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If Max Verstappen died tonight, and George Russell was the last person he ever saw, he was going to haunt that man for the rest of eternity.
The van — a cheap, battered, suspiciously rattling Rentaday special — screamed down a nameless two-lane road in the absolute pitch-black of damn nowhere, England. It was meant for six people. They were eight. It was not legal. It was not safe. It was not reasonable.
It was also somehow the best decision they'd made all summer.
George, being the one with a driving license and — technically — a reputation for responsibility, had naturally volunteered to drive. George, Max realized with a deep sense of betrayal, lied. The man drove like he was qualifying at Silverstone.
The van took corners on two wheels. It screeched. It yowled. It made strange, metallic noises that Max suspected weren't part of the original factory settings.
Alex was supposed to be navigating. He was supposed to be George’s moral compass.
Instead, Alex was screaming.
"LEFT, LEFT, FUCKING LEFT, GEORGE— THAT'S A FIELD, GEORGE, A FUCKING FIELD!"
"I'm going left!" George yelled back, wrestling the steering wheel with all the grace of a man having a fistfight with heaven. "GPS says left!"
"GPS also says we're six minutes away, and it said that TEN MINUTES AGO, GEORGE!"
In the second row, pure chaos reigned.
Lando, the human embodiment of a Jack Russell terrier on cocaine, was straddling Oscar's lap in the most shameless makeout session Max had ever witnessed — and he had been to nightclubs in Amsterdam. Oscar, bless her, was giggling and trying to tug Lando's hoodie up enough to breathe while simultaneously dodging the flailing limbs.
Yuki, sandwiched on Pierre's lap in the single bucket seat next to them, was shrieking about snacks at the top of her lungs.
"WHERE'S THE SOUR PATCH KIDS? I SWEAR IF SOMEONE ATE THEM—"
Pierre was completely unhelpful, because she was whispering something into Yuki's ear that made Yuki turn approximately beetroot-red and punch her in the arm, while Pierre just grinned like she had personally invented seduction.
Max, in the very back row, was enduring all of this with the brittle, glassy-eyed endurance of a man one wrong noise away from starting a new religion.
Mostly because Charles — perfect, golden, maddening Charles — was beside him.
Charles, who smelled like citrus shampoo and sin.
Charles, who was glowing faintly with some kind of biological evil because, yes, Max had checked his calendar, and Charles was ovulating this week.
Max knew this. Max tracked this. Max was a man of science.
Max was also a man currently trying not to get visibly hard in the third row of a deathtrap van in front of his friends, which was significantly harder.
Every time George took a hairpin turn like a man trying to shake off police pursuit, Charles was thrown against Max.
Warmth. Softness. A tiny huff of air as her shoulder pressed into his chest.
Max, clinically, would have rated it a 10/10 experience. Spiritually, he was ascending to a new plane of suffering.
The betting pool, of course, was not helping.
There was a betting pool.
It had started at university when Max and Charles — publicly, canonically, tragically — had spent the first semester at each other’s throats.
Max's closest friends — meaning every deranged individual currently shrieking in this van — had all bet they would start dating before the end of the academic year.
Max's wider circle — classmates, professors, two suspiciously involved janitors — had bet the opposite: that Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc would remain academic rivals until the heat death of the universe.
If Max and Charles dated, their friends would become filthy rich.
If they stayed "enemies," the world would carry on.
Which is why Max and Charles had vowed — without ever quite discussing it — to never, ever let the others win.
It was a point of pride. It was a matter of dignity. It was not, Max would like to clarify, because they were both competitive, petty, prideful nightmares with the self-control of caffeinated toddlers.
Except that they were.
And except that Max was so down bad he could see the Earth's molten core.
Charles was wearing shorts.
Not just any shorts. Evil shorts. Shorts that barely counted as shorts. Shorts that revealed miles of long, tan legs that Charles kept throwing over her own seat in front of her, making Max's brain glitch like a corrupted video file.
He could see the outline of Charles' thigh when she shifted. He could see the soft curve of her waist.
He could see the small, smug smile she wore every time she pressed a little closer during the next death-defying swerve.
Was she doing it on purpose? Max didn’t know. Max didn’t care. Max was suffering so exquisitely it almost counted as a religious experience.
Ahead of them, Lando was trying to change the playlist mid-makeout, pawing blindly at Oscar's phone.
"I SWEAR," Lando panted against Oscar's neck, "THE VIBES ARE OFF, BABE, I NEED MORE— MORE WEEKND—"
Max, dimly, was aware that Lando's taste in music directly correlated to his horniness levels.
More Frank Ocean? Romantic Lando.
More Doja Cat? Unhinged, giggly Lando.
More The Weeknd?
Max didn't want to know.
Max didn't want to think about it, not while Charles had just shifted again and her thigh was now firmly pressed against his.
"Stop fidgeting," Max muttered under his breath, low enough that it was lost under the general shrieking.
Charles turned her head, hair brushing his shoulder, and looked at him.
Big, dark eyes. A little smile. A slow, slow blink.
"I'm not fidgeting," she said sweetly.
She was absolutely fidgeting. She was absolutely a demon sent to test his strength of will.
Max inhaled through his nose, exhaled through his mouth like he was in an anger management class.
George took another turn. Max grabbed the overhead handle and closed his eyes briefly, accepting that this was how he died: squished into Charles Leclerc's side, half-erect, in a van full of idiots, while George howled like a vengeful spirit at the night.
"WE'RE ALMOST THERE!" George yelled, violently cheerful.
"YOU SAID THAT FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO!" Alex bellowed back, voice cracking in distress. "WHERE THE FUCK ARE WE?"
"TRUST THE PROCESS, ALEX!"
Max, in the third row, did not trust the process.
Max trusted Charles Leclerc's thighs.
Max trusted that if Charles kept wiggling around like that, Max was going to make a scene.
Max trusted that the world was cruel and life was long and their Airbnb better have soundproof walls.
Yuki suddenly flailed a hand over the seat toward the back.
"SNACKS," she demanded imperiously. "GIMME."
Max, dead-eyed, chucked a bag of pretzels at her. He missed. The pretzels exploded somewhere between Yuki and Pierre. Pierre immediately snatched one and fed it to Yuki in the most disgustingly handsy way possible.
"I’m going to kill someone," Alex moaned into his hands.
"Do it after we get there," Lando advised, now trying to DJ and undress Oscar at the same time.
