ੈ♡˳ ONE
a million emotions

TICK, TICK.

THE CLOCK was deafening. each sharp tick grew louder. every footstep was heavy on her heart, the scratch of pen on paper was dizzying.

tick, tick.

the voices were muffling, the most important conversations of her career disappearing under her grasp no matter how hard she reached to reel it back towards her.

tick, tick.

it was the worst part of the year. dozens of red bull racing employees all shoved into one room, each breaking out into their own conversations that talked over the next person. there were no children in the room, but it only felt like an overwhelming playground full of screaming children, voices drumming louder with every beat of her heart.

tick, tick.

"breathe, catie."

quick to recognise the hand that was gently rubbing her shoulder, it was like the foggy filter had lifted. cato could breathe again.

"sorry," she quickly mumbled, the oxygen trickling back into her lungs. "did i miss something?"

max verstappen felt his sister's head collapse down onto his shoulder. "no," he mumbled back. "mel just got here."

it was the same every season. the same people entered the same room in milton keynes to discuss the upcoming season and it's changes. it was something cato used to be able to skip when she was with force india and renault, but red bull didn't deal with bullshit. she was lucky she had enough talent because otherwise she would've been dropped years ago. she'd seen it tragically happen with nyck de vries; it was cutthroat to be at the top.

melissa, the red bull team principal, wasn't one to play games. she pulled the team into gear and kept them at the heights they'd stolen back from mercedes. she'd put in blood, sweat and tears to go from a engineer to a team principal against all the men that tried to tear her down, and so she didn't back down. melissa was a loaded gun. and she was always what she deemed fashionably late to meetings. she said it was to keep men on their toes, and cato could tell it worked.

"alright, then," she sat down at the head of the table, flipping open the navy blue notebook that no one ever saw her without. the amount of power radiating from one woman was both suffocating and inspiring — and cato understood it firsthand. "lets get this show on the road, hm? what have we got?"

andrew, the head engineer, cleared his throat. "there aren't too many changes this season. i think mclaren and mercedes will start to challenge us this season, probably ferrari, too. the teams have learnt from our dominance last year."

"and we've learnt from our dominance, too," melissa nodded in his direction. her eyes shifted down the table, studying every person until her sight drifted past max and landed on cato. there was the silent question of 'are you alright?' that cato nodded subtly at before straightening back up. "you ready to challenge again, cato?"

"all i need is a car," cato responded simply, willing her voice to level to the confidence she held around others.

"max?"

"a competitive car," max answered melissa's question, building off his twin's answer, "i'll tell you if it's shit," he joked, pulling a laugh out of a few at the table. being blunt was a verstappen trait that they team learned to love — the team could criticise them, and they had to be able to take it in return. it was the only way for them to grow as a team.

cato zoned out most of the meeting. there weren't many changes to this season that weren't already brought up in last year's summer break. there was stuff from a business standpoint that were not of interest to her, like finances, news from the legal team, and a few public relations affairs. she was quite content staring at the chip in the pristine glass table that was almost the length of the room. it was a dainty little chip, one that was unnoticeable unless you spent time staring at it until it was no longer invisible. studying details was part of the reason cato was where she was today, and if she hadn't noticed it the second she entered the room, then she had clearly failed.

and then it was the media team's turn, and the representative for them dropped her phone down onto the glass loud enough for cato to jolt out of her blank staring.

flora flipped through her notepad, each colour-coded section blinking away to the next until she settled on her prepared notes. "we've been reviewing what we need to cover this season for media," she started with, and cato snapped out of her daze. she caught max sitting a little more alert in her peripheral vision.

"and a lot of it is pretty straightforward," she continued. "people love the sibling dynamic you've got going on, especially how it's developed over the last few years." it stung for a moment. having to rebuild trust with your twin after becoming teammates felt forbidden when their upbringing was spent tearing it down into irreplaceable shreds. "so we definitely wanna keep that up . . . but, uh—"

there's a but. cato groaned before she could stop herself. "flora, please speak," she rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands, her soft, black gloves gentle against her skin.

flora's sudden uneasiness seemed to even put melissa on edge. the older woman sat up on the edge of her seat, her arms crossed over the table. "what's the problem?"

flora averted eye contact, instead fixing her gaze on the wall above cato's head. "we, as a team, are worried about a particular outcome—"

"flora."

"luca santiago is moving from mclaren's indy team to their f1 team," flora said so quickly it was almost missable. "they've been holding off on talking about it until recently an . . ."

the words were fading again. the clock was ticking again. scuffing shoes on carpet floors and pens scraping were insufferable white noise. flora's mouth was moving in explanation but it all fell short like there was an invisible barrier up to deflect the past away from cato's future.

and there, despite it all, cato waited until she noticed flora's mouth stop moving. the world had stopped spinning on its axis, but she found the words she wanted to say in the classic act of avoidance. "no worries," she said simply, brushing off the brief she hadn't heard a word of. "are we done here?"

x

EACH THUD DRILLED HEAVIER. tanned skin protected by wrist wraps and gloves did nothing to satiate the jumble of emotions he felt. it was tumbling quicker than clothes in the dryer, spinning and twisting and clattering. emotions twisted together like poisonous, encapsulating vines scratching thorns into each one until they were tangled torturously.

