Rêveries

Chapter 12.

Pascale hates watching the races. They tell me it's nerve wracking when you've already experienced the consequences once. She agrees to drive me there on the Friday and then she's picking me up on the Sunday after the race. I tried to convince her to let me stay until Monday, but she shakes her head, knowing what these boys do to celebrate after their races. For the two nights I'm in Marseille, I'm staying in a hotel room with Evie, since she already has one for going to the race with Max.

I wanted to meet them two days earlier than the race weekend, because I wanted to be there to cheer Charles and Arthur up. It was the one year anniversary of their fathers' death and I know what the first one felt like. But then Pascale would be alone and I couldn't live with the thought. It was her husband, love of her life and all of that. She shouldn't be completely alone, so I stayed with her.

The morning we're going there, I woke up early. I look at myself in the mirror as I apply some blush that makes my brown eyes look even deeper. I put some mascara on and I let my brown hair stay down, just brushing through it. I put on my linen pants and a white tank top. The morning air was quite chilly, so I threw a knitted, striped sweater on that I could just take off when it gets hotter.

I even made and ate breakfast while I waited for Pascale to be ready to drive me. Charles should be proud of me. I haven't really thought much about him. I don't know what was going on with us, but it was really strange. It made me feel super overwhelmed and it really weirded me out. Now, everything should be back to normal and I'll be happy to see him again.

Pascale drops me off at the hotel where Evie is there to meet me outside the lobby. She runs up to hug me with the widest smile and I meet her halfway, hugging her so tight I could make her explode. Pascale gets out of the car to help me get my luggage out, even if it's just a small bag. She hugs me goodbye, grabbing my face and squeezing my cheeks together as she bends me down to be able to kiss them.

"Soyez prudent et amusez-vous, ne faites rien de stupide! Je demanderai des rapports à Max... puisque Charles te fait sortir en douce..." Be safe and have fun, don't do anything stupid! I'll ask Max for reports... since Charles sneaks you out... she says with a smug smirk as she gets back into the car. My mouth is wide open and I don't even get the chance to defend myself before she's sitting in the car, waving as she drives off. Evie is absolutely dying of laughter next to me. How the hell did we even get caught? I thought we were in the clear?

Evie just grabs my arm and pulls me inside to drop off my bag in our room we're sharing. She arrived two days ago, at the same time as the drivers. She's on as much of a tour as they are, home as seldom as they are. Lucky her. She's never lonely and never misses anyone. She's with them all the time, all the people that matter to her.

We then get down to the lobby and we get a taxi to the track that's a bit outside of the city. Even though it's only Friday, the place is packed with fans and paparazzi. Evie is so used to all of this, she goes to take some pictures who call out for her. I stay at a distance to not get too close to anyone, but I am aware of the cameras and think of everything the coach told me about, like always keeping my chin parallel with the ground. I wave at some people who wave at me and then we get our passes and scan them to get inside the paddock.

The first thing we do is go into the Mercedes garage, she doesn't tell me why, but she pulls me with her and then right up to Toto. He smiles at us both as we walk up to him and he takes off his headset.

"The two troublemakers, right?" he laughs, stretching in his chair, "Céline, they told me you're staying in Monaco with Charles' family, no?"

I nod and smile, "I moved in two weeks ago. I live mostly with Pascale, but I guess it'll be different when they come home for summer break."

Toto laughs, "Yeah, I bet. All of you in the same city. I live there now, you know?" No, I didn't know, because both Charles and Arthur apparently suck at giving me the tea about all of these people, "I'm suspecting some chaos for all of us."

Suddenly, I feel something slimy against my leg. When I look down I see Roscoe looking up at me and I sit down in front of him, petting him and scratching his belly. To be honest, I've missed this dog more than all the drivers combined. Evie and Toto talk about something while I get occupied with the dog and then Lewis joins.

"Céline, no one told me you were coming," he says, smiling widely before hugging me tightly, "Again."

"That's totally their fault, they've all known I'm coming," I chuckle and look at Evie who looks wide eyed at Lewis as she realizes she had forgotten to tell him.

"Seb would probably like to know that you're here, he's with Kimi somewhere at Ferrari," Lewis says, putting a hand on my shoulder and squeezing before walking away.

With that, I tell Toto that I'll see him later and I take Evie with me to Ferrari. We walk in and I see Seb and Kimi sitting on a couch in the corner of the big lounge on the first floor. They don't notice us coming until we're plopping down on the couch. I sit down next to Seb and I hear him curse under his breath from the scare. He then looks to his side and sees it's me, his face lights up.

"Céline Bianchi, you got the right lounge this week?" he chuckles before looking around me at Evie, making his point clear. I laugh and nod before looking around Seb to Kimi who is looking at some stats on a paper.

