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By the time he was thirteen, Max had won nearly everything he’d entered.
There were trophies lined up on his bedroom shelf, glittering like sharp little suns. Medals in boxes. His name printed on laminated results, always at the top. Sometimes, if he closed his eyes during warm-up laps, he could already hear the commentator’s voice over the speakers, 'Max Verstappen takes the lead', and he’d allow himself the smallest flicker of a smile.
He wasn’t arrogant. He didn’t gloat. His father wouldn’t have allowed that. But still, Max was good. He knew he was good. His hands were quick and precise. His instincts were sharp. And most of all, he had discipline. Even at ten, that was his strength. While the other kids bounced around the paddock on sugar , Max sat with his mechanic, reviewing data, memorizing lines, making lists about where to improve.
He had promised himself he would win.
Which is why, when it happens, the first time he doesn’t win, he’s too stunned to even feel angry.
It’s the summer championship, a regional event in Italy. Somewhere hot, the air thick with motor oil and excitement. Max has been leading all day and has even qualified clean. The final race is minutes from starting and Max is sipping from his water bottle, gaze on the horizon.
And that's when he hears it.
A laugh.
Light, bright, sharp as sun through glass. It cuts through the noise around him, silencing his thoughts for just a moment. He turns his head instinctively.
The boy is standing a few feet away, leaning against a stack of tires, his race suit slightly too big for him. He’s holding a helmet under one arm and talking animatedly to another boy, hands waving, eyes bright. And laughing that same laugh again, musical, like the wind chimes strung in his mother's veranda.
Max stares.1
He can't help it, the boy is too—
The boy’s hair is the color of spun gold, messy and soft-looking, curling slightly at the ends. His mouth curves perfectly, like his face doesn’t even know how to frown properly. There’s something effortless about him, something carefree.
As if he’s not about to go up against Max Verstappen.
“Who’s that?” Max asks aloud, not realizing he’s spoken.
One of the older boys from another team glances up. “Leclerc. From Monaco. He’s fast.”
Max frowns. “He doesn’t look fast.”
“He is. You’ll see.”
And see he does.
The race is a blur. The usual roar of engines and the adrenaline rush. Max is aggressive from the start, taking the lead early, driving like he always does, clean amd fast. He doesn’t make mistakes.
But Leclerc—
Leclerc drives like he’s flying.
Not reckless. Not wild. Just… free. He weaves through the pack like wind through trees. And he’s smiling, Max can see it every time they pass each other, that crooked grin behind the visor, as if this is all just a game and he’s the only one having any fun.
Max pushes harder. Sharpens every corner. But still, on the final lap, in the final turn, Leclerc finds a gap that shouldn’t have existed and slips past him.
When the checkered flag waves, Max crosses the line second.
It’s the first time in a long time he’s ever lost.
He sits in his kart for a moment afterward, breath caught in his chest, heart hammering against his ribs. He can hear his father’s voice somewhere in the distance, angry and disappointed, but he doesn’t look up.
He’s too busy watching the boy, Leclerc.
The boy is already out of his kart, his helmet off and grinning. He’s surrounded by other kids, all congratulating him, and thst is when his gaze finds Max.
And then, he waves. Not smug. Just warm, like he’s saying, you were great too.
Max doesn’t wave back although he keeps on staring.
The boy is too—
---
That night, he can’t sleep.
He lies in his hotel bed that night, small and quiet in the expanse of white sheets that feel too stiff, like they’ve never been touched by sleep before. The air hums faintly with the sound of the AC, and the light from the bathroom, left on at his mother’s insistence, though she isn’t here, spills a pale gold wedge across the floor.
But despite his argument with his own mind, he knows that it's not the loss that keeps him awake.
It’s the laugh.
That bright, ringing sound. He hadn’t meant to hear it, hadn’t meant to turn, but he had, like something in his chest had just known to.
That laugh.
Wide and warm, too big for the boy’s face. Freckled maybe. Max remembers the curve of it, remembers the soft eyes, remembers how it had looked behind the scratched visor.
