcing the complete turning of your world just like they had done a few months back, in February, and loud enough to slice through the sleepiness in your bones along with the drowsy haze of your mind.

You got up with difficulty and barely had the time to wrap a blanket around yourself before answering the door. You half-expected to find the Grim Reaper himself waiting on the other side with how early it was for anyone else to be knocking. Instead, you were faced with Oscar. Your heart gave a small, automatic jolt when you saw him. After how last night ended, he should have been the best thing possible to wake up to.

The expression on his face stopped you cold.

Oscar, who rarely wore his emotions so plainly, looked visibly shaken. The sharp lines of his face were pulled tight with worry, brows furrowed and jaw clenched. And that─more than the hour, more than the knocks─was what stopped you from throwing yourself into his arms.

You opened the door wider to let him in, which he did with hurried steps. “What’s happening?”

“Can you close the door first?” You did without much of a question.

Oscar sat on the edge of your bed, phone cradled in hand. He looked up at you, and distressed wasn’t enough to describe it─ he looked wrecked. “Have you checked your phone this morning?” He asked.

Dread pooled in your stomach. “No, I─ I just woke up,” you answered. “Oscar, I─”

“Someone leaked it. Our agreement, the fake dating. It’s all out.”

The world tipped.

The air in your lungs vanished and, for a moment, all you could hear was the blood rushing in your ears. His words repeated like static, a taunting echo getting louder and louder the more you realized what it meant. “What?” You whispered, eyes locked on his. The truth could have looked different there, but didn’t.

You sat down next to him, every limb leaden, cinching the blanket tighter around your shoulders. “How─? Who even─? We were so careful and─”

“Nobody knows, they’re searching for it right now,” Oscar replied, but it came out strained. “Everyone's trying to trace it now, but it landed on DeuxMoi and basically everywhere after that. They’ve got… receipts. Pictures, testimonies, photos- and a very incriminating audio recording.”

His throat bobbed with a swallow. “Of you. Saying something like… how good of a fake boyfriend I am. From last night, before we went up.”

Your stomach flipped. “But─ we were alone.”

Different scenarios flashed in your mind, engulfing you both in a spiral of questions and worry. Someone could have been filming you, and the lights were too low to spot the silhouette. Maybe Theodore’s jacket, draped over the chair you’d sat on, had a recording device on it in an attempt to prove himself something, or to get revenge on you. But how would he have guessed? There were so many possibilities, and Oscar’s silence didn’t help you feel any better about any of them─ not knowing burned hotter than the betrayal itself.

He took your hand in his, your intertwined fingers resting between the two of you. The contact made you flinch.

Your breath came out in a shaky exhale. “I mean… it was going to end anyways, right?” Oscar’s frown deepened, so you pushed forward. “The whole relationship. Theodore left. That was the plan, wasn’t it? It wasn’t supposed to last past him. It’s a very shitty way to end, sure, but… you can work with it.” You were tearing up by the time the last word left your lips.

Oscar winced. His grip on your hand tightened. “Don’t say it like that.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” You let out a wet, pathetic laugh. “It’s over.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he said, and it sounded a lot like a plea. “We can figure something out─ Zak, the rest of the PR team-someone will know what to do, there-”

You scoffed─ not at him, never, but at the cruel absurdity of it all. Your incapability of keeping something good for yourself. “You don’t get it, Oscar.” Your voice wavered. “Apparently, we’re everywhere. There’s an audio recording. People feel like they’ve been made fools of. They won’t forgive that so easily─ they’ll turn on you. They won’t believe in something that’s already been exposed as fake, even if─”

You couldn’t finish your sentence. Because that was the worst part, wasn't it? You weren’t faking it anymore. Neither of you were, and hadn’t been for a really long time. You could have stumbled around, trying to figure out what it meant, searching his mouth and holding on to the feeling long enough to put a name on it, but the headlines didn’t give you that chance. They took it from you, carved it out of your hands before you even got to claim it as yours.

A beat.

“It was real for me,” Oscar said. “It is.”

You looked at him, the details of his eyes that made promises you were sure he could have kept under different circumstances. You tried to smile, but your face cracked under the weight of it, tear tracks shining under the early morning light. “They don’t know that,” you whispered. “They won’t care.”

Oscar’s gaze fell on the floor, and you shook your head gently. “You still have a career to protect. Just say it was my idea, you were helping me out and I got you into all of this─ which is the truth, technically. You just got too caught up. They’ll forgive you eventually, they’re here for the racing.”

“And what about you?”

The silence spoke for itself, heavy with the undeflectable nature of the situation. Carefully, as to not startle him, you took back the hand he was holding and folded both of them on your lap. There would be no other outcome to this story. “I’ll figure it out. It’s my job.”

He didn’t believe you, you could see it in the lopsided curve of his mouth, the prominent vein near his temple you traced with your eyes before falling asleep. You realized you never had the opportunity to pass a night in his arms.

“You go get ready for your race, Oscar. Don’t worry about me.” Your chest ached as your mouth shaped the words, barely hearing them yourself. The only thing that mattered was the low lights in the Australians’ eyes, how his mouth opened and closed around something. He never said whatever was pending at the edge of his tongue, but he closed his eyes when you put your lips on the skin of his cheek.

Oscar just left quietly, in the imperceptible click of a hotel door. You couldn’t watch him go─ if you did, you might not have had the strength to let him.

You were let go by McLaren before the race even began.

The decision had been clear from the get-go. Still, it didn’t make sitting in that sterile room any easier knowing the lanyard around your neck would be up to grab for someone else in seconds. It wasn’t cruel or personal─ it was just business.

You spent over three hours with members of staff, going over the facts and projected damage. You nodded along and asked questions you could predict the answers to, but the conclusion was written into the walls: the scandal was too loud, and you weren’t quiet enough to survive it─ at least, not with a badge that read McLaren on your chest.

You gave it back, sliding it over the table to the chief of staff. They booked you a flight home as discreetly as they could manage and it wasn’t until you stepped in your apartment, suitcase dropped by the door and keys shaking in your hand, that the overwhelming silence caught up with you.

And with it, everything else.

Your face was headlining the front pages of multiple websites and you’d just lost the best job you’ll ever have─ if not the only one, because a simple search would now lead every possible employer to the failed scheme you tried to put up.

You collapsed onto your bed, entirely dressed and only one shoe off, still wrapped in the airport chill. They made you hand-over your team-issued phone, along with the contacts of everyone that mattered back at Silverstone. You didn’t even have a chance to explain yourself or to say goodbye.

Oscar would finish the race and find out you vanished, and you had no way of telling him 

You let the weight of it all crash down on you.

If you had to estimate, you’d say you let yourself rot in your own misery for about a week, give or take. You weren't counting the days, but you knew you hadn’t opened your curtains since you got home. Your eyes were red, rubbed raw every time another wave of emotion struck you, and you hadn’t so much as looked in a mirror. Instead, you moved through your apartment like a ghost, sidestepping your own reflection as if it might reach out and confirm what you already knew─ you’d lost something you didn’t realize mattered this much until it was gone.

The past year had been everything. You successfully worked your way into a world that worked too fast for second chances where you found a rhythm, built friendships and connections. As tiresome as the lifestyle could sometimes be, you fell in love with what you were doing and what you came to be. In the past months, your life had mirrored the tracks─ swift and brutal, with enough turns to break a few wheels. Now, you were left with nothing but the emptiness in your stomach and for someone who always strived for more, the bitter aftertaste in your mouth was enough to keep you from wanting.

Your wake-up call came in the form of your rent.

Turns out heartbreak didn’t pause rent or the cost of groceries rising due to inflation. McLaren paid well, but not well enough so that you could afford to disappear off the grid and wallow in self pity with your last check. So you did what you always did, reminiscent of your past college superhuman efforts: you opened your laptop and got to work.

You applied to everything you set your eyes on─ LinkedIn, obscure websites, Facebook Ads, no one was safe. You didn’t dare touch anything remotely F1 related, or even F2, F3 or F4, the wound was still fresh and your name was probably too much of a touchy subject for you to be accepted anywhere near. You stuck to motorsports-adjacent companies, agencies, development programs, even local circuits. Just… something, anything that would let you keep your toes in the world you loved.

Eventually, it came.

A small karting company in the Netherlands, of all places. Barely enough to fill a spreadsheet on a good day, but they had promising talents and were expanding, so in need of someone to help build their communications structure from the ground up. Preferably someone who knew how to handle press and build narratives, connect people to stories. They were desperate, which means they probably didn’t even look you up when they interviewed you. You took the opportunity with your first real smile in a minute.

It wasn’t as glamorous. The office had flickering lights, and you hadn’t come with the most adapted wardrobe. But it was something─ so you got to work.

You were surprised by how much you ended up loving it.

The people were awkward but nice, you went out with a few of your colleagues by the end of your first week, and the kids racing under your name were awfully sweet and their parents just as kind. The work wasn’t overbearing, but you put every ounce of your attention in building its perfect image with your team. Your new apartment was small and comfortable, and the city you settled in a neverending discovery of wonders. You felt fine─ which was a step away from the state you had been in not so long ago.

But even though you tried to build yourself another life, you still couldn’t shake the memory of Oscar. He was still there─ not in person, but in every memory you were not capable of erasing just yet. You caught yourself ordering his coffee order alongside yours as a force of habit, and accidentally took the notebooks with the overly precise details of your fallacious history with you to work. There was so much of him in you now, you had trouble picking apart the pieces. You scanned articles for his face but skipped race reports in case his name hurt more to see.

You tried to bury the ache in your schedule and the excitement of the company’s mediatic expansion, you wrote press releases, attended networking events with a tight smile and let small wins feel bigger than they were. Yet you knew your heart was sitting in his hands, thousands miles away- and you refused to wonder if, without knowing, you were still holding his. It was a hope you couldn’t entertain, all in the name of letting go. It was an act of healing of some sorts. Putting Oscar behind you was growth, not grief, and letting go of something that had no chance of being anymore was the most adult thing you’d ever do.

Except you have a history of your past catching up with you─ deep down, you should’ve known this time wouldn’t be any different.

It happened when you bumped into someone on your way out the café, hands full with the Communications team’s comically large coffee order. It was the end of August, and your mind was anywhere but on the street─ mostly focused on not spilling anything. Of course, that’s what made the crash even more cinematic.

