Blinded - Charles Leclerc

Chapter 6

"Well fucking finally she's here!" I laugh as Max approachs me. He gives me a quick hug and we walk into the hotel.

"So, what have you been up to since you got here?" I ask him as we're now standing in the elevator on our way up to the seventh floor.

"Well the others have just been exploring the neighborhood, trying to figure out what to do until the race, and I've just been sitting around, missing you." He tries to fake a romantic sigh and I hit him on the arm.

"Come on, you've gotta stop that." He laughs with me now.

I get to my room and to my surprise, it's incredibly nice. I did realize in the lobby that the hotel was nice but this is on a whole other level than the hotel we stayed in last year. This time I actually unpack my bag right away, mainly because we're staying here for a full week.

"I love this room." I speak to myself as I lay down on the queen sized bed in the middle of the room. The big window stretches all the way from the floor up to the roof. I walk over to it and sit down on the floor right in front of the view. I watch as the small light dots travel fast on the little, little streets, creating a picture that looks a little like the sky.

My mind can't help but drift off to Charles. He's acting like a real dickhead right now, but to be honest I might be too. I don't know what to think about him. He's probably the rudest person I've met but at the same time, he feels so real and so honest in some moments.

I walk over to the bathroom and take of the day old makeup on my face to freshen up. I put my hair up in a ponytail and walk out of the bathroom. I can't wait to go to sleep in that bed. It looks way comfier than my bed at home does, and that bed is hard to beat.

--

It's getting closer to the race. The guys have had their two first practices today and qualifying is tomorrow. The practices have gone good enough for them to at least finish the race on Sunday. I'm getting a little bit nervous for the weekend anyway though. I really hope the cars are improved enough to get the guys to score some points this weekend.

This whole week have just included me hanging out with Max and Checo, eating some rather interesting food and basically just hanging out with myself. Even though I've been by myself quite a lot, I haven't let myself think much about Charles.

I've seen him a lot on the paddock these last few days, but we haven't said hi once. I constantly find myself looking for him in the crowd and when I see him, it's clear that he has been looking for me too. But I can't get myself to look at him long enough to lock eyes for too long.

Right now, I'm walking over to the café to get something to drink. I promised Christian to come with him to a meeting today. It's not particularly important for me, but he needed someone to come with him to take some notes and stuff. I told him I could be that someone since I'm not doing anything special more than updating our official instagram.

"What was that about?" I've been dreading to hear that voice all week. Can't a girl get a coffee in peace?

I turn around and there he stands, in his red Ferrari shirt and the red quali pants.

"What are you talking about?" I really don't want to have this conversation with him, or any conversation with him at all right now. He scoffs at me.

"At the plane, I was trying to get you to talk to me. It was not a great response I got."

"THAT was not you trying to get me to talk to you. That was you demanding me to meet you in a room smaller than my bedside table, on a plane, 30 000 feet up in the air and not even giving me an explanation. After you basically ignored me when I tried to talk to you." I'm actually mad at him for real. The pattern of him being nice and then screwing up and apologizing is getting a bit lashed out. I'm tired of it and it's just not going to cut it anymore.

"When did I ignore you? Where is all this even coming from? Why are you acting like this?" I can't even believe what I'm hearing right now. How dare he accuse me of acting weird?

"Excuse me!? Did I hear that right? In the airport, before we boarded, and what makes you think you have any right to tell me I act weird?" It's like he doesn't even understand he's doing anything wrong. Like everything he does is justified by him apologizing for it. Never have I ever gotten so frustrated with a person before I met the man in front of me.

"What do you even mean? How are you mad?" I sigh at his not so much understanding question and I realize this is not the time or place for this conversation which already is a lot louder than I would have wanted it to be among other people.

"We can't talk about this now, or here. I can't. We'll definitely talk about this because you don't seem to see any problems here, but not right now, okay?" He nods, understanding it's bad for both him and me to be seen standing here yelling at each other.

I walk back to meet Christian and we get to the meeting right before it starts. I really try to listen to what everyone have to say and even write down some things I consider important although it's hard to stay focused after the scene that just happened and that is now replaying in my head over and over again.