That boy whose eyes were this brilliant green or perhaps hazel (Max didn't look long enough) just long enough to know that he wanted to hear that boy's laughter again.
Fast, they’d said.
Yes, but also happy, Max had thought, though he wouldn’t have known the word then, not really. Not the way it felt, not the ache it left behind. But he knows it now. Happy. Not just how he looked, but how he moved. How he was. The race plays in his head again, moment for moment, but it’s not the overtake that he fixates on. No, it’s the wave.
The way Charles had looked for him.
Like he saw him.
Max shifts onto his side, any semblance of sleep gone from his eyes. His hands are itching to do something, itching to drive. But he knows that's impossible. So he does what he does best: make lists, analyze every detail, and then make everything to your advantage.
Max flips the blanket back. Swings his legs over the side of the bed. His father doesn’t stir. He pads quietly across the room, the carpet scratchy against his feet. Finds the little desk in the corner where his backpack sits, half unzipped, one strap dangling. He pulls out his notepad. It’s small and square, the kind with graph paper and tidy margins. He always brings it to races. He likes data. He likes patterns.
He clicks his pen once, then twice. And then he writes in his neat and straight print:
1. He is happy when he wins a race.
And it's obvious, Max is also happy when he wins a race, but not like him. Leclerc had looked like he was glowing: eyes bright, cheeks flushed, the biggest smile stretched across his face as he’d climbed onto the top step of the podium. Just stood there, helmet tucked under his arm, grinning like he’d done something miraculous.
And maybe he had.
Max taps the edge of the pen against the notebook. He should feel angry. But it wasn’t that. What bothered him, what kept him up, was how much he kept seeing it. That smile. That face. Over and over again behind his eyes.
Leclerc.
He writes the name quietly, off to the side of the page. Just once. Underlines it.
Then adds a tiny star beside the number one.
Max stares at it for a long time.
---
In his mind he calls it The List.
Because he can’t call it something else. That would make it too real. Too obvious. Too close to the thing pulsing quietly under his skin every time the boy so much as looks at him. The List is safer. A study in human behavior, if anyone ever asked. But no one asks, because no one knows.
Because Max keeps it tucked away. He had torn it away gently and carefully folded it between the blank pages of his notebook. Had a mental list too, in the back of his mind where his heart, not his brain, has been whispering furiously for the past few days.
He tries, for a while. Tries to squash it down with all the usual things, lap times and gear ratios. But it’s useless. Because a smile like that burrows under your skin. It’s a bright little memory that hums quietly through the noise of growing up.
The List keeps on growing.
---
The years don’t slow down. They barrel forward, full of cold tracks and clashing helmets. They make it to F1 like two comets crashing. Their names everywhere, their numbers bold on screens.
His name is Charles.
He comes into F1 a little later, a little brighter, already beloved like something holy. Max sees the headlines before he sees him, Monaco’s prodigy, Leclerc’s rise, Ferrari’s future, and he feels that old, familiar flicker in his chest. Not jealousy. Never that.
Something gentler.
Something like pride, maybe.
And something else he doesn’t want to name.
They’re different now. Max has grown into something formidable, heavy with expectation, his name always in every broadcast. Charles carries his talent like a kite, loud and high, but somehow still graceful.
They win and they celebrate, the lose and they argue.
Charles’s eyes are stormy when he’s angry. Not wild or cruel; just heavy, like the air before thunder. They darken, sharpen. He holds his chin higher. His lashes dip low like he’s trying not to say too much. And Max, reckless fool that he is, always pushes. Always leans closer, always tests the charge between.
And Max thinks for a second, his heart in his mouth, He won't smile at me again.
But then, somehow, he does get the privilege again.
In the streets of Monaco, glittering beneath the late afternoon sun, Charles is crowned in champagne, curls damp, suit half-unzipped, standing on the top step of his home Grand Prix podium with his hand pressed to his heart and his eyes shining. He dips into Charles’ driver room, hands clutching his, Charles’ smile burnt into his heart.
Fire and ice, sun and moon, always fighting, always together.
