The Chequered Flag || Lando Norris

20 | In a While

Lando had taken me back to our room because my lightheadedness wasn't fading. I had thanked my bomma for letting us know and apologized for needing to go.

"It's not that bad." Lando said, combing through my hair with his fingers as I rested my head on his chest. "You can't even see your face."

"Lan, it's not about that." I said. "We haven't even talked about what we are, and people are already putting a label on it."

"Well, let's talk about it now."

"You don't need to do that."

"No," Lando said, "I want to. I have for a while, I just didn't know how."

"Lando—"

"No, let me talk." Lando cut me off. He sighed before continuing in a genuine tone, "Cami... you make me happy. Something I haven't... really been in a while. You make me laugh and help me think about other things than just what's stressing me out. And I know that I'm not the most... eloquent speaker, and this is maybe far from the right time to ask you this, but do you want to be my girlfriend?"

I sighed, "You're right Lan, it's... really not the right time to ask that... but I do."

Lando beamed at me, "Feel better?"

"To be honest, yes."

Lando then groaned, "I have to call Charlotte and tell her what's up." He grabbed his phone as he continued, "She made me promise to tell her if I was ever dating someone, and would rather keep it out of the media for a while, so that she could be on the lookout for anything about it." He sighed, "And guess what I didn't do? And look at where we are now."

Lando tapped on Charlotte's name, and she picked up quickly, a cheerful tone to her voice, "Hey! How's Croatia?"

Lando got straight to the point, "Charlotte, I'm sorry, you were right."

I heard Charlotte sigh, "What did you do this time?"

"It's not that bad—"

"Lando, what did you do?" Charlotte said firmly. Her tone was exactly like my mom when she used to scold me for getting ready too slow.

Lando spoke slowly, "I recently started dating this girl, and I invited her to Croatia, and we were videoed together."

"Lando," Charlotte sighed, "Why do you have to make my job so fucking hard. I asked you to—never mind. Is she with you right now? What were you videoed doing?"

"She is, and all you can see is me looking lovingly at a girl with wavy, brunette hair. You can't even see her face." Lando responded.

"Is that really it?" Charlotte asked.

"Yes." Lando said.

"I'm not asking you." Charlotte said, "I'm asking this mystery girl. Is that all that's to the picture?"

"Umm," I responded, "Just look up his name and Croatia, it's basically the first thing that comes up. You can make that judgement for yourself."

After a moment of silence, Charlotte laughed like she was in pain, "Oh my God..."

"What?" Lando asked. "I described it to you perfectly, you can't even see her face!"

"Look at your hands, Lando." Charlotte simply said.

Lando pulled the picture up on his phone, "Oh." You could clearly see that his hands were resting so far down on my back that they were basically on my butt.

"That's not great, is it?" Lando asked nervously.

"This whole thing isn't great if you don't want people to know, Lando." Charlotte said.

"I'm not ready to let people know." I said, hurriedly.

Lando flashed me a look of confusion, then said, "You heard her. We don't want to tell the world yet."

"Okay," Charlotte said, "I want you to make sure you don't post anything in what you're wearing in the photo Lando. People may still figure out it is you from the photos you took with fans, but they'll have to do a bit more digging than just looking at your social media. Also make sure you don't post any photos in which... I'm so sorry, I don't think I caught your name."

"Cami." I said.

"Thank you," she responded, "In which Cami can be seen, in any capacity."

"Okay, I can do that." Lando said.

"And Cami," Charlotte turned her attention to me, "Don't post any photos of you wearing the same thing you're wearing in the photos. In fact, maybe don't even post anything about this trip at all."

"Easy. My parents don't even know I'm here, so I wasn't planning on it anyway." I said.

There was a pause before Charlotte said, "Okay... who does know?"

"That I'm in Croatia, or that I'm with Lando?" I asked to clarify.

"Both."

"I have quite a few friends who know I'm in Croatia, and two that know it's with Lando." I told Charlotte.

"And her bomma." Lando added, "She knows too."

"Right, my grandma was the one that sent the article to me in the first place." I said.

"Okay," Charlotte said, "will they keep their mouths shut?"

"Absolutely."

"I trust them as well." Lando added.

"You've met them?" Charlotte asked.

"I have." He replied.

"Okay then." Charlotte sighed, "I'll keep tabs on this and see what I can do. For now, you two just need to be careful. And please update me if something else comes out, or you decide to go public, or whatever."

"Will do Charlotte. Thank you for putting up with me. I'll see you when we get back." Lando said.

I thanked Charlotte as well, and said goodbye to her. Before she hung up, I heard her mutter, "I'm not paid enough for this shit."

"She's really not." Lando said.

After a couple minutes, Lando broke the silence, "Why don't you want people to know about us? I'm not faulting you for it, I agree we shouldn't tell people yet, but I'm curious to know why you're so against it."

"I've seen how they treat them." I said.

"What?" Lando asked.

"I've seen how they treat the driver's girlfriends."

"Who's they?"

"The fans." I said. Putting fans in air quotes.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"They call Kelly a gold digger and a clout chaser and say Lily a cheater. I don't want that." I explained. "I don't want someone digging through my past and trying to find dirt on me. I don't think I can deal with that."

"I had no idea that even happened." Lando said, "But it's not like there's anything bad on you Cami. You don't need to worry about it."

"No, Lando, people will still find something to judge me on. And you know why that is?" I asked.

"Why?"

"Because girls will just be straight up mad I'm dating you. I bet if you went on Instagram right now you wouldn't have to search too hard to find at least a dozen angry posts by fangirls about that video of us." I put my head in my hands. I was so exhausted by this trip.

Lando wrapped his arms around me. "It's okay." He said. "It's really complicated. I get it. And trust me... I wish it wasn't."

He kissed my head. "I thought vacation was supposed to be relaxing." I said.

"Me too." Lando said. "Me too."