"Here they are!! Oh Olivia I've missed you!!" Janice threw her arms around her daughter before she'd barely stepped through the door and hugged her tightly, rocking from side to side.
"Muuuuuum," she complained in a muffled groan, scarcely able to breathe through the combination of her mask and her mother's bear hug, "we saw each other at Christmas and New Year in Germany, it's only been about ten days!"
"I know...." Janice held her daughter at arms length, "but how often is it that you come to England these days? It's so lovely for me to see my baby girl on home soil!" She pulled her in for another hug, her eyes settling on her daughter's best friend who stood there looking a little uneasy. Releasing Olivia immediately, she then turned her attention to the German, who was already gaining looks and attention from astonished, open mouthed onlookers, "Sebastian! So good to see you again!!"
He embraced the older woman who, with her long red hair, green eyes and short stature was the spitting image of her daughter. It was way too obvious where Olivia got her looks from. Janice was almost like a surrogate mother to him, a woman who he'd jokingly refer to as his second mom. In fact, both of Olly's parents kind of felt like they were his too. "Hi Janice, good to see you too."
"Come and sit down, Neil has got us our usual table in the corner, then you can tell us all about yesterday and how your first day with your new team went." Ignoring the curious looks from all around them, she led him and Olivia through the main bar of the Royal Oak pub and into a quieter dining room where their table was tucked away in the corner and sheltered by a dividing screen which offered them a bit more privacy - something that Seb was very grateful for as they removed their masks and coats and sat down.
Unfortunately for him it wasn't long before someone came up to the table and asked for his autograph and a photo and never one to say no to a race fan, he obliged and rose from his seat. This started off a steady stream of requests which went on for around half an hour until Olivia decided to speak up as blonde woman, whose tits were making a bid for freedom from her pale blue top, tottered over on ridiculously high heels and batted her eyelashes at Seb, making him shift uncomfortably in his seat. He'd never get used to female admirers, it always felt like he was betraying his wife.
"I'm sorry but we're just here to enjoy a meal with family and he's spent half an hour signing for people as it is. We'd really like to eat now and would really appreciate it if you could leave us to get on with our evening," Olivia tried to smile, not wanting to sound too stuck up or unkind but inside she was feeling protective of Seb and could tell that this woman was unintentionally making him feel uncomfortable.
The blonde looked unimpressed and eyed Olivia with distaste - what was someone like Sebastian Vettel doing with someone as ordinary looking as the red haired woman sitting next to him, with her mumsy cream blouse and plain-Jane looks? "What are you? His bodyguard?" She asked, raising a well kept brow.
"She's just asked you nicely if you'll leave us to get on with our evening," Neil spoke up, feeling defensive over his daughter and her best friend.
"Please," Seb spoke up too, feeling quite awkward and out of place and as if he was ruining the evening just by being here, "I'm just here to have a meal with a friend and her family."
Olivia smarted at the word friend, it was yet another reminder that he'd never see her as anything more than just that.
Thankfully the blonde got the message and walked away, leaving Seb feeling like he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him. He mumbled a quick, "sorry," before picking up his menu to hide his face in.
"Don't apologise," Olivia put a hand on his shoulder, "it's not your fault that I'm so famous and damn popular that people try to go through you to get to me."
Just like that, she made him feel better. He honestly didn't know how he'd manage without her and he gave her a thankful little smile, "thanks Olly."
"Maybe I should leave a pile of signed photos of myself at the bar," she grinned, nudging herself into him.
"Give her half a chance and she'd do that! You've always been one to blow your own trumpet, haven't you Olly!" Janice chuckled as the waitress came over to take their order.
"I work in Formula One, you've got to be a bit full of yourself to survive, there's no room for shrinking violets," she defended herself while her dad reeled off his order to the pretty brunette waitress.
"If you shrunk anymore we'd need a magnifying glass to see you," Seb teased, setting his menu down now he'd decided what he was having.
"God, you're such a comedian!" She exclaimed sarcastically, jokingly holding her sides as if she was pain with laughter.
"Hang on, rewind," Janice twirled her hand in the air, "did you just say that you work in Formula One? Have you got yourself a job?"
"I'm becoming a trainee all over again, I'm going to be a part of Seb's pit crew," she announced proudly. While it wasn't the job she was qualified for and wanted, it was still a job and a good wage and it also meant that she'd be able to travel with Seb and not worry about the cost of flights.
"Christ, are you letting her near your race car again Seb? You must be mad!" Neil joked while his wife was next to order her food.
Seb looked at Olivia fondly, his pretty red haired friend, his guardian Angel, "I trust her totally, I trust her with my life and she knows that," he admitted, letting her green eyes anchor him and make him feel completely safe and looked after.
And I trust you too, you've got my heart in your hands and you don't even know it but I trust you with it, I know you'd never break it, Olivia thought as she gazed in to his beautiful blue eyes. You've got my heart and yet you don't even want it.
