Love Always Wins

39

Friday March 27th.

Seb's cinema room was a surprisingly bright and airy room; with white walls, a few abstract pieces of art, black leather sofas and chairs and a large, top of the range tv mounted on the wall facing them that was accompanied by an impressive sound system. Black out curtains and blinds kept the light out for watching a movie during the day while dimmable LED lights in the ceiling helped to create a cosy atmosphere at night. Unable to sleep, Chloe had got up early and set up Seb's phone on a tripod in readiness for him to record his answers to fan's questions that Viviana had emailed over the previous day. He'd spent most of yesterday evening going through every question she'd forwarded on as well as a vast amount of messages from fans wishing him and his family well and expressing how much they were missing Formula One and couldn't wait to see him back on the track. With the phone ready to use she sat back on the sofa, wondering what to do next. This quarantine thing had worn thin already and she was desperate to be able to go out - to go anywhere, and she'd happily give her right arm to be able to hop on a plane and head to the UK to see her parents and grandmother who she was missing like crazy after spending time with them since the shooting. Eyeing Seb's iPhone as it sat neatly on the tripod she sat up and tapped the screen before unlocking it, knowing what his passcode was. She brought up the iTunes app and started to scroll through his collection, he had a vast and varied taste although he didn't seem to favour recent music, only the odd track from the last year or so was present. Getting up, she headed over to where the tv's sound bar and speakers were and grabbed the remote. She headed back to the sofa and switched the sound bar on and then looked on Seb's phone to see if it would connect via Bluetooth, it did. With a little smile she took the phone from the tripod, sat back and started to scroll through, listening to a few seconds of track after track as if she was channel hopping on the tv. She did this for at least five minutes before one track grabbed her full attention. Angelic voices swirled around the room along with a deep, bass filled, slow, almost sexual and suggestive throbbing beat along with blatantly sexual lyrics. It was definitely the kind of track to set the mood, a prelude to sex or even to have sex to. And it was definitely a track she recognised and remembered well, for all the wrong reasons. This was the track that he'd had playing that night in Norway - the night he'd had sex with Eva. Her finger hovered over the phone's screen, she knew she should turn it off but for some reason she couldn't. She let it continue. Even though it brought back memories she wished had never returned, even though it was making her feel sick with jealousy over a part of his life that he'd left behind for her and even though his betrayal had happened a long time ago and she'd forgiven him, she kept it on. With every beat she felt hurt and betrayed and angry. Then she berated herself for getting like this over something that had happened last year. She'd forgiven him and they'd both moved on from it, what was the point of dredging it up from the darkest recesses of her mind now? As if she hadn't got enough to think about already!

Hearing the slow thump of the music as he got to the bottom of the stairs, Seb made his way to the cinema room. Yet again Chloe had been unable to sleep and had had a restless night. He wasn't surprised to find her gone from their bed again this morning but it was worrying him how little sleep she'd had over the last week or so and it was showing in her pale complexion and the shadows under her eyes. He knew she was desperately worried about both of their families in Germany and the UK and the headlines from here in Switzerland and around the world as the number of cases and deaths rose were only making her worse. Even starting up regular Skype calls with Kal did nothing to help her. He just didn't know what to do but hoped that her helping him with the Q and A this afternoon would maybe take her mind off of things for at least a little while. Feeling weary himself from another disturbed night of sleep, he pushed the door open and entered his cinema room. Already he recognised the track she was playing from his phone that she held in her hand and his heart sunk, he could see by her face that she remembered this track all too well herself and that she wasn't doing herself any favours by listening to it. Reaching over he plucked the phone from her hand and hit pause, plunging the room into silence while he closed the app and then dropped it on to the sofa. He stood still for a moment, looking down at her with a questioning look on his face while she sat there looking completely miles away and not in a good place.