Monte Carlo, Monaco
The race was over and the whole of Monaco was overjoyed; After all, their princes were on the podium.
It had been few hours after the race and the paddock was starting to clear out, Becky and I were clearing out the balcony and making sure nobody had left behind their valuables.
"Natalie, someone's calling for you, they're literally yelling your name."
"Yeah I can hear too but I chose to ignore."
"What a character your are!" Becky laughed, "But seriously, go see who it is."
I rolled my eyes and walked to the edge of the balcony to see who it was, it was Arthur. He had a big smile on his face and beamed wider when he saw me.
"Hi." I smiled meekly.
"Hi there!"
"Congrats on your podium and to Charles too for winning the race." I replied with fake enthusiasm.
"Thank you so much Nat! Now the important question, will you join us this evening?"
"What?"
"We're going to party! We won at home, it's a different high! Will you come?"
He looked so happy and excited but the last place I wanted to be was at a club with his brother and him.
Getting through three days with a big smile on my face while I felt hollow on the inside was hard enough, having to sit there all evening looking at Charles while knowing he felt nothing towards me would only crush my soul more.
"I'd love to but I'm having dinner with my parents today, they're flying back earlier than I am."
"So you're staying another day?" He asked.
"Yeah, I'm going back to London on Tuesday."
He nodded and looked at me very thoughtfully before saying goodbye and walking away, I don't want to overthink about what he was thinking so I got right back to work, the faster I did this the sooner I could leave.
"Was that Arthur? As in The Arthur Leclerc!" Becky squealed, by the look on her face you could tell she was fan girling very hard.
I told her that she was right, it was Arthur and she looked like she was about to faint. Who's being the character now Becky? I teased her.
I signed out and couldn't wait to get back to my room, I wanted to relax and then sit down and have a meal with my parents. Even though they were here this whole weekend, we couldn't spend much time with each other.
That's exactly what I did, cleaned up, lazed around for a while and then headed to their hotel to pick them up. Pops had a favourite pizza place here and so he took us there.
We got ourselves "the best table" pops said tapping the table with a beam on his face and waited for the pizza to arrive while we sipped on the coolers.
"You really loved him didn't you?" My mom abruptly asked.
"Yes." I heard my own voice echo so emptily.
"You're a beautiful girl with a bright soul, if he can't see it, he's probably blind." She smiled running her hand through my hair.
"You say that because you're my mother, the whole idea is for you to make me believe I'm wonderful."
"Yeah...What are we taking about?" Pops asked looking up from his phone.
I burst into laughter and my mom looked very disappointed at the two of us. She explained that she was trying to have a heart to heart conversation with me and my dad wasn't being very helpful.
"It's pretty simple kid, you'll realise that the right person is the last person you expected it to be." He smiled looking at my mom.
They both smiled at each other and it looked like they were falling in love with each other all over again, it made my heart warm. It's not about what a human wants, it's about what a human needs.
We ate pizza till we couldn't eat anymore and we laughed until our bellies hurt, I dropped them off and walked back to my hotel.
I saw Lance waiting in the lobby, once again looking very well dressed while I looked like a hippie. Probably has a date or something I thought to myself walking past him.
"Nat!" He called for me.
"Hey!"
"I've been waiting for you." He said joining me.
"Interesting...Need someone to supervise drunk people again?"
"No! Can we please pretend like that evening never happened?"
"Ah yeah I can totally forget a hollering Pierre and passed out Lance, definitely not the highlight of my existence." I took a jab at him.
He hid his face in his hands, he looked so embarrassed it made me laugh.
"So what were you up to? I thought you would be at the party?"
"No, I went for dinner with my parents! Ate till I developed a food baby and laughed until I thought I was going to explode!" I beamed.
"How adorable." He smiled.
"Also why are you not at the party?"
"Too noisy and crowded, plus my favourite annoying person wasn't there." He fake sobbed.
I rolled my eyes at him and continued walking, this place looked heavenly at night. I couldn't help but pause to admire how beautiful it was.
"Your eyes literally lit up! You're in love with this place aren't you?"
"Oh, I fall in love everywhere I go." I smiled.
"Maybe you'd like to fall in love with another place."
His words piqued my curiosity, I asked him to go on.
"Would you like to come to Montreal with me? A little earlier so I can show you around my city."
I didn't even hesitate before nodding my head frantically, his smile grew bigger and he pulled me into a hug. He was going on about all the places we would see and the people we would meet.
"We'll have so much of fun! Montreal is really cool."
"I bet we will, after all it's your home!"
"You're just... I don't know what to say Nat. You're different."
I didn't know how to take that, flare guns went off in the back of my head. But I was too into the moment to react to what he just said.
"So I'll pick you up at Heathrow next Wednesday, you can have fun with your family till then."
"I'll pick you up at Heathrow, I'm never going to get used to how wealthy all of this is! You make it sound like some sort of bus station."
"It is transport at the end of the day Nat."
We walked around for some more time before he got a call from his fitness coach asking where he was, I walked him back to his car and after a good night hug he was gone.
I couldn't wait to tell Erica about the trip Lance was taking me on until I ran into Tim in the corridor, who looked very cheery.
"Someone's in a good mood today!"
"Because I was right!" He beamed.
"About what?"
"I think you know." He said winking.
"I don't quite follow."
"Lance is very into you."
"What made you say that?"
"He's inviting you to his town, he said you were different. That's love my dear Nat." He exclaimed giving me a pat on my head.
"How did you get to know about all this!?" I asked in horror, this was very creepy.
"I was literally walking behind both of you this whole conversation you had." He shrugged his shoulders before walking away.
"Oh and Natalie," he said turning around, "Don't you deny or lie to yourself about him not being interested in you."