when worlds collide [george russell]

Chapter 12

Hey, this is Willow! I've given it some thought and yes, dinner would be nice ;) I'm out of town next week but the week after could work. Probably best if you propose a date and I'll tell you if it works for me since you're the busier one.  xx

The message reached George five days after their walk through Hyde Park. When he saw the first line of the text he continued to read with great anticipation. It would be a lie if he said he didn't hope that every time he had gotten a notification the last few days it would be from her.

Willow originally planned to write him on Saturday but when she woke up that day she thought about it once more and she really wasn't sure if she was ready to get herself into that right now. Just a few weeks before she had swore to herself to take a break from boys for good to deal with her unhealthy habits of getting too obsessed too early on.

She took some days to thoroughly evaluate if it was smart to keep going with George and there she was now, on Wednesday, composing a message to him. She came to the conclusion that she was ready to explore this further without falling back into old habits.

George was about to board the plain to Belgium for Round 12 of the 2021 season and he quickly put together some words so the message would reach her before the plane took off and he could possibly have a reply when he landed.

Great! How about Monday the 6th of September?

To his surprise his phone buzzed again right as the plane was getting ready for take-off.

Works for me!

His fingertips flew over the keyboard of his phone so quickly to reply to her.

Lovely! I'll pick you up at 7 :) 

Willow opened the last text from him and a smile formed on her lips. Considering it was only the 25th of August right now, there was still some days until their date but she was curious to see how it would play out.

On Friday she would be taking the train to Brackley to spend the weekend and the following week there. Her brothers would join them on the weekend too.

"Oh Willow! So good to see you again! How have you been? How is everything?" Willows mom greeted her as she hugged her right in the doorway of Willow childhood home.

"I'm fine mom! Everything's going great right now. Almost finished with my thesis too. How are you?"

"Thats good to hear. I'm doing great myself. I've been working in the garden a lot, I'll have to show you after lunch. It's looking great now that I've planted more stuff."

Willow nodded and turned to hug her dad who came from the garage to greet her.

"Your brothers and their girlfriends should all be arriving soon!" Willows mom said as she returned to the kitchen to continue cooking.

Willow followed her to help, but she was soon enough sent away to open the door for her brother who had just arrived.

Camilla was already starting to show a bump since she was now 4 moths along in her pregnancy. She was a wearing a stunning floor length dress that drew attention to the fact the she was pregnant by the way it hugged her upper body. John, Willow brother and Camilla's boyfriend, came up behind her with several bags in his hands.

"Aren't you guys only staying two nights?" Willow asked.

John's only answer to this was rolling his eyes as he walked past the two of them to carry the bags inside.

Camilla followed him to say hello to the parents and now Charlie arrived with his girlfriend Mika as well.

"Willow! You look gorgeous! I haven't seen you in so long" Mika ran up to her and hugged her.

Willow always got along very well with her brothers girlfriends but she also felt like the black sheep of the family as she was the only one not bringing anyone, the only one not being able to cuddle with someone when they all watched a movie together in the evening and the only one still sleeping in her childhood bed while everyone else's had been replace by a full sized. 

She and the other women walked through the garden after lunch, which was now looking like a tiny fairytale compared to the battlefield it had been a year ago after the house got renovated.

Her mom had planted as many different types of flowers as she could fit into the 200 square meter garden, including roses, gardenias, freesias and lilies, and the english weather favored their growth quite nicely. 

As they walked through Mika grabbed Willows arm and pulled her to the side so they could have a more private conversation.

"Soooo? I haven't seen you in so long, you need to update me. How's it going with the men. Is there a special someone or do they all suck like men normally do?" Mika asked.

Willow hesitated bit if it was worth telling.

"There is someone, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. It's still very new so nothing much going on."

"Alright. I won't be too noisy, but is he cute? You had a little smile on your face right now so I guess he is."

Willow felt caught and she blushed. "He is indeed pretty cute, but I wont say more."

They played card games for the rest of the day and went on a walk around the town the next day before eating at their favorite restaurant. 

On Sunday the had lunch at home again. The three men quickly cleared the table after lunch was over and tidied the kitchen since all the women had cooked together. After they had done so the all disappeared into the living room. 

Willow, Mika and Camilla prepared the dessert but the boys didn't come back so Willow went to look what they were doing. 

She walked into the living room where she saw the three of them all comfortably placed on the sofa with their eyes glued to the TV screen.

The sounds that came from the TV already gave something away and as she looked at what they were watching she realized - they were watching the race, the race George was currently participating in. 

Willow completely forgot was she came in there to do and went to sit on the armrest of the sofa, with her eyes now glued to the screen too.

She scanned the leaderboard on the left of the screen to see the letters RUS in 10th place. She remembered how George had told her his car was more of a backfield car so him being in 10th place seemed pretty good to her. Willow said there quietly, trying not to be too obvious about her sudden interest in the sport but it seemed like the others hadn't even really noticed her being there.

"George is doing pretty good." Willow father suddenly said.

Willow slightly twitched as she heard his name coming out of her fathers mouth. 

"Yeah, he's great. I'd say he's one of the best drivers on the grid but sadly he can't really show it, because he's stuck in that Williams." Charlie said now.

"Not for long though any more. He just signed with Mercedes for next year, so that's going to be great to see. He can finally show his potential." John added.

Willow was weirded out by the situation. Out of all the 20 drivers they really randomly started speaking about George, and on top of that just as she came in for a few minutes. It took everything in her to act as normal as she could, not that they could be suspecting anything, because they would never think that Willow was about to go on a date with the one they were just now talking about, but nevertheless.

She got up and told them desert was ready. To no surprise they said they'd come later and Willow left the room again. This was enough of that for her, at least for today.