Jonathan was waiting just outside his door, hair slightly damp from a post-practice shower. He didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at me in that way that made the time we’d been apart feel both impossibly long and suddenly collapsed into nothing.
Then he smiled, and it was over. I followed him inside and closed the door behind me.
We didn’t kiss right away. He just pressed his forehead to mine, breathing me in like he was checking I was real and not another screen.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
His hand slid to my cheek. “Do you have to write this part down for Thea?”
I snorted. “She said full disclosure. Didn’t specify whether I should include timestamps for physical contact.”
“Might as well get it right then,” he murmured, and finally kissed me.
It was slow at first, like neither of us wanted to break it too soon. Familiar. Necessary. When he pulled back, he kept his lips close to mine.
“How was your week?” he asked.
“Long. Wrote three pieces, answered a hundred emails, and ate too much goulash and stuffed cabbage.” I smiled. “You?”
“Training. Data review. Trying not to think about how much faster Red Bull’s going to be here.” He traced his thumb along my jaw. “The car’s going to struggle on the straights. Hungary suited us, tight, technical, all about mechanical grip. Spa’s the opposite. Long straights, high-speed corners, pure power.”
I could hear the worry underneath the analysis. “You’ll find a way.”
“Maybe.” He pulled me closer. “Or maybe I’ll spend the weekend watching Verstappen disappear into the distance while I drive a perfect race for third place.”
“Then you drive a perfect race for third place,” I said. “It’s still points. It’s still building toward something. “
He nodded, but I could see the doubt settling in. The confidence from Hungary was already fading, replaced by the familiar anxiety of not being quite good enough.
“This place is going to expose us,” he said, standing by the window as the sun dipped behind the trees. “Hungary flattered the car. Spa won’t.”
Friday confirmed it brutally.
In the technical sections, Jonathan was sublime—through Pouhon, through Campus—threading speed out of corners where others hesitated. But every time the track opened up, every time horsepower mattered more than finesse, the gapreappeared. Red Bull and Ferrari vanished down the straights like physics had picked sides.
By the end of the session, no one was lying to themselves anymore.
Meridian could fight.
Meridian could defend.
Meridian could not dictate.
Jonathan didn’t say much after FP2. He answered questions with clipped precision, then sent a single text once the paddock quieted.
JONATHAN: See you in the media center?
WALDO: Where I’ll pretend not to know you while writing objectively about your performance.
JONATHAN: My favorite kind of foreplay.
I laughed and left, already composing the disclosure email in my head.
He finished the day fifth on the timing sheets. On paper, it was respectable. In context, it was confirmation. He’d driven the lap of his life. Clean through Sector 1, fearless into Eau Rouge, extracting everything the car would give. Then watched it drain away on the run to the chicane.
Fifth wasn’t failure.