---
It's been years now. His list has gone out of control.
2. He's happy when someone cheers for him.
Or maybe: 9. He's happy when he beats his own time. Charles smiles the brightest when he beats himself. Max had seen it in karting, in F3, in and now in F1. The curl of his lip, the hum in his throat, like he was cheering himself on from the inside.
12. He's happy when he wears blue.
It had come as a shock to realize it, to know that the boy in red loved to be more in blue. But it wasn't any type of blue (Max has lamented), it was soft and sky-like, not Max's thunder blue.
16. The smell of old engine grease.
27. Pierre’s bad impressions of team principals.
Even more endearing, 33. French pop songs that make no sense.
The list wasn’t daily. It wasn’t even weekly. But it grew like ivy. Steadily curling into the corners of Max’s life. He wasn’t even sure what it meant, not for a long time. Only that watching Charles be happy made Max feel like something inside him was floating. Delicate. Real.
Even now that he's a four time world champion, his eyes still stray from his data to boy who is sunshine incarnate.
Max has his cap low over his brow and his water bottle in hand, leaning against the Red Bull garage wall as he watches the world move around him. Across the paddock, Charles was laughing at something Oscar had said, his head tipped back in that way that made his curls catch the light. Animated. Bright.
Max dragged his eyes away and took a sip of water. And then to no one in particular, “He laughs too easily.”
No, his mind replied, that traitor, you just fall too hard.
---
Later, in the driver’s room, Max was fixing the strap on his suit when Charles ducked in, cheeks pink from the heat, a bottle of electrolyte water in his hand.
“You alright?” he asked, smiling that smile.
Max glanced over. “Fine.”
Charles watched him for a second. “You always get so quiet before quali.”
"And you get loud,” Max said. “One of us is clearly wrong.”
Charles grinned, then reached forward without thinking and tugged Max’s zip up for him. His fingers brushed against Max’s collarbone, barely there, but Max still felt it like a bolt through his chest, “There,” he said softly. “Wouldn’t want the world champion to get disqualified for a wardrobe malfunction, although I'm sure the others wouldn't mind."
Max raised a brow, lips threatening to break into a smile, “Is someone counting on it?”
Charles winked. “Let some of us still have some hope, Maxie."
The nickname sent something warm curling in Max’s stomach. He wasn’t used to Charles calling him that outside of post-race interviews, where it was usually said with teasing lilt and sweat on his brow.
But here, it was gentle. Intimate. And then after the race, just as passionate,
“You are so annoying,” Charles huffed.
“You’re just mad because I was faster,” Max smirked, pulling his cap lower.
Charles poked a finger into Max’s chest. “You weren’t all that fast, Maxie. You were barely ahead."
“I was brilliant.”
And then— “Yeah,” Charles murmured, his voice too soft for the cameras. “Maybe you were.”
And then he was gone, leaving Max standing there, heart stuttering like he was a thirteen year old boy again.
---
39. He's happy when his shoes match his clothes.
It’s ridiculous that this makes him happy, but even more ridiculous is the fact that Max knows. Max suspects it’s because he likes when things feel complete.
46. Strawberries, but only if they’re cut in half.
Max overhears Charles claim that they taste sweeter that way. Max doesn’t question it, he starts eating them like that from then on, and they do taste sweeter.
51. When someone hands him a baby.
It happens surprisingly often. Fans, family, friends. Charles holds them like they’re made of glass, always looking a little panicked for the first five seconds. Then the baby giggles. Every time. And Charles laughs too, eyes crinkled with his heart on display.
---
Max doesn't know when they got so close. From soft eyes reflecting the sun in Suzuka, to warm hands handing him a bottle in Bahrain, they grow closer and closer and The List keeps on growing and growing. Maybe it's in Singapore, when someone comes up with the idea of "team bonding" (definitely Lewis). The kind of dinner where the wine is too good, the table is too long, and the laughter grows higher with every course.
They sit near the middle, elbow to elbow. Max doesn’t know how it happened, only that when he walked in, fresh from a shower, hair still damp, Charles was already there, patting the seat beside him.
