Race Engineer - Daniel Ricciardo

Chapter 8

"You're lucky it's just me and not some fangirl" I say and smile at him. Daniel chuckles and let's me walk inside. Daniel just grabs a shirt from somewhere, putting it over his head. He grabs a cap, not bothering to do his hair.

"What did you do in those 30 minutes that you're not even done now?" I ask him. Daniel blushes slightly.

"Well, I was going to shower, but I got a call from a friend that lasted until 10 minutes ago, so I then jumped into the shower and was able to put on some pants before you arrived. Besides, you're early" Daniel mumbles the last part, making me giggle slightly.

"I'm 2 minutes early" I state.

"Yeah, I only needed my shirt and cap, that would've been enough" Daniel grabs his phone and key card as well, stuffing it all in his pockets.

"Ready?" he asks me. I nod and follow him out of his room. We make our way down to the restaurant, where breakfast is being served. Like we thought, several team members are walking around, sitting around. Daniel walks to a table where Simon, Rocky and Dan are sitting, eating together. They look up when we arrive at the table, smiling.

"Good morning, guys. Can we join you?" Daniel asks the three of them. They all nod and smile, so Daniel and I take a seat at the table. Within a minute, someone is next to us, asking us what we want to drink. Daniel orders orange juice and I order a coffee.

"How was your night, guys?" Daniel asks them.

"Pretty good. Haven't seen you two much, though" Simon answers, smirking at the two of us. I giggle and shrug.

"I did see you dancing with Carlos, Mackenzie. What's up with that?" Rocky asks me, grinning as well.

"Oh, Carlos is a good friend of mine. Nothing special there" I simply answer. I can feel Daniel's eyes on me, but I ignore that for now.

"Where is Max?" Simon asks me. I giggle at the thought of Max laying in bed, completely hungover.

"Not sure if we will see him anytime soon. He must be so hungover" I say, while the others laugh along. Daniel and I get our food, Daniel some eggs and I have some pancakes.

"There he is" Rocky chuckles, making all of us look up, to see Max walking our way. He looks better, fresher, than expected. He is grinning widely, taking the last available seat at our table.

"Good morning everyone" he says, not looking hungover at all. Everyone just kind of stares at him, while he frowns at everyone.

"What?" Max asks, looking at all of us.

"We all kind of thought you'd be half dead by now" Daniel answers, grinning at his teammate. Max chuckles himself, grinning at everyone.

"Well, I feel fine. I don't think I've ever felt this good after going out" Max mumbles, ordering a coffee and some pancakes. Everyone just kinds of eats in silence. I keep stealing glances at Daniel, as he jokes a bit with Simon. I admire their relationship as well, they're close, like best friends.

"I just realized I don't even know what time we're flying back to MK" Max mumbles, looking at everyone. I softly giggle at him. He seems like nothing can break him, he is on top of the world.

"We leave for the airport at 1, our flight leaves at 3" Rocky answers, kind of the leader of this group. Everyone nods at him, probably knowing it already.

"When do I have a sim session?" Max asks me. I try to think of the schedule I had planned together with Simon, who could go in when.

"Tomorrow morning. Daniel is after you, if I remember correctly" I say and look at Simon for comfirmation, which I get. Daniel nods as well, hearing this for the first time. We usually discuss these things on the plane, when we have the schedules next to us.