haunted by the past

44. the one where I'm checking him out

Pierre's apartment was full of light and space. It was big, but it didn't look empty like most big apartments. I could see memories all over the place, race helmets, photos, trophies, everything that reminded him of the most important parts of his life. He had a beautiful kitchen, living room and a guest room for me to use.

It had been clear from the moment we had arrived that there was no discussion of where I would stay on my time here. He had drove us straight to his apartment in central Milan and it had been clear that I was staying with him. He had grabbed my bags and told me to follow him.

I had been in awe. First, the location of the building was gorgeous. Even the garage was unbelievable. I had been in Charles' many times, but it was totally different from this. It wasn't a mansion either, neither of the apartments were, but they were still different in every other way.

I was walking around still snooping. Pierre had disappeared somewhere, so I took my time looking around. I ran my fingers on the set of drawers that had few framed pictures on it. There was one with Pierre and his family. There was one with Jules and Charles that made my head throb a little seeing the smiling faces of the young boys that had no idea what was coming for them. I pulled my eyes away from the photo keeping myself from going down that path and moved on the next one that wasn't any better as I was met by Anthoine's smiling eyes. All this reminding me that Pierre hadn't had it easy either. It was something I had tend to forget when being mad with him. Not my proudest moments.

Moving on the apartment I made my way to the helmets and trophies. There were helmets from old to the most recent ones, there was ones from other drivers. It was kind of nice to see how much Pierre hold onto the memories, his friends, achievements through his décor.

Just as I was about to take a closer look of one of the trophies something caught my eye. It was a small notebook, but that wasn't what had caught my eye, it was the photo between the pages that was sticking out from the book. I gently picked it up pulling the photo all the way out. I didn't realize right away where it was from as I watched the picture of myself before the McDonald's bags in front of me gave it away. It was picture of me, laughing, eating the food we had gotten after the after party on Baku, right before I had launched on him.

I stared at the photo. I looked at myself in awe. I hadn't seen that smile on mirror or anywhere else really in such a long time, but for some reason I looked relaxed, I looked like I was okay. Of course, besides that I was drowning myself in trash food with Pierre's hoodie on my legs crossed in front of me but somehow, I could see why he had saved the picture and apparently printed it out as well. I looked happy and I looked like me.

"Find anything interesting?" I spun around on my heels hiding the notebook behind my back and my mouth dropped. It was Pierre, in front of me, in nothing but towel. I could feel my eyes betray me and roam over his body and I forgot how to breath. He was hot. Not that it was surprise to anyone, but God he looked good.

"You done checking me out?" Pierre smirked and my eyes snapped up and I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding in.

"What?" I asked clueless not having heard basically anything he had said in the last minutes.

"I asked if you found anything interesting" he grinned making my cheeks turn red. "I'm gonna take a shower and then we should probably make something to eat" he then told leaving me standing there still unable to move after the shock. I had shamelessly checked him out right in front of his eyes and there was no denying it.

I shook my head placing the photo back between the pages and putting the notebook down not getting the image of Pierre's bare torso out of my head. I had seen him shirtless before but this was different. I was in his apartment and instead of being in a swim shorts he was wearing only a towel and even the thought of that made me feel things I was not supposed to between my legs.