The first time Max told Carlos he was gay, it happened at two in the morning in some forgettable hotel room in the middle of a Formula 3 weekend. The kind of room that smelled like recycled air and cheap carpet cleaner, the kind of room you stopped noticing after your third season of racing weekends, the heating unit groaning softly every few minutes like it had its own complaints about being there.

Carlos was lying upside down on his bed, feet kicked up against the headboard, scrolling through Instagram with the content expression of someone who had absolutely nothing on his mind. Every so often he'd exhale a little laugh at something on his screen, the sound small and unguarded, the kind of laugh people only produce when they think no one important is watching.