The week Joey spent back home with her grandad was a great pick me up and a great way to spend time with Kiran, who had loved having his grandkids around. The two had gone for a different walk every day and Joey had shared the different landscapes with Seb, who checked up on her at least once a day. It had become a form of habit for both of them to interact during the day, Seb would be checking up on her and Kiran, whilst also telling Joey all about his training and his time off.
In the meantime, Britta had issued a statement on behalf of Sebastian, denying any romantic involvement between the two and asking the media to respect both his and Joey's privacy in or outside the paddock.
Joey had been sitting in the Montreal Hotel lobby for a while, staring at the screen, trying to get her laptop to work. The WiFi signal in her room had been playing up and she had planned a catch up with childhood friends through a video call as she had preferred to spend the little time she had in Ireland with her grandad.
Once she managed to connect the calling app, she clicked on her friend, and former PT, Liam's name and eventually connected to the video call.
'Here she is' Katrina said. 'Look at her in the fancy hotels'
'Fancy fucken hotels with no decent WiFi' Joey huffed in reply. 'Grandad gets better signal in the countryside and I swear he's still running one of those dial-up thingies'
'You see? No amount of luxury will ever change our little Josephine' Liam chuckled.
'How's Canada?' Will asked, curiously.
'It's nice, all good here actually. I'm enjoying getting to see the world and getting paid' Joey replied.
'Don't you miss being part of the action? You're literally just sitting in a safety car' Liam raised his eyebrow.
'There's so much more to it, ya little shit' she bit back straight away. 'It's actually quite interesting to see it from the other perspective.' She started and as she carried on explaining what she was actually doing with the FIA and more about the role of the safety car, her friends started pretending to yawn, checking imaginary watches on their wrists.
Joey stopped talking, giving her friends an unimpressed look. It was only 7 pm in Canada but that meant her friends back home had all been drinking for a few hours and that could only mean they had no patience for her work stories.
'The important question is though' Kat said, almost screaming and prompting Joey to lower the volume of her headphones. 'What is this about you and Vettel?'
'Oh fucks sakes, not you too' she huffed. 'Can we not talk about this, please? I'm in the hotel lobby'
'Well, go back to your room and tell us' Will smirked. 'Or his room, we're fine either way'
'You are a bunch of penises. And I wonder why we're still friends' Joey moaned. Suddenly she noticed a couple of blonde heads and bright red shirts in the background of her camera and froze. She knew the two had been out on a sponsor event, as Kimi had moaned about it to her earlier that day. She could see they were getting closer, so she tried to hide herself and, mostly, her friends away from them.
Joey had little luck, however, because Kimi had seen her as soon as he had walked in the lobby and had decided to join the frame, uninvited.
Joey turned around to greet him with a smile, asking the usual polite questions and hoping her friends would stop screaming as they could be heard through her headphones.
'Pardon my friends, please' she said, lowering the volume from her headset. 'They are drunk'
'Lucky them. Seb didn't let me drink' Kimi snorted, giving the camera a wave.
'We are in the car tomorrow' Seb reminded him. 'Look even Joey is drinking water'
'Even Joey? Do I look like an alcoholic to you?' She asked, annoyed.
'Sometimes' he shrugged, in a teasing tone.
'Well, I just wanted to say hi, wave at your friends... tell you that the dinner was as boring as I told you it was going to be, so you owe me as you promised.' Kimi interrupted their little spout with one of his rare smiles.
Joey reciprocated the smile. She had promised Kimi a drink after the grand prix, whatever the result, if he had gone and behaved at the sponsor event Ferrari had made him do. 'Alright, first round on me on Sunday. I swear my friends are perforating my eardrum. Jesus Christ, guys, shut the hell up or I'll hang up!' she switched to her Irish accent to try and calm her friends down 'Sorry, Seb, Will is like... nuts about you. Please just wave at him so he stops screaming your name.' She begged, after muting herself.
Seb joined the frame with a smile, waving over to the slightly inebriated people in the screen.
Unmute us, Josephine Liam typed.
We wanna hear EVERYTHING Kat added.
Nope. She replied. You wait there, in silence.
After the two had left her, Joey had to suffer through the longest interrogation of her life regarding her relationship with the two drivers. She had explained what she could, mostly via text chat so as to not arouse the curiosity of passers by. By the end of it, Liam asked the question she had been expecting for the whole night: 'but how do you feel about him?'
Joey stayed silent for a bit.
'Because you can think he's nice, he's friendly, you're having banter and what not... but if you feel anything more than just friendship... this would be a miracle' Liam carried on, trying to persuade her to answer.
'You haven't really been in a relationship since you split with Sean. And that was ages ago, Will didn't have white hair then' Kat joked.
'Hey!' Will complained. 'I am going for the silver fox look, thank you very much'
'But it's honestly about time' Kat concluded.
'You guys are less drunk than I imagined' Joey replied, trying not to blush. 'And my feelings don't matter, there is nothing I can or will do about this. It's all... platonic'
'Sure. OK. We'll see. I'm calling it now.' Will said. 'You'll be in a relationship by the summer break'
'Alright. I had enough of you lot' she joked. 'You guys need sleep, and I need food. It was ok talking to you, please let's not do this again'
'Bitch' Kat said, jokingly. 'Have fun, miss you lots'
'Love you all, really' she blew a kiss at the camera before turning the call off.
