Brute

27. Max

They were the last car to pull into the parking lot, much to Max's relief no photographers were around. Just a couple of familiar faces that greeted him with a smile.

They entered the hospitality suite without being stopped, questioned or noticed. It was surprisingly quiet, just Anna arranging some papers, who looked at Kalki and smiled. Kalki asked her whetted everyone was.

"They're all in the garage, you know for what." She smirked.

"Can you stall them? Max will be out in about ten minutes." Kalki said.

"No problem at all."

He led Kalki to his driver room, handing her a spare polo he had kept around. She asked for a towel and disappeared, Max grabbed his things and walked into his shower.

The ten minutes had flown by, he walked into his room to find her already waiting for him. It's the first time he'd seen her dark hair not pulled back neatly. "Ready?" She looked at him, pushing away a strand of damp hair.

"Sure, let's go. Time to act surprised." He scoffed.

She walked by his side, looking down at her phone typing away. He could already see his crew with big smiles on their faces, the rest of the team was in his garage too, so was Checo. Everybody was singing for him, he wore a big smile and thanked them.

The chefs led him to where a cake waited for him, more cheers and happy birthday wishes flowing in from everywhere.

"Happy Birthday Champ!" Christian embraced him, "it's been an honour to see you grow."

"Thank you Christian. It really means a lot." He smiled, to Max, Christian had been like a parental figure. His pillar of support for when no one was around, he cared for him on the bad days just as much as he did on good days.

The celebrations wrapped up pretty quickly, everyone had to get back to work. He found Kalki in a corner of the hospitality unit, chatting away with Anna.

"So what's next?" He interrupted them.

"FIA press conference. You've got Lando, Charles and Alex with you." She said.

"Aren't you going to come with me?"

"No?" She looked at him in confusion, "Vicky is waiting for you, go!"

"Alright." He turned away, looking for Vicky.

He spotted her talking to Mia who was accompanying Charles, he caught up with a group. Giving them all a polite hello.

"Happy birthday Max!" They all said overlapping each other, which made them laugh.

"Thanks." He beamed.

"So how are you feeling now?" Vicky asked.

He looked at her in confusion, suddenly remembering the lies Kalki had said, "Much better now, I had to nap after lunch now I'm fresh."

"That's good." She smiled.

"You never quite get used to the jet lag no?" Charles said.

"Yeah man! Sometimes it just gets to you so badly." He agreed.

They waited outside the conference room, Lando and George were already there. The boys all gave each other their usual handshakes and a pat on the back, asking how they were doing.

All their media officers were exchanging some words with each other, giving them time to banter with each other. Have an animated conversation with each other before being grilled by journalists or bored to death with the same questions.

"So birthday huh... seems you've already gotten your present." Lando winked.

"What do you mean?" Max frowned.

"I wasn't born yesterday mate." He rolled his eyes.

Everyone seemed just as confused, Lando sighed and decided to elaborate. "Did none of you see Miss Feisty temper walk out of the hospitality centre with him?"

"Who is that?" Charles asked.

"Oh my gosh. You are all so slow. I'm going to give you three prompts- Max's manager, wet hair, wearing a team shirt that didn't fit her." He smirked.

George and Charles blinked, processing what they'd just heard and soon wore the same expression as Lando. Max on the other hand could feel his face heating up, his entire body felt like it had gone stiff.

"Bullshit!" Max thundered.

"Don't try so hard Max, she's hot." He laughed.

"No. Whatever you're saying didn't go down. You have a very active imagination." Max said, trying to regain composure.

"Or am I just-"

"How about you shut up? We don't need Max lashing out at a poor journalist." George interrupted.

"We're ready for you!" A press officer opened the door to let them in.

They took their seats, Lando decided to poke some fun at Max and Charles saying it was quite risky to be sitting between them. The rest of the presser continued as usual, some dull questions, some overly intrusive but he sat through all of them with a smile on his face. He couldn't tell if this was the PR trained one or a genuine one.

Max saw Kalki slide into the conference, a smile curled onto his face when her eyes met his. Her doe eyes, how could someone so cruel have such wonderful eyes? He noticed the silence that had fallen in the room. She was looking funny at him.

He snapped back to reality and looked at the face of a journalist who was eagerly waiting for an answer, "Sorry I missed your question." Max mumbled in embarrassment.

The journalist sighed but repeated his mundane question that Max had an equally trained answer to. With all of that, the presser wrapped up for the quartet. They headed towards the exit door, Max looked at Kalki who for a change looked eager to talk to him.

"I needed to talk to you before you get into your zone." She smiled.

"Alright, tell me." He said starting his walk towards the garage.

"First, Kai wishes you a very happy birthday and wants me to tell you that she's very very very grateful that you are willing to sponsor her stint."

"I'm very very very thankful for the birthday wishes." He chuckled, "and tell her I'm rooting for her. She's got a very unique zeal in her."

"Now, let's talk racing. I've found a place, French F4."

"Really?" His eyebrows shot up.

"Yes. Really!"

"Well then call Raymond up, that spot is Kai's it's not going anywhere."

"I'm pretty sure it's like around lunch hour for him, every time I call he just assumed you're causing me trouble and he gets all worried about nothing." Kalki sighed.

"I'll call him up then, you just tell Kai to keep her stuff ready. She's going to be off to join the other juniors." He told her.

It didn't take Max that long to get into the zone today, it had been a great day. An incredible day that just seemed to be getting better, he wanted to start this session on a high, get in all the information and feedback he could.