Romeo and Juliet || Carlos Sainz

The dinner

After lunch qualifying began. Max got into the car and y/n sat next to her father, she put on the headphones and tried the microphone to communicate with Max.
"Radio check, Max. Can you hear me?" In the meantime she sat down on the stool and nodded to Checo's engineer who had just sat on the other side, next to Christian.
"Loud and clear, y/n" Max replied in a slightly muffled voice. Qualifying began and y/n followed Max's car through the monitors, keeping him informed of the times of all the other drivers.
"You are almost one second faster than Charles, keep pushing" y/n removed her finger from the button that connected her microphone with Max's one and turned to her father. He seemed calm. 

Suddenly a piece of Max's car fell off and Max lost speed just during the fast lap of Q3.

"Can you hold on until the end of qualifying, Max?" y/n asked trying to stay calm. It was y/n's first grand prix as a track engineer and she had to learn how to handle difficult situations like this. "You should still get the pole" y/n was spasmodically checking the times of the Ferrari and was quite convinced of what she was telling him.
"Yeah, I think so," Max replied, he seemed pretty sure too. Qualifying ended and Max get the pole position as they both had thought.
"Nice work, Max. Now that part needs to be repaired, go back to the pits." she felt satisfied with what she had just done. "Her" first pole.
Max returned to the pits after doing the usual interviews with her father for Sky Sport. Y/n hoped to see Carlos somewhere just to congratulate with him for the third place in qualifying, but she didn't see him.
She waited for half an hour in the pits where she drank a Redbull and she chatted with Perez who, in the meantime, had already returned to the pits. After that, she saw Max and her father arrive. They told her to follow them to the office.
They spent a lot of time in there, talking about the race and what to improve for the next day, then, when they left the office, it was already dark outside. Y/n looked at the clock, it was almost 9pm and for a moment she thought that if she left now, she had time to take a shower and be ready for the appointment, but she didn't.

At one point, in fact, Christian's cell phone rang and he had to leave, leaving y/n and Max alone. At first, neither of them spoke, y/n just wrote something in the pc and checked emails, then Max walked over to her and leaned his back against the short side of the table where y/n's pc was, turning away from her. Y/n noticed it, she looked at him for a moment, then shook her head and went back to look at her pc.
"You can tell me it" Max said suddenly.
"Tell you what?" asked y/n continuing to work.
"You are doing this to make your father angry, aren't you?" Max now turned to y/n, he spoke in a low voice and leaned his forearms on the table, approaching her.
"what are you talking about?" y/n was confused and she stopped working.
"I'm talking about Carlos Sainz" he said in one breath. Y/n stood still for a second, letting all the terror show from her eyes. Max understood everything and he get her.
"I don't know what you're talking about" replied y/n after a few seconds, returning to her pc, trying not to leak anything, but she had failed miserably.

From afar, y/n saw her father approach them again, he smiled.
"Guys! I'm glad you work well together. We are a very strong team this year. " He walked over to both of them and squeezed their respective shoulders with both of his hands, as if to congratulate them both. Y/n had stood still and so angry for what Max had just told her.

"I think we should stay here and understand how that piece of frame broke" Max said, taking advantage of Christian's enthusiasm. Y/n turned to him and she glared at him. Max replied with a smile.
"Nice idea. Our champion always has great ideas!" Christian said looking at y/n.
"Why should I stay? The mechanics take care of it, it's not my job" she felt like she had exposed herself completely.
"You are not just a track engineer, you are my daughter and you have to learn everything there is to learn if you want to become like me, and then you have nothing better to do tonight, am I right?" Christian knew how to frame his daughter. He knew what her weaknesses were and he always used them to his advantage. Y/n didn't answer, she looked down and she went back to work with them. Hours passed during which y/n did nothing but look at her smartwatch which now marked almost 11pm.
"Fuck" said y/n looking at the screen. Unfortunately for her, Max heard her and put his arm around her neck. Y/n shivered and she tried to walk away. She felt like she was suffocating.
"I know, I know it's late" Max said almost as if to tease her. "Do you want to go and eat something together?" he said turning to her.
"Another great idea, it's actually late and we're done here. Go and relax, guys" Christian said closing y/n pc. Y/n was hungry, very hungry, but Max was the last person she would go to have dinner with, so she just smiled forcefully in front of her father.

Meanwhile, Carlos had returned to the hotel with his cousin and manager, Caco, and his personal trainer, Rupert. He had already told both of them that he would not have dinner with them and had headed to his room to get ready for the date.
Despite being a very confident person, Carlos was nervous that evening. He had recently ended a long relationship that lasted four years with a girl named Isabella and, although he did not want to admit it even to himself, he had suffered a lot because of this. Lando had suggested him to go out with other girls who surely would have queued up to be with him, but he didn't feel ready or wanted to get back in the game.
It had been months before Carlos decided to move on, even though his work had always kept him busy and he liked it.
He had never been an affectionate person, on the contrary, those who did not know him said that he was a cold and detached person; the truth was that Carlos didn't want to feel the need to have someone by his side, he didn't want anyone's presence necessary to make him happy. Perhaps it was for this reason that, in the end, something had broken with Isabella.
Carlos was a difficult person to be understood, not everyone was able to do it and he liked it, just as he liked his new single life. He had more time to spend with his friends, hobbies and work, he did everything he wanted to do and had no intention of starting anything serious, yet that night he struggled to choose which shirt to wear for his date with the  daughter of Christian Horner.

Finally he chose a light blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of beige trousers. He looked in the mirror, adjusted the tuft that continued to fall on his forehead and left the room.
Once he got to y/n's door, he had a rethinking. He thought to go back to his room, do a couple of sit-ups and rest for tomorrow, it would have been easier. But, as if his arm wasn't controlled by his mind, he knocked and stepped back. Nobody answered, so he tried knocking again without moving. He stood there for a few minutes, then walked away. For a moment he feared he had knocked on the wrong door. He tried to remember the room he had seen y/n entering the night before. He was sure it was that one, yet no one answered.
After a few minutes he went down to the reception and asked if the girl in that room was in the hotel, but they told him she hadn't returned yet.
Carlos went up to his room, took off his shirt slowly looking at the mirror, he did a couple of push-ups and he fell asleep feeling like a complete idiot.