Charles shifted again, pretending she needed to adjust her seatbelt, and basically half-crawled into Max's lap for one glorious, illegal second.
Max, a man of simple tastes, knew then and there that he was not surviving this trip.
He was a goner. A ghost. A man who would be found smiling posthumously in the back row of a destroyed van.
The van swerved again. Charles braced herself on Max’s thigh — his thigh. Her hand, warm and casual and cruel, squeezing slightly for balance.
Max bit down on a whimper so undignified it would have ended his bloodline.
"Relax, Verstappen," Charles murmured, smirking at him like the devil she was. "You’re so tense."
Max, deadpan in the abyss of his own suffering, thought:
Yeah, well, you're ovulating and I love you so much it's medically concerning, so maybe you could cut me a little slack, sweetheart.
"Yeah, relax, Verstappen," Lando echoed from the front, completely misunderstanding everything because he was too busy making out with Oscar again.
George screamed something about missing a turn.
Alex threw the GPS out the window.
Yuki started throwing pretzels at everyone.
Pierre's hand was halfway into Yuki's lap, handsy and laughing.
And Max, pressed up against Charles in a van made for six carrying eight with no dignity, no peace, and an erection he was pretty sure was going to last until the end of time, thought:
This was fine. This was great. This was hell. This was home.
George drifted the van to a stop with the subtlety of a wrecking ball on roller skates.
The tires screeched like dying rats, the suspension groaned out a mechanical prayer, and in the back, Max felt the violent jolt of destiny—or more specifically, he felt Charles being catapulted bodily onto his lap with the kind of force usually reserved for Olympic wrestlers and horny salmon leaping upstream.
Max saw heaven.
Bright, golden, thigh-wrapped heaven.
For one fleeting, soul-ascending moment, Max was certain he died and ascended directly into the warm, citrus-scented paradise between Charles’ thighs. Charles was properly on him, hipbone-first, thighs locked around Max’s leg in a way that would’ve made monks question their vows.
Charles shrieked something French and scandalised and tried to push herself off but not before Max had an existential crisis, a spiritual rebirth, and approximately 43 unspeakable thoughts that would make any marriage counsellor sigh deeply and reach for a bottle of wine.
Meanwhile, Yuki, who had the priorities of a war general, yeeted herself out of the van like it was a clown car on fire, dragging a cackling Pierre out after her by the hand.
Yuki screamed into the night air like an avenging angel, her hair a fluffy, chaotic halo around her.
In the second row, Lando and Oscar—still mid-makeout—were somehow completely unfazed by the near-death experience.
Lando had one hand buried in Oscar’s hair, the other lazily flicking through Spotify, and Max, with the weary despair of a man who’d seen too much, realised the playlist had changed. Again.
To something suspiciously breathy. Something with a lot of synths.
Horny synths.
Max hated how accurately he could now predict Lando’s makeout soundtrack.
With a frown of profound betrayal, Charles grabbed the nearest bag within reach—a battered, half-eaten pretzel bag—and chucked it directly at Lando’s face.
It hit Lando with a loud thwack.
He blinked up, lips swollen, hair a disaster, looking for all the world like a particularly disoriented golden retriever discovering rain for the first time.
“Oh.” He licked his lips and grinned stupidly. “We here.”
Max, brain still rebooting from his personal Charles-thigh-induced renaissance, scrambled to throw the second-row bucket seat down with enough force to rattle the van's questionable frame.
“Go,” he grunted at Charles, hoping he sounded normal and not like he was internally proposing marriage.
Charles gave him a half-suspicious, half-smirking look—dangerous—but climbed out of the van without comment, her shorts riding up criminally high on her thighs in the process.
Max followed, already planning which tree he could walk headfirst into just to cool off.
He stumbled into the night, stretching his arms overhead and letting the humid air slap his overheated skin.
George, meanwhile, twirled the keys around his finger like he was starring in Fast & Furious: Car Rental Edition, his sunglasses still somehow on despite it being past midnight and pitch-fucking-black.
Alex emerged next, looking deeply traumatised.
He clutched his phone to his chest like a holy relic and muttered under his breath about "rights and liberties being violated" and "never trusting George again" and "driving with Satan himself."
Together, the group turned to face the Airbnb.
It loomed in the darkness.
Sagging porch. Creaky shutters. An ominous weathervane that spun without wind.
Definitely three ghosts minimum. Possibly a demon.
Max, who had never been a man of few opinions, squinted and deadpanned,
“Looks haunted.”
From about three meters away—because of course Charles had immediately chosen violence and personal distance—Charles crossed her arms and shot back,
“You look haunted.”
Max rolled his eyes so hard he saw heaven again.
Enemies. Right. They were enemies.
Not two idiots who were definitely soulmates and definitely pining and definitely very much about fifteen minutes away from Max throwing himself at Charles' feet and begging to be crushed.
He wanted to hold her. He wanted to be pressed between her thighs. He wanted to be a slutty little secret boyfriend and kiss her stupid until sunrise.
Instead, he got the soul-withering pleasure of watching her pretend to hate him.
George clapped a hand on Max's shoulder, nearly dislocating it with how jovial he was.
"This is gonna be so much fun," George said, pure manic optimism.
Max, meanwhile, doubted it.
He doubted it with every cell in his tragic, sad, horny body.
Behind them, Oscar narrowed her eyes suspiciously at the house.
"Who the fuck booked this?"
Lando, still flushed from necking Oscar like a parched vampire, piped up helpfully,
“This place looks haunted, bro. Like...the walls have trauma.”
Oscar snorted. “Imagine the ghost catching us hooking up and being like, ‘damn, even I need to leave.’”
They dissolved into stupid, handsy giggles that made Max want to vomit and also cry at the sheer injustice of love existing so openly for other people.
Max, meanwhile, thought deeply—very deeply—about the Betting Pool.
The Great Max-and-Charles Will-They-Won’t-They Betting Pool had basically become the economy of their friend group.
Which meant—if Max could just, theoretically, say...accidentally make out with Charles under the haunted porch or something...
He could make his friends fucking rich.
Oscar could buy Lando a gold-plated Switch.
George could afford therapy.
Alex could get trauma counselling for tonight's drive.
If Max could just stop being so fucking stubborn, that is.
Pierre—ever the curveball—smiled sweetly and said,
"I booked it. The architectural brilliance is remarkable. It's got—" she glanced at her phone, "—original wood beams and, like, artisanal haunted energy."
