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When Max finishes first in the last race of the best season of his life. All he can feel is the heat in the track.
Sergio Perez gets third place in the championship!
Max has not tried to talk to him after the meeting where they "cleared up" everything. Where the intermediaries did all the work in making a draft that both could say without it looking too fake, where the grudges were bigger than anything between them. And he's honestly tried to get some reaction out of him in their pre-race press duties, a shout, an insult, something.
Meanwhile, there's Checo, the perfect pristine and almost neutral wall, with the perfect marketing smile and perfectly polite answers that don't offend anyone but can sometimes be a bit sharp if he feels it's necessary. He only interacts with him if it is extremely necessary, never looks him in the eye, and his smile can seem forced at times if you stare too hard.
Someone on his team approaches Sergio to tell him something.
"Congrats man, this is yours."
And he's right, this third place will probably taste bitter to many, but Sergio earned it. Whether Max had a hand in the fact that he had to do it completely alone, that's just something that the media will comment later.
Should he feel bad about it if the team decided?
Sergio smiles at him for the cameras but they don't say anything as they walk to the podium, he greets everyone else in the grid at the process and honestly he feels a little offended about it. In the walk, Max thinks for a second that maybe things are not going to return to what they were, the heat overwhelms him for longer than necessary when he sees his Checo smile directed at Lewis, who DNF but still somehow got time to congratulate him.
Max knows they are...friends, it became clear to him in Mexico, after Sergio stopped the booing. Sometimes it was amazing how he could stop an entire stadium with just a wave of his hands, but he didn't expect him to do it for Hamilton no matter how much "buddies on the grid" they have always been. The heat in Abu Dhabi doesn't bring answers, only uncertainties.
He has to use all his strength to convince himself that this is nonsense.
Max knows Sergio will stay. And he doesn't stop the thought, no matter how toxic and possessive it probably is, because it's not a lie, it's a hope, a reality. Sergio will stay for his love of the team, for his desire to make history, and sickeningly the champion wants to think he will stay for him too.
The role of false indifference will not last long, he is sure.
Japan is awkward, but Max thinks it can be progress, they play the Honda games, talk together with Marc Marquez, and it almost seems like it's them again, MaxandCheco. But they still feel tense. The few mechanics who come to help in the show run still act like they are walking on broken glass around them.
Max has been missing him, doing his job is a little more boring without their back and forth conversations, without having Sergio cornering him in every closet or small place to make out.
He hopes maybe it was the cold and the crowd what prevented them from really talking like before.
He has dinner with Pierre and Yuki, deciding to choose a conversation in which he doesn't really have to participate much in order to wait for Checo. The older man enters the hotel restaurant at 9 o'clock, it seems that the cold is no longer a problem for him in his civilian clothes, or maybe it's the heating, Max thinks it's too hot. Although today there is an interesting choice in Sergio's top part.
A nice purple sweatshirt, not a bad fit, but by no means the kind the Mexican is used to buying. It has a youthful, even streetwise design, he must have walked into the wrong store in Qatar.
Maybe, if he approaches Checo a little teasingly about his clothes, they can fall back into their dynamic of provoking each other, just a little.
Unfortunately, Sergio goes straight to sit with the engineers, without even giving them a second look (not that Pierre or Yuki mind). They welcome him with a bright smile, which was usual among members of the team traveling with them.
"What is he wearing?"
Maybe he should test the joke on this audience first, to test the waters. Pierre takes a while to find the target as he pulls himself away from Yuki, who also averts his gaze from the food.
"I don't know, maybe he is trying a new style."
Pierre probably doesn't care at all about the drama between them, he gets along well with Sergio now, and they even share some friends for dinner. With one foot out the door, the only reason to pay attention to internal debacles in your old team would be espionage, and he probably has a clause in his contract about that.
"Wait, I've seen that sweatshirt."
Yuki turns his head quizzically as they continue to stare at Checo, who seems to be listening intently to an engineer telling a really long joke.
"What?"
