It begins with a random room assignment. Conveniently, Marie Couture’s roommate decided that McGill was not for her and dropped out, leaving her with hopefully a single once the spring semester began. That is, until, Valentine Angel Font-Vial with her disrespectfully long and somehow more French name (despite not actually being French) appears at her door with a suitcase and red-rimmed eyes.
And it gives Marie her new project.
Marie is a film student, when she isn’t on the slopes, that is. She has been snowboarding since she could walk, living on mountains her entire life. Eventually what was her way of spending her afternoons became competitions, which became province leagues, which became Olympic teams. And suddenly Marie is wearing a Team Canada jacket at the 2016 youth games in Lillehammer. Then she is booted back to real life where she needs to pretend to be completely normal about what just occurred in her life until 2018 where she will be going to the big girl Olympics. Marie is a professional athlete and Valentine Angel (who she later learns to call Angel, which turns into Ange, which turns into—inevitably, as it does with anyone who calls her Ange—mon Ange) was a professional athlete. And now she’s forced to be normal. Even more so than Marie is currently being forced to be normal.
Marie decides it would make a pretty damn good documentary.
The first scene is an introduction:
Angel is sitting cross-legged on her dorm room bed, hair straightened and long, brushing her thighs while she sits. Marie is filming with the camera she rented from her favorite professor.
Marie asks the first question, “Please introduce yourself?”
Angel sighs as if she’s the most famous person in the world, “Angel Font—”
“Full name, Angel.”
“Valentine Angel Font-Vial,” Angel corrects herself. Marie looks happy at her face through the viewfinder, she looks like she’s in turmoil. It’ll make great television.
“What sport did you play, Valentine Angel?” Marie asks the next question, reading from her iPhone notes.
“Do not call me Valentine Angel. It sounds silly.”
“S’il te plait, Angel?” The girls agreed that it would be best filmed in English. The pair originally spoke to each other only in French for a week before giving up with the slight dialect differences that come from European French and Québécois French.
“I was a Formula 2 driver for the 2017 season,” Angel says, then continues, “I was going to race for Williams in 2018, but I had to quit due to external circ*mstances.”
“Spoken like a true media pro, non?” Marie shifts herself then curses as she changes the camera angle, she should have saved for a gimbal, “Is Williams your dream team?”
Angel laughs for the first time since Marie met her three weeks ago, “No. Williams is not a team you want to race for. You cannot win a championship in a Williams. At the moment.”
Marie laughs but she isn’t sure what is so funny, she doesn’t understand Formula 1 racing just yet, but she’s sure she’ll get there, “What is your dream team, then?”
“Anywhere Sebastian Vettel has been I think.”
Marie does not recognize the name, but she places it in a mental list of things to actually research before starting a project, “Where has he raced?”
“Red Bull and Ferrari are the big ones.” Angel knows that Marie would not recognize any team but the big names.
“Oh! I am sponsored by Red Bull. I think? They do a lot for extreme winter sports,” Marie explains.
Angel looks so genuinely interested in Marie’s life and it prompts her to keep talking. Marie ends up with nearly 10 minutes of footage of Angel looking happy to think about anything other than F1.
F2 UPDATES @/formula2updates
BREAKING: Valentine Vial announces retirement despite having a contract with Williams for the 2018 F1 season. She did not explain her decision making through this process outside of the fact that it was “extenuating circ*mstances” and that she apologizes “to all those whose dreams she is breaking”
30.11.2017
↳F2 UPDATES @/formula2updates: Any hateful comments will be deleted. Despite any personal grievances you may have regarding VV12, she’s been the one to break the ceiling in F1 and has been an inspiration to women in motorsport internationally.
The next time the two girls sit down to film footage for the documentary is when Marie finds out that Angel does not have her driver’s license.
The camera is shoved into Angel’s side as she sits in the driver’s seat of Marie’s car, “How did you race cars without a driver’s license?”
“I do have a driver’s license. I got one at 16 but in England. You cannot drive in my home country until 18.” Angel’s hands tense on the steering wheel but she begins to drive as the light ahead of her turns green.
Marie seems satisfied, “I think you are a good driver.”
“I am decent. I have been better, I can—could have been better,” Angel says. Her voice is thin like a guitar string. Realistically she knows that road car driving and race car driving are not the same. This changes nothing.
“You are better than me. I ran into a trash can the first time I drove a car after getting my permit,” Marie laughs.
Angel smiles, as close to a laugh as she can put up when she’s in a car and she’s reminded of all the things she has lost before she could even touch them, taste them, see them, feel them.
“I am thankful that you’re letting me borrow your car to practice for my exam,” Angel says, her voice loosening and becoming softer (more like how she sounds when she speaks in her native language, Marie would later find out).
Marie waves her hand, “I am glad that you think I can help with driving at all.”
Angel shakes her head, “Non, you are not helping very much. I think if I take the test now I would pass it. It is simply required that I wait three months on this stupid course. You with driving… you are a pocatraça.”
“A pocatraça?” Marie questions. She still does not know where Angel is originally from—the information never coming up. She knows the word isn’t French. It felt similar though, like listening to the other creole languages, pidgins between French and whatever place they colonized.
“It’s like an idiot. My brother used to say it quite a bit.” Memories of Angel young and bright-eyed in a kart flood her. Her brother acts as her teacher, telling her her movements are too janky for the karts. She denies him, despite him being right. The bad habits followed her over a decade later.
Marie laughs to herself again. She has traveled far and wide with her sport, just as Angel has, and enjoys learning about other cultures. She swallows the knowledge up voraciously. She will learn more about Angel’s home country than Angel herself will know in the future. Angel will not even be mad about it.
The most famous part of the documentary is one where Valentine Angel is not present at all past a mention and a glance. Angel promised to take Marie on a tour through Europe the summer of 2019, starting at her family’s Ski Resort and moving inwards and upwards and down and out. They reach Monaco, far too easily in Angel’s opinion, and find themselves at a café that only people who spend a decent amount of time in Monaco would know about.
“Mon Ange, can you please order for us both? I am scared my French is not going to be understandable,” Marie laments, but her camera is on the table with the red light on. It takes a year but Marie starts watching Formula races and researching and going onto Wikipedia and searching names of people she knows and it gives her headaches to see mon Ange in a balaclava crying on a podium at 15, but she sees it and saves it to her folder titled: documentaire pour ange. This gives her the knowledge to recognize Nico Rosberg at the table behind Angel and yet does not give her the knowledge enough to realize she was about to do something insane.
Angel scoffs, “You did not have this problem in France, chérie.”
Marie smiles like she always does and Angel laughs this time because despite being in Monaco she is with Marie and it has been only a year and a half and she definitely does not know the time down to the day since she has last been in Monaco , “I do not respect the French like I respect Monaco-ans.”
“Monégasques, chérie.” Angel is standing up anyways and making her way toward the counter to order a second round of pastries.
Marie takes her chance. She too stands up and starts walking to where Nico Rosberg is sitting, reading a book and seemingly enjoying herself. Marie knows two things about Nico Rosberg: 1.) brocedes and 2.) he retired after brocedes. This does not forewarn her against bringing it up to him, in public, and on film.
“Bonjour, monsieur,” Marie starts before cringing at her Québécois accent and switching to English, “Could I please interview you for my documentary?”
Nico looks shocked and a little confused.
“Please?” Marie puts on her puppy dog eyes. (Perhaps it would have been easier had she not been wearing a Red Bull snowboarding shirt. The immediate image of the crimson bull sending, well, red flags to Nico.)
“What is… the documentary on…?” Nico asks eventually. He feels too old looking at this 20-year-old ( Red Bull athlete ) documentarian.
Marie sits in the chair across from him eagerly, Nico has not noticed that she has been filming this entire time, “It is on retired athletes. Well, really just my friend over there.” Marie points to Angel, who is now flirting with the counter worker unabashedly, “And I happen to know that you are a retired athlete—”
“I do not think—”
“She was in F2 when she quit. I convinced her to take us into this city so that I could have a higher chance of meeting one of you drivers, I know it is summer break. How lucky am I that the one who is perfect for the documentary is the one we run into? Non?” Marie is overzealous in her endeavors for this documentary. Her professors say she has talent. She dreamt of an Oscar at night, one to place beside an Olympic gold metal. She thinks that this, this will give it to her. Marie and Angel and Nico and so many other athletes are similar in that way. That it will just take one more try, one more season, one more race. (One more scene, one more term to work on the documentary, one more chance for Angel to grow and change and open up and be less resentful. Maybe a world pandemic will help.)
Luckily, with a stroke of divine luck, Nico is intrigued, “She was in F2?” He thinks he would have heard of a girl in Formula 2, she looks so young. It can’t have been too long ago when she quit. Quit is the operating word in Nico’s mind. Marie just hasn’t gotten close enough to Angel to know that she did not quit. Angel is many things that are bad, but she is not a quitter.
Marie, ever happy to talk about her best friend, rattles off her Wikipedia page to the man, “She participated in the 2017 inaugural Formula 2 competition and placed I believe third. Then she quit! It would have been a bigger story if she had her, like, plans to move up confirmed but I do not fully understand how it all works. She was really good. She’d never tell you that—but I watched some of her F3 races and just wow. She was second in F3 but it really was close between her and this boy! Her performance dropped off in F2 and she hasn’t really explained it to me fully and I don’t really understand the sport well eno—”
Nico cuts her off, “What is your friend’s name?” He does not recognize her based on her story. Not surprising though. Why would he watch F2 the year after he retired? Or F3 during 2016. Past seeing the races in glimpses when the Grand Prix’s coincided, he hasn’t thought about the feeder series in years.
“Valentine Angel Font-Vial,” Marie says, tinted slightly with Angel’s accent. She’s only ever heard Angel say her full name before, she does not know any other way to say it.
Nico nods. And then nods again.
“You will let me interview you?” Marie asks. Nico nods, feeling distinctly out of his body as he nods for the third time.
“Perfect! I can meet you here tomorrow at 10:00 in the morning? Mon Ange is usually on her run at that time,” Marie prattles on needlessly. Nico has already agreed, already took out his phone to check his calendar.
The interview itself is less popular than the first sighting of Nico and the meeting. But it goes something like this:
Marie COUTURE: Good morning, Mr. Rosberg.
Nico ROSBERG: Good morning, Ms. Marie…
Marie COUTURE: Couture. Neat name, right?
Nico ROSBERG: Yes, I suppose so.
Marie COUTURE: So, I wanted to talk to you about your feelings regarding motorsport since you retired.
Nico ROSBERG: Right. Anything in specific, or just generally?
Marie COUTURE: Whatever you want to do first.
Nico ROSBERG: …I suppose it is natural to miss something that consumes your entire life the way that motorsport can. I know that leaving racing did not take me away from the paddock. I even got involved in different denominations—just not as a driver again.
Marie COUTURE: Not to sound insanely rude or weird, but if the factors coinciding your retirement… your family… were not there, would you have continued racing?
Nico ROSBERG: That’s certainly a question, Ms. Couture. I don’t think so. I think… I think when you know you know. Winning the championship was a goal of mine and once you reach that goal, at least to me, I feel like you have nothing else really to do. I needed to reassess my priorities and when I did, motorsport was not above things like my family or my personal health.
Marie COUTURE: Oh, deep. Thanks. I did some research into your winning season. Do you think all the things you did—it sounds absolutely American Psycho by the way—were 100% necessary? Would you recommend that to your juniors?
Nico ROSBERG: I am of the belief that whatever it takes to win is whatever it takes. That is what it took me to clinch the championship. I think my juniors can decide for themselves what they are willing to do for their own championship. Though it would depend on your competition of course.
Marie COUTURE: Of course. I would do many things to win an Olympic gold. That is very different from the championship though. More of a one and done deal.
Nico ROSBERG: You do snowboarding right?
Marie COUTURE: Yes.
Nico ROSBERG: I think that having aspirations no matter the sport are necessary to truly reach a full potential.
Marie COUTURE: I’ll keep that in mind, thank you. Next line of discussion: did you look up anything regarding Valentine Angel?
Nico ROSBERG: I—No. Not really.
Marie COUTURE: That’s okay. I know I said that she did not tell me much of her season in 2017, but I lied partially. She did tell me that her engineers or team or whatever you have told her to use similar strategies that you were using in 2016. Specifically, losing weight to make the car faster. Thoughts?
Nico ROSBERG: Did it work?
Marie COUTURE: Uh… I do not know. Maybe?
Nico ROSBERG: It is a waste and a painful thing to do if it does not work. For her sake, I hope that it achieved the results her team wanted.
Marie COUTURE: Do you have any advice for other athletes who have recently retired or quit from their lifelong sports?
Nico ROSBERG: Grieve for as long as you need—but never go back on your principles. I retired and I committed to that retirement. Whether or not I miss the feeling of a track underneath me in a car is not important in the long run.
Marie COUTURE: It is like that Dr. Seuss quote—Don’t frown because it is over, smile because it happened?
Nico ROSBERG: I—What? I guess… Something like that.
(When the documentary comes out in early 2022, Nico Rosberg has forgotten about the little interview he did three years prior. He does not, however, forget about Valentine Angel Font-Vial.
He actually will go home after the interview and immediately search her up. He will obsessively watch her races from her junior series, going in chronological order. He will watch a meteoric rise to the top of a girl who drives so f*cking choppily he will feel sick to his stomach watching her take turns. He will think of his own daughters. He will watch her 2017 season and think of how it went so wrong. The car will look like it is fighting against her instead of fighting for her. He will be confused and concerned because this is Formula 2, all of the cars should perform somewhat the same. He will watch her push forward in every race and sprint and do consistently well and place third in the season without winning a fastest lap. He will wonder what changed in the months between F3 2016 and F2 2017. He will see the effects that Marie mentioned on Valentine’s body, her getting slighter with every interview she may have. Her face will be gaunt and her hair will look stringy and thinner. Nico will squirm in his seat at the sight of a girl— how old is she? —go from a healthy, athletic weight to borderline. He will wonder what the employees who weigh her say, what her engineers say when they have to add more counter-weights to meet regulations. Nico will watch her get her first and only first place in a feature race in the last race and he will watch her cry and sob on her step and he will realize that despite the fact that she has placed in the top five for every race her family has not been present once. Nico will wish he could go back in time and support her himself. Nico sees himself in her.
Nico will later fund an organization that Susie Wolff starts that creates a space for female drivers in Formula Academy.
Nico will meet Valentine Angel again, and he will tell her that he would have supported her career himself. Would be her first sponsor if she went back. He will be the first person to tell her to get back into a single-seater. Nico will realize that he can be hypocritical because he knows— he knows —what it is like to grieve racing, and he will tell Valentine Angel to return to it, at all costs.)
To: [emailprotected]
From: [emailprotected]
Hello Angel,
I hope this email finds you well. I received your email via Robert from Voitours, which I hope is okay. Attached is a make-shift contract that you would be signing when you begin your internship with Oracle RedBull Racing’s engineering department. A full written one will be made by this Sunday, if you choose to accept and you would be able to sign at the race. If the internship goes well, over the summer break we can discuss a full-time position as an assistant. I’ve included a Paddock Pass, which I gave to Robert to give to you. Please respond to this email with any questions and a confirmation that you received the Paddock Pass.
Cheers!
Christian Horner
The documentary’s stock footage is found through Marie recording Angel in her everyday life. Her studying, her sleeping, her working out. You would think that this would include a lot of footage of Angel eating. But, in 2021, when Marie realizes she actually has to do something with the hours and hours of footage she’s collected, she rarely sees Angel eat. That’s not to say she doesn’t—Angel has eaten in front of Marie before—but she doesn’t do it on camera.
What Angel does on camera, a lot , is smoke. Marie has at least thirty minutes of footage of Angel sitting on the roof of her car, of their building, on the top of a trail, etcetera with a cigarette that she rolled herself (“My parents send them to me. They’re Andorran grown.”) breathing in and out, slowly.
Marie does not question it. She wonders if she should have. Marie vapes anyways, though she’s trying to quit. Angel shows no signs.