Yuki screamed from the porch, where she was trying (and failing) to kick the locked front door open.
"IF THERE'S NO SNACKS INSIDE I’M BURNING THIS HOUSE DOWN."
Pierre blew a kiss toward Yuki, who pretended to catch it and dramatically swooned onto the porch.
Alex, still pale, whispered, “I saw this in a horror movie once. The snacks were people.”
George gave Alex a hearty slap on the back.
"Character development, bro."
Max just stood there, stuck between staring at Charles' shorts and the door that was surely one wind gust away from falling off its hinges.
Somewhere deep inside, he heard a tiny, desperate voice:
"Maybe if we die here, Charles will cuddle us for warmth."
He chose to ignore it.
He had bigger problems—like the fact that Charles had turned to laugh at something Pierre said, and her neck tilted just enough to expose the curve of her throat in a way that made Max's soul physically evacuate his body.
He didn’t know if he was gonna survive this trip.
He did know, however, that if George drifted the van like that again and Charles landed on his lap again, Max was proposing with a pretzel ring and no shame.
And maybe—maybe—he'd let his friends be rich after all.
Just as a treat.
Just for a kiss.
Goodness, he was so fucking doomed.
They all shuffled forward in a chaotic clump, like moths toward a very questionable flame.
The porch creaked ominously under their combined weight, groaning like an arthritic grandpa who hadn’t seen his chiropractor since the Nixon administration.
George, ever the hero of his own personal action movie, began fishing around in Pierre’s bag with all the grace of a raccoon rummaging through trash.
"Hold on, hold on, I got it—"
Keys clinked. A rogue granola bar flew out. A suspiciously sharp hair clip almost decapitated Oscar.
"GEORGE, that's my eyebrow razor, you donkey!" Pierre snapped, trying to bat him away.
Finally, with a victorious “A-HA!” George brandished the keys like he was summoning Excalibur.
Max, deeply unimpressed, leaned past him and flicked on the porch light.
Nothing happened.
He flicked it again.
This time the porch light flickered like a dying star before sputtering into life with the weak wattage of a ghost sighing sadly.
"Great," Max muttered, already imagining how many spiders were inside.
He turned to George, who was still standing there proudly, sunglasses still perched on his nose like it was high noon and not the dead of midnight, and without ceremony, Max reached out, yanked the glasses off George’s face, and shoved them over George’s head like a disapproving dad dealing with a terminally stupid son.
"It’s pitch black, you moron," Max muttered.
George just grinned, like being called a moron was his love language.
Meanwhile, Max watched—suffered—as Charles giggled at something Oscar said.
Giggles.
Actual giggles.
Like glitter and joy poured out of her throat and Max, unfortunate fool that he was, stood there catching feelings like an idiot catching snowflakes on his tongue.
He wanted to fall into a hole.
Preferably one located between Charles’ thighs.
Lando, who had exactly two brain cells left—one dedicated to kissing Oscar and one dedicated to causing chaos—asked,
"How many rooms are there?"
Pierre, scrolling casually through the Airbnb listing like this was not a scene from an indie horror film, said brightly,
"Four!"
Lando whooped. "Mint. That’s three couples and—" he paused for dramatic effect, pointing finger guns at Max and Charles, "—Max and Charles."
The group collectively hummed like a Greek chorus of chaos.
Alex, who had mentally written his last will and testament during George’s driving earlier, chimed in dryly,
"Yeah, Max and Charles sharing a room? Great idea. They’ll definitely kill each other before breakfast."
Max rolled his eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn’t pop out of his skull and roll under the porch.
"We’re not—" he started to say, but at that exact moment, George tried to open the door and promptly dropped the keys between the floorboards with a loud CLINK.
"You absolute walnut," Pierre hissed.
Max, losing the will to live by the second, snatched the key from the floor and stepped up to the door.
With all the precision of a man who’d survived years of A+ parenting and dumbass friendships, Max shoved the key into the lock and twisted.
CRRCK.
The entire door shuddered violently like it was considering falling off the hinges out of pure spite.
"Uhhhh," said Oscar.
CRRCK CRRCK.
The lock groaned. Max growled. George whispered "massage it tenderly, bro" which earned him a swift kick from Pierre.
Max ignored them all, fully committed now, aggressively jiggling the key and shoving the door with the kind of feral energy usually reserved for Black Friday sales.
CRRRRRRCK.
The door finally gave way with a noise like a dying walrus and Max stumbled two steps forward into darkness that smelled like mold, wet wood, and bad decisions.
Everyone collectively froze.
"Mate, did you just break the house," Lando whispered, awestruck.
"No," Max said flatly, voice echoing into the cavernous, decrepit void. "The house broke me."
Charles, behind him, was laughing into Oscar’s shoulder, her tiny snickers bubbling up like champagne and stabbing Max directly in the chest.
He turned to glare but accidentally made eye contact with her bright, mischievous eyes and almost forgot how to breathe.
He wanted to pretend to hate her.
He also wanted to get on his knees and propose with the damn pretzel bag she hit Lando with earlier.
Meanwhile, George strode in like he owned the place, sunglasses pushed up like a crown of pure stupidity.
He spun around dramatically, arms wide.
"Welcome to your haunted honeymoon suite, lovebirds!" he bellowed, voice bouncing off the creaky walls.
"Shut up, George," Charles chirped, cheeks pink.
Max was ninety-nine per cent sure he blacked out for a second.
Alex, who was still traumatised, muttered, "I'm sleeping with a baseball bat tonight."
Pierre gave him finger guns and said, "The demon’s gonna think you’re into him."
The air inside the cursed Airbnb crackled with the kind of charged, deranged energy usually reserved for science experiments gone horribly wrong.
Pierre, arms folded, surveying the gaggle of chaotic idiots like a general about to plan a very stupid battle, asked with a dazzling smile,
"Okay, so. How are we sharing rooms?"
George, who had all the energy of an overexcited golden retriever, immediately chimed in,
"I’m definitely sleeping with Alex."
Before Alex could protest, George lunged forward and wrapped him in a rib-crushing hug, almost knocking the poor man clean off his trauma-shaky legs.
Alex groaned, face squashed against George’s shoulder, mumbling,
"I’m too traumatised for physical affection right now."
George, utterly ignoring him, pressed a dramatic, smacking kiss to Alex’s cheek with the volume of a gunshot.
