L O C K -U P | c. leclerc

20| New Blood

A. Devereaux

"I'm kind of nervous as to why Fred called us over to the office," I said to Charles as we sat on opposite chairs in front of Fred's desk. He just laughed nervously and shrugged.

"It wouldn't be so bad to admit that we're together now wouldn't it?," he teased and I just sighed. I couldn't fuck up my seat in Ferrari, as much as I like Charles' company...I couldn't live with myself if I got kicked out of Ferrari because we got romantically involved. I didn't want him to think that I valued him so little so I didn't say anything.

I never saw myself being in a relationship. I always saw myself being alone for the rest of my life but everything I changed when I met Charles. Now, I don't know how to gather myself. How can I balance the quest of the championship and being happy with him? How could I share these burdens with him when he might be handling it better than me? If I tell him, he might think that I was unsure of him.

That will never be the case.

Charles gave me a worried look but he couldn't say anything about it because Fred came in. He bounded over with a serious look on his face then sat down on his chair. He opened the meeting with, "So, we know that Saudi was not the result we wanted and we know that it was not any of your fault but it makes it more important to work as a team."

"I know you two don't get along but it's crucial that you two work well together for this upcoming race so we can finally bring home a championship for Ferrari," Fred advised and Charles gave me a side-eye look when Fred commented on us getting on. I did my best to suppress a chuckle as I warned him with one look. Charles backed off and tried to stifle his own chuckle.

Fred then exclaimed, "Additionally, the race in Bahrain was very well done, both on the podium and it has gained us some of our reputation back. We've had some known drivers interested on the reserve driver spot but I think it's about time we went on the trajectory of having more female drivers on the grid."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I immediately piped up and said, "Thank you Fred, that's amazing."

"No, thank you, you've opened a whole new world for all these young girls to dream of being a driver in F1 so in turn I've taken one of the best performing drivers from F1 Academy," Fred expressed as he then called out, "Jasmine Zhong, please come in."

My eyeballs nearly burst out of my skull. If there was only one person that I could stand when I raced in F1 Academy, it was Jasmine because she respected me and pushed me to do better.

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Jasmine Alaina Herrera Zhong

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I nearly jumped off my seat to hug Jasmine. She hugged me back just as tight and said, "I missed you at the lower leagues, everyone else is so boring compared to the nightmare."