Minefield of Mirrors

-44-

With a simple throw, Iris threw her handbag into the chair in the corner. Even though Mick and she had an amazing night after exposing their true thoughts and feelings towards one another, Iris felt sorry for him and how he was worried about not making the cut for the grid next year. He was doing everything in his power to make sure everyone saw his potential, but it seemed like everything was against him time after time again. The luck clearly didn't seem in his favour...

On the other side, luck seemed to be in her favour. It was a mutual decision to cut things back to a friendship base, rather than an individual choice from her side which would've been for sure more painful to both of them. Some of the tension in her shoulders had left after telling Mick the truth about her thoughts and feelings. Everything had been building up towards that specific moment and there was so much uncertainty all around it. Her heart didn't feel as heavy anymore. Sure, she still had to figure things out with Max, but it felt good to not have to separate her attention between Mick and Max anymore. There was more space to focus on what was hiding inside her heart and feelings.

A sudden knock sounded on her door and Iris turned around to the door she had closed behind her less than a minute ago. Cluelessly she opened the door, not even peeking through the little see-through hole.

'Max?' Iris didn't even have the time to blink as he rushed past her into her room.

Confused, she closed the door and took a couple of steps forward to close the distance he had created by standing still in the middle of her hotel room. With a frown on her face, Iris crossed her arms in front of her chest.

'May I-'

Max turned around to face her and cut right to the case. 'You wanted to know what I want from you, right? Maybe this already gives you a glimpse of what I want.'

He threw an object through the air to Iris and she caught it in time before it landed on the floor. The glass felt warm in her hand, probably because Max had held it in the palm of his hand for quite some time. Somehow the shape felt familiar in her hand and she looked at it. It was a bottle. It was... Was it her perfume? She brought it closer to her eye and noticed the little scratch over the logo of Hugo Boss, which confirmed her thoughts. It was the bottle she had been looking for the last few weeks. She had been so sure she had put it in her suitcase when she left for the first days of her new job on this account, but she had never found it back. Until now...

'How...? Where did you get my perfume?' Many more questions were running through her mind, but somehow these were the ones tumbling out first.

Max tucked his hands in the pockets of his dark blue jeans. 'You remember how I accidentally switched our suitcases on your first day? Well, I didn't switch it accidentally.' The confession was sound and clear. Stated in the air like it was the most normal thing to say. 'I wanted to know who you were. I wanted to take something from your suitcase just to fuck with you, but as soon as I found the perfume, I couldn't tug it back in. It just smelled phenomenal and... It made me calm somehow.'

'So you simply kept it? All this time?'

He lifted his shoulders and shook his head a little. 'I know, I should've returned it. Yet you... You kept sticking in my mind. I hated how you went against me all the time, and I hated it even more how I slowly started to enjoy our little encounters.'

Iris kept looking at him as she put the bottle of her perfume on a little side table next to her. She kept her mouth, waiting for him to spill more words that would lead to the truth of what he wanted from her. Because oh boy, she knew that she was dancing on the dangerous edge of the truth here.

'I...' His eyes searched the floor of the hotel room like the right words would be written down somewhere. 'Fuck, I'm not good at this.' The vein in his neck was visibly going up and down. A sign that he was nervous. 'I found myself looking forward to our arguments and irritations. So if we didn't see each other, I felt like I missed something during the day. And well... Then I...'