HAPPINESS | LN4
04 | R A C E D A Y !
──────── ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ────────
────── ° ｡｡ﾟ･✩｡ﾟ･° ｡ ──────
Today is race day.
Adeline is standing in front of the bathroom mirror applying concealer to cover up the slight dark circles under her eyes, caused by having spent the last night on a call with Natalie watching their favourite sitcom.
And also, for the fact that she woke up early in the morning to an unexpected phone call from the Australian Red Bull driver to let her know that he would pick her up in about an hour to go to the circuit together.
She puts her concealer back in her make-up bag, applies perfume and leaves the bathroom, switching off the light.
She walks to the bedside table to get her phone, which is charging, and opens the top drawer to get the paddock pass, then walks to the small closet in the room and pulls out a handbag to put everything in, and walks out the door towards the elevator.
Once in the lobby she makes her way out of the hotel, a couple of people passing by on the street turn to look at her, she even notices a camera flash in her direction. She pretends not to see it and heads to the end of the street where she is supposed to meet with Daniel.
"I can't believe it! You're Adeline O'Connor?!" A voice says behind her.
She rolls her eyes and chuckles before getting into the car.
"Oh my God! Daniel Ricciardo just recognised me, dream come true!" Adeline says with fake surprise and sarcasm as she fastens her seatbelt.
Daniel rolls his eyes in response with a Daniel-smile plastered on his mouth as he turns the steering wheel to put them in gear and head to the circuit.
Adeline digs out of her bag and turns on her phone, which she hasn't touched since yesterday. When she turns it on, a bunch of pages appear on the screen.
All of them, of gossip.
Adeline has a love hate relationship with social media, on one hand, she loves to share things about her day by day, trips, hours in the studio... And on the other hand, she hates - but hates hates hates - celebrity gossip posts, they bring back very bad memories, either of her or of one of her friends.
Natalie has told her many times to leave it alone, that it doesn't do any good to read such things, and she listens to her, she tries to read the minimum amount of comments, what people think of her, whether she is a slut or a whore... But there are days when she needs to know what people think of her, and that's how the night before, Adeline's phone ended up flooded with news that she had returned to the paddock, in which most of them called her everything but good things.
She already went through that a couple years ago, when her relationship with singer Caleb Davies came to an end -not in the best possible way-, and that led her to end up in a psychologist to control the anxiety and the need she had to read those websites and to make people understand that she wasn't like that, even if nothing of what they said was true.
Now that anxiety and neediness has decreased, even though she continues to see her psychologist so as not to fall back into the hell that almost left her in a depression.
"Addy, are you ok?" Daniel throws a worried glance at the singer who is disconnected from the world, staring out the window.
Adeline shakes her head slightly and turns back to look at Daniel, "Yes, everything's fine, just a bit tired" she assures him.
Daniel gives her a small comforting smile, he didn't quite believe it, but it was best not to dig any further. He reaches out his hand to the volume wheel on the radio and lets the music fill the car.
────── ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ──────
@adelineoconnor posted on her story
PRIVATE REPLIES
↳ NATALIEDASILVA: Have fun! And don't
forget to bring me a koala! 🐨😉
↳ ADELINEOCONNOR: I'll bring you a
spider don't worry 🤭
↳ VALENTINAROSSI: Can't wait to meet
you!!
↳ ADELINEOCONNOR: Me too <33
↳ USER76: Stunning 😍
────── ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ──────
Once they both arrive at the paddock they quickly hug and say goodbye to each other, because Daniel has to go and shoot a video for the RedBull channel with Max.
They give each other a smile as a farewell and each leaves in a different direction.
Adeline begins to walk around the paddock and soon she is welcomed by cameras and microphones pointing at her.
"Adeline!" A reporter shouts her name.
"Adeline, is it true you're dating Milo Manheim?" A female journalist shoves her microphone in the blonde's face.
The singer stops and takes a step back, trying to find a familiar face to save her from the press.
"Is it true that you and Daniel Ricciardo are dating?" another journalist asks.
"What's going on here?" A female voice with a slight Spanish accent is heard above the camera flashes. Adeline turns to see who it is "I don't think she has to answer any of that" Valentina declares with a serious expression "If you'll excuse us" Valentina doesn't wait for a answer and pulls Adeline out of the tide of journalists.
When they are far enough from the journalists, Valentina turns to look at her.
"I don't think that was the best way to meet" Valentina giggles, referring to the crowd of journalists hungry for gossip.
"Thank you very much, there are times when it becomes overwhelming" Adeline thanks her for getting her out of there.
"True" Valentina laughs again "Do you want something to drink?" she asks, pointing behind her "There's a small area, which is a bit hidden from the press so don't worry, otherwise, I'm telling you, none of us would survive."
The blonde accepts and follows the brunette to the small separate area. When they arrive Adeline notices that there is not a camera, not a microphone, nothing, it's like a small place away from the press where the drivers can enjoy peace and quiet.
Valentina leads Adeline to a table. On the way, Adeline recognises a couple of faces and smiles at them.
"And tell me, how have you been..." Valentina begins.
They start talking about everything, how Valentina came to F1, her pets, how Adeline started in the music industry...
At one point, Adeline sees the Monaguesque driver walking in the distance, who is engaged in a conversation with what she assumes is his engineer. But he is not looking at him, instead he is staring at the extroverted Spaniard who is sitting talking in front of her.
Adeline observes the situation but says nothing, and continues to pretend not to notice, returning her attention to Valentina.
They spend some more time chatting until a curly brown haired boy appears.
"Valentina, Janelle's been looking for you forever, she's been calling me saying why aren't you answering her messages and where have you been that you have to go to the interview with..."Lando begins to blurt out nonchalantly as he reaches Valentina's side, not noticing the blonde in front of her "Oh-" He cuts himself off as he falls into the singer's presence, his cheeks turning a slight shade of pink "Hi Adeline"
A small smile forms on Adeline's face at the McLaren driver's genuine reaction "Hello Lando"
Valentina alternates her gaze between the two and raises an eyebrow "I'm sure something is happening between these two" thinks the female driver.
"I've loved chatting with someone else whose brain cells haven't been burnt out from driving at such high speeds" Valentina jokes, getting up from her chair "But press duty calls" Adeline also gets up from her chair and they hug each other goodbye.
Meanwhile Lando stands there waiting for the girls to finish saying goodbye, gawking at Adeline's movements.
"Shall we get going?" asks Valentina, which makes Lando nod his head.
"Bye guys, have a good race!" Adeline wishes them both and sits back in her chair, taking her phone out of her pocket.
Both drivers start to walk to where they have their short interview before the race.
"You're already telling me what's going on between you two" Valentina demands, looking at Lando.
────── ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ──────
hellooo!
how's your day going?
some of you may be wondering who Valentina is, well, i'm happy to announce that you can get to know her better in my other book SPEED | CL16 🤭
and now, what did you think of the chapter?
if you liked it, don't forget to vote! <3
See you xo
~Kayla