Standing in front of you |ON HOLD|

A new friend

Late February 2021.

Olivia felt herself burning up with envy as she leant back against a spotlessly clean white work surface. For a second she lifted a foot to press it against one of the shiny green cupboard doors but then quickly removed it, not wanting to scratch it. In front of her was her best friend's challenger for this year, the yet to be named by him AMR21 and a few lucky technicians and mechanics were working on the final touches. Although she felt kind of honoured to be seeing the finished car in the flesh before Seb (he'd seen it over a Zoom meeting) she also felt incredibly envious of the men and women who got to work on this beautiful car. She knew that she was lucky to have a job as part of the pit crew but she was already missing being able to do the job for which she was actually qualified.

Still, she'd been promised that as soon as a vacancy came up then she'd be first in line for an interview so with any luck she wouldn't be in her current role for long because she wasn't really enjoying it.

Hovering behind a wheel gunner, waiting to lunge in and grab the old wheel to make space for the person to sweep in with the new one wasn't her idea of a fun job. The wheels were a bit more weighty than she'd anticipated and she found them awkward and cumbersome for someone as small as herself. She'd struggled with them during the beginning of her training, often dropping them or falling backwards onto her ass (much to the amusement of her colleagues) and she'd had to spend a lot more time in the gym both at Seb's Swiss home and here in England to try and build up her muscles and her core strength. Seb had been brilliant, offering to help her train and even getting Antti involved too. He wanted her to do well, he wanted her to fit in, to become a part of the team as if she'd been there for years and to excel at her job. And she loved him even more for the support he was offering her. If only he loved her in the same way.

"Gorgeous, huh?"

She looked to her left for the source of the voice and found a handsome guy looking back at her with blue-grey eyes, brown hair that was mostly shaven at the sides but left long enough on top to be tied up (what she jokingly called bin bag hair) and a friendly smile that made her feel instantly at ease. "It's a stunner," she replied, smiling back and looking back at the car.

"I'm Curtis," he held a hand out for her to shake.

"Olivia," she took it and made sure to give him a firm handshake.

"You're a bit far from the nest aren't you," he remarked, taking in her green overall. He'd already heard about the new addition to the pit crew and how she was Seb's friend.

"Schools out for the day," she replied with a friendly smile, "so I thought I'd come and have a look at the car, mechanics is where I really want to be, I'm hoping that being on the pit crew is only going to be temporary. Plus I know that Seb's dying to see the finished car so him knowing I've been able to see is making him so jealous!"

"Mechanics? Didn't have you down as being a mechanic," he admitted, briefly eyeing her up and down. He'd heard that Seb's friend was fit but short, a piece of eye candy but lacking in height. But she was more than that; she was pretty, sexy even, with long red hair that had gone a bit wavy from being tied back, green eyes that he couldn't help but stare into and a petite figure that reminded him of Kylie Minogue - and he'd never kick Kylie out of bed! The Aussie was his secret sexual fantasy. He could tell just from this initial first meeting that she could probably pack a punch, verbally at least, and that banter with the lads would be like water off of a ducks back, she'd give as good as she got.

"You're not the first person here to say that," she admitted, her mind wandering back to January when she'd met Mikey. "I've actually worked on Seb's car when he was at Red Bull and had a stint at Ferrari on Kimi's side of the garage."