Collision Course (A Daniel Ricciardo fanfic)

8. Hard to get?

Well...inspired by the return of @lacellak and a re-read of one of my favourite stories from @__highflying I've decided to try and find my way back to Collision Course. This chapter has been half written for the last six years and I'm not really sure where I was going with it, or with this whole story truth be told as although I always loved the general plot, the slight problem of exactly how to write it still remains. Not least because despite my best research efforts I really have NO idea about hospitality and catering behind the scenes in Formula One (or how to make it interesting) and I'm an awful perfectionist and not very good at 'winging it'. That being said if I can just make it to my favourite chapter I might be able to at least give you something worth waiting for ;)

"Are you SURE you're OK?"

"I'm SURE!" I responded for what must have been the twentieth time.

While I had appreciated the amount of support that has been shown to me since China, I didn't need the attention or yet another reason for the rest of the staff to treat me differently. Arriving with Christian Horner in tow probably hadn't helped matters in the first place - more than one colleague had remarked curiously that he didn't usually get involved in the hospitality side. What they hadn't said (to my face at any rate) is that this may have been for good reason.

Sophie and Anna knew the full story of course, and I was pretty certain that some of the others had at least partially figured it out. Behind her slightly formidable exterior Anna had turned out to be a bit of a softy at heart, almost maternal in the way that she seemed to be watching out for me from the sidelines.

I was still happy to swap the offending shorts for cropped trousers when we got to Bahrain though...just to make sure.

"If you're OK then why are you staring into space?"

"I'm not staring...well not into space anyhow."

With a sigh I remembered one of the things I'd already learned about Sophie - she was persistent.

"So what ARE you doing?"

"Nothing"

With an effort I dragged my mind back to the present and brought my eyes back into focus.

It wasn't a glamorous room by any standards - a sea of functional black and grey with chairs and tables that wouldn't look out of place in a school cafeteria. Fortunately the food was a hell of a lot more appetising than at school, as were the diners now enthusiastically tucking into it. Not a spot or a sweat stain in sight...

"So come on - which one would you snog?"

"Sophie!!! This isn't the playground!"

I looked at her, embarrassed that I'd been so transparent.

"You were looking, admit it"

I risked a glance back towards the corner table. It was no point denying it - they were a good looking crowd and the selection of eligible men back home had been limited to say the least.

"I know one of them!" I realised suddenly "that's Alex right? One of Daniel's mechanics?"

I pointed out the guy on the end whose tousled light-brown locks had caught my attention once before.

"The one with the massive grin on his face because he totally knows we're checking him out y'mean? Yeah that's him."

"Oh shit not again"

A sneaky glance across proved that she was right - Alex was looking at us with a barely-disguised smirk which turned to puzzlement as he recognised me and tried to figure out why I had strangely  reappeared in Red Bull uniform.