After the documentary releases in late 2021, the community is in shambles. Marie’s own fans of either her career in snowboarding or the other smaller projects she’s released through her degree in film agree that it is her greatest film so far. Motorsport fans are shocked. Some remembered Valentine Angel Font-Vial (Valentine Vial #12 as she was known. The Girl had less syllables.) but most didn’t know who she was, new fans from the DTS era or people who just didn’t follow lower formulas. Her original fans from way back when and the new ones who suddenly felt like she was robbed swarmed TikTok and Twitter.
cl16 WDC when? @/lestappentruth3r:
finding out that there was a girl max verstappen has officially broken my brain
↳Nina @/Nina.formula.03: She isn’t a “female Max Verstappen” tell me you didn’t watch the documentary without telling me you didn’t watch the documentary.
Marie 👍 @/marie.couture.99:
Driving the Speed Limit has received such good feedback and reviews. I am so so happy that you all like it! I called Angel this morning and she said that she has seen all the support and is very thankful for it as well.
rbr>>> @/junegivesyouwings:
be honest do you think red bull is going to keep angel as an employee? like she kinda tore up the entire sport…
↳chris @/chrisisntdriving: lando actually brought it up on stream i think! there’s clips on tiktok but he basically said that they’d be stupid to fire her.
[An edit made of clips from Driving the Speed Limit and Valentine Angel’s interview footage, it cuts a clip of her answering a question regarding her experience in the male dominated sport “It is brutal. Not for the weak-hearted.” to the end of a series of images cut to the beat of Olivia Rodrigo’s brutal .]
The caption reads: she’s olivia coded.
Pol @/bromadethese:
Seeing Nico in the new documentary actually made me want to scream and cry 😣
↳Marie 👍 @/marie.couture.99: Still reeling over him saying yes to an interview years later LMAO
↳Pol @/bromadethese: HOLY sh*t! ILY!
[A repost of fan recording that is grainy and with poor sound quality that has captions transcribing what is said from French to English. If one knew where to look they could see that it is a younger Valentine and Charles from GP3 2016, though it is unclear where they are. The captions read exactly:
Charles: I do not understand why you are so upset?
VAVF: I am not him!
Charles: What are you saying, Chou (a pet name)?
VAFV: Charles. I do not need this sh*t from you too.]
The caption of the video entirely reads: and when the brocedes fans find out about chalentines?
[A recording of Valentine Angel’s onboard footage from one of her first F2 races. The captions read her telling her engineers: “This is not Alex’s engine. Why are you doing this to me? Where is Raph?”]
The caption of the tiktok says: Val-angel’s first portents on her formula 2 season, her engineers all being switched out when she moved from F3 to F2. #vafv #fyp #f1
Valentine Vial’s no. 1 fan @VV12updates
This documentary confirmed the suspicions that Valentine was being targeted by her ART GP bosses and higher-ups and receiving worse set-ups and strategies and just overall being ousted in her own garage for being a woman. (1/?)
↳Valentine Vial’s no. 1 fan @/VV12updates: The fact that this was allowed to happen in any capacity with no repercussions during or, so far, now that it is out is outrageous and shows just how much sexism is rooted in motorsport. VAVF had a promising—if not legendary—career ahead of her and that was stripped away through (2/?)
↳Valentine Vial’s no. 1 fan @/VV12updates: psychological manipulation is insane. Valentine was the first woman in a grand prix in a loooong time—her RACE in HUNGARY (p13) were monumental for me and many other women and girls. I want justice for her and honestly, I want to see her back in the car. (3/3)
↳Valentine Vial’s no. 1 fan @/VV12updates: even if she doesn’t want to race anymore like post your paddock photos queen!!! Are she and Max friends? How have none of the 2019 rookies spoiled this? Did she and Charles make up? I need to know.
The Olympics 2018 are held in South Korea, much to Angel’s delight. Marie takes Angel with her, swearing that Team Canada would be okay with it and that Angel has enough money to afford the tickets and hotel rooms anyways.
Angel’s favorite part of it all—except skiving off of school for an insane amount of time, bless the teacher’s saint-like patience in Angel and faith in her ability to do work online—is the insane after-party that Red Bull throws for their Winter Sports athletes. It’s at the end of the events, before everyone starts packing up home but after the majority of the sponsored athletes have competed. It’s at the same level of the Red Bull Racing parties that Angel only dreamt about.
Figures that Daniel Ricciardo is at it.
Marie actually indirectly introduces Angel and Daniel. She had pulled Angel into her side and towards a booth close to the bar where ‘all of the cool RB sponsored athletes’ are. This group of people was all snowboarders and included the one and only Scotty James, a male snowboarder in the opposite categories than Marie. At Scotty’s side is Daniel—someone Angel recognizes uncomfortably fast.
Information fills her brain regarding the man, his incoming move to Renault and subsequent leaving of Red Bull. The fact that he is still at this party shows that the colors on his hat haven’t changed yet, but it’s imminent. Angel thinks she makes a face at him, but Daniel doesn't seem affected.
“Mon Ange, this is Scotty James he does half-pipe and big air, and Scotty, this is Angel, she is my roommate!” Marie chatters happily, brushing at Angel’s arm as she slides herself into the booth next to her fellow Team Canada snowboarder, Angel thinks it was Tess. Angel’s eyes dart to where Marie’s skirt rides up her thighs, showing the large line of darker black pantyhose that only appears near the upper thigh for compression. The next breath that goes through her nose feels burning. Perhaps a line of co*ke will help with that? Surely she can find some illicit drugs at an Olympics party.
“Hi,” Angel says, “It’s nice to meet you.” She bows a little bit out of instinct, South Korea’s social rules overriding the fact that she’s talking to an Australian.
Scotty nods at Angel, a wide smile on her face, “Evening Angel. This is my friend Daniel.”
Daniel extends a hand to Angel, “G’d evening.”
Angel slides in next to Daniel, “It’s nice to meet you.” Angel wipes her palm against the knit of her skirt before shaking Daniel’s hand.
He laughs and it sounds much more real in person than over a recorded interview, “Enchanté.”
“What brings you to the Olympics?” Daniel asks eventually. It had been around five minutes. Marie left the table to get Angel a drink and returned with a vodka Red Bull, a teasing smirk on her face as she held the can already cracked open.
Angel takes a sip of the Red Bull, her lips tensing at the signature flavor and the taste of the alcohol, “Marie is my roommate, like she said.” Angel’s head tips forward a little bit. The fur-lined collar of her coat tickles at her throat and Angel slides it off of her arms to stop the sensation. Goosebumps erupt on the now exposed skin of her back, peeking out through her backless bodysuit.
“I think I was distracted when she mentioned it…” Daniel’s eyes are hot against Angel’s skin. She purses her lips.
“Why are you at the Olympics? Other than being Scotty’s friend.” Angel takes another sip at the can.
Daniel breathes out a laugh, “I’m not actually sure. I hate the cold.”
Angel hums, “Bit of a bad time to come then. Have you been to Korea before?”
“No. I’ve been to Japan, China, Singapore and a few other places in the area.” Daniel shook his head.
“Did you win in any of those?” Angel asks before she could stop herself. She blinks her eyes a few times in shock at herself.
Daniel seems shocked too, “China.” He takes a long sip from his drink (not a vodka Red Bull, the lucky f*cker, Angel does not want to get wasted tonight) before asking her, “Are you an F1 fan?”
Angel tenses, “Not really. I don’t watch it anymore.” Angel pauses, “I know you’re changing teams though.”
“It sounds like you have thoughts on that.” Daniel looks at Angel in a certain way that makes her blush.
“I’m sure everyone has thoughts on you moving.” Angel watches Marie and her teammate laugh to each other for a moment.
Daniel sighs but it doesn’t sound that bad in his accent or just inherent optimism he seems to exude, “What’re your thoughts? Can’t hurt to hear another person’s. An ex-fan at that.”
Angel scoffs, “I wasn’t one of your fans. How could you assume that?”
A bright smile seems to reflect on Angel’s face, “Even better. Tell me, Angel. I’m moving to Renault, thoughts?” He says her name like ayn-gel, the Anglicized way.
“I think that the biggest issue of the Red Bull car is reliability and changing engines would hopefully fix that. I think that if you are moving because of money—then fair. But if it’s because you don’t want to be a second driver…” Angel leans her jaw against the palm of her hand, resting her weight onto her elbow on the sticky table, “I think that second drivers on top teams win more than first drivers on mid-field. And I know that winning feels f*cking amazing.”
“Yeah? You know winning feels amazing?”
“I won one race my F2 year,” She shouldn’t be saying this right now. She must be drunk , “I was the second driver and I still beat my teammate, that one race. And all the others. And in the standings.”
Daniel’s entire body pitches closer to Angel, he shadows above her, “What? You probably weren’t the second driver if you were beating him that badly. And it’s F2, do they even do second and first drivers like that—”
“They told me they didn’t want me to get enough points for my license. I did anyway.” Angel shrugs.
Daniel looks at her incredulously, “This is a weird joke.”
“I’m not joking. I have a wikipedia page and everything,” Angel laughs.
“Yeah?” Daniel smiles. Angel finishes her vodka Red Bull, remembering why she doesn’t drink.
“Y’know I think you’ll be back at Red Bull before you retire,” Angel says, thrusting a finger toward Daniel’s chest.
Daniel catches it in his fist, “Wanna bet?” He tugs Angel forward a few inches and it forces Angel to catch herself on Daniel’s thigh. She nods, breathless.
“How much?”
“How much…?” Daniel pauses and ponders, “1,000 euros.”
Angel forces air through her teeth, “A hard bargain. But I know I’ll win.”
Later on in the evening, when Angel is even drunker, Daniel is sidled up next to her as he and Scotty escort her and Marie to a taxi. His breaths hit against the skin on her scalp and she feels the words he says to her more than hears them, “Will I see you on the track, Angel?”
Angel laughs bitterly, “No. You’ll probably never see me again.”
The taxi is in front of her. Scotty opens the door and pushes Marie inside and turns to push her inside as well.
Her back cranes so she can face Daniel again, “2022?” She calls out over the noise of the bar. Daniel’s smile gets fractionally wider.
Daniel gets her number from Scotty who gets it from Marie the next morning. In Angel’s hungover state, she saves it and texts back.
[A carousel of photos from the 2018 Winter Olympics. Keen eyes can spot Valentine Vial in the ensemble post at the end, dressed in a slinky black bodysuit with mesh paneling and a short black knitted skirt, trimmed in ostrich feathers.]
danielricciardo: Winter Olympics 2k18! Amazing job to @scottyjames31 on the bronze!
Angel is lying on Max’s couch when she realizes that hey, Netflix here has Marie’s documentary . Jimmy and Sassy are lying on her stomach, a comfortable weight over her body. Max is at the end of the couch with her feet in his lap. He is the one controlling the remote and upon seeing Angel’s (no—not Angel. Angel is blonde and the woman on the cover is not Angel. Can’t be Angel. Not his Angel.) on the cover he immediately chooses that movie. It is under new and recommended on his home page. A quick read through of the description shows that it is about motorsport. Normally, Max would not want to watch a documentary on motorsport, avoids it actually, but that’s Angel .
Angel only really realizes when she hears Marie’s voice come through the TV speakers. Asking for Angel to introduce herself. She doesn’t speak, busying herself in Jimmy and Sassy. Or her phone. Or literally anything but watching the documentary (which she has already seen, already lived) or Max’s reactions to it. At the halfway point, Angel has curled into herself, tucking her toes under her thighs and removing herself from Max’s vicinity entirely. He lets her, but Angel does not know if it is out of anger that she has hid this part of her from him or shame of what she went through at the weight of his name.
For what it is worth, (a lot in Angel’s head but she knows they are not the same) Angel has never blamed anyone but herself and the media for what occurred during her F3 and F2 seasons. She always thought the more fitting comparison, career-wise, was Lando since they were actually competing together. The only things Max and Angel—Valentine—had in common was a gap of age between themselves and their peers. But it wasn’t that insane for Valentine, like Max’s was. Valentine had those around her close in age (Lando, God bless him, Valentine could only have so many friends be 3+ years older than her) where Max did not. He was in a world on his own and those who reported on the feeder series thought that Valentine was the closest star to the sun. The thing about that is stars really aren’t ever that close together.
Angel leaves before the end of the documentary.
(She doesn’t see the scene where Marie throws up a little career comparison between Max and Angel. Angel beats him to the youngest F1 debut by around 30 days. The lackluster result makes the record less sweet. Max sees it. Wonders how he never hears about her. How her history is written off as luck of the draw. Being in the right place at the right time, with the right quasi-team principal controlling Williams.)
Embarrassingly, she climbs over the back of the couch rather than walk within Max’s reach. She needs to leave the vicinity, escape his reaction when the movie inevitably ends. It's awkward, the way that Sassy jumps off of her stomach as she shifts and slithers around the couch’s back. She gets around it though, without too much commotion. Max had been thoroughly entranced in the documentary (the videos of Angel discussing races, clips of her onboards, an interview with Nico f*cking Rosberg, clips of Angel learning what it meant to live a ‘slow’ life driving in a Toyota Corolla around Montreal and going to college) and does not notice her. Angel finds her suitcase, because of course when Max Verstappen asks you to come spend some of winter break with him in Monaco you say yes, and grabs her wallet and an old pair of Adidas out of it. She considers writing a note but she literally is leaving in front of him and Sassy wasn’t exactly subtle with the way she launched off of Angel.
Upon exiting Max’s apartment and finding herself in the lobby of his building, Angel does realize that she doesn’t have a car, or hotel, or really any idea what she is attempting to do here. It’s late and cold and Angel only knew so many people in Monaco.
Like all roads leading to Rome, all texts in Monaco lead to Arthur Leclerc. Her number twin. f*cker stole it when she retired.
He answers the same way he did in 2019, when Angel finds herself alone in the city during a break and realizes that retiring from motorsport did not ruin all of the relationships she has ever made, with a quick: “tu sais où j'habite." (you know where I live.) And Angel does remember the route to his family home. She takes it relatively quickly, not wanting to be caught alone at night in the city with only her phone and her wallet to defend herself. The cold is setting into her as well, she is only dressed in her lounge clothes. Sweatpants that are hers, a sweater that isn’t. Angel doesn’t clock the noise that emanates from the Leclerc’s front door, doesn’t think when she knocks on it.
So really, it’s not a surprise when she nearly sh*ts herself when Charles opens the door to her. The two of them had been dancing around each other for half a year now—her joining Red Bull after the Canadian Grand Prix and him not recognizing her despite everything (blessings, blessings, blessings. Angel texts Alex Albon after France).
“Bonsoir, Charles.” Angel shifts from her right foot to her left and back again. Twinges of pain shoot across her hips from the movement and the walking she’s just done.
“It’s nearly ten, chou,” Charles says. His French warms Angel along with the feeling of the air inside the Leclerc home.
(They talk about it finally after Hungary. For the amount of suffocating tension between the pair, talking about it was easy to do. Relationships don’t change between the two, but the silence is gone and a mutual understanding takes its place. Charles never called her Valentine anyways, so there wasn’t anything to change in that sense. A small victory for them both.)
“I texted Arthur,” Angel explains. Charles nods but looks confused. He steps aside to let Angel into the doorway.
Arthur appears like he heard his name, “Chou! You did not tell me you were in Monaco until your text. What are you doing here? Are you okay?”
“I am staying with another friend.” Angel smiles. Charles’ eyes bore holes into her sweater, increasingly familiar, no doubt, he’s probably the original owner of it. Angel continues, “I just wanted to see if you were in town and perhaps spend a portion of the night together.”
Arthur seems pleased with it and leads Angel further into his home. Lorenzo and Pascale are further inside and both are as surprised as Charles was to see her.
“Hello,” Angel greets them, “Pardon my intrusion. It is lovely to see you both again. I am sorry to interrupt family night.”
Pascale is first on her feet, “Hello, Valentine! It’s been years since I have seen you. How have you been?”
Angel smiles, “I have been good! I went to college.”
“In Canada, right?” Lorenzo asks. Angel cranes her neck to see his face and the grin on it almost sets her back out into the streets. They’ve watched the documentary too.
“Yeah. McGill in Montreal. I’m a Québécois now.” Angel feels more uncomfortable. Perhaps Max would have been better than this teasing.
Arthur claps his hand on Angel’s shoulder. “Chou, our movie star. Please sit and tell us about your documentary—which you did not mention when you last visited.”
Charles lags behind his younger brother, “Last visited?”
Pascale matches her middle son in expression, “Documentary? Valentine, you have a documentary?”