There’s no reason to say no. So he doesn’t.
Charles is warm beside him, almost too warm for such a cool evening. He talks with his hands and fervently defends when Lewis teases them all about media training disasters. Charles leans in, shoulder brushing Max’s, his laugh like music to Max's ears. At some point, someone does put on music, too old for half the table. Charles hums along anyway, light and tuneless, and Max turns to look at him— just look.
It’s stupid how beautiful he is.
Charles leans a little closer, “Are you thinking about tyres or strategy? Be honest.”
“I’m thinking about how I’ve survived this long without smacking Lando,” Max replies, and Charles bursts out laughing, hand clapping gently over Max’s forearm like they’re sharing the best joke of the night. And Max— he forgets to breathe for a moment.
---
Maybe it's in the party after the race at Silverstone.
Somehow, between the second round of drinks and Lando dragging Pierre into a ridiculous dance-off, he ended up with Charles pressed against his side, like this happens every weekend.
It doesn’t. Not like this.
Charles smells like citrus and sun-warmed skin, like cologne dabbed carelessly onto the base of his throat, like something Max is not supposed to lean into but does anyway. Their shoulders touch. Then their arms. Then, Charles shifts slightly and Max’s hand lands on his waist.
He means to move it.
He doesn’t.
Because Charles is close now, closer than before, closer than ever. There’s a flush high on Charles’s cheeks, a curl to his mouth that Max wants to trace with his thumb. Their eyes catch like magnets and Max thinks, just once.
Just once, let me have this.
Charles licks his lips. Max’s grip tightens, barely.
All he hears is the blood in his ears, all he feels is the silk of Charles’s shirt under his palm and the beat of something desperate behind his ribs.
He leans in. So does Charles.
The distance between them shrinks to a breath, to a wish.
And then—
Max blinks as Charles is yanked sideways like a ragdoll by a hurricane in human form: Lando Norris, flushed from laughter and possibly two glasses of Prosecco too many, arms flailing with the enthusiasm of someone who is definitely, positively way too drunk. “Dance with me!” Lando yells, “I’m testing a theory about Monégasque rhythm.”
Charles stumbles, lips parted like the beginning of a confession he doesn’t get to finish. “Lando— what?”
“Come on, Charles,” Lando insists, dragging him by the wrist, “You’re the only one who won’t step on my feet or cry if I do!”
Charles casts a helpless glance over his shoulder as he’s pulled toward the dance floor. His eyes catch Max’s, just for a second and in them is something breathless, almost sorry.
Max stands there, hand still half-raised as if reaching for something invisible and he laughs. Quietly, disbelievingly.
On the floor, Lando twirls Charles into Pierre and himself crashes onto them in an attempt to save Charles. Max watches from the booth, hand in his pocket, eyes fixed on the boy at the center of it all, laughing, heart on his sleeve.
---
62. When he finally beats Max at padel.
Charles acts like he’s just solved world peace. He jumps up, shouts “Je suis un dieu!” and then trips over the racket.
75. Chocolate croissants from that one café in Milan.
Not just any croissants. Those. Max had watched— deliriously, obsessively— as he just took a bite, moaned dramatically, and declared, “This is the best day of my life.” Max nearly choked.
87. When Sebastian Vettel ruffles his hair.
It had been one of those get togethers that Sebastian had planned. When he did it, it was the most undignified thing, and Charles had turned into a grumbling kitten every time. “I am not a child, Seb!” Sebastian does it because Charles pouts. Max understands the impulse completely.
---
When the tension finally breaks between them, it's somewhere between midnight and morning, with snow falling silent against the windows and the wine bottle long forgotten. The world outside is quiet, but inside Charles’ apartment, the air buzzes with something else entirely. Charles had invited him over to play FIFA, but now they haven't moved in ages.
The distance between them isn’t even a full breath anymore.
And then, quietly, finally, Max moves. He brushes back a curl from Charles’s forehead as Charles closes his eyes.
That’s all it takes.