Alex, against all odds and common sense, cracked a tiny, reluctant smile despite looking like he might have PTSD flashbacks at any second.
Max, meanwhile, lingered near the broken door, arms crossed, trying very hard not to let his brain slip back into dangerous territory.
Charles—sweet, sweet Charles—was currently wandering through the creaky living room, peeking into doorways, her laugh mixing with Oscar’s as they inspected a fireplace that definitely housed several dead rodents and probably one or two cursed souls.
Max watched her, stealing glances like a degenerate.
Last night flashed behind his eyes—the feeling of her thighs squeezing around his waist, her mouth hot and desperate against his throat—
He coughed violently into his fist.
Horny territory. Horny ghost-infested territory. This was hell.
Yuki, completely oblivious, piped up,
"Pierre and I should sleep together. I’m small. Pierre’s my big, strong girlfriend. She can save me from ghosts."
Pierre beamed like Yuki had handed her a Nobel Prize.
"That’s great," she said, ruffling Yuki’s hair affectionately.
Max, spiralling further into hell, tried to imagine being trapped in a haunted room with Charles.
The problem was, his imagination was not scared of the ghosts.
It was very busy imagining Charles in one of those ratty Airbnb t-shirts with no pants, crawling into bed with him, legs tangling—
Max slammed his forehead against the nearest wall.
"Mate, you good?" Oscar asked vaguely.
"Fine," Max croaked.
Meanwhile, Lando had reattached himself to Oscar like a barnacle, arms firmly around Oscar’s waist, chin resting on his shoulder like a koala.
"Obvi," Lando said, "me and Oscar are taking a room together."
Alex, who was done with everyone's bullshit tonight, said flatly,
"No, because then Charles and Max would have to room together, and I don’t want to attend two funerals before breakfast."
Max opened his mouth to object, but George was faster, practically vibrating with excitement as he said,
"Or—OR—what if Charles and Max do room together? Maybe they'll fuck. Then we'll all be filthy rich from the betting pool."
George looked like he was seconds away from starting a slow chant.
"KISS KISS KISS."
Max scowled so hard his eyebrows nearly fused.
"I’m never fucking her," he announced to the room.
Charles, without missing a beat, from across the living room, yelled back,
"I second that. Ew."
Max felt personally victimized.
Pierre, back to being the voice of twisted reason, suggested sweetly,
"Maybe Max and Lando could room together. And Charles and Oscar could share?"
There was a full beat of silence before—
Lando let out a gasp so loud it sounded like someone had been stabbed.
Then he was on his knees, clutching Oscar’s legs dramatically, shaking them.
"No," Lando wailed, "NOOOO."
Oscar, to his credit, simply patted Lando's hair like he was an unruly dog.
Alex, who was absolutely finished with life, said grimly,
"There’s no negotiation. Max and Lando share. Oscar and Charles share."
"Fuck you, Alex!" Lando screeched, flipping Alex off so aggressively he almost fell over backward.
Oscar, with a tiny pout and wide, shimmering puppy eyes, chimed in,
"But I can’t sleep without my boyfriend," complete with a sniffle that was so over-the-top it bordered on Oscar-worthy acting.
Alex deadpanned,
"Charles will keep you warm. She's tiny and mean. Like a space heater with anger management issues."
Across the room, Charles said cheerfully,
"Thanks, Alex!"
Max, gritting his teeth, tried to pretend he wasn’t dying inside.
He wanted—desperately—to say he'd share with Charles.
He wanted to say he'd keep her safe from the fake-ass ghosts and the creaky-ass floors and hold her until sunrise.
Instead, Charles, ever the sweet devil incarnate, shrugged and said,
"I’ll share with Max. It’s fine. We won't kill each other."
Alex looked at her like she’d grown two heads.
George looked at her like she was Cupid himself.
Alex, still Not Convinced™, said,
"No. Oscar and Charles. Lando and Max."
Lando flipped him off again.
Oscar flipped him off too.
Both looked like they were plotting Alex's demise.
Max sighed, heavy and dramatic, watching Charles out of the corner of his eye.
Charles winked at him when no one was looking.
Max almost fell through the broken porch.
Alex clapped his hands once, loud and firm like a fed-up kindergarten teacher, and declared,
"I’m tired. I’m going to bed. I don’t care if the ghosts kill me."
Before anyone could object, George pounced like an apex predator, grabbing Alex by the wrist with the vigor of a man who had no intention of sleeping alone.
"Mine," George grinned manically, yanking a squawking Alex into the nearest room and slamming the door behind them with a definitive THUD.
There was a second of stunned silence, and then—
Yuki yelled across the hallway like a pissed-off banshee,
"IF I HEAR MOANING AT MIDNIGHT I’M GONNA FUCKING SCREAM."
Without missing a beat, Pierre, who was absolutely a menace to society, called sweetly,
"I’ll make you scream for other reasons, mon bébé."
There was the sound of a sharp SLAP—Yuki smacking Pierre’s hand away—and then Yuki huffed as she pulled her beside her,
"Goodnight, perverts!"
before storming into the next room and slamming her door hard enough to rattle the windows.
In the wreckage of the living room, Lando still clung to Oscar’s leg like a dying soldier refusing to leave the battlefield.
His curls were a tragic mess, his voice wobbly with the weight of his impending doom as he said,
"Maybe… maybe me and Oscar could just sneak into a room together. Alex wouldn’t even know."
From inside his room, Alex’s voice cut through the paper-thin walls like a knife:
"I HEARD THAT, YOU LITTLE SHIT."
"FUCK YOU," Lando screeched, flipping off the general direction of Alex’s door with the violent energy of a ghost throwing itself into the Thames.
Then, immediately, his bravado crumpled. His face twisted. He whimpered, small and broken.
Max watched in mounting horror.
There was a new level of rock bottom happening in this living room.
Max, desperate to salvage something of his dignity (and more importantly, to maybe end up somewhere near Charles tonight), spoke up,
"Actually, you know what? Lando and Oscar can sleep on the couches down here. Then me and Charles can each have a room upstairs."
He said it casually, like it was a normal suggestion and not the last desperate plea of a man seconds from falling to his knees and begging.
Oscar, clinging to Lando’s face like a mildly horrified barn owl, just shrugged and said,
"Nah, it's fine. I’ll sleep with Charles."
Max genuinely—genuinely—wanted to scream.
He wanted to tear the ugly curtains off the walls and rip them apart with his teeth.
