The secrets we keep ~ c.l

Chapter 8 - Sofia's pov

The Bahrain Grand Prix

It was officially race week.

The first race of the season came with a lot of stress but also excitement. A few days ago, the testing took place in Sakhir and everything went great, at least for me. I don't think I can say the same for Charles, as during his turn the car suffered an engine failure.

The tension between me and Charles were pretty high, as we still didn't know who was about to start in the first race. Obviously I wanted it to be me, but a small part of me would feel bad for Charles. I could not afford that though. Yes, we were teammates, but we were also each other's biggest rival this season.

As if this wasn't enough, neither of us still haven't addressed the events that took place on New Year's Eve, and I would prefer it to stay like this.

It was as if we both silently agreed on never speaking about it again, although when the others found us sleeping on the couch together, some questions were unavoidable. We both acted as if we didn't know about anything that happened, that we just passed out on the couch drunk, but Olivia was giving me a hard time about it.

"What's up with you and Charles?" she asked the following morning. She would not believe me when I told her that nothing happened and will ever happen between us.

"How's George?" I would always ask her back. That usually shut her up.

She didn't want to tell me what happened between them, or what didn't happen, so I made it my mission this weekend to find out from George himself.

As for Charles and I, we haven't talked since the retreat. We obviously saw each other at meetings and training sessions few times a month, but we haven't exchanged anything besides the polite "Hello".

Today was the day we would find out who got to race this weekend.

We were supposed to have a meeting at 2, but we've all been waiting for a good thirty minutes for Charles to show up. The whole F1 community might call him the prince of the grid, but he won't fool me.

After a few minutes he finally decided to show up. He said his apologies to Vasseur, who wasn't really happy with him. He sat down at the table, opposite of me. We both avoided eye contact, but it was for the best.

"Now that everyone's here," Vasseur started, pointing a stern look at Charles. "This weekend is the first race of the season, as we all know."

"Carlos you're still our first driver, your car was perfect at testing, there should be no obstacles. But we need to treat everyone as if they're on the same level," he continued. He was reading something from his iPad and he kept looking over between me and Charles.

After what felt like 5 minutes of him looking down, up, nodding, and shaking his head, his eyes settled on me. It felt like my heart was in my throat and my palms were getting sweaty.

"Sofia, you're driving this weekend," he finally said, and I wasn't sure I even heard him right the first time so I had to ask again. After he repeated it, it was like a stone had lifted off my chest and joy filled my whole body.

I looked at Carlos and he was smiling at me, he touched his chest two times and I did the same. It was our way of saying positive words to each other. It could mean 'I love you' or 'I'm proud of you' . It was always positive.