“No—” Angel is forced onto a worn leather couch, Christmas decorations dotting the surrounding surfaces, “—I don’t have a documentary. My friend made a documentary about me. I didn’t mention it in 2019 because it was unimportant.” Angel tries to make eye-contact as she answers each Leclerc’s question.
There’s silence for a moment. Arthur breaks it.
“So, are you winning an Oscar this year? Leading Actress?”
Angel glares at him. Her fingers dip down to her feet and she slides her shoes off so she can force her legs onto Arthur. Consequence of sitting next to her on the couch.
Charles is on the other side of Angel, she tries not to think about how their shoulders are brushing. His phone is vibrating almost as much as hers is now. It’s Max. For the both of them, probably.
“Let’s watch something!” Pascale calls out to the room. She snatches up the remote and puts on some French reality TV series, remembering that Valentine liked watching trashy TV from years ago. It tugs at Angel’s heart.
After a few episodes, the only people left in the room are Arthur, Angel, and Charles. But Arthur is asleep and that really just leaves Angel and Charles.
“Max is looking for you,” Charles whispers. Their bodies have gotten closer together over the hours. Angel’s feet are still on Arthur but her head is leaning against Charles and his head leans against hers. Any further and she’d be laying in his lap.
“I know,” Angel responds. She doesn’t actually, she hasn’t looked at her phone since she arrived. Too afraid, she reasons.
Charles’ jaw tenses against the top of Angel’s head, “You’re wearing my sweater.”
Angel shakes against him as she laughs breathlessly, “I figured it was yours. Way too non-Red Bull to be Max’s. I’m sorry?”
“It’s fine.” Charles is a furnace against Angel, her feet curl up against her and off of Arthur, seeking the warmth.
“Did you tell him where I was?” Angel asks. It’s deeper than that though, a secondary question: Are we talking about this? Whatever weird relationship that was between Max and Charles that she thrusted herself in the middle of.
Charles sighs, “Not yet…” Angel digs her face into Charle’s shoulder, her nose burning as tears well up in her eyes, “But, mon petit chou, soon.” A hand comes to rest on the back of her skull, petting at her hair.
Angel whimpers, small and quiet against Charles and infinitely embarrassing, “You are very annoying, carinyo. Bragging.”
“You cannot know what will happen before it happens, chou.”
Angel forces her head back up to make eye-contact with Charles, and she does, his green eyes are millimeters away from hers, “You two are on another level. There is no discussion. I—I am never competition.” And his eyes aren’t on her anymore, and they’re on her lips instead, and Angel feels 16, 17 again. Butterflies that adorn her helmet designs inside her stomach now.
Charles' mouth presses against hers to quiet her. It’s the first time they’ve touched each other like this since 2017. Angel lets him dip into her body. His hand snakes around her waist and the other remains against her head, Charles is pulling her into his lap against him. They part to breathe for a moment but Charles does not let her speak before kissing her again. Angel lets it distract her from her racing thoughts, which all change to be Charles, Charles, Charles.
“Mon petit chou,” Charles pants into Angel’s mouth, “We could…”
Angel knows what Charles is insinuating, “Carinyo.” Angel mouths at the side of Charles’ lips, kissing everywhere but his mouth, “Do not say things you do not mean.”
Charles braces his hands on Angel’s shoulders and pushes her lightly to create space between the two. Green meets brown. “I mean—”
There’s three harsh raps at the door. Angel scrambles to untangle herself from Charles. She stands wobbly legged a few feet away from Charles, ending up in front of the television and casting shadows on Charles and Arthur. Arthur who shifts wearily in his sleep. Charles immediately whips his head towards his younger brother, not wanting him to wake up to whomever is at the door.
‘Who is it?’ Angel mouths. Charles is just standing from his spot on the couch then and he shrugs his shoulders before walking to the front door further away. Angel watches his body grow smaller and darker as he meanders through the halls. Suddenly uncomfortable to be alone in the house, Angel turns to the TV and turns it off from the button on the screen’s perimeter.
Angel hears the English through the walls and immediately knows that her period of waiting is over. Max and Charles are arguing about something—she’s too tired to translate anything in her mind though. Arthur becomes her pillow as she props herself up against him, laying her torso against his own. She can hear footsteps moving closer but she closes her eyes and tries to breathe deeper with each moment. Maybe she can convince them that she is asleep. Arthur emanates heat and lulls her into a calmed state.
“She is sleeping?” Max asks Charles. Angel cannot see, obviously she has her eyes closed, but she can feel the four eyes upon her.
Charles must screw his face while looking at Angel and Max groans. Charles sighs, “Uh… Yeah, clearly.”
Angel can hear Max roll his eyes, “You are a sh*t liar. She is a sh*t liar.”
Charles giggles, the way he only really does for Max, “This is one of her better performances. When we were in ART together, she would fake sleep to get out of any media we had. I don’t know how Raphael always believed her.”
“Her engineer?” Max clarifies.
It must have clicked to Charles then, why Angel showed up at his family home so late at night, “Watched the documentaire did we?”
Angel wants to open one of her eyes, see what Max looks like, but she doesn’t. Restraint is a skill she has honed quite well.
“I did. It was…” Max trails off, “enlightening. Angel never mentioned any of this to me. Or Christian.” He tacks on the end bit as if it makes everything more incriminating.
Charles hums, “It was an open secret amongst those of us who knew her previously. I’m surprised Lando never told you about it. Chou was close with all of that group—Lando, George, and especially Alex, they were teammates for a while. All began in Britain.”
“Chou?”
“We were teammates too, a friendly nickname.”
Max makes a noise from the back of his throat, “It does not sound friendly.” The hypocrisy is lost on the two of them, apparently. Angel is keenly aware of the pet names they have for each other: schatje and mon cœur, the over abundance of baby, my love.
Charles scoffs, “We are not going to argue about my nicknames with people. That is like saying—”
“Does she have a nickname for you?”
“She calls me carinyo sometimes. She gives nicknames more than I do, that’s how it started. She calls Alex ‘amor.’ I’m sure she has a nickname for you.”
Angel feels very uncomfortable listening to the discussion of her nicknames for those around her. It isn’t an incorrect assessment. She does have one for Max.
“Doesn’t Carlos call his girlfriend cariño?” Max asks, dead-pan.
“Well, I think they’re different languages. Spanish and Catalan.” Thanks, Charles.
Max pauses for a second, no doubt staring Charles down, “I watched the documentary.”
Angel cannot tell if he’s repeating it to Charles or to her. Angel remembers talking about her relationship with her peers in various interviews throughout the three year long filming process—keenly remembers a slightly drunk interview where she monologues about Charles for at least half an hour—but Marie never told her what made it into the documentary and what didn’t, and Angel, of course, does not want to watch it. Certainly not with Max.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it good?”
“I’m sure it wasn’t as good as living it.”
“Are you getting mad at me right now? For something that happened half a decade ago and had nothing to do with me?”
“Angel was obviously struggling. There was interview and race footage and—”
“I know! I was there! The entire f*cking grid knew what was happening! Valentine just didn’t need anything else on her plate past her family. I didn’t need anything else that year —”
Angel decides that she should stop pretending to sleep before Charles talks about things that he doesn’t fully understand or fully want to discuss this way. She blinks her eyes open and pushes off of Arthur’s form. Charles thankfully stops talking immediately and looks down at her, glaring daggers at her even pretending to sleep at that moment.
“Hello sleeping beauty.” Charles pulls on Angel’s arm to force her to stand up from the couch.
“Quelle belle soirée nous passons, n'est-ce pas?" (What a lovely night we are having, no?) Angel smiles at Charles, though the squint in her eyes doesn’t match it.
Max stands adjacent to the pair, “I don’t speak French.”
Angel shifts her gaze towards the dutchman, “Hi, Max.”
“Good evening, Angel,” He responds, “You ran away.” His tone isn’t scathing like she anticipated. Dutch bluntness, or whatever.
“Ah. I suppose I did,” Angel says. She’s unsure if she is supposed to defend her actions or not. She doesn’t know how she would.
“She does it all the f*cking time,” Charles cuts in. “This always happened in 2017.”
Angel turns back to Charles and back-hands his shoulder, “When I was seven-f*cking-teen!”
Charles’ tone is biting, “I think you’ve only regressed in maturity since then.”
“You would know, wouldn’t you? Always saying I’m so mature for my age, older than I am?” Angel retorts. The boy’s face drops open in shock, the fact that Angel even went there, using his own words against him years later is too much to keep a straight face to.
“Valentine—” Charles starts.
“Angel, why didn’t you say anything? To Christian at least?” Max cuts Charles off.
Angel crosses her arms against her chest, “I didn’t not tell either of you. Christian could have read my contract—I wrote my full name out. His fault for not connecting the dots. I was never affiliated with Red Bull, granted.”
Max’s face reddens a little bit, “But you didn’t tell me . Because apparently everyone else knew.” Oh, right, Angel thinks, I did specifically tell all of my old friends not to tell you.
“I guess I was embarrassed? It’s not like we’ve never met before…” Angel turns her body closer to Charles. Suddenly feeling more partial to the Monégasque than Max. It does little, with the way Charles’ edges are Max’s beginnings.
“We met?” Max’s memory is better than most, the three of them all knew that. Angel never raced against Max in a way that mattered though.
“I filled in for Massa in Hungary, 2017…” Angel arched an eyebrow at Max.
Max makes a squawking noise from the back of his throat. Charles laughs but it feels awkward as he does so. Angel thinks Max is doing the math in his head.
Charles’ hand reaches for Max’s, “Youngest F1 debut. By like a month.”
Angel averts her eyes from the junction of their hands. She feels like a voyeur. Charles is too lucky—in love. The feeling curls against her ribs and she blurts out, “Have the date memorized, Charles?” Her French accent (distinct from an actual French accent, obviously having the influence of Catalan and the years in Quebec) thickens around his name.
“f*ck off, Valentine.”
“Oh, suck your own co*ck Charles. I know you’ve tried.” Angel glares.
“Angel— Angel. Can you please come home so we can talk about this all?” Max asks. His face is becoming less red. His hand has left the grip of Charles.
Charles looks scandalized, “ Home? Maison? Votre Maison ? ” (Home? Your home?)
Angel shakes her head, “No, Charles. And no, Max. I don’t want to have a talk through about it. It was my life for a while. My life now is what you know about. Who cares about the things I did before college? Are you just desperate for information about me? Because if you are, ask Alex.”
“The things you did before college? Angel I could tell it was more than that through the documentary!” Max gets a little bit louder and Angel glances back to Arthur reflexively.
Charles scoffs, “It obviously didn’t mean that much to her since she quit so easily.” The two men’s bodies turned into each other, blocking Angel from the conversation despite it being about her. Angel takes the moment to squat down in front of Arthur and re-do his blanket on top of his sleeping form. A shaking hand brushes down stray hairs on Arthur’s scalp. Max and Charles’ voices fall away and Angel focuses on her and Arthur’s breathing. She hopes he isn’t being bothered by all of this. She hopes he’s dreaming—the same dreams they share, just like the number they share.
(A memory appears in her mind’s eye. Her, aged 6, sleeping on the cold leather couch in their penthouse apartment in London. Her brother looming over her, hands carded into her hair, scratching bitten nails against her scalp. And her parents, screaming over what to do about her and her brother’s careers in the other room. The walls of the penthouse too thin to cover up the sound.)
A heavy hand rests in the center of Angel’s shoulder blades. She can tell it’s Max’s from size alone. If her back arches a little into the touch, he doesn't do anything to signify that he noticed.
Charles and him have both fallen silent.
“I’m sorry, Max,” Angel sighs into Arthur. Max’s hand tenses against Charles’ sweater.
“Chou…” Charles squats down next to her, forcing his body into her field of vision.
Angel’s body tilts into Charles’, “I’m sorry to you, too. I should’ve told you why I had to leave. I know it was wrong of me to not say anything to you.”
“Or Alex, or George.” Charles places a hand over Max’s on Angel’s back, “I can’t believe you told only Lando.”
Angel laughs watery and tired, “He understood it the most. I didn’t have an academy to fall back on and sponsors weren’t free-flowing. He had only just begun with the Mclaren program. When my parents said they didn’t want to pay anymore… there really wasn’t much I could do. I wasn’t helping Williams without my parent’s money.”
Max finally adds something to the conversation, “Engel, we should go somewhere and talk the three of us.”
Charles makes a squeaking noise from the back of his throat, “Right now?” His eyes are wide and staring at Max. Who nods dumbly. Charles exhales, obviously counting the seconds as to calm him.
“I don’t want to.” Angel shifts her weight and tries to stand up, but Max’s hand is still pressing her down. “I’m serious. I don’t want to.”
“Angel,” Max scoffs, “It’s long overdue.”
“I don’t want to.” She feels like a child on the edge of a tantrum. She needs to feel like an adult. She needs to be in control of this, “I’ll go.” Angel shoves Max’s hand off of her back roughly, falling on her ass in the process. She scrambles to stand up and darts towards the table with her phone on it. Max and Charles look a little bit in shock, which allows her to shove her feet into her shoes and leave the apartment.
Her phone is near dead but she manages to navigate to her WhatsApp and find Daniel’s number. He isn’t the most impartial person to call in this hour of need, nor is Angel sure that he is even in Monaco at the moment, but he is the most willing to drive her the 20 minutes into Nice.
WhatsApp messages are fully encrypted.
Angel cakes: dan the man, are you in monaco?
Danny boy: yes ma’am. what’s up?
Angel cakes: any way i could charter a ride to nice right now?
Danny boy: right now?
Angel cakes: bit of a crisis atm yeah
Danny boy: where are you? do i need to pick you up?
Angel cakes: no no im on my way to your place.
Danny boy: did you kill someone?
Angel cakes: no?
[An image of Daniel Ricciardo’s Mclaren at the Nice Côte d'Azur Airport.]
THE.PIT.STOP: Daniel Ricciardo and Valentine Angel Font-Vial spotted at the Nice Côte d'Azur Airport!
↳marie.couture: salope chanceuse (lucky bitch)
WhatsApp messages are fully encrypted.
Danny boy: At least they didn’t take a picture of the redbulls LMAO
Danny boy: [Screenshot of the gossip post about their trip to the airport.]
Angel cakes: marie says you’re less hot outside of redbull
Danny boy: She’s less hot wearing a silver metal than gold
Angel cakes: interesting form of encouragement for february
[An image of two pairs of shoes taken over a Monaco city manhole. One pair of black Adidas Sambas on the woman, the ends of a black linen skirt brushing the tops of the woman’s ankles. The other pair is a pair of leather boat shoes on a man’s legs.
The second image is of Angel on a boat, tanning. Harsh tanlines mark where previous bikinis touched her skin. Her back makes up most of the shot, her top’s strings resting on either side of her as she tries to even out her tan. The top is a bright yellow tie-dye.]
angel.fv🔒: je suis fatiguée 😢
7.6.2019
↳marie.couture: quand m'as-tu quitté :( (when did you leave me)
↳angel.fv: tu m'as quitté en premier! (you left me first)
↳cor.rinny: you guys need to come back to montreal soon! tu me manquesssss (i miss you)
↳arthurleclerc: merci de me permettre d'accéder à votre nouveau compte, chou (thank you for letting me into your new account, cabbage)
↳LandoNorris: is this the same bikini as THE 2017 beach photo
↳angel.fv: yes new wank material babes xx
↳LandoNorris: still using the first photo two years later mate oo
Marie wins silver in 2018. Angel doesn’t tease when her shirt’s shoulders are stained black with mascara stains afterwards. Angel especially does not bring it up when after the after party for Marie’s win, the pair get drunk and wind up in bed together naked and sore the next morning. Marie makes a joke about how lucky they were that Angel’s hotel room was their destination of choice and not the Olympic village, though.
[Formula 1 Silverstone Drivers Press Conference FUNNY MOMENTS! Featured: GIOVINAZZI Antonio #99, RICCIARDO Daniel #3, HAMILTON Lewis #44, NORRIS Lando #4, RUSSEL George #63.
RICCIARDO: Have you grown pubes yet?
NORRIS: No (shakes head.)
PRESSER: Just a question for Lewis. The two chaps to the left of you have a combined age of about 40. If my maths are right—
NORRIS: (bursts out laughing.)
RUSSEL: What’s funny ‘bout that?
RICCIARDO: It’s not that, it’s not that.