Seb diverted his gaze to the waitress who was now standing by Olivia's side, her pen poised expectantly over her little order pad. He didn't know why his friend was staring at him like she was, he couldn't put it down to her being starstruck, they'd known each other and been around each other for so long that she was way past that now.
"Olivia?" Janice stuck her foot out underneath the table and prayed that she wasn't about to kick Seb instead of her daughter. As her foot lightly tapped Olivia's leg it made her snap out of her apparent Seb-induced trance and she blushed an almost crimson red as she picked up her menu to hastily make her choice.
Neil exchanged a knowing look with his wife, this wasn't the first time they'd caught their daughter looking at Seb in a way that went far beyond the friend zone and it wouldn't be the last. Olivia had never spoken about her feelings for the German, she had too much respect for his late wife and for Seb himself who they feared would be a long, long time before he felt ready to date anyone again which was a shame because Janice felt like Seb and Olivia would make quite a cute couple. It was something that neither herself or Neil would push for, not when there was such a close friendship at stake if things went wrong.
Olivia's eyes scanned over the menu quickly, her cheeks feeling so hot that she knew they'd be glowing and very noticeable. The words and letters in front of her all seemed to meld into one long, jumbled up mess as she struggled to concentrate while wanting to die of embarrassment, almost certain that she'd made a complete idiot of herself and given away the secret feelings she had for Seb who decided to jump in and order his food to help her and stop her from getting flustered.
"I'll have the goat's cheese, kale and beetroot pearl barley risotto please and a sparkling mineral water," he smiled at the waitress as a look of recognition flashed in her eyes. No doubt there'd be more requests for his signature later on. As he handed her his menu, he wondered what had made Olivia blush so fiercely and if she knew that she was trying to read her menu upside down. He gently pulled it from her grasp and then turned it the right way for her while quietly saying, "I think it'd help if you hold it this way up Olly," and slipping back into her grasp.
She wanted to die. Right there and then she actually wanted to die. Not only had she been openly staring at him with hearts and Cupid's bloody arrows coming out of her eyes towards him, something that everyone on the table and even the bloody waitress had probably noticed, now she'd been sat there holding her menu upside down! No wonder all the letters and words looked to be all over the place, this was mortifying!
Two words stood out from the menu though, macaroni cheese.
"Uhm...yeah...I'll have the macaroni cheese and a large glass your house red wine please," she forced herself to look at the waitress who was writing her order down but staring at Seb who was seemed very aware of this fact and was now staring intensely at his nails.
She knew what would happen later on, he'd be getting the waitress's phone number slipped to him along with the bill. That was one of the funny things about eating out with Seb; because of who he was he always seemed to be the one who got handed the bill at the end of the meal. Even when he wasn't paying, every single person who bought the bill over to their table seemed to gravitate towards him because he was famous and they knew he was wealthy.
With a flirtatious wink, the brunette waitress walked away, sashaying her hips for Seb's benefit - something that went completely ignored as he turned his attention to Olivia, still wondering why she'd stared at him and then blushed like she had, "you ok?"
"Yeah, why?" She didn't look at him as she replied, she was too busy waiting for her cheeks to cool back down to a normal temperature.
"What made you blush? It's rare I see you blush like that."
Her brain scrambled for an answer while her eyes focused so hard on the dark wooden table that it was a wonder it didn't burst into flames. "I felt hot," was the only feeble excuse her brain could manage.
"Tell us about yesterday then Sebastian!" Janice enthused, keen to ease her daughter's discomfort. "Did you get to see your new car?"
"More importantly, is it a race winner?" Neil chimed in, leaning his arms on the table.
"It's not complete yet," he replied, feeling at ease right away. Talking about F1 and his job was always something he'd been good at, even more so since he'd got himself back into it after Heidi's death because it stopped him from thinking about her too much. "Yesterday was more about meeting the team and having my first seat fitting......"
"Checking to see if his arse has got bigger!" Olivia jokingly chipped in, giving him a nudge, "which with the calories he's consumed over the winter break so far is entirely possible."
"I'm sure there's nothing wrong with Sebastian's behind....is there Olivia." Neil said, taking the opportunity to tease his daughter and defend Seb at the same time.
This caused Seb to glance at his friend in a little bit of confusion as he wondered what Neil was getting at. Surely Olly hadn't got a crush on him, had she?
The very thought of it made him feel something inside. He'd thought that anyone else finding him attractive would have him running for the hills because he couldn't look at anyone else that way himself without feeling like he was cheating on Heidi. Instead though, he felt this funny little burst of warmth in the middle of his chest; a sense of feeling flattered, appreciated and liked but also pleasantly surprised that someone else really would find him attractive. It was a welcome boost to his self esteem. But Olivia? His best friend? Would she really look at him in that way? They were more like a brother and sister, weren't they?