They move together. The sheets are soft. The room is dark, save for the moonlight slipping through the curtain, casting pale silver over bare skin and messy curls.
Max maps Charles like a memory. Like he’s been waiting his entire life just to touch the curve of his spine, the dip of his waist, the hollow beneath his throat. Charles arches under him. His moans take over Max entirely. And then he smiles.
And Max knows that it's because of that smile, more than anything, that brings him to his knees. He wants it. God, he wants.
When Max finally slides into him, it’s with a groan low in his throat and a whispered exhale against Charles’s skin. Charles clings onto him. The stretch is slow and deep and right. They move in rhythm with the hush outside. Max keeps his forehead against Charles’s, watches every flicker of pleasure cross his face, every shiver, every gasp.
Charles is sunlight, even in the dark.
And Max is ruined.
He holds him like he’s holy. Their bodies slick with heat, hips moving in sync, a rising tide of breathless need and unbearable sweetness. Max presses kisses to Charles’s chest, his throat, his lips, everywhere he can reach. And Charles pulls him closer, nails dragging lightly down his back, breath catching in his throat.
In the dark, Charles falls asleep curled against him, hand resting over Max’s chest like it belongs there. And Max stays awake for a long, long time, eyes on the ceiling, hand still holding him.
Trying not to fall even harder.
And failing, spectacularly.
---
Max leaves before the sun is up.
The air smells like him: like citrus and the faint remnants of his cologne, sweet and soft. It clings to Max’s hoodie, the same one Charles had tugged off before they’d—
God.
Max swallows hard, fingers curling tight at his side.
There are moments, scattered through the hours of the night before, that play on loop in his head. The way Charles had laughed, eyes closing, head tipping back as Max nudged him in the ribs over something stupid on the screen. The sound of his breath stuttering when Max leaned in.
And then the rest, sacred and gentle. The weight of Charles in his arms. The way he had whispered Max’s name like it meant something more than just three letters.
Max had wanted to stay. God, he still wants to.
But he can’t.
Because it hadn’t been a promise. It hadn’t been anything, not really. Just two people, pretending for one night that the rest of the world didn’t exist. And maybe Charles could do that. Maybe Charles could wake up, stretch in the sheets, smile at the ceiling and forget it all happened.
Max won’t be able to.
Behind him, Charles shifts in his sleep. He looks beautiful like this, bathed in the light of morning. There’s a crease between his brows, like he’s dreaming about something that tugs at the edges of his peace. Max wonders if it’s him. He hopes it’s not. He hopes Charles is dreaming of the ocean, or winning in Monaco again, or Pierre dropping his gelato on the paddock floor.
And as Max opens the door, slowly, carefully, he thinks for second time, He won't smile at me again.
---
The next few days pass in a strange kind of silence.
Max doesn't call him.
Charles doesn’t call him either.
Max tells himself it’s fine. That he hadn’t expected him to. That they’re both adults, that they can handle it, that it meant whatever it meant and now it’s done.
But he checks his phone. Every five minutes. Every hour. He checks when he wakes up and when he eats and when he walks into briefings. He checks between practice sessions, when he’s pretending to listen to his engineers. He checks at night, in the dark, the screen lighting up his face like a ghost.
He stares at the ceiling, same as he had when he was thirteen years old, sheets too stiff and air too dry, and tries to replay every second of that night, wondering what he did wrong. If he was too much. Too quiet. Too eager. If he reached for Charles the wrong way. If he held on too long. He thinks of the way Charles had looked up at him. The way he’d made a distressed noise when Max had moved away from him for a moment as if he was afraid Max might disappear.
And then Max had disappeared.
He’s lost him.
Never feel the small of his waist beneath his palm. Never trace his collarbone with his mouth. Never press kisses onto the skin behind his ear and feel Charles sigh into his neck like it’s the only place he wants to be.
And that might be the thing that ruins him most.
---
Oscar, for the life of him, can't understand how Lando had strong-armed Max into a cafe date. But now he's slowly starting to understand. Max, sitting in front of them, gazes off the to the side like a 19th-century poet who’s just been stood up at the altar and left out in the rain.
