Drive to Survive

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

Dylan leant her head against the window, watching the trees rush by as they finally made it out of the city. They'd been slowly navigating around the Barcelona streets for about twenty minutes and she'd had to hold in a laugh at Max's evident frustration. Any decent Spaniard knew that foreigners should not bother to drive in the city; the roads were packed with tourists and most were twisted, one-way routes.

Nevertheless, Max's expensive car was nice to sit in and they remained in comfortable silence as they finally left the city and headed up the coastal road towards Montgat.

A muted thrum of excitement was swimming around in Dylan's stomach, being in such close proximity to Max after all the events of the last day or so. Now she'd been given the go-ahead from Christian and Carlos, Max was the last piece of this confusing, emotionally draining puzzle to hopefully fall into place.

She admired him subtly, her head lolled back against the headrest.

His eyes were focused on navigating the road in front of him and, unsurprisingly, he drove completely confidently, weaving smoothly between cars throughout the different lanes. She felt at ease with him behind the wheel and the scrunch in his forehead said he was entirely focused on the task at hand. He may be a reckless driver at times in his F1 car but she was safe here.

Before he could catch her admiring his jawline, she tilted her head back to look out the window. The scenery continued to rush past and it was only another twenty minutes or so until they were cruising around Montgat, a tiny coastal municipality. Max had either been here before or had done some prior research because he confidently navigated them up a grassy hill and came to a stop.

As she stepped out of the car, the coastal breeze whipped Dylan's hair behind her and slammed the car door shut for her. Startled at the sound, she jumped around and laughed at Max's face as he too climbed out the car and was met with the whistling wind. Shaking his head, he opened up the back door and pulled out a pile of material. Dylan realised it was a blanket.

"Come on." He nodded over to a pathway.

As she walked towards him, Dylan looked back nervously at his incredibly expensive car precariously parked on a windy hill, "Will she..."

"She'll be fine." He waved her off.

Max led them down the pathway towards the beach, where the wind was a bit less brutal. It was completely deserted around them. Whether the early May weather had yet to tempt the locals out into the sea or most people were at church on a Sunday, she wasn't sure, but the privacy was nice.

When they'd wandered along the beach long enough for Max's content, he lay the blanket down on the ground and gestured for Dylan to sit down.

"You know, for someone who grew up in a very land-locked town, I really love the sea."

Dylan smiled, "Me too. I like the sounds. I'm not good at swimming though."

"No." Max frowned, "Me neither, actually."

"And the deep water scares me."

"Yes...me too."

"And I would rather die than go in a submarine."

"I absolutely agree."

"So maybe we don't actually love the sea that much." Dylan ventured.

Max snorted in laughter, "Well, I like looking at it from the land."

"You're an idiot." She chuckled but wholeheartedly agreeing with him.

He sobered up, shifting awkwardly on the blanket and taking a deep breath. He'd been gearing himself up for the entire drive and the time had come to lay everything out on the line. No matter what she said now, Max would know that he had given it everything he had and that was all he could ask of himself.