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It really doesn’t get easier, this whole drop-off thing.
Every two weeks they do this, yet the butterflies in George’s stomach persist as he watches the sleek Aston Martin roll into his driveway. He keeps offering to drive Kimi himself so Max doesn’t have to do both trips, but he always refuses.
More time with Kimi, he’d offered as an excuse, but really, George knows it’s for him. To make George’s life easier, just as leaving the house to him was about making his life easier, or sending child support even though they share custody is about making his life easier.
It’s not like Max can’t afford it, but George feels guilty, sometimes, about the lengths Max has gone to make the divorce as comfortable as possible for him.
“Hi, dad.”
George pulls the sleeves of his cardigan over his knuckles as Max pulls Kimi into his side for a hug. The top of his head reaches Max’s shoulder now. Soon he’ll be an adult and they won’t need to do this anymore because Kimi’ll be off doing adult things, driving his own car.
The thought of not seeing Max regularly like this anymore is… strange. Unsettling.
“Hey, buddy,” Max crows, ruffling Kimi’s curls. “Did you get taller since the last time I saw you?”
“I saw you last week, dad,” Kimi complains, wrestling his dad’s hands off his hair.
George smiles, brittle, his heart aching at the sight of his two boys playfully arguing. It’s not normal, probably, to miss your ex-husband after almost two years of separation, but George was never normal about Max in the first place.
Waking up without a familiar arm around his waist and groggy Dutch in his ear still feels abnormal, a shock to his system. Now that Kimi’s going away again, the house will be even quieter. Lonelier.
Max’s eyes meet his, and the butterflies erupt into a hurricane, twisting George’s guts this way and that. Max looks the same as before. They see each other all the time, during drop-offs every two weeks and then through FaceTime calls in-between to discuss schedules, but the scruff of his beard is different, his hair a little shorter.
Small things that remind George they’re not waking up next to each other in the mornings anymore and he can’t track the growth of Max’s stubble by the marks it leaves on his skin. The calendar hanging on the fridge doesn’t have M hair 3pm. written on it anymore.
“George,” Max says, neutral. It’s weird, this lukewarm professionalism their relationship has settled into. They used to fight with a passion, make love with even more.
“Max,” George replies, relieved his voice is steady. “How are you?”
“Eh,” Max shrugs and squeezes Kimi’s shoulder. “Missed this guy right here. You’re okay? No money problems? I can send more if you need.”
George shakes his head with a snort. “Not necessary. You send enough as it is. Thank you.”
Max gives him a tight-lipped smile. “I’m happy to do it. Really.”
Fuck. George is going to start crying wearing his cardigan and old pyjama shorts with purple ducks in front of his child and ex-husband. He blinks rapidly and flashes what he hopes is a convincing smile. “Alright. Come here, Kimi, let your dad kiss you goodbye.”
He pulls Kimi close, burying his nose in his curls. He already misses him. “Be good, hm? I’ll see you in two weeks.”
_
George met Max right after Silverstone. He’d been invited by Mercedes and spent most of his time sitting in the garage pretending to understand what was happening on the track, working through the constant shock of seeing his face on the monitors, the PR guys feeding him quiet information of smile now, clap here, look stressed, smile again.
He’d bumped into Max in the hotel elevator of all places, wearing a shirt with one too many buttons open and with awfully gelled hair. George had planned to order a grilled chicken salad to his room and conk out while PR curated the perfect photo dump for his Instagram, but instead he’d networked his way into Max’s celebratory dinner where he’d watched Max get tipsier and tipsier and his hand creep higher on his thigh.
They didn’t fuck that night, nor the next or the next. Max never called him even though they’d exhanged numbers, George feeling flirty enough to put a kissing emoji next to his name. He’d gotten his face in Red Bull’s socials though, his name tagged over his collar, new followers. That was enough.
_
They spend Christmas together for the first time since the divorce. They’d agreed to keep things as normal as possible for Kimi but George had spent the first year alternating between crying and writing scathing emails to Max he never actually sent, so Kimi ended up dividing his time between houses.
