When it Rains | Daniel Ricciardo

Chapter 16 - Sorry For Living

The next few days went by quickly and before I knew it I was on a plane sitting next to Mike giggling at yet another comedy on my screen. We're on our way to Barcelona. I had my travel companion on my lap for sights I want to see and my English to Spanish/Catalan dictionary in my hands. Mike was making fun of me as I recited common sayings

"Quant costa això?" (How much does this cost?) - What? I plan on spending some of my hard-earned money this weekend.

"You sound like a drunken sailor with all those accents you got going on."

"You're just jealous I look good doing it," I quipped back at him.

"Well, you got me there, princess."

That simple, nickname had me stumped. Why did I feel the sudden urge to cry? All of a sudden all of the times that He called me that flashed across my mind. "Word to the wise, if you don't want to see me cry, don't ever call me that," I said calmly trying to recover from whatever the hell that was.

"Note taken," He said with a friendly wink.

"Sorry, it's a touchy subject still, best left bottled."

"Understood, Sergeant. Won't happen again, ma'am!"

We had a couple people turn in their seats at his obnoxious tone, but we laughed it off and finished the movie. When I finally got to my room, the week had caught up to me and I was exhausted.

"Knock, knock!" I hear sniggers behind the door.

"Not now, I'm sleeping!" I yell back but continue to get up from the bed and answer.

There standing behind the door were two idiots dressed as the Spanish dancer in a red dress emoticon - everything but the shoes. "Aaaaarrrribaaah!"

"You go full out with the dress and wigs, but you couldn't find a pair of heels to fit those monstrous feet?"

"It was a last-minute, spontaneous idea okay!" Nico says as if he were disappointed by my reaction.

"Well, you made me laugh. I'm sure that was the point right?"

"Spot on Darlin," Daniel smiled.

"Come on in boys." I ushered them into my room curtsying as each one passed through the threshold. We spent two hours drinking coffee and catching up before they had to get started with media day and the press conference. 

Jen stopped by earlier, but she was acting all weird, very short and she made a weird comment 'You look like you had fun on the plane', was she referring to the fact that I was sitting with Mike and not she or I don't know. 

She was just weird. 

I shrugged it off went on with my day.

Before the team dinner Jen came by to see if I wanted to walk with her and flashed back to the last time this happened, I shook it out my head and let her in, walked back to the mirror to check my outfit one more time and then left with her.

"What was that thing you just did?" She seemed to be out of her funk as she laughed.

"What you mean?"

"When I came to ask you, you like blanked out and then shook your head," She laughed again.

"Oh, that. I just remembered something not worth remembering. It's been happening a lot lately actually, but I can't turn it off so I'm gonna turn it up!" I laughed hard.

"That's the spirit! Let's get druuunk!" We laughed and skipped like kids all the way down the passage.

"Woah! Slow down there girls! What's going on?"

Oops, that was close, we skipped our way into Michael - Dan's trainer. "Sorry Mikey, we got a little excited there!"

"Ah, big night huh?"

"Only if you join us," both Jen and I laugh.

"Wouldn't miss it!"

 We got to the dinner table and I took a seat between Jen and Mike. Soon Daniel and Nico joined along with the bosses. They sat on the other end and I was kind of disappointed because I was finally in a good mood and I could do with a couple of their goofy grins and completely inappropriate jokes. I waved at Nico and smiled at Dan when I caught their eye, maybe they'll join us for a quick one later.

Dinner went by quickly with a little help from the red wine on the tables. I'm pretty sure that between Jen and myself we finished a bottle and a half, Mike had me blushing most of the time commenting on my tan in this red halter dress. He made things worse when he mentioned that my cheeks matched and a sneaky comment on how he wouldn't mind seeing what it looked like without the dress on. 

I tried to push it aside and get some air by turning my head, catching Daniel's eye again. He looked away quickly, but not before he gave me look like he was... Is he angry with me? 

Did he know or hear what Mike had just said? 

It's harmless fun, I'm not doing anything wrong, am I? 

Why do I feel... guilty?

I shook it off and joined in with Jen's excited remarks to get along to the next part of our evening. When the table has started to clear I approached Nico to find out if he knew what was going on with Daniel or if I was just seeing things. 

He told me it was probably just stress for the weekend ahead. He explained that with his parents coming down it was a lot more pressure on him to perform and that I shouldn't take it personally.

Nico said that depending on how Dan was feeling, they might stop by for an hour or so. I hugged him goodbye and waved to Daniel as we left.

He didn't wave back.

A/N: Guys!!! I just want to thank you so much for your support so far, never expected my book to gain this much so quickly. Can't believe we've hit 1.5K so far!!

Please leave me some comments or pop me a DM I love talking to you and let me know how you're liking it so far if you have any conspiracy theories on how it's going to end up.

Love C xx