Hate You - LN

33

I've officially run out of excuses to give Charles as to why I can't stay at my apartment when it comes to the weeks between races. So, consequently, that means I'm nervous as shit as the taxi steers its way through the streets of Monaco toward my apartment building.

The sun set around a half hour ago so the light on the horizon is all but gone and the few and far between street lights light up the narrow hilled streets. My taxi driver has been playing the most horrendous music since I got into the cab at the airport and its horrific high notes all too long electric guitar solos are making my already headache even worse.

When I woke up this morning an ibuprofen and a water bottle were waiting for me on the nightstand along with a note saying that Lando had an early flight and to check out of the hotel room when I eventually woke up. Truthfully, I don't remember much from last night. Past kissing David at least. I've been chewing gum all day at the thought of it. You'd think a retired college hockey player would at least know how not to bash teeth and lick your face like a dog when you're kissing but I suppose not. I seriously question my life choices sometimes.

It's been a worthy distraction though, trying to figure out the rest of last night. Lando obviously found me drunk off my ass last night but I'm positive I made it back to our room by myself at some point. That's about all that's clear though, everything is a bit fuzzy. It doesn't help either that Baylee and Cara have both texted me asking how sex with David was. I'm pretty sure things never got that far. Like, ninety-five percent. Because even in my drunken haze there is no way I went and just had sex with a semi-random person to try and get over Lando. Especially when David is a terrible kisser and Lando is the exact opposite.

Shit.

The get-over-Lando plan.

I definitely told Lando about it. I was sitting on the floor... damn it. That's twice not Lando's held my hair back while I upturned all the alcohol in my system into a toilet. Granted, the time before last night he was pretty drunk too. Maybe not as bad as me since I don't remember him being sick. But I could have forgotten that too.

I groan aloud, the sound not making it over the blaring music and rub my forehead with my hands. I shouldn't be thinking about last night's embarrassment, I should be focusing on my plan when this taxi parks outside my apartment, but I can't. All that's on my mind is Lando.

Now that I'm slowly remembering pieces of last night I'm remembering what he said to me before I fell asleep. And I'm wondering even more about what he said to me after I decided to give into that drunken sleep and stop listening.

I look out the window and adjust my crossbody bag on my lap. The black canvas fabric rubs against my loose-fitted jeans covering my legs and I nervously play with the right strap on my tank top. The streets are getting narrower, the buildings more familiar as the car drives along. I watch as bakeries, designer shops and restaurants flick by past my view from the window. A restaurant Lando and I once went out to when restrictions were beginning to lift flicks past my view and I smile.

That night we got back to my apartment and debated how much longer COVID might go on and what life might look like if I finished school. I'd wondered if after I graduated I couldn't work in F1 because of the suspended racing. Lando had worried about if he would even be racing like normal ever again. We'd talked about our future, although maybe not directly. We'd talked about how we both wanted two kids, three is too much and one isn't enough. We'd even debated dream weddings, how mine involves a small group and a beach, and his a big party-like reception and a dog as a ring bearer.

It seems so long ago now that we were like that. The casual, easiness to it. We never said we wanted two kids together, or that our dream wedings could be combined. Everything we talked about was separate, but somehow it still left me dreaming about some kind of togetherness neither of us dared to name. But kids and marriage mean so much more to me. It's not a ring, it's more. It's effort, time and dedication, trying every day to be there for each other through everything.