Saturday August 15th. Spain.
"Hey, everything ok in here?" Seb asked as he entered the motorhome that was their accommodation until tomorrow evening. "I can hear the little one outside."
"Does it look like it?!" Chloe snapped back as Britta appeared in the doorway behind him. She cradled Luis close to her body as he wailed loudly while she tried in vain to soothe him by pacing up and down and patting his nappy padded behind, gently rocking him or delicately jiggling him as she walked. He'd been crying like this for what felt like hours, he just wouldn't settle.
Britta looked worriedly at Seb, if he had a whole night of this to come then he'd look shattered for tomorrow's race and he already looked tired after Luis had unfortunately given his parents disturbed nights over the Grand Prix entire weekend so far. As happy as she was for him to have his wife and baby son here with him, right now it didn't seem like it had been the best idea letting them travel.
"Whoa!! Someone's got a major pair of little lungs on them." Heikki joked as he poked his head in the doorway. "He'll soon have Lewis' dog howling along in sympathy the way he's going."
Chloe just glared angrily at everyone, this wasn't helping at all. The last thing she wanted was an audience while she felt close to tears.
Seb turned around to face Britta and Heikki and gestured with his hand for them to leave, walking to the door and lowering his voice as he spoke to them so that Chloe wouldn't hear. "I think you'd better go before things end in tears."
"Try and get some sleep, won't you." Britta said once she'd got outside. "With it not being made public that Chloe's here with the baby, your tired looking face is starting all sorts of rumours."
"Gee thanks. I'll try. I'll see you two tomorrow." He closed the door and turned back to face his wife. "Let me take him."
"Why? Because you think I can't cope?!" She snapped again.
"No but you being wound up won't be helping, he'll be able to pick up on your mood, he'll sense that you're stressed."
Chloe sighed heavily in defeat and bit down on her bottom lip as she passed Luis into her husband's very capable arms, feeling like a failure. "I just can't seem to do anything right for him today."
"He could still be feeling unsettled from Wednesday or it could be colic." Seb replied as he stood there and started to rock Luis who was now bawling in his arms and occasionally bringing his knees up towards his tummy. "It's ok little one, I know it's uncomfortable, let's stop those tears now huh?" He cooed quietly as he gazed down at Luis' red, tearful, screwed up little face and clenched little fists. "Look at how he draws his knees up, he's got colic." He said as he moved Luis to hold him upright and let him rest his little head on his father's shoulder. "Come on LJ, stop those tears for daddy." He started to gently rub Luis' back and walk around in the hope that that might help him. "It'll be ok, it'll soon pass."
She closed her eyes as she felt her own tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. Seb's voice was patient and calming for Luis to listen to while hers must have sounded angry and fraught. Yet again, he seemed to know exactly what to do while she'd been feeling as though she was at her wits end.
"There we go." He murmured softly as Luis finally started to calm down, going from his full on wailing to intermittent little moments of quiet between his cries. Seb continued to rub his back and shush him while lifting his gaze to look at his wife with concern. "Don't get upset liebe."
She opened her eyes to meet his gaze, his furrowed brows telling her that he was worried about her. "While you were out with Heikki I just tried everything I could think of and nothing worked." She whimpered as she swallowed past the lump in her throat. "In the end I just didn't know what to do, I felt completely out of my depth. I failed him and then you come along and in minutes you get him to calm down, I'm just shit at this."
He shook his head in response, while he wanted to hold her in his arms and tell her that she was far from a failure he couldn't put Luis down just yet, not until he was properly settled. He knew that Chloe would have days like this where her confidence in herself as a mother would take a dip but when those days came it didn't make it any easier to deal with. Life with a newborn could be stressful and until recently he'd almost forgotten that. "Don't be silly Chloe, you're not shit and you're certainly not failing him, you're doing great, you're a wonderful mother, Luis is just having a bad day that's all."
"Then how come you can always settle him when I can't? Because you know what you're doing, that's why." She turned away and moved to stand leaning over the sink.
"You can't compare...."
"I can Seb, you've already been through all this twice and I haven't. You know what you're doing and I haven't got a clue."
"You have to stop comparing yourself with me, you're his mother Chloe, you gave birth to him, you feed him, nurture him, care for him and love him like no one else can. Every baby is different and Luis is completely different to Mia and Leonie, we're both learning, neither of us are perfect but just know that this little boy thinks you're the best mother in the world and so do I."
"Then why will he stop crying for you and not for me?" She asked, turning back around to face him.
"I don't know, it's just of those mysteries of life I guess but please, you must stop comparing yourself and putting yourself down." He looked down at Luis who had almost gone quiet. "You know, I'm so happy to have you both here with me."
"And I'm happy to be here, believe it or not." She said, giving him a small smile. "Though I do worry about Luis keeping you awake at night, I'd hate for you to go into tomorrow's race feeling exhausted, especially in the heat out there."
"Don't worry, I'll be fine, the adrenaline keeps me fuelled on track and this little guy is worth all the sleepless nights." He could feel Luis' relaxing and hoped he'd started to fall asleep. "You're both here and that's all that matters to me."
"I can't believe he's falling asleep for you like that." She said gazing at their son who fought to keep his eyes open and yawned. "He's such a daddy's boy, anyone would think you've given birth to him, not me."
"Maybe I have the same mental age." Seb joked with a grin.
"Don't be daft, if he grows up with even half of your brains instead of mine I'll be well happy. I wish I could speak French and Italian as well as my own language, I'm still struggling with your's and I know that driving a Formula One car takes more than just an insane level of fitness. I love you for your intelligence as well as your fit, sexy body Mr Vettel."
