No Regrets, Only Memories

I Was Wrong

"You were supposed to be there for two weeks because they wanted some dev time to work out whatever is going on in the new engine. You said you wanted to go home and they agreed only because you won in China." I wanted to scream. No one even asked me to go the week before. Not that it matters, I was having an issue seeing why that related to her new team.

"Max won't be back until at the absolute earliest, the US. It takes him completely out of championship contention. Christian has officially extended her stay until the end of the year and felt that she needed her own team. People that could focus on just her so we could focus on just you. You're a handful on your own as is." I scoffed while smoothing out my team polo.

"You love me! Just think of how boring your life would be if I wasn't here." Charlotte cracked a real smile then and I was happy to go follow her to wherever she needed me to go despite the frustrations of the last few weeks.

"Alright, Angela will be here with Maeve in a few minutes. She's not used to this and didn't have the full media training so be careful with her. Nothing too ridiculous even if you will be you two."

"Yes, ma'am." I laughed as we approached the shady area under the trees outside of the track walls. It was ridiculous to think that I wouldn't protect her if something went south in the middle of a live interview.

Maeve was already seated and speaking with Will. Charlotte seemed surprised by this, but had us situated and the interview started pretty quickly. Messing around, I sent Will away and he took it in stride, allowing Maeve and I the time to answer the personal questions the fans certainly wanted to hear about. The "what's it like to be you?" question was the beginning of the end for me though. I tried to give an answer that wouldn't give too much away, but was positive at best. Maeve on the other hand....

"Good, working a lot and meeting my new team soon."

"Oh yeah, I just found out about that today. Excited?" She puffed out her cheeks in an exaggerated way and let her breath leave her lips. I hoped the double edge that I heard in my own words didn't come across as an attempt at an attack on camera. I was obviously still upset given the current predicament, but if she wasn't ready to talk then I wouldn't dare push it. I was happy to play on normal banter if that was what she wanted.

"I guess. This obviously all happened very quickly and I'm just getting the full lay of the land. The team has been incredible, but it's baby steps for me off the track." I chuckled, knowing just how far that really was from the truth.

"No need, you seem to be doing just fine on and off the track." My words were convoluted at best and carried a deeper, more pronounced meaning than I meant for them to have yet again. Clearly, no one had noticed that my own words were confusing in terms of tone versus content.

"No thanks to you, Mr.Monaco over here left me all alone at the factory the week after China." She smirked at me, knowing I hated when people talked about me not being at the factory. It made me feel like I wasn't doing enough when we all know how important reset time is. She clearly had taken my words as a stab at her for what had happened despite me thinking that no one had caught on.

"We all deserve a break every once in a while. Plus, it's still just training time. I can show you my workout journal if you'd like." She shook her head, a knowing smirk on her face. The glint in her eyes was sharp enough to cut steel though, if I wasn't careful she would snap.

"I'm good. I still know I can do more push ups than you so it's not necessary." We both laughed.

I moved on to the next question about Helmut's 75th birthday and she happily stated that our gift would be a 1-2 for him. She asked me about my feelings on Baku, and the 'well done Baku' saying that Max and I had used frequently came up before I could explain my feelings on the track. My want for fun battles was mentioned before we continued on to how we felt about the car this year. She tried to skate around her knowledge of the car and stated some generics about faster corners. Then someone asked if we knew where Azerbaijan was before the F1 race.