I went to Spain and watched Arthur prepare for the rounds they were racing there. He hung out a lot with a driver that was a year younger than us, Esteban. He was nice and very funny. It wasn't the same action while watching F4 and I kind of liked it. There aren't cameras everywhere and we can do a bit of what we want around the circuit. Arthur and I don't cause the same chaos as Evie and I though, so I just kept finding opportunities that I didn't take because Evie wasn't there.
Some of the days that Arthur was training I went to the beach. I went for walks, I went swimming and I met this guy that offered to teach me to surf. I had seen him surf as I sat on the beach watching FP1 on my phone and I kept trying to glance at him without making it obvious. When he came up from the water he put his board down in the sand and looked over. I kept my eyes on my phone trying to ignore that he was sitting so close and looking at me.
"¿Qué estás viendo?" He asked and I had no idea what he was saying and he must've seen it on my face as I looked over. "¿No hablas español?" He asked and I actually know that he asked me if I don't speak spanish and I shook my head no in response.
"I'm from Monaco, I speak French and Italian, sadly no Spanish," I told him and watched as he shook the water out of his dark hair.
"Monaco? Wow," he chuckled, "So let me guess. Your parents dragged you on vacation and you don't find it entertaining so you're sitting on the beach, pissed, with your phone?"
I laugh at his assumption. Probably because he thinks I'm some stuck up rich kid who doesn't enjoy what I have and what I get.
"No, I'm here because my friend is training," I tell him, "I'm here with him for a competition."
"What does he do?" He asks. I look away as I debate lying to him. I feel like he'd just judge me more and think I'm even more of an entitled rich kid if I tell him I'm here with my friend for F4 which takes a lot of money to compete in.
"He races," I say after a moment of hesitation.
"Right, Formula 4 is here now, is that it?" he asks. I look over at him to see if he's judging me, but he doesn't. He just looks at me while waiting for my answer. His wet hair is now in a middle part and his eyes are a deep brown. I nod slowly and he nods at my response. "So what are you watching on your phone that's so important that you can't enjoy the beach?" He asks but he has a teasing smile on his face.
"Uh... Formula 1 practice," I tell him with a chuckle.
"Who for?"
"What?"
"You're here for your friend in Formula 4, you're watching Formula 1 for?"
"Oh..." I say and look down at my phone, deciding to just turn it off, "Charles Leclerc."
"The rookie, right? That a friend of yours too?" he asks me and laughs a little as if it was a joke. I press my lips into a line and look in front of me instead and he stops laughing as he watches me shrug.
"Well, kind of," I say. I'm not at all crushing on him big time. I'm not at all living with the guy. I kind of know him. I sigh and shake my head as I begin to laugh at how stupid it sounds to me, "I grew up with him, I live with him and his family and his brother is the friend I'm here for."
"Damn," he says and the casual tone he has, seeming clearly unimpressed makes my chest fill with hope. I was expecting him to act like some of the new people I met in Sweden reacted when I told them about either my brother or Charles. "Cool, but I think he has enough support to let you skip a practice or two."
I smile and nod, because I don't even think he expects me to be watching. I watch as the guy stands up from the sand, brushes some sand off of him before walking over to me. He holds his hand out to me and I look at it in front of me.
"Mateo, nice to meet you..." he says, waiting for my name.
"Céline," I shake his hand. He sits down next to me this time and he looks even better up close. He had amazing bone structure and his skin was tanned. His face was sprayed with freckles and he had long lashes with eyes so dark they looked almost black. With his wet hair he was absolutely gorgeous. He could 100% make me forget my stupid Charles crush.
After a while of talking and joking, I found that he was very funny as well. Laid back, but funny as hell. He offered to teach me to surf the next day, but he warned me that the water was getting colder. It was late September after all and even though Spain may get their autumn a bit later than some countries in Europe, it's still colder here too.
