Romeo and Juliet || Carlos Sainz

The ghost of you

*ONE WEEK LATER*

"Why do I always lose it? Where the fuck is it?" Y/n was desperately looking for the box with the weekend paddock passes. She feared she had lost it somewhere, but it had to be there, among the junk in her house. She lifted a pile of unfolded T-shirts and found it.

"Damn you," she picked it up, opened it and grabbed the passes, stuffed them inside the suitcase and quickly closed it. She went down to the street where the taxi was already waiting for her. As soon as she got into the car, the taxi driver drove off in the direction of the airport.

"I'm on my way to the airport"

Y/n wrote a message to Charles. Their messages had become merely service messages. They had heard relatively little from each other; Miami is a track where all the teams bring the first modifications to the cars, so all energies are focused on that weekend. Y/n knew this well and for that reason she had decided not to stress Charles with messages or calls. For his part, Charles had also had no time to text or call her.
The truth was that neither of them had any intention of broaching the thorny subject. Miami was a difficult week for F1, yes, but it was the perfect excuse to feel little to nothing.

"Good, I've arrived at the hotel, now I'm off to train with Andrea. Have a good trip, write when you get here"

Y/n read that message once she got on the plane. She didn't reply, she put her phone on aeroplane mode, she had about 9 hours of flying ahead of her so she chose a movie and tried not to think about anything.

When she landed in Miami it was 2 a.m. A cab was waiting to take her to her hotel. When she discovered that Charles had booked two separate rooms, her heart ached. But then again, what else could she expect? It was Miami week and all the drivers must be at the top, yeah...
She convinced herself of this with all the strength in her body. She took the key card, went up to the floor accompanied by a bellboy carrying her suitcase. In the hallway, before entering her room, she looked around, hoping that at least she was on the same floor as Charles, Arthur, Joris and the others. Who knows, the next day maybe she would find out.

She entered the room, unpacked her luggage, then got into bed and sent a message to Charles

"I am at the hotel, the room is very nice. Good night, see you tomorrow."

She felt like writing a few more details in the message, as if that would make Charles closer to her. The message was only received; Charles was already asleep.  She also fell asleep after a while.
The next morning, quite early, Y/n woke up and the first thought went to her cell phone. Charles had already read the message, he had answered her as soon as he woke up.

"I'm glad you like it, sorry but I was sleeping . I'm already on my way to the track, see you there, okay? Text Joris."

It was nothing, but that apology made her feel a little better. She had breakfast down at the buffet, then a private driver took her to the circuit. Once she arrived, she entered the Ferrari hospitality and immediately sent a message to Joris to warn him that she was there.

"Come down to the garages, we're all here."

Y/n read the message and immediately went downstairs, her heart pounding as if it was the first time she had seen Charles Leclerc. Yet a week ago they had had sex in his yacht...

"Y/n!" Joris noticed her immediately; he was with Arthur, who smiled at her in turn.
"Guys!" Y/n came to him at once, while Charles was nowhere to be seen.
"Where is Charles?" asked Y/n immediately after hugging Arthur, who turned and pointed with his head in Charles' direction. His back was turned and he was talking to Xavi, his new track engineer, and, as if feeling observed, he turned back to Y/n. His eyes lit up for a second, he winked at her, then approached her. Arthur patted Joris' chest with his hand and signaled for him to go away and leave them alone.

"Hey."
"Hey."

They were extremely uncomfortable, as if they no longer knew how to behave because of what had happened in the yacht.
"Was the trip okay?" asked Charles.
"Yes, how is it going here?" asked Y/n
"Good, Miami is a testing ground."
"Yeah..."
"I would have liked to call you these days, but I had late nights in Maranello with Xavi."
"Don't worry, I knew that, that's why I didn't call you."

Lies. They were both lying.

"How is your dad? I saw he's not here."
"Better, the doctors almost nailed him to his bed at home" She hinted with a smile.
"He needs to rest."
"Yeah..."

"Charles! Come here!" Xavi popped his head out of the briefing room, once even Y/n went in there, now it was all top secret to her again.
"Gotta go, sorry" Charles felt really bad about what was going on between them but deep down he felt that Xavi had saved him from that conversation.

"Don't worry, I know my way around here" she smiled bitterly. Charles looked at her for a moment, he found her as beautiful as ever but she was different, he was different and he did not know how to handle it. With Charlotte everything had been easier.

"Charles!!!" Xavi had raised his tone of voice. Charles and Y/n looked at each other for the last time, Charles looked at her and his eyes apologized on their own. Y/n smiled at him and watched him hurriedly walk away toward the engineers' room.
Y/n walked away from Charles' garage and went out into the pit lane to take a walk, when Carlos emerged from the garage next door.

Y/n turned sharply toward him. As soon as she saw him, she was reminded of that dream she had in the hospital and got paralyzed. As soon as he saw her, Carlos also thought of his dream and stood still. They both looked at each other for a few seconds, then Carlos tried to come to his senses.
"Are you okay?" he asked as if he had not stood as a stockfish "you look like you've seen a ghost", Carlos Sainz ladies and gentlemen, the dissimulator, the champion of flipping the script.

"Something like that" Y/n replied before running off at a brisk pace to the hospitality area to drink some ice water and watch the fp1 and the sprint quali alone.