The Limit (Sebastian Vettel)

74. Spectre of the Past

Lily sighed as she pulled her team shirt on over the top of her bra. Normally on a Wednesday evening before a race she'd be chilling out, either having dinner with Joel and Poppy, or having a sneaky pizza in her room, but this was not a normal race week. This was Miami.

A launch party for the inaugural race was being held in front of thousands of fans, and the drivers and team principals would be introduced on the stage. It was all a bit bizarre in Lily's opinion, and several of the other drivers agreed with her.

There was a knock on her door.      She cursed under her breath and walked over to answer it.   It was her press officer, Lucia. 

"Are you ready?" the Italian woman asked.  Lily looked at her watch and cursed again.  She hadn't realised the time. 

"Give me two minutes," she said, rushing back into her room to brush her hair.  

She pulled it into a high ponytail, slipped her phone into the pocket of her black skinny jeans and headed to join Lucia, who was still waiting in the open doorway.

"Did you eat?" Lucia asked, knowing that Lily had only landed that afternoon. 

"I had a sandwich on the plane. Does that count?" Lily replied as they reached the elevator.  She pressed the button to call it. 

"Not really.  Maybe we could grab something on the way back. I didn't have time to get anything."

"Sounds good."

The elevator arrived. They got in and rode it down to the ground floor.

"This is going to be an evening of my life I'm never getting back," Lily muttered. "I mean what is the point? What's so special about it? Other tracks have first races and don't have all this fuss."

Lucia uttered her agreement. She'd much rather have been having an early night. 

They headed over to where Charles was stood with his press officer, Mia. They were sharing a ride to the track.

"What a waste of time," Charles declared.

"Yep. Well hopefully it won't drag on too long," Lily said. "First chance I get I'm outta there."

"Mattia will make us stay, I know he will," the young Monagasque complained.

Lily knew he was probably right. Together they headed outside to the car that was waiting.

                         ***

Seb got out of the taxi and followed Lance toward the entrance to the paddock, Britta and Lance's press officer, Jo, trailing behind them.    This was the last place he wanted to be at that particular moment. 

After a great result at Imola he'd had a fantastic few days with Lily at his house, but since then it felt like she was going cold on him.   He'd texted her daily, but only had short, to the point answers. 

He knew why. She'd tried again to tell him something about the past, and once again he'd shut her down.

She was the one that had said they had to put the past behind them. She was the one who'd got mad because he'd kept bringing the past up. He just wanted to forget it all and live in the present.

As they walked into the hospitality tent he glanced around, trying to find Lily amongst the crowd of people that was gathered. 

He finally spotted a flash of red over the far side of the tent. Was it Lily?  There was only one way to find out. 

He crossed the room, weaving in and out of other drivers, team principals, officials, celebrities and sponsors, nodding greetings to several of them.