He’d sent pictures from Max’s, a shitty anaemic tree in the corner of his temporary bachelor’s pad, way too many presents sitting under it. Apparently, they’d ordered takeout and then jetted off for a quick daytrip in Italy.
They used to spend Christmas cooking a full dinner – well, George cooked, Max and Kimi mostly messed around and stole spoonfuls of gravy when he wasn’t looking – exchanging presents and going out for a stroll in Monte Carlo to see the fun lights.
It’s incredible how lonely George felt, that first year apart, bundled up on his couch with fuzzy socks and a plate of leftover ham on his lap, swiping through the pictures of Kimi on the jet, Kimi eating Chinese, Kimi in the pool, Max in the pool.
Now though, he feels lonely in a completely different way, letting his ex-husband in and offering him a coat hanger like he’s a stranger and not the man who’d overseen the construction of their walk-in closet.
Kimi’s ecstatic to have his parents under the same roof, of course, dragging Max around to show him everything he’s done to his room and yammering both of their ears’ off during dinner. George is happy to see him happy, but there’s a certain ache between his ribs the entire time.
Afterwards, Kimi sits between them on the couch, Home Alone 2 forgotten in the background in favour of an old photo album laid out on his lap. George sips on hot chocolate and bites back a smile at Kimi’s enthusiasm as he points out Max’s hair on a picture taken years ago.
“Your dad used to put gel in his hair every day,” George says, the warmth from his drink spreading through his palms all over his body. “I thought it looked ridiculous. You already have short hair, I thought, what’s the point?”
Max crosses his arms. “You never thought to tell me you hated my hair while we were still together? It was trendy at the time anyway.”
“No, it absolutely was not,” George chuckles, tracing a finger over the silhouette of Max glaring at the camera. “But you looked cute. I didn’t mind.”
Kimi turns the page, already pointing enthusiastically at a photo of him as a baby, provided to them by his birth parents, but George catches Max’s eyes, heart picking up pace. It’s been a while since Max has looked at him like this, strong eyebrows slightly furrowed and a muscle in his wide jaw twitching.
He has no idea what that look means, even after years of marriage and a child, but at least it’s different from the polite neutrality he usually offers George these days. Intense. Heat licks up George’s spine and he hurriedly turns back to the album.
It’s idiotic to get aroused by your ex-husband. He’s pretty sure there’s an unwritten rule somewhere in the divorce handbook about that.
Don’t fuck your ex-husband. It’s never a good idea.
_
Dating comes slowly for them.
Max is busy flying all over the world putting his car in P1 every other weekend and George is busy flying all over the world to shoot skincare commercials and Vogue covers. They’re always on the wrong sides of the planet, but every now and then, their paths manage to cross, if only for a couple days at a time.
They spend those days mainly fucking, blowing off steam and sexual frustration from the near celibacy their lifestyles force on them, but sometimes they get dinner, go for a walk, visit tourist traps that are so crowded they blend right in.
Max doesn’t want to commit to a relationship considering the focus he needs to put in his job and George agrees, happy to do casual.
Unfortunately, he’s always been sensitive and you can only have someone trace lines up and down your spine after sex so many times before you get attached.
_
“Max?”
George squints against the soft light of the little lamp beside their couch, taking in the sight of Max, shirtless, sitting cross-legged on the floor with another photo album in front of him.
“Did I wake you?” Max says lowly, voice raspier than usual but less so than when he wakes up. He hasn’t been sleeping. “Go back to sleep, sch- George. I’ll finish up here.”
“No, no,” George dismisses with a wave of his hand, padding closer. “I was just getting water. Why are you up?”
Max huffs out a breath, rubbing at his face. His stubble has grown in again. “Just… getting nostalgic.”
“Is that… Are those our wedding photos?”
Max hums tiredly. George hesitates, thinks fuck it, and sits on the floor next to him, his bare knee brushing the fabric of Max’s sweatpants. He pulls the album a little closer. “Oh, I remember this. Your grandpa falling asleep during the ceremony. Almost fell off the seat.”