Cold drinks flew in the air, splattering across the pavement and down your pants in dramatic, sticky rivulets. You were halfway into a curse when someone said your name in an all-too-familiar voice.

“Y/N?” You looked up from your drenched legs, and there he was.

Lando Norris in the flesh, unruly mullet and all. “Oh my god,” you muttered, halfway between disbelief and horror. “Hi?”

He stared at you like he was trying to convince himself he wasn’t hallucinating. You’d feel offended if you couldn’t understand where he was coming from- you did disappear suddenly, those two months ago. “You’re─ holy shit, what are you doing here?”

You awkwardly wiped your hands on the napkin that came with the order, glancing at the wasted money on the ground. “Clearly failing my duties. I work for a karting company just outside the city. Communications consultant.”

“No way, seriously? In the Netherlands?” Lando asked, eyebrows shooting up. “That’s… kind of awesome.”

You gave him an awkward smile. “Yeah. It’s not McLaren, sure, but I like it there.”

The mention of the team brought an icy breeze to the conversation and had Lando shuffling on his feet before you changed the subject. “And what are you doing here?” You asked, too enthusiastic for it to be spontaneous.

“Zandvoort race this weekend,” he answered with a slight grin.

“Oh, true.” With the drastic changes in your life and the newfound popularity the company had gained, you’d forgotten all about the fast-paced calendar you had become so accustomed with. The fact there was even a race taking place in the Netherlands, despite Max Verstappen being Dutch, had completely slipped your mind.

It should feel like a win, but your heart twisted to punish you.

Faced with another silence, Lando spoke up again. “You know, it’s not the same without you there, Oscar’s new PR manager is an old man.” That made you chuckle, although bittersweet. “We miss you. A lot.”

You didn’t miss the implication in his words. The air suddenly felt a bit thinner in your lungs than it did a few minutes ago. “He shouldn’t,” was all you could manage to reply in the tightening of your throat.

“Why not?”

You shrugged, forcing your voice to stay level. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It ended. He has to focus on his career.”

Lando opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it, only giving you an hesitant smile in return. “Well… I’ll tell him I saw you. If you want.”

“No,” You shook your head with a soft laugh. “No. Just… good luck, alright? For the Grand Prix.”

It got Lando to smile wider, at least, something warm in the spreading of his lips. “Thanks. And Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really glad I bumped into you. Let me make up for the spilled coffee.”

He did. Brought the entire order again and handed it over with a sheepish shrug, reminiscent of the friend you had two months ago, before disappearing down the cobblestone street. You stood there a bit too long, dazed by the improbability of it all. The universe decided to shake you a little, but somehow it had to be just when you made peace with the fact it had moved on without you.

You went back to the karting center where reality demanded your full attention. The rest of the day passed in a blur of last-minute adjustments─ tomorrow, you were hosting a little event in order to showcase the rising talents driving in your colors, which needed your immediate attention, no matter how divided by the episode this morning. You didn’t even notice everyone else leaving until the sun dipped below the horizon, painting gold across the windows and casting long shadows on the now-empty space.

You exhaled slowly, closing your computer and feeling the soreness in your back from being hunched over too long. The cons of being a workaholic, you guessed, but you’d done your part. You gathered your things, slid your jackets over your shoulders, and stepped out into the cooling evening.

You could have missed him if you hadn’t hesitated a second too long in the doorway, but you could also recognize Oscar anywhere, eyes closed or blindfolded.

He was leaning against a car, parked a few meters away from the entrance, hoodie loose around his shoulders and hair tousled by the breeze. His gaze was distant, unfocused as he was watching the distance. The second the door thudded shut behind you, the sound cutting through the quiet evening, his eyes snapped up, finding yours.

He looked lost, beautifully so. It froze you in your tracks. It didn’t seem to have the same effect on Oscar, as he pushed off the car and took careful steps forward.

“Hi,” was all he said, soft and steady.

You hadn't realized how much you missed the silken casualness of his voice before it reached your ears. It hit you harder than you’d expected. “How─?”

“Lando,” Oscar cut in gently. “He said you worked at a karting company near the city. I… looked it up. Thought maybe, with a little chance, you’d still be here.” He scratched the back of his neck and he looked away for a second, just one, before his eyes snapped back to yours.

Neither of you moved, unsure how to cross the canyon that had cracked open between you.

“I wasn’t expecting…” You trailed off.

“Yeah,” Oscar breathed out a humorless laugh, rubbing a hand over his mouth. “Me neither. It was, uh, pretty impulsive. But I couldn’t just…” He trailed off too, shaking his head.

You nodded, even though you didn’t understand. This whole conversation made no sense. “How’s it going? Life, I mean. At McLaren?” you asked, desperate to ignore your heart clawing at your ribs.

Oscar’s lips thinned. “Fine. Busy.”

“That’s good.”

He took a step closer, so very little you could have missed, and so slow it gave you the opportunity to step back. You didn’t take it. “And you? How’s─ all this?”

“It’s… something. I like it. I do.” You laughed, and it came out wrong.

“I’m glad.”

Silence fell, weighty on your shoulders. You didn’t know what to do, and you couldn’t guess how to act when Oscar looked so closed off, out of reach─ something he hadn’t been to you in a long while. You chose to let it stretch, unsure of what else.

Finally, it came down to Oscar. “You left.”

The words stung with the strength of a slap, and heartbreaking enough to put you back in front of your apartment door, two months back. You gripped the hem of your jacket, bringing it closer to your body in hope to substitute for the warmth his tone lacked. You inhaled sharply, fighting the sting behind your eyes.

“I didn’t have a choice. They made it very clear there was no place for me anymore, and it would be the better option for one of us to come out unscathed.” Your voice faltered despite your best efforts. “I didn’t want to leave that way, Oscar. Not without saying goodbye.”

You couldn’t help the comment that bordered on your lips. “But I figured you weren’t too concerned. You didn’t look too hard to reach me either.” Not an e-mail, no nothing. You were deprived of his contact information due to your work phone being taken away, but he wasn’t. 

Oscar’s hands curled into fists at his side. “I couldn’t. If I did, they assured me it could make everything worse if someone leaked it again, for the both of us.” A scoff escaped him. “Told me I had to wait until they found the person who took the audio recording in the first place before I could try anything.”

“And did they?”

“No,” he admitted. “But I don’t really care.”

Again, he took a step forward. Oscar was close, not overly, but close enough for you to see the wild and desperate edge etched in his delicate traits, regardless of how much he tried to hide it. “I wanted to reach out. Every day. I just─” He ran a hand through his hair. “I guess I thought that’s what you wanted. I kept thinking that maybe you hated me for how it ended, or─ maybe you regretted it.”

Your laugh broke out sharp and ugly, more hurt than anything else. “Hated you? Regretted it?” You shook your head in disbelief. “Oscar, how could you even think-?”

He didn’t interrupt you. You had to do it yourself, because Oscar just watched as if waiting for a confirmation between the lines. “You really think I’d regret you?”

He still didn’t move. “I mean…,” he finally rasped out, barely carrying over the wind, “it cost you your career in F1. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

“I cost me my career, Oscar. Not you. The fake relationship was my idea. I told you from the beginning I’d take the fall if it came to it. You were just helping me.”

You watched his jaw contract with the need to argue back, but you wouldn’t let him. Oscar was wrong on all accounts in his reasoning, blinded by whatever had been clouding his mind during your disappearance, and you were making sure it stopped there.

“I couldn’t hate you even if I tried. Well, not now at least- you were pretty insufferable at first.” His shoulders shook in the semblance of a laugh. “And if there’s anything I regret, it’s not realizing that it stopped being fake a lot sooner.”

There it was, the hefty topic you had been dancing around─ the kiss, gentle in its unearthing, and the whispered promises of explanations in the morning. Something that had been stolen from you and was now coming back to the surface for a last gasp of air. You could either take it or let it drown.

Oscar’s eyes searched yours, and for a second you believed he’d apologize and leave.

But that’s not what he did.

“It was never fake for me,” he said. “When- When you walked in and introduced yourself as my PR manager, and you were all smiles and nerves and─” he huffed, breathless, shaking his head, “and I was gone. I didn’t know how to act around you or what to do with myself.”

He got so close, you had to tilt your head to look up at him. “I kept thinking it would pass,” he continued. “That it was just a stupid fixation. But you kept being you, and you got close to Lando, and you stuck around. It just kept getting worse. Or better, I guess, depending on how you looked at it.”

“Then there was your ex,” He said, breaking into a soft laugh. “You took my arm and called me your boyfriend and all I could think was, yeah. I’d like to hear that again.” His fingers grazed the inside of your wrists, a ponctuation in his confession. “I didn’t fake a single thing. Not once. It’s been real from the beginning.”

Almost delirious, you broke into a cackle that had your hand flying to your mouth─ a half-sob, half-choke ripped from your chest. “So you were a douchebag… because you liked me?”

Oscar’s mouth quipped, sheepish. “Yeah.”

“And you acted like an idiot because you didn’t know how to show it?”

“... Yeah.” Now he sounded embarrassed.

Another watery laugh bubbled out of you, and you wiped at your eyes with the sleeve of your jacket. “Oh my god, you’re such a man,” you said, voice wobbling between amusement and heartbreak, and Oscar’s smile cracked wider at the sound of it. You sniffled, rolling your eyes to try and hide the hopeful pain in your chest as you asked, intertwining your hand with his. 

“So… what do we do now?”

The pad of his fingers trailed up your arm, sending shivers down your spine. He cupped your elbows gently, steadying you like you were at risk of breaking at any minute. “Well,” Oscar murmured, the ghost of a demand parting his mouth. “Now that we got everything out of the way, I’m here for a reason. Only if you’ll have me.”

You didn’t need any more convincing, the days spent in his company during the tired mornings  and warm nights gave you ample amounts of reasons not to deny him.

As if you had the strength to even think about it.

You surged up, and your mouth caught up with his in the same way a puzzle piece would fit into another. It felt like homecoming, how the weight of his lips balanced against yours. Oscar hands went up your sides, painfully slow, wrapped around your waist and pulled your body flushed against him. You curled your fingers in the air at the nape of his nec, tugging slightly, and he sighed into your mouth─ broken and hopelessly in love.

