DNF - c.l [1]

36:00

I wake to the sound of Charles groaning, the memories of last night instantly making my cheeks red as I remember the state I was in, in front of him.

"Are you okay?" I ask Charles as I sit from my lying position, my back aching from the way I had slept last night.

"We're late," he groans, leaning over to the night stand as he checks his phone. He shows me the time, 9:58 AM.

"Oh fuck," I say, throwing the blanket off myself, Charles doing the same.

I jog to the bathroom door, placing my hand on the doorknob to open it, and so does Charles.

"Do you mind?" I ask him, my hand still on the door handle with his on top of mine.

"I thought we were sharing now?" he says, smirking.

He looked just as good waking up as he did when dressed up for an event, something I could definitely get used to.

I shove him away gently and open the door, closing it behind me to have a quick shower, knowing the nest of hair on my head was not going to cut it today.

"Awh, come on, not even a shared shower? You know water bills are expensive right," he calls from the other side of the door as I'm placing a toothbrush in my mouth.

"Good thing we're not paying then isn't it?" I laugh, hearing him groan in rejection as the conjoined door opens and closes.

I shower quickly, putting on more makeup than I would for a race weekend as I knew there would be a lot more interviews this weekend as I wasn't going to be on the track.

I put on some blue straight leg jeans and a simple white racer top, grabbing my Ferrari hat off the back of the door so I was still repping the team.

My phone pings from the bedside table.

Toto Wolf: ⏰

I sigh, putting it in my back pocket, not bothering to reply as I know without a doubt I will be seeing and hearing from him today in the paddock without fail.

As I open the bedroom door, Amanda is outside about to knock, "good nights sleep?" she asks me, looking down at her iPad as always.

Sometimes I really wondered if she grew up an iPad kid, her and that damn iPad.

"Wouldn't put it that way," I say rolling my eyes as she beings to go through the days schedule.

We arrive at the track shortly after, Charles close by my side.

"You have a video to film with the crew in 30 minutes, Carlos will be there too," Amanda says as we're scanning into the paddock.

I didn't have anything against Carlos by any means, I had only met him once on my birthday at Charles's apartment, so I didn't have enough information to create an option on him just yet.

"Isn't it going to be a little awkward?" I ask Amanda, "I mean I did take his seat." I go on to say.

"You filled it, you didn't take it," Amanda says reassuring me, but at the same time it reminds me that I was only a reserve driver filling in, and this position I held with Ferrari wasn't permanent.

"Madeline, Charles, lovey to see you both this morning," David Croft walks in between the two of us, separating us now.

"Good morning David," Charles grins at him, "Oh look, there's Max over there, I'm sure he'd love to talk to you," Charles says, putting his hand on David's back to try and usher him away from us.

It works as Croft goes on to harass Max instead of us as we continue to walk to our hub.

"Ah, Madeline and Charles, please take a seat," Lloyd the media director says as we make our way into the hub studio to film our video.

Carlos walks in only a second behind us, smiling at Charles as he takes a seat furthest away from me, only giving me a nod in acknowledgment.

An awkward tension hung in the air throughout the duration of the filming process, with Carlos only ever really talking to Charles and almost ignoring me the majority of the time.

We filmed a never had I ever video, with Charles and Carlos joking between the two of them while I felt excluded.

The filming process ended and Charles and Carlos continued to talk and catch up. I left quietly, letting the boys talk as I went to try and find Dee who would be somewhere in the FIA offices doing her big girl job.

I find her hunched over a computer in a stall, typing away frantically as she flickes through documents in front of her.

"Do you get paid enough to stress this much?" I ask her, sitting down on the edge of her corner desk, flicking through the documents like I had any idea what was going on.

"Do you get paid to piss your friends off at work?" she mumbles, spamming her keyboard a few more times before she glances at me, giving me a sarcastic smile.

"Well, technically yes, as I am on the clock right now, being paid," I crumple up a post-it note and throw it at the back of her head.

She spins her hair and glares at me, "don't you have a teammate to bother instead of me?" she asks, sipping on her can of redbull.

"He's busy with his real teammate," I roll my eyes, taking the can from her hands and taking a sip.

"Don't let anyone see you with that, they may think you're transferring," she says as she snatches the can away from me while I protest, the lack of sleep from last night starting to hit me as I also hadn't eaten breakfast this morning because we were running so late.

"Speaking of transferring, any ideas on what to do?" I ask her as she swivels back around to her computer.

"Erm, accept it?" she replies, pushing the can across the desk for me to take.

"You know it's more complicated than that," I groan, beginning to doodle on the edge of her document to get her attention.

"Stop," she swats my hand away, "look Mads, it's your choice and only you can make it, but you may never get an opportunity like this again and you'd be stupid not to take it; screw whatever is going on with Charles or what isn't going on, think about you, and no one else, it's your life."

I bite my bottom lip as I think for the 100th time about the contract, kicking my feet out in front of me as I do so.