And then he sighs.
Lando turns to Oscar, face grave. “That’s the fifth sigh today.”
Oscar looks up from his protein milkshake, sipping slowly. “Is that a record?”
“No,” Lando says, crossing his arms. “But it’s getting close.”
Oscar squints. “You think it’s Charles?”
Lando smiles, “It’s always Charles.”
---
The list is crumpled in the bottom of his travel bag, tucked between a set of race gloves and a receipt of chocolate croissants from a particular café in Milan. The ink is smudged at the edges like it's been held too often by hands that couldn’t let go. Max smooths it out on the desk of his motor room. Half of it is sharp, the rest scrawled, all in various different ink but his handwriting the same from when he was thirteen.
The List, he'd named it. But in reality it was more than that.
Things that make Charles Happy.
It’s so full now. Over ninety items. Tiny things. Big things. Things no one else would ever notice, Charles’s giggle when he makes fun of Lando, the way he talks to dogs like they understand, the rhythm of his fingers on the steering wheel when he’s humming a tune he doesn’t know the words to.
Max has written them all.
And for a while, it had been enough.
Just watching. Just knowing.
It had been enough to memorize the curve of Charles's smile. It had been enough to sit beside him during interviews and feel their knees touch. It had been enough to watch Charles’s face when Monaco lit up with fireworks and think, God, I’d give him all the stars if I could.
But now?
Now there's barely any space on the list.
He stares at the little space for a long time. His pen hovers.
99. Me. Hopefully I make him happy.
Max stares at it after. Reads it once. Then again. His chest tightens. Because he doesn’t know. Not really. Not after everything. He doesn't know if Charles still smiles when he thinks of him. If that smile means the same thing it used to. If it ever meant what Max thought it did.
But he wants it to.
He wants to be a reason. Just one.
---
Oscar had only come over to the Red Bull driver's room to discuss about the new FIA rules with Max, he wasn’t snooping.
Really.
But he'd found something on the desk. He didn’t mean to read it. He just… glanced.
And then blinked.
And then sat down on Max’s hotel bed, reading it twice.
By point number seven (chocolate chip cookies when he thinks no one’s watching), Oscar has already decided Max Verstappen is the most smitten man on the grid.
He stares at the door for a long time after that. Enough is enough.
He tiptoes into the motor room, Charles’ to be specific, places the list gently on the table and puts Charles' sunglasses on it and slips out with a smug smile.
---
Max had always been careful. He'd built his life around precision, on the track and off it. The List, tucked into the side pocket of his notebook, was always carefully put there.
He has been rereading The List. Not adding to it, just revisiting. It was a ritual that was calming and familiar.
Until it wasn’t.
He reached for the notebook again after the strategy meeting, just a glance, just a reread to steady his nerves. And it was gone. Max froze. Looked again.
Not there.
He flipped through everything. The other notebooks, the drawer under the monitor, the tiny pocket in his bag where he kept extra earbuds and a Swiss army knife. Nothing.
The list wasn’t there.
He shot to his feet, knocking his chair back with a loud scrape. A white hot spike of panic punched him in the chest. He tore through his backpack again, then the notebook again, then checked behind the mini fridge as if it had somehow fallen behind it. As if he hadn’t had it in the side pocket this morning.
He left the room in a daze.
The hallway was a silent blur. The day had ended long ago, most of the engineers had left. His pulse was a drumbeat, fast and dizzying. He’s walking too fast, too frantic. The world is too fuzzy.
His list. His fucking list.
Charles' list.
And then he crashes.
Soft.
There’s a quiet sound, a gasp really, soft and surprised, as warm hands steady him instinctively, fingers curling against his biceps. Max staggers back, breath knocked from his lungs— and then freezes.
Charles.
He is standing in front of him, eyes wide, hair messier than usual like he’d been tugging at it, his lips parted in shock. He’s holding something in his left hand. Something crumpled. Something familiar.