The world shrank to just this: the press of his chest to yours, the warmth of his skin and how intensely Oscar Piastri kissed you back.

When you broke off contact for air, Oscar chased after your mouth. You tried to contain a giggle, unsuccessfully. “I can’t believe it took a whole fake relationship, messy break up and all, for you to do and say all that,” you teased.

He rolled his eyes and before you could react, the hands resting on your hips pinched your sides. You yelped, stepping on his foot. Old habits die hard, apparently, no matter what may have transpired in between.

“Well, I think you wouldn’t have liked me as much without that fake relationship.”

“I wonder whose fault it is, Oscar.”

“I’m just saying, I─”

You kissed him again. And again, and again, until the sun was well gone and stars were the only witnesses.

That night, you made sure to take Oscar back to your apartment. There was no awkwardness in the small talk made in the car, no hesitation in your movements. It was a slow series of quiet laughs against skin, not rushed or frantic in the slightest, whispered confessions tangled between languid kisses. You were curled up against him, a blanket thrown haphazardly on your legs and you talked. The way you wanted and needed to.

He murmured you might need to lay low for a while into your hair, eyes already closing with tiredness, in order to let everything die down and you agreed, brushing his knuckles with the featherlight touch of your lips. You could always come out with the truth later on, and you were content with your life in the Netherlands─ even more so if Oscar could share it with you in some hidden place in his heart. Your palm rested over his heart, feeling his heartbeat slowing down by sleep and lulling you into Morpheus’ arms just the same.

He kissed you one more time. The taste of home and future lingered in your mouth. Oscar will be there in the morning, when the sunlight will shine through the window. And then you could discuss it, about you, more in detail around a cup of coffee, when he’ll drive you to work before disappearing in his orange car, feelings less raw and more authentic.

Real didn’t have an expiration date. You had all the time in the world to figure it out.

©LVRCLERC 2025 ━ do not copy, steal, post somewhere else or translate my work without my permission.

bro i’m never getting over this series i think it’s gonna be engrained in my brain

TROUBLE ALMOST ALL MY LIFE MASTERLIST

Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader. pictures are not indicative of readers appearance. Reader has not got any racial features mentioned & we never see Emily’s dad so I have tried to make my fic as inclusive to all my fem!readers as possible! Please let me know if this is not the case <3

ACT I

TROUBLE ALMOST ALL MY LIFE | the ONE time the BAU need you + the FOUR times you need them

NEARLY BROUGHT ME TO MY KNEES | the FIVE times Spencer thinks he likes you + the ONE time he knows

BONUS: YOU’RE ALL I EVER WANTED | the time you realise you like Spencer

THERE’S NO SIGN OF LIFE | the one where you grieve Emily together + the one where you kiss him

THE KID SWINGS BACK | the THREE times things feel weird between Spencer and you because you’re just best friends.

WAS I FOOLIN MYSELF? | the THREE times you can’t have him no matter how much you want him

then strangers again | small drabble about what happened after

ACT II

SKIN LIKE PUFF PASTRY | the one where you help Spencer grieve another woman + the one with the promise

LET IT ONCE BE ME | the THREE times you wait for him + the ONE time you don't have to

I MIGHT JUST BE IN LA LA LA LA LA LOVE | the FIVE times you hide your relationship from the team + the ONE time you tell everyone

YOU CAN HEAR IT IN THE SILENCE | the TWO big steps you take

LITTLE OLD ME | the one with cat adams and the one where she tells him

MY BABY, HERE ON EARTH | the nine months of being pregnant

ACT III [FILE LOADING]

BUGSPENCE DRABBLES the one with the card counting the one with the surfboard the one with the glasses

dealing with the worst case scenario

your condom breaks

you feel a lump on your breast

your friends are ignoring you

you’re stranded on an island 

you got rejected by a crush

you get into a car accident

you got stung by a bee/wasp

you got fired from your job

you’re in an earthquake

your tattoo gets infected

your house is on fire

you’re lost in the woods

you get arrested abroad

you get robbed

your partner cheated on you

you’re on a ship that’s sinking

you fall into ice

you’re stuck in an elevator

you hit a deer with your car

you have food poisoning

your pet passed away

you fall off of a horse

you or your friend has alcohol poisoning

you have toxic shock syndrome

your house has a gas leak

my songs that would protect me from vecna would be cherry wine by hozier because that shit pulls my heart strings over and over again- crying listening to it rn

MY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MOVIE TURNED FORMULA ONE 🙏🙏

A Christmas Prince (2017)- c.leclerc

₊˚🎄✩ ₊˚🦌⊹♡‧₊˚🎄✩ ₊˚🦌⊹♡‧₊˚🎄✩ ₊˚🦌⊹♡

summary: When a young aspiring journalist is sent abroad to cover a a coronation, she hears rumours about the 'Prince of F1' and goes undercover to investigate them.

pairing: prince! charles leclerc x fem! reader

9.8k words

disclaimer: i do not own anything in these films, the only original character is the character y/n.

‧₊˚🎄✩ ₊˚🦌⊹♡‧₊˚🎄✩ ₊˚🦌⊹♡‧₊˚🎄✩ ₊˚🦌⊹♡

You jumped up from your desk as soon as you saw him, and trailed him through the office. “Excuse me, sorry- Ron?!” 

He turned to you. “Not now.”

“This will just take a second, I just have some questions about your article? The fashion week piece that I’m editing?”

He groaned, clearly uninterested in giving you the time of day. “Go for it.”

Nevertheless, you continued on. How could someone who makes so many noticeable mistakes have a higher job than you? How could someone so self-centred and rude be in that position of power? “The main problem is that Max wanted 300 words, and you’ve written 600, and also the models and designers you quoted weren’t even at the event so…”

“Y/n,” he sighed, putting a hand on your shoulder. “I don’t have time for you right now, just go off and fix it? Yeah?” he smiled, that punchable, asshole smile, and walked off. You rolled your eyes. 

Working as a journalist bitch was not your plan when you moved to New York, but alas, your rent does not magically pay itself. Categorically, you enjoyed your job. Decent pay, good co-workers (minus asshole Ron), and it was pretty cool to be in one of the high-rise offices of New York, especially around Christmas. But… the whole getting to write articles part wasn’t something you got to do. You were an editor now, not a journalist. It was… slightly infuriating to know that someone less qualified got paid more money to write shit that you always ended up rewriting for him, but as we mentioned before, bills don’t pay themselves. 

“Let me guess, you’re going to completely rewrite the article and save his ass?” Damon, your best friend, asked. 

You faked a smile. “It’s almost like that’s my job!”

He rolled his eyes. “Tell him to shove it,” he scoffed. “Any of us could write that better- with our eyes closed!”

You groaned as you sat down.

“How the fuck are you ever going to be taken seriously as a real journalist if you are such a good editor?” he added. “He’ll never promote you if you’re always going to stay as his bitch.”

The ding of your laptop ended the conversation 

Max wants you in her office- NOW! 

“Oh fuck,” you said under your breath. 

“What?” Damon asked, looking over your shoulder. “Oh… good luck.”

You walked into her glass office, praying to something to make this as painless as possible. “If this is because of Ron’s article-”

“It’s not, sit down. I have something else for you,” she smiled. You followed her instructions and stared at her, unused to the kindness. “What do you know about the Royal Family of Monaco?”

“Monaco?” you wracked your brain. “The King died a few years ago, the new King just got married, and the other two are racecar drivers, right?”

“Exactly, anything about the second eldest Prince?” she mused. 

You grimaced. “He’s more loyal to Ferrari than his girlfriends and he’s a royal disgrace?”

She grinned. “Yes! Exactly that! Obviously, Charles moved off from the royal duties a long time ago, but Lorenzo has decided to abdicate since his fiance has fallen ill, in Monaco there’s a rule that the throne can be uncrowned for one year and it turns out Lorenzo abdicated in December last year.”

“So Charles has to take the throne?” you asked. “But he’s a driver there’s no way he’d… what happens then?”

She smirked. “That’s exactly what you’re going to find out! His Royal Highness is due back at the Castle this weekend, but in case he also abdicates, I need someone to write on it! There’s a press conference on the 18th, and I want your boots on the ground!”

“I don’t mean to sound rude, but why me?” you smiled, genuinely curious. 

“You’re intelligent, talented, hungry for a story- also none of my regular writers are willing to give up their Christmas,” she admitted. You nodded, knowing you were a last resort. 

“Thank you for this opportunity, I won’t let you down.” 

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“He’s gorgeous!” Damon fawned over the pictures of him. 

You shrugged. “He’s such a douche, I cannot believe people still find him attractive after all the stuff he’s done.”

“Who wouldn't forgive a face and body like that?” 

You looked at the photos. Yes, he was conventionally attractive, but his track record of scorned girlfriends, and the semi-awful fashion sense (who , over the age of 12, still wears tie dye jeans?) put you off. “He’s not my type.” 

He stared at you. “He’s everyone’s type. Everyone is a Ferrari fan, and everyone is a Charles LeClerc fan.”

“I still don’t see it,” you shrugged. 

“You should try to seduce him! Make him your husband and just excuse all the cheating so you can be royal and rich,” he suggested. 

“I do not want that,” you scoffed. “Plus, I’m not on the market right now.”  

He groaned. “You two broke up a whole year ago. Don’t let him yuck your yum 12 months on!”

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

You walked into Rudy’s, your dad’s diner, you couldn’t but feel the weight of the conversation you were just about to have. You had spent Christmas as just the two of you every year since your mom had passed, you didn’t want to just leave him alone. The regulars raved about the pies as you stepped in from the cold, snowy air. 

“The usual?” your dad asked, you nodded and smiled, waving to some of the regulars you knew. “How are you doing sweetie?” 

“Good, great!” You smiled, plastering on your best ‘i’m fine!’ face. 

“What happened?” he asked, concerned. You deflated.

“I have good news and bad news,” you explained.

“Bad news first,” he decided. 

“I won’t be here on Christmas- but, It’s because I got my first story.”

He grinned, pulling you into a hug. “That’s amazing! Your first real story! This is your big break!”

“You don’t mind that I’ll miss Christmas?”