“Yeah. Didn’t have a problem drinking the bar dry afterwards though.”
George exhales a laugh, rubbing a thumb over the glossy surface of the photo. Sleep clings onto him and threatens to droop his eyes but it’s been forever since he’s been alone with Max and he wants to make the most of it.
“Good times.”
Peaceful silence falls between them, a distant shuffling from upstairs signalling that Kimi’s probably using the bathroom. The lamp casts weird shadows over Max’s face, makes his eyes darker and his jaw thicker.
He’s breathtaking.
Suddenly George is painstakingly aware of the contact between their knees, the fact that Max is shirtless and his shoulders are broad and there, and George is wearing nothing but tiny shorts and a shirt that might be Max’s, now that he thinks about it.
“Max–“ George starts and doesn’t get far, cut off by dry lips brushing against his and a hand on his jaw.
It’s instinct to melt into it, let Max tilt his head and lick his way into his mouth. A whimper falls from his lips before he can rein it in and Max pulls back from him. His hand stays where it is, cradling George’s face like it’s something precious, thumb sweeping soft circles.
“Max?”
“Sorry,” Max whispers, gaze shifting from George’s eyes to his lips and back to his eyes. “I missed this, is all. I’m sorry.”
George licks his lips, throat dry. “You miss being in a relationship or you miss me?”
Max smiles, a little sardonic. “Both. Being in a relationship. You. Being in a relationship with you. Take your pick.”
“You– It was your idea to get a divorce.”
Max sighs and drops his hand. George misses it immediately. “It’s not that simple.”
“Well, explain it to me,” George whispers. “You can’t fuck with me like this, Max, you can’t.”
The space between them is non-existent, and Max’s eyes drop back to George’s lips like he can’t help it. The way he used to devour George after a few days apart like he was starving, he probably can’t.
Have you been having sex, George wants to ask, impulsively, but that’s stupid, ridiculous. It’s been two years and Max is still as handsome as he was in his twenties, probably even more so with the added broadness and authoritative lines aging has gifted him. His dick is probably seeing plenty action.
“George–“
“Dad?”
Max springs back like burned, stomach flexing with the effort. He looks casual, leaning back on his hands like they weren’t two seconds away from doing something completely moronic, but George can see the tension in his jaw. He’s frustrated.
“What’s up, buddy? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
Kimi rubs at his eyes and cracks his jaw on a huge yawn. His hair is a tornado of curls, frizzy and wild. “Heard talking. What are you guys doing?”
“Your dad and I were talking financial stuff, baby, you don’t need to worry about it,” George lies before Max can say something stupid and completely inappropriate. “We’ll go to bed soon, alright, sorry we kept you up.”
Bless Andrea’s sweet heart, he doesn’t question it. “Okay. Goodnight, love you both.”
“I’ll come tuck you in,” Max says and clambers to his feet. He doesn’t meet George’s eyes and disappointment curls heavy in his stomach. “George, you sleep in tomorrow, I’ll make us breakfast. Kimi can help.”
Kimi complains the entire way out of the room, Max’s hand gentle on the nape of his neck. George stares after them, gripping his knees.
“Alright, thank you,” he croaks out faintly. He doubts either of them can hear him. “Love you.”
He buries his face in his hands, breathing in the vanilla scent of his hand cream. It does little to calm him down.
This is why letting your ex sleep over is a bad idea. That too, is probably written in the divorce handbook, don’t sleep in the same house with your ex-husband.
George slams the photo album close.
_
The divorce doesn’t come out of nowhere. It still punches all the air from George’s lungs when the actual words come out of Max’s mouth.
It’s not secret they’ve been frustrated with each other for months now, longer even. Max is constantly away, in England one week and Saudi-Arabia next. His face pops up on George’s Insta feed every other day, group photos at dinner with random people George has never met, sponsored ads and selfies with fans.
