~Christmas miracle ~
December 7
"Pleaseee" Julius pleads, sending me his best puppy eyes, the night sky shining behind him. He's been a bomb of energy today, and I'm starting to feel the aftermath of that. I've never been this exhausted.
"Julius where do you see a kitchen where we can bake?" I ask him, trying to shut down his sudden idea of baking Christmas cookies. Baking with this level of exhaustion can only go wrong.
"There's one in the Ferrari building!" Julius assures me, not bothering to follow qualifying anymore. Honestly I understand him. Charles seems to be nowhere today, so qualifying isn't really any fun.
"Julius we can't just make a mess at this time of the day..." I answer, giving him a sad smile. Julius pouts out his lip, a sad expression taking over his face.
Oh god. A breakdown in the garage in front of everyone might be even worse than a messy kitchen.
"If you promise to behave-" I start, finally giving in. Within mere seconds, the frown disappears from Julius's face.
"I'll behave for the rest of the weekend, I promise!" Julius interrupts, his eyes already lighting up in joy. We both know he can't keep that promise.
Before I've even properly agreed, Julius has jumped out of his chair, and is running out of the garage. I quickly catch up to him, flashing an awkward smile at the mechanics, who are setting up for new tires.
--❄--
"I'm really sorry to interrupt, but Julius has a burning desire to bake Christmas cookies" I tell the chefs working for Ferrari. Opposite what I feared, the chefs welcome us inside the kitchen, stopping their work to help us.
"Don't worry we have nothing to do anyway" one of the chefs replies, smiling sweetly at me. Julius, who is sitting on my hip, is already sizzling with excitement.
"So tell me what you're so excited to bake, I can make anything happen" the chef asks Julius, clearing up the kitchen for us. He needs to be careful with those promises, Julius will come up with something insane when he gets the chance.
Luckily Julius just wants to make normal Christmas cookies, his only requirement being he can decorate them.
The chef, who's clearly already fallen in love with Julius, sets up all the ingredients, showing us all the different coloured frosting, we can use to decorate.
--❄--
"Now put in the flour" he tells Julius, as we start mixing the dough. Julius picks up the massive flour bag that's twice as big as his head.
Before it even happens I can see exactly what's going to happen...
"Oops!" Julius exclaims, trying to cover the smile on his lips as the flour slips out of his hands. The white powder flies out of the bag, and directly in my face.
Even without a mirror, I know I'm white as a ghost right now.
Julius's sweet laugh fills the room, as I cough up the horrible taste of plain flour. "Oh you did not!" I exclaim, a grin spreading across my face.
Digging my hand into the flour bag, I grab a handful of the powder, accidentally throwing it at Julius... "Caro!!" Julius screams, his laughter once again echoing in the kitchen.
Flour spread over our faces, we both laugh at the sight of each other. I'm sure he doesn't even look half as stupid as I do.
"Okay that was something... Now we need the eggs" the chef chimes in with a chuckle, reminding me that he's here as well. For the millionth time, embarrassment flushes my cheeks.
We continue mixing up all the ingredients, Julius causing a couple of incidents along the way. Finally we put the dough out on table ready to form the cookies.
"This one is a heart!" Julius cutely exclaims, showing me the barely visible heart. "Wow! You're good at this!" The chef lies to Julius, acting amazed over the cookie.
"Caro, can you help me make a race car?" Julius asks, picking up a piece of dough. A race car? The chef sends me a good luck smile, as he chuckles.
"Sure, do you want to make a f1 car?" I ask, and Julius excitedly nods in answer. God, how am I supposed to make that happen?
"We can make Papa's car!" Julius suggests, his eyes lighting up. I smile, if only someone adored me the way Julius adores Charles.
I start to form the cookie, not even coming remotely close to a car. I laugh at the sight of my attempt at the Ferrari, engraving the number 16 so you at least can guess it has something to do with Charles...
I look over to Julius, who is trying to hold in a laugh. I clearly did not meet his expectations.
"Chef, can you form it for me?" Julius asks him, ignoring the fact I'm standing right next to him with my slightly pretty cookie.
The chef agrees, and Julius immediately realises it was the right choice to choose the chef. Because oh my god. It actually looks like a f1 car.
"I'm sorry Caro, but Mr. Chef did a much better job than you" Julius says, shrugging like he didn't just insult my cookie. But when I look at my cookie, I get him.
It's not even a car. Literally just a weird shape with the number 16 engraved.
"Let's put them in the oven!" The chef excitingly says, picking up the baking tray. To be fair, we did a pretty good job on the other cookies.