He shook his head. “This is your big break, take it. Don’t worry about me. You go over to wherever, and you make me proud.”

You smiled, pulling him into another hug, and thanked him. 

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

The flight was long and uncomfortable, thus the joys of economy, and the dickhead that stole your cab wasn’t much nicer either. 

You and the rest of the press were all then bundled into cars and brought to the palace. 

“First time?” The reporter beside you questioned. You nodded your head, slightly embarrassed about the fact that they could tell, but he just chuckled. “Word to the wise, pick a new career.”

The rest of the car was an eruption of laughter, small agreements, or a scoff. You chuckled along, but you couldn’t help but feel small. You were the only woman in your car, the only new reporter, and-

Woah. Holy shit. 

The Monaco Palace. 

Any and all other thoughts were pushed to the back of your mind as you stared in awe at the beautiful structure. The wide windows and beautiful pillars, all decorated perfectly for Christmas. Though it wasn’t snowing (like back home), you did appreciate the gesture of making it feel like Christmas. You were enchanted by the palace, it stood tall on the edge of the bay, fitting in perfectly with the rest of the gorgeous scenery. 

You walked in behind the rest of the press, a nervous energy buzzing in the air. Prince Charles was an F1 favourite, a master of the sport, and now he had to give it all up for the crown. Everyone was more than excited to see if he’d actually show up, which seemed increasingly unlikely as the moments ticked away. He did every single piece of press Ferrari or the FIA asked him to do, and he seemed to enjoy the majority of them, but the second the palace asked him to do something, he was ‘too busy’. It left a bad taste in your mouth. You were exactly a patriot, but you thought that one should at least appreciate the fact that they were a part of their country, and the people deserved to hear from their Prince, not only through sports interviews. He’d been photoshopped into the palace's Christmas cards for the past 4 years, for god’s sake. 

You pushed your opinion of him to the side and turned your attention to the palace. The tall white walls and arched ceilings, the beautiful and historic artwork hanging off the walls, god, you’d give anything to be allowed free reign in here with your camera. Your attention was then grabbed by the PR liaison, Penelope, standing at the panel desk looking increasingly nervous.

After another 30 minutes of waiting, the repress started getting restless. Lorenzo was never late. Hervé had never been late. Pascale was never late. Arthur was never late. Charles was the outlier. He slept with too many women, drank too much, and ‘disgraced the crown’, according to the Monegasque reporters beside you. You didn’t care much for all of the gossip pages he frequented, and only watched F1 on the occasion that your father wanted to watch it. But, it was clear that he thought that following his dreams of being a racecar driver were more important than his duties, and while you understood the push and pull of having a dream, there were also expectations to meet, and he didn’t meet them. 

“We regret to inform you that this press conference has been cancelled-” 

She was cut off by about 200 reporters shouting and groaning. 

You politely raised your hand, and all eyes turned to you. “When can we expect the press conference to be rescheduled?” You asked and the room was alive again, this time, in agreement. 

“As of right now, we won’t be rescheduling,” she offered a polite smile as everyone collectively groaned again. 

“Well can we at least expect a date at which he’ll be crowned?”

“He will be crowned on Christmas Eve, at the annual Christmas Ball,” she smiled. 

“Which is a private event, so what are we to tell your people? They can’t see him getting crowned as their next king? No media are allowed in, no cameras, phones are barely allowed. What will your people think?” you questioned, your voice dripping with condescension. The rest of the reporters cheered you on, no one had stood up against his behaviour before. No one. 

She faltered, and then the room started being cleared by security, much to the chagrin of the rest of you. You were kicked out, a collection of grumbles and groans, knowing Christmas was ruined because of some stupid Prince and his childish antics. 

You couldn’t go home empty handed. You’d never get a chance like this again, so breaking and entering into the Monaco Palace wasn’t that bad of a crime, right? 

You came into a long hallway, the marble walls and floors taking your full attention, until you came across a picture. It was the royal family, a picture of the five of them, taken before Hervé passed. Charles was only 20, Arthur was only 16. Lorenzo was 29. And they lost their father. In the photo, they’re sitting at a dinner table, looking happy. It didn’t look posed, or professionally taken. It looked like it had been taken on an iphone. Charles was smiling bright, his arm around his little brother and his father. Lorenzo’s arm around Pascale as she held Arthur’s hand. Charles was truly the thing that dragged you in. His bright smile, eyes crinkled at the edges, laughing so hard he must’ve felt sick. The way everyone else’s eyes were on him. He was like a magnet. Not because of his good looks or lovably dorky personality, but because of something else. He was just… interesting. 

“Can I help you?” a security guard asked, his voice booming and strong. You jumped. 

“Gosh! Sorry, umm-yes-no-um-”

“American?” he asked, and you were sure you were busted. But then he smiled. “Follow me.”

You followed him through the halls until you were in front of a tall woman with brunette hair. You knew who she was, her name was Georgia, the palace coordinator. She was terrifying to stand in front of. You’d never felt so judged in your life. 

“You’re the new tutor?” she questioned. You just nodded. “I thought you couldn’t come until January?”

“My last job finished up early,” you lied. A sinking pit in your stomach started growing, but you just swallowed it. You’d deal with it later. 

“Oh,” she smiled. “Perfect, I’ll bring you to meet him,” she smiled. 

What were you getting yourself into?

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

Turns out Arthur LeClerc needed a tutor to help with his engineering course. Thank god you’d dated that engineer who wanted to mansplain every single part of a car to you, and you could get by the maths with a calculator. Arthur wasn’t exactly a fan of having someone younger than him tutor him, he felt stupid, you could tell. You did everything you could to reassure him that it truly was alright to need help, and he was starting to come around, but every time you two really started talking, Charles would appear. And yes, Charles had been that asshole who’d taken your cab at the airport. Even more of a reason to hate him.

“Arthur!” Charles called up as you finished explaining a sum, which he was finally getting, but of course, Charles had to distract him. “Sim work?” he offered, popping his head in the door. You frowned. He was clean-shaven, unlike the small goatee and mustache he’d been sporting before. Objectively, he was attractive either way, but you personally preferred the facial hair. 

He frowned back at you. “What?”

Arthur attempted to get up to join his brother, but you held him down to his seat with a hand on his shoulder. He sighed. 

“What?” you repeated. “Arthur is busy with lessons, your Royal Highness, you can come back in 2 hours, when he’s finished,” you smile politely, though your tone was less than warm. 

“2 hours?” Arthur sighed, looking at you with pleading eyes. 

“I’m not the one who failed their midterm,” you said, matter-of-factly. He nodded, agreeing. 

“Why did you look at me like that?” Charles smirked, walking into the study. 

“Like what?” you asked, engrossed in the work, trying to decipher Arthur’s handwriting. 

“Like you didn’t like what you saw,” he mused. 

You scoffed. “I was just surprised by the baby face, that’s all.” 

He frowned, making Arthur laugh. “Baby face?”

“You look like a 12 year old boy without facial hair, it freaks me out,” you pointed out. 

Charles left the room with whatever dignity he still had intact, and you and Arthur rather enjoyed the teasing. 

“Will you be my guest tonight?” he turned to you, discarding his work. 

“What’s tonight?” you asked. 

“Some boring drinks and dinner thing with the whole of Charles’s team, and other nobility. It’s going to be such a chore to go without you, please come?” 

You smiled. “I’d be honoured.”

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

You kind of hated the whole ‘double agent’ thing. You were getting on really well with Arthur, Charles was enough to stomach (in small intervals), and Lorenzo had been too busy to really meet. Georgia had been on you about different things, but you always had to remember that a) your name was in fact not Y/n, but Martha. And b) You still had to be a reporter. You still had to break into these people’s privacy, and make it a story. You were pretty sure what you were doing was illegal in America, so you were just hoping it wasn’t a crime here. As the night went on you snapped pictures of Pascale, Lorenzo, some of the other nobility and some of the important F1 drivers (a friend was doing an expose on one of them for cheating so… yeah). You didn’t catch a glimpse of his Royal (pain-in-the-ass) Highness all night, that was, until he made an(uncharacteristically (not)) late arrival. You also left Arthur to go hang out with his girlfriend, who had surprised him this weekend by arriving a whole week early. 

“How are you enjoying the party?” Arthur smiled, walking up behind you as you tried to take photos of the nobility as secretly as possible. You quickly hid your phone. 

“Very much so, thank you for inviting me,” you smiled. 

“Staring at Charles?” he questioned, noticing how you’d been following him around the room. 

“Trying to find something to eat,” you lied. Again, that pit in your stomach grew every single day that you were at the palace. “Not a fan of the meat-jelly.”

He grimaced. “Me neither, follow me.”

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Possibly the best gingerbread cookies entered your mouth soon after. “Wow,” you nodded, and he smiled back. You stared at him. “Where’s Jade?”

“She’s off with her friends,” he answered, but you knew it was a guess. 

“Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden? You hated me three days ago,” you chuckled. 

“You’re not like everyone here,” he shrugged. “You’re normal.”

You smiled. “I know I’m, normal, btu so are you-”

“A ‘normal’ 24 year old who has a palace and a crown, as well as an affinity for racing cars. I’m so normal.”

You laughed. “No one’s perfect.”

Then a tall man, who looked a little bit like Arthur, joined you. 

“Cousin Arthur,” he smiled. 

“Cousin Simon,” he sighed, less than impressed with having to see him. 

Simon looked at you, slightly confused. “Was your mother feeling charitable, inviting the chambermaids again?” he joked, but it wasn’t funny. Arthur didn't laugh, he groaned. 

“She’s my tutor, actually. And I invited her. Mrs. Martha Whelan, meet my cousin, Simon.” 

You stood up and held your hand out to be shook, but he shied away. “Nice to meet you Simon.” 

“You can address me as Lord Dukesburg,” he explained, taking great offence. Ah, this was Simon Dukesburg, the man who has been after the throne since Arhtur’s father died. He said some of the most out-of-touch shit about Lorenzo, saying he couldn’t be the King because he wasn’t Herve’s blood-related son. 

“I find that nobility who require someone to use their title might be compensating for something,” Charles interjected, making you stifle a laugh, whereas Arthur laughed out loud. 

“And what might I be compensating for?” he scoffed. 

