It's Called Leap of Faith - [Daniel Ricciardo]

36. Happy New Home

Daniel's POV

I wiped the sweat from my face and took a long, very much needed sip from my water bottle Michael had handed me just few seconds ago.

"Well, not much to tell about this race to the next generation," I said and flexed my sore neck.

"Yea man, let's just forget this one and move on," Michael patted my shoulder and gathered some of our stuff lying around the motorhome. I couldn't wait to get back to Monaco.

"This sport is so weird, one weekend you can be literally standing on the podium and the next one you barley get points," I wasn't happy with my result today. Only two points to go home with after the race I had in Germany two weeks ago, was disappointment to say the least. I need to have a chat with Elza, I obviously needed her to come to the races with me.

"Tell me about it, but then again it makes this pretty amazing. You never know what happens," Michael was only trying to be supportive, of course i knew that, but I wouldn't mind right now if he just said 'this one sucked'. I could totally relate to Günther Steiner at this point, 'in Formula 1, the highs are very high and the lows are very low'. True that.

"I'm so ready to go home, I'm seriously worried how much I miss Elza. I had a dream last night about-," I started to tell about my dream to my friend but he stopped me before I got any further.

"Mate, I don't wanna know," Michael's voice was horrified. Of course he would think it was some crazy kinky sex dream, but it wasn't. I don't even remember much about it, but we were in LA. Driving bikes. And I could still hear Elza's laugh, it felt so real in my dream.

"Oh shut up, nothing like that but I'm starting to think that LA is some kind of happy place for me and Elza. We were in LA in my dream and it's the place where we made this whole thing official," I really wanted to go back to California. It was already fall in Europe and I was missing the sunny warm weather.

"You're not thinking of going home on the winter break?" Michael was good at reading between the lines. Or then he just knew me way too well.

"Yeah, we'll see but the whole pandemic situation looks pretty bad and even though I necessarily wouldn't mind being stuck in Perth for the entire break, I don't think Elza wants that," I knew for sure Elza didn't want that. She already spent almost four months in Perth with me, I don't believe for a second she would happy if I asked her to spend another two months on isolation from the rest of the world.

"You're right, don't even ask her that," Michael laughed and threw me a pair of clean socks and black hoodie. "What do you think your mom will say if you don't go home for Christmas?"

"I don't even want to know, she will probably cry and tell me I'm the worst son ever," I sighed and rubbed my forehead. "Remember when I used to say that being single is nice because you're not responsible for anyone else? You know, you can make your own decision and all that?"

"I do, but I hope you don't feel that way anymore?" I could hear from Michael's voice that he was already worried of the the direction where this conversation was going.

"No, of course not. I love Elza and quite frankly, I wouldn't care if we spent the Christmas just the two of us but also, I do miss my family. Before Elza I only needed to spare my free time between Perth and LA. Now I need to split my time between Perth, Munich and LA," I wasn't sure why was I already thinking about the holidays so much. We still had plenty of races to go and we had no idea what was going to happen with the pandemic so there wasn't too much planning I could do. And besides, this year I wasn't doing the planning alone.

"Gotta admit, that's bit of a puzzle to solve. But as always, talk with Elza, you two figure it out," I pulled the hoodie over my head and started to pack my own bags and help Michael.