"Yep, I had a whole mental breakdown in front of him", I confirmed still laying on my bed. I was happy that I wasn't in charge of anything anymore and I could stay in bed little longer than usually.
"No way", Cami shouted from the other end of the phone. "Are we talking about like a real breakdown?" she asked once more.
"Yes, I cried and shouted at him and I think I even hit him", I told covering my face with my hand. I was pretty sure I couldn't face him ever again.
"You know that you won't be able to avoid him forever? You're basically working together." Cami stated the obvious like reading my mind.
"I know, I know" I cried into the phone.
We changed the subject back to the work thing Cami had called me about in the first place and I ended the call soon after that. I got up from the bed and walked to my mirror. You could still tell that I had cried last night. I pulled my hair up and stepped into the shower. There was lot on my mind and by lot, I mean a lot of Lando. I didn't know what had gotten into my last night and I surely hoped he had kept it to himself, but I pushed all that aside cause I needed to focus on the race now. It was important weekend for us and we had to bring our best game to be able to beat McLaren.
Couple hours later I was already walking towards our headquarters in the track. I was feeling a lot better, and I was ready to face all the challenges of the day. Not including the McLaren driver which I saw coming out of their doors and I made a quick right to get out of the sight ending up in AlphaTauri's zone. Shit. It was one of the teams I still hadn't had time to get know that well and now I was hiding in front of their door.
"Hi there", I heard a distantly familiar voice and was greeted by Pierre's smiling face. "You lost or something?" he asked jokingly.
"Something like that," I told him and then my attention moved to guy next to him. "Yuki, right?" I asked him.
"Yeah that's me" he told me with a smile on his face.
"I don't think we've met, I'm Sofia" I told him answering to his smile.
"Yeah no, but Pierre has told me about you" he said earning a nudge on his side.
"Oh he has" my gaze turned back to always smiling driver who was now avoiding looking into my eyes. "That's nice" I added, and Pierre's eyes finally stopped into mine.
"It is?" he asked little surprised. "And Lando is gone already by the way" he grinned gaining back his confidence, and I looked him little confused, but I quickly realized that my cover had been blown.
"Oh fuck you" I told Pierre's smirking face.
"I know you want to" he then winked which made the smile on my face grew bigger.
"Shut up" I said turning away to continue my way over to Ferrari. "It was nice seeing you again" I shouted back to the guys who I left laughing among each other. I couldn't shake the smile from my face as I made my way through the paddock saying hi to different people.
"Someone is on a good mood" I could hear Lewis saying next to me as I was passing the Mercedes.
"Yeah don't know about that," I let out a laugh. "So how are things with you, I haven't seen you in a while?" I asked him curiously. I knew he was starting from the pole so he couldn't be too down and to be honest most of the time this man was all about positive vibes only.
"Good, in terms of racing everything is great for me, and I hope it'll last til the end of the day too," he got a bit more serious when talking about racing. "Besides that, there's nothing too interesting going on with me. Same old" he shrugged his shoulders as we walked together.
"Yeah, great driving once again I give you that" I grinned.
"Hey are you okay?" he then suddenly stopped. "I mean I saw you last night leaving and you seemed kind of upset", he explained.
"Yeah was a pretty stressful day and I guess it all came out in the evening" I didn't know what to say. "But I'm good now. I didn't see you anywhere last night tho", I raised my brows thinking about my exit last night.
"Okay, and I was trying to shout after you but I don't think you heard me" he told me. "Good if everything is fine now" he smiled. "You know you can always talk to me if you have something on your mind" he added hugging me from the side.
"Well I do now" I smiled to the champion next to me. It was amazing how I had gotten to know these people so easily and how it felt like being a part of the one bigass family. It made me feel less lonely most of the time.
"Good, but now I gotta run so I won't miss the prepping" he squeezed my shoulder and said bye before running back to his own garage. I other hand decided to dig up my camera and take some photos before the race around the paddock. It was raining for the first time on my time here and I needed to get some photos of that.
I looked around through my lens and captured some nice shots of people running in the rain or walking around with their umbrellas. I turned my camera little left and could see a yellow raincoat appear on the cut and I pressed the button for a photo. The person wearing the raincoat turned around and my heart skipped a beat as I saw Lando's smiling face as he talked to his engineers. He looked cute. Wait what. Nope, he wasn't looking cute or good in anyway. Still, I took couple more photos of him. Him laughing with someone of his team, him just standing with his hands on the pockets of the jacket and so on. Yeah, okay I took more than couple photos of him.
The rain had stopped, and it was time to race. It was going to be a interesting race as the track was still wet from the rain before. Charles had driven out already in the formation lap and I had a feeling that lot more was coming.
I was right and there was a red flag in the air in lap 34. There had been a lot going on in the track. Many cars had driven off the track but only three of them was out so far. The race was going great. Charles had second place on his hands and Carlos had made his way to fifth place and little less than half of the race was still ahead of us. Right after the flag Lando overtook Charles leaving him on the third place and more cars were in trouble.
Hamilton was closing us dangerously after having driven out sometime ago. And in no time, he overtook both Charles and Lando leaving us just outside the podium. After that the race was pretty much raced and Max drove to his first win in Italy.
Our cars did great finishing P4 and P5. I watched as team of McLaren ran towards the Lando who had finished amazingly on the podium once again on his career. His driving today had been amazing too. He did good job climbing up from the seventh place all the way to the third.
I walked towards the drivers exit with my camera so I could get some moments to remember captured in pictures. I made it all the way there and stopped little further behind giving the celebrating teams the space they needed.
I spotted both Ferrari drivers walking towards me and snapped couple shots of them. It had been a great race from them too. Carlos making his way to the points and with Charles keeping his position we could be happy with that for now.
I hugged Carlos as he managed to make his way to me. "Nice job mate" I told him and he smiled.
"Thanks, it's not podium but I'm happy with P5 today" he nodded his head.
"As you should" I tapped him on his back.
"Hey" I said as Charles passed by me. "Good fight today" I told him giving him a fist bump.
"Yeah, it should've been a podium but maybe next time" You could tell he was little disappointed for the results. He just shrugged "I see you later."
"Yep."
I could see the yellow helmet coming towards me and before I knew I had been picked up on the air by two arms. They span me around once before putting me down again. I could see the smiling eyes of Lando as he moved on from me without saying a word. The whole thing made my heart melt. I didn't know what that guy was doing to me but it was something for sure.
"You know I saw that, right?" I had completely forgotten that Carlos was still walking along side of me.
"Yeah, so?"
"Well, a smile for a guy who you barely know and absolutely don't like doesn't look like that" he smirked and I rolled my eyes to the guy. "Hey I'm just saying, I could be wrong" he added but I knew all too well that he was convinces now more than before that we were the match made in heaven that he was hoping for.
"He is not that bad I guess" I admitted but regretted it the same second as I saw the pointing look Carlos was giving me. "I'm not saying I'm in love with him, I just said he seems like a good guy" I threw my hands in the air. This guy was impossible. And what came to Lando, yeah he made my body react in weird ways but I still didn't knew him nor was I catching feelings for him. I just thought that he was a nice guy and didn't mind being around him. Except now that I still was feeling a bit embarrassed cause of the breakdown from night before.
"I'll take that for now, but can you tell me what the whole Max thing was?"
"I don't know, ask something else" I laughed shrugging my shoulders.