Just Him ❤

104. At last!

"Uhm....yeah." He scratched his head and looked a little guilty. "Don't tell Seb for fucks sake, he'll go mad. I'm the only one outside of both of your immediate families to know and he didn't want me to tell Annukka, I'm not sure he completely trusts her yet even though I do."

"He won't find out from me." She looked back to the screen to see that four laps down the top six cars were still in the same order that they were on the grid. So far, so good.

"When are you two going to make it public or in Seb's case, just stop hiding it?" Spotting a tv camera pointing in their direction, he held his hand over his mouth as he spoke.

"Seb wants to buy me a new piece of jewellery, if you know what I mean." She replied, doing the same as Antti. "So I guess it'll be after that."

"What's taking him so long?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." She looked at her bare left hand. Antti was right, what was taking Seb so long? After about half an hour car number five came in for a pit stop, dropping Seb down to tenth; Chloe rose her brows, surprised at herself, normally she would be worrying about him being dropped down in position, but not this time and as Charles came in for his stop on the next lap and came out in eighth behind Seb, who had already moved up a couple of places, she started to feel a little flicker of excitement replacing the calm. Looking at the screens she realised that the two Mercedes cars still had to pit, Ferrari might just have made a smart move with their cars. By lap twenty-seven Chloe's eyes felt strained, but then she'd barely blinked and hadn't moved her gaze from the screens; both the Mercs had now pitted and, crucially, both were behind the Ferraris. The time and the laps kept on ticking by, Seb had passed Lance Stroll and Daniel to move back up to third. Pride and excitement bubbled away in Chloe's stomach, her man was on a serious mission, this was like Germany all over again, he was obviously hungry for the lead and he pulled an aggressive overtake on Pierre Gasly causing a raft of shouts of encouragement and excitement from his pit crew that only grew louder and more urgent as he made an easy pass on Giovinazzi on the very next lap. Now he was in the lead, and her excitement really began to build. Antti looked at her as she wrung her hands in front of her and chewed on her bottom lip, his driver had certainly seemed rejuvenated since his reunion with her and this was proof of it. If Seb won today he had no doubt that this woman would have had something to do with it. Just over twenty laps later and as the safety car came in for the third time, the atmosphere was tense, electric yet expectant as everyone was daring to hope and believe. Seb was still in P1 with Charles close behind in P2, a one-two finish was now a likely result for the team and Chloe just hoped that neither driver made any rash moves and that Mattia didn't give in to Charles' moaning that he'd been unfairly undercut in the pit stops and that the drivers should be swapped back to their original positions. Seb needed this, she needed this and he deserved it. He'd driven a beautifully controlled race after his pit stop, managing his tyres and now managing his pace to keep his teammate out of DRS range, he'd not put a wheel wrong so far and it was as though he'd finally 'gelled' with his beloved Lina. This was more than making up for Monza.

"Did you know?" Antti grinned at her as Seb started lap fifty-three, with everyone still unsure if the two hour time limit was going to be reached before the sixty-one laps was completed.

"Did I know what?" She turned to him, fairly confident that nothing would go wrong now.

"That Seb's going to win? Is this why you've been so calm all day?"

"I honestly have had no idea, but the whole weekend has felt different. Anyway, don't jinx it by saying he's going to win, we don't know for sure that he will yet." She replied trying to sound serious while the excited look on her face said otherwise.

"You do." Antti slipped an arm around her shoulders.

"I don't!" She exclaimed, with her excited smile turning to one of sheer pride for their driver, her fiancé. "Just be prepared for the longest...." She paused to check her watch. ".....twelve minutes of our lives." They both returned their attention to the screens, Seb was keeping a gap of around one second between himself and Charles. Lap fifty-four.....fifty-five.....fifty-six.......fifty-seven......the gap was now close to two seconds, neither Antti or Chloe could look away. Lap fifty-eight....fifty-nine....the adrenaline was kicking in and she was already welling up with happy tears, she felt so incredibly proud of Seb and so, so ecstatically happy for him. Lap sixty...his pit crew were all on their feet, his entire team was watching which ever screen they could see. The atmosphere in both sides of the garages was lifting, this was actually going to happen. Seb started lap sixty-one, his final lap, with Charles now two seconds behind him and Chloe could barely contain her emotions.