Under the helmet | Charles Leclerc

~Chapter 24~

I wake up to an alarm, also realising I'm on a sofa, and that Charles is still leaning on me. The alarm on his phone, I sit there secretly hoping he'll wake up so I can get to qualifying on time. And then I realise, oh shit, it's qualifying! I quickly turn off the alarm and slightly nudge Charles' shoulder for him to wake up.

"Morning sunshine." I say looking down at him, chuckling a little bit.

"What- What time is it." His eyes blink open and he stutters a little with a deeper morning voice.

"The time is late, and we have qualifying today, so we need to get ready, like now." I try to blurt out so he gets the message that today is qualifying and that we need to go.

"How is it qualifying already?" His eyes still look tired, still not understanding my urgency.

"We need to go!! Like now!!" I try to drag him up off the sofa, but I have no luck.

"It can't be that late, I never sleep in." He complains, trying to go back to sleep leaning back on the sofa.

"Nope, come on!!" I try to stop him from leaning back on the sofa. I then decide to show him the time on his phone before he shuts his eyes again. "See!!" I protest, trying to prove my point.

"Yeah, we might need to go." He wakes up and says in a more serious tone, while I roll my eyes.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you the past 5 minutes, anyway, I need to go and get ready." I head for the door, and he waves me off and I go back to my apartment.

I grab all my things and quickly shove them into a bag and put my shoes on and realise I left my phone in Charles' apartment, I roll my eyes and sigh at the thought. I get dressed into some casual clothes for the day at the qualifying. Just a few minutes later there is a knock at my door. I can't be dealing with random people knocking on my door right now. I complain to myself in my head quickly rushing to the door and opening it.

"You forgot your phone, and do you want a ride to the paddock?" He asks, giving me my phone, while I nod at him.

We both run down the stairs rather than waiting for the elevator, as we both thought it would be quicker, but I don't think it really made a difference, as we are skipping two steps as we run down. We both quickly walk through the lobby and I follow Charles to his car and he drives crazily quickly to the paddock. I would say it is illegal how quickly he's driving but I am not going to complain, especially when I'm late.

When we arrive, we are definitely the last drivers to arrive and Charles quickly parks up and we both head over to the ferrari garage, unintentionally ignoring a few fans and cameras as we are pretty late, and we don't want to be more late than we are already. Although Viola is definitely going to get more mad at me than she already is at me, I would rather not be late for the race.

"And here we were thinking our two drivers weren't going to show up? Where were you both? You both have- well had, interviews to do and now you only have about 15 minutes before qualifying starts!" Fred freaks out at us, and Viola didn't tell me I had interviews today, so I brush off that part of his rant.

"Viola never said I had interviews today, but that's besides the point, we're sorry for being late Fred, it won't happen again." I reassure him, looking knowingly at Charles as I include him in the apology and we both nod at him.

"Your right, it won't happen again." Fred says, skulking off to the mechanics who are checking over the cars.

I nod at Charles and head off to my driver room to get ready for the qualifying. I get into my race suit and fireproofs and decide to do some last minute practice on my reaction time with the lights on one of the walls in my room. Pressing the buttons on the walls is probably one of my best activities for testing my reaction time, as I know my reaction time is pretty good, but I do sometimes mess up which buttons I'm meant to press. After a few minutes of pressing the flashing lights I head over to my car and Fred is there, giving me a nod, I hope he isn't too mad about us missing the interviews, and I know I'm not supposed to think like this, but, I am glad I missed them they can sometimes be horrible.

Qualifying results:

P1 - Lewis Hamilton
P2 - Max Verstappen
P3 - George Russell

After qualifying P4 for qualifying I feel pretty happy about my result, and Charles ends up P5 so it is a good qualifying for the team too. Just hoping I can gain a spot on the podium for the race. I go over to Charles after qualifying and congratulate him and we both hug each other tightly. We walk into the garage with the team congratulating us too on our good positions for the race, considering we are both top 5 on the grid.

"Are you doing anything? Would be nice to go out with some other people on the grid, celebrate and stuff." Charles offers, however I do need a night in, to call my parents and to just relax.

"I can't I'm sorry, I promised my parents I would ring them sometime soon, as we need to organise what race they can actually come to." I decline his offer, I see momentary sadness in his eyes, but he quickly picks himself up.

"Oh, ok. Fair enough, I hope they can come soon, I've never seen them come to a race before." Charles responds, knowing I've never spoken about them before.

"Me too, I'd best be going." I look down slightly, not looking forward to talking to them again, after last time and my abrupt departure from them. I wave him off, while he looks at me, as if he knows I'm not too happy about it.

Once I get back I immediately flop onto my bed and I look on instagram, slightly jealous that all my friends are out enjoying themselves, such as Pierre, Yuki, George and Daniel. George seems to be getting to know someone, I keep scrolling and I see something on an f1 gossip page, it's a slideshow of some photos people have sent in, and already comments are going insane. It shows picture of George and someone I don't know, Pierre and Yuki laughing, Lando being a DJ on another photo and yet Charles is no where to be seen... Until the last photo. It shows him kissing another girl.

I didn't think I still had strong feelings for him up until now. Seeing him with someone else, it makes me feel upset, and brings back memories of that one night we had together, although it was nothing serious. Nothing serious, Maeve, he probably never liked you like that. Am I the only one who feels like this in our friendship? My mind spirals. We never had anything serious, but I could never get him out of my head since that night. I always looked for him in everything, everywhere and every person I have met since. Maybe he moved on? There's nothing to move on from, we had nothing. That's what I like to think, well whilst we are friends. Suddenly, my phone vibrates snapping me out of my trance. It's Max.
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Mad Max:
Hey, I know the others are out and about, but do you want to hang out?

Maevey❤:
Sure thing, I'll be ready in a few.

Mad Max:
Same here, I'll see you in a bit.
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I decide to hold onto the following words in my head: we never had anything, it was never serious.