Lando, meanwhile, did scream—an ungodly, earsplitting wail of despair that echoed through the haunted halls.
"EVERYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Yuki’s voice bellowed from somewhere deep inside her room.
There was a loud BANG like she had thrown a shoe at the wall for emphasis.
Oscar, ever the agent of chaos, flashed Max an evil little smile, grabbed Charles by the wrist, and dragged her upstairs in a flurry of giggles and whispers.
Charles, half-turned over her shoulder, whispered toward Max as she disappeared up the creaky stairs,
"Goodnight, Max."
Soft. Teasing. Sweet enough to haunt his dreams.
And then she was gone.
Ripped from him by the universe like a bad joke.
Which left Max, emotionally gutted and standing alone, in the festering corpse of the living room, with—
Lando.
Collapsed facedown on the dusty, ugly carpet.
Moaning like a dying animal.
"My girlfriend," Lando whimpered into the floor, "is sleeping with another woman… and it's my fault…"
Max stood there, staring down at him, absolutely shellshocked.
He opened his mouth to say something, anything—but what was there to say?
He would have called Lando pathetic.
He would have kicked him lightly and said "get over it" with the emotional range of a teaspoon.
He would have laughed.
Except he couldn’t.
Because Max, too, felt like someone had reached into his chest and wrenched out his still-beating heart.
He was this close to lying on the floor next to Lando and crying into the carpet fibers.
Instead, Max exhaled slowly through his nose.
He sat stiffly on the ancient, creaking couch, arms crossed, eyes narrowed at the haunted staircase like it had personally wronged him.
He thought bitterly about how somewhere up there, Charles and Oscar were giggling under a floral duvet, while he was stuck here.
With a whimpering Lando.
In a murder house.
Alone.
Horny.
And emotionally compromised.
Lovely.
Simply fucking lovely.
Max, in a rare flash of mercy, shoved his foot directly into Lando’s ribs, jostling the pathetic creature off the carpet with a grunt.
"Get up," Max muttered, voice dry, deadpan, a thin scrape of exhaustion over bone.
Lando, sniffling, staggered upright like a drunk chimney sweep.
Then he sneezed so hard it echoed against the peeling walls.
"My girlfriend," Lando whispered hoarsely, swiping at his nose like a tragic little orphan, "I can’t live without her, Max."
Max stared at him, dead inside.
There was an immediate, dangerous twitch inside Max’s chest—a traitorous, ugly, vile little feeling that wanted to scream me too at the top of his lungs.
That wanted to grab Lando by the shoulders and confess that he couldn’t live without his girlfriend either.
Only Max couldn’t do that.
Because if he said it—if he even admitted it out loud—George was going to become filthy rich overnight from winning the bet, and Max Verstappen was not about to be emotionally vulnerable and financially humiliated all in one cursed night.
So instead Max gritted his teeth and said with all the dead emotion of a crash test dummy,
"Let’s just go upstairs."
Lando whimpered. "Yeah," he said, dragging his feet like he was marching to the gallows.
The stairs moaned under their weight, every step creaking like they were climbing into the mouth of hell itself.
The house felt colder here—older, sadder, soaked with the sort of ghosts who probably whispered in your ears when you slept.
Lando picked the first door he found, flinging it open dramatically.
Max immediately knew—knew—this room was absolutely, 100% haunted.
He could feel it in the way the curtains fluttered when there was no breeze, the way the walls seemed to breathe.
Still, Max reasoned grimly, this was still better than the torture of watching Charles giggling in bed with Oscar.
He took the window side of the bed without a word.
Sat down heavily on the creaky mattress.
Lando, sighing like a broken-hearted old man, took the other side.
There was a moment—maybe five seconds of painful, unbearable silence—
And then Lando started crying.
Started crying.
Max inhaled slowly.
Tight. Controlled.
He dug his fingers into the mattress like he could physically anchor himself to sanity.
Because honestly? Honestly?
Max wanted to cry too.
He wanted to fling himself backward onto the bed and scream into the haunted pillows about how unfair the world was.
About how he just wanted to be in bed with her.
Smelling her hair, tracing the soft skin of her thighs with his hands, pulling her into him until the world dissolved into bliss and nothingness.
But he couldn’t.
Because he was Max fucking Verstappen and he had dignity, damnit.
Between snuffles, Lando said brokenly,
"I have nightmares if I don’t sleep with my girlfriend."
Max stared at the ceiling, feeling his soul peel off his body like a sticker.
He muttered,
"Then go sleep with Oscar."
Lando sniffed. "But Charles is there too," he said, like it was a Greek tragedy.
Max, who was already swimming somewhere in the dark waters of desperate imagination, said quietly,
"Charles can sleep with me."
The words escaped before he could stop them.
Lando turned his soggy face toward him, suspicious.
"You’re not gonna kill her, right?"
Max didn’t even hesitate.
"Promise."
Lando gave him a beaming, snotty grin.
Launched himself over Max like a catapult.
Pressed a quick, wet kiss to Max’s forehead—
And sprinted out of the room like a madman on a mission, the door slamming behind him so hard the walls shook.
Max sat there.
Alone.
In the dim, haunted room, bathed in moonlight and poor life choices.
He heard rumblings upstairs—shuffling, whispers, the sound of a bed creaking ominously under someone's hasty escape.
And then—
A few minutes later—
The door opened.
Max turned his head sharply, almost afraid to look.
But it wasn’t a ghost.
It was her.
It was Charles.
She slipped in like a dream, silhouetted by the hallway light.
Soft hair. Soft body.
Soft smile playing at her lips.
She closed the door quietly behind her, the latch clicking shut like a promise.
"I missed you," Charles whispered.
Max didn't speak.
He couldn't.
He was already moving—sitting up, arms wide open, heart splitting at the seams.
He dragged her into him, hugged her so tightly it was like he could press her into his bones and never let her go.
She smelled like peaches and toothpaste and everything good in the world.
Max pressed his nose into the crook of her neck, breathing her in like he could live off her scent alone.
His fingers splayed against her spine, feeling the warmth of her through the thin cotton of her shirt.
He closed his eyes.
Max inhaled her scent like he was dying for it—desperate, messy, raw—and the words fell from his lips before he even thought to stop them.
"I wanna taste you," he whispered against her neck, voice low, gravelly, crumbling apart at the edges like burnt paper.
