Love in thirds

1.1 Charles & Sofia

Today is a horribly hectic day. Sometimes those days are fun, but today is not one of those days. It's raining and your colleagues are annoyed. To make things even worse it seems like everything that was done and ready for the race weekend had to be done all over again. Someone fucked up the rooms, and even though that's normally not really your job, everyone expects you to fix it, because catering and parking places were also not done properly. You sigh, shifting in your chair to get into a better position, these chairs are no joke. 'Only 4 hours to fix this mess, I should get myself a coffee.' You murmur.

It's 7:30PM when you're finally on your way home. You stayed an hour and a half extra and managed to get the Ferrari team the right rooms. The catering and parking space issues were solved as well, as far as you know. At this point it's hard to care about that. All you want is to be home, out of your clothes and into your PJ's. But first to the grocery store. You planned on doing that today, because you thought it would be the most relaxed day of this week. Thinking that everything was all finished and good to go for race week. 'That didn't quite go as planned, but just a quick run through the store and I'm on my way home again' you think to yourself.

After you've done the groceries, came home and changed into a comfortable outfit you get ready to make some pasta. While you're cutting up the veggies, your phone rings. "Hey Sof! How was work today?" your best friend and co-worker Lisa asks. "Wait, I'll put you on facetime, I'm making dinner right now." you say while placing your phone on the pile of cookbooks. Most evenings are spend facetiming with Lisa, especially when one of you had a day off. It's easier to go into work when you know what has happened the day before. After explaining what happened and how you had to rearrange all the booking for the rooms, you chat about Lisa's day. She tells you that she found some cute hairclip in Ferrari red that you should wear. "It would look so pretty with your hair colour! You should totally wear it when the team comes tomorrow, I bet they would appreciate that effort" she says excited. You smile and nod, "alright, I will wear it. Doubt they would notice it though! It's always so hectic when they come in with all their stuff. They're probably with their mind elsewhere, preparing for the race and whatnot. But I will wear it! I can at least show my support right!"

After dinner and your chat with Lisa you spend some time reading, but when it's 10PM you can't help but feel incredibly sleepy. You're quite excited but nervous about tomorrow, it has been a while since you've last had such a big group of people coming to stay in the hotel. Not only that is nerve wrecking, but the fact that you will see Charles again is making you flustered by only thinking about it.

The last time you saw him was during the race week last year, when you were in your last phase of being trained for the receptionist job. The woman who was teaching you all the ins and outs had left you to fend for yourself, knowing you had already spent 5 days next to her. She figured you could handle some hours alone, while she went to another department to help. It all went smoothly, until you came face to face with the entire Ferrari team. You completely forgot that they would arrive today, otherwise you definitely would've begged your co-worker to stay. When you look up, you look straight into the eyes of Charles Leclerc. 'Okay this is not the right time to blush like an idiot! Be professional Sof come on!' you chant inside your head.

While you're trying to stay calm and hand out all the key cards, you barely realise that your hands are a bit shaky. "Are you okay?" a voice you'd recognize everywhere asks. Trying to look as composed as possible (is that even possible?) while answering you say, "yeah, just a bit nervous! This is my first time helping such a huge group of people, I just don't want to mess up anything!"

Luckily your co-workers had everything laid out, so it's almost impossible that something will go wrong. After handing out the key cards and explaining the times that breakfast and dinner are served, the team heads towards the elevators to put their stuff in the rooms. "You were a natural, I think everyone got the right key cards and information, thank you..." he looks at your hotel badge "Sofia."