Max hears himself ask.
"Yeah, it's from Lewis, he had it in a photo on Instagram."
What? He stops himself from asking again as he takes it all in paralyzed, he must show something on his face because Yuki adds more information.
"He probably borrowed it, you know, from dinner."
Yuki talks so carefree, as if people were just sharing clothes after a dinner.
"Yeah" He forces himself to answer.
Pierre seems to glow for a second at the sense of gossip, before he restarts a conversation on another topic with Yuki. This shit is going to be on Charles Leclerc's chat by the end of the night, but Max doesn't really care while another revelation comes to him.
Lewis wasn't wearing that sweatshirt at Seb's dinner.
So, how-the-fuck does Sergio have Lewis Hamilton's fucking sweatshirt?
He can't help but think of all the scenarios, of both of their clothes strewn on the floor of an apartment perfectly designed by one of Lewis' friends in Monaco or at the Mexican's own Puerto Vallarta home, where Max had spent a couple of nights over the summer.
The way that sometimes, and only sometimes, Sergio would mistakenly put on the wrong sweatshirt making breakfast.
None of the scenarios he creates in his head are possible, they haven't even had time to go anywhere after Abu Dhabi, but uncertainty and jealousy eat him alive. The hot weather at the hotel suddenly starts to overwhelm him.
Anyone else in the paddock would have been no problem, he would have known Sergio had a bad day and simply relieved himself with the first person he met. But the fact that it's the Mercedes driver's clothes, ignites the same spark of destruction and competition that it does when they meet on the track. The one he doesn't use for anyone else, no matter how much he has to convince the media that he does.
He wants to scold himself for thinking that anything Lewis Hamilton looks good on his Sergio, his friend, his teammate, his sort of something.
Everyone finishes dinner and says goodbye to go to bed, to rest after a long day, a long but successful season. Max has never felt more awake than when he approaches a Sergio who finishes talking to a smiling engineer.
"Can we talk?"
He tries to keep it light, in the way he has been taught that people speak politely, he can feel the blood rushing inside him but, he doesn't want Checo to get out of it so easily. The mexican looks hesitant when he looks at him, surprised that he's approached.
"Sure, mine or yours?"
He always gives in when it comes to Max, today is no different.
"Mine, it's ok."
They walk down the halls, and he can't stop thinking about why. Why did Sergio decide to wear that sweatshirt today? He looked cold, he almost wants to remind himself, even with the warm Red Bull jacket or with his racing suit.
He slides the card, and they go inside, the climate must be colder than Checo expected because a shiver runs through his body, he clutches the sleeves of his sweatshirt. Max thinks about ripping them off.
"Well, that's an interesting choice of clothes, isn't it?"
Max goes straight to the claim pretending tranquility, he wants to know what move Sergio will make, will he deny it? Or will he pretend he doesn't know what he's talking about?
He can see the Mexican's face change from uncomfortable small talk to surprise. His eyebrows go close a little and his eyes try to scan him as he looks for something else. He's also anticipating his moves, like a game of chess.
"Lewis lent it to me, after dinner."
He doesn't deny it, nor does he pretend not to know what he's talking about, but he lies a little, probably thinking that there are already enough problems between him and Hamilton to add himself to the mix. His expression tries to avoid the question, he looks at the glass.
"He wasn't wearing that at dinner."
Max doesn't want a game of chess, he wants a game of volleyball to death on the beach, with the heat burning your back and the ball violently sweeping back and forth.
"What are you doing?"
Sergio tries to stop the game, desperate.
"I'm not an idiot, you know."
Max restarts it.
"Max, no."
Checo speaks as if the game whistle wouldn't have sounded already, as if he doesn't know Max's outbursts, nor his insecurities, nor his fears, nor his attacks.
"Are you fooling around with Hamilton?"
The ball is already in the air.
"Max, stop it"
"I want the truth, or it's that too much to ask now?"
Sergio looks at him angrily now. Well, his amount of patience and pity are about to run out.
