Max and Lewis. Enemy's to lovers. (f1, formula 1)

Chapter 5

Barcelona, 23 February

I jump out of the bed directly and run into the hallway. But there is no trace of him. I walk to the desk and ask for security. They show me the security cams, but I don't recognise the man. I take a picture of it to see if Lewis recognizes him. I thank the security and walk back to the room. The moment I show the picture Lewis says: "Yes, I do know him! He is the Mercedes photographer! I think he came here to make some pictures for our social media, but then saw us, and thought that would make a good selling picture. I'm gonna call Toto to see if he can do anything about it. Oh, and I was meaning to tell you, I told him about us. And he accepts us!". "I'm glad" I say. Lewis gets his phone and I hear him saying "Hey Toto!" While I walk out of the room to call my manager, again. Ofc he jokes with me on how much i have to call him. I tell him about the whole situation, and that we already know who it is, and that we're trying to solve the situation right now. He says that he is also gonna make some calls, and that I'll hear back from him. I walk back in the room and see Lewis is already done. Toto was calling the photographer right away and would be calling back in 10 minutes. So we wait. Not in the same bed now, just in case. Then Lewis got called. He puts it on speaker: "Lewis" Toto says "I've called many people, and I got the photographer on the phone. He already sold the picture. Legally there is nothing we can do, but I did fire him. I'm sorry. He doesn't want to tell who he sold it to, so we also can't go to that person. I'm doing all I can, but I can't promise I can do something." We thanked him for trying and hung up. The moment later I got called by my manager. It wasn't about the picture. It was about the trial. The results are in.

1 February, Monaco courthouse.

It's the day of the trial. There is big media attention about it but luckily it won't be televised. My car is in the line to get in front of the courthouse. From my window I see Kelly stepping out of the car in front of me. I give her a look of hate. After 5 minutes it's my turn and I step out. The first thing I see is the light of hundreds of cameras. I put my sunglasses on even though there is no sun. The moment I get inside I see my manager and my dad. I go to them and we discuss everything again. "The trial of Max Verstappen and Kelly Piquet is about to start. Come inside please" I hear. There we go. Finally we are gonna show what a bitch my ex is. The trial takes 5 hours. I got the best dutch lawyer, she got the best Brazilian. The judge had to ask for silence multiple times, because both lawyers scream at the witnesses. There are many objections. Both sides have a lot of evidence, but I notice from the first piece of evidence from Kelly that it's all fake. She also said something she didn't say before, that I would cheat on her. I think to myself: "this is the first thing she says which is true." I updated Lewis through the whole trial. He just can't believe what Kelly is saying. It's one big bullshit show. I also see the judge looking sometimes like: what am I doing here. After 5 hours we finally walk out and got back in the car. Another thousand photographs are made before we get there. As soon as we get in the car we burst out laughing. What a joke was this whole day. We see Kelly walking when we drove away, and we laughed even more. We don't even suspect it will go her side.

23 February, Barcelona hospital

I put him on speaker. He tells me: "Max, we got the results. The judge decided her way. You have to pay her 6,8 million. I'm gonna appeal the decision, because the moment we walked out I saw her lawyer giving an envelope to the judge. I suspect bribing. I'm not gonna do anything about that, because that will make you look even more of a bad loser. But I'm gonna have someone follow the new judge non-stop. This can't happen again."

I thank him for trying and tell him that if he needs anything he should just call. The moment we hang up the owner of the hospital walks in. He heard of the photographer and decided to put us in a private wing. So, I sleep with him. The hospital bed is big enough for both of us so I lay next to him.

24 February, Barcelona.

We wake up at 7 am and I have to leave back to the track. I kiss him goodbye and go outside to find a cab. I arrive at the track at 7:30 and directly have a pre-briefing. I only have to drive the morning session and do a briefing after that. Christian told me I can leave around 2 pm. So I got back out there. I have a little bit of a less-day, so I drive the 4th time. The briefing takes a little longer so I leave around 2:30. I take a taxi to the hospital and spend the whole day with Lewis. It is 6pm, and I get called by Raymond. The photo has been published. There is a whole controversy about it, and it seemed best that I would stay with Lewis in the hospital till I would leave for Bahrain. He warned me to just mute my phone, because there were a lot of reactions to it. He didn't want me to give any reactions to anyone till he allowed me. I thanked him for everything and thanked him. Me and Lewis talked about it. After 5 minutes my phone goes again. It's Mick Schumacher. He says: "Hey Max, and I assume Lewis is there too. I just want to say I'm happy for you two. And I have a question for you Max. My flight for Bahrain just got cancelled, and I was wondering if I could fly with you?" "Hey mick! Yes, Lewis is here too. Thank you, we really appreciate that. And of course you can fly with me! I am leaving Saturday around 5. I'll send you the details!" We chatted further a bit and after 10 minutes we hung up. Mick was one of my really good friends and I really appreciated he was the first to call. Lewis didn't really know Mick, but he appreciated it too. The rest of the day we got called by Vettel, Bottas, Norris, Daniel, Perez and Gasly. Of the rest of the drivers we got a text (except of course Mazepin). It was great to know all drivers got our back. We thanked all of them individually and I also put out a statement about it on twitter: "I thank all of you for your kind reactions. I especially want to shine a light on all the drivers, who all showed their support. It meant a lot to us. I won't make any comments on the situation for at least the next few days." There were not many kind reactions, but I couldn't say anything else. We went to sleep early and hoped everyone would ease down a bit tomorrow.