Max’s stomach drops. He doesn’t breathe. He can’t. Everything inside him goes still. Charles looks down at the paper in his hand and then up at Max again. His eyes are shining.
Not just shining.
Wet.
Tears. Not falling, but there, trembling in his lashes. He doesn’t try to hide them. Doesn’t blink them away. And Max feels like his chest is caving in.
Charles blinks, and a tear slips down his cheek. Max’s heart is a fist in his chest, clenched so tight it hurts. His voice, when it comes, is barely a whisper, “I, Charles—"
"You stupid— stupid man!"
Max’s throat works. He tries to speak, but nothing comes.
"Of course you make me happy, you make me the happiest!"
The words echo in his head, over and over again, like a prayer he didn’t know he needed to hear. Like something whispered into that hollow place where he’d tucked all his fears and his want and his hope.
Charles lets out a watery laugh. “You wrote down the exact order of my favourite coffee, Max.” He holds up the list with a shaky hand. “You wrote down things I didn’t even know I did. How could you even think that you did not make me happy, of course you do."
Max’s breath catches. There’s something behind his eyes, thick and blurry, and his lips part without sound, just a stunned, helpless breath. He wants to laugh. He wants to cry. He wants to say, You can’t mean that, and also, Say it again. He wants to believe it. So badly he aches with it.
His fingers twitch at his sides before he reaches for Charles, because he has to. Because if he doesn’t support himself somehow, he might just float right out of his body.
He cups Charles’s jaw, reverent. Like Charles might disappear if he blinks too long.
“You—” His voice breaks, and he tries again. “Me?”
Charles laughs. Small and private, like there’s something blooming between them that only they can see. Like maybe he’s been holding a list of his own, hidden away in smiles and glances and unsent texts. Maybe Max isn’t the only one who’s been watching. Charles steps closer. And the list crinkles slightly as he lifts his hand—
and tucks it back into Max’s hoodie pocket.
Right over Max’s heart.
"I can't remember a time where I didn't love you, Max."
Charles smiles. This time it’s a shy, trembling thing, his mouth soft, eyes glowing wetly. And Max has never seen anything more beautiful than the way Charles looks at him now. Not a win, not a podium, not even the checkered flag waving over a perfect lap.
This.
This is what Max wants to remember forever.
The slight tilt of Charles’s head. The way his lashes dip, slow and sweet. The slight tremble in his fingers where they’re hooked into Max’s shirt, like he’s holding himself back from pulling him in.
So Max does it for him.
Soft, impossibly soft. Max kisses him gently, reverently, like he’s afraid to press too hard. Like he’s afraid this is still a dream he’ll wake up from. But Charles sighs against his mouth, this breathless little sound, like relief, and leans in more, gives him everything Max didn’t even dare ask for.
When they finally break apart, it’s not far. Charles is flushed and blinking slowly, his lips kiss-bitten and curved, eyes flicking open like he’s drunk on something sweeter than champagne.
Max laughs, breathless. Just the sound of joy and I can’t believe this is real. He rests their foreheads together again, fingers tracing Charles’s waist, anchoring himself to this exact second. He’s smiling now, soft and unguarded, like the whole world has finally started spinning the right way.
He doesn’t say anything yet.
He doesn’t need to.
Because Charles is looking at him like he already knows.
---
Later when Charles is curled up against Max’s chest, fast asleep, Max turns his head slightly, presses a kiss into the top of Charles’s head. Charles doesn’t stir, just sighs in his sleep, soft and content, and Max smiles.
Carefully, so carefully, he slips his hand into his hoodie pocket. The paper’s still there. Folded, a little wrinkled now, the edges softened from how many times he’s handled it. He pulls it out with trembling fingers, gently unfurling it without shifting Charles too much.
The List.
Things that make Charles happy.
He reads through it again, even though he’s memorized every single word. Each one inked in his handwriting, messier the more the list had grown, more desperate to hold on to every glimpse of Charles’s laughter, every moment of his light.
And at the very end, in a different hand— neat, slanted cursive, in Charles’s ink—
100. "Being with Max makes me the happiest."