Do you belive in forever? (Max Verstappen)

Chapter 5

We still sat on the beach in a circle: "How old are you? Don't get me wrong, but you look extremely young." Pierre seemed a little scared of my reaction, but I just smiled at him nicely.

"I'm 19 will be 20 in May", the eyes got bigger. They probably didn't expect me so young. I could only laugh at the reactions, now I tried to take it with humor. I probably got a little red, too, because I couldn't suppress a remnant of embarrassment.

Down in my dreamland I leaned on George: "You know when we were 19, those were still good times." With raised eyebrows, I looked at the Joker that was facing me. Poor George also looked at his buddy as if he had been sitting in the sun for far too long. Lando, on the other hand, did not notice any of this, because he still seemed to revel in his memories.

"For you, that was last year" George Lando recalled. Laughter erupted among the rest of us, the facial expressions of the two Britons had been even too funny. Unconsciously, while laughing, I slipped a little closer to Max, so that our shoulder touched. As if hit by a lightning bolt, I slipped away a bit and looked at the spot where Max had just touched me.

When the warm feeling disappeared from my shoulder, I was able to focus on the conversations again. They were just raising the McLaren driver, and they didn't seem to have a problem with me.

I was generally surprised by how open and relaxed the drivers were towards me: "Are you not be afraid that I could unpack any things from you tomorrow? You're so relaxed here, even though I'm a reporter." I just had to allay my reporters curiously and my tongue was burning all the time.

"First, you don't work for a print magazine like the sun and secondly, yesterday you were the only one who didn't ask a single private question, and my knowledge of human beings tells me that you are not the sort of journalist", Carlos said with his sweet Spanish accent. I was honored that he had indirectly described me as serious.

Sometimes, however, it was also possible to ask some unpleasant and personal questions. Even though I didn't like asking such things myself, I couldn't always make a bow about them.

I thanked him with a smile for the compliment: "In my opinion, your private life does not belong in serious journalism. Finally, we are here to watch you drive and not condemn for your relationships... I also don't want to read my bed stories in the newspaper the next day." From the corner of my eye, I could see a movement, which is why I turned my head to the Dutchman out of reflex. But he looked at me neutrally without flinching.

"Uh what bed stories? Do you want to read me one tonight?" Lando tried to look seductive. The emphasis is on trying, because it was anything but seductive. That's why I just shook my head with a laugh, the others except Max probably understood the fun. The Dutchman had only slightly pulled up the corners of his mouth next to me, but that didn't look real either. But I ignored it because I was too busy with an Englishman.

"If you're very nice before and eat your vegetables, we can talk about it again," I had addressed the younger McLaren driver in my children's voice. Played happily, he clapped his hands and began to cheer. This looked so funny that I couldn't laugh anymore and just let myself fall backwards into the sand.

Max hadn't even really bothered to laugh along, instead he had watched me, what I could see from the sand. But I had other problems than a grumpy Dutchman, because I got almost no air. I really tried to calm down, which I managed to do after an eternity. As nice as Max was, he immediately reached out to me to help me. With a smile on my lips, I accepted the help and let him pull me up again.

We looked into each other's eyes a little longer than necessary, but his eyes were just too fascinating. When I realized that there were other drivers around us, I quickly broke away from his eyes. But my gaze went through the group with Charles, but I got stuck. He was the only one who had looked at me and Max and seemed to have noticed our gaze.