Emilia was definitely nervous to tell Lando. She hated how late she had left it to tell him but she had had no good opportunities to talk to him. Why telling him at a party, where there would be alcohol to fuel an argument, was a good idea, Emilia didn't know. However, she did know she had to be the one to tell him before anyone else did. She was surprised he or anyone else hadn't mentioned anything. With George and Lando not being on good terms, George could easily slip it out to her boyfriend.
Emilia had fucked up and she acknowledged that. There was no way to fix it as such but she would feel a lot better if she was the one to tell Lando. Though there was also the fact that it was Max's home Grand Prix celebration, she didn't want to ruin it for him either. Right now, Emilia thought it would be great if the ground swallowed her up but no, she had to own up to her mistakes. With the party attire, at least she would look good doing so.
"Em you ready?" Aurelia knocked on her door. Emilia grabbed her bag making sure everything she needed was in there.
"Yeah just coming." She replied putting her shoes on. When she opened the door both Aurelia and Christine were there. "Damn you look good tonight."
"Says you, red is your colour." Christine complimented. Officially, Christine and Aurelia had not been invited but Max was never fussy on who was there at his parties and he was happy to see everyone.
"Channelling your inner devil I see." Aurelia smiled. If only she knew what Emilia had done.
The three of them had a short walk complaining about heels and dresses riding up for the duration of it. They arrived and could already hear the thump of music from inside. When they got inside, Emilia went to find Lando but had no luck. She texted him asking if he had arrived yet but got no response so she enjoyed the party instead.
Going to get another drink, Emilia bumped into her teammate. She turned away hoping he hadn't seen her. George had and went after Emilia.
"Em, Em wait." George called after her. She stopped and turned to face her teammate.
"I can't talk to you right now I need to find Lando." Emilia stated not meeting her teammate's eyes.
"Yeah I was going to tell you he's looking for you, he's outside." George answered. Emilia thanked and went outside to find him.
She hadn't realised how hot it was inside until the cold air hit her. Lando was standing away from the door facing the road. Emilia had a really sick feeling in her stomach. He knew. There was no way of telling for sure but Emilia just felt that she knew. She didn't know how to approach him. Emilia walked up to her boyfriend her heels clicking against the concrete and Lando spun around to face her before she could reach him.
Anger flashed across his face when he saw Emilia before being replaced by hurt and disappointment. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Lando waited there silently for her to say something. She had worked out how she was going to tell Lando and how best to word it to make him feel as least bad as she could but she stood there in silence.
"I was hoping that I would see you and you would tell me that it's not you in the photo. That it's someone else and you love me and would never cheat on me." Lando vented. He didn't sound angry, he wasn't shouting which was somehow worse for Emilia.
"I had a plan. I've been trying to tell you. I tried to tell you today but you rushed off to McLaren, I tried to find you at the driver's parade. I phoned you several times yesterday." Emilia explained.
"That photo wasn't taken today?" Lando interrupted.
"No it was taken yesterday. How did you even get the photo?" Emilia questioned calmly. Her voice came out calm but inside she felt like she was going to combust. She was a mess, she hated seeing Lando like this and she wanted to fix it but she knew she deserved to not get the chance to. He was like this because of Emilia.
"Does that matter? I got a text from a guy called Richard." Lando shrugged not bothered about the details. That made her blood turn cold. Lando noticed her change in expression. "What did you kiss him as well?"
"Well yes but I haven't in like two years, he's my ex. He was the reason I kissed George." Emilia sighed. Somehow, this man continued ruining her life and yet Emilia had thought she'd gotten rid of him. "Lando I owe you an explanation to what happened. Please just listen to all of it then you can shout at me or whatever makes you feel better." Lando ran his hand through his hair and reluctantly nodded. "On Saturday evening I was waiting with George for the lift and we'd been drinking a bit because of the Williams party and I saw my ex out of the corner of my eye. I hoped he wouldn't see me but he did and walked towards me. I panicked and was thinking of anything I could do to make him go away and I thought of Richard kissing me and I had the idea to kiss George. It wasn't a proper kiss. He walked away and we got in the lift as soon as it got there."
"Fucking George of course he did." Lando swore.
"Hey, this is not George's fault. This is all on me." Emilia owned up. She debated on whether she should leave the story there but she had to tell the whole truth. "I tried to find you, I went to your room, I called you but I couldn't tell you what happened over text that's just wrong."
"You're unbelievable!" Lando shouted. "The one guy I tell you I'm worried about you leaving me for, is the man you kissed. The first time, I almost understand. No I don't understand but I can see why you would do that even though you could have literally done anything else like run away, ignore him." Emilia had no valid answer for that.
"Can we go back to the fact that I'm not the only one who's cheated here? Baku last year you thought I was cheating so you decided to go and actually cheat on me. I understand we were in a different place back then and I get that was nowhere near as bad as what I did because you never actually kissed her but the roles were reversed a few..." Emilia trailed off because something with Lando was off. "You kissed her?" Emilia was hoping for a reassurance but none came from the McLaren driver. "You weren't even going to tell me. I can't believe you."