"fuck, santi," his trainer, mikael, dropped his hands and took a few steps back. he rolled his wrists a few times, trying to work the slight ache out of them. "you're going to break my hands."

with a sigh, luca santiago dropped his guard, his hands falling down to his sides as exhaustion finally caught up to him and the vines subsided. the sudden burst of out-of-character attitude from him was momentarily shocking. "nah, you're fine," he played off casually, slipping off one of the gloves to wipe his sweaty hair out of his face.

the boxing end of the gym was hardly busy, just two women sparring in the other ring and a guy taking his aggression out on a punching bag nearby. it had been mikael's first suggestion for luca to head over to another punching bag, but apparently that wasn't good enough. the swede had been preparing to deal with luca's jumbled mood the moment he saw him arrive with clouded eyes, he just didn't think it would end with sore wrists.

"what's gotten into you?" mikael asked as he slipped the flat, padded gloves off his hands. "you haven't been in a mood since—"

"2014, i know," luca took off his other glove and dropped them onto the canvas he was standing on. "it's nothing," he insisted, reaching for the white towel hanging over the top rope.

mikael barely bat an eye. he watched the boy he'd been training for the past eleven years run the towel over his face and hair, trying to soak up as much of the sweat as possible before they moved ionto the weights. "come on," he said louder. "news broke this morning about your f1 seat. you're thinking about her again."

luca's shoulders slumped. he already felt gross, a small towel doing barely anything to combat the hour of hard training he had already completed just boxing. his white singlet was saturated, and he was more grateful about having a spare black one in his bag. he would much rather think about that than mikael's attempts at riling him up — which were working.

"it's nothing," he repeated, ducking through the ropes to step out of the ring. the bitterness was resurfacing, the years of pent-up frustration that he wasn't good enough weighed heavy. mikael had heard it all before. "i'm finally where i should be. this is a good thing."

"and we're all so proud of you," mikael didn't move from atop the canvas. he was better off dishing out comments from higher up before luca's rare temper developed. "but you needed the extra years elsewhere. you know that."

i know that, luca thought through gritted teeth, closing his eyes for a moment to get his breathing back under control. doesn't make it any better. "do you want me to talk?"

"yes, actually."

mikael, who for some reason hadn't taken up a career in therapy, ducked through the ropes to the floor, where he started packing up their stuff to move into the main part of the gym. luca dropped down onto the bench, dropping his head in his hands. "i was two points off the 2013 championship. i would've made 2014 my bitch if she hadn't appeared in carlin. it's so fucked."

"uh huh."

"like, she appeared out of nowhere and smashed us outta the park to win the season as a rookie." to this day, luca was still in disbelief. there was shock mixed with awe because that surely was not normal, and was definitely why her and her twin brother had been labelled 'freaks of nature' by the motorsport world. it just wasn't normal. "and everyone kept comparing me to her. 'luca, why aren't you good enough?'. 'luca, that was your championship'. 'luca, why would you let cato beat you?'" he finally took a breath, finding himself again amidst his complaining.

saying her name again felt like ice. he hadn't uttered it in close to a decade, and for that matter, hadn't seen her, either. there was maybe one glimpse he had rarely gotten when he'd raced practice sessions in abu dhabi, or when it was on tv, but he had always been quick to turn it off. was that childish? she was his reminder of everything he had lost.

"you want to be better than cato verstappen?" mikael placed his hand on luca's shoulder. "then you train more. you get on the sim more. you have no other interests other than racing. is that what you want?"

luca was silent.

"come on, santi," the older man pat his shoulder before moving past, ushering luca to follow him. "and," he added, "just be grateful you took the long route to formula one because you had a good upbringing. that is the most important part."

x

INSTAGRAM — LUCASANTIAGO

lucasantiago: gonna miss indy but f1 here i come! ive been waiting my whole life for this moment, thanks to everyone who made it possible :) dream come true 🧡

comments . . .

user1: deserved!!!!

arrowmclaren: 🧡🧡

user2: luca to mclaren f1 is all i need
↳ user3: fr like dominating indy was def staring to get boring

oscarpiastri: teammate!
↳ lucasantiago: hey stranger :)

frosenqvist: about time 😊

user3: cato and luca are back guys
↳ user4: brocedes 2.0 are so back

jasminetan: IM SO FUCKING HAPPY FOR YOU BEST FRIEND
↳ lucasantiago: LETS GOOOO

mclaren: 🫡🧡
↳ user5: zak brown why did you decide the mexican font of oscar was the perfect idea of a teammate
↳ user6: FR WHY ARE THEY THE SAME

user7: more mexican f1 rep lets gooooo

user8: i know toto is gonna get flashbacks and theyre not even merc drivers anymore

indycar: good luck luca! ❤️

notes,

first chapter kinda exciting