He sees more of pixelated Max than his actual living husband and it doesn’t help that when Max does come home he’s irritated and tired, taking naps in the guest room while George and Kimi silently eat cold chicken wraps at the dinner table.
Maybe George could try harder to be an understanding spouse. Max’s job is demanding, the jet lag is demanding, the pressure is demanding, George gets it. He barely ever leaves the country anymore, spends more time in his house than outside of it these days. His job is taking care of Kimi and tapping out an email or ten before hopping on a Zoom meeting.
He’s barely doing what Max is doing.
Maybe that’s part of it too.
There was no realistic way for George to continue modelling on a worldwide level, not with a toddler and then a pre-teen and then a teen to take care of, and it wasn’t exactly an option for Max to stay home either, so he’d done free-lance for a while, did work in Monaco whenever possible, and finally ended up as an editor to a magazine that let him work remotely.
It’s not that he doesn’t love what he’s doing, he really does. His team is lovely, the magazine is lovely, the opportunity to spend time with his son is lovely.
But he misses travelling. He misses the spotlight, he misses sponsored events and being in front of a camera, misses the hours spent in front of a mirror getting his flaws brushed over with makeup.
He never really got over it, that he had to give up his career for a child they both wanted while Max had to change virtually nothing.
So maybe he didn’t push when Max pulled away, maybe he stopped trying as hard to make peace when Max got snappy. If divorce was knocking on their door he thought he’d be ready for it. A relief, he thought it would be, from the constant tension. He never thought Max would actually go through with it though, never imagined it would hurt him so bad to see the stack of papers on the kitchen table waiting for him.
He should’ve fought it. Should have locked Max in a room and talked it out with him, but he didn’t, and maybe that was the resentment too, making him defensive, making him lash out, try to call Max’s bluff, hurt him the way he was hurt.
So he’d signed the papers and that was that.
_
George wakes up five weeks after Christmas feeling like death warmed over.
He fumbles for his phone, gnawing his lip bloody at the ache that keeps bouncing around his skull, radiating pain all the way to his toes. He cancels his meetings for the day and pops a couple painkillers he finds in the bathroom cabinet, bent over the sink to swallow it with tap water.
It almost knocks him off-balance.
Back in bed, swallowed under his blankets and hugging a hoodie picked up from the floor, there’s no way he’ll be able to drive Kimi around today.
“God,” he mutters and shoves knuckles in his eyes until the pain overshadows the rest. “Siri, call Max Verstappen.”
They haven’t really talked since their kiss, not properly anyway. George has turned the night in his head over and over until the details go blurry and he hates the uncertainty that comes with it. It’s so easy to blame it all on the combination of the late night and wine, but for a moment, George thought maybe Max still wanted him like…
Like he wants Max.
But then he woke up the next morning to a table full of eggs and bacon and avocado toast – which Max doesn’t even like, the man could live on cereal for the rest of his life – and steaming coffee, and Max had greeted him like nothing was wrong.
It had been an utterly uneventful breakfast.
“George, hey,” Max says once he picks up, distant noise in the background. Is he watching TV? “What’s up?”
George’s voice cracks the first time he tries to speak so he clears his throat and tries again. “Are you free today?”
“I can be. Why? Are you okay?”
Staring up at the ceiling, George hums. “Woke up a little sick, it’s fine. Just, Kimi has plans with his friends tonight and I can’t drive, so. It’s the uh… beach in Menton, so if you could just take him. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t bother you otherwise but–“
“No,” Max interrupts, “I’ll take him, don’t worry. It’s not a bother, he’s my son too.”
“Yeah,” George whispers thickly and closes his eyes. “Of course, sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry,” Max tells him. He sounds so Max George wants to cry. He cries too often these days. “When is it?”
Should the headache not be getting better? He’d swallowed like four pills. “When is what, sorry?”
“The thing with Andrea,” Max repeats, patient. “Tell me the time and then go to bed. You sound like shit.”
George huffs, but really, going back to sleep sounds quite wonderful. “Thanks. I think he was saying something about five or after, I don’t know. Text him to be sure.”