PRESSER: Question for everyone. Lewis, you’ve been known to post provocative photos on Instagram, what is your opinion on drivers doing that? Is it unethical to use that to gain popularity?
GIOVINAZZI: I think it is up to the driver to decide what he does.
RICCIARDO: Yeah, me too. To each their own. I don’t think it’s really a question of ethics on using that to gain popularity, it’s just a picture. If people think you’re hot, they’ll always think you’re hot.
HAMILTON: Ah, called me out specifically. It’s just photos. Popularity should be based on ability, but in this day and age…
NORRIS: George posts plenty of shirtless pictures too, it’s not just you Lewis.
RUSSEL: They’re just photos!
NORRIS: Don’t act like you don’t have Val’s beach photo burned into your mind!
RICCIARDO: Val’s beach photo?
RUSSEL: I do not! That’s disrespectful to her!
NORRIS: It’s a driver in a bikini! She knew what she was doing posting that!
RICCIARDO: What the hell are you talking about? (laughing.)
HAMILTON: Combined age of 40 stuff, mate. (laughing.)
…]
“Bonjour, Angel,” Marie says. Her voice is present from behind the camera but the viewer can see her hand poking at Angel’s sleeping, cocooned figure.
“Tu dois mourir (you need to die) ,” Angel says, her voice scratchy with sleep and another thing. Angel shifts in her bed and curls further away from Marie. Then, she coughs for nearly a minute, trying to remove whatever phlegm is in her throat and lungs.
“Oh… Ew…” Marie and the camera move further from Angel’s form. Now not as close to Angel, Marie spoke to her again, “You need to get up, mon Ange.”
Angel rolls around in her bed.
“It’s f*cking graduation dumbass. Get the f*ck up, bitch,” Marie starts cursing as she starts kicking the posts of Angel’s dorm bed. Marie continues, “I’m gonna let you get ready off camera but I want to do an interview.” The camera’s red light turns off and Angel flings herself into a sitting position. The blanket that has been wrapped around her falls to her shoulder and Angel’s freshly bleached hair is sticking straight up in various directions.
Marie immediately laughs at her, “Oh mon dieu. Angel your hair looks so f*cking fried… When did you do this…?”
Angel sways in her seated position, “Corrinna was here to stay while I was sick and we decided it would be fun to dye our hair.” Her hands begin to touch at the dry pieces of hair and Marie wishes she still was recording as the tears welling into Angel’s eyes were comically large.
Marie sits down next to Angel and starts rubbing her back, cringing when her fingers touch the very ends of Angel’s hair. Hay.
“Oh f*ck me. I’m f*cked aren’t I?”
“I have a hair mask you can borrow…” Marie comforts.
“I’m so f*cking f*cked.”
Angel slumps into Marie’s side further, burying her head into the blankets and Marie. Marie uncomfortably pets Angel, not wanting to contract whatever illness has fallen over the (new) blonde. After a few minutes of heaving sobs, wet and dry all at the same time, Angel rights herself and pushes onto the floor and stands up. She waves her hand as if she is going to say anything, but doesn’t. The blankets surrounding her slowly fall away as she steps towards the bathroom. Marie starts to pick up her blankets and throw them back onto Angel’s bed. She hears the shower turn on and a loud Catalan expletive. Marie snickers to herself under her breath.
Angel showers for a half hour, and Marie busies herself with editing what footage she knows she will use in the beginning. While Angel goes through whatever skin care and moisturizer routine she does after her showers—all Marie knows is that it takes another half hour, not including any hair care—Marie changes into her outfit for graduation. Marie’s mom had purchased a white cotton dress ages ago, the kind with the eyelet lace all around the trims, for her graduation.
“Oh, this is the dress your maman was telling me about…” Angel is pulling a towel away from her head, and blonde hair slowly falls around her frame. It looks less like hay now, tumbling down to her waist in smooth strips. The blonde is a pale yellow color, like the inside of a banana. Marie wonders if Angel and Corinna used toner. Corinna is a girl with plenty of experience dyeing hair, so she assumes she did.
Marie does a small spin around herself, “Do you like it?”
Angel grins, “Ooo. It is very chic.”
“Put on your dress too, mon Ange. I want to see it.” Marie’s hands find grip on Angel’s shoulders and she shakes the other girl. Angel pats at Marie’s knuckles and points to her throat. Marie lets Angel fall away as she begins to hack up half a lung. “You always get sick when you drink. I do not know why you do this.”
Angel shakes her head, “I am young, it is fun.” Angel lets her towel that had been covering her also fall to the ground and land in a thump on the floors. She rummages through her drawers looking for a pair of nude panties and bra. Marie averts her eyes, a red-hot flush covering her chest to her ears.
“Do not leave your wet towel on the floors,” Marie admonishes. She falls gracelessly onto her lofted bed, only her shoulders reaching the plush blankets she keeps as a shroud around her when she sleeps. Angel laughs and picks up the towel with her foot, kicking it up into her hand. Angel, now dressed in her underwear, searches through the small closet that is delegated to her, searching for whatever dress she purchased for her graduation. Eventually, Angel does find something in the corners of her closet. She pulls out and slips into a white sheet of a thing, strapless and down to her mid-calf, just a tube of some starchy white fabric that manages to fall perfectly along Angel’s chest, and waist, and hips. Marie suddenly wishes she recorded Angel putting the damn thing on.
Angel stands straight and tall—not that tall, she’s only about 5’3”—and faces Marie. Marie does not know how far she can allow her jaw to drop to have a normal reaction.
“Is it nice?” Angel pauses, “I got it when I visited home over the winter last year.” She bends at the knees for a moment, letting her hands flare out to her sides, she shakes them a little, a childish look on her face.
Marie nods, “Yes. It’s very cute. You look very tan with it on.”
Angel turns to glance at her form in the small, body-length mirror at the edge of their dorm, “We should go to the Caribbean this summer. If travel is good? I know you like the sun, chérie, I can rent a yacht.” Angel pulls a pair of wedge sandals from her shoe rack and slips them on to her feet.
“Are you getting ready already?” Marie asks. She launches herself back onto her feet, wanting to get ready at the same time as Angel. She has plans for filming before and during graduation and if Angel is speeding through it, Marie needs to keep the pace.
Angel shrugs, “I wanted to get a coffee before the ceremony.”
Marie slips on her own flip-flop heels that she planned on wearing, “Oh! Can I come with? I had one last interview—”
“Oh my God. The final interview?” Angel cuts Marie off. Angel feels monolithic for a moment. Standing like a pillar alone and stagnant and Marie is almost finished with her, isn’t she?
Marie pauses, confused and concerned, “Yeah. It wasn’t like the documentary was going to go on indefinitely… I have to give my professors a publish date before the end of 2021 anyways. The fact that they let me have until the end of the year is already a blessing. Thank God no one else did a full documentary.”
Angel shifts her weight onto each hip, like she’s testing out which leg is giving her better support, “I hadn’t realized it would be coming to an end. It’ll be weird without it.”
Marie pulls Angel into her arms. Angel slots into Marie’s slightly taller frame like a Russian Nesting Doll, just perfectly a fraction of Marie. “It’ll be okay.”
Marie ends up making Angel drive to the café, ever a sucker for getting recordings of Angel driving and singing along to whatever achingly sad song she’s playing. Marie thinks that Angel looks most like herself when she’s driving. Marie also thinks, now that it is ending and she won’t be documenting Angel’s innerworkings, that she isn’t sure she knows Angel that well at all. What if this friendship that Marie is holding against her ribs, is really just a shallow excuse for a relationship. Is Angel just Marie’s muse?
Angel is parking the car before Marie can spiral further. Perhaps, she knew the other girl was spiraling.
“Un croissant et un pain au chocolat, s’il vous plaît. Oh, et un café glacé,” (A croissant and a chocolate croissant, please. Oh, and an iced coffee.) Angel orders for the pair while Marie finds a seat in a more secluded area of the café. Marie needs this final interview to go well as she can’t get Angel to re-film it a second time because the reactions would be fake. Angel finds Marie in the back of the cafe, near the door to the kitchen, where a small bay window lets the light from the alley outside seep through.
Marie positions Angel so she is sitting with half of her face in the sunlight, Marie is at her opposite position across from her, “Are you ready?”
“Yeah.” Angel takes a sip of her iced coffee.
Marie starts, “We’ve gone this far without ever talking about your degree, mon Ange. Care to tell the viewers?”
Angel seems surprised, “I am graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering and a minor in physics,” She pauses before adding, “I took a ton of linguistics classes too. It’s a major hobby of mine. Or should I say minor? Haha, if I got a second one… Get it?”
“Right. And what did you do outside of your degree but within the same field?”
“Like internships?” Angel takes another sip of her coffee. Marie leans the camera onto her body (she finally purchased a gimbal) and took a bite of her croissant.
“Yeah.”
“Oh! I built karts for my local racing organizations. I was even like a team captain for a rec team here in Montreal. I wanted to get a lot of hands-on labor with the cars. I guess I thought that if I can’t—couldn’t drive a machine like that anymore, I’d build one instead,” Angel says. The light that comes across her face is more powerful than Marie originally anticipated for this interview. She wants light and airy for the send-off, not like she’s getting Angel to admit to murder.
“Any plans for the future just yet?”
“I’ve been looking for internship opportunities. There aren’t many in Canada. Just the nature of the country…” Angel looks out the window, her profile being highlighted fully facing the light now, “I don’t know if I want to go back to Europe or not.” She speaks quieter then. Like she doesn’t want Marie to hear it.
Marie doesn’t say anything for a moment, collecting her thoughts, “I got a job offer.”
“What?” Angel asks.
“Yeah. I got a job offer. It’s in LA. Y’know Professor LeBlanc?” Marie explains.
Angel nods, “Yeah.”
“He has connections to this indie production company, they want me to work as an Assistant Director on their next film. It’s a super small thing but I’m excited.” Marie smiles. Angel smiles with her.
“That’s amazing, chérie!” Angel blurts out. Her face is flushed with joy for her friend. The camera records the dreadful realization, “It’s in Los Angeles?”
Marie shifts her hold on the camera, “Yes.”
Angel grabs her pain au chocolat out of nervousness and inhales nearly a quarter of it, “Oh. Hmph. Um. That’s still an amazing opportunity.”
“Does this change your own job aspirations?”
“Are you seriously putting this into your documentary?”
Marie presses her camera off, “No.” She brushes a stray curl out of her face, “I just wanted. I don’t know. I didn’t want you to freak out and I thought if I was recording you, you’d be as nice as possible.”
Angel looks scandalized, “You thought I wouldn’t support your dream?”
“Whenever I talk about filming seriously you get weird about it!”
Angel shakes her head, “That is not because of the idea of you moving away. Trust me. I can handle my friends moving away from me. Between the two of us, distance is less of an issue for me than you.”
“Are you throwing your wealth at me?” Marie feels boiling with anger.
“You have never been ashamed of my wealth before.”
Marie scoffs, “That is not what we are arguing about.”
Angel frowns, “What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to be honest,” Marie says, she reaches down and turns her camera back on, letting it film their argument from the small table between them.
“I just wish you do not give up snowboarding so easily. Silver is not a sign you will never win. You have another dozen years of competing ahead of you.” Angel’s face is foreign to Marie for a moment, emotions Angel does not usually show flashing before her. “I am not sad about you moving away. It does make my own decisions easier. Chérie, dreams are… Dreams are very important to me. I do not understand how your own goals have changed so much. I never wanted to quit racing. I do not get you.”
Marie shrinks, “You didn’t want to quit?”
“No.” Angel frowns, “My parents forced me to. Gave me an ultimatum.” Marie is so thankful she started recording again.
“What?”
“It was either find the money myself to pay for it all or quit and they will pay for college and give me like an infinite supply of funding for my needs. Just non-racing related stuff only being allowed.” Angel stuffs the rest of her pain au chocolat into her mouth to shut herself up.
“Mon Ange…” Marie places her hand on Angel’s knee, “You never told me that. Ever.”
“It’s unimportant.”
“Well—it kinda is. Filming a documentary and all.”
“I think the random retirement is perhaps a more compelling story. Just f*cking off and quitting because your bosses were mean to you?” Angel laughs scratchily. The air between the two women was thinner, feels cooler than before.
Marie frowns, “Angel, your parents… That’s not fair.”
“I know it’s not fair. Nobody can talk to me about fair. ” Angel’s newly blonde hair falls over her shoulder, tumbling down to rest against her legs. The scratchiest bits fold under themselves on top of Angel’s thighs under the fabric of her dress. Marie tries not to stare.
She fails, miserably. Angel’s thighs have some of the softest skin she’s felt and the memory of that has never faded. “I—Angel. Angel. Mon Ange. This… Cette chose t'est arrivée et c'était terrible. Je ne sais pas pourquoi tu le nies. Je ne m'attends pas à ce que tu m'expliques maintenant... Mais... Angel, je pense que tu devrais retourner en Europe. Prouve que ces connards ont tort. Mon Dieu, j'aimerais te dire de courir à nouveau mais je sais que tu diras simplement non. Je t'aime, Angel. Vraiment, je t'aime beaucoup. S'il te plaît, écoute ce que je te dis. Va en Europe." (This thing has happened to you and it was terrible. I don't know why you are denying it. I don't expect you to explain it to me now... But... Angel, I think you should go back to Europe. Prove those c*nts wrong. God I'd tell you to race again but I know you will just say no. I love you, Angel. I really really love you. Please listen to what I am saying. Go to Europe.)
“Chérie.” Angel’s face is stormy, her thin eyebrows pulling together in the middle. Marie’s face is burning with embarrassment and fear. A tanned hand comes to rest on Marie’s knee, “I don’t know why you look so scared right now.”
Marie huffs out a laugh.
“I’m serious! I’d never react badly to your advice. Racing… Racing is a tough subject but…” Angel looks out the window, “I don’t know. I’m too scared to go back to Europe most days.”
“Ever since…?”
“Yeah. Ever since Adría got paralyzed.” Adría’s name breaks the conversation down into touches on legs. Angel’s brother, nearly nine years older, a WRC champion, and a horror story for any motorsport enthusiast. One sees a car racing off of the path and there’s no tire walls to cushion the crash and suddenly Angel’s big brother can’t even digest food for himself.
If Adría couldn’t handle the idea of Angel entering F1 and making history without swallowing a bottle of pills when his career was still blossoming, he’d make sure it worked if she started racing again now.
Even being in Andorra to visit during the breaks was hard for Angel, she’s been choosing to spend time in their other family properties instead, or obsessively vacationing on her parent’s dime with anyone who she can convince. Breaks stopped being times for family when Adría stopped f*cking walking.
Marie lets the silence surround them both for a few minutes more before sighing, “We should head back to campus and meet with Corinna.”
angel font @/avfv12
hello world
25.12.2022
↳❤️🩹 @/chalentinestruther : when the queen rises from the dead!!!!
↳IT’S GOING DUTCH IN 2021 @/mv1.33 : this is our christmas present fr
Lorna @/lornasiempre
Can we talk about this tweet from valangel’s account in 2019 that she forgot to delete when she made it public?
angel font @/avfv12
marie and i watching the first race of the season (yw a, g, and l) and she gets one glimpse of daniel ricciardo and this bitch starts f*cking losing it. i think she meowed.
Lando Norris @/landonorris
angel not making her instagram public so i keep looking like a freak when i mention her posts is so evil
↳angel font @/avfv12 : why are you mentioning my instagram posts in the first place xx
↳Lando Norris @/landonorris : you and that f*cking yellow bikini oo
Angel’s skin stretches taut over her hands. Cracks and peels are forming at each knuckle, starkly white against her tan skin. London is not the most hospitable place in the winter. A snow-dirt slurry has formed on the balcony of her family penthouse. She flicks her fingers around to show her palm again, inspecting each line.
“This is some rom-com sh*t, mon Ange,” Marie laments from the large couch that faces a lit fireplace.
“I’m not feeling very rom or com, right now.” Angel slinks away from the sliding glass doors that led outside and toward the kitchen’s massive island countertop. She pours herself a second glass of wine. The pinot grigio was expensive and probably her mother’s.
Marie sticks up her wine glass and Angel pours her another glass as well. Angel lays herself down on the other section of the couch, her ankles resting near Marie’s head and shoulders. Immediately, Marie drifts her fingers along Angel’s strip of skin under her pants and above her socks, the condensation from the wine is chilling. Marie grabs the TV remote to turn the volume up from mute, and the echoing room fills with Croft’s iconic voice.