"Daaaaad!" She groaned next to him, sounding like a whiny teenager. "Do you have to embarrass me?!"
Seb cleared his throat as her apparent embarrassment seemed to indicate that maybe she did have a crush on him.
"You brought up the subject of his arse," Neil pointed out with a grin that told Seb that he was enjoying this way too much.
"And I'm ending it," Janice rose her voice ever so slightly and then turned her focus back to Seb, "so, the car."
"Well, as I said it's not complete yet. It's just the chassis mounted on a steel frame at the moment but the seat fit went well and the finished design of the car looks good. We won't know how well it'll perform until we hit the track but from what I've seen all the signs look promising. I like the direction the team are going in right now, they're aiming for big things this year. Podiums could be very possible, maybe even wins."
"Anything is better than that donkey Ferrari gave you last season," Olivia remarked, "I mean, it looked good but that was it, there wasn't a lot going on under the bonnet."
He looked at her in confusion, "the bonnet?"
"Ok, the hood," she gave a little shrug.
"F1 cars don't have a hood," he corrected her, surprised that someone like her would say something like that.
"I mean hypothetically. You know when I used to say that Graham at Red Bull was a sandwich short of a picnic or all brawn and no brains? Well that Ferrari looked amazing but never had a lot going on under the bonnet."
He nodded as the penny dropped, "ah, like it looked fast but wasn't?"
"Exactly. I'd probably say the same about Mattia too," she added, grinning with amusement at herself, "he was definitely a sandwich short of a picnic."
"I'm saying nothing," he replied before making a point to bite his tongue and then nod in agreement.
"They should never have got rid of Arrivabene if you ask me," Neil said as the brunette waitress bought them their drinks on a large round tray and unsurprisingly went to Seb first who was about to agree when something about his bottle of mineral water caught his eye.
Held on to the bottle's label with a small, narrow piece of tape was a white scrap of paper on which was written a mobile phone number. That was quick work by anyone's standards. Not wanting to cause a scene or any embarrassment on the waitress's part, he decided to wait until she'd gone before he removed the piece of paper from the front of his bottle and instead went back to Neil, across the table from him, "I was never allowed to say anything at the time, we were always primed on what to say, always having to remain positive in what we said about the team but yeah, I agree, it changed when he left."
Next to him, Olivia was literally chewing her on tongue at the waitress's unwelcome gesture which had been bought to her attention by Seb absentmindedly toying with the piece of paper with his fingertips as he spoke. Her first thought was to go to the bar and put in a complaint; that waitress should be fired on the spot.
"It went downhill," Neil added before thanking the waitress as she placed the last of the drinks down and walked away - throwing a little look back over her shoulder in Seb's direction at the same time. "For me, hiring Mattia Binotto was a big mistake and to say that they've already written off the 2021 season," he finished with a, "ha!"
"They're focusing on the new regulations and design for 2022, even Aston Martin are doing the same," Seb pointed out, still wanting to defend the team that was still his favourite even after the dream of world titles with them had never happened and things had turned sour last year. "For sure, we'll have upgrades throughout the year, every team will, but the main focus is on 2022 already."
"Do you think you'll stick around for next year?" Janice asked, as aware as everyone else of the constant retirement rumours.
Olivia picked up her glass of wine and took a large mouthful of it, she didn't want to think about him not racing, it was one of the things that had kept him going since Heidi's death and as she'd just signed a job contract for Aston Martin herself, she didn't want to end up travelling the world without him. She'd rather quit if he retired but what would she do after that?
"I think, while I still have that desire to race and to win, while the rush is still there and the love then I'll continue but I can't deny that stopping has been on my mind," he admitted, feeling his mood dip as his mind pictured his late wife. He'd been so close to stopping everything the day he'd lost her, including living.
Right on cue, his guardian Angel seemed to know how he was feeling as he felt her hand briefly cover his on the table.
"Whatever you decide to do in the future she'll always be watching over you and she'll always be super proud," Olivia whispered in his ear with a big lump in her throat. She'd never, ever get used to seeing her friend suffering and struggling with his grief, all she could do was to just be there for him.
He looked at her with genuine affection and gratitude; his pretty red haired, vertically challenged best friend. He honestly didn't know how he'd cope without her.
Every single time Seb looked at her like that it killed her inside. She'd give anything to have him look at her in the way he used to look at Heidi - in a completely besotted, head over heels in love kind of way. He'd look at Heidi as though she was his absolute everything, which she was, and Olivia often found herself looking at him in the same way.
Then feeling sad and guilty because Heidi was her friend too, she turned her attention back to her wineglass. Maybe one day he'd look at her differently, maybe one day he'd see the woman standing right in front of him, who loved him to the moon and back. Until that day came, if it ever came, she'd have to be content with being his friend and being that was better than not having him in her life at all.