The Limit (Sebastian Vettel)

48. Lockdown!

Just over a week after Lily arrived home in the U.K. the Prime Minister announced the country was being placed in lockdown.

Everyone would be required to stay in their own homes and not leave unless to buy food, to exercise once a day alone or with members of the same household, because of a medical need or to provide care for a vulnerable person, or
to travel to or from work that could not be done from home.

Any non-essential shops would close, and gatherings of more than two people were not allowed.  Anyone found breaking of the rules would face prosecution. 

Lily felt that she was one of the lucky ones.   There was plenty to do at home to keep her occupied.   She had the gym, large grounds so she could go for a run without having to leave the property, a large cinema room, a games room, and she had Joel.  It was the people that lived alone that she felt sorry for. 

Luca had flown back to Italy to stay with his parents during lockdown so Joel had agreed to be her training partner, which Lily found hilarious as Joel was mentally allergic to exercise.

Poppy was staying with Pierre in his Milan apartment, Lily spoke with her a couple of times a week. Fuck knows what Damon was doing, but as long as he wasn't there then Lily didn't care.   And then there was Seb. 

When they'd landed in Zurich just over 24 hours after taking off from Melbourne he'd turned to her and asked her to go back to his house with him instead of flying back to the U.K.  

She'd panicked and said no.  The emotions she'd been experiencing since their bathroom romp had been too much for her and she'd just wanted to be alone to think things through.  

Seb had looked disappointed, and she'd felt so bad for hurting him but in retrospect it had been the best thing for them because she'd made the decision that once lockdown was over she was going to throw caution to the wind and agree to start officially dating.   

How their teams would react was a big worry, but although Lily had never been so scared in her entire life, she knew that she wanted to be with Seb.

Seb's parents had gone to spend lockdown with him, as had his brother, so he wasn't alone either, which was a relief for Lily. They'd FaceTimed each other most days, but she really missed him. 

She'd  decided the hardest thing about lockdown was sexual frustration.  Seeing Seb every night on screen and being unable to touch him was torture. She'd even ordered herself a vibrator online but it paled in comparison to Seb's dick.

A couple of weeks into lockdown it had been announced that the Formula 1 season would begin in Austria on the 5th of July.   The calendar had been overhauled, and only the first eight races had been scheduled so far, including two in Austria and two at Silverstone. 

By the time the end of April arrived Lily had begun to wonder whether it would have been better to be isolating alone.  Joel was doing her fucking head in.

She was pretty sure she was doing his head in too. They'd begun to bicker and had both taken to spending more time alone in their rooms rather than in the rest of the house. She loved Joel more than anything but there was only so much of him she could take.

On the last Wednesday in April she woke early, unable to sleep because of the incessant cheeping of the birds out side.

She got out of bed and shuffled half asleep across the room to the en-suite. "It's like living in a bloody aviary," she muttered.

She relieved her bladder and then went back to her room. She decided that as she was already awake she might as well go and have a session on the treadmill.