She closed her laptop, ordered dinner for room service and went back to her room.
She hated knowing her friends had figured her out so easily, it meant she wasn't really good at hiding anything.
'Tomorrow is another day' she thought. 'Hopefully a bloody good one'
Sunday
Joey watched as Sebastian waved a Ferrari flag, after a dominating weekend in the Canadian grand prix and, also, strengthening his lead in the driver's championship. The red tifosi's enthusiasm was palpable and Joey couldn't help herself from smiling, watching the mechanics and engineers celebrate under the podium. She watched from afar, her sunglasses down on her face, as the Italian anthem played, resonating through the air.
Joey started walking away to the last appointments of the day when she heard Calum calling her.
'You'd better come out tonight. It's become a bit of a tradition now, and you seem to bring good luck' he told her.
'Well, I usually have to wait until a last minute invitation from Kimi, so it's nice to know this beforehand. I'll come out, my flight is early, though. So as usual I won't be late.'
'So, as usual, you'll make it to last call' Steve joined in, with a chuckle.
'Hey, I'm Irish' she shrugged. 'I'll catch you later, boys. You've got my number, send me a ping, yeah?'
The two men in red nodded, walking themselves back to the Ferrari garage.
Later on that evening, Joey had changed into a light summer dress, coordinated it with a leather jacket and a pair of converse, put on some light make-up and had walked the short distance to the pub Calum had told her about.
She spotted the loud group from the entrance, so she got herself a drink and walked over to them. Calum and Steven were sitting at the end of the booth, Joey put her drink down by the side of the two and covered Calum's eyes with her hands.
'Guess who' she chirped, in her Irish accent.
'My worst nightmare?' Lass, your hands are bloody freezing. How? It's boiling' the Scot asked.
'I always have cold hands... and feet. Something to do with my circulation' she replied. 'Congrats again, guys' she raised her glass to the rest of the team.
When Sebastian walked into the pub, his eyes automatically scanned the room for Joey's red hair. He couldn't see her anywhere in the midst of mechanics, engineers and other crew members. Maybe she had changed her mind and had stayed at the hotel, he thought. He couldn't help but feel a slight disappointment in her absence, but decided to shake it off and get himself and Kimi a drink. As he waited for the barman to prepare the two drinks, he got his phone out of his shorts pocket, contemplating the idea of texting her. His finger hovered over the messaging app, when he heard her voice just behind him.
'Finally someone decided to show up' she said with a smirk. 'The boys and I have been out for so long, we thought you guys had just ditched us'
Seb couldn't contain a laugh at her slightly inebriated state.
'Sorry, we had a couple of things to do' he apologised 'how much did you drink already?'
'Mmhh' she lightly scratched the side of her head 'probably about... 3? 4? I lost count in between the shots. It's definitely going to be an interesting flight tomorrow' she stated.
'Damn, didn't realise you wanted to celebrate this badly. I thank you' Seb joked, passing a drink to Kimi.
'Blame Cal, he's the one who keeps buying rounds. It would be rude to say no, you never know how the Scots would react'
'Oi' the man interjected with a laugh.
'I'd say I'm sorry, but I really am not' she told him, watching him frown. 'Oh, no, come on Cal. You know you're my favourite Scot... at this table' she joked, putting her arm around him. Seb felt a rush of what could only be described as jealousy, tensing up at the sight of Calum's arm now wrapping Joey's back. Kimi had noticed the sudden change in his teammate and had given him a knowing look.
'What?' Seb had whispered to the Finn.
'Just fucking ask her out' he replied.
'Who' he asked, with a groan.
'You know who'
'Well, I guess she's more interested in someone else.' He nodded towards his engineer who was laughing at something she had just told him.
'Oh my god.' Kimi huffed. 'You're so hard to deal with sometimes' he grabbed his drink off the counter and walked towards Joey.
'Joey, come' he simply said.
'Sir, yes, sir' she nodded, laughing. She let go of Calum's shoulder and followed Kimi towards the smoking area.
'What have I done? I promise I will get you that drink, Seb just got there before me' She told him, once they were out.
'Do you like him?' He asked, as only Kimi would: straight to the point and without many, if not any, details.
'Who?' Joey replied, confused.
'You know who.'
'I really don't' she looked around, confused.
'Seb' he said, simply.
'Ehm... y'know'
'Joey, I'm almost 40. I don't have time for this. I was a teenager 20 plus years ago'
'Yes, yes I do.' She finally admitted. It was weird to think that the first person she had admitted that to was none other than Kimi.
'Good. Easy.'
'Why you ask?'
'Because I've been telling him to ask you out since the FIA night but he now thinks you're in some form of relationship with Calum. Jesus, you children.' He sighed, before walking back into the bar.
Joey chuckled, she couldn't contain an almost child-like excitement in finding out that Seb, maybe, liked her too.