Marie decided that they had to watch Abu Dhabi again, because it was just such a fun race to watch. Angel knows it is a fun race, exhilarating for the spectators, but she was there. Being all exhilarated from the garage of the winner.
The race was about half-way through at the moment. Marie, knowing Angel better than herself, switches the channel on the F1TV app to be one of the driver’s on-boards. Angel doesn’t lift her neck to check which driver, instead closing her eyes and balancing her wine glass on her stomach and just listening.
After about a minute she decides that it must be Charles. And asks Marie if she’s right.
“You’re a freak,” Marie says in response. Angel breathes out a laugh, careful to not jostle her wine glass too much.
Marie lets the two of them sit in silence for a few dozen minutes more, the rhythmic sound of the engine lulling Angel into a sleepy state. She breaks the silence eventually, “When do you go back to work?”
Angel leaves her eyes closed but opens her mouth to answer, “Start of next week, on the 27th. Might drive over on Friday though. I want to buy a cat.”
“Oh? ” Marie says, “That’s nice…”
“What?” Angel spits out.
“You think you’ll be able to take care of the cat?”
Angel grabs her wine glass and sets it on the floor next to the couch, “I’m gonna put it on a leash and people-ize it. So I can take it anywhere.”
“Socialize it,” Marie corrects.
“English isn’t my first language.” Angel glares.
Marie rolls her eyes, “Okay but you’ve been—Wait. This is not what I was trying to talk to you about.”
Angel picks her wine up and takes three large gulps of it, draining the glass.
“You’re the picture of mental health right now, mon Ange. Do you really think you can take care of another animal?” Marie tries a gentler approach, but fails. Angel glares weakly at Marie. She knows that the girl is right.
“When are you going back to…” Angel trails off, not remembering where Marie was planning on training for this winter.
Marie sighs, “Sweden? In a few weeks.”
Angel smiles at Marie, “Brrr.” A lull falls between the two women, Charles’ engine reverbs throughout the room, “Will you come with me to Milton Keynes, or do you want to go somewhere else with your time? I’ll pay for whatever—”
“I’ll come with you for a few days, to make sure you settle. I have an open invite to this Bali trip with some other people training in Sweden that I plan on going to.”
Angel shifts her position so she’s sitting on her knees. Marie leans her body along the top of the couch, arms stretched out to their full wingspan. Marie’s eyes are hooded, the startling blues of them covered by her eyelash extensions and eyelids. Pale skin glows against Marie’s hoodie, her throat tantalizing in its whiteness. It was almost translucent, and when Marie let her head drop backwards, Angel could practically count the veins in her neck. Angel pitches forward, her hands shooting out to catch her body as she begins to crawl closer to Marie. The length of the couch seems to stretch for miles as she inches closer and closer. Marie must feel her movements, as her pink lips twist into a smirk once Angel finally sets her right hand onto Marie’s thigh. She wonders if it’s burning hot through the fabric of Marie’s sweatpants.
“Mon Ange,” Marie sighs. Angel throws her thigh over Marie’s, straddling the taller woman.
“Ma cheríe.” Angel dips her head into Marie’s throat, licking a flat stroke up the muscle on the side, “Remember after your last event at the Olympics?”
Marie hums in agreement. Her hands inch over Angel’s bare torso.
“This is my silver metal.” Angel hollows her back to look into Marie’s eyes, digging her fingers into the girl’s hair and forcing her head down, “I want you to f*ck me.”
Marie arches an eyebrow, “Like Charles would f*ck you? Or Max?”
“Kill yourself,” Angel says, but she’s laughing, “I want you to f*ck me like you would f*ck me.”
Angel and Marie are in and out of beds, couches, and car seats up until Marie does actually, no really I have to , leave for Sweden (Early, like really early. Angel thinks she bummed Marie out too much). The sudden silence in Angel’s Milton Keynes apartment is jarring and makes a tinny ringing noise appear in her ears whenever she settles down after work. Luckily, her wish for a cat was granted. When Angel and Marie arrived on the 24th, there was a white and cream speckled cat prowling outside of Angel’s complex. Angel went to pick him up and he bit her, which led to a quick emergency stop at a clinic to make sure she wasn’t going to die. Thus, Mosquito entered Angel’s life.
After Max’s championship, they intended to give everyone affiliated with the Formula 1 team a longer break than usual to celebrate. Originally, Angel was going to spend it in Monaco with Max, per his request. Now she’s spending it in dreary Milton Keynes with only the other unlucky, or overzealous, engineering team members who were working. All these losers are working right after Boxing Day. All these losers including Angel.
“Font?” The cubicle next to her calls out, and a head of mousy brown hair peeks up above the thin walls.
“Yeah, Smithy?” Angel leans back in her desk chair, looking up at Smithy’s face.
Smithy’s face screws up like he just smelt something sour, “I wanted to ask you…” He pauses and Angel raises an eyebrow, “I wanted to ask you what racing in F2 was like.”
“I don’t bite. It’s fine if you have questions.” Angel stands up from her chair and also goes on to her tip-toes to lean against her cubicle, matching Smithy’s position. “Driving those cars were fun. Not as fun as driving an F1 car. But, y’know. I miss it, if that’s what you’re really wondering.”
Smithy’s mouth shapes itself into a small ‘o’, as if Angel’s words were revolutionary, “Is it weird? To work here? Like, with not telling anyone.”
Angel pauses, “I didn’t try to keep it secret.” She sounds indignant, like a child.
“Didn’t exactly broadcast it either. It would have helped you to get a better job than this.” Smithy waves his hand around at the area that they are in: sh*tty cubicles, fluorescent lights that flicker and give everyone migraines, grunt work that the real engineering team doesn’t want to do, data analysis that they could be doing but would rather be enjoying the vacation time. Only thing worse would be being one of the interns for the mechanic team. At least the engineering underlies get air con.
“I don’t want to use my failed racing career to get cheap jobs. I might be a rich kid but I abhor cheap stints like that.” Angel tilts her chin up, but smiles a little despite herself. It sounds funny to say it out loud. It sounds stupid .
Smithy smiles too, a toothy grin, “Wrong sport, Ms. Adría Font’s little sister.”
Angel drags a hand through her hair, “I didn’t know you were into rally.” She places both elbows and forearms onto the cubicle wall, “Did you pop a boner hearing my last name?”
“Hard to get horny over a paraplegic, Angel—” Ayn-juhl, “—I will say I did go to his wikipedia page to see if it was written that he had a sister. And low and behold there was mention of a sister but no name or photos.”
Angel nods her head, “He didn’t want my career to be affiliated with his, I raced under—”
“Valentine Vial, right. That’s your actual first name, isn’t it?”
“They’re all my names. My mother is French,” Angel deadpans.
Smithy frowns for a moment, a guttural response that makes Angel laugh. He opens his mouth to apologize but shakes his head instead, and starts to smile again.
“So… Was the documentary good?” Angel asks. She’s been itching for it. To ask someone who's seen it if it’s any good. She knows in her heart that it’s wonderful—everything Marie makes is. She almost asked Daniel, during their car ride into Nice. But she wasn’t sure if he’d actually seen it.
Smithy raises his eyebrows, “Oh! It was amazing. I cried watching it. Your friend, the director, did a really good job explaining your, erm, recovery process?”
Angel laughs quietly, “It was supposed to be me adjusting to being a normal person. Whatever that means.”
“Either way, it was really good. Really informative of the sexism within motorsport too. I’m not surprised that Susie Wolff posted about it so much.”
Angel’s mouth drops open, “Susie Wolff posted about it?”
Smithy looks at her like she’s a rock, “Yeah? Like a lot.”
“I haven’t been on social media since I got back to England—” Angel digs into the back pocket of her trousers and pulls out her phone. The screen is still cracked from when Marie threw it at her during a particularly wild drunken karaoke session last weekend. Her phone case (clear with a polaroid of Marie and Angel at graduation in the back, as well as a piece of confetti from one of Max’s wins) is half off as she desperately tries to redownload twitter and instagram on the RedBull employee wifi.
“Jesus, Ange, just look.” Smithy pushes his phone into her face, with a tweet from Susie Wolff open. Angel thinks she stops breathing, heart skipping beats, loses all sense of time. Because Susie motherf*cking Wolff, is posting about her failed career. She could faint right there. She didn’t even know Susie Wolff knew who she was. Claire Williams did, but that was about it for the big names in the paddock.
“Wow,” Angel says, her voice pitched up a little bit with childlike wonder and glee.
Smithy pulls his phone away and Angel follows it with her entire body. She cranes her neck to keep her eyes on the white words on the small screen. Susie Wolff. “Alright, we should probably be getting back to work. You know Newey ‘s coming back today.”
Angel pushes off of the cubicle wall and back into her desk chair, spinning around in a couple of circles before returning to her usual spot at her desk. Her monitor was still open on the CAD software where she was modeling the rear wing to see if any rough improvements could be made on last season’s. “Thanks for showing me Smithy!” Angel calls out.
Smithy responds with a “Thanks for answering my question!” before Angel hears keyboard clicks again, signifying his return to work.
Angel gets around an hour of working in, writing up the general areas of fault in the wing from the simulations she ran—where it most often broke under contact, comparisons to the Mercedes’ rear wing, where they could possibly be using less material for the weight balance—to her manager and polishing off any other emails she received from fellow interns. She also was able to find time to look at her phone for nearly fifteen minutes before realizing that she has better things to do. Which leads her to the RedBull’s employee gym. Angel keeps a small, sparsely packed gym back in her cubicle for times like this, when she gets to restless the only thing that could fix her is a mile or two on the treadmill followed by a scalding hot shower where she uses all of the company supplied toiletries and half a tub of Khiel’s lotion.
“Angel!” Ahn-jehl, someone who isn’t British. Angel looks up from her phone where she’s watching a new episode of Love is Blind and finds a pair of brown eyes all up in her business. She stumbles on the treadmill over her running shoes and has to grip onto the hand rails to not fall on her face.
“Sergio?” Angel gasps, reeling from the near-death experience she must have just had.
“You can call me Checo, y’know?” Checo laughs. Why the f*ck is he here? She asks just as much, but without the expletive. He shrugs, “They asked me when I could do my preliminary sim tests and this was the first day available.” Sometimes Angel forgets that Checo must still feel like he has something to prove at RedBull. Still, coming two days after Christmas seems excessive. She is, of course, also at work. As well as Checo’s engineers apparently.
Angel nods, “That makes sense. Have you already done them?” She turns the treadmill off and steps down from it.
“I wanted to cool off after, yes. I get so tense when I am really working on the car and my drive. It has been good so far.” The unspoken when I want to be faster than Max falls like lead between them.
“Right. Well, go ahead.” Angel steps even further from the treadmill, throwing her arms out towards it, beckoning Checo to the treadmill as if there wasn’t a line of them.
Checo laughs a little bit again. Angel burns with a blush that must spread down to her toes.
Angel turns on her heel, about to go boil herself alive in the showers when Checo says something that stops her in her tracks: “Did something happen between Max and you?”
“What?” Angel croaks.
Checo repeats himself, “Did something happen between Max and you?”
“What makes you think that?” Angel shifts her weight between her legs.
“He mentioned that you were going to be spending a few weeks with him in Monaco. You are obviously not in Monaco.” Checo shrugs.
Angel squeaks, like a dweeb, “Ah! Well, you know me. Workaholic.”
Checo doesn’t look like he believes her, “I did remember you in Monza. In 2017. This is why it was not a surprise when the documentary came out. Your face was always familiar. Even if the name was not.”
Angel thinks her face must be all lopsided like she’s having a stroke, “I wasn’t hiding it.” She defends herself for the second time today. But it’s a farce. She knows she was probably hiding it.
“Chiquita, I am not saying what you did is wrong. It’s a silly situation all around. For silly season!” Checo laughs. Angel takes a minute, at least, to restructure her thoughts and lead herself back to the showers. She feels dazed, like she has just taken one too many hits from a blunt or something. The women’s showers are empty and Angel stumbles into the one farthest from the door. The lights aren’t even on in the room, but the windows high on the walls let in enough ambient light that Angel makes due. She throws her gym bag, filled with her old clothes and undergarments onto the floor next to the shower curtain.
Angel wrenches the dial on the shower all the way into the red, then releases a p*rnographic moan when the first blistering drops of water hit her skin. She didn’t take off her athletic wear, the leggings still covering her legs and the white RedBull sponsored t-shirt still on. They start sticking to her as she gets more and more drenched in the steamy water. Angel doesn’t make a habit of showering with her clothes on, only normally doing so when she feels especially dramatic, but as her hair starts to fall out of her sh*tty ponytail and into her eyes, she feels just a little out-of-her-mind cathartic.
“Hnnngh,” Angel groans. The heels of her palms press stars into her eyelids. She keeps the pressure up, seeing the patterns without really seeing, before stopping abruptly once the pain got too much. Angel reaches to the bottom of her shirt and pulls it off over her head, then her bra, then she pushes down her leggings and thong down at once. Finally, she kicks her feet up so she can rip her sodden sneakers and socks off of her feet.
Angel tries to take her hair down, but struggles, “f*ck, ow.” She manages it, and then grabs the company-provided conditioner and lathers it through her ends before detangling the dead bleached strands with her fingers. Angel leans her body from the spray, trying to allow the conditioner to sit on her hair for at least a minute or two. She focuses on scrubbing her body clean with the body wash from the shower set. Angel has a method about this: starting with her arms and then her chest and then her stomach and legs and finally her back. The familiarity of it all allows Angel a moment of reprieve from her head. It feels like how sex with Marie did. Just silence while she did the same motion over and over again, whether it’s scrubbing in small circles over her arms or kissing every inch of skin Marie bares to her.
“f*ck,” She whispers. Checo’s words still ring in her head. The situation is stupid. She’s being stupid and petty and avoidant. She just doesn’t want to get between Max and Charles and their epic love story. She felt bad enough about it the first time. The guilt that lives inside of her has morphed this time. She loves so much. She loves so privately. She loves having it all, and not having to make a choice. Charles’ fingers replace her own in her mind as she rubs soap into her lower back, an image from 2017 when they were still f*cking and he would shower with her and massage her back. Max’s fingers over her legs are next. Dusting, gentle touches. The two of them lay on his hotel room bed as they laugh about whatever TikTok is on her phone.
The hazy feeling remains. But she sobers. Because she has too. Because she’s sure that when Max and Charles think of each other they think of the future and a wedding, and not just memories. Angel rinses her hair and wraps herself into a towel before also wrapping her hair into one. One breath. Two breaths. Angel dries herself off and changes back into her work clothing. Her skin is pinkish and warm to the touch and, honestly, she feels a little light-headed. But, nonetheless, she stands there in her navy trousers and her white button down looking at the heels that she doesn’t really want to put on yet and refuses to cry. She is not going to let an off-handed comment from a man who doesn’t even know the extent of the situation change her entire façade.
With a small whip around, Angel makes the towel turban she has wrapped around her hair come undone and fall to the floor. Blonde strands tumble down, clumped together in small ‘s’ shaped waves. Angel grabs at one particularly frizzy looking clump and sighs. Ever since graduation, she’s kept up on bleaching her hair, liking the fresh start it gave her. The damage the bleach has been causing is almost too much though. She needs to take better care of herself. She needs to quit smoking, too, probably. Angel bends at the waist to grab her gym bag, finding a trash-bag under the sink in the cabinets and dropping her soaked clothes into it.
With two small swipes under Angel’s eyes, removing any smudges of waterproof mascara, Angel was ready to get back to work. Or just sitting in her cubicle and playing minesweeper for three more hours before it was dinner time.
Angel meanders through the hallways of the office, allowing herself to get distracted by the wall decor and textures of the ceiling tile. The same hazy feeling she felt in the shower comes back for a moment, as she passes through the little museum they have set up. But ‘museum’ is just another word for ‘shrine for Max’ at this point, with an obscene amount of focus on his WDC trophy proudly displayed with lights shining on it. Angel’s heart skips a beat, but she’d swear up and down it was because of Sebastian Vettel’s memorabilia, not Max’s.
“Ah. I was looking for you earlier.”