“Yeah.” A brief pause, like Max is hesitating. “You got food in the house?”
George’s temples are pounding so bad. “I don’t… I can’t remember. Probably. Kimi’s eating with his friends later, so he’s okay, don’t worry.”
“I wasn’t–“ Max makes a frustrated sound. “Okay, George, thank you for telling me. Go to sleep.”
He hangs up. George tosses his phone out and goes the fuck to sleep.
_
It takes him a moment and a few hoarse pleas to be quieter after he wakes up to realize the sounds coming from somewhere in the house aren’t all Kimi. It takes him even longer to recognize the other voice.
“Look who finally woke up,” is how Max greets him when he finally manages to tangle his way out of his sweaty sheets and drag his shivering body to the kitchen. “Good afternoon, princess.”
George makes an unintelligent sound and rubs at his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
Max glances at him, eyes doing a lightning-quick sweep down his body, probably taking stock of George’s XL sweatpants with the fabric on the other leg bunched up over his knee and his Red Bull hoodie.
George refuses to feel self-conscious. Max’s clothes were a comfort back when they were separated often, George nodding off on the floor next to Kimi’s bed and Max somewhere celebrating another podium. Max didn’t pack all his clothes when he moved out for a reason and if George wants to wear them while he’s sick, he damn sure will.
“Kimi let me in,” Max says and goes back to – George leans over the kitchen island and squints – chopping potatoes. “You didn’t have much in the fridge by the way, I stopped by the store. Do I need to start sending you weekly groceries as well?”
George rolls his eyes, slumping onto a bar stool and resting his cheek in his palm. “At some point you need to face your weird fetish for providing and stop pretending you’re doing it for me. No, we don’t need groceries, Kimi just eats through everything I buy within two hours.”
“I only like it when I do it for you, though,” Max says casually, like he isn’t cracking open the lid on a can of worms here. “So not a fetish.”
George chews on his bottom lip and watches Max prepare ingredients for what’s probably some kind of soup. It’s like he’s thrown a few years in the past when this kind of scene was a daily occurrence, the muscles in Max’s broad back shifting under the thin shirt he’s got on, the nape of his neck a little red from the sun.
“You didn’t have plans today?” George asks instead of voicing any of the thoughts running in his head. “Decided to come cook for your ex-husband instead.”
Max shrugs. “You didn’t sound like you were up to doing much and I was free. You’re welcome.”
“Right.” George yawns. “Where’s Kimi?”
“In his room.”
“Right.”
It’s silent for a few minutes while Max shuffles around the kitchen and George traces the grooves in the kitchen counter with his thumbnail, the pressure behind his sinuses easing with each minute he spends listening to Max’s breathing, the gentle clanking of the cupboards.
He finds himself thinking back on that night on Christmas, the way Max’s palm was big and warm on his jaw, how the darkness added shadows to his eyes and made him look wild. George still wakes up sometimes, a little hard and very frustrated, feeling the phantom sensations of stubble on his skin.
Sometimes he cries because of how much he misses Max, not just sex with Max but him, his frustratingly stubborn and thoughtful husband who would shield George with his body when the fans got a bit too close and never let him or their son worry about paying as long as he was there. The feeling of longing is suffocating enough that sometimes he thinks he’s dying.
He’s been grieving a person who’s still alive and he’s not sure how long he can keep doing that.
“I’ve been thinking,” George starts, biting at his cheek.
“About?”
“About the night you were here. On Christmas. I thought it could be good for us to talk about what happened.”
Max has gone still, back facing George and his knuckles white on the handle of the knife. “And what happened?”
“What happened?” George laughs, pushing himself up. “What do you mean what happened? You–“
He looks over his shoulder just in case and lowers his voice. “You kissed me! And then you left and we just never talked about it again. Who the fuck does that? We’re still co-parenting, there needs to be mutual communication and… and boundaries–“
Max slams the knife down. “I already apologized–“
“I don’t want you to apologize! I want you to explain why you did it!”
