It was an early start the next day for us as we woke up, showered and got ready for a long day at the track for free practice. Charles and I met Arthur outside his room and we all made our way down to the hotel car park
"Shotgun" Arthur called as we walked to Charles' car
"No Jen always gets shotgun" Charles smirked at him "my car, my rules"
"Well you're just borrowing this car so we can borrow my rules for it and I call shotgun" Arthur argued "or I could drive us there"
"No" Charles and I both said quickly
"So looks like you're in the back seat Jen" Arthur smirked as he pulled the passenger seat forward to allow me in to the back seat
jenwalker
story posted
The drive to the track didn't take long and we soon arrived in the car park and now came the difficulty of getting out of the car without flashing everyone waiting. Using Arthur as a protective shield, I was able to slip out of the backseat without any indecency.
Charles took my hand in his as we walked through the paddock, running in to Pierre along the way. We all greeted him with hugs and stood chatting for a little bit about the upcoming practice sessions.
"Oh my god" I gripped on to Charles' arm
"What? What's wrong? What's the problem?" He asked frantically
"That's Ted Kravitz" I squealed "and he's doing Ted's Notebook"
Charles, Arthur and Pierre all laughed at my outburst, drawing attention to the group and Ted made his way over. He gave us all individual fist bumps and started to introduce us to the camera
"So we've found Charles Leclerc, Arthur Leclerc, Pierre Gasly and..." he paused when he got to introducing me
"Oh you don't need to know her" Pierre shoved me out of the view of the camera before pulling me back in laughing
"This is my girlfriend, Jen" Charles smiled at me
"Oh of course you are" Ted flipped through his notebook to find a specific page "see I write them all down so I don't get the wrong names. Now you've had your F1 initiation on the notebook is there anything you'd like to say?" He held out the microphone to me
"Eh just hi to my dad, he's a big F1 fan" I smiled
"Ferrari fan?" He asked
"Well like Seb said, everyone's a Ferrari fan but he's a Max fan, unfortunately for Charles" I laughed
"Unlucky pal" He patted Charles on the shoulder "Well it was nice meeting you finally Jennifer and we'll be seeing all of you later in the pits" he spoke before moving on with his cameraman
We soon said our goodbyes to Pierre and made our way to the pits so Arthur could prepare for his practice round. Charles and I watched on proudly from the garage as he took third place in practice, leaving him to talk with his engineers about strategy for qualifying that afternoon whilst Charles and I went to his driver room.
"Everything okay?" I asked as Charles seemed tense, changing in to his fireproofs and race suit
"I just can't stop thinking about Aimée with Arthur, it seems wrong, I don't trust it" he sighed
"I know" I rubbed his arm as he sat next to me "we won't know anything for sure until next week. But for now, I'm choosing to believe she doesn't have any ulterior motives against us" I squeezed his arm in reassurance
"I just hope she doesn't let you down on that one" he huffed defeatedly before lacing up his race boots
A knock on the door indicated it was time for Charles to go warm up with his trainer. I watched on from the side as they played football and recorded some videos with the social media team. I spotted Rebecca further down the paddock and waved her over to come join us. We hadn't had the chance to catch up fully in weeks since everything had been so busy in Ferrari.
We spent our time talking about how things had been going between her and Pierre and they were both looking forward to the break so they could go on a real first date instead of meeting in each other's hotel rooms. I was happy for the both of them, Pierre seemed genuinely settled and content and Rebecca was such a lovely girl for him
"So what do you and Charles have planned for the summer break?" Rebecca asked
"Oh I actually don't know" I thought about it "everything's been so chaotic lately, we hadn't planned anything yet"
"It's nice to get away from it all sometimes" she sighed "the boys have had such a tough season so far with things not going their way, it'll be good for them to have a break"
Charles had finished his warm up and made his way over to join us, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and resting his chin on the top of my head. The smallest of gestures from him still made my stomach erupt with butterflies and I felt so lucky to be the one to love him.
"What are you ladies talking about?" He asked
"Just about summer break and that we'll need to get something sorted soon" I replied, tilting my head to look up at him
"Don't you worry about that, I've got it all planned out" he smirked at me
"You do? Where are we going?" I asked surprised
"That's for you to know and me to find out" he chuckled tapping the end of his nose and I stared at him confused "Wait no, that's wrong! That's for me to know and for you to find out" he shook his head "it's a surprise basically" he huffed "Anyway I've got to go get ready" he gave me a quick peck on the lips
"Okay I'll see you in there, I love you" I smiled back at him
"I love you too" he shouted as he jogged away to the garage
Rebecca and I took our time strolling down the paddock towards the garage, arriving just in time for the start of FP1. We sat with Arthur in the back, watching the screens to keep track of everyone's positions.
I found myself drawn to asking Arthur about his relationship with Aimée and how they first met to try and gauge how trustworthy she could be. She had matched with him on Tinder a few weeks ago, both of them deciding to keep their budding relationship a secret as they knew there would be backlash from it. The way he spoke about her and how excited he was to show me where he had taken her on dates, made my heart swell.
I really hoped for mine but especially Arthur's sake that Aimée was being true to her word as this boy was smitten. Both he and his brother had been through such tough times that they both deserve happiness and I was willing to give Aimée that chance.
Charles took P3 in FP1 and I spent the rest of the day going between Arthur and Charles to watch FP2 and the F3 qualifying race and I was completely exhausted by the end of the day. Charles and Arthur stayed behind at the track to go over some last minute details with their teams and I wandered down to find Emma in the RedBull garage
"Long time, no see bestie" she shouted, wrapping me in a hug as soon as she saw me
"I know, life is just so difficult having international jet setting boyfriends on rival racing teams" I held my hand to my forehead "how do we put up with it"
She giggled and linked arms with me as we walked down the paddock to the RedBull motorhome. Emma opened the door for me and allowed me to step in first.
"This feels all kinds of wrong" I laughed looking and the blue decor
"You've come over to the dark side child, I think you'll like it here" she chuckled handing me a can of RedBull
"Guess what I did today" I smiled as we took a seat at one of the tables
"Did you get engaged??" She shrieked pulling at my hand
"No" I laughed "and do you honestly think this is how I would announce that to you?"
"Nah I suppose not, so what did you do?" She asked
"Well now it sounds really boring since you hyped up getting engaged" I huffed jokingly
"I'm sure whatever you did was extremely interesting, tell me what it was" she continued
"I met Ted Kravitz today and he was doing Ted's Notebook at the time" I said excitedly
"Who was doing what?" Em asked confused
"You're the reason female F1 fans get a bad name! Only in to it for the eye candy" I joked with her as she kicked me under the table
Just as we were joking around Max had finished his debrief with his team and they were ready to head back to their hotel.
"I'll catch up with you again tomorrow, miss you" Em shouted as they left for the car park
"Miss you more" I blew her a kiss that she caught and put in her pocket making me laugh
I walked along the paddock, smiling at the last few mechanics that were headed off for the night, scrolling through the notifications on my phone to catch up on what I had missed that day when I bumped into someone, dropping my phone to the floor in doing so
~ Author's note ~
Who have we bumped into??
New character? Or old flame?
Also are we trusting Aimée or is poor Arthur going to be left heartbroken?
Thank you so much for all the love, never in a million years did I think I would be on over 125k reads
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