Doctor on the grid

40. Love me now

I didn’t feel like calling Daniel at the moment, so I scrolled to Vicki’s name but she never answered. I grimaced as I later had the same luck with Max and Lee. Aurelie finally picked up and told me the name of the hotel where I was supposed to stay. 

“Haven’t you got the itinerary? When will you arrive? We missed you on the team flight...” She mentioned cheerfully. 

“I… uhm. Kind of already arrived?” I sighed, still feeling bitter. 

“Wow, awesome!’ She chuckled. “With which flight? We just left the airport with Daniel…”

I hurried to provide an answer which would satisfy her. I bit my lower lip hard as I said the only thing that seemed logical at that moment. 

“Stockholm, I was visiting my sister!” I jabbered and hoped she really didn’t care about my lie. 

“Awesome!” She chirped. “See you at the hotel then.”

So I finally ended up in my single hotel room an hour later, and collapsed to the bed. After a troubled nap - another hour of tossing and turning around - I was extremely jet lagged - decided to walk around the neighbourhood hoping it would make me a little better. 

There was not a single word from Daniel - but I waved away the urge to message him. 

We just spent some days together and I must understand he has to work now. No, don't even think about turning to this crazy ass needy girlfriend! 

The rest of the team arrived that day too but as everyone was occupied - mostly building the paddock and garages, settling in - I lacked company and still kind of felt alone. I couldn't really find anything to do so I ordered my dinner from room service and fell asleep early. 

Around midnight I was woken up by my text alert. 

Are you up?

It was Daniel.

So sorry for not calling you, things got loose quickly.

I rubbed my face with my hands. I was not like I was angry at him or something. I was just tired and I wanted to sleep. I'd be no fun to be with like this anyway. 

Tomorrow we meet and all will be super duper happy again. 

I texted him back only with my eyes half open.

It's ok. I was already sleeping. 

See you tomorrow? 

Well, tomorrow wasn’t that easy either to make things work out for us. 

Seemed like Daniel had an early workout session - I could only deduce that from Michael's instagram post and the absence of messages. I sighed and lingered around my room for a while waiting for that uneasy feeling in my stomach to pass.

I made the conclusion that I really didn’t want to lay around in my hotel room much longer waiting for him - It'd be clumsy - a word I already grew sick of in the last months…

So I decided to follow their example. I changed and caught a taxi, heading straight to the circuit to have a long missed run instead of being stuck in a hotel room waiting for someone wanting to spend some time chatting. 

Speaking of which, I practically ran into Vicki only a few steps into my warm up jogging in the paddock.

"Jesus Clara," she gasped, after she realised it was me. "It's still seven in the morning," she said a wee bit accusingly. "Why can't you just roll to your other side in your hot and cozy bed?" She asked, wiggling eyebrows, clearly referring to a certain Aussie tangled in blankets.