The Apprenticeship - A Lando Norris FanFiction

43. Bahrain Pt4

After finally finishing my talk with Jon I headed downstairs to get ready for track walk. I was pissed, I'm basically being forced to date a girl I don't like, the amount of hate and judgement from fans will be ridiculous and I can't do anything about it. I saw y/n in the pits talking to Jose, he was showing her how to tell which driver is going faster. "Lando are you ready for track walk?" Charlotte asked, I nodded and rubbed my forehead. 

Y/n's POV
I looked over to Lando as he walked in, he seemed annoyed and stressed. I tried to listen to what him and Charlotte were talking about but the pits were too loud for me to hear them. "Ok everybody it's track walk in 2 minutes to those who are joining please be ready." Jose shouted across the pits and got a lot of nods from the crew. I walked over to Lando who had his arms crossed and stared at the floor, something seemed to be bothering him. "Hey." I said sympathetically. He looked up to me, and mumbled a small hi. 
"Do you want to talk?" I asked.
"Not now, can we talk tonight? At the hotel? I really need to tell you something but we need to be alone." He said seriously, I wasn't sure if I wanted to be with him on our own.
"Lando..." I sounded unsure. 
"Please Y/n." He then whispered. "Just to talk I promise nothing will happen, I need you... as a friend of course." 
"Ok." I agreed. 

We then headed out to the track, Lando put whatever was bothering behind him and put all his focus on this weekend. I spent most of the track walk wondering what was wrong with Lando whilst walking with Charlotte. "Is Lando ok? He seems bothered about something." I said to Charlotte. 
"Yeah I think so. I think he's a bit worried about how he is going to do this season with the new car and getting used to it. He's normally like this at the start of the new season, i'd just give him some space." Charlotte said, I nodded. Track walk was filled with warmth, fans screaming for Lando and lots of talk about what Lando needs to do to succeed. I looked behind me to see George about 100 yards away from us doing his track walk. He waved at me and I smiled and waved back. "Can I go see George?" I practically begged Charlotte. 
"Let me ask Jon." She said. She walked next to him, Jon looked behind at me, I mouthed a please, he rolled his eyes and nodded. I quickly ran back to George, who wasn't with his PR manager. "Hey." I smiled at him.
"Hello, you're lucky Poppy isn't doing the track walk." George said.
"Poppy?" I looked at him with slight jealousy. 
"My PR manager. No need to get jealous." He laughed.
"Ohhh." I laughed, "I'll leave you to talk tactics with your engineers." I said.
"Ok, I'll see you later. As my phone is under 24/7 surveillance, I'll write you." He said.
"Letter?" I looked at him weird. 
"Yep like the old days when there weren't phones." He said.
"Ok, see you later." I said and waved, running back to Charlotte. 

"You two seem to get along." She said. 
"Yeah he's a great friend." I smiled. 
"Friend?" She questioned.
"Yep." 
"Are you sure? You two look more like best friends." She smiled. 
"I mean I guess he is. His PR manager has something against me though so she's restricting the amount of time we can spend together." I sighed.
"How come?" 
"There were suspicions we were dating because we hugged and now she's taken his phone and checks it." I said.
"She can't do that." Charlotte said, she explained to me that's a breach of privacy for George. 

Once track walk ended I spent some time talking to Zak, he told me I could do tyre blankets again for Friday and Saturday and he asked me how I was finding it in Bahrain, it was hot but beautiful here and I was starting to fall in love with it. We then headed to a meeting it was the final meeting of the day, a massive talk of tyre compounds, weather and when Lando and Daniel will pit on Sunday. I'd say meetings are the only part of the apprenticeship I'm not a fan of, there wasn't anything to do with me to talk about so I found them slightly boring. 

When the meeting wrapped up it was time for Lando's F1 press conference and I could tell he was dreading it. He was partnered with Nikita, I could tell none of the drivers including Mick, were close to Nikita, he seemed like the anti-social type. As we walked down the corridor, Lando whispered something into my ear "Don't talk to Nikita." He looked at me seriously. 
"Ok, I wasn't planning on it." 
"Good." He said. I think I knew why he said it but I'm old enough to take care of myself, I know he just wants me to be safe but he isn't the boss of me. 

As we walked into the small press room, I immediately got out the recorder and started to record, Charlotte stood next to me to make sure I was doing it correctly and she didn't say anything which made me think I was doing just fine. Most questions were for Lando, asking how he felt about this weekend and his plans, etc. The conference wrapped up pretty quickly and I got a thumbs up from Charlotte, which was good. 

As soon as we got back to the hotel we had our dinner and headed upstairs. I followed Lando into his room and I sat outside on the balcony. Lando seemed stressed and he leant his body against the railing and looked down to the car below, with his hands rubbing his forehead. I was starting to get worried, I stood up and placed my hand on Lando's arm. "Lando are you ok?" I asked. He looked at my arm and closed his eyes. 
"I'm sorry..."