"You want the truth?"
"Yes"
"I didn't think I had to explain it to you, but-"
Max lets out a laugh, and almost wants to say that he doesn't have to explain who he's putting in his bed, but that would defeat the purpose of this conversation.
"Explain what?"
"Explain the fact that you were acting like an asshole."
Well, that's a shift. Sergio looks upset, everything he had tried to achieve in the interviews is here. Max knows him, he will never be violent, but sometimes you can push him to say what he really believes, shut up when he does.
"You dismissed everything I did for you, for this team, in my career! For god’ sake, you made me look like I be willing to crash just to win a race!"
They don't talk about that, about how sometimes Max's team has wild opinions, and he's not strong enough to shut them down in time. He has to make up an excuse even though he knows it doesn't exist, he is no longer a child, he is a grown up. He can't hide behind his family forever.
"I didn't explicitly say-"
He tries.
"BUT YOU DID"
Sergio doesn't yell, but he seems desperate for Max to understand him, he raises his voice.
"You went out and let it be "up to the people" whatever that bullshit means, and you know that's fucking enough in this sport."
He has always felt like a puppet, but he knows that he also convinces himself of a lot of things, for his ego, for not losing his success. They end up coming out somehow, like poison that burns those who are left nearby and are not used to the antidote.
"Then you brought up my family, and that's where I-draw-the-line."
Sergio delivers the last sentence as if it were a slap in the face, he is hyperventilating. Max takes a step back, but the Mexican moves forward. He feels hot in the room, like everything could suffocate him.
"And I know that wasn't you, but it just felt so fucking much like a wake-up call, cause that's the way you talk about me, I just know it."
"I don't talk about you-"
It's not enough, trying. The words burn in his mouth before he says them. He doesn't want to burn Sergio anymore, but the poison feels bad in his mouth.
"You do Max."
He wants to deny it again, but Sergio continues with his conversation.
"Fuck... this just be easier if you would just admit it."
Max knows Sergio wants to say something else, something hurtful, and he almost throws an aggressive comment at him to just say it, to spit it in his face, so they can get over with this. Checo doesn't let him when he speaks entirely in Spanish.
"Y todo esto es porque eres un niño que quiere todo y cuando lo tiene, ya no lo quiere sino que quiere otra cosa más grande"
The anger comes down fast from Sergio, like unplugging an iron, and it ending up being lukewarm. Guilt washes over Max, hot and burning inside, like his own poison.
"I just- I don't know, how we can exist as before knowing that you can do that again"
"I won't"
That's a lie, the kind of thing you say when you feel up to it, invincible, but it becomes hard to deliver when things are complicated, convoluted or when they are simply in the opposite direction.
"But you will"
And Sergio knows it, because he knows him, because he knows his act, the way he wants to have everything but never take care of anything.
"And I don't want to be, the one that gets hurt when you do it"
Max wants to kiss him again, wants to star at his face to feel the flutter of his eyelashes. The rough but tender lips after a race, feel the smell of his shower gel, his shampoo, his cologne. If this is going to have a pause, an indefinite end, a waiting for the next game to start, then he wants to memorize that as accurately as he can. Expect Sergio to be doing the same.
But he doesn't even let him do that, he goes over and hugs him.
"I hope you can figure it out some day"
Checo wraps his arms around him and caresses his back, Max hides his face in his neck, the height difference being as stupid as always. He breathes in the fresh Sergio-flavored air over and over again, there's no hint of Lewis, or anyone else in there.
He holds back his tears to make sure that nothing will change that, that his problems won't be impregnated in Sergio's essence. That whatever decision they make later, won't be influenced by all this shit.
Max knows he'll feel too hot after this hug is over and that Sergio will feel too cold, but he does nothing as they part, as Checo leaves with a sad expression.
He feels too hot in his Monaco apartment too, when he opens Instagram and sees a story of Lewis in Egypt with the sweatshirt back, he wonders if Sergio took the photo, if he's still cold.