Why is she so popular today? Angel jumps out of her skin. Adrian Newey’s voice is not unrecognizable to her, she’s been lucky enough to sit in on his team meetings for the engineers. She did not realize that he knew who she was, in any capacity past “blonde intern.” Perhaps now it would be “blonde assistant aero-engineer.”
“Good afternoon, sir. Why were you looking for me?” Angel dips her head down a bit, a weird cross between a recognition of Adrian’s presence and a bow. Why is everyone pulling up to work a week early?
Adrian smiles, “I wanted to ask why you didn’t participate in the winter sim racing challenge between the engineers.”
Oh!
That.
Right. The engineering team— the entire f*cking team —holds this challenge over both summer and winter breaks where they pick a random track within the RedBull simulator’s collection and everyone gets one chance at their fastest lap. Fastest time without track-limits wins. The track for the summer break competition ended up being Silverstone, and Angel won it by a landslide. It was over 10 seconds between her and the second place winner. Which surprised Angel the most out of everyone because she honestly figured that a team full of race car engineers would be better at simulator racing. She ended up getting a 50 pound gift card to Harrod’s, which was an insane present to give a 21-year-old girl, as it was able to get her maybe one fifth of a dress. Now, Adrian Newey seeking her out to ask about her participation, a little weird.
“I wanted to give someone else a chance to win,” Angel tries. She simply wasn’t in the mood for it this year. The competition took place over late November and December and it was now December 28th, and Smithy even offered to go with her when she got back earlier this week to the sim rooms to give her a go at it. Angel had an inkling that she was the only person on the team who hadn’t gone yet, with the way that Smithy was trying to convince her.
Newey hums, low in his throat the way all older men do, “I’d like to see you try the lap around Hockenheim.”
And, well, you can’t really say no to that.
Angel follows Adrian listlessly, becoming increasingly aware of how she looks. Her hair is still damp and stringy and it’s left the back of her shirt wet as well. She isn’t really too keen on the idea of putting in a lap in the Hockenheimring in her stilettos either. Angel raced in Germany a few times throughout her life, most often when her brother was living there for his work with Toyota, and has had the pleasure of racing the track previously. She doesn’t remember the racing lines exactly, but she thinks it’ll be enough to go around it without careening off the track.
“Sit,” Adrian says. Angel blinks a few times before lowering herself into the simulator, fully reclining into seat. Her knees knock loudly against the rig, and she has to contort herself to take off her shoes before re-adjusting. Her heels fall gracelessly to the ground. It feels worse to be barefoot in the sim, than with the heels on. Angel frowns instantly and tries to readjust her posture. Adrian doesn’t say anything, just watches as Angel wiggles around in the rig until she feels comfortable, and grabs the steering wheel with a steely look in her eyes.
“Am I good to go?” Angel asks. Her voice is a little quiet, breathless with anticipation.
“The computer’s not even on yet, hold yer horses.” Adrian turns on the simulator, and the screens in front of Angel whirr to life, bright colors flood her vision and she is blinded for a moment. “You’re good to start whenever.”
Angel isn’t really sure why Adrian is watching her do this. He doesn’t normally. She didn’t even know he participated in the engineering team’s little competition. She allows herself a moment to look at the steering wheel and memorize the buttons. Then, she starts.
Hockenheimring was one of those circuits, for Angel, where she really wished she was a racer in the ‘90s. The original track layout was boring to look at on paper but the idea of racing through the woods flat out was always attractive to Angel. This current Hockenheimring is shorter, but fun. Angel pushes into turn 1, Nordkurve, quickly with little care for track limits. If she gets disqualified from the competition, then good riddance. The Einfhart parabolika doesn’t feel as hard as it does when you’re actually in the car, Angel thinks. The straight afterwards is nice though. She suddenly wishes that she could see her lap time so far, and get a glimpse of what her sector one is going to look like after the hairpin.
Upon reaching turn 6, Angel loses a bit of her rear grip, and re-adjusts accordingly. She isn’t the biggest fan of oversteer in the simulator. She much prefers feeling the car move under her while snapping the rear end into alignment with where she is steering. As she drags the car through the hairpin and speeds up on the way out, shifting up a few gears, she can hear her brother in her mind, telling her what he would do instead. The left-hand turn at turn 8 confuses her for a moment, and she thinks she loses a little bit more time than she wants, but, c’est la vie, it’s a slow turn. But, shortly after she enters sector 2. She yanks the car through turn 12, barely slowing down, but she takes a bit of curb in the simulator which makes her wobble on the way out of 12 and into 13. Angel slows down probably more than necessary from that, but regains her footing through the last four turns.
Once the simulator starts driving the car for her when she crosses the line, Angel realizes how much she’s panting.
“God. More stressful than I thought.” Angel wipes her sweaty palms onto her pants. She twists inside the rig, looking for Adrian’s white head of hair. “Uh… It doesn’t say what my time was on the screen, sir?” She calls out. It did last time.
Angel can’t even see Adrian. What the hell? She pulls herself out of the rig and steps out onto the floor. Quickly, she pulls her heels back on, stifling a groan at the feeling of the leather back on her feet.
“Hello?” She calls out again. Angel walks around for a few paces, peeking behind chairs and large potted plants to find Adrian. She just wants to know her lap time, goddamnit.
How far could a man in his 60s go in a little over a minute?
“Oh, sorry. I was texting Christian,” Adrian apologizes. “You did thirteen.”
Angel blinks. One point thirteen. That’s Q2. Maybe? She hadn’t watched Germany in 2018 or 19. “No track limits?” Adrian shakes his head. Angel blinks again, she definitely thought she went four wheels over, “Do I get the gift card?”
Adrian laughs, “Yes. That’s gift card worthy. Let me phone Christian. Do I have your WhatsApp? Are you in the engineering group? You must be, right?”
“Oh! Yeah, I’m in the engineering chat. I have an employee email as well. Why… Why are you phoning Christian?” Angel feels a little frazzled. She hasn’t received any irate emails from Christian yet, but she is starting to think Geri threw his phone into a body of water so they can have a peaceful break.
Adrian hums, his eyebrow quirks for a moment. It makes him look younger, without the seeming perpetual frown on his face. Angel knows the feeling of always wanting improvement. They didn’t win the constructor’s. “I just wanted to talk to him.”
“About me?” Angel asks before she has the thought to not say… that…
“What?” Adrian asks, “co*cky much?” He teases. Angel’s face burns bright red, rosso corsa red, she’s sure.
Angel makes a high pitched noise while she breathes out, slowly. Then, “No, not really.” She giggles, probably, uncomfortably. Angel kicks up one of her feet and balances for a moment on her other leg, before switching and doing the same thing with the opposite foot.
Adrian laughs loudly. It sounds a bit like how you think a train would laugh, wheezy and rhythmic. “No, come off it. It is about you. Wanted to ask him about your job position in the team.”
“...Why?” Angel ventures to ask. Her fingers dig against each other, and a small pop can be heard as she cracks one of her knuckles on accident. She’s still blushing. Can still feel the heat on her face.
“You have good times, for someone who hasn’t driven a car since 2017.” Adrian waves his hand nonchalantly.
“I’ve been in the sim before—it’s not that much like driving a car,” Angel says.
“Once, a few months ago. Give you enough training on the physical side… you’d make a good development driver. The added bonus of you already being here and knowing how the car works too…”
Oh. Oh.
[A photo of a young boy and an even younger girl. They have matching deep rusty brown hair and dark eyes. The boy holds his arm around the girl’s shoulders and they are smiling. The girl has a gold medal around her neck.
The second and following slides are a clip from Driving the Speed Limit; it is cut into multiple parts, but in its entirety it details one particular story of Angel’s.
Angel: About a week after I retired, I guess, I was back in Andorra at this one karting track near France. In Pas de la Casa, kinda close to the ski resort. Anyways, I guess I wanted to see if maybe retiring had taken the entire ability to drive from me. I think I got like four laps in with this rinky dinky kart that was probably for a child. So, this person behind me runs me off of the track and I get out of my kart to be like “hey, don’t do that it’s rude,” because I thought it was going to be like the owner’s kid or someone who just didn’t get it. But, I get out and it’s a girl a few years younger than me, maybe 15. And she just starts f*cking screaming at me. Telling me that I was a failure and a disgrace to women in all sports. She told me that I only got that far because I had a pretty face and that real female driver’s would f*cking hate me. She said that I was holding all these dreams up and to quit like a puss* crushed them and ruined it for everyone else. She told me exactly, “You are so selfish to ruin the chances of women re-entering Formula 1, you’ve ruined it for us all. f*cking c*nt.” It, uh, really stuck.
Marie: Do you think you ruined it for all the other girls?
Angel: I know I didn’t, logically. There are better female drivers than me and I am sure that we will see changes be made. But, when a girl who looks just like you is screaming that you f*cking ruined it… It—it felt like it was me saying that to myself. I had a lot of negative self-talk at that time, still do.]
AdriaFont: Me and Valentine Angel when we were younger. She is the best driver I have ever met. Ho sento, germana meva. T'estimo. Prometo. Ets el millor dels millors. Si us plau, segueix els teus somnis, per mi. (I am sorry, my sister. I love you. I promise. You are the best of the best. Please follow your dreams, for me.)
[An edit comprised of archival footage from Adria and Valentine Angel’s interviews throughout their careers—specifically when they mention their ‘unnamed’ siblings and mentors or mentees. Other footage from Driving the Speed Limit is included. It’s set to the song Father by The Front Bottoms.]
The caption reads: the font-vials vs. the verstappens who’s winning the weirdest family about racing award
[A carousel post of various photos taken in Monaco. There’s one of Lando in a club. Another is from a dinner party with Max, Charles, and Lando again present. The third is a selfie, with Daniel’s telltale smile present. The photo spread finishes with a picture taken from Daniel’s balcony where Monte Carlo during the glittering night can be seen.]
daniel3.jpg: NYE dump 😜
↳lando.jpg: these are 🔥 mate getting better
↳charles_leclerc: ❤️
[A faceless photo of a woman’s body. The woman is wearing a short black knit skirt with ostrich feathers lining the hem. The photo shows that she is wearing a matching knit tube top, with a fur jacket on top. Long blonde hair can be seen. One of the woman’s legs is kicked up and her shoes are Loubiton stilettos. The sheer pantyhose the woman is wearing has a long run down the non-bent leg. The photo itself is hazy.]
angel.fv: the fur is my mom’s (sorry lewis)
↳grusselsprout: SHE MADE HER INSTAGRAM PUBLIC!!!!??!?!?!?
↳lewishamilton: i’ll forgive you this time
↳daniel3.jpg: Do you only own one clubbing skirt?
↳lando.jpg: thank you for not deleting your beach photos oo
↳angel.fv: have to keep you stocked yeah xx
↳maxfewtrell: Can’t believe I have to see you two interact online in public again
↳chalentinesluver: the face that nearly every driver on the grid followed or just followed her but not charles and max,,,, they’re so mentally ill what did valangel do that was equivalent to austria 2019
↳lesttappy: stop bc why are they never beating the throuple allegations. like even im starting to believe it.
↳valangel.12121212: what would the throuple’s ship name even be? vialestappen?
↳marie.couture.99: angel actually is only dating me soz xoxo!
Liked by author ❤️
To: [emailprotected]
From: [emailprotected]
Please come to meeting room 1 as soon as possible.
Cheers!
Christian Horner
Sent from my iPhone.
Angel pushes away from her desk. She slides back half a meter in her chair and quickly slips off her office slippers that she’s been wearing while sitting doing CAD work. Angel puts on her heels and stands up. The email from Christian is a little stressful, she cannot lie. Last time she was called into a meeting with him, it was to evaluate her performance and if it would be a worthwhile investment to have her as a development driver. Helmut f*cking Marko was there. Angel nearly sh*t herself. It gave her trauma flashbacks to doing the same thing in front of the Williams team. And yet, she got a raise and a second work schedule. Suddenly her ID card gave entrance into the simulator rooms and she was given the phone number of a trainer, if she needed to get a recommendation. Her office is still the same cubicle though, which sucks. Smithy laughed for nearly ten minutes straight when she told him that they just gave her two jobs instead of entirely switching her.
“I’ll be back hopefully soon,” Angel tells Smithy. Smithy turns over his shoulder to meet her eyes.
“I thought you were leaving early?” Smithy asks. He frowns.
Angel pauses, “It’s only eleven? I’m going to a meeting. I just don’t know if I will be back for our usual lunch break. I’m still planning on leaving at fifteen hundred.”
Smithy visibly relaxes and waves Angel good-bye.
Meeting room 1 was not necessarily far from Angel’s office area. She was in the engineering wing, and the meeting room was towards administrative offices. Angel checks her wrist-watch for the time, and sees that she has taken ten minutes from when Christian sent his email. Angel worries her lip for a second before realizing that she needs to be walking, not just standing there stressing over how she is taking her time.
Angel gets there in three minutes. She stands in front of the door and debates knocking. Breathe in, breathe out. Two raps of her knuckles against the door, and Angel pushes through. “Christian—”
This is a PR meeting.
Angel blinks a few times. Her skin burns.
Christian is at the head of the meeting room table, across from the presentation board which currently has a powerpoint on it. Vicky, the head of press is also seated at the table. Across from her is Max and Checo. Some PR worker that Angel doesn’t recognize is presenting the powerpoint. Angel now realizes that it says Barcelona-Catalunya on it. This isn’t what Angel was expecting. She figures that this would be just another development driver meeting, asking her to try out some upgrade in the simulator or how she felt about what the engineers are working on.
“Angel. Thank you for coming,” Christian says. He swings his arm towards the seat next to Vicky.
“I hope you all haven’t been waiting too long,” Angel apologizes and sits down in the empty chair.
Christian waves his hands again, “Nonsense. I wanted you to be here for this press plan meeting. Some of the information pertains to you.”
Angel furrows her eyebrows but stays smiling. She gets that this is technically a ‘home race’ for her, but she doesn’t really understand what that has to do with the team or press obligations.
“Alright, Tuney. Take it away,” Vicky says from beside Angel. She smiles sweetly at the worker, Tuney.
Tuney takes a deep breath and starts discussing how they will utilize whatever result occurs in Miami to set the tone for the upgrades coming in Spain. Angel realizes that this section of the presentation does not pertain to her at all, past that she is on the team that is developing the upgrades mentioned. She allows her eyes to wander. Tuney is a cute girl, older than Angel and probably closer to mid-twenties than early-twenties. Her hair is blonde, but actually grows out of her head blonde, and she has pretty blue eyes that Angel can see from her seat. She looks vaguely Scandinavian, but with a name like Tuney, probably Petunia, Angel isn’t sure. Angel leans back in the chair, trying to sink into the fabric back. She doesn’t want Christian or Vicky getting mad at her. Arguably they wouldn’t, she doesn’t really need to worry about what pressers may be asking about due to regional events in Spain, in a month’s time. Her eyes drift to those sitting opposite of her. Checo is listening attentively, his mouth slightly ajar and with a notch between his eyebrows. Max probably isn’t doing that. Angel doesn’t want to look to confirm her suspicions.
“And, well, of course there’s going to be the Sainz family present at the Spanish Grand Prix. Checo, were you planning on bringing your wife and children as well?” Tuney pauses to ask. Checo gives some evasive answer, saying that it depends on how Carola is feeling closer to the date about bringing their children over. Angel lets her eyes fall closed for a moment.
“Okay! Angel, this part is addressed to you,” Tuney says. Angel jolts in her seat, opening her eyes wide and swiveling to face Tuney.
Angel clears her throat, “Yes?”
Tuney smiles brightly, “Well, we were wondering if it was possible for you to invite your family—mainly we were hoping for your brother—to the grand prix. Answering a few questions would be even better but considering you’ve not answered any media related emails from our department in the last four months, I’m taking that as a ‘no’ on your part.”
“You’ve been sending emails? I’m so sorry, I’ve been working on other—”
“It’s okay! All of the media frenzy caused by the documentary has been handled without you. Marie has been very helpful, which of course she’s also in the RedBull family!” Tuney exclaims.
Angel feels faint, “Oh. Uh… Okay, then.”
Tuney nods, “Right. So, could you invite your brother please? Your parents are welcome too, of course.”
“I haven’t spoken to my brother since 2017. For one.” Angel pushes her hands under her thighs, feeling very sweaty.