“I wonder,” Charles smirked. Then someone else interjected the conversation and pulled the both of them away from you and Arthur. 

“Simon hates Charles,” Arthur explained. “He’s ahead of him in the succession, since it goes by age, not actual blood relation, he’s ahead of me.”

“So if Charles abdicates, Simon has the throne?” you questioned. 

Arthur nodded. You looked up at the two men again, and found Charles already looking back at you. You offered a small smile, which was returned, then you turned back to Arthur. 

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“I'm really not sure there’s any dirt here,” you sighed, explaining it for the millionth time to your boss. 

She wasn’t having it. You ended the call feeling even worse than before. Honestly, you were one day away from just leaving the palace all together and admitting your crimes. It was eating you up inside, you could barely sleep, barely eat. It was all a little bit too much for you. You understood that reporters had to be cut-throat, but god, it was hard work pretending to be someone you weren't, especially to people as kind as the LeClerc’s. As you walked through the halls of the palace, unable to sleep, you heard some piano music. You followed the sound and found Prince Charles at his piano, incredibly talented. Sadly, it ended the second he noticed you, about 30 seconds of you being there. 

“Sorry for interrupting, your Royal Highness,, I’ll head back-”

“Call me Charles,” he smiled. 

Slightly blind-sided, you weren’t sure what to say. “That was beautiful,” you smiled. 

“Thank you,” he smiled, getting up. “My father made me take lessons. It’s a great passion of mine.”

“I’ve heard your father was a great man,” you smiled. 

“He was,” Charles agreed.. 

“Won’t be easy to replace him,” you mused, hoping he would give you something, anything worth writing the story over. 

“I’m not trying to replace him,” he explained. “No one could.”

“Oh god! No, I didn’t mean it like that- just… there must be a lot of pressure on you, I didn’t mean it…” you trailed off and he smiled. 

“Well, you’re under more pressure than you bargained for, right?” he smirked. 

Shit. He knew. Somehow. He knew. You were bout to get arrested by the fucking Prince of Monaco. How embarrassing. 

“My brother can really be a handful,” he chuckled. 

You took a deep breath. He didn’t know. You were safe, for now at least. You chuckled. “He’s actually pretty great.”

“After our father died, he took it very hard,” he explained. 

“I lost my mom, same age and everything,” you explained, a flat smile on your face. 

He nodded. “So you know what it’s like then.”

You nodded. “Holidays are the worst.”

“I’m glad he has someone to talk to.”

“So, now that you’re back… is it for good? Arthur talks about you all the time. He misses you when you’re gone. Is all that talk about abdication just… rumors?” you questioned, feeling like the worst human being in the world for manipulating this family the way you were. They were good people. Maybe yes, they’re rich and commit tax fraud, but good people. 

He sighed. “It’s very hard to know what to do.”

FUCK! 

Great. So there is a story. Ideal. It’s not like if he’d just said, ‘yes, they’re all just rumors’, you could’ve gone home and never had to think about the awful things you’ve done here, but now you have to stay, to listen to him. Great.

“I heard you didn’t want to give your… lifestyle,” you asked. “Is that true?”

“What lifestyle is that?” he scoffed, slightly amused.

“I don’t know. The women, wine, and cars?” 

“Is that what you think I am?” he chuckled. 

“I don’t know who you are, Charles, but if your brother is any indication, I wouldn’t exactly believe everything I read. Good night.” 

And with that you left the room, feeling like a terrible person, and he was more than intrigued by you. 

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Christmas Eve rolled closer and closer, and every night seemed to be one of celebration. You decorated the tree with the family (aka you sat in the corner not eating or drinking because of the guilt, and watched over Arthur, making sure he was alright). 

“To family and friends,” Pascale smiled. 

“And new friends!” Arthur called, lifting your hand. You smiled at him, thankful that you had a friend there. 

“What are your traditions Martha?” Charles asked, turning attention to you. 

“Well, my father and I light a candle and we bake my mothers favourite cookies,” you explained, a smile on your face. “I know how it feels to… have someone missing during traditions,” you assured Arthur, putting a hand on his shoulder. 

Just then, Lady Sophia appeared in the doorway. Lady Sophia, Charles’s childhood best friend and the leading lady of the greatest will-they-won’t-they story of all time. She wore a beautiful long flowing gown with a present in hand for Pascale. She elegantly dodged cousin Simon’s advances (you applauded her for that), and went straight to Pascale and Charles. 

“Sophia, it’s lovely to see you,” she smiled, pulling her in for a hug. 

“It’s lovely to see you too,” she smiled, then moved on to Charles. “Charles, good to see you.”

Charles greeted her with his best flirty smirk, and Arthur turned to you, fake gagging, which made you both laugh. All eyes turned to the two of you for a moment, before you quickly shut up, and the greetings continued. Lady Sophia was staying for Christmas, how wonderful. Maybe you could get an early access to their engagement story- god you felt sick with yourself. 

You turned to Arthur engrossed in the small toy car he had in his hands, a gift from his father, he spoke about it as you listened, barely noticing Charles over both of your shoulders. 

“I remember when you first got that,” he chuckled, ruffling Arthur’s hair. “You were so happy with it, you wanted to be just like dad.”

“Now you are,” you smiled, squeezing Arthur;’s hand. He’d be moving up to F1 next year, in a Haas seat (Esetban Ocon shit the bed, oops), and Arthur was the next best Ferrari junior driver. Arthur beamed back at you, and Charles gave himself a moment to study you. 

You were so gentle, so smart, so kind, so… you. He was entranced by you. You were some sort of enigma. He didn’t want to sound full of himself, but women did throw themselves at him, it was a simple fact, and you didn’t. You weren’t interested in him at all, in fact. It was refreshing. 

“Charles!” Lady Sophie called. “Will you put my ornament on the tree?” 

He (begrudgingly) took his eyes off of you and joined her at the side of the tree. Funnily enough, her ornament was a heart. 

“Be gentle with it,” she told him, and he sighed, knowing it wasn’t just the ornament she was talking about.He placed it on the ree and when he looked back at you, you were already engrossed in conversation with Arthur about something else and he thought it best not to pry. You barely liked him as is, he shouldn’t push his luck. 

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The day you get bossed around by Arthur LeCerc may actually be the biggest joke of your life. He found out that you were a journalist, and he didn’t even care. He just… wanted a friend, and for you to write the truth about his brother. Which you were happy to oblige. 

So, instead of going over aerodynamics, you baked Christmas cookies. 

“What’s with Charles and Lady Sophia?” you questioned, shovelling some of the batter into your mouth. Arthur shrugged. 

“She’s had a crush on him for ages, but he’s never liked her back,” he shrugged, eating some of the icing. “She’s always trying to get with him though.” 

“Simon seems to like her,” you pointed out, shooing him away from the icing (he’d eaten half of it). 

Arthur groaned. “Simon has wanted everything Charles has had since they were 3. He even tried go-karting. He was shit though,” he chuckled. “But y’know, everyone wants what we have.”

You cracked a smile. “You are the royal family of one of the most beautiful countries in Europe.”

Arthur sighed. “It was different though, before my dad died, it was-” he cut himself off, trying to to cry. You pulled him into a hug. 

“He’s not gone Arthur, you’ll always remember him,” you smiled, he nodded against your neck. “Come on, we need to get these in the oven before I eat all of the batter.”

He laughed, joining you beside the oven. 

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The next morning was the children’s fundraiser, where everyone was expected to be a guest. You, again, were Arthur’s, Jade having left a few days earlier to spend time with her family. One of those asshole reporters came up to you, but he got them away, and you knew that by tomorrow, people would already assume you were his new girlfriend, or something along those lines, so you made sure to tell him to talk about Jade in interviews. After the wonderful carol service, Pascale came out to the stage and addressed the public, announcing Charles’s speech. 

When she called his name, he didn’t show. 

Arthur sighed, grabbing your hand and running you to the Orphanage. There he was, playing with the children. He looked so… happy. He was telling them about every corner in the Monaco Grand Prix, and telling them what it felt like to win it. They all sat around him, listening intently, desperate to hear from him. You took out your phone and took a photo, seeing a tiny glimpse of that same 20 year old boy from the picture.  

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“Charles, help me understand why you were unable to carry out your duty today?” Pascale asked, exasperated with her son. 

“I thought my duty was to those children,” his words bit through the tension in the air. 

“There is much more to being kind than simply compassion,” she sighed. “You need to be strong, a leader. You need to be someone that those people can look up to and say, ‘that’s my king, and he can make the hard decisions’. Not someone who tiptoes around his duties like a schoolboy. Arthur had to give your speech instead. Now every outlet thinks your abdicating and giving the throne to him right when he’s on the cusp of his dreams-”

“I have dreams!” he shouted. “I have a life, I have a dream-”

“And we gave you 8 years to make it happen. You have to grow up now Charles,” she commanded. 

“Mother I-”

“Do you seriously think you’re the only one who wants to run away?” she questioned. “The only one who has dreams, and feelings, and a weariness about everything?”

“I’m-”

“This has been the hardest year of my life,” she choked up. “Lorenzo abdicating, you off in god-knows-where racing a car that can’t win, and Arthur trying his damndest to make his dreams come true, while I deal with it all. While I ‘hold down the fort’. You have a duty to your country, but you also have a duty to your family, Charles. I have complete faith in you, and then some. You will be a brave, and compassionate King. But you need to realise that sacrifice is a part of life. One we may have shielded you from, and I am sorry for that. But you need to make a sacrifice here. Royal life isn’t the prison you make it out to be. You can be happy, and you will be. But you need to learn to be happy with what you’ve got, because you have so much Charles. You have your family, you’ll meet someone nice and then you’ll have your own. You don’t need to race cars to feel strong. You need to be yourself. The people of Monaco are looking for someone they know after a year of confusion and shock. You need to be the comforting voice. I know you can be.” 

“I’m trying,” he whispered. 

“I have faith in you. You need to have faith in yourself. Don’t try to be your father, be Charles. He’s just as wonderful.”

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Arthur wasn’t going to focus, it was 3 days till Christmas, and he was kind of like an over-excited child. You suggested an adventure, and that is how you ended up racing speed boats with Arthur and a few of his friends. You two won, of course, and he may or may not have accidentally shoved you overboard and made you hit your head. But you were probably fine. Probably. You two relaxed on the water for a while, enjoying the Monaco sun asn the sun began to set and all of his friends went home. 