He stepped closer to her and leant in to kiss her. "You're amazing, please never forget that."
Yet again his kiss made everything feel ok again and made the world outside fade into insignificance. How was it possible to love someone so deeply?
A quiet tapping on the door made them part their lips with Seb letting out a soft groan of annoyance that made Chloe smile and stroke his jawline briefly with her fingertips. A quick glance at Luis told her that, at last, he'd fallen asleep. "I'll see who it is." She whispered, tiptoeing past him towards the door. The second she'd opened it with her finger to her lips to warn their visitor to be quiet, her possessiveness over her husband kicked into gear. She did not want to see this woman.
"Hi." Viviana whispered, taking notice of the warning to be quiet. "I had a few minutes spare after quali, I just wanted to come and see the baby."
Chloe swallowed down the urge she had to say no and shut the door in the woman's face and instead forced herself to smile and step aside to let Viviana in.
Seb fought to stop himself from rolling his eyes, what in the hell was Viviana doing here? Hadn't she got work to be getting on with? Such as posting more content of Charles than himself like she had been doing all weekend so far?
The sight of the handsome German cradling his small baby boy against himself was enough to send her ovaries into overdrive. He looked so perfectly at home holding a baby and yet so completely different to the man she saw at every race track. This was Sebastian Vettel, husband and father and the difference in him was striking; the tense, unhappy, temperamental racing driver that she knew was nowhere to be seen. In front of her was a content, loving, caring, doting father. "I hope you don't mind Sebastian, I just couldn't resist the chance to pop over and see the baby." She whispered, craning her neck to catch a glimpse of the baby without getting too close.
"I've only just got him to sleep." He replied, hoping that she'd get the hint and leave while Chloe returned to his side and placed a possessive hand under his team shirt, on his lower back.
Viviana took a step closer, knowing that she was one of the few outside of his family to see his new son.
Seb looked to Chloe, giving her a questioning look that asked for her permission to show Luis to the annoying Italian. While they'd formed an unlikely friendship last weekend, it didn't mean that they were suddenly best buddies and Viviana was now allowed to pop over to his motorhome whenever she liked. He was going to have to try and have a quiet word with her tomorrow about keeping a professional distance. His wife gave him a small smile as if to say that it was ok for him to introduce Luis to her so he moved his son as gently as he could to cradle him in his arms so that Viviana could get a glimpse of Luis' sleeping face. Luis let out a small whimper and wriggled making both of his parents hold their breaths and pray that he wasn't going to wake up and cry again.
As she'd expected, the son of Sebastian Vettel was as cute and handsome as his father. "Oh Sebastian, he is gorgeous!" She enthused, keeping her voice low so as not to wake the cute, sleeping bundle in the pale grey babygrow with 'Mummy's little tiger' printed on the front of it. "You must be so proud!"
"Very proud, for sure, and even prouder of my wife for bringing him into the world." He replied while giving Chloe a dreamy, lovestruck smile. He made sure to say that purposely to let Viviana know that she had absolutely no chance of making him stray.
She ignored most of his reply, instead focusing her gaze on baby Vettel. She felt quite honoured and at the same time smug to be able to get a look at the baby before any other members of the team. "Can I ask what you have named him?"
Yet again Seb looked to Chloe before either of them spoke because he was reluctant to answer her. There a moment of awkward silence, no one outside of Britta and Heikki knew of Luis' name.
Viviana looked at Chloe and then back at Seb, were they really that cagey over people knowing their baby's name? It seemed quite bizarre to her because the names of his two daughters from his previous relationship were well known although the girls were very rarely seen. Why be so secretive about the name of his third child?
"I'm sorry but right now we want to protect him as much as possible from any kind of media attention." Seb explained, speaking up when it became clear that his wife wasn't prepared to. "I know that with Chloe now coming to races it's inevitable that she might get photographed with the baby at some point but until then we're protecting him as much as we can."
Viviana rose a brow in surprise but then composed herself. "Oh, ok. Well I guess that makes sense." It didn't really, she'd want full media exposure if she was the mother of a Ferrari driver's child. In fact, she'd make Seb a social media star too just like Kimi and his wife, Minttu. She glanced around her immediate surroundings, suddenly at a loss for something to say while becoming aware of Chloe looking at her as if she was waiting for her to leave. Wondering what had caused the apparent animosity towards her, she noticed how tidy the motorhome looked compared to last weekend. "I see you're keeping this place a lot tidier than than you did the motorhome in England when I was over last Saturday night." She remarked, filling the second awkward silence in as many minutes.
Seb cringed internally, he'd totally forgotten to tell his wife that he'd company last Saturday evening. He'd been so keen to get home Sunday night and spend some time with her and Luis that everything else had just slipped from his mind. He could sense Chloe slowly turning her head to look at him and her green eyes starting to burn his skin as her stare turned to a fiery glare.
This caught Viviana's attention, obviously Chloe knew nothing about the time she'd spent with Seb drinking beer last weekend. One - nil to Viviana. Now she'd dropped that little piece of information, she decided that now was the time to leave, it looked as though Seb could be in a spot of bother. She made a point of looking at her watch. "Oh, I didn't realise the time, I have a Zoom meeting with marketing in ten minutes. I'll leave you two in peace." She headed for the door and turned around to see the couple staring at each other, Seb was looking rather apologetic while his wife was throwing him a very questioning look.
"I'll see you tomorrow Viviana." He replied without looking at her.
Chloe didn't utter a single word.
Viviana opened the door and left with quite a smirk on her face.