“You think it’s easy for me?” Max snarls, his muscles so tight it looks painful. “To be away from you? From Kimi? To see you in the house I bought for us, and no longer be a part of it? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, George, but you look exactly like you did when we first met and then you’re there, half-naked, reminiscing about our wedding, for fuck’s sake, and you’re asking me why I kissed you? Jesus fucking Christ.”
George blinks, face so hot he feels like melting. “You still want me?”
“Who wouldn’t?” Max scoffs and goes back to aggressively chopping. “You’re– Jesus, George, come on.”
George sits with it for a moment, floating somewhere between disbelief, utter relief, and pure anger. “But you– You wanted to end things. You don’t get to… play the victim or whatever you’re doing. I never wanted a divorce. That was you.”
“I fucked up, George, I don’t know what you want me to say. Shit got difficult and I bailed before you could. Thought I’d make it easier for you and Kimi, cut it off clean before it got too ugly.”
George could punch Max, he’s so mad. Easier for him and Kimi, for fuck’s sake, what divorce is easy–
Max stills when George rams into his back, burying his forehead in his broad shoulder. “You fucking dickhead.”
“George,” Max murmurs, fingers coming up to thread through his hair. “Not when I’m holding a knife, please.”
“I’ve missed you so much,” George whispers and to his horror, finds himself tearing up. “I know it hadn’t been good in a long time, but we could’ve fixed it. You just pulled away.”
Max hangs his head, his entire body heaving under George’s hold. “I’m a shit husband and a shit dad, George, I don’t know what to tell you. I fucked up.”
George shakes his head desperately. “Can you– Can we–?“
Max turns in his arms and their eyes meet. Max doesn’t cry, ever, and he’s not crying now, but his eyes speak a thousand words and George’s breath gets caught in his throat. “Can we?”
“Try again,” George whispers, scared he’ll scare Max away. “For good this time.”
He doesn’t have to worry about Max bolting.
Instead, he carefully backs George up until they’re against the kitchen island. This is more familiar, Max boxing George in and gripping his hips until he’s sure they’ll bruise. Max likes taking care of him and George likes being taken care of. They can fix this, he’s so sure they can.
“What do you want?” Max murmurs, voice gritty and eyes dark. “Tell me, George, I’ll give it to you. I’ll give you anything.”
“You, just you,” George gasps and tugs Max in for a messy kiss. It’s like a puzzle piece clicking in its place, completing a picture that’s been unfinished for years. It’s like coming home. “Max–“
“God, you’re beautiful,” Max groans into his mouth and slides his hands down George’s thighs, urging him onto the island. “Fuck, George, I’ll give you another wedding if you want, a long honeymoon, a sibling to Kimi, anything.”
George breaks apart from him in giggles, hooking his ankle around the back of Max’s thigh. “Maybe we could figure out how to be together first. We got a lot wrong.”
Max sighs, petting along George’s hip. “A lot right, too. No, I know. We’ll talk about it, do it properly this time.”
He pauses before smiling devilishly. “Can I eat you out first or is that moving too fast?”
George hits him on the shoulder. “Max! Kimi’s still here.”
“After he leaves for his beach thing, then,” Max says, leaning forward with a familiar glint in his eyes that George never thought he’d see again. “I have two years’ worth of orgasms to give you.”
George bites down his smile. Is there a chapter in the handbook about getting back together with your ex-husband? If there is, George couldn’t give a single fuck.
_
Later, after Kimi’s gone and the house is silent, George lays on Max’s chest, tracing a finger through the sweaty sheen on his pecs.
“You never changed your name back,” Max says quietly, pulling the sheets higher on George’s naked body.
George hums, feeling loose and still in his body for the first time in years. He’s probably infected Max with his fever because he suddenly feels all better. “I didn’t.”
“Why?”
Because his last name was the only thing left of Max and he couldn’t bear to part with it? Because it was Kimi’s name too? Because he’d gotten used to the sound of George Verstappen on his and everyone else’s mouth?
Hard to tell.
He shrugs.
“It’s my name. That’s it.”