Doctor on the grid

40. Love me now

"I just can't." I shrugged completely ignoring the elephant in the room.

"What do you mean?" She asked, almost like she was also questioning my sanity. 

"I needed to do something else than longing in my room for him," I tried to explain the urge that woke me up an hour ago but I saw it hadn't struck her. 

"You are insane Clara," Vicki shook her head. 

"Well, you are not the first one to say that," I shrugged again as I looked at her. 

I couldn't help but notice that she appeared to be paler and more tired than normal. She was doing her usual three man job but was always cheerful and joking about that. Now she had dark circles around her eyes, indicating she clearly hasn't slept enough for days. 

"Vicki, are you okay?" I asked, looking at her, now frowning. 

"Yes, at least I think I am," she nodded without any hesitation. "Look, I need to rush. I will call you later," she waved and continued her way along the paddock. 

"I've also heard that before!" I shouted after her. She hasn't turned nor replied but hurried away to the direction of the FIA centre.

Then I really had nothing else to do but to run a furious two laps around the circuit. Ironically, all the craziness had nothing to do with me. The track was quiet, clear skies, sunshine and birds chirping in turn 14 made it more difficult to see how it was impossible for somebody to find a few seconds to write a "howdy?" text.

As I felt my lungs cool down and my heart racing I felt my head clear up a bit. 

The muscles ached in my entire body as I jogged up to the last corner, decreasing the blood flow to my overthinking brain which was a glorious thing at that moment. 

By the time the track became slightly more occupied - by slightly I mean half the Ferrari team was just starting their track walk. 

Charles' half. 

It wasn't long till I saw the young Monégasque noticing me. I managed to politely smile and was determined to jog away passing them like that, hissing on my last experience with the whistling-after-women Italian team. 

But Charles clearly stopped and decided to walk up to me to say hi. 

"Morning, Charles," I nodded curtly and stopped in my jog. 

"Clara, it's nice to see you are still running," he smiled back as he checked me out. "And you got a nice tan!" 

Shit. It's not going that way, right? I would have gotten a brutal blush if my face wasn't tomato - or Ferrari - red from the run. 

"Where have you been?" He asked with his curious green eyes still examining me. 

Oh, of course it is going that way. 

My mind was racing for a mediocre excuse. 

I can't just say I hopped down checking out Perth and the whole Ricciardo family right? As looking for ideas my wandering eyes were caught upon his engineers also stopped on the hot asphalt, fifty percent patiently chatting with each other, fifty percent clearly eavesdropping on us. 

So, what then? Australia dropped. England? 

With a tan? Oh bollocks! Good lord, sometimes even I was wondering how I managed to survive med school. 

So. 

Monaco? Ok, it could work. I could always say I was with Max and Victoria. 

My guardian angels, really.