"That was months ago anyway." Lando shrugged. It wasn't even ground between the two of them but it was fairly close.
"You've been lying to me for months." Emilia was in disbelief. He had the audacity to have a go at her when she had the intention of telling him. Yes she knew who she kissed was a lot worse than some random girl but to Emilia that was almost as bad.
"Don't try and change the subject." Lando scoffed.
"You're trying to change the subject!" Emilia accused. It probably didn't help that both of them had been drinking. "Did you just kiss her or was it more?" Lando didn't shut her down on that question. "This is a joke. I cannot believe you."
"You kissed George." Lando threw back. "I never asked you for anything in this relationship other than reassurance that you're not going to get with George and look what happened."
"I never 'got with him' like you did with some skank so don't accuse me of that. And yeah, you did ask for more, in Spa you declared that I couldn't be friends with him at all."
"I was angry." Lando snapped. "Countless times I've helped you and offered you comfort after you keep going through things." Lando almost made it sound like it was Emilia's fault that her Grandad passed then she got in a car crash or that's how Emilia interpreted it.
"That doesn't make it okay to decide who I'm friends with."
"And it's okay to kiss George is it?" Lando shouted.
"No it's not and I apologise for my mistake. At least I didn't try to cover it up for months." Emilia yelled.
"I kissed some random girl. You kissed the guy who was my best friend and the guy I specifically told you I was worried about you kissing." Lando was shouting but his voice kept cracking and breaking. He lifted his arm to gesticulate making Emilia take a step back. Lando looked at his hand that was raised with confusion. "You think I would hit you?" Lando's voice softened.
"I don't know what to think of you anymore." Emilia sighed. She hadn't meant to react to Lando like that.
"I don't what to think of you either. Emi, I love you but your actions tell me you don't feel the same." Lando exhaled.
"Your actions tell me you don't feel the same." Emilia yelled. She took a deep breath and moved her hair out her face. "You said you did more than just kiss that girl. Did you sleep with her?" Emilia wanted an answer.
"Yeah, yeah I did." Lando admitted suddenly becoming interested with the ground. Emilia was so mad not that he did it, that he didn't tell her. If he hadn't told her then, he never planned to. Her only response to Lando hurting her was to hurt him.
"Well while you had that girl on her knees for you, George was fucking my brains out." Emilia responded. She knew she shouldn't have said that but she was utterly consumed with rage.
"Fuck you." Lando spat and stormed off. Emilia watched him walk down the street then turn the corner. He wasn't coming back. Were they over?
Emilia sat down on pavement her feet overhanging onto the road. Luckily, the road was silent and had been all night. Emilia was a mess. She'd gone into that conversation thinking she was the one who had done wrong but it turned out Lando had cheated as well except he had hidden it from her and had no plan to tell her.
Emilia shouldn't have said she slept with George either. That was a complete lie but she was mad and wanted to hurt Lando like he hurt her. It was wrong to do that but Emilia was fuming and didn't care. That night, she had shared a bed with George because she didn't want to be alone after what had happened that evening but there was no kissing or anything, unlike what Lando had been doing.
Her anger was outweighed by a sudden sadness as the realisation came to her that she had lost Lando. Tears trickled down her face and she wiped them away quickly. They'd had a rough time recently but they were getting through it until she messed it up. Without her kissing George, that argument would have never happened and they'd still be the happy couple they were earlier in the day. Though, Lando hadn't been completely honest and Emilia now knew what he had been hiding but did it make her feel better that she knew? Or would she rather have not known and didn't have to think about another woman touching Lando?
Emilia didn't know what to think, what to do. Lando needed space and Emilia was going to give him it. She wanted to remove that hurt expression that laid on his face when he saw her but she couldn't. She was the reason that expression was there.
Noise from behind her snapped Emilia out of her thought train and she turned around. It was laughter she could hear and she hoped it was Lando but of course, it wasn't. Mick was coming out of the club with a woman Emilia didn't recognise. She met eyes with Mick for a second and Emilia looked down. Mick seemed to be having a good time and she didn't want her problems to stop him.
"I'll call you later." Mick said and Emilia could hear the woman huff then the sound of her heels slowly got quieter. The Haas driver sat down on the pavement next to his ex. "Are you cold?" Mick asked and now that Emilia thought of it, she was.
"Not really." Emilia lied because she knew Mick would offer her his jacket and she didn't want him to be cold. "The alcohol is keeping me warm." Emilia convinced herself every time she went out that the alcohol would stop her feeling the cold but it never did.
"I can see your goosebumps." Mick replied taking off his jacket. He gently placed it around Emilia's shoulders. He kept his arm there for a second but removed it remembering she had a boyfriend.
"No it's fine, you can keep it there." Emilia subtly requested. Mick moved his arm back holding Emilia close to him.
"You broke up?" Mick asked.
"Yeah, it's my fault." Emilia sighed. She didn't know if they had officially broken up but it seemed like they had.
"I have a bottle for vodka, we can go sit on the beach and chat about it if you want." Mick offered.