Then you felt something hit into the edge of your boat. Another speedboat. Driven by none other than Prince Charles. 

“Race you?” he smirked at his brother, his eyes then landing on you. He stopped, almost doing a double take when he saw you in your swimsuit, his mouth opening slightly. You didn’t seem to notice. Arthur did and he rolled his eyes, hoping against hope that Charles and his master-manipulating ways would pass you by and go onto the next person.

“You’re on!” Arthur shouted back, reeving up the engine, and thus the great race of speedboats began. Sadly, once again, Arthur LeClerc is very much not coordinated, so he shoved you off the boat, again. Charles immediately slowed down, turning back to grab you, but he found you laughing. He reached a hand in, and pulled you up onto his boat, grabbing your waist when you almost slipped and fell. You were close, much too close. You could feel his breath on your face, his eyes staring into yours, the look of shock, but neither one of you was asking to stop. It was different, a good difference. He was right there, right in front of you, and you didn’t look at him with annoyance, or anger, or distance. One of those fleeting moments of the both of you truly just being yourselves. Well, you were Marha and he was the Prince of Monaco, soon to be King. He saw every freckle on your face, every small wrinkle line, every flutter of your eyelashes. He loved it. He loved being this close to you. He loved the way you were smiling at him, and once he’d started looking at your lips, he couldn’t stop. 

Arthur threw a snorkel at the two of you, making you jump apart, you almost falling off the boat again (actually your fault that time), but you just fell into Arthur’s boat. “No fraternising with the enemy!”

And the race was back on.

Unbeknownst to you, Lady Sophia and Duke Arsehole (aka Cousin Simoin), were riding by on a perfectly sublime boat ride, and saw the three of you enjoying yourselves. You had joined Charles' side, winning against Arthur every time, and then you’d be swapped back, or Arthur would swap. 

Lady Sophia didn’t like it one bit. 

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When you got back to the palace, Lorenzo was standing at the top step of the stairs, his mother beside him. 

“Where have you three been?” he demanded. 

“Lorenzo, we were-” Charles began.

“Speedboat racing in the bay?” he finished.  

The three of you stood there, silent and still, unsure of what to do next. 

“I suggest next time that you ask permission, Ms. Whelan,” he addressed you, and you nodded quickly offering multiple apologies. “And next time, maybe include the other members of the family. It’s not like we've never raced in our lives,” he smiled, before walking off. You had a feeling they hadn’t seen Arthur this happy in a long time. You couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride in you, that you had been the one to help him get himself back. 

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Arthur was busy with his duties, so you were given the day off, the day before Christmas Eve. You needed to get to know Charles better, so you could right all the wrongs online about him. He was going for a bike ride, so you followed suit, clearly forgetting about the fact that you knew nothing about Monaco, and the limited cell-service was really helpful. Oh, and when you fell off your bike and cut the shit out of your knee, you really wondered whether it was you or Arthur who was clumsy. 

“Are you alright?”a voice called out, a voice you couldn't quite place, until Charles was in front of you and taking a look at your knee. “This looks bad, come with me.”

He helped you up, and while Mont Agel was beautiful, you were in the middle of fucking nowhere, what was he going to do? 

Bring you to his secret cabin, of course. 

Literally, was this dude James Bond? 

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You sat outside on his patio as the sun set. He handed you a glass of water. You thanked him. 

“So, now that you’re alright,” he smiled (he’d bandaged up your leg despite the thousands of times you assured him you were fine). “Why were you following me?”

You sighed. “I was curious about Monaco, and I didn’t want to bother you,” lie after lie after lie. You were continuously sick. Maybe that other reporter was right, maybe you did need a new career. 

“You couldn’t bother me,” he assured you, an easy smile on his lips. 

“So what is… this?” you asked, gesturing to the house. “James Bond hideout or?

He laughed. “No, nothing interesting like that. This is just my house,” he smiled. 

“So you’ve lived in Monaco the entire time?” you asked. 

“The Palace is a bit too much for me at times,” he explained. “So I come here.”

“That’s nice,” you smiled. “Why do you find the Palace too much?”

He sighed. “Everyone is always looking at me.”

“Everyone is away looking at you in F1 too, you have like, millions of fan-girls,” you giggled. 

“That’s different,” he argued. “I’m a driver there, that’s talent and hard work, I was just… handed the throne.”

“You were born into it,” you corrected him. “And just because you came across something easily doesn’t mean you haven’t struggled. I mean yes, it’s a lot of responsibility, but why wouldn’t you want to be King of Monaco?” 

“Do we have to talk about this?” he sighed, getting up and pacing the patio. 

“It might be good for you to talk it through,” you told him. 

“I can’t even go for dinner with my friends without it being an international scandal!” he groaned. 

“Like, when you went out with Sophia?” you mused. 

“That was different, she sold a story to a tabloid, and the media had a field day,” he sighed, slumping back into his chair. 

“The media is what’s holding you back?” you questioned, feeling your stomach twist. 

“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“Explain it then,” you smiled gently. 

He looked at you for a moment, and for a fraction of a second, you could see that boy from the picture again. The magnetic, messy, smiley boy his parents had adored. The boy who worked so hard to prove himself. Then those walls went right back up and what replaced him was the man; older, wiser, and hurt. “Why bother? You probably think I’m just a spoiled rich kid anyway.”

You scoffed. “I never said that!” you argued, getting up and turning to him. “You know what you need to do, stop worrying so much about what everyone thinks of you, or how they’re going to perceive you. You’re a good person, with good instincts, and despite being actual nobility, you have morals, good ones, the kind that makes you miss a speech because you’re helping children. The kind that makes you worry about your little brother so much that you come home when he asks you to. The kind that makes you kind. Stop trying to be your father Charles, just be, Charles.” 

He sighed, standing beside you. “You make that sound so simple,” he scoffed. 

“Why isn't it? You’re a smart, talented, caring person-”

“Except when I steal your taxi,” he smirked, making you roll your eyes. He paused for a moment, his eyes shining in the low light of the sun. “I want to show you something.”

You stared at him, grimacing slightly. “What is it?”

“Follow me,” he said, taking your hand. He led you through his house, up to a room filled with books. 

“You read?”

“After my father died,” he explained. “We kept some of the overflow of his habit here. He also kept his journals here. I found a poem, it was dated just before he died, I think he was going to give it to my mother.”

Frost a sparkle in the fields, 

Twixt the frozen minarets, 

Winter’s harvest, wager yields, 

Heavy burden’s, the years debts, 

P[out from a seed, an acorn’s gift, 

Henceforth the truth will flood, 

Darkness such a secret bears, 

A love far greater than blood.

“It’s beautiful,” you smiled, reading the poem. Charles’s eyes were on you. You were so close, just like on the bat, just like he wished for every single day since you’d come into his life. He leaned in and you didn’t back away. You didn’t run, or lean in either, you were still, your eyes trained on his lips.

Then your phone rang, and off you went to find it. Part of him wanted to grab you back and kiss you, but even he, in his delirious love-filled haze, knew the moment had passed, and he would just have to wait until the next one. 

As you two were getting ready to go back to the palace, he left to go grab something from his room. His father’s desk took your attention, and you obliged yourself. Hidden in plain sight was a secret drawer with a stack of documents in it. As much as you hated yourself for it, you took the documents back to the palace with you. 

Within those documents you found out a truth, a truth so great, you had no idea what to say. Charles and Arthur were adopted as children. 

What the fuck were you going to do now?

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As you were walking through the halls with Arthur the next day, you saw Lady Sophia and Charles… kissing. Great, barf. Anyways. You had to finish your story, get something on the page, make this torment of a trip worth something. If you broke the story today, you could be out of there before Christmas, and their lives would be a lot easier. You thought about coming clean, but the thought of it actually made you vomit in your mouth. You were lost. You had no idea what to do. 

So, you called your dad. What else were you supposed to do?

“Y/n!” he smiled, it was only a phone call but you could tell. “How are you?”

“Hey dad, remember how you said I have to take chances to win?” you asked.

“They are my words to live by,” he chuckled, understanding that something was going on. “Is everything alright?”

“What if that chance is going to really hurt people who don’t deserve it?” you questioned.

“I’m going to need more than that sweetheart,” he sighed. 

“My story, if I release it, it might hurt someone who’s already been through a lot. I’m just…” you trailed off

“Sweetheart, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know anything about the world of publishing and reporting, but I do know that you have to trust your gut.”

You smiled. “Thanks dad.”

“I’m better than a fortune cookie, right?” he joked and you both chuckled. “I’ll see you soon sweetheart.”

“Bye dad-” as you hung up the phone, there was a knock on your door. You tentatively got up and opened the door, only to find Charles on the other side, dressed in a Ferrari branded suit, a small smile on his face. 

“Hi, is there something I can do for you?” you asked, slightly awkward and unsure. You didn’t really want him to look in your room too much, considering the documents of his adoption were literally on your desk, but alas, what would be, would be. 

“I thought we could go for a walk?” he offered. “I can actually show you around Monaco, now that I know you want a tour guide.”

Your smile faltered. “I don’t know,” you sighed. The media had been stirring everything up ever since the boat, you were the ‘mystery girl’ being passed around by the LeClerc’s, and it didn’t feel great. 

He looked at you with pleading eyes. “Please, just give me a few minutes of your time. I would like some company.”

“Sure, let me grab my coat,” you smiled, but it didn’t reach your eyes.

As you two walked through the streets of Monaco, he spoke freely about the beautiful buildings and people he knew so well, while you listened. You liked it, but it broke your heart slightly, to know that you had lied to the entire family for weeks now. But another part of you was grateful that you got to meet them, because you knew you had been changed for the better. It was also nice to see Charles be less… upset than when you first came. He smiled more, laughed more, and spent more time with Arthur, it was lovely to see. 

He stared at you for a moment, his eyes darting around your face as you looked at the pavement. “Are you alright?”

“Do you often take the help for a walk?” you questioned, your tone soft but the words bit at him anyway. 

“What?” he questioned.

“Nothing, it’s stupid. Go back to your story Charles,” you sighed, walking on. 

