The heat clung to the air like tension. Another race weekend, another blur of commitments, and Lewis moved through it with the weight of a scarlet legacy already stitched onto his shoulders. Ferrari red was louder than he remembered. It turned heads in every corridor, every hospitality tent, every debrief. Everyone wanted a piece of him — media, fans, strategists. Everyone except the one person he hadn't seen all morning.

Not really.

Yet he felt him.

Out of the corner of his eye during the engineering meeting — leaning against a pillar near the espresso machine, laughing at something another driver said. Lewis blinked once, twice, but didn't let himself turn toward him. His fingers flexed on the tablet in his lap.

During the pre-race briefing, while everyone argued about tyre compounds, his gaze drifted to the window. Below, in the paddock, there he was again — half in a team jacket, half out of place, half looking like he belonged on the other side of his hotel bed.

He scolded himself for the thought.

Ferrari had asked for all of him. And he'd agreed.

He'd just... thought he would understand. That the shift to a new team didn't mean a shift away from everything else. He hadn't said it aloud, but the silence between them had grown roots anyway. Longer messages had become short ones. Mornings together became mornings missed. And when he looked up now, the spot next to him was always full of someone else.

But then Quali started.

Head in the helmet, engine beneath him, the world was loud and simple again. He felt the car in ways he hadn't for years. He wanted it in ways he hadn't in years. And when he crossed the line with a time that stuck near the top of the sheets, his smile was real. For a minute.

Until he returned to the garage. Helmet off. And he was there. Just standing near the screens, race suit half unzipped to show his fireproofs, one foot tapping, chin tilted in that way that always meant: we need to talk.

Lewis didn't know why it shook something loose in his chest. But it did.

Hours passed. Media, meetings, the endless shuffle. He didn't approach. He didn't know what to say. Not yet.

But by the time the sun went low and the garage was nearly empty, he caught sight of him again. Alone this time. Arms folded. Watching something on a tablet. Still here.

Still waiting.

Lewis stepped forward slowly, quietly, until he was beside him. His voice wasn't sharp like it was with the engineers, wasn't polished like it was in interviews. It was just him, soft and low.

"Why'd you stay this late?" he asked.