L is for Love ♡ Lando Norris

2 | Something about you

♪
Christian French - superstars:
'Something about you makes me feel alive. The only one to make the dark turn to light.'

It's him, it's Lando..

It's been so long since she saw him last. "7 years.." she whispered to herself after doing the maths quickly. Lexi and Lando went to elementary and two years of secondary school together in the same class before he dropped out to focus on his karting career when he was around 14 years old. Lexi had the biggest crush on him but they weren't really close and didn't speak to each other very often. He looked even more handsome right now, standing here in front of her. He was tanned, his body and neck had gotten more muscly and he had the biggest smile on his face. "Hi, I'm Lando, nice to meet you!" he said while shaking Benji's hand, before doing the same to her. 'Oh my god, he doesn't recognize me..' Lexi's face dropped and for a moment she didn't know what to say. "Ehhh, hi. I'm Lexi.." Luckily the other driver came over right away to introduce himself as well and she couldn't thank Daniel, which she only now realized had moved to McLaren, enough.

"So Lexi here will be taking some shots of you during the interview. Just pretend she isn't there!" Benji told the drivers. 'That would be amazing because I don't know how good these photos will be if he keeps looking at me like that..' Lexi thought to herself while her cheeks turned a deep shade of red because of Lando's piercing eyes on her. She decided to distract herself by setting up her camera and fiddling with the buttons until Benji spoke up again. "Shall we get started with the solo parts of the interview first? Later on, we have some questions for the both of you together!" Daniel seemed eager to get his interview out of the way because he walked over to the marked spot right away and waited for Benji to start talking. Little did she know, Lando was in deep thought and didn't even hear the question.

——

'This girl, there is something about her. It's hard to tell because she doesn't seem to want to look me in the eyes but I swear I have seen those big brown eyes before.' Lando tried to press the thought away but it kept creeping up in his mind every time he spotted her taking pictures of Daniel. He thought she was absolutely stunning. He loved her outfit, the leather look legging showed her figure quite nicely while the big sweater told him that she loved comfort and warmth. Her boots complimented her outfit and gave her a cool edge. But she didn't seem so confident as her outfit made her out to be. He kept running her face through his mind and memories but he didn't seem to remember where he had seen Lexi before.

Time went by rather quickly because before he knew it, it was Lando's turn to do the interview. He grabbed his helmet, put it in front of him on the table and took a seat on the chair. "Ready?" Benji asked. "As ready as I can be". Lando responded while seeing Lexi slowly approach with her camera. She still didn't look him in the eyes. "So Lando, tell me, when did you start your go-karting career?" He had to shake his wandering thoughts away and tried to focus on the question he was asked. "I was quite young actually, around 6 or 7 years old. My dad took me to a track for the first time and I fell in love immediately. Thinking back, it actually went so fast. I was in a winning kart right away and competed for the title in my first season. After that, it all kind of got a bit out of hand and I won everything there is to win". he chuckled.

*Click*

'Oh no she's taking photos of me, try to look normal and forget she's there..' Lando thought. But every click reminded him of those big brown eyes he saw before.

——

He looked even better through her lens. His tan was darker and his smile cuter, if that was even possible. Lexi started to approach them and saw Lando looking straight at her before he appeared to shake his head a little and answered the first question. 'Okay, you have to start taking photos now Lex.. You can't possibly be here the entire time and have to tell your bosses you didn't take one single shot of Lando because you couldn't focus.'  *Click* She took a photo right when he laughed at his own joke and she knew taking good pictures of him would be easy because he was so photogenic.

After his solo part and the interview together with Daniel, Lexi wanted to take some shots of the drivers for the introduction of the story. Because the morning had gone so well until now and she was fairly satisfied with the photos she took, she wanted to try something different. "Ehm, could you please stand in front of this wall for a couple of close-ups?" she approached Lando while trying to keep her eyes off his face. He stood up, walked over to the wall and waited for her instructions. "Just smile a little and try to do some different poses after a couple of clicks, okay?" she smiled shyly at him and he seemed to have forgotten how to talk because he could only nod. When she lifted her camera to her face and looked through her lens she could only focus on his eyes. 'Why doesn't he remember me?'

"Okay, I think we are done here!" Benji said after Lexi finished taking some close-ups of both Lando and Daniel. "Thank you guys so much for this interview, I'm excited to start typing it out. It will be in next month's issue". He shook both drivers' hands and looked to see if Lexi was ready to go. "Thank you, you were so easy to work with". Lexi shook Daniel's hand first and when she stepped over to Lando she decided it was time to lift her eyes to his. She had been looking at them through her lens all morning after all. "It was a pleasure shooting you". she said while looking straight at him. "Bye Lexi.." Lando said in almost a whisper as if he didn't want to forget her name.

Lexi felt amazing when they walked out of the building to the parking lot. It was her first solo assignment, she got to go to the McLaren Technology Centre, take pictures of two Formula 1 drivers and one of them turned out to be her former crush, Lando Norris. She didn't even process he was a Formula 1 driver until now. 'That's awesome!' she thought. He must have been working really hard behind the scenes. An overwhelming feeling of pride rose to her chest. For him, but also for herself. She had taken some pretty cool shots of both of them which will be published in Autosport Magazine. Turns out hard work does pay off after all.

They got in the car and for the first time all morning, Lexi felt herself relax. She grabbed her phone and started to scroll through Instagram to keep her entertained during the drive back to the headquarters. The thought of searching for Lando's profile came into her head and before she knew it, her fingers were typing away. She clicked on his profile and scrolled through his pictures to have a look at the life he's been living. It looked like he was enjoying it fully and the racing was going well. She saw a post about the first race of the season in Bahrain a few weeks ago and the big 4 on this photo indicated both the place he had finished and also his driver number. Lexi scrolled back to the top and her finger hovered over the 'follow' button. 'Is it weird to do this so soon?' Her brain seemed to have a mind of its own because her finger just tapped it. Oh well, he probably wouldn't notice her anyway..

Back at the headquarters, Lexi started going through the pictures she took, selecting the best ones and editing them slightly. After lunch, the rest of the afternoon went by rather quickly and before she went home, she left the flash drive with the photos on Jackie's desk to check over them and send them to the writing team. Satisfied with her work of the day, she walked to her car and started the journey home. She decided to call Olivia and put her phone on speaker. "Hi babe, how are you doing?" Olivia answered happily. "Oh my god, you wouldn't believe the day I had". Lexi let out a big sigh and started telling everything that happened leading up to the moment Lando had turned to her. "And then he turned around and I recognized him immediately. It was Lando, Liv.." "Lando? As in Lando Norris, your long lost crush? The one you were drooling over for two years in secondary school?" Liv let out a laugh and Olivia continued to tell her everything that happened that day.

"So I started following him on Instagram on the way back to the office. But I don't think he will notice me because he has 2.5 million followers and they are all gorgeous girls". Lexi didn't pick up on all his signs earlier in the day so she had no clue he was trying to figure out who she was. "He didn't even recognize me after going to the same school together for years. He won't remember this weird girl that was taking his pictures for an hour then either". Lexi arrived home and parked the car on the driveway. "I'm home, so I have to go. I will talk to you later!" "Alright babe, say hi to your parents for me and don't stress too much about today. You did amazing! Bye!" Lexi hung up the phone, grabbed her purse and went inside. Her parents weren't home yet so she went to her room and flopped down on her bed. When she lifted up her phone again, she saw a notification from Instagram:

(lexi.abrams): '@landonorris liked your photo'