Do you belive in forever? (Max Verstappen)

Chapter 24

"Where are the others?" waiting wasn't my strength. Daniel next to me was typing around like crazy on his phone and singing something quietly. But I didn't really listen to him, I looked impatiently at my phone to check the time.

Daniel turned to me and sang his answer: "I don't know, but there comes Charles and Antonio. They are immediantly with us, then only the Red Bull drivers, McLaren and George are missing." With my eyebrows raised, I looked at the Aussie before greeting the two drivers. I had already seen Charles at the airport, but Antonio not, I hugged him briefly. But both were very careful and hardly dared to touch me, which I left uncommented. With my friends, I would have pointed out that I wasn't made of glass. But I didn't know them enough, so I stayed silent.

The three boys greeted each other with a handshake while they had already started to talk. Relatedly, Daniel screamed through the car park in a good mood and made us laugh. But I lost this bitterly, because laughter and bruised ribs did not get along. A short sting silenced my voice and my face dispersed for a second. Out of reflex I had held my hand briefly to the ribs, which was enough that the boys had also stopped laughing.

"All right, I just shouldn't laugh," I tried to reassure the three. The men looked at me skeptically, but I looked at them firmly, because the pain was already gone. But they didn't really want to believe me, so I turned to my phone slightly annoyed. When I saw the time, I was only annoyed, because Daniel and I were already waiting ten minutes. At least the boys left me so calm that they didn't say anything about the incident, and they were about to forget it.

It took us another 12 minutes to complete the groupe. Actually, I wanted to take something straight to Max's side and go behind him, but Lando had taken my healing arm directly. Seeking help, I had tried to make eye contact with the Australian, but he was involved in a conversation with Carlos and Daniil. I could have just told Lando to let me go, and I wanted to talk to Max. But no more people should know than necessary and basically, I already knew too much about my plan with the date.

We hadn't even really left the car park when Charles had freed me from the British. For this I could have snagged the Monacan in a friendly view. I looked around the Dutchman in the group before one of the others approached me again.

Max walked alongside his team-mate, seemed to be elsewhere with his thoughts. The bad conscience came up in me again, because I was sure to be the reason why he was so absent. I let myself fall back inconspicuously in the group, so I could easily stand behind Max and hold him back a little bit on his arm. Together we were two steps behind the group, which went into the large market hall.

The Dutchman looked at me in quires: "I panicked because Sandra had seen you pick you up." I should perhaps have thought in advance what I wanted to say to the Dutchman in the first place.

'There's no reason to ignore you, but I just didn't know what to do anymore. My heart wants to be with you and get to know you and my head doesn't want to risk too much and probably lose everything. I know I should have just told you what was going on. I had tried, but Always deleted the message because I was afraid of your reaction," I tried to put my thoughts into words. Contrary to what was hoped, the face of my counterpart did not change a bit.

Still with an emotionless expression, he looked at me: "You're right, that's no reason. If you had told me what was going on, I could have understood it, but now I can't. You're constantly running two steps back when we've just moved a step closer. I'm always tired of taking a step on you when you pull back." The bad thing wasn't his words, it was worse for me that I could understand him. I had never thought of him in my actions, only of what I could lose. I never had any consideration for his possible feelings or patience. I was just selfish.

"You don't have to take a step on me anymore, because now it's my turn. Tomorrow evening, you will be picked up and driven to a restaurant. I'm not going to back down, I'm promise. Worse than losing my job, it's to be ignored by you," I clarified. The Dutchman didn't look really convinced, after all, he didn't look quite so cold anymore.

Max looked past me into the hall: "If we don't want to lose the others, let's go." For a second I didn't understand what he meant, but then I nodded. Unlike the two of us, the rest had not stopped.

Since the conversation was over for Max, I didn't want to bother him anymore. Carefully I stood up to the group and remained silent. Not least because I also got bad from the smells in the hall. The ticked fish heads in a soup didn't make it any better.

"Did you talk to him?" Dan asked me. He had stood close to me and spoke in such a way that only I should hear him. But Charles in front of us, turned his head straight to us. So, I realized that he too had understood Daniel and was waiting for my answer.

So that I didn't get even more of our conversation, I nodded slightly. This was not enough for them, they wanted to know everything. Carefully, I took two steps back, which Dan and Charles did to me. So, I felt a little safer that the others wouldn't hear us while they were looking at the food from the booth.

I didn't know what to tell them, because Max hadn't really given me a real answer: "I told him why I had ignored him. But he did hide his emotions and indirectly told me that he no longer wanted to. So, I mentioned the date tomorrow and promised him not to pull back." I stopped because this had been the end of the conversation with Max, so to speak.

