A/N: I'm sorry this took so long! I've been busy with life, but I should be back to a regular posting schedule soon. As always, thank you for reading and let me know what you think with a like or a comment. 💚
Daniel
I blinked a few times as I digested the full story that Maeve told me. It was slow going, my brain was having an issue processing the fact that Toto knew. Maeve had since moved to sit on the massage table next to me, cross legged with her hands in her lap. I was sitting with my head in my hands and my elbows braced on my knees. Toto not only knew, but was prepared to help us fight if something were to come out. It was the best case scenario for what we wanted.
"I have to go get ready..." Maeve said quietly next to me, placing a hand on my back.
"Yeah," I agreed,"We can talk about this later." I sat up, looking over at her and she was frowning now messing with her nails.
"Why don't you seem happy?" My words hung in the air as I stood and moved in front of her.
"Well you just seem dismissive of it, I thought you'd be more excited..." Tears came to her eyes and I was shocked to see it.
"Hey, D," I reached for her hands, preventing her from picking at her nails,"I'm thrilled! It means we have a great person in our corner if something ever happens and you don't have anything to worry about going forward," I smiled widely at her,"But I'm still just confused at how he knew because I thought we kept our PDA to a minimum. So let's get some work done right now and then we can spend all night thinking about where I decided to be too much and show you my love in public. Sounds good?" My terrible habit of cracking a joke didn't seem to help as tears streamed down her face now.
"Baby, I'm serious. I really am thrilled. It means that I can come see you whenever I want next year and You don't have to worry about anyone judging you. It's the perfect situation, baby..."
I brought both of her hands up to kiss over her knuckles. She just nodded solemnly. Before I could do anything else, she took her hands from mine and wrapped them around my neck, pulling me as close as possible to her. Reciprocating, I wrapped my arms around her back and held her against me tightly. Even though we did have to get ready for free practice one, I didn't pull away until she did. If there was something she needed from me right now it was support.
"I'm sorry, I don't know why that just hit hard..." Maeve pulled away, wiping her cheeks as she did so, but I made sure to hold on to her.
"You are fine, D. You never have to explain to me what you're feeling. I will be here for you no matter what."
Pulling her in for another hug, she rested her head against my shoulder, just letting me hold her for a few moments before I pulled away this time.
"Alright, go get ready to drive. I'll see you downstairs..." Leaning forward, I placed a kiss on her forehead.
"Ok." Was all I got from her before she walked out of the room.
It felt like Whiplash, watching Maeve's mood flit back and forth. Never knowing what kind of a mood she was in when she walked into a room was a new experience. Part of me missed the days that I could tell what she was feeling with just a passing glance. There wasn't time to put towards this, more than I already had at least.
Free practice one and free practice two were straight forward. D and I were close to the top and the team didn't seem very worried about the race. Thinking that would make having a conversation that night must have been a joke. Maeve was half asleep when we made it back to the hotel. To make life easier, I let her go to her room and returned to my own room to shower and get ready for bed.
That clearly wasn't what she wanted when she texted me asking why I didn't come to her room. Reassuring her was pointless when my key was already in my pocket and I was out the door. Expecting to talk was also pointless when she immediately pulled me into bed to go to sleep once I was at her room. Instead of sleeping, I laid awake wondering what had gone wrong in our relationship. We were still very much in love, but we'd lost the things we had before we admitted that. I couldn't tell you her every move or her favorite things.
While she had planned that wonderful trip for me, what I really wanted was to know what was going on in her head. Was she regretting this? Us? Did she want something different or was there something that I didn't know about? All valid questions that I knew I needed answers to, but a race weekend when our heads needed to be elsewhere wasn't the time or the place to do it.
When Maeve only qualified 4th though, I knew something was wrong. Immediately after press, I rushed to her driver's room to see her. Instead I was met with a slightly flushed Pyrita and my girlfriend hunched over on the couch with a trash can in front of her.
"It's dehydration from the heat. She's also pissed off about qualifying so tread lightly." Pyrita warned me before opening the door farther for me to enter.
Crossing the room in two strides, I was seated next to Maeve immediately.
"Jeepers, since when do you get hit by the heat?" A groan left her lips instead of an answer.
When I tried to wrap an arm over her shoulders, she pushed it off.
"Too hot." She said simply as an explanation, but I still looked at Pyrita with confusion written across my own face.
Pyrita just sighed, used to the BS that came with being a glorified babysitter to her driver. That wasn't enough for me though. Dehydration was a BS answer to what was going on. Race or not, I needed this to stop and soon. I looked at Maeve.