Christian gasps, uncharacteristically, yet also characteristically, dramatic, “You haven’t spoken at all?”
Angel shakes her head, “Uh—no. There’s… We just… No, we haven’t talked.”
Tuney frowns. Her entire demeanor has darkened, “He made that sweet post about you in January though.”
“Yeah that was a surprise for us both.” Angel inspects the table for a second before looking at Tuney, “He does—He does owe me, though. I can try and ask him. It’s just…”
“It’s just…?” Christian asks.
Angel glances over to Christian, he seems really hopeful, she doesn’t understand why they want Adría there that bad, “He’s paralyzed.”
The room falls silent. Angel feels everyone’s eyes on her. It wasn’t public information that her brother was made into a paraplegic after his career-ending crash at the end of the 2020 rally season. To the rest of the world, he retired to Andorra and went off all social media. To Angel, he has been dead to her for years before that. But she still knows him. She doesn’t think he could do this. He can’t manage it.
Angel sighs, “From like here—” She straightens her back and gestures towards the middle of her rib cage, “—down. He can’t walk, can’t digest, can’t do, well, anything lower than that point.”
“And that’s why you haven’t tried to talk with him?” Max is the first to speak. It forces Angel to look at him.
Angel opens her mouth to make a snarky rebuttal, then closes it because she doesn’t have anything to say. Nothing she can say to Max would be right. The words are there in her head, she thinks, brewing since December, but she just can’t say them.
Christian reaches out towards Angel’s arm. He’s been acting more paternal toward her ever since she started working as a Development Driver as well.
“Angel?” Tuney asks.
“I stopped talking to him in 2017 because he asked me to quit… racing…?” Angel’s voice ticks up at the end of her sentence. She isn’t sure if that tidbit of info made it into the documentary. Which she is sure everyone in the room and their mother’s have seen at this point, nearly five months after its release. “The—the uh… The accident. That broke his… well, back. It just made things even more… awkward… between us. So I haven’t been home at all, actually. I didn’t start talking to my parents until last year.” Angel trails off, her eyes unfocusing and her mind drifting to her shaky relationship with her parents. They both gifted her a cat for her birthday, each. She’s being swayed via cat to talk with her parents. The worst part is that it’s working. Mercutio the himalayan and Horchata the maine coon are very cute.
There’s a beat of silence.
“Sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry. None of this is appropriate for a workplace meeting. Tuney and Vicky, the long and the short of it is this: maybe, if I asked my brother to go to the Spanish Grand Prix he would say yes. Realistically, due to his situation and killer FOMO, I think he would say no. Or, if not him, my parents would refuse. So, I’m sorry. I’m sure there are other people you can ask. I’m not quite sure why you are even wanting him to go in the first place.” Angel waves her hands wildly in surrender.
Tuney’s face is a little blank, and her head is co*cked to one side like a puppy. “It’s… manageable. We wanted you and your brother to fall back on as…” Tuney stops talking and looks towards Vicky, and then Max, and then Vicky, and then the empty spot next to Max where Angel thinks that Gemma would probably be sitting, considering Checo’s PR officer is next to him. Max gives a subtle nod, his eyes closing as his head hits the bottom of its path. Tuney takes in a large breath, then continues, “We wanted you and your brother as a contingency plan. Max plans on coming out that weekend.”
Angel bites her tongue in her mouth. “As gay?” Shocker.
“Um. Well. No.” Tuney grimaces, “But of course it is Max’s decision to disclose any information about his sexual identity.”
Angel glances at Max, “What’s the significance of the Spanish Grand Prix?” Her question is directed at Tuney though.
“Well, Monaco is the next one and—”
“Charles and I are announcing our relationship at Monaco. We just… We just didn’t want to do both in one weekend.” Max’s eyes are on Angel.
Angel rolls her jaw, “You and Charles are announcing your relationship? In the middle of a championship battle? And you want to use my family drama to make sure it’s not the biggest news of the weekend?”
Tuney whimpers. Or some other embarrassing sound comes from that area of the room. “It would actually be even better if he revealed his paralysis.”
Angel scoffs, “I don’t want to be a part of some marketing ploy.”
“That seems a little selfish—” Max is cut off by Angel’s furious glare.
“I’ve been working on putting myself first since I was 17.” Angel pushes herself out of the seat, her chair skidding backwards against the carpeted floors.
Max matches her expression, “You’ve done a great job of it—”
“I’m leaving. Tuney, we’ll be in touch.”
If anyone notices Angel crying on the treadmill not even half an hour later, it doesn’t get back to her.
F1 updates @/f1updates
BREAKING! Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc both align themselves with rainbow flags this race, both unveiling specialty helmets with the LGBTQ+ pride flag on them. Max Verstappen also included the pansexual flag (pink, yellow, and blue) while Charles Leclerc included the bisexual flag (pink, purple, and blue).
Liked by avfv12, landonorris, and 33.16k others
WhatsApp messages are fully encrypted.
mon ange : are you busy next next weekend? there’s no race
cheríe : as far as i know, no. why?
mon ange : i think im going to kill myself
cheríe : very much so not cool
cheríe : why?
mon ange : do you not follow f1 anymore?
cheríe : i too have a career in sports, i've been busy
mon ange : youre an olympic gold medalist stfu you could kill someone and redbull would be like slay here’s another ten years of sponsorship
mon ange : f*ck anyways
mon ange : charles and max came out
cheríe : as gay? bc that sucks then LMAO
cheríe : get it? bc you were f*cking with them
cheríe : i suppose you could’ve been a fun long term sexual exploration
mon ange : no as bi and pan respectively
mon ange : kys btw
cheríe : oh ok
cheríe : why are you killing yourself over this
cheríe : and me actually too now
mon ange : they’re announcing their relationship next weekend
cheríe : at monaco is CRAZY
cheríe : making the historic grand prix even more historic
mon ange : it’s where they both live.
cheríe : they’re prob going to have crazy sex after the race
mon ange : .
mon ange : ok
cheríe : well yeah
cheríe : i’m right
mon ange : .
cheríe : you so wish you could be in that bone zone
cheríe : bet you wish they put the polyamorous flag on their helmets too
mon ange : i thought you weren’t following f1 atm
cheríe : i looked it up
cheríe : since it was suicide worthy
mon ange : right yeah
cheríe : anyways so you want to get drinks?
mon ange : yeah
cheríe : in london?
mon ange : where else?
cheríe : idk monaco
cheríe : invite lando and daniel and george and alex omg and lewis hes hot
cheríe : he’s prob celebrating not being the only out gay driver
mon ange: and the rest of the grid while we’re at i
mon ange : lewis isn’t out?
mon ange : monaco isn’t that big
cheríe : so you agree that he’s lgbtq tho
cheríe : oooo if we do monaco you should invite arthur
cheríe : maybe charles would get jealous
mon ange : he’s in a committed relationship
mon ange : THAT IS HIS BROTHER?
❤️ by cheríe
cheríe : you could’ve been in that relationship
mon ange : i think we both know im bad with commitment
cheríe : no literally
cheríe : you could’ve been in their relationship
cheríe : 👩❤️👨👨❤️👨👩❤️👨
Read 23:12.
“Now, Angel Cakes, I’m always down for a party. This—” Daniel waves his hands over Angel’s body, “is just depressing.”
Angel groans, “I’m freezing Daniel, let me in.”
Daniel’s eyebrow quirks, “You’re the one wearing a knit sweater and sweatpants and that’s it in the winter.” He reaches out to grab at Angel’s (Charles’) sweater. “On the water,” Daniel adds, an afterthought.
Daniel steps to the side of his apartment, and allows Angel to enter. She slips by and into his hallway that leads to his front door. The walls are painted an egg-shell color, but Angel can barely make it out through the darkness.
“I thought you needed to go to the airport?” Daniel asks, softly. He’s behind Angel. Angel sighs. She doesn’t turn around but nods nonetheless.
“Yeah.”
“So why are you in my apartment?” Daniel reaches for Angel’s shoulder, places a heavy hand on it and rubs his thumb up and down, “Also, how did you know my address?”
Angel places her hand on top of Daniel’s, “It’s in your WhatsApp contact dumbass.” The joke, if you could even call it that, lands and Daniel barks out his usual laugh. The tense feeling in the air dissipates and Angel smiles softly. She flips over her shoulder and hugs Daniel tightly. “Thank you,” She says, “For answering.”
Daniel’s eyes crinkle at the sides with a smile, but her eyebrows furrow as well. Angel knows he’s concerned, but if he isn’t going to ask, she doesn’t want to explain. Daniel sighs and shakes his head.
“Do you not have any luggage? Your passport?” Daniel asks.
Angel blinks, “I have…” She pulls out her wallet from her pants pocket and opens it, looking for whatever IDs she has. She, thankfully, did have her EU passport lodged in one of the pockets of her oversized wallet. She pulls it out and shows it to Daniel, “Voilà, une passeport.”
Daniel grabs at her wrist to inspect the passport, “Andorra is in the EU?”
“I’m half-French. I have two passports.” Angel rolls her eyes.
“Is that legal?” Daniel laughs.
Angel twists her wrist out of Daniel’s grip and shakes her head, a smile still present on her face. “I don’t have any luggage.”
Daniel is silent for a moment. It makes Angel’s skin bristle from discomfort. Why is he silent? Angel shifts uncomfortably on her feet, from heel to toe, foot to foot. Her legs hurt from all the walking she has done today. Far more than normal. The silence stretches even longer, and Angel’s eyes begin to burn with unshed tears. Her nose starts tickling and she fights off the urge to sneeze and get everything over with.
“I thought you were staying with Maxie?” Daniel’s voice comes out a little quiet. His confusion is palpable. “Did something happen? Was it—”
“I don’t know if you want to hear about it,” Angel says.
“Of course I want to hear about it. You felt close enough to ask me to drive you to the airport at—” Daniel checks his phone for the time, his watch already off his wrist at this hour, “—one in the f*cking morning. But we aren’t close enough for me to hear about your romance struggles?”
Angel grinds her jaw, “It’s childish sh*t that I don’t think you’d care about! Yes, I’d consider us friends but c’mon Daniel do you really want to hear about it?”
“I want to hear about it from you rather than get it from Max while he’s drunk off Gin and Tonics in five years.” Daniel’s face is still serious, despite the joke.
“I’ll tell you in the car?” Angel pleads.
Daniel squints, “Deal.”
Daniel’s newest Mclaren is, well, beautiful. Angel runs her fingers over the texture of the seats to soothe her nerves. Daniel falls into the driver’s side seat without elegance, and hands her a RedBull.
“It’s always so awkward to buy these now. Always have to pray no one’s taking a picture.” Daniel undoes the hand brake and shifts the car into first gear, returning to the main road.
Angel laughs, “I’ve always thought it was the best energy drink.”
“I remember you telling me you were a RedBull fan,” Daniel says.
“I did not! I told you I wasn’t one of your fans at all,” Angel defends herself.
“But you are one, right?” Daniel asks. He’s driving below the speed limit, dragging out the car ride to extrapolate as much as he can from her.
Angel crosses her arms, “I like Sebastian Vettel.”
Daniel smiles at her, “I do remember you crying when you first met him. That drunk on happiness look on your face made me recognize you.”
“Not Scotty recognizing me first?” Angel teases.
“That may have helped as well.”
Angel laughs again, and then the car returns to silence. Daniel maneuvers his hands to turn on music in the car, which ends up being some soft house playlist he has that Angel is pretty sure she’s heard before. Angel leans against the window and watches the moving windows of Monaco. Most are dimmed or covered by curtains, but every few there's a window with the lights on. The late (or is it early now?) humidity has made the car fog up and the lights outside look a bit like stars.
“Let’s talk now, Angel,” Daniel says.
“I had a row with Max.” Angel pauses, “And Charles, I guess.”
Daniel nods, “Keep going. You wouldn’t be fleeing the country over a row.”
“Maybe I would.” Angel crosses her arms. “You don’t know.”
“I think I get you pretty well at the moment. You don’t do weird sh*t like this over nothing.” Daniel isn’t looking at her now.
Angel pouts, and then continues, “Max wanted to define our relationship.”
Angel turns to watch Daniel’s reaction and is only met with a side-eye, “How is that a bad thing?”
“Well he wanted to define it with Charles too.” Angel crosses her arms.
“Again. How is this bad?”
“I don’t like not controlling things.”
“That’s not—It’s not… No, Angel. Relationships are not about control. There is no aspect of control in a relationship. Even if the relationship turns out unconventional.”
Angel makes a noise in the back of her throat, her eyes burn, then she says, “I do not want to be the person interfering with them getting together.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do!” Angel whines.
Daniel sighs, “Angel. You’ve liked Charles since what, 2017? And you and Max seemed like very good friends the last half season. You were like a nice little stress ball he had.”
Angel glares at Daniel, “That’s a terrible way of putting my relationship with Max.”
“I think you should just forget all of this. If you want to run away, sure, fine by me. But, Angel—”
“You’re just saying that because you want to f*ck me.”
Daniel swerves off to the grassy side of the road, “I don’t want to f*ck you.”
Angel laughs hysterically, she feels hysterical, “Of course you do! That’s all they want with me. Something more interesting than Max sticking his dick into Charles’ ass.”
Daniel shakes his head, “Angel. I’m serious.”
“You don’t want to f*ck me?”
“Are you getting offended that I don’t? This is a good thing.” Daniel’s eyebrows are pinched in the middle, deep valleys forming on his forehead.
Angel’s hand snakes over the dash, “You wanted to f*ck me when I was 18.”
“I didn’t know you were 18. Angel, stop. Angel. This is unhealthy. I—I think you need to cool off. Run away. They won’t just forget about you. I think the depth of their feelings is greater than you think.” Daniel takes her hand and comfortingly rubs his thumb against her knuckles. Angel feels the tears in her eyes breach her waterline and drip down her cheeks.
Have lestappen gotten together today? @/havelestappengottentogethertoday
YES!!!!!! YES THEY f*ckING DID!
28.5.2022
[An edit to Crawler’s “Come Over (Again)” of clips of Angel from Driving the Speed Limit , with an emphasis on the beginning lyrics regarding smoking and the many clips of Angel with a lighter or cigarette in her hands. It then cuts to the climax of the song, with a clip of younger Valentine depicting each word in “take her name out of your mouth / you don’t deserve t0 mourn,”]
The caption reads: #F1 | i want someone to love me the way marie loves valangel
[An edit to Taylor Swift’s “State of Grace,” specifically the bridge, of Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc throughout the years. Ends with a clip of the announcement they made for their relationship via a joint instagram video.]
The caption reads: will be editing lestappen to ALL of the red tracks, don’t mind me
Angel takes another drag off of her cigarette, staring up into the sun behind a light cloud cover as she savors the smoke inside her lungs and mouth. She’s been smoking Marlboro Reds recently. It’s too much work to bring her own tobacco and rolling papers and it seems fitting enough. A little reverence to the greats in each mouthful of smoke. Even if she prefers a slimmer roll usually. Angel closes her eyes and lets the wind whiz past her ears. Distantly, she can hear the lower formulas on the track. If she listens hard enough, she can tense her back and neck muscles in time with where the cars are on track. Matching the pilots electric pulse for electric pulse. Angel has no strong feelings towards the Paul Ricard Circuit. France, being her second nationality and where half of her family still lives and all, is fairly familiar to her. She’s been in this area of France more times than she can count, never for racing though. Her parents kept everything very separate. She wishes it wasn’t so f*cking dreary today though.
There's still an hour before qualifying starts and Angel’s already gone through all of her duties to the team. Adrian had waved her off twenty minutes before saying that there was nothing more she could help with. If she did anything else they would have to pay her more.
Angel slips her phone from the back pocket of her uniform slacks and quickly unlocks it. Marie had been spam messaging her all day complaining about air traffic times and how she doesn’t know if she will make it to Paul Ricard in time for qualifying. Angel scrolls through the last ten messages, damning whatever airline Marie decided to use for having free in-flight wifi, and answers with a curt “see you soon 😘”. Marie has a few other messages, one from Lando asking if she had plans tonight, a few from her group chat with Alex and George discussing the free practice results and if she had any thoughts on the weekend so far, and finally one from Daniel telling her that she has to go out with him and Lando on Sunday night.