"And then?" asked Daniel. Charles, too, looked like he was just waiting for the happy ending, but there was none. I told them the last part, which surprised the boys a little bit.

Charles said: "You both make it really unnecessarily difficult for you. You like him and he likes you, what's so hard about it." Daniel could only agree with him, but I preferred to remain silent. Because they were more than just right, we made it more complicated than it should be, but it was mainly my fault. Max had a good reason not to jump into the air with enthusiasm and shout like a girl.

"Are you coming?" Lando asked us. They had probably seen enough of the fish head soup and wanted to move on. So, we followed them to the next market, where I was really frightened and Lando wanted to joke right away. Frightened, I had clung to the next best arm, which fortunately was Max.

Contrary to what I thought, he did not break out of my grip, but also placed his free hand on my back: "Everything so okay, the snake is death." I felt really bad now, while some of them were slightly amazed. At the stand in front of us hung a dead snake, which had just been cut open. That was too much for Max and he turned with me. We both had to start choking easily. The others then became too much, and we were able to move on. I didn't let go of the Dutchman's arm because everything was too disgusting for me.

"Look at this fish," Carlos shouted a little too enthusiastically. Carefully I looked there and got a little scared of the thing. It was definitely a deep-sea fish and I didn't want to meet it while swimming. Best I didn't go swimming in the sea anymore, it really wasn't a nice sight.

Daniel started laughing when he noticed my fear: "Is anyone afraid of a dead fish?" I looked angry with the Australian, but I was still clinging to the poor Dutchman's arm. This didn't seem to find the fish great either, because Max had also warped his face a bit.

"No, I didn't," I wanted to talk myself out. Because Lando wanted to annoy me, he took a fish and held it in front of my face. Frightened, I screamed and hid behind the Dutch. In the group, laughter began while I was dying of a heart attack. In fact, when I was saving, I had my bruised hand on his side, which came close to a heart attack from the pain.

I had strapped myself into the shirt of my shield while the group was still laughing: "No, you're not afraid at all. But curse behind Max's back and hold him tight as if he were a shield."

'He's also my shield in front of you and I wasn't afraid. I'm just terrified because I didn't expect it. How should I know that you're holding a smelly fish in my face," I defended myself? Carefully I looked out behind the Dutchman, but only a little so that I could quickly hide behind him again in case another fish appeared in front of me.

Alex just shook his head: "Can we go on or do you want to stand with the smelly fish for even longer?" I was, of course, in favor of continuing, which we did. Although the next stands were not exactly more appealing to my stomach, there was no more creepy fish to be seen.

When I discovered the stands continued without food, I almost rushed there. I couldn't and didn't want to see the food stands anymore, so I'd rather look at the waving cats. Pierre and Alex had also followed me, while the others, despite their disgust, could not let me look at everything and still have some fun.

'I think I'll never be able to swim in the sea again and never eat again. I feel so bad," I said. Luckily, it wasn't just me, Antonio seemed to have become a little more bleached.

Pierre seemed to put it away to some extent but found the decoration things in front of him more interesting than any parts of an animal in a soup. Together we looked at the different things and had our fun while we waited for the rest.

"Oww, these dogs are cute", it was the typical red-yellow dogs. Without asking too much, Antonio took one and disappeared, asking I looked to Pierre. He shrugged only once, as he too had no idea what his buddy was up to.

The Italian came back with the dog and held him to me: "Here, he's supposed to bring luck and after your accident I think you might need some luck." Thankfully I accepted the dog, I really didn't expect it, but I was happy. This dog was really cute, if I had a car again, he would find his place there.

"What do you have?" Lando asked me. They had probably just finished their tour and had joined us. I cheerfully showed him the dog and immediately explained that Antonio had given it to me. I would have thought I would have left this out, because the Dutchman's eyes were wide. Inside, I just slapped myself for not even being able to keep my mouth shut.

Antonio seemed to have noticed his colleague's reaction: "She found him sweet and he should bring happiness, which she may well need." The help from the Italian had not made it any better. At least that told me the gesture of Charles slapping a hand on his head. I would have liked to have done the same, but it would be noticeable to me, as eight pairs of eyes looked towards me.

"Yes, maybe the dog can bring me luck tomorrow night," I somehow tried to make max clear that Antonio and I didn't want anything from each other. While Max, Daniel and Charles understood the wink, the others had no idea.

Asked, Daniil looked at me, "What are you going to do tomorrow night?" I should have expected this, but now I stood there and didn't know what to say. Looking for help, I looked at Charles and Daniel. They were just like my last hope, because I didn't know what to say myself.

"Bowling evening with the team," Daniel shot it out. Overwhelmed, I just nodded and simply repeated Daniel's words. That no one believed me was probably more than clear. Nicely, however, no one asked and let the subject be.