One Day // Daniel Ricciardo

Chapter 23

After I left the party I went straight home, feeling deflated and broken from watching Hallie leave again. I stood at the bottom of my drive and looked up at my house.

I had lived here my whole life, minus the stint Danny and I spent in Monaco, here was my home. It was the perfect family home, it had space and two bathrooms which really saved three teenagers growing up together. It was close to schools, close to my work, close to the train station. The street was safe, the neighbours were all nice enough that we said 'hi' to each other but otherwise avoided full conversations.

I decorated some of the rooms when my dad passed and I took over but all in all I hadn't done much work to the house to really make it mine and I still felt like I was living in my parents' space. It didn't feel like 'my house'. Without realising it there was actually more bad memories in the house than good ones. I couldn't walk in to a room without remembering something from my childhood that I didn't like.

I made the decision there and then that I was going to sell it. I was going to sell the house I was raised in and I would buy somewhere else, somewhere that I could make the house mine and make all better memories in.

No time was wasted, I drove the short distance to the supermarket and collected as many cardboard boxes as possible. After, I tackled the spare bedrooms.

The spare bedrooms were littered with a lot of my parent's stuff and I decided that a fresh start really meant a fresh start. Some of the stuff was put in a box that I thought may have some sentimental value, I would offer it to my Mum somehow and if she didn't want it then I would bin it. Other stuff was put in a box straight for the bin and the rest was in boxes I would keep.

At 1am I realised I had let myself in to a bigger job than I had expected and instead of it taking a few days I was fully expecting it to take a month. I was sleep deprived and still had to make a two-hour drive to the airport in three hours' time to pick Danny up.

Instead of stopping and napping I continued packing, scared I would sleep in. I couldn't wait for him to come home, I had so much to tell him I felt like I could burst inside.

I woke startled and jumped to my feet.

"I didn't mean to scare you, you looked so quiet and peaceful." Danny smiled, wrapping his arms around me. I melted in to him, craving his cuddle so bad.

I had fallen asleep in the airport waiting for him to come out and I was very embarrassed at how easily I fell asleep.

"I told him not to wake a sleeping bear." Lando teased from behind him.

"He's still not good Jess, I said he could stay with us for a few days since Luisa is back at his."

I nodded my head and agreed. Honestly as much as I loved him, I didn't want him to come back, I wanted it to just be Daniel and I but I was too tired to even give him the heads up.

We walked back to my car, his arm wrapped around me.

"Tell me all about Hallie, how did you see her? Where did you see her? I've been dying to hear all about it but you didn't respond to my text and we got straight on the flight here. Look!" He opened his phone and showed me the picture I sent him of Hallie and I as his lock screen.

I looked up at him not knowing where to start and he just laughed.

"Give me the keys, I can drive us back."

"No, I'm being weird," I answered, "I just have so much to tell you I was fine driving here I just fell asleep and now I'm in a different planet."

"Give me the keys, we're wide awake from that flight just pass out in the back we can talk in the morning."