"What exactly are we doing River? His tires are done, we need to box him" Will looked at me. It took a while until they said something about it.
Lando's tires were pretty done, I could see that too but he needed to hold on just a little longer. If we boxed him now then I had no choice and I had to put him on hards.
But Lando could do it. He was doing an amazing job, without complaining.
"We don't need to box him, ask him how his tires are" I answered. I knew he wasn't gonna complain about it on the radio.
"How are the tires feeling Lando?" Will asked him through the radio. "Tires are fine" he replied, even though it was a lie.
We had access to everyone's team radio, just like they had access to ours. I knew for sure that Ferrari was listening in to Lando's radio, just like I was listening to Charles' radio.
He was gaining on Lando, by a lot and fast. "Lando's tires are done, he's struggling" Charles' engineer said.
But I knew we were in their heads. They probably didn't understand what we were doing at all.
Charles caught Lando only a couple of laps later and Lando even went off a couple of times.
But he still wasn't complaining.
"We're gonna box him and we're gonna put him on mediums" I told Will. He looked at me confused but still pressed Lando's radio button and told him to box.
The pitstop went amazing and Lando was out on track again in no time.
The only thing he had to do now, was catch Charles.
He was flying on these tires, he was catching Charles fast and I knew it would make Charles nervous.
It would make the Ferrari pitwall even more nervous. Hopefully they were gonna mess up again.
It only took Lando a couple of laps to catch him. There was no way he would let Charles win his home Grand Prix.
He was battling hard and they almost crashed into each other a few times. Will wanted to press Lando's radio button, probably to tell him to stop fighting but I gently put my hand on his arm and stopped him.
"He knows what he's doing. Trust him" I looked at Will. He was probably confused about the relationship between Lando and I, but I was here to do my job.
And my job was to make Lando win. There was nothing he wanted more and there was nothing I wanted more right now.
As expected, Charles' tires were completely done by the end of the race, especially because he was fighting with Lando.
Lando won his home Grand Prix and even Oscar overtook Charles in the last couple of laps, making it another one-two.
Will immediately wrapped his arms around me and hugged me. "You're incredible. You're the best strategist"
I never saw him as emotional and happy as right now. Lando's win meant a lot to him, to the team, to everyone.
And then someone patted my back, hard. "Great job, you're going up with them" Zak said as he looked at me.
He wanted me to go up to the podium with them?
"Uh-" I started, I actually wanted to tell him that he needed to go up with them but he already walked away to hurt other people's back.
A little while later, I was standing in the hallway to the podium.
"Oh here you are" Lando said as he put his hand on my back. "You're going up with us?"
"I guess I am" I laughed, but I was actually nervous even though there was nothing I needed to do.
"Thank you River, you did amazing" he whispered a little as he leaned closer. He wanted to hug me, but he was a little hesitant about it.
He deserved a hug, even though he thought I was the one who made him win, he definitely saved my skin by beating Charles.
I wrapped my arms around him and he quickly did the same. His cheek was touching mine and his smell reminded me of everything we used to have.
Our love for each other was so big, maybe even too big.
We couldn't handle how much we loved each other. We couldn't handle each other.
We both took a step back, but we didn't let go of each other hands. We kept looking at each other, but we didn't say a word.
We both knew what we wanted to say.
I fucking miss you.