I got to borrow his sister's wetsuit and we went out into the very cold ocean. He tried to teach me, but I wasn't really any good. It takes time to learn, he told me. I had told Arthur I was going to the beach and a part of me freaked out when I saw him walking on the beach, calling my name. Mateo and I were sitting on our boards laughing about something when I saw him and I hurried to shore and Arthur quickly walked up to me. Mateo came shortly after me and wrapped a towel around me.
"Que fais-tu? Il fait froid!" What are you doing? It's cold! he exclaimed and I shrugged, shaking my head at how much he's overreacting. It feels like Charles or Lorenzo might as well be standing in front of me to tell me that.
"This is Arthur, right?" Mateo asks me and I nod. I hadn't told Arthur about Mateo, just that I was going to the beach to watch qualifying. Mateo shakes Arthur's hand and introduces himself. Arthur gives me a look and I immediately look away, trying to avoid his judgment
I get changed and tell Mateo goodbye before walking off with Arthur. Mateo had given me his number, so I could call him if I ever got bored. We were going to be there for another week after all. Arthur had a million questions for me as we walked back. How had I met him? Where? How old is he? Why didn't I tell him? Does Charles know? The last question was where I drew the line, stopping to stare at him for a moment.
"Pourquoi Charles le saurait-il?" Why would Charles know? I ask, shaking my head. Arthur sighs and looks like he regrets asking the question. He tells me to drop it and I'm happy to do so. We don't talk about it for days.
I met up with Mateo almost everyday. We just hung out around the town. He showed me some places most tourists miss and he introduced me to his sister at the café she works at. She ended up asking Mateo if he was running around with famous people because for the first time on the whole trip, someone stopped and asked:
"You don't happen to be Céline Bianchi? I've seen you with Leclerc a lot on TV!" It was a man with quite broken English, but he seemed so nice. At first I contemplated telling him he got the wrong person but when I turned and looked at me with such a kind smile I had to admit that he was right.
"You didn't tell me you were famous," Mateo said when we walked out again, "Do you want a pair of sunglasses?" he asked with a chuckle, motioning at a small store selling sunglasses amongst other things. I hit him lightheartedly while laughing and he grabbed my wrist, pulling me to him as he laughed and suddenly he was horribly close. I thought he was going to kiss me but he let me go and a smile crawled up his lips.
"I would kiss you, but we never know who might take your picture," He joked and kept walking. I had to take a deep breath before following him.
"I'm not," I told him, trying to speak normally even though I was stuttering, "Famous, I mean, I just hang out with some people that are a bit famous and then I get recognized." I explained to him. I didn't like the term famous and I will always consider myself far from it.
"Well, Céline Bianchi," He said joyfully as he put his hands in the pocket of his beige pants, "I did try to Google you just to see what would come up, and I consider girls in gossip magazines to be on the famous spectrum. You have almost a hundred thousand followers even though you barely post on your Instagram."
"I'm not famous, I don't do anything but hang out with a few childhood friends," I mutter, which makes Mateo laugh as he looks at my frown.
"Well, your name is what makes you famous," he says and I get this gross feeling in my entire body. Whoever I meet, I will never have to tell them about my brother because everyone just knows. They know he exists and that he's gone. The most personal thing to me is something that everybody already knows. "I didn't want to bring it up, I'm sorry, I figure it's personal."
I shrug and just shake my head, "It's fine, I mean... it's on the internet."
Arthur was busy a lot, but one afternoon when he and I were out we ran into Mateo. Arthur asked if Mateo wanted to do something with us, saying he wanted to know who I was spending so much time with. Mateo thought it was a great idea and boy did they hit it off. They became best friends in under an hour. They both still tried to make me feel included, but I was so thrown off about the two of them getting along so well.
We went to buy ice cream and Arthur posted a picture of the three of us on his Instagram story. I told him to delete it, I told him in French because I didn't want to offend Mateo. But in the picture I'm looking at him with this bright and happy smile and eyes that just tells everyone how attractive I think he is.