"Yeah and you can explain to me why that girl you walked out the club with wasn't Justine." Emilia responded standing up. The two of them went to the beach sitting on the sand enjoying each other's company and the vodka of course. "So where's Justine?"
"We're on and off at the minute and I don't want to bring her to races if we're just going argue and she wasn't happy with that." Mick huffed taking the bottle of alcohol out of Emilia's hands so he could drink it.
"And taking another woman home to your hotel room is going to solve that." Emilia snickered. "No I see where she's coming from though she probably thinks you don't want to be seen out in public with her because you're embarrassed or something."
"That was a really sober response." Mick chuckled passing Emilia the bottle back. "What's happened with Lando?"
"I cheated on him. I also found out he cheated on me earlier in the year. I don't know who did worse as Lando wasn't planning on telling me he slept with someone else but at the same time, we weren't official or anything but I did kiss George. It's all a mess." Emilia sighed.
"I'm sorry what?" Mick asked. "This is too complicated for my brain this late at night."
"I know right." Emilia agreed.
"So you cheated on each other but not at the same time. You kissed George. Who did Lando kiss?"
"No idea." Emilia shrugged. "I don't think it matters who. It's just that he slept with someone else."
"Life's shit." Mick established.
"It is when you're in a Haas." Emilia teased.
"You don't seem to be having much luck further up the grid." Mick replied.
"Give me that bottle." Emilia requested taking a big gulp. "Do you ever think about how things could have turned out differently?"
"Like what?"
"If we didn't break up." Emilia answered. Mick turned to her. "No I'm not about to confess my love to you. I love Lando. But if we hadn't broken up, would we still be together now? Or would the F2 Championship have completely destroyed our relationship like we thought it would."
"I don't know. If we weren't fighting for the Championship then definitely yes but that Championship ruined our relationship. We were arguing and if one of us had gotten into F1 and the other didn't I think that would have been difficult. I don't think I'm the same person I was at the end of the F2 season.
"Neither am I." Emilia added.
"Would our relationship have survived that?"
"I don't know but I know I don't love you anymore. I loved you when I crossed the finish line in Abu Dhabi and when you congratulated me after the race but by the start of this season I'd moved on." Emilia admitted.
"I was getting to know Justine by the end of last season." Mick confessed.
"What really? I thought you met her over winter break."
"Nope, it was before that. I'd never have approached her if I was with you still. Looking at our love lives now, we definitely shouldn't have broken up."
"Maybe that's why we were so good together, because we're rubbish at this romance stuff." This conversation made Emilia realise how much she missed Mick. The two of them understood each other so well. "You're making your Dad proud." Emilia assured after a period of silence.
"I hope so."
"You are. That video of him filming you karting, you can see the pride in his face already." Emilia commented.
"I wish he could come to races." Mick sighed. Emilia didn't have an answer so she leant her head into Mick's shoulder comforting him. "Do you want to go swimming?" Mick enquired after a few minutes.
"I don't have a swimming costume with me." Emilia moved her head to meet Mick's eyes.
"I don't have swimming shorts with me." Mick countered. "You can come back to my room afterwards."
"I don't have clothes in your room." Emilia answered.
"You won't need clothes." Mick responded and Emilia got what he was implying.
"As long it's a one time thing and there are no feelings."
"Good with me, now get in the sea before I carry and dump you in it." Mick demanded.
"You wouldn't dare dump an F2 champion." Emilia teased. She was so happy she'd beaten Mick to the title because the bragging rights were amazing. However it did result in Mick picking her up and throwing her in the sea obviously after she'd taken her phone and valuables out her pockets.
The two of them stayed in the cold sea for a while splashing and almost drowning each other. They forgot about their jobs, their relationships that currently didn't exist anyway. Maybe it was a good thing to forget everything so they could enjoy themselves. Though, it could wind Emilia up in a bigger mess than she had already done.
Tempting to change this to a Mick fanfic where she can just be with them bc I love their interactions. Though all of this chapter could have been avoided if they hadn't cheated so moral of the chapter is don't cheat. While we're on the subject on cheating. Does anyone actually remember back to the chapter where Lando revealed he danced with another girl and how Emilia reacted quite a bit. Someone commented on that chapter the other day and was like why is she so mad when he only danced with another girl? Clearly, I changed the chapter last minute and decided Lando was going to keep the rest of it a secret when I wrote Emilia's reaction and it was in the plan as Lando told Emilia as well. So if anyone else remembers that chapter and thought she overreacted it's because I decided Lando wasn't going to tell her but she was reacted as if he told her. I then had to rewrite this chapter differently and make him tell her everything. I'm an idiot and could have saved myself a lot of time. So I've learned that if I make last minute changes to the plot I need to make sure I've written it down and make sure the characters know I've changed the plot. Also, chloeprice334 was almost spot on with her prediction!
I'm not totally satisfied with this chapter so minor changes will be made to it throughout the week probably. I don't like how I've explained Emilia's emotions. Let me know what you guys think will happen next or what you want to happen!
As I won't post until next Monday 🎄Merry Christmas🎄 to everyone celebrating and if you aren't celebrating, have an amazing day anyway <3