Petrichor ~ Lewis Hamilton

5

January 17, 2021, Monaco

It didn't take long for me to hear from Lewis again, he texted me constantly, usually just to send me whatever he thought would be make me laugh, sometimes a couple of photos of Roscoe or an update on his day until one day I got a text from him immediately followed by a call.

"Can you please check that all your details are correct?" I put the sketch book on the table in the living room, I had picked up the new habit of scribbling when I was not in the studio. Trying to occupy my time when it was too cold to go outside.

"What details?" I asked him changing my phone from one ear to the other.

"For the plane ticket, I thought that next week would be the perfect time to go, if we leave it for later it will match with Valentine's Day and honestly, I don't even want to think about how full Paris will be in Valentine's day"

"So Paris is the next stop then?" I open my laptop while still on the call and start making a list of everything I could need for a trip.

"I have a show to attend and they let me take a plus one to the after party so I thought we'd have a great time, lots of celebrities for you to meet"

"Is Emma Stone going to be there?"

"What does Emma Stone have that I don't?" I try not to laugh at his offended tone of voice.

"An Oscar?"

"I have many other trophies at home, you can come and see them whenever you want" I know he's probably teasing me, but this is also the third time he's tossed around the idea of ​​inviting me to his house in the last week.

"Mr Lewis Hamilton inviting me to his house? Are you no longer worried that I will leak your address to the media or what?"

"You already know my address, you could have leaked it ages ago, also, I kind of miss your way of thinking, I invite you to dinner and we organize the trip?" Conveniently I had no food left, having to go shopping tomorrow for the week and I also missed his way of thinking.

"Do I have to bring something?"

"Your presence will be enough, although, if you bring some wine I won't say no"

After a couple more minutes on the call arguing about whether he would cook something or order something for dinner. He insisted that homemade food always tasted better, I that he didn't want to make him work, we hung up and I went to my closet to choose something to wear.

"Hey Gigi, I need something" I said when she picked up the video call and she saw me in my closet looking through my clothes.

"Night out? You know I would never say no to a night out" I pick up first a beige dress and she wrinkles her nose and shakes her head at the sight of it.

"Not that, do you have the name of the wine that you order to serve at the openings of the exhibitions?" She frowned at me trying to follow where the conversation was going.

"It's expensive, you know you have cheaper wine to get drunk alone at home than that, right?"

"It's not that, and did you see if Lewis drank any of that during the show?" I avoid the look she's going to give me by continuing to search through the clothes, finding blue pleated pants and a black top with small embroidered flowers that did seem to convince her.

"Oh so that's where this is going. I saw him get a drink so I don't think it's a bad option, how's it going...whatever you two have?" I hadn't had time to discover where this would lead us either, but at least I ruled out that he was going to be an asshole at first.