Charles burst out into the softest, most lethal giggle Max had ever heard, her body shaking lightly under him. She pushed at his shoulder half-heartedly, like she was scolding a particularly spoiled golden retriever.
"Max," she said, laughing, "we are literally in a possibly haunted house. With all our friends. Right downstairs."
Max pulled back slightly, his pout immediate, devastating. His stupidly gorgeous mouth turned downward like a kicked puppy.
He still couldn’t stop himself—he slipped one warm, calloused hand right onto the silky curve of her pantyline, pinky brushing the bare skin where her shorts had ridden down just a little, thumb grazing so close it made her shiver.
"Schatje," Max muttered, eyes wide, pleading, ruined. "Please."
Charles exhaled dramatically, rolling her eyes in the most exasperated girlfriend way imaginable. She flicked his forehead lightly with one finger.
"We can do it," she said, amusement bleeding through her voice like sunlight through curtains, "when there's no active threat of ghosts bursting in on us."
Max visibly deflated.
Lowered his head onto her chest with a groan so agonised you would think he had been mortally wounded.
"Fiiiine," he mumbled into her, his voice muffled by her shirt and a whole lot of heartbreak.
Charles ruffled his hair affectionately, tracing soothing little patterns against the nape of his neck.
Heavens, she was so soft with him.
Max was pretty sure no one on Earth had ever been this gentle with him before. He wanted to cry. He wanted to propose marriage. He wanted to tattoo her laugh onto his soul.
"You are such a simp," Charles teased softly.
"I am," Max said without shame, clinging to her tighter.
"I am your simp."
It made her giggle again—the kind of sound that made every rib in Max’s body want to snap open and offer up his heart to her in two trembling hands.
Charles smoothed her palms down his sides with a fond little sigh, then tugged gently at his hoodie.
"C'mon," she said. "Let’s get you comfy before you suffocate yourself crying into my boobs."
Max sniffled dramatically but lifted his arms, letting her peel him out of his hoodie. His hair puffed up wildly after, standing on end like a baby duck.
Charles beamed at him—giggled again—and helped him out of his sweatpants next, leaving him gloriously tragic in nothing but a loose pair of black boxers.
"You're so cute it actually makes me sick," she muttered, half to herself, pressing a loud, smacking kiss to his cheek before guiding him back down.
Max didn’t even hesitate—he just flopped, sprawled full weight onto her, head resting right on her stomach, arms sliding underneath her hips like he planned to handcuff himself to her for the rest of eternity.
Charles laughed again, that light, easy, beautiful sound that seemed to fill up the whole haunted room, chasing the ghosts into the corners.
Max let out a long, blissful sigh against her skin.
"You’re better than a weighted blanket," he mumbled.
"You’re better than all my exes combined," Charles said fondly, combing her fingers through his messy hair.
They lay there like that, tangled up, stupidly in love, while the old house moaned and creaked around them.
The wind rattled the windows.
Somewhere in the pipes, something howled.
Max didn’t care.
Max was literally so sickeningly content he thought he might ascend like a saint straight into heaven.
If the ghosts wanted him, they'd have to pry him off her first.
Max was sleeping the sleep of kings — sprawled heavy across Charles' stomach, deadweight and drooling slightly, the very picture of blissful, idiotic love.
In his dream, he was winning a robotics competition — Charles was next to him, furious, waving a tiny broken robot in his face while Max raised a massive gold trophy over his head, laughing like the cockiest bastard alive. Then, somehow, it blurred into Max lifting her up into his arms, tossing her onto a big, fluffy bed, making slow, sweet love to her while she called him a nerd between kisses. Max sighed happily in his sleep, wiggling deeper into Charles’ belly.
And then—
Knock, knock.
Max stirred.
Still pitch black outside.
Still pressed half-on, half-around Charles like a giant koala.
Charles was softly snoring beneath him, little puffs of breath escaping her lips.
Max frowned, blindly smacking around until his hand found the side lamp. He flicked it on.
A dull yellow glow washed the room, casting long shadows against the walls.
The door was still closed.
Knock, knock.
Charles shifted under him with a sleepy whimper.
Max rubbed his eyes furiously. His brain was moving at the speed of molasses. He dragged himself upright, looked around, shivered.
Something was... off.
The air was freezing, like someone had left the freezer door open straight into hell.
Max didn't believe in ghosts — he really didn't — but they were literally in a fucking haunted Airbnb. In the middle of nowhere. And it was Pierre who picked this place.
Fucking Pierre.
Max cursed her internally for what felt like the ten thousandth time since they arrived.
Max yanked a hoodie over his head because if someone burst into the room he needed to look very single and not attached to Charles, thank you very much.
He was about to open the door, hand hovering an inch from the knob—
—and stopped.
Because the cold air was practically pouring through the cracks in the wood, biting at his skin. And the door handle itself looked slightly frosted over.
Max took a step back so fast he nearly tripped over Charles.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
If this was a ghost it could fucking knock politely until sunrise.
He backtracked, flopping back down onto Charles like a living weighted blanket, pulling the covers up over both of them like that would protect them from demonic entities.
The side lamp still burning.
Maybe the ghost respected boundaries.
Maybe it was a nice ghost.
Knock, knock.
Charles stirred, blinking awake, her lashes fluttering. She squinted up at him.
"Max... open the door," she whispered sleepily.
Max tightened his arms around her immediately.
"It could be a ghost," he whispered back, scandalised.
And as if summoned from the depths of Satan's Airbnb handbook, a low, whipping wind roared down the hallway outside —
followed by the faintest, most blood-curdling cackle Max had ever heard in his entire fucking life.
Charles froze beneath him like a corpse.
Her eyes wide, lips trembling. She looked one second away from just... evaporating.
Max clapped a hand gently but firmly over her mouth.
"Maybe," he whispered seriously, "the ghosts here are polite. Maybe they like lovers. Maybe they leave us alone if we’re in love."
Charles narrowed her eyes at him in furious, wet-eyed betrayal.
"This is your solution??" her eyes screamed at him.
Another fucking knock.
Charles squirmed one hand free and fished around blindly for her phone, still glaring at Max like he personally had summoned the afterlife to their doorstep.
Max peeped over her shoulder.
She was blasting the group chat with texts:
Charles: WHOEVER IS KNOCKING STOP
Charles: I WILL MURDER YOU
Charles: MAX IS TOO USELESS TO DEFEND ME
Charles: STOP STOP STOP
Charles: I SWEAR I WILL HAUNT YOU WHEN I DIE
Nothing.
