Love in thirds

7.2 Carlos & Marie

It's race weekend in Italy. The past two race weekends Carlos has been having a hard time staying away from you, especially since he visited you in Vienna. He comes over for coffee a few times a day instead of his normal two times, and he makes you come to his drivers room more often to for a "refill." You don't mind it, every time you see him walk towards you, your heart goes into overdrive, but it makes you a little nervous when you see team members look at you two with raised eyebrows.

You're on your way to the garage to bring the mechanics some coffee when you see that Carlos is there already. You smile at him, receiving a smile and a wink from him before you walk towards the group on the other side of the garage. Your smile fades as quickly as it came when you hear the conversation Carlos has with his trainer. "Are you guys together or something? I can see the sneaky looks you give her all the time!" you hear Carlos chuckling, "oh no mate" you don't see the unconvinced look in his eyes, quickly making sure everyone has their coffee before leaving the garage in a hurry.

You've taken a stroll around the paddock, taking a few deep breaths when you see a familiar blonde girl walk around with a camera. "Hey!" you call out to her, and she looks up and smiles while walking over to you. "Hello there! Fancy seeing you here. We should really get on first name basis though, it's a bit awkward when we only say hey and chat in the paddock without knowing each other's names! I'm Nell" she chuckles while extending her hand. You shake it, smiling at her, "I'm Marie! Every time we've seen each other I was like, should ask her name, but I forgot every time because you always have to run!"

You chat some more with her before walking towards the Ferrari hospitality together. "Want to have a drink? Or do you need to go again?" you ask, she looks at her watch before shaking her head, "I can do with a tea before I'm going back to Dan. He's in a meeting for 30 more minutes anyways." You nod, walking into the hospitality to make two cups of tea. "Could you make that three please?" you look up to see the dark-haired girl from the Hungary race and smile, "Hey! We've missed you the last two race weekends, had to work?" she nods. "Nell and I went on first name basis already, we only need to know yours now" you tell her, and she chuckles before telling you that her name is Sofia.

The girls form a welcome distraction for you, you get to know each other better and exchange phone numbers and social media. Nell tells you that she needs to run soon though, and you ask her the question you've been dying to ask for the last few weeks. "What are you to Daniel though? Do you work together?" she giggles while shaking her head. "He likes to work with me as well yeah, but I'm his good friend turned girlfriend. We've known each other for years and started dating a few months ago. We're basically a married couple by now if I'm honest." You smile when you see how her eyes light up while she talks about Daniel, and it sends a pang to your heart when you realise what Carlos said to his trainer earlier that day.

You zone out of the conversation a bit until you hear Nell say that she's got to run because Daniel texted her. "Let's keep in touch though! I'll see you guys around this weekend! Cheers" she says before grabbing her belongings and jogging towards the McLaren garage. You and Sofia sit together until she's going back to the Ferrari garage to watch the FP1. She tells you that she'll join you back here when her boyfriend is in meetings again, and you nod while waving at her. It's time that you find out who her boyfriend is though.

You manage to avoid contact with Carlos as much as possible. You don't reply or reply really late when he texts if he can see you, coming up with a lame excuse, or you send someone else from hospitality to bring him his coffees. He's texted you 15 times already if something is wrong, not that you were counting, but you ignored them all. You weren't sure how to act around him, his words hurt, even though you weren't officially together. You thought that he was also falling in love with you, especially since the days in Vienna where he was holding your hand all the time, and if that wasn't possible, he'd wrap his arm around you. Hell, he even met your friends!