Christmas trees, hearts, and some weird shaped cookies Julius made, lay sprayed across the tray, as Last Christmas plays through the kitchen speaker.
Once the cookies are in the oven, Julius becomes impatient, boredom quickly taking over him. I pick up the remote for the speaker, turning up the volume so high, the whole paddock might be able to hear it.
A smile growing on my lips, my absolute favourite Christmas song blasting at full volume, I pick Julius off the counter top.
Having the kitchen to ourselves, since the chef left, I start singing along to the lyrics, rocking to the rhythm with Julius in my hip.
"Once bitten and twice shy" I sing along, a laugh erupting from Julius, probably because of my horrible voice.
Putting Julius down on the ground, I begin to dance trying to get Julius to join me. "I keep my distance, but you still catch my eye!" I sing, finally getting Julius to dance along, the cutest dance move of the century coming from him.
We take turns twirling around, the sweet sound of Julius's laughter echoing through the room, as I pull off a terrible dance move.
"Tell me baby do you recognize me?" I continue to sing along, Julius joining in with a quiet voice. I smile, looking at the flour still spread across his nose.
"Well it's been a year, it doesn't surprise meee" The French accent I've come to love, suddenly sings along. I quickly turn on my heel, a grin spreading on my lips.
Charles continues, his accent for some reason becoming stronger when he sings, doing stupid dance moves as well.
I can't help but laugh, as Charles does the most horrendous dance move with Julius. This might be the cutest thing I've seen all year.
Charles picks Julius up into his arms, rocking along to the beat. He presses his forehead against Julius's with a smile, whispering I love you at the same time as the song.
I can literally feel my heart melt.
They pull away, the same smile wiped over their lips, as Charles gestures for me to join their little dance. With a laugh I join their circle, all of us singing along to the lyrics.
"But if you kissed me now, I know you'd fool me again" the lyric blasts through the speaker, and me and Charles suddenly fall silent.
I smile from ear to ear, like an idiot, as Charles's gaze falls on me. His dimples form, a little laugh escaping his mouth, as he starts to raise his hand.
Charles softly wipes away the flour on my face, his warm fingers grazing along my cheek. My stomach flutters.
I try to tell myself to stop smiling, to stop myself from completely falling over one little touch. But I've already gotten lost in those green eyes...
"The cookies are done!" The chef suddenly walks in, making Charles quickly pull back his hand. We both look at the chef in shock, our cheeks flushed pink.
The chef's eyes widen, clearly realizing he interrupted whatever that was... Charles awkwardly clears his throat, Julius softly laughing in his arms.
"You made cookies?" Charles asks, walking up to the oven. Julius excitingly nods, a proud smile plastered on his lips.
The chef pulls out the cookies, the incredible smell filling the room. He puts them down on the counter, the steam rising from the slightly brown cookies.
"Look at that one Papa!" Julius exclaims, pointing at the f1 cookie, that he got the chef to form. Charles gasps, his eyes understandably lighting up in amaze.
"And there's the one Caro made, it is..." Julius starts, pointing at my cookie. He can't even finish the sentence before breaking into laughter form the sight of my horrendous cookie.
At this point it's a blob with the number 16 on it.
Charles puts a hand over his mouth, forcing himself to not laugh. "You can laugh, I know it's horrible" I reply, laughing myself at it.
"Nono, it's good..." Charles tries, but he isn't convincing anyone. He eventually gives up, breaking into laughter as he picks up the cookie.
"I like the detail of the number 16" Charles tells me, trying to look genuine, but it's clear he's fighting to not crack a smile.
Charles's eyes slightly widen, and the smile quickly turns into his classic smirk. "I actually have some good news" Charles says, looking down at Julius with a smirk.
"Can I borrow some frosting?" Charles asks the chef, thanking him as he hands him the red frosting. Charles puts down my blob cookie on the table, starting to squeeze out the frosting.
Covering what he's making on the cookie, he smirks at his own creation. Making us all wait in anticipation, Charles slowly lifts his hand away from the cookie.
P1. It's written across the cookie in Charles's questionable handwriting. I look over at him in surprise. When we left the garage, it looked like he was lucky if he made it into Q3.
"Pole position babyyy" Charles announces, making Julius screech in excitement. He puts his arm around my shoulder, pulling me into a hug.
"A true Christmas miracle" Charles jokes, sending me a wink, our faces inches apart. Once again my stomach flutters...
--❄--
Happy 7th December!!!
I'm currently blasting away Last Christmas, trying to keep myself from screaming the lyrics.
I swear that song is soo fucking good!