No one responded.
The screen stayed stubbornly empty, the little "seen" checks mocking her.
Charles cursed under her breath and dialed.
No answer.
Another knock. Louder this time. Closer, maybe?
Max swore softly, wrapping his arms tighter around her like she was a precious jewel he could just bodyguard until the sun rose.
"This is it," Charles whispered in horror. "We’re gonna die here."
"Hey," Max whispered back urgently. "If we die, at least we die together."
Charles opened her mouth to argue, but Max’s brain was short-circuiting, overloaded by the apocalypse, the proximity, the everything—
And before he could think better of it, he blurted:
"Marry me."
Charles blinked at him, like she wasn't sure if she heard him right over the demonic knocking.
"Max," she hissed, "this is not the time—"
"But is that a yes??" Max pressed frantically, desperate, squeezing her hands in his.
"YES," Charles groaned, slapping a hand over her face. "Obviously, you moron."
Max beamed.
Actually beamed.
And then he kissed her — clumsy, messy, desperate — like he could shove all the love he had for her into one panicked kiss before their souls got ripped out by Casper's vengeful older brother.
Charles gasped into his mouth, slapped his shoulder half-heartedly.
"We’re gonna die," she whined against his lips.
"We're gonna die engaged," Max said dreamily.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The door rattled ominously.
Max leaned back a little, eyes wide, hopelessly in love, hopelessly stupid.
"Can I taste you first?" he asked, so casually like they weren’t about to get dragged into hell.
Charles looked at him with wide, furious eyes.
"NO," she whisper-yelled, absolutely scandalised. "I do not want the ghosts to find me naked, Verstappen!!"
Max pouted, genuinely, like it was the worst tragedy of the night.
"But what if—"
"NO."
Knock. Knock.
The lamp flickered.
Max whimpered a little and buried his face into her stomach again, clutching her like a life raft.
Meanwhile, Charles was furiously texting the group chat again:
Charles: YOU FUCKERS ARE DEAD TO ME
Charles: I AM GOING TO BURN THIS AIRBNB DOWN
Charles: MAX PROPOSED AND IM SAYING YES BUT WE'RE GONNA DIE SO I GUESS IT DOESNT MATTER
Still no response.
Just silence, and the howling of the wind outside, and Max clinging to her like a particularly desperate squid.
"At least if we die," Max mumbled against her shirt, "they’ll write a tragic love story about us."
Charles sighed the sigh of a woman whose life had spiralled so deeply into chaos that she had no choice but to embrace it.
"Yeah," she muttered. "Two idiots die of ghost-induced blue balls."
Max snorted against her stomach.
Outside, the knocking stopped.
Inside, Max and Charles lay there — hearts hammering, hands tangled together, lights flickering — waiting for whatever came next.
Max kissed her again — soft at first, then desperate, frantic, the kind of kissing that left both of them breathless, trembling, clutching onto each other like if they let go, they’d be pulled into some other world where this moment didn’t exist.
He shifted above her, his hands braced on either side of her head, but then — with a ragged sound — he slid one hand down, down, between her thighs, cupping her lightly over the thin fabric of her shorts.
Charles gasped against his mouth.
“Max, we’re gonna die,” she said, half-sobbing, half-laughing into his kisses.
Max pressed his forehead to hers, their noses bumping, their breaths mingling.
"Then we can die making love," he whispered, voice so low and rough it made her heart stutter.
Charles groaned, thumped his chest weakly. "You are such a dumbass."
And then she yanked him back down into another kiss, fisting the front of his hoodie, dragging him closer like she could merge them into one body if she tried hard enough.
She cursed Pierre in her head so viciously that somewhere, somehow, Pierre probably shivered in her sleep. Fuck Pierre. Fuck Pierre and her stupid ghost house.
Max tried — oh, he tried — to get his head between her thighs, his whole body yearning for it, aching for the taste of her, but he couldn't, not when she was here beneath him, wide-eyed and trembling and perfect.
He needed to see her face.
He needed her eyes to be the last thing he ever saw if they were about to get ghost-murdered.
"Stay," he muttered, voice hoarse, dragging his mouth across her cheek, her jaw, her throat. "Stay right here, Schatje, let me see you."
Charles made a broken sound, something like a sob and a laugh tangled together.
She kissed him again, kissed him so hard their teeth clacked, ran her hands over his body desperately. One hand found the bulge in his boxers, palmed it lightly — Max groaned into her mouth, hips bucking into her touch.
Knock. Knock.
Charles whimpered, broke the kiss, and pressed her forehead into Max’s hoodie.
“I always—” she panted, voice shaky, “I always dreamed of living in a big house with you.”
Max froze, blinking down at her.
Another knock, but it sounded far away now, like it didn’t matter anymore.
He kissed her cheek. Kissed the corner of her mouth. Kissed the spot below her ear that made her shiver.
"Tell me," he murmured against her skin.
Charles giggled weakly, tears stinging the edges of her eyes.
"A big house," she whispered, carding her fingers through his messy hair. "With a stupid big yard. And a garden I can't take care of. And — and two kids."
Max pulled back slightly, grinning so wide his cheeks ached.
"Three," he said.
Charles giggled again, hiccuping against his hoodie. "Three?"
"Yeah," he said, kissing her neck again, open-mouthed and reverent. "Gotta have an odd number. Break the tie."
She laughed, a soft, wet laugh, the kind that cracked her voice in two, the kind that made Max want to build a fortress around her with his bare hands.
Outside, through the thin wooden door, came a loud, sinister cackle.
Neither of them moved.
Neither of them cared.
Max just kissed her harder, cupped her face between his palms like she was something sacred, something he would give his last breath to protect. His hands slid down, fitting around her hips, her thighs, pulling her closer, fitting her perfectly against him.
They were trembling.
They were stupid.
They were doomed.
But right now, they were together.
And that was all that mattered.
Her phone pinged, buzzing violently on the mattress next to them.
Charles, mid-makeout, one hand fisting the front of Max’s hoodie and the other cradling his jaw, broke away with a breathless gasp, reaching blindly for her phone like she was snatching a life preserver.
Max groaned against her neck. "Schat, no phones," he mumbled, teeth grazing her collarbone.
But Charles was already squinting at the screen, heart hammering, half-expecting a death threat from the ghost.
