AN ENDLESS SMILE// DANIEL RICCIARDO

ELEVEN

ELEVEN

"What do we say to our problems?"

"Fuck off."

Esteban Ocon laughed loudly, his chest constricting and tightening from his best friends words, and the look from upon her face which he found hilarious.

Josephine Belle Rankin was dripping in sweat as she ran alongside him, face glaring at him in annoyance. She could run distances sure, but when he had dragged her out of her bed as soon as the sun came up, to go for a run which was still to end even though it was past noon, it was almost as if she was about to die from exhaustion.

The answer that she had given him had two meanings, one was in fact the answer to his question, whereas the other was aimed at him for dragging her out of her comfy bed whilst she was sleeping.

For once.

He brought them to a stop by a bench, much to her relief as it allowed herself to try and catch as much of her breath as she could, of which was not much at all.

Her tired, aching and exhausted body dropped to the asphalt beneath her so that she could stretch her body to get rid of the cramp that pained her, rolling her shoulders and moving her neck in circles until it made a small cracking sound.

"I bet that you regret coming back right now, don't you?" Esteban chuckled, seeing his friend rolling her eyes at him. "How did Sandra take the news?"

"Surprisingly well."

It may have come to a surprise to some of the people at the modelling agency where Josephine worked at, but her boss Sandra was completely fine when the Rankin woman announced that she planned to leave the agency.

It was almost as if she had expected it.

It had soon spread to the paparazzi that the famous model was leaving the agency where she had spent an entire decade of her career, which meant that they had tried to interrogate her with questions as to why she had left.

But they had seemed to have forgotten that the Australian woman was now skilled at disappearing from the public light, so by the time that they had got wind of the story, Josephine Rankin had already disappeared from the agency and was already at the airport to travel to Monaco.

Where she was met by the Ocon man who was more than happy to see her, pulling her in to a gentle and caring hug.

She was debating on whether she wanted to leave her home of Perth for good to relocate near that of Charles, Arthur and Pierre so that she could be in their lives more to make up for the time that she had missed, but she still wasn't completely sure.

"Come on, Josie. We've got to finish this! We're on the home stretch!" Esteban giggled as she attempted to slap his bare lower leg, failing as he jumped out of the way.

"It's a good thing that we are not near water right now Estie, because I would a hundred percent drown you." The Rankin woman groaned as she had to force her aching body back up and on to her feet.

"Who would buy you dinner later if you did?"

"Daniel."

The woman coughed out with a smirk crawling up on to her lips, seeing the French man beside her lightly nudge her as if he was pretending to be offended.

"Or Pierre, or Lewis, or Sebastian." Esteban teased his best friend lightly, seeing her chuckle as her smirk was replaced by a smug smile. "I used to have a crush on you, and now I don't, everybody else does."

"Oh please. Sebastian knows where he stands."

"Pierre's schoolboy crush didn't fade, Josie. But then again, who could blame him for crushing on the Josephine Rankin." Esteban giggled.