He grabbed your hand, turning you back to him. “Please talk to me. I feel like you know everything about me, and I know nothing about you.”

“What would Lady Sophia say if she saw us walking together?” you scoffed. 

“Why would that matter?” 

“I saw you two,” you said.

“Whatever you saw, trust me, there is nothing there,” he pleaded. 

“It didn’t look like that to me,” you scoffed. “And anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

“She was just… taking her chance again, even after I explicitly told her not to.”

“Sure,” you nodded. “It doesn’t matter anyways. Charles.”

You were both silent for a moment. He took the opportunity to study your face. The way your eyebrows creased, the tightness of your lips, the determined stare forward. He smiled. You were so smart, and headstrong, and right all the time (which kind of drove him crazy), but he loved it all. He loved you. 

“I hope you’ll come tomorrow night,” he admitted. You looked at him confused. “The Ball. My coronation.” 

You couldn’t do it anymore. You had to tell him. He couldn’t keep living this lie, and neither could you. “Charles, I need to tell you something-”

But he kissed you. Of course, he fucking kissed you, because he’d been wanting to do it since the day you arrived at the palace. He was in love with you, if he hadn't made that obvious enough, and yes, he kissed you, because the fact that he hadn’t yet was driving him mad. He didn’t want Sophia, he didn’t want anyone else, he wanted you. 

And it was everything he could’ve dreamed of. His arms circled your waist, pulling you close to him, while his lips explored your soft ones, the taste of cherry on them. You must use some sort of cherry lip balm, and it quickly became one of his favourite tastes. Your arms slowly crept up to wrap around his neck, and when he pulled back you just pulled him back in. 

This was the real Charles. The one who loved people unabashedly and didn’t care what people thought. This was that 20 year old boy in the photo. This was the boy you had slowly fallen in love with, without even realising it. 

And it was wonderful. 

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Much to your chagrin, while you were off tonguing the next King of Monaco, Lady Sophia and Cousin Arsehole were busy looking through your things. Unluckily for you, they found something.

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Charles sat in the driver’s seat of his Ferrari, half willing himself to man-up, and the other half begging himself to turn around. He couldn't though, not when he was this close to finally visiting his father’s resting place for the first time in months. 

He got up and out of the car, your voice in his head telling him to get over himself, with that soft, perfect, smile on your lips. 

He walked up to the grave, determined to speak to his father once again. 

“I’ll take the crown,” he whispered, his eyes flooding with tears. “I’ll never measure up to you, but I will take it. For you and for mom.”

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You stood in your room, wondering what the fuck one wears to a coronation. 

Arthur stood in the doorway, smiling brightly. He frowned when he saw your dress. 

“It’s this or pyjamas,” you dead-panned. He walked in, taking the dress out of your hands and sitting on your bed. 

“How’s the story coming along?” he asked. “Nearly done?”

“Almost,” you huffed, laying beside him. 

He sighed. “I’ll miss you when you go,” he admitted, more vulnerable than you’d ever seen him. You almost forgot how much he’d been through, his sunny demeanour always seemed to make you forget his troubles.  “It was nice to have a friend.”

You turned to him. “I’ll always be your friend,” you smiled. “And I’ll be cheering you on in Haas, and in everything else you do. I think you’re brilliant Arthur, seriously.”

He chuckled. “Thank you. I hope everything goes well for you back in New York.”

 “I hope so too,” you teased, wiping a tear off his cheek. 

“I got you something,” he smiled cheekily, handing over a small box. 

“Arthur!” you scolded. “We said no gifts!”

“There was no way I was following that,” he chuckled. “Open it!”

You slowly opened the box, inside there was a beautiful necklace with a beautiful blue topaz on the end. “Oh my god Arthur, this is beautiful,” you whispered. 

“To remind you of the boat day” he grinned. “So you will never forget me.”

You smiled, your eyes cloudy with unshed tears. “I could never forget you, Arthur.” 

Then in walked Jade, his girlfriend, with an array of gowns on a rack. 

“Oh no,” you whispered. 

“Oh yes!” Arthur cheered. 

It was going to be a long afternoon. 

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You stood at the top of the steps, terrified of what anyone would say. Arthur had styled you (aka, Jade let him pick the dress) and while you thought you looked beautiful, you were slightly worried about what the nobility in the room would think. It had been fun though, an afternoon of being pampered and becoming friends with Jade was a lot more enjoyable than it was nerve-wracking. You slowly descended the steps, looking for Arthur, when Charles caught your eye. He looked beautiful, his hair perfectly styled, his suit perfect, his face perfect. He smiled up at you, excusing himself from his mother and brother to take your hand as you left the bottom step. 

“You look beautiful,” he smiled, taking in your dress. IN all honesty, there wasn’t a word for how he thought you looked. Regularly, a look from you made his heart stop. This? A different level. He was enamoured. He couldn’t take his eyes off you, even if he wanted to. 

You felt your cheeks heat. “Thank you,” you smiled. “You look pretty handsome yourself.” 

He pressed a soft kiss to your cheek. “I will see you in there, alright? I have to-”

“Do what you need to Charles,” you chuckled. “I’m not running away at midnight.”

He smiled. “I’m glad.”

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Despite the fact that it was a royal ball, it was quite entertaining. Different Duke’s and Duchess’s were dancing, letting loose, and getting pretty drunk, but you just sat with Arthur and Jade and laughed at them. The ballroom was magnificent, the tall ceilings and Christmas lights all around, and in the centre of the hall there was a 36 foot (yes, about the height of a telephone pole) Christmas tree, decorated perfectly. Even though you were miles and miles away from home, it was still nice to be celebrating with people you love. 

As you were speaking to Jade, someone started speaking. 

“Might I have the first dance, mon amour?” Charles asked, barely above a whisper as he wrapped an arm around your waist. 

You turned to him, your face dropping. “Seriously?”

“Well, as long as you promise not to tread on my feet, we should be alright,” he chuckled, leading you to the dance floor. You joined on, doing a simple waltz (you thanked your father mentally for making you take ballroom classes as a child), and it was very sweet. It was nice to be so open about being close to each other, no longer shying away from each other's affections. You liked having Charles so close. He liked having you in his arms. 

Win-win. 

“I wanted to thank you,” he said as you waltzed around the hall. “I wouldn’t be accepting the crown if it wasn’t for you, so thank you for telling me to grow up.”

You chuckled. “I think you’re giving me too much credit there.”

He shrugged. “I do not think so,” he smiled. “You make me feel comfortable, you’re the most genuine person I have met since… well probably since birth.”

Again, that nauseating feeling in your stomach urged you to run away and hide from him, even though your heart (as mad as it sounds) longed to never let him go. “I have to tell you something.”

He nodded. “You can talk to me about anything.”

As he spoke, the music stopped, and it was time. He would be crowned King. 

“Tell me after,” he whispered, as all eyes went to him. “Wish me luck.”

“You don’t need luck.”

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“I dispute this claim!” Lady Sophia’s voice shocked the room and you. Charles was so close, so close to taking his rightful seat as the King, and of course, someone had to make it difficult. 

“On what grounds?” the Archbishop asked.

“The grounds that he is in fact, not the rightful heir,” she smirked, smug as ever. “Prince Charles, and his brother Arthur, were in fact adopted by the late King Hervé and our Queen Pascale, therefore are not of the blood of the Royal family, as per this document.”

The certificate was taken from her, and shown to the Archbishop. “Where did you obtain this document?”

“I obtained it by uncovering a scheme by an American journalist, Ms. Martha Whelan, or should we call you Y/n Y/l/n?” 

All eyes went to you as the room was full of gasps. 

You knew you should've turned tail and ran, you knew you shouldn’t have stayed on when Arthur found out, and you knew you shouldn’t have fallen in love with the Prince of fucking Monaco. You were the dumbest person you’d ever met. 

You didn’t dare look at Charles, knowing what his expression would be. You just looked down. 

“Is that true, you are a journalist?” the Archbishop questioned. 

You spoke confidently, though the regret was evident in your voice. “I am.”

The room was in upheaval. Everyone was angry, everyone was confused, and everyone needed an answer. 

“And your Majesty, this certificate?”

The room went silent as Pascale began to speak. “It is legitimate.” 

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

You were running out as quickly as humanly possible, trailing just after Charles. 

“Charles, please, just let me explain-!”

“Explain what?” he spat, turning to you. 

“I’m sorry. I never meant for anything like this to happen, and I understand that you never want to see me again. I just had to tell you I’m sorry, and the only reason I kept it up was for you and Arthur.”

“And you couldn’t have told me?!”

“Arthur made me promise I wouldn’t tell you,” you sniffled. 

His face dropped. “He knew?”

You nodded, wiping away your tears. This wasn’t for you to be upset about. This was your mistake, and you couldn't fix it. 

“Why wouldn’t he let you tell me? Did he know he was adopted?”

You shook your head. “He doesn’t know. And I don’t know why he wouldn’t let me tell you. I just… he asked me not to.”

He stared at you for a moment, and it wasn’t those same, shining eyes that made your heart leap. It was the cold, dead, reserved eyes that made you want to run away and never come back, that stared back at you. “I’m glad you have your story. I suggest you stay out of our lives from now on.” 

And with that he walked on.

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New York was colder than you remembered. You had decided to just go straight to your apartment, turn off your phone, and binge watch shitty reality tv shows until you could show your face in public again without wanting to sob every time you saw something that remotely reminded you of Charles and Monaco. 

But something nagged at you. The acorn, the poem, ‘a love far greater than blood’. You didn’t understand it. So you spent about 12 hours working on deconstructing it, and you thought of something. Maybe it was your delusions after not sleeping for a day (or two), but maybe the acorn ornament could prove something, so you sent your findings over to Arthur, hoping they would make sense, and turned your phone back off, blocking all of their numbers and falling into a very needed sleep. 

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The next few weeks were full of clearing out your office (you quit), looking for a new job, and starting off as an actual journalist, not just cleaning up some sleaze work. It was nice, peaceful. Writing articles about things that mattered to you, things that would help people, things that weren’t a certain King of Monaco.

Life was good. Getting over your heartbreak was hard, but you were starting to believe that you might actually be alright. 

You sat in your dad’s diner, ready to ring in the New Year, when there was a snowball thrown on the glass, and when you looked outside, there he was.  

