Connected (F1 Story)

Chapter Twenty Six: A bit (too much) of a party

Work work work work work (no Rihanna pun intended, promise). Aaaaand, just a bit more work to keep me going well into the early hours of Tuesday morning as we thundered down the old M5. Destination, Padstow. Whilst emailing, I pretended that Paul, who was with Lizzie in their car, was not having a long-ass drag race with Ricciardo.

Lizzie and I had completed the typical 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the office, with Daniel in the simulator fresh from our flight back from Japan. Powering on through the tiredness and jet-lag, we had a 260-mile drive down to Cornwall. Accompanied by Ricciardo's singing and mine, when I knew the words to the Aussie screamo.

Mile by mile we sped along the motorway, and mile by mile emails got responded to and media strategies got planned out.

The stars were out as we entered the town where my parents lived and Paul had sent me a text saying it was 'fucking stunning'. Firstly, I didn't know how he'd gathered that in the dark, and secondly, I did not want to even think about how Paul had sent that whilst driving. Lizzie was firmly asleep in the passenger seat.

"Left here?" Daniel asked, one hand on the wheel. So cool. And he somehow knew the route even though the times we'd done this journey had been in the back of the cab or my parent's car.

"Yeah," I breathed, taken back. "Then chuck a right."

"Haha," he chuckled, "I'm turning you into a real 'Stralian."

"Don't tell my Aunt Jane, she thinks Aussie's are bad news." I replied to a final email and signed out of my work desktop. Goodnight, Red Bull. I was not logging on for forty-eight hours and if I did, Bridget would kill me. She had said so, repeatedly.

"We'll have to hide Paul, then," Daniel remarked, slowing fractionally to take the next junction. We'll have to hide your cousin as well because he is worse than Paul and Dan put together once he gets going on the beers, I thought to myself with a smile. Dan's family were arriving tomorrow afternoon.

"And you, if you get on the red wine."

"Steering well clear of the work of fucking Satan," Daniel looked at me and raised a newly shaped eyebrow. He'd had a shave and a haircut and my ovaries were about to explode. "And your Dad's whisky."

"Oh Jesus, not that," I laughed as my parent's house came into view. Lizzie and Paul were continuing onto a bed and breakfast which was literally just another two hundred yards up the road. Dan bibbed the horn and then swore, worried he'd woken up the whole street. I said he'd be fine because most of the residents were elderly and they would have taken their hearing aids out for their kip.

"Man, I love it here. It's so English!" Daniel cut the engine and just sat smiling for a few moments, his eyes sparkling in the minimal lighting of our Infiniti. "And we did that journey in under four hours. That is sweet."

"And you stuck to the speed limits..."

"It's hard to read the speedo when it's in KMPH and the speed signs are in MPH, Saskia!" Daniel unbuckled his seatbelt and cleared out the cup holder which had three apple cores in it. I'd had one and greedy guts had scoffed the other two driving past Bristol. At seventy. No more...

I got out of the car and got our big case out the boot as Dan tried to take it from me, "don't be acting like a good boy in front of my parents," I quipped. Who was I kidding? If you looked 'gentleman' up in the dictionary then I was pretty certain that there would be a picture of Daniel smiling and holding a door open for whoever. The man had manners and it was so attractive.

"I'll try not to fart, but I'm making no promises."

"G'day, guys!" Dad was leant out of their upstairs window and was actually waving an Australian footy cap. I could have died. "Sandra is just putting the kettle on."