Instead, she saw the group chat.
She blinked. Blinked again.
There, just below her own desperate, all-caps text — MAX PROPOSED AND IM SAYING YES BUT WE'RE GONNA DIE SO I GUESS IT DOESNT MATTER — was George's reply:
GEORGE: YESSSS IM GONNA BE FUCKING RICH WITH THE BET MONEY
Charles gaped at the screen.
Max was still busy suckling at her neck like a lovesick vampire, utterly oblivious, humming something suspiciously close to a Dutch lullaby into her skin.
Furious, trembling with a cocktail of love and unfiltered rage, Charles hammered out a reply with two fingers:
CHARLES: YOU FUCKER WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE THERE ARE GHOSTS OUTSIDE
Within seconds, George replied:
GEORGE: LOL ITS FAKE
GEORGE: THERE ARE NO GHOSTS
GEORGE: THIS WAS AN ELABORATE PLAN TO GET YOU TWO TOGETHER 😎
GEORGE: UR WELCOME BITCHES
Charles stared at her phone.
Then at Max.
Then at the phone again.
The knocks had stopped.
The cold air was gone.
The sinister laughter? Probably Yuki playing a YouTube audio track through a speaker in the hallway.
Max, still completely in the dark, was now working his way across her jawline, one hand slipping under her hoodie like a man with zero survival instincts.
"Max," Charles hissed, yanking the phone up and shoving it two inches from his nose, effectively derailing him mid-neck kiss.
He blinked at it.
Squinted.
Read the texts.
And went very, very still.
"Ohhhh fuck," Max said.
His whole face crumpled like he had just learned Santa Claus wasn’t real.
His forehead thunked against her shoulder.
He let out the saddest little noise, half-growl, half-whine.
"We're—" Charles started, chest heaving.
Max groaned. "We're exposed," he mumbled into her hoodie. "We're gonna have to invite them to the wedding now, fuck."
Charles let out a murderous screech and slapped his back.
"I’m gonna kill them!" she hissed, kicking her legs under him uselessly. "I’m gonna kill George and Pierre and Oscar and Yuki and Alex—ESPECIALLY FUCKING GEORGE—"
Max laughed.
Straight up cackled.
The relief was pounding through his veins like adrenaline.
They weren't gonna die.
They weren’t gonna get ghost-murdered.
He was gonna get to marry Charles and live in a big stupid house and have three dumb babies with her.
Still laughing, Max rolled her tighter against him like she was a plush toy he refused to let go of.
"Don't kill them yet," Max said, grinning into her hair. "Our future kids need godparents."
Charles made a noise like a boiling kettle.
Ping.
Another text.
Max reached over her and flipped the phone so they both could see it:
LANDO: are u guys making ghost babies rn or what 🥹👻
Charles screamed into Max’s shoulder.
Max lost it completely, howling with laughter, legs kicking uselessly at the mattress like an overgrown toddler.
"I HATE THEM," Charles shrieked, trying to wrestle free, but Max just held her tighter, squeezing all the air out of her lungs.
Max was laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. "Ghost babies," he gasped. "Ghost babies, Charlie—"
"IM GONNA MAKE THEM EAT THEIR OWN SHOES," Charles barked, going full rabid.
"Baby," Max said through fits of laughter, "Schatje, we still gotta have three ghost babies minimum. A deal’s a deal."
Another ping:
YUKI: name one of the ghost babies after me or im suing
PIERRE: congrats future mr and mrs ghostfuckers ❤️
OSCAR: I'm not buying baby gifts unless they're ghost-themed 👻
Max was flat-out wheezing.
Charles was vibrating with rage and mortification and love, practically steaming under him.
Max kissed her nose.
Kissed her cheeks.
Kissed her forehead.
Charles pulled away from the kiss, her breath heaving, hair a full bird’s nest of chaos around her face.
"Wait, wait, wait," she panted, shoving a hand against Max’s chest to physically create space between them, her heart still racing from the near-death ghost experience and, now, the existential horror of being part of a conspiracy.
"What’s the money at now?" she demanded, eyes wide with dawning terror. "Last time I checked it was, like, thirty thousand euros—"
Max, still grinning like a fool and looking seconds away from diving back in for more kisses, blinked at her.
"Uh," he said, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. "My class put fifty grand in."
Charles gawked at him. "WHAT?!" she squawked, sounding like a goose getting strangled.
Max winced. "I think it’s a hundred thousand now?"
Charles slapped his chest with the force of an angry toddler. "FIFTY THOUSAND FROM YOUR CLASS?"
Max caught her hand, laughing. "Schat," he said gently, "they’ve been anti-shipping us harder than I ship my own Christmas presents. This was, like, years in the making."
"I thought they would stop at, like, a reasonable number."
Max looked proud. "Hamilton alone put in five grand."
Charles gasped so hard she actually clutched her chest.
"PROFESSOR HAMILTON?" she barked, looking around wildly as if Lewis himself was about to crawl out from under the bed and start waving a chequebook.
Max nodded seriously. "Yeah, he said, ‘hatred wins’ and just threw the money in like a damn baller."
Charles made a sound somewhere between a scream and a sob.
"PROFESSOR ROSBERG PUT FIVE GRAND TOO!" she wailed, eyes wide and glassy. "AND HE HATES BETTING!"
Max snorted. "Not when it comes to us, apparently."
They just stared at each other, stunned, as their phones kept buzzing from the group chat, friends sending memes of wedding cakes shaped like ghosts and Photoshopped baby announcements.
Charles dropped her head into Max’s chest with a groan.
"Our friends are gonna have so much fucking money," she mumbled into the fabric of his hoodie. "They’re gonna buy yachts. And name them after us."
Max cuddled her tighter, resting his chin on the top of her wild hair, grinning like an idiot in love.
"We should charge them for baby pictures," he mused aloud. "Premium subscription. Five euros a month. Exclusive ghost baby content."
Charles whimpered. "I'm gonna haunt them when I die," she muttered.
Max kissed the crown of her head.
"Still gonna marry me, then?" Max whispered, voice rough and tender, almost shy despite all the chaos.
Charles looked up at him, eyes blazing, cheeks pink.
She punched his chest lightly.
"Only after I legally kill George first," she said.
Max grinned so hard he thought his face might split in two.
"Deal," he said.
And then he kissed her until the rest of the world — ghosts, idiots, betrayals, stupid friends and all — disappeared into nothing.