Come Back...Be Here - Charles Leclerc

Chapter 157: Another Step Back

🎶 Till Forever Falls Apart — Ashe, FINNEAS 🎶

Charles and I had continued seeing each other as he had four weeks off before the next GP in Azerbaijan now. I also had finally given him my new number and even invited him over to my place tonight. He was leaving tomorrow for Baku and wanted to spend one last evening together. We hadn't labelled if we had gotten back together or not, but I wanted to wait until after the race weekend to have that talk. We also hadn't had sex since that night and I knew that he wanted to take the next step, but I still had some trust issues. We weren't supposed to be in this stupid "talking stage" and whenever I went to his place I felt a knife going through my stomach and heard his words said in Budapest last year over and over again: "I can't spend the rest of my life worrying if whenever I leave you alone to go racing you'll manage to stay alone in a place you clearly don't want to be in!"

That's the problem with words - once you say them you can never unsay them and you will never know what you may trigger in the other person hearing them. Same with trust: Once a piece of paper is crumpled up, it will never be smooth again.

But my thoughts were interrupted when the doorbell rang and I opened up to find my Charles with a small bouquet of roses in his hand.
"Just a few today" he said and grinned.
6 roses - signifies "I want to be yours".
"I want you to be mine" I whispered and blushed, which made him pick me up and swirl me around the room a few times. "But let's just wait a bit longer until going public again, we should talk to our families and friends first..." I added.
"You are totally right. We'll take it slow, let's just start after I come back?" he said and took my head in his hands to kiss me.

We spent a relaxed evening on the couch, binge-watching Downton Abbey until we fell asleep. We woke up with broken backs the next day as my sofa definitely wasn't a comfortable sleeping option, but I was happy to have seen him until the very last moment before he had to fly out.

We kept in touch all weekend and I was screaming in my office when he took pole on Friday afternoon, but thankfully most of my colleagues were already gone by then. The weather wasn't the greatest here, which was a perfect excuse to stay in all weekend and only watch F1. This was the first race I was really following again since our breakup and I had missed the mix of tension and excitement as a viewer. Charles was on top of his game, taking pole also in the Sprint Shootout. When he was asked in an interview about his great results this weekend he said with a big smile on his face: "You know, the people at the factory have been working hard and brought great updates and well, my life is just pretty great at the moment too."

This statement made the internet go crazy, with rumours of a new love swirling around and his fans were putting up all sorts of crazy theories, putting together the pictures of all the girls he had been spotted with in the past months. That made my mood sink for a while as we still hadn't touched the subject of other people we had been with in the past few months and he definitely had a lot more explaining to do than me. But I quickly was distracted by a message on my phone:

Alice Becket
Girlllllll, he's talking about youuuu 😍
Hey, is his older brother still single?

Mary Wright
🙈🙈🙈
I've heard rumours that he has a gf now...

Alice Becket
Nahhhh that's too bad 😫

He only finished second in the sprint race, having to let Checo pass, but he managed to keep Max behind, which was pretty impressive given the current pace of the world champion. In the race on Sunday, he ultimately had to let both Red Bulls pass him, but he still managed a P3 podium and was all in all happy with how the weekend went.

We had agreed that I was going over to his place on Monday evening and each nerve in my body was tingling. We hadn't had sex since that night after the club, as we didn't want to push it or ruin our reconciliation process somehow, but I was ready tonight and hoped he was too.

On my way, I stopped at a supermarket to buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate and then quickly made my way to his apartment. He was waiting for me with his arms wide open and I was quick to hug him. When I got in, the first thing I saw was the trophy on his table and I immediately took it turning around to him and said: "Hellloooo, can you hear me? I'm Charles Leclerc and I have the longest contract ever with Scuderia Ferrari. Oh my God, I look so good. P3 is not where we want to be but thanks to everyone back in Maranello for their hard work. Carlos shut up, I'm a better racer than you"

I could have gone on and on but I was already howling with laughter and so was Charles, when he abruptly took my purse and started imitating me, trying his best at a British accent:
"Good morning everyone, I'm Mary Wright, hopefully soon Leclerc, welcome to today's board meeting. You're fired and you're fired. I will destroy you in court. Beans and sausages are the best breakfast. Prince William was my childhood crush."
I was roaring with laughter now and quickly pulled out his phone from his back pocket, wanting to imitate him calling me on the phone.

But my smile faded in a second when I saw a message on his lockscreen:

Camille
Hahaha, yes that looked fun!!
What are you doing tmrw?
Wanna come over? 🙈

I looked at him with a dead face and his smile also faded.
"Who the fuck is Camille?" I asked.
"A cousin of a friend of Joris', she's not important" he scoffed and pulled his phone out of my hand.
"If she's not important why the fuck is she asking you to come over?" I said, my anger starting to boil.
"Oh, come on! Don't act like you never made eyes at that Fred guy!!" he now shouted.
"What the fuck does he have to do with a girl booty-calling you?" I shouted back.
"I just know he's the perfect guy you want. British, loaded with money and a title-"
"What the heck? You're turning this on me now?! You flirt with a girl while we were getting back together and somehow it's me who wants to be with a British guy now? You have some nerve!" I said and stormed out of his apartment.

Charles POV

FUCK. Not again. Why did I always have to mess things up?! Why did I have to continue texting Camille while I had the most beautiful, perfect girl right in front of me? Did I really have to feel that insecure about Mary wanting me back that I wanted to keep my options open? Did I really think that any other girl waiting for me back in Monaco could compare to her waiting for me in Monaco?
But no, I had to fuck up gigantically again and I was pretty sure that she had slipped away for good now.