The cigarette burns closer to Angel fingers and she drops it reflexively. With a deep sigh, Angel grinds it down under her sneaker. The ashes disappear among the grey of the concrete and Angel squats down to pick up the largest bits of the cigarette butt to dispose of it properly. She has no idea where the nearest trash can is so she just wanders a bit in the area behind the motorhomes searching idly. After a moment (or three) Angel spots one. She tosses the butt and brushes her hands against her pants. Bored, again, she checks her watch. The cigarette endeavor only took about eight minutes.
“Damn it.” Angel leans against the rear wall of a motorhome. The finer hairs near her ears fall out of her rickety bun and blow across her eyes. Angel tears her fingers through them, digging her nails into her ears in the process.
She’s at a complete loss as to how to spend the next 50 minutes. Angel hits her head against the stiff wall behind her a few times. The repetitive feeling feels almost good. Angel slips her phone out again to see if Marie is any closer to landing and coming to visit her. Christian and the PR team had been very excited when Marie inquired into getting a Paddock Pass. She had finally achieved her goal of an Olympic gold in February, which could, of course, only end in celebrations in the Font-Vial London penthouse. Marie’s location was still at the airport, which means at least she’s landed. Why Marie wanted to fly commercial so badly, Angel didn’t know. She’s certain that RedBull offered other options. Or at least an earlier flight. Angel decides to text Lando back, promising that she hasn’t made any other plans yet. Lando texts back immediately, asking her if she’s too busy to visit the Mclaren garage. Angel pushes herself off of the wall and starts stalking back to the RedBull garage. She casts a cursory glance towards the inside of the garage, where Mechanics were doing final fixes to the cars, and heads to the pitwall.
“Adrian?” Angel asks, quietly. Her fingers tap against the man’s shoulder. Christian turns around with Adrian, both of them peeling away one of the ears of their headphones. On the large screens behind Adrian, Angel can make out the data received from FP3.
“Yes, Angel?” Adrian asks. Angel’s eyes dart around to who could be listening to their conversation. GP is absent from the pitwall at the moment, as well as Hugh.
Angel wrings out her hands before asking, “Is there really nothing else I can do?”
Christian barks out a laugh. Adrian joins him for a moment before clapping a hand against Angel’s back, “No. Nothing else. Sorry.”
“I’m afraid you aren’t in our budget to do more, Angel.” Christian’s smile is wide. Angel thinks the way she exhales sounds a bit like a laugh and she tips forward a little. Dizzy.
“It’d be alright if I go to Mclaren then?”
Christian leans his head onto his hand. Adrian turns to watch Christian’s reaction, obviously leaving the decision to him instead. “Why?”
“Visiting Daniel,” She lies.
Christian’s face softens immediately. Everyone’s seen the way Daniel’s been looking recently. Everyone in RedBull is concerned. The same can’t be said for Mclaren. Christian nods solemnly. “Of course. Come back before Qualifying.”
Angel nods furiously, “Of course.”
“Tell him I said hi.”
The Mclaren Garage was only separated from RedBull by Ferrari, which makes for quite the awkward walk. Angel meanders through a small sea of red as she strolls down the pit lane to enter a sea of orange instead. On her way, she fires Lando a quick text explaining that she will be there in five minutes and to meet her so they don’t cut off her head for trying to enter the garage. She also opens her chat with Daniel to tell him that she would be visiting soon. She stares at it as she walks, frowning when two blue check marks never appear.
A tan hand thrusts itself into Angel’s line of sight, covering her phone screen.
“Eres adicto a tu teléfono,” The hand speaks. (You are addicted to your phone.)
Angel tilts her head up and has to bring her other hand to shadow her eyes. Slowly, Carlos comes into view.
“Oh! Hola, Carlos.” Angel pockets her phone, blushing at the teasing.
Carlos smiles, “Hola, Valentine Angel. ¿Estás caminando a Mclaren?” (Are you walking to Mclaren?)
Angel nods, “¿Tú quieres caminar conmigo?” (Do you want to walk with me?)
“Aye, yes. I wanted to say hello to Lando,” Carlos explains, switching back to English, probably subconsciously thinking ahead to talking with Lando.
“Same here,” Angel agrees. She’s never interacted with Carlos that much. Over the last year or so that she has been working in Formula 1, she’s been to many parties with him due to Lando’s friendship and her brief stint at being on speaking terms with Charles. But, they’ve never spent time one on one. The times that they have been left in a room alone together, they usually end up talking about Rally, which only makes Angel uncomfortable, eventually.
There’s only a few dozen meters until the Mclaren garage, and Angel can spot Lando from a while away anyways. He seems happy to see Angel, or Carlos, or both of them.
“Hi, Lan,” Angel says. Lando pulls her into a side-hug as he does a hand-shake chest-bump with Carlos.
“Hello, Valen-tine!” Lando says her name in two separate parts. And also the holiday, entirely forgoing the accented pronunciation of Valentine that her parents used. Val-uhn-tyn. Out of all of her friends who fumbled along with calling her a different name, Lando struggled the most. Luckily for Angel, he was able to struggle with the switch over the phone throughout 2018, 2019, and 2022. Rather than Angel just appearing with a new persona like she’s in Witness Protection. He was the happiest when the documentary came out and he was able to use all of his old tricks with her name.
“How are you feeling for quali, mate?” Carlos asks Lando. Which causes the two of them to start chattering about the feel of their cars and hopes for the next segment of their Saturday. Angel smiles to herself while watching them, still tucked into the side of Lando.
When there’s a break in the flow of conversation, Angel pipes up, “Where’s Dan’s driver’s room? Christian asked me to check on him.”
Lando perks up, “Right! Let me take you both inside.” Lando picks his arm up off of Angel’s shoulder and leads her and Carlos deeper into Mclaren. He waves off any supervisory workers who raise their eyebrows at the red and navy intruders.
“This one’s Daniel’s.” Lando points to a door, which fittingly says Daniel’s name. “And this one’s mine.” He points to a matching one which says Lando. Figures.
Angel nods, “Alright, I’ll be there soon.”
Lando smiles and waves her goodbye. Carlos does as well and they disappear into Lando’s driver’s room. Angel turns to do the same, disappearing into Daniel Land, but she hesitates with her hand against the door handle. Instead, Angel knocks at the door. She hasn’t felt her phone buzz against her ass since she texted Daniel, so as far as she knows he hasn’t responded.
“Come ‘n,” Daniel calls out through the door. Angel pushes the door handle down and peeks her head through. “Angel.”
“Hey, Dan,” Angel says, softly as if she was talking to one of her cats. She enters the room fully. It’s a little messy, which is understandable. 11th to Lando’s 9th. Angel can tell that the constant performance errors are graining on him.
Daniel is lounging on his couch, head tilted back against the armrest. His cap is still on his head, shading his eyes from the fluorescent lighting. Knotted on his waist is his race suit. Daniel throws his hand against his forehead, tilting up the brim of his cap to look at Angel under his eyelashes. He groans, but smiles. Angel smiles back, but she doesn’t think he can see her do it. Daniel spreads his arms apart, inviting Angel into them for a quick hug or something.
Angel drops her phone off on the small coffee table next to Daniel’s couch and squats down near his chest to hug him sideways, half on the floor and half on the couch.
“Just cuddle me, Angel cakes.” Daniel’s hand twists into Angel’s hair, weaving itself into her bun and tugging her entire head and upper body forward with a swift pull. Angel catches herself on the bits of couch not covered by Daniel’s thin frame.
“Daniel,” She rasps.
“Angel?” Daniel asks.
“Fine,” Angel answers. It’s awkward. The couch is not meant for two people laying length-ways on it. It’s barely meant for Daniel laying length-ways on it. Angel’s head butts up against Daniel’s chin, and she is sure that her elbows are digging into his ribcage awkwardly. “Are you okay?”
“Y’r like a weighted blanket,” Daniel says.
Angel would nod if she wasn’t so afraid to move and risk falling off the couch entirely, “Are you… okay ?” She asks again.
Daniel doesn’t answer.
“Christian wants to know too.” Angel maneuvers her hand up to Daniel’s head and pushes his cap off so she can drag her fingers through his hair as well.
Daniel’s entire body rumbles with laughter, “That’s awfully sweet o’ ‘im,” He whispers. Or have they been whispering this whole time?
Angel tugs on Daniel’s hair a little, (she feels some hairs come out and offers a silent prayer in apology), “Can you please just tell me? So I can placate him at least. We care about you.”
“I’m okay. I’ll be okay.”
“That’s the kind of bullsh*t I’d say, Dan.”
Daniel makes an audible sniff, “Have you been smoking?”
Angel rolls her eyes, “Don’t change the subject. I’m a smoker, fork found in kitchen.”
Daniel jostles her around. His hand remains firmly entangled in her bun. “How long are you staying?”
“Technically I’m here for Lando. But Carlos is with him now,” Angel hums. “But, obviously I need to be back in the garage before Qualifying starts.”
Daniel nods.
They fall back into a comfortable silence. Angel rises with Daniel’s chest and falls with it too. She counts his heartbeats like sheep. It’s a dizzying pace. Angel loses count a dozen times before Daniel talks again.
“Who d’you think is g’na get pole?” He asks. His words are a bit slurred with drowsiness. This probably isn’t the best activity to be doing before qualifying. Angel twists against Daniel so she can get a glimpse of his eyes.
They’re closed. The shadows of his eyelashes make his eyebags look worse. Angel can make out the wrinkles and veins of his eyelids a little too clearly.
“You.”
“Liar. Y’ think it’ll be Seb.”
“Una volta més,” (One more lap.) Adría yelled out.
Valentine shifted uncomfortably in the kart, it was dead of winter and they only salted the small track that morning. The ice hadn’t even melted yet. “Estic espantat!” (I’m scared!) Valentine shrieked as she slid and recorrected herself over a patch of ice.
Adría visibly deflated with a sigh, “Torna, pocatraça” (Come back, klutz.)
Valentine skidded the kart to a stop in front of her older brother. Adría beckoned her out of the kart and toward him. Valentine shook as she stepped out and toward her brother. “He fet una mala feina?” (Did I do a bad job?)
“Estava millor, a la teva edat,” (I was better, at your age.) Adría said.
“Tinc cinc anys…” (I’m five years old…) Valentine argued. Adría started karting at the same age as her, he’s just nearly eight years older. “El pare diu que no puc conduir jo sol” (Dad says I can't drive by myself.)
Adría slapped Valentine upside the head, “No. Va dir que era la meva feina ser el teu entrenador.” Adría glared at Valentine when she started blubbering with tears and pain, “Tu ets qui volia ser com el germà gran tant. Jesús.” (No. He said it was my job to be your coach. You’re the one who wanted to be like big brother so badly. Jesus.)
“Maman diu que no utilitzeu el nom del senyor en va,” (Maman says not to use the lord's name in vain.) Valentine whined. She swayed on her feet.
Adría kicked Valentine, “Necessites fer pipí? Atureu-ho… No som a Andorra. Puc dir el que sigui.” (Do you need to pee? Stop it. We aren't in Andorra. I can say whatever.)
Max is late to his debrief. As if Angel deserves a punishment, she’s tasked with finding him. She’s the only person without an actual job to do at that moment anyways. It’s pretty obvious where he would be. To Angel. At least.
The RedBull garage and Ferrari garage are next to each other, afterall.
Angel slips by the busy mechanics and engineers into the depths of rosso corsa. She prays that it’s set up similarly to the Mclaren garage and that the driver’s rooms are marked with their respective driver’s name.
Hallelujah, it is.
Angel knocks at Charles’ door and suddenly wishes that she still wore her little white-gold cross necklace from her 15th birthday again. Less painful to tug on than her umpteenth fresh ear piercing.
“f*ck off!” Max yells through the door.
Angel rolls her eyes and jiggles the handle a little.
“f*ck off—” Max rips open the door to yell it into Angel’s face. Which he does. And then stops breathing entirely, as far as Angel can tell. “What the f*ck are you doing?” He says instead. If he was a dog he’d be growling and snapping his teeth.
“You’re late to your debrief,” Angel explains. She’s feigning confidence, poorly. Her hips hurt.
“I won by ten seconds, I think they can start without me.” Max tries to close the door on Angel, but she forces her forearm into the gap.
Angel glares at Max, “Yeah, okay, sure. Let’s ignore the first 18 laps.” Max thrusts his finger against Angel’s lips. Right, sore subject for the owner of the room. “You can have pity sex later.” Angel regrets saying as soon as she lets the words leave her mouth. She isn’t close enough with either of them to joke like that. Not anymore. Not since she chose to change their dynamic.
“You’re being a c*nt.” Max steps back from the small gap he’s left open in the door.
Angel leans against the doorframe, “I don’t want to get fired. Please, just come to the debrief.”
“You always say that you are going to get fired. But, of course, you never do. Why does RedBull even employ you?” Max is picking up stuff from the small room. If Angel peeks into it, which she doesn’t, she can see Charles curled up on his own version of Daniel’s couch, already changed and showered.
Then, Charles talks, “She’s probably f*cking one of them.”
Angel coughs, “You know me.”
“f*cking Lando too. And Daniel. Probably the two of them together. But just sex, no? It is like that?” Charles continues, unflinchingly. “Carlos tells me.”
“Carlos—” Angel starts. Her voice is shrill with tightly bound grief.
“Let’s go.” Max takes Angel by the arm and tugs her through the door.
Max closes the door behind them and turns Angel against the wall. His arms don’t cage her in, but his looming body over her own does. Max still hasn’t showered from the podium celebrations and the stench of champagne haunts Angel.
“Are you f*cking Daniel?” Max asks.
Angel grunts, “Do you care?”
Max narrows his eyes, “It is f*cked up to do that to him this year, of course. He is my friend.”
“I’m not f*cking Daniel. Or Lando. Or anyone in RedBull.” Angel shoulder checks Max as she repels from the wall. “Just go to your f*cking debrief.”
WhatsApp messages are fully encrypted.
- valentine: can’t come out tonight, i’m sorry. just flying back with the team ASAP xx
father lando: boo you whor* oo
Checo has a fever of 41 degrees.
Angel stares at her phone for about thirty minutes before actually getting dressed.
Checo has a fever of 41 degrees. You have the best times out of all the reserve drivers in Austin.
Thankfully, Angel wakes up an hour early just in case she wants to do something intricate with her hair.
Checo has a fever of 41 degrees. You have the best times out of all the reserve drivers in Austin. Do you think you could race for Checo this weekend?
Christian has lost his mind, gone greedy with the fact that Max has two championships now. Obviously.
Yes. I can. I want #12.
[POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE US GRAND PRIX:
INTERVIEWER: Welcome to the COTA post race press conference. We are joined with our top three, Charles Leclerc in third place, Max Verstappen in second, and reserve driver Valentine Angel Font-Vial in first. I want to start with major kudos to Valentine Angel for stepping in for Checo Perez this weekend and absolutely obliterating it.
FONT-VIAL: Thank you.
INTERVIEWER: How does it feel to have a win in Formula 1? Actually, an entire grand slam?
FONT-VIAL: Amazing, obviously. (Laughter.) I’ve kind of been out of my mind this entire weekend. Just going with the flow, I guess.
INTERVIEWER: Just, beyond mega job Valentine Angel. Absolutely astonishing work out there.
…]
“Mon Ange, mon Ange, mon Ange,” Marie whispers into Angel’s ear. “You did it. You did it. You did it.”
Angel rubs against Marie’s back, ignoring the amount of sweat she is probably getting on Marie’s clothes, “We got everything we wanted this year.”
Marie’s laugh is watery with tears, “I can’t believe we won an Oscar.”
“ You won an Oscar. I just looked pretty and depressed.” Angel tightens her grip on Marie.
“That’s all they look for in the documentary category actually. Who has the hottest topic,” Marie says.
Angel laughs, “Right, right, right.”
Marie pushes Angel away for a moment, grinning madly at her, before clutching her even tighter to her chest, “You have to go get interviewed soon, right?”
“Yeah,” Angel confirms, “I’m not excited about that part. I think the rest of the day will be—”
“Awkward?” Marie interjects.
Angel laughs, “Yes, awkward. Charles said he wanted to talk but I swear to God if they offer a threesome I’m going to lose it.”
Marie pokes at Angel’s side through her race suit, “Maybe that threesome could lead to more?”
“Shut the f*ck up,” Angel says. But the hope is there. Maybe just a little bit. If they'll have her, she'll give it over.