"Do you want to go back to the hotel? We can take a nice cool shower and get some rest." Trying again to get some kind of an answer from Maeve.
All she did was groan again until it turned into a heave and she emptied what was in her stomach. Doing my best to not let it bother me, I grabbed her hair and pulled it away from her face while Pyrita moved around the room looking for a towel and Maeve's water bottle. She handed them to me as I shushed Maeve's groans while gently rubbing her back. The episode lasted all of 15 minutes, but when she came to it was another weird moment.
"That sucked." She spoke, grabbing the towel and her water bottle from my hand.
Flabbergasted, I watched as she wiped her face before emptying her nearly full water bottle. Pyrita scolded her for doing so, knowing it very well could make her puke again. That was the least of my concerns as I watched the color come back into Maeve's face almost immediately. She gave me a lazy smile and sat back on the couch as she stared at me.
"I believe you promised me a shower mister." She winked at me.
"Oh, you think me holding back your hair while you mindlessly throw up your lunch is sexy?" I asked unsatisfied. Only for her to give me a dopey smile and place her hand on my knee.
"It was when we were in Vegas..." I shot Pyrita an apologetic look, unsure of how Maeve suddenly got to this point after groaning and hunched over sick just moments before.
"OK, well why don't we stop talking about that part of our life in front of our coworkers..." She chuckled at my words and I groaned.
"I'll keep my words to myself..." She finally surrendered as she patted my knee.
"Good, Now I am going to go get dressed and I'll let you do the same. Pyrita will look after you and try to figure out whatever that was," I looked at the Finnish woman again with an apologetic smile," See you in a bit?" She nodded with a soft smile.
Given that she had just thrown up, I placed a gentle kiss on her forehead instead of the goodbye kiss I'd normally give her before I stood up. She followed me, standing and making her way towards the bathroom. Once the door was closed, I turned to Pyrita.
"What brought that on?" I asked her, unsure of what was going on here.
"Not sure. She was fine until she was done with press. She said her stomach hurt and she was nauseous. The only thing I could think of was dehydration. I'd need to get her to a doctor to find out more, but she's already doing fine it seems." Pyrita eyed me suspiciously with the words Maeve had shared in the forefront of my mind.
"Yeah, sorry about that. Should I keep an eye on her tonight?" Pyrita shrugged, the blase way that only Finns could.
"She will let me know if she feels the same again."
That was the last of the conversation before I made my way to my driver's room where Blake and Michael were sitting. There was some small talk, congratulations on qualifying 5th, but they could tell something was off. My mind was elsewhere, trying to decide what I was going to say to Maeve tonight. Something was bothering me though and I had to be honest with her.
Except there was nothing to really pinpoint. I couldn't give her specific examples of what was wrong because those were all seemingly one time occurrences. I would need to tell her that I was worried based on multiple somethings that haven't been repeated yet. Plus, she had already agreed to go see a doctor. That concern had been taken care of on my end, but I wasn't sure if she had made the appointment yet. If she hadn't, there might not even be room for her to go to her normal doctor at this point and she wouldn't want to go to a random one. That part is fair, butI just needed to remind her before that happened.
That was how I started the conversation when we were in my room later that night. Once we were back to the hotel and had showered together in my room, she sat down to look over the room service menu while I dressed to go to sleep. I watched over her and her light reading moment while I ran the towel through my hair. She seemed normal, as if today had never happened. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't been there to see it myself.
"D, babe," I spoke as I sat down on the bed next to her," Did you make that appointment with your doctor in LA?"
She pursed her lips as she continued to look at the menu. It was a small menu, she couldn't possibly be reading over it that much. So I placed a hand on her knee over the huge fluffy robe she was wearing to grab her attention. To my surprise, she gently pushed it off and placed the menu on the opposite side of where she was sitting. Her arms were crossed before she looked at me.
"No, and I don't appreciate you trying to make me go when there's nothing wrong." I blinked furiously, surprised at her angered tone when we made love in the shower not 5 minutes ago. The attitude had come from seemingly nowhere and with no motivations, but I needed to put my foot down and be honest with her.
"Maeve, you had a heat spell today and you're still sleeping for long hours. Something is clearly wrong and I'm just worried about you." Breezing over the mood problems she's been having for the last couple of days seemed like a good idea when she was already in a bad mood.
"It's fine Daniel, sometimes people get hot. Oh and I like my sleep. Why does that mean I have to go to the doctor?" She stood and walked over to the mini fridge, grabbing a bottle of water.
