Rules of the Game • Daniel Ricciardo

Already Yours

Tuesday, July 18th, 2017- Milton Keynes, UK

Red Bull Racing Factory

Objectively, Daniel knew this was a terrible fucking idea but maybe that was for the best, because if he could acknowledge that this was likely to go a million different ways- and none of them good- then, perhaps, it wouldn't sting quite as much when it all blew up in his face.

Because that was what was about to happen, Daniel couldn't even bring himself to pretend otherwise and yet, here he was, thumb hovering in the air above the call button anyway. He tried not to let himself look at his phone, to look at the contact photo that was practically burning a hole through his hand, knowing that permitting himself to look at it, to see the slightly blurry around the edges picture one of you had roped the other into taking when somehow, you'd both ended up at that stupid party without realizing until it was too late, would only stand to make matters worse.

And he couldn't handle much more of anything worse today, not when Horner was on a warpath, adamant that every single second between now and the next race that wasn't spent in the simulator or going over data was time that had been wasted. Daniel had been at Red Bull long enough now to know that nothing good ever came of Christian's episodic crusades to reimagine and reinvent the team from the bottom up all in a two week timeframe, he'd seen this more often than he cared to admit.

But that experience meant that while Max was bogged down in the very midst of the chaos, ever the golden boy around whom things at Red Bull increasingly revolved around, leaving him wide eyed and absolutely up to his neck in the middle of whatever Horner's latest harebrained scheme was, Daniel could get away with just the semblance of compliance.

He knew he should be a little more actively concerned about whatever the fuck it was Helmut was trying to tell him about right now but, try as he might, Daniel didn't have it in him. Especially not when the twelve days that sat squarely between now and the Hungarian Grand Prix seemed to stretch out for an eternity, filled with nothing but more time for him to bounce back and forth between where he was currently and where he was mentally.

No, he'd have to do something about that, and he was going to have to do it now. It was easier for Daniel to lie to himself, to hold out hope that if he did this in the next few minutes, if he got being told ''no' out of the way today, then he'd be able to focus on the task at hand.

That line of thought was exactly what had gotten him here, skulking around in the first empty space he'd found, a conference room that didn't look like it had been used in months, with Max keeping look out in the doorway, his back turned to Daniel to give him as much privacy as the current setting permitted. It hadn't been hard to enlist his help, now when one look at the younger man was all the evidence necessary for Daniel to know Max was just as desperate for a break as he was.

Daniel knew God damn well he was being dramatic on top of looking like the world's biggest dickhead right now, leaning in the corner of the poorly lit room, the patchy, weak sunlight streaming in through the floor to ceiling glass panels that made up the wall that ran along the outside hallway not putting so much as a dent in the shadowy space. He'd refused to turn on the light, not wanting to give anyone so much as a single reason to find them until absolutely necessary.

Distantly, he thought he could hear someone calling his name, saying something Daniel assumed was probably important but even once he managed to reach that conclusion, it didn't seem to matter much, the inside of his head feeling heavy and waterlogged. If only he could-

"What the fuck?" Daniel snapped his head up, ripping his gaze eyes away from the screen of his phone, away from your name and that stupid fucking picture he liked so much, his empty hand already rubbing away the sharp, sudden stab of pain that had pulled the stopper out of his brain, draining the rapidly tide of thoughts in an instant, in the beat before they'd threatened to overflow.