"Hi Kimi," I say with a smile. He looks up at me, smiles slightly and nods but he doesn't say anything. It's to be expected from him. He's not a big talker but he's great whenever he speaks. He only speaks when necessary, meaning it's next to impossible for him to annoy anyone, ever.

"We did go to Mercedes to visit Toto first, though," I admit, making Seb click his tongue and shake his head, looking disappointed, "at least it wasn't Red Bull!" I defend, also turning to Evie as I laugh, making her act offended even though she knows I'm right. Red Bull is not the better team... if we're talking team principals.

"It counts for something I guess, but you need to get your priorities sorted before Sunday, young lady," he says, giving me a warning finger. I roll my eyes and push his finger away from my face.

"Fine," I fake grunt, "I'll make sure to support Toro Rosso on Sunday, I got it."

Seb pokes the side of my waist and I immediately bump into Evie who's sitting next to me. I'm too ticklish for this. He laughs at me and then shakes his head, pointing out the window where Charles is walking around the paddock, on the phone as he looks around confused.

"Get out of here," he snickers, "someone is clearly looking for you," he keeps his smirk and side-eyes me from the paper he's holding and then waves us off. Evie links her arm in mine again and we walk happily side by side out of the Ferrari lounge and onto the paddock.

Charles notices me and begins walking up to me, he's in his Sauber shirt and black jeans. He talks into the phone, telling someone he's found me before he hangs it up and puts the phone back into his pocket.

"Mum called me and asked me if you'd made it here okay because she dropped you off in Marseille two hours ago and should've been here probably an hour ago," he says, sounding a tiny bit annoyed. He had looked quite freaked out when he looked around and couldn't find me. He sighs, "I asked Daniel to call you... like... three times."

I take my phone out of my pocket and notice that he actually has. I just forgot to turn off do not disturb this morning. I laugh nervously because I feel like I'm in trouble and I tend to giggle when I'm in trouble.

"We went to talk to Toto and he told me Seb wanted to see me," I shrug and he's back to his teasing and playful self again, acting offended as he looks between me and Evie.

"I haven't seen you in a month and you choose to see Toto and Seb before me?" he asks before he grabs my shoulder to pull me into a hug while I laugh and nod over his shoulder. He squeezes tighter when I nod, making me cough like a mad man from the lack of air. When he lets go, I think about how I didn't feel weird at all. Everything is back to normal. I was just overwhelmed with emotions last time I saw him, this is fine. I'm fine. I'm a lot more stable now.

Christian Horner walks up behind Charles, putting his hands on his shoulders before looking at me and Evie. He smiles as he stands next to Charles with his arm around his shoulders.

"So you're back, don't cause me anymore trouble," he says, laughing before he walks away. I smile sarcastically in response, looking at Evie who just forms her lips into a line and stares in hidden disgust.

"Bite me, Horner!" I yell after him.

Charles' eyes widen and he opens his mouth, ready to tell me off, but Evie grabs me and runs while laughing out loudly as she runs away with me from it. I can't stop giggling even though it was the most basic little thing, we're children at heart. We slow down, walking next to each other while looking back over our shoulder to see if Charles is going to follow us. Instead we clash right into someone else in front of us.

"What did you do?" Max asks immediately, grabbing our arms to lead us both into the Red Bull garage.

"We're running from Charles," I say.

"C told Horner to bite her," Evie says, totally exposing me to the person that could probably get us into the most trouble. Charles is too nice and fluffy to ever yell at us for real, but I have no doubt that Max could give a real lecture if we mess up. I can't remember the last time I heard Charles actually yell, but he could sound annoyed to a point where it sounded toxic to your ears.

"Therefore, I can't be sitting here and should go," I say, but Max just laughs and sits me down in the box anyway. He smiles sarcastically at me.

"No, you should sit here and live with the consequences of your actions," he states, "Why can't you be as shy and quiet as your brother?" he asks and I chuckle a bit. He was known for being very quiet and shy. He let his racing do the talking and kept his head down.

"Someone had to be the fuck-up," I tell him as he leads us to the box, "Are you putting us in time-out?" I ask, raising my eyebrows in slight disbelief. I thought I sat my last time-out at six years old. He just looks at me before nodding, telling me he is serious about it. I sigh and put my head in my head while Evie keeps giggling next to me. Max turns around and says something in Dutch to a mechanic while pointing over at us.

"She just told him to babysit us, again," Evie says, linking her fingers together in front of her as she just stares out in front of her.

"Why do they keep inviting us here if they're just going to get annoyed? What are they even expecting at this point?" I ask with a loud sigh.

"Toto wouldn't let them ban us, I promise," she says, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder.