"You already agreed that something was off. Have you even worked on your thesis the last few weeks? Everytime I think you're working, you're sleeping. I'm just a little concerned that you don't see there's something wrong here." Maeve rolled her eyes as she turned back to me.
"Come on, don't do that to me D," I spoke before she could,"I'm just doing this because I care. You don't have to fight me on this." She sat down at the table instead of next to me on the couch.
"I'm fighting you because there's no need to be all over me about this." Her arms were crossed again when the water bottle was now on the table.
"I'm not and I really don't want to fight D. We have a race tomorrow and I wanted to wait, but I'm really worried about you..."
The pleading tone in my voice I hoped would break through to her. Show her that I really cared while also showing her that I didn't want to fight. It must've worked as she sighed and stood again. This time she crossed the room to her bag, grabbing her phone out and dialing a number.
"Hi, My name is Maeve Dragon. I'd like to make an appointment with Doctor Evanston the first week of November. I can be reached at this number. Thank you and have a good day." She left a message before tossing the phone down on the bag.
"Happy?" She asked me with a mocking tone. Let me tell you, bratty teenager wasn't not attractive on her.
"Happier, but I'll be the happiest when you actually go to the doctor." I spoke neutrally.
She didn't respond, instead going to her bag and grabbing a change of clothes. I let her get dressed while I looked over the menu she had left on the bed, but I couldn't help letting my eyes drift over to her periodically. Something was certainly wrong here and I wanted answers. Something I wasn't going to get when she was in a bad mood and I knew that.
"Toto invited us to dinner."
Looking back over at her, she was holding her phone. Now dressed in an oversized band tee and her hair in a bun, she was reading over something on her phone.
"Us?" surprised, I clarified her sentence.
"Yes, with him and Susie while we're in Mexico after the race." She walked towards where I was sitting on the bed with her phone.
"How would that work? We can't exactly go out to some random restaurant." I chuckled, trying to keep the mood light when I didn't know where hers was.
"We could probably do a private room somewhere. I'll arrange it with him..." She didn't look at me, instead typing away at her phone furiously before locking the device and placing it next to her on the bed.
"I'm sorry. I know you just care, but I don't have answers for what is wrong either..."
I placed my hand on her knee and she grabbed it with both of hers. The apology was appreciated, but she had to see what was going on.
"You see that there's something wrong though right? One minute we're having sex and saying we love yous and the next you're upset with me and angry for seemingly no reason. Now you're back to normal and I miss being able to read you like a book, D. It was one of the best parts of our relationship and now that's gone." She sighed, placing her head on my shoulder.
"It's not gone, we've just lost it for a bit. I promise I will follow up and make this appointment. That doesn't mean we'll get answers though Daniel."
"I know, but maybe we'll start asking the right questions..."
We sat in silence after that, letting my words seep into our thoughts. I was relieved that she had apologized so quickly, but there were still reasons to be worried. Until she changed the subject...
"How do you feel about the Toto situation?" She asked quietly.
"Toto knowing and accepting what is going on between us is the best case scenario, D," I kissed the top of her head to emphasize," I'm thrilled that he knew and he's willing to go to bat for us if need be. Still dunno how he figured it out though." She chuckled as I smiled down at her even if she couldn't see.
"I don't know either. Is it weird that I didn't really feel relieved when he said that? I almost felt more anxious..." She was delicately running her thumb over the back of my hand that she was holding.
"Is there a reason why? Something you want to talk about?" I asked her in the same timid tone she had asked me about Toto before.
"Is it weird that I almost felt like he should have made it a bigger deal, but he was just so..." She let go of my hands to hold hers up in a 'whatever gesture' as she sat up straight.
"Indifferent?" I finished for her. She nodded as she looked at me.
"Yeah, like it wasn't a big deal at all. It wasn't in an expectant way either, it was as if he was receiving and giving the most uninteresting piece of news ever. Are we boring now?" I laughed loudly at that.
"That's what you're worried about? Babe, that's what we want. We want everyone to act like it's not a big deal. That way when it does come out, no one else will make a big deal about it. It's a good thing, I promise."
"Yeah," she looked down at her hands, fidgeting with her fingers as she spoke," But you didn't make a big deal either... I thought you were upset he knew..." I grabbed her right hand in my left, lacing our fingers together.
"No, absolutely not. I wish you had let me be there when you told him, but I understand why the time was seemingly right. You did what you thought was best and I respect that."
She didn't say anything when I squeezed her hand and I took that as the end of the conversation.
"Are you even hungry or do you just want to get some sleep?" I asked her, knowing the answer and relishing in the fact that for once I felt exactly the same.
"We can eat a good breakfast."