lemon and mint | Charles Leclerc

~ trentuno ~

"No, actually he should come tomorrow," Theo said to his younger sister. If he was supposed to come the next day, that would mean he came from Mexico today. Well, a week in Mexico was probably enough for him. Who knew?

"Oh really?" Pia asked her brothers. She was quite surprised by that fact.

"Yeah. Dad actually one day wanted to cancel it, but mom convinced him not to," Nicky revealed to his sister. That probably meant that her dad found out about what had happened between her and Charles. Sebastian was always the man of his word, and he wouldn't want to cancel something without any reason at all.

"Oh, well I'm sure you will enjoy it," Pia tried to sound enthusiastic.

"Well, I'd be happier if you came and not him," Nicky was clearly less enthusiastic about Charles' visit. He was always the one who was hard to impress.

"Oh, Nicky, you shouldn't be talking about guests like that," she said in a severe tone.

"Sorry," he apologised quietly. He probably wasn't having one of his best days. "I just really miss you," he explained the grumpiness.

"Aww, I miss you too. Both of you so so much," Pia smiled sadly before turning right into one of the hallways. It seemed like she forgot about her 'only turning left' rule.

"Dad is sad these days. I think he misses you too," Theo revealed to his older sister.

The Italian knew more than anyone else that their relationship wasn't the greatest ever since she stepped into the paddock again. Pia was no longer a little girl who was so easy to beguile. She knew that Seb hoped for another title in Ferrari, but the more he drove for them he realised that this move was probably wrong.

Seb hadn't really talked about this with his daughter, but she could see his forced smile and hear his frustration in almost every radio communication.

At home, he was always the same. He let Formula One be Formula One and he was just Sebastian - a father of three. Each member of the household had just one question about his work per month and when they used this opportunity Seb just told them that they had already used their question before changing the topic.

Nowadays, Seb missed Pia's questions when she was no longer living with them. He just missed Pia in general. He just couldn't get familiar with the fact that she was an adult already. The little girl who held his hand tightly as they intertwined through the paddock was a woman now. The little girl who betted with him every season was a grown-up. Somehow, he just struggled to accept the fact she was no longer that lost girl who always looked for him in the crowd and that he wouldn't always be there to protect her and defend her.

"Tell him I miss him too," Pia's voice was soft as she said that.

"Don't you want to tell it to him yourself?" Nicky asked his older sister. He would trade getting caught for one of his father's smiles.

"I'll tell him personally," she declined his offer without hesitation. She would tell him in Spa.

Pia spent another ten or twenty minutes talking to her brothers before hanging up. As she put her phone into her pocket, Pia realised she didn't know where she was. Well, she knew she was somewhere in the Lauda house but far away from her room.

The Italian kept wandering in the hallways hoping she would bump into someone who would bring her back to her room. Instead of bumping into someone, she found a pile of boxes.

At first, she didn't want to be nosy, but then she noticed a picture lying on top of one of those boxes.

She took the framed picture into her hands. It was a class picture full of girls. It wasn't a good setting for a photo - in the sky, there were dark clouds. The girls were standing in front of a church with a grim-looking priest. All of them looked the same - not a single smile in this photo. They wore grey dresses while holding the holy bible and rosemary in hand. The girls in the picture were of various ages. Some might have been four years old, but a few looked almost adult.