After some time, we tried to sneak away. It was still thirty minutes until the first free practice and I was losing it just sitting there. Daniel came in, looking at us and told us we looked miserable before asking what we'd done. When we tried to sneak away we got caught in the action by Christian Horner himself, telling me he'd rather not bite me because he just brushed his teeth. After that, I just sunk into the chair and felt like melting away while Evie laughed at my pain. It felt quite rude.

When Charles walked past outside the garage I shouted his name and motioned him over to us. He smirks as he walks up to us in the box. He puts his arms up on the table in front of me and looks at me with the same smug face.

"You haven't even looked for me. I needed saving," I say, keeping it in English to let Evie in on what's being said.

"Max told me where you were and I know it was justified," he says, "Christian Horner can't walk around the paddock being bullied by two teenagers."

"Why not? It's justified," I state with a shrug while furrowing my brows. Charles rolls his eyes and shakes his head, "Where's Pierre? He's more fun."

"Getting ready to drive. Don't disturb him," Charles says, holding up a finger to prove he's being serious. "Il fratello delle ragazze ha mai scoperto che stavano ballando?" Did the girls' brother ever find out they were dancing? He refers to her as the girl to make sure she doesn't know we're gossiping, but as soon as Evie hears the Italian she grunts. I shake my head for an answer.

"Stick to English when she's around," I say, nodding towards Evie. Charles laughs and shakes his head.

"Can't do that when talking about her," he says with a wink. I turn my head towards Evie who is now the one acting offended, gasping and putting a hand to her chest.

"What the hell are you saying about me, you little bitch?" she exaggerates her voice at Charles who just begins to walk away.

"Come on, C, practice is starting," he says and I shake my head at him.

"What if I want to stay here and watch Daniel, you didn't come to look for me," I say, putting my nose in the air.

"Traditrice," traitor!

Practice one finishes and we hurry away from the Red Bull garage before the mechanic has the time to focus on us again and before Max is back to realize we're gone. I pull her towards Toro Rosso, where Pierre is getting out of his car, pulling his helmet off before his baklava. He smiles at us as we walk in... well, he smiles at Evie and that makes me smile. She looks at him so carefully and her smile is shy. Did she put on too much blush this morning? I don't think so.

Pierre isn't much better though. He looks at me when we talk to him, but she has totally stolen his eyes. He looks at her any time he gets. She's admitted to crushing on him, but she won't do anything about it because of Max. I refuse to let that be the case. He doesn't get to dictate who she dates and I will die on this hill. She deserves to be with whoever and two people who look at each other like that should be together.

When looking at them I decide to make it my mission to get them together. And guess what? Charles is going to help me. Since the drivers can't waste their time talking to us all the time and got called over to discuss with their mechanics, me and Evie decided to stay out of the way for once. Well... kind of. We just decided to find something to do where we weren't in the way of anyone. 

So we went into the Sauber lounge and looked through the whole building. We looked through Charles' hospitality and even snuck into Marcus' hospitality trying to find something we could use to entertain us. We found two old pipes that had been used for something and clearly weren't needed anymore and something that was as round as possible. I couldn't even guess what the hell it was, but it didn't look important. We took them to the pitlane and put the round thing on the ground to use as a ball and we used it to play golf, trying to see how far we could shoot it out on the track. I'm not sure we were actually allowed to do this or if they were just happy that we found something that kept us away from disturbing the drivers. 

"Good swing, Céline," Daniel says after I hit the round metal thing with the pipe. It sounded quite awful when the metals hit each other.

"Thanks," I laugh and begin to walk after it. Daniel asks to try. He hits it and makes it go further than any of mine and Evie's tries. We both just stare at him in irritation of being better than us before Evie goes to get it.

"Are you settling in okay in Monaco?" He asks and I shrug. 

"It's only been two weeks and I've been busy a lot."

"Have you visited it?" he asks and I look up at him and feel my face instantly falling. I hate that it does that anytime someone brings him up. His name isn't supposed to make me sad, it's supposed to make me smile. But I nod to answer his question. 

"Twice." 

"I asked a friend of mine to drop off some flowers and he said there were flowers there already," he explains and his smile is gone from his face. He looks up at the fans on the stands. It's like he can't even look at me when talking about him, "I just have to tell you, you look more like him everyday," he says, chuckling lightly as he looks at me again. 

His smile makes me smile, because it's so contagious. I smile, because Jules has to live on somehow. If I look like him then I can keep him alive through other people's memories. He grabs me and pulls me into a hug while Evie comes running back with our ball, then Christian Horner calls for us to move out of the way because session two is starting. Daniel tells me to go watch Charles. 

"He'll appreciate it," he says before running off to get ready himself.