Connected (F1 Story)

Chapter Seventeen: Uh-Oh

At school I got mocked for liking Shakespeare...but those bastards will be laughing now- I'm the one reeling off the playwright's lines walking around the said to be setting of Romeo and Juliet. Which is in Verona, Italy, or just over an hour and a half from the race track to be precise.

Daniel's great aunt and great uncle were chatting away to my boyfriend and I was listening, thinking just how fucking beautiful their language sounded. Even if I couldn't understand one bit of it. I was starting to wish that I'd accepted Sebastian Vettel's offer of a language lesson earlier on that day. Besides, Thursdays consisted of a lot of paperwork and Daniel trying not to go stir crazy in between various interviews.

"Bella Juliet," Maria, Dan's aunt, finally said something that I recognised. Even if it was just a name.

"Questo sarebbe stato un buon posto per proporre, Daniel..." And then Beni said something that I didn't. Oh wait, a part of the sentence sounded a bit like 'photo'. They did not have cameras in Elizabethan times, that's for sure.

"He wants to take a photo of us." Dan tried hard not to grin, speaking quickly. As always, he was losing the battle. "S'okay?"

"Above us is a balcony...the most romanticy famousy balcony in the world, and you just asked me if it's alright to take a picture?" I whispered, wondering if either of Ricciardo's relatives had understood a word I'd said. Probably not...two words of my sentence weren't actually real adjectives. No, I did not do A Level English.

"Well..." Now he was blushing big time.

"Don't be so daft," I had a little snigger and turned to Beni, "please can you take a photo?"

"Photo? Sì!" Beni grinned. It was uncanny just how much he looked like Daniel when he smiled. I suppose they were related?!

"Where do you want it?"

"In front of that balcony thing." Dan answered, gesturing to it. We were lucky that it wasn't heaving like it had been for Lizzie and Paul yesterday. They had come back with little hats with gold leaves on from the gift shop and everything. Paul had given me a fridge magnet, which was very touching.

"You mean the one that's in one of the most beautiful plays ever written?"

"Yup, that." Well, at least he had tried. "Was it the one with the witches?"

I shook my head, wincing. Shakespeare clearly wasn't on the Aussie curriculum, then. Actually, it could have been- just Dan didn't really listen in class. Someone had been dreaming of being at the race track.

"The one with the King...or the one with the people dressing up as dudes?" Daniel continued trying. It was nice to see that he didn't get defeated easily. Unless you had a Renault power unit and it made you a sitting duck 98 per cent of the time.

"No and no, sorry." I shrugged, hoisting my bag up onto my shoulder from where it was beginning to slip. We had come straight from the circuit to meet Beni and Maria and luckily, food of some sort was next on the agenda. "The one where they both kill themselves at the end because they think one another is dead?"

Daniel made a small grunting sound of, presumably, vague recognition. "And that's meant to be romantic?"

"They died for each other, I guess. It is kinda beautiful." I admitted, looking at him. He had his thinking face on- his lips were slightly parted and his eyebrows were raised.

"I can see why you'd like it," he teased, pointing to where Beni was all set to take a couple of snaps. "Avete ottenuto il balcone? Saskia avrà un stroppo se non ..."