Quickly, you ran outside. “What are you doing here?” you questioned. 

He shrugged, “I never got to say goodbye, or thank you.”

“Please don’t thank me, I honestly should be apologising again and again for what I did, I am so sor-”

“You opened a door that should’ve been opened years ago. Arthur showed me what you’d done. Half because I couldn’t believe he could do it on his own, and half because… I thought it was going to be a message from you. You blocked me…”

“I didn’t want to risk bothering you anymore,” you sighed. 

“You’d never bother me,” he smiled, pausing for a moment. “Arthur misses you. So do I.”

“I miss you both too,” you smiled. “It’s nice to see you.”

“Y’know, a palace is a lonely place for a king, when he has no queen,” he admitted. 

“It’s a good thing you’re an eligible bachelor then,” you chuckled. “Good night Charles, thank you for coming to see me-”

“I love you,” he confessed. “You made me a better man- you make me a better man. I don’t even want to spend time without you, do you understand that?” he asked, getting down on one knee and revealing an engagement ring. 

You frowned, your eyes tearing up. “Charles, I am not nobility-”

“I don’t care,” he smiled.

“My entire life is in New York-”

“We can come back as much as you want.”

“What will the people think?” you sniffled, and he stood up, wrapping his arms around you. 

“They’ll think you're a kind, caring, beautiful woman with a very intelligent mind, and brilliant ideas, who is loved very much by their King,” he whispered, then pressed a soft kiss to your cheek. 

“We barely know each other Charles-”

“And yet I’ve never been more certain in my life. And I’m known to be indecisive-” 

He stopped talking because you’d started kissing him. 

Jesus Christ, you were going to be the Queen of Monaco, what a story that was.

‧₊˚🎄✩ ₊˚🦌⊹♡‧₊˚🎄✩ ₊˚🦌⊹♡‧₊˚🎄✩ ₊˚🦌⊹♡

a very f1 christmas! masterlist (2024)

navigation for my blog :) (masterlist)

YES YES YESSSSS ITS SO GOOD

The One Where Everyone Finds Out

Master List

Spencer Reid is in love with Y/N, and she’s in love with him…only they don’t know it yet…and they might be are definitely going to be the very last to know. And since Spencer and Y/N happen to be surrounded by the best profilers in the country, the rest of the team is, of course, the first to piece together the romance. Little by little, bit by bit, the team solves the case of Spencer and Y/N. 

A 1K Celebration miniseries!

TIMELINE OF EVENTS MENTIONED IN THE SERIES

The One Where Hotch Finds Out

The One Where Penelope Finds Out

The One Where Derek Finds Out

The One Where Alex Finds Out

The One Where JJ Finds Out

The One Where Rossi Finds Out

The One Where Spencer Finds Out

The One Where Everyone Finds Out

Full Fic in Chronological Order

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Taglist: @pinkdiamond1016 @shadyladyperfection @cielo1984 @rainsong01 @jhillio @pessimystic-fangirl @saspencereid​ @takeyourleap-of-faith @andreasworlsboring101 @avidreider @saays-bitch @waddlenut @nighttimerain123 @meowimari @aizawaxkun @babyspencersslut @no-honey-no @the-hermit @andrewhoezierbyrne @jessicarabbit09 @subhuman-queer​ @ncsls0515​ @liaabsurd​ @sizzlingclamturtlesludge​ @sassiest-politician​ @meowiemari​ @uhuhuh​ @closetedreidstan​ @whatamidoinghp​ @quillanpie​ @spongeshxt​ @spencer-blake-supremacy​ @itsametaphorbriansblog​ @vgirl-10123​ @peoplejustcanthandlemywierdness​ @stand-tall-pineapple​ @nighttimerain123 @padsfirewhisky​ @ceeellewrites​ @mggsprettygirl​ @drayshadow​ @cal-ifornication​ @theetherealbloom​ @teenwolfgirl90 @eevee0722​ @questionmymentality​ @wintermuteway​ @ellesmythe​ @mac99martin​ @supersouthy​ @obsssedwithjustaboutanything​ @ssa-githae​ @cherrystay​ @calm-and-doctor​ @icedcoffee187​ @devilswaldorf​ @annemijnisdancing​ @half-blood-dork​ @blameitonthenight21​ @happyreid187​ @ssa-kassidyhughes​ @goldeng1rl8​ @meangirlsx​ @honestlystop​ @lastpasttheposts​ @problemforfuturetech @justthewidevarietyofthingsilike​ @avengers-ass-emble17​ @bauhousewife​ @averyhotchner​ @underscorecourt​ @green-intervention​ @takeyourleap-of-faith​ @fan-girl-97​ @coolbeans3​ @boxofsparklingmuses​ @allaboutsml​ @day-n-night-dreamer​ @ssareidbby​ @percabethfangirl​ @spencerreidsimptime​​ @v-is-obsessive​ @tanyaherondale​ @usuck​ @mitchiri-nek0​ @olicity-beliver​ @kaitlynpcallmebeepme​

Link to Main Master List

i don’t even need to say anything. just READ ITTTT

Love Letters in the Margins

MASTERLIST

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Summary: Spencer has a habit of leaving handwritten notes in the books you borrow from his personal collection. One day, you finally write back.

Pairing: Reader/Spencer Reid

Spencer Reid’s personal library was nothing short of magnificent. Towering shelves filled with well-loved books lined the walls of his apartment, their spines worn from years of eager reading. When you had first started borrowing from his collection, you had done so carefully, treating each volume like a fragile artifact. But what you hadn't expected to find—hidden between passages and prose—were his words.

The first time it happened, you had borrowed Pride and Prejudice. Nestled in the margins, in neat, slightly slanted handwriting, was a comment next to Elizabeth Bennet’s sharp-witted retort to Mr. Darcy.

“You remind me of Elizabeth—sharp, observant, and far too intelligent for the company you keep.”

You had stared at the note for minutes, heart pounding. Spencer had written this long before you borrowed the book, hadn’t he? It wasn’t meant for you, was it? The thought of confronting him about it seemed daunting. Instead, you traced his words with your fingertips, feeling a warmth bloom in your chest.

That discovery led to another. And another.

In The Picture of Dorian Gray:

“You would never be swayed by vanity. Your soul is too kind.”

In Jane Eyre:

“If I were Rochester, I wouldn’t have kept secrets from you.”

Each annotation, each carefully placed comment, felt personal. They weren’t just general observations; they were thoughtful, tailored to you.

Days passed before you gathered the courage to respond. You chose one of the books Spencer often reread—The Great Gatsby. As you turned the familiar pages, you found a passage underlined in Spencer’s careful hand:

“He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity.”

And next to it, in his delicate handwriting:

“Longing is a difficult thing to master.”

You exhaled deeply, running your fingers over the ink. If Spencer had been leaving these notes for you, maybe he had been waiting for a response, just as you had been waiting for a sign. With a rush of courage, you picked up a pen and, in the same margin, wrote:

“I wouldn’t need a green light. You’ve always been within reach.”

When you returned the book, carefully placing it back on his desk at the BAU, you felt the weight of your silent confession settle in your chest. What if he never noticed? What if he saw it and said nothing? The uncertainty gnawed at you, but it was too late to take it back now.

The next day, Spencer found you in the bullpen, book in hand, his expression unreadable. Your heart leapt into your throat.

“You…” he started, voice soft, reverent almost, as he flipped open The Great Gatsby to the exact page where your response was written. His fingers traced your words like they were delicate, precious.

“I—” you faltered. “Was that okay?”

His eyes locked onto yours, something unspoken passing between you. Then, he smiled. Not just any smile—one of those rare, genuine smiles that lit up his entire face, the kind of smile that made your stomach flip.

“You wrote back.” His voice was breathless, in awe.

You swallowed hard. “I was wondering when you’d notice.”

For a long moment, Spencer simply stared at you, the book clutched to his chest. It was as if he was processing every possibility at once, and you could almost see the thoughts racing in his brilliant mind. Then, before you could panic, he took a step closer.

“I—” He hesitated, clearing his throat. “I’ve been leaving those notes for you.”

Your breath caught. “You have?”

Spencer gave a short, nervous laugh. “For a while now. I didn’t know if you’d ever see them or if you’d—”

“I saw them,” you interrupted, a smile tugging at your lips. “And I loved them.”

His shoulders relaxed, relief washing over his face. “Really?”

You nodded, warmth spreading through you. “Really.”

For a long moment, neither of you spoke. Then, Spencer exhaled, flipping the book open once more. “So… does this mean I can keep writing to you?”

You tilted your head playfully. “Only if I can write back.”

His smile widened, his fingers brushing against yours over the worn edges of the book. “I’d like that.”

From that day forward, every book exchanged between you contained more than just stories. Between the lines of famous literature, nestled in the margins of classic texts, you found something even more precious:

Love letters in ink, waiting to be read.

The notes continued, hidden within the pages of literature both of you adored. A stolen thought in Wuthering Heights, a whispered confession in Les Misérables. Each time Spencer handed you a book, your fingers would brush, lingering longer than necessary, and his eyes would search yours for recognition.

Then, one evening, as you flipped through Anna Karenina, you found a note in the final pages, underlining a passage about fate.

“Sometimes, love is written long before we even know it exists.”

And below it, in a nervous, yet determined script, Spencer had added:

“I think I’ve been in love with you longer than I realized.”

Your breath caught, your heart hammering against your ribs. This wasn’t just a passing thought, an intellectual observation. It was real.

Without hesitation, you reached for a pen and, with steady fingers, wrote beneath his words:

“Then it’s about time we stop reading between the lines.”

That night, when Spencer saw your response, he didn’t just smile.

He kissed you.

And for the first time, there were no more words left unwritten.

The notes continued, but they became something different now—love notes, secret confessions, playful teases. You wrote to him in the margins of history books, and he replied with riddles in the pages of mystery novels. The space between you had once been filled with unspoken words, but now it was a novel of its own, each sentence a promise, each underline a touch.

One day, Spencer handed you a book without a title on its cover. Puzzled, you flipped it open to the first page, where a single line was scrawled in his familiar handwriting:

“Every great love story deserves to be written.”

And beneath it, in smaller letters:

“Will you write ours with me?”

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