Shortly after, Charles called Arthur on Facetime. He replied and turned the camera our way. I kept eating my ice cream, but Mateo told me to stop ignoring my friend, grabbed my hand and held it as he made me wave it to the camera. Charles smiled but I could see that it was forced and he was mostly confused about who the hell we were with. He asked Arthur who we were with and he said:
"Ce mec C passe tous les jours avec," This guy C has been spending every day with. I wanted to punch him after that because why does he have to rat me out. Charles doesn't reply for a while and then he asks to speak to me.
"As-tu dit à Evie?" Did you tell Evie?
"Ai-je dit quoi à Evie?" Did I tell Evie what?
"Evie te tuerait si tu voyais un gars sans lui dire," Evie would kill you if you saw a guy and didn't tell her.
"Ce n'est pas comme ça, c'est un ami," It's not like that, he's a friend, I tell him and he doesn't look to believe me. He gives me a skeptical look and I just roll my eyes before giving the phone back to Arthur. He doesn't get to comment on anything I do involving any boys. Thank you.
"Are you in trouble?" Mateo asks and I shake my head.
"No, it was about a friend of mine," I tell him and he chuckles before making me taste his ice cream. Arthur hangs up with Charles and I realize I should probably tell Evie about Mateo's existence.
Arthur invited Mateo to the race. I met him up and showed him around before the race started and then we sat down to watch the race. He kept asking me questions and I gave him a quick lesson. He tried to seem interested but I really don't think he was. It was nice to have him there to talk to anyway. If he wouldn't have been there I would've sat alone.
I was flying from the mainland to Tenerife the day after for a vacation with Evie. It was the week of the Japan race and none of us wanted to think about it so we had planned a vacation instead. It was my last day with Mateo and he told me he'd had a great time.
After the race Mateo and I went out for a walk as the sun was setting. He told me to inform him if I come back to the city and I agreed I would.
"But not if Charles is with you, I think he'd run me off," He laughed.
"Why would he do that?" I ask while laughing.
"I don't think he wants to share you," He says before stopping and placing himself in front of me. I shake my head at him.
"It's not up to him anyway."
"Still, don't tell him about this," he said before leaning down, putting a hand on my cheek before putting his lips on mine. It was short, soft and sweet. He smiled as he walked away, telling me to take care.
I told Evie all about him when I met her in Tenerife and she told me I should've brought him everywhere to make Charles jealous. I told her that Charles wouldn't care and she laughed in my face. Charles had been the one to snitch to Evie about me and Mateo, even if there was nothing to tell. We had just been hanging out, nothing else, except for the kiss, had been going on between us. I think. But either way — Charles had no right.
We spent the week relaxing by the pool, drinking cocktails by the bar, going out to dinner in the evenings. We didn't care about anything Formula 1 related and it was the most relaxing thing ever. What would've made it better though, would be if Evie was single so that we could flirt with boys together. She's so head over heels with Pierre that I couldn't even ask for her opinion on other boys because none of them were Pierre. I mean it's sweet that she's that in love with him, but I get bored.
On the race day, we saw that Charles didn't finish the race and I felt panic bubbling inside of me. Turns out it was a mechanical issue that caused him to retire from the race. Max finished P3 and we called him to congratulate him. I chose to not call Charles to console him, instead deciding to call him once he's out of Japan.
Evie and I flew home to Monaco to repack our bags. We stayed there for a few days before we had to fly out to the next plane and be there for the next race. I had tried to push for being somewhere else the weekend before the race so that I could drink on my birthday, but they had turned me down. I was going to celebrate my 18th birthday in one of the only countries that has 21 as their legal drinking age. At least Arthur was going to suffer through it with me.
Pascale took us to the airport where we got on a flight to Austin, Texas.
//
I have a certain amount of chapters I want to get out and then I think I'll start posting on more of a schedule