Hit the Brakes - Daniel Ricciardo x OC

Part 26

Horner walks into my office, and hands me a tissue from the box on the way in. 
"I heard what happened." He says. 
I look up at him and shrug. 
"I think the whole paddock has now." I reply. 
"I love Daniel, he's like a son to me but he's also an idiot." 
"I'm just so hurt. He told me that he was in a meeting with the team - and then Jamie shows me that." I say, tapping my eyes with my tissue. 

Christian walks towards me and hugs me. My phone vibrates on the table, and he picks it up. 

1 New Message - Daniel Ricciardo
Please, Poppy - let me explain 
It genuinely wasn't what it looked like

"Ouch. His name has already been changed to his full name. You really aren't messing around with that, are you?" He says. 
"I don't have the energy to hope that I can get back together with him. I've been hurt too many times before to let him back." 

He comes and sits down on the seat opposite where I'm sat, my desk separating us. 
"Me and Geri have had issues like this before. Not to this extent, but one where someone messes up and has to clean up the mess. I'm not excusing his behaviour - not at all. But have you checked what he's said on this texts?" He says. 
"No. I have no plans to, either. I just want to sort out today with qualifying and then I want to go home."
"Well, go back to the hotel if you want to - I'm sure someone can take over your role for today."
"No. I want to go home, as in back to England."
"Poppy, that's a bit dramatic."
"No. I'll see him everywhere now, I can't escape it and because I just decided to scream at him in front of everyone, everyone's going to question me on it." I say, huffing. 
"Poppy, you're only young. Daniel made a mistake, and you can ignore everyone else because when it comes to drama, everyone wants a piece just to keep things going. So, you're not leaving and quite frankly I won't let you."
I start to chuckle.
"I'm being serious, I'm not letting you. And, I'm sure that if you told Max your plans to leave, you'd probably get slapped."
I think about it in my head. 

I don't want to leave Max, Jamie and my life in F1 just because of a stupid man. I can ignore him all I want, he's not going to ruin this for me. 

"Fine." I say. Horner smiles at me. 
"There we go. Now, stop being dramatic and let's go for qualifying."

He picks up my phone off the table. "Do you want me to take this for a while, give you a break from it?" 
"Yes, please." 
He slides it in his pocket. 
I give my eyes a final wipe, do a final sigh and walk out of my office, straight to the garage. 

Me and Horner are chatting as we meet Max by his car. 
Max gives me a hug, a kiss on the cheek and asks if I'm okay. I tell him yes, and then Max rushes off to go get ready. He's a cutie like that, will stop doing anything important just to make sure I'm okay. Such a shame my role isn't as important as his to prove how much I care for him. 

Qualifying begins and as Q1 has ended, Daniel has only qualified P17. 
I wince at the TV, knowing I caused that. What was going on inside his head during that? 
Whatever. He did it to himself. Should have thought about that before lying to me. 

Max gives a strong drive, and ends up getting pole position, with Checo P2. The whole garage is electric with excitement and happiness. We have our headsets on, listening to the radio and I can hear Max dedicate this pole to me. I smile and start to tear up a little bit, hugging Jamie as she reacts just the same to the news. Everyone around the garage, stare at me, giving me pity looks. 

They pull into the garage with their cars and immediately get swarmed with hugs and yells. 

I am going to be okay without him, because I have one of the best families known to man.