The known stranger

Chapter 18 - Charles

Eleanor looks beautiful tonight. As always to be honest, but tonight she looks stunning. When I looked at her, for the thousand time, she always looked at the right and then to the left side of the menu card. She seemed to panic. But at what did she look the whole time? Oh. The prizes. I took her hands and closed the menu card. "Don't worry about the prize Cherie. I invited you to a date. I am gonna pay." Her emotions switched from shocked to ashamed to thankful. "Thank you" she said and smiled relieved. Gosh how much I loved her smile.

After we ordered, we talked the whole time. Pretty much about everything. We talked about her studies in fashion, about formula 1, I explained her the rules and all stuff. At first I thought she would be bored if I told her something about formula 1 but she seemed really interested and also asked about DRS, the teams and drivers. I narrated to her that Pierre was my best friend on the grid. And that I also had a strong bond to Carlos, my teammate, Seb, my old teammate, and Lando. Max was also a friend of mine but on the track we are the biggest rivals. Especially this season, because we were fighting for the title of the World Champion. After I explained the whole formula 1 world to her, I asked about her home and her family. She told me that she has one older brother and her parents were the cutest couple she knew. And also that she had an apartment with Grace, from wich you can see the Eifel Tower. She was really proud of this apartment. It was so cute that I cocked my head and had to laugh a little bit. "What?" She asked smiling. "Nothing" I responded also smiling. She opened her mouth to ask again, but luckily the waiter came with the dinner.

We both had ordered pasta. When we began to eat she said "You don't know how much I love pasta" "Me too!" I answered. One thing we had in common. I added it to my imaginary list of Eleanor... "Wait, I don't even know you're surname" I said a little bit shocked. "It is Durand" she answered swallowed the pasta she was eating. "It is a pleasure to meet you Eleanor Durand" I said played posh. "For me too Charles Marc Herevé Perceval Leclerc" she played too. "Wait how do you know my full name?" I wondered. "If I have to remind you, you are well known Mr. Leclerc and Grace told me your full name after she googled you, to be sure you are good enough for me" she explained. "Oh." I didn't know how to feel. Sometimes I wasn't happy to be a celebrity. This was one of this moments. "Don't worry. I didn't search up your name on the internet" Eleanor said calming. "But why?" I asked confused. "Because I enjoy it when we are together or when we are chatting or face timing and everything the internet can tell me, you can tell me too and you can tell me even more. I don't care what some news writer or paparazzi write about you. I wan't to get to know the real Charles." she said. Wow. From this moment on, I knew I could trust Eleanor. And that she was maybe the only person I could ever be completely honest with.

After this bit of deep talk, we went back to normal things like my family, her dreams of her future as fashion designer and to wich country's we wanted t0 travel. Another thing we had in common. We both like it to travel. We even talked about our childhood and after some story's about my younger, more stupid me, she couldn't stop laughing. I tried to picture the moment and save it in my head. I wanted to never forget this moment. She looked so cute with this laugh were you could see her dimples on both sides. I loved all of her laughs, but the one were you could see her dimples was my all time favorite. It was so pure, so honest.

We finished our dinner with some cake as dessert. After I paid, I stood up to pull back Eleanors Chair. She thanked me and stood up. I took her hand and like this we went outside, where my car was already waiting for us. I gave the guy from the car service a tip and we got into the car and I drove to Eleanors hotel. "Thank you for everything Charles" she said when I switched off the motor. "It was a pleasure" was my only answer. I looked deep in her ocean blue eyes. They were as always breath taking.