Deals with Daisy // LN4

26 ~ Jolly

Lando's POV

I don't know what happened with Daisy and Luke... but I didn't hate it. Whatever had gone down had forced Daisy out of her own head and she was interacting with everyone a little more freely. The golf was rather funny because not only did she not need the +35 we'd given her but she confessed on the seventh hole that her handicap was only one above mine and several under Max's.

Unfortunately, it meant that I had to begrudgingly hand her the keys to my jolly, relieved that she just tossed them straight back to me and said that she'd trade it for a couple of days in the McLaren I was getting shortly from the team. Having her around helped brighten up a couple of days in Monaco which was a relief with Netflix following me around. They seemed as intrigued by Daisy as they were by me and I couldn't say that I didn't relate because I still find her fascinating.

"When we spoke to you at the beginning of the season you said you were comfortable and happy at McLaren and yet we see you again just over a month later and you have a new agent? What does that mean?" The producer asks the expected question following the simple recaps of other races and in particular Australia as I fiddle with my jeans before I try and find an answer, looking everywhere other than the producers until I catch sight of Daisy and Max watching me.

"I am still happy at McLaren, the change in my personal team has nothing to do with the team dynamics despite what the media might think. I always got on well with my old management but Daisy came and offered me a deal that only a crazy person would refuse. She's very persuasive," I say simply, shrugging my shoulders as Daisy lightly hits her forehead with her hand at the nickname being used so blatantly on camera but we all know it's too late now.

Other than that they largely left the topic alone. When the cameras were gone and we got dinner that night she joined us as we watched a movie - Pietra and Max's last night before going back to the UK to set up for some Quadrant filming days before Daisy and I would fly back after a couple more days to join them. Tennis the next day was simple and fun, I got to introduce her to Pierre and Charles as well as Kika, Pierre's girlfriend after we bumped into them at the tennis before she came back and with the Netflix cameras finally gone, she was able to get back to working like she'd tried hard not to do while they were around. However, I know for a fact that they caught many shots in many different places of her taking calls because... she was always working. I was used to it now and I liked it - she always came away from them with a smile, a clear mood booster.

I was nowhere near as disciplined as she was... honestly she reminded me of Max Verstappen. The same way that he sim raced for fun, she was still making herself busy and available to the rest of her team, clients and friends, working because she wanted to, not because she had to. A couple of times I almost tried to intervene, get her to stop and relax but when I saw her smile as she sweet talked some exec down the phone into agreeing her terms, I stopped myself.

Those days passed by fairly simply, we actually moved the desk from her room into my sim room / study and set it up in the same room to keep each other company. However, we were careful to make sure that the new arrangement wasn't caught in either of the potential streaming cameras which was not easy but it was a fun task that got us both to do something other than work for a few hours. I also tried to channel some of that focus into sim racing and a couple more streams when that itch to distract her returned but for the most part I let her be. I focused myself on the car and different set ups to trial for the upgrades we were planning and letting myself be a little excited at having the correctly designed car in Baku at the next race a couple of weeks from now.

Then we finally went back to England and it was like a switch flipped the moment she stepped off the plane and looked around her. She seemed troubled and the light that flickered in the background as she had worked the last few days was extinguished in an instant. I couldn't even blame Luke because as far as I could tell he hadn't done anything bad but she just seemed... unhappy. We got some laughs out of her as she sat with Pietra and watched us film different Quadrant videos, dying with laughter along with the rest of us but when there wasn't the option of immediate distraction... she wasn't smiling.