Secrets || Lando Norris

009

Elianna

The roaring of engines mixed with music blasting from speakers as fans cheered and rallied from their seats made the perfect atmosphere for the Miami Grand Prix.

I don't think that I've felt more excited for an event to the point like this. I was watching from the pitlane as engineers pushed the cars to starting positions that their drivers achieved yesterday and moved inside the garage to watch the actions on the screens.

Everyone sat in their seats during the formation lap the drivers made. As the last car approached its position, slowly but surely the red lights started to light up.

1...2...3...4...5...and it's lights out.

The cars drove fast forward, some of the drivers losing their positions while others gained one. In the headphones I could hear Charles speaking with his engineer how to keep maintaining his position and talking about their further strategy.

After some pit stops and fifty six laps later, it came to the last lap of the Grand Prix. In the lead was a McLaren of Lando Norris and with a second behind was Daniel Ricciardo in Red Bull. Charles kept his fourth place behind McLaren of Oscar Piastri. It was a hard battle between Ferrari and McLaren but in the end McLaren was able to maintain its place as the third on pole position, meaning 1-3 for McLaren.

Cheers and applause roamed from the audience as the winner of the Miami Grand Prix drove through the chequered flag and continued his final cool-down lap. Fans who were dressed in orange colours stood from their seats and jumped in celebrating another win of the three-times World Champion Lando Norris and a third place for his teammate Oscar Piastri.

I was watching the celebration of the three drivers as Charles left for his interviews. The three of them received their trophies, the national anthem of the winner's country played, and to top it all they all sprayed their champagne around them.

—

"Elianna!" with his accent, Charles made my name sound even more dramatic than it actually is.

"Just a sec!" I yelled back and continued with applying mascara on my lashes. I've been in the bathroom for the past hour and half, just making sure every single detail on my face is good-looking and smooth. What can I say, when you're a girl and you're invited to go to dinner with a bunch of famous people and their companions, you want everything to be flawless.

Making final check-ups on my look, I confidently stood out of my bathroom and walked into the room. Immediately I spotted Charles sitting on my bed with a phone in his hands, probably texting Genevieve. When he became aware of my presence, his eyes shot from my wavy hair to my outfit which was black dress that reached to my mid thigh with puffy long sleeves and some accessories as always. "Woah, you look nice."

"Yeah, I think the time paid off," I put on my converse to add a little bit of my personality and Charles rolled his eyes standing up, putting the phone in his pocket.

"Sure, sure," He went towards the door, "Let's get going, we have an uber waiting outside."

Taking my purse with all the necessities, I headed after Charles. We strode towards a black SUV that was waiting outside the hotel we were staying at, where we were greeted by a few paparazzis.

Outside of the restaurant where the dinner was planned there were already a bunch of flashing cameras all around. After the post Charles and I made last night, everyone was kind of aware of who I was so I became more comfortable with being around my best friend in public and stopped worrying too much about theories that might be made. Although I wasn't afraid as much, I was still happy that Charles had two bodyguards around him tonight, who would accompany us the whole time.

I walked behind Charles the entire time when we passed the line of people with flashing cameras in the entrance to the restaurant. Once we made it inside, a much quieter atmosphere hit us with soft piano music playing in the background and people conversing during their meal.

Charles then slightly pulled on my hand and led us towards a lounge, where my gaze met a large table with people dressed in suits and shirts or dresses sitting around. "Good evening everyone," Charles greeted as some of them stood up to shake his hand or give him a fist bump. Then he turned to me as I found myself in a circle of men who I could recognise from earlier, "This is Elianna, my best friend."

"Hello Elianna, I'm Pierre, it's an honour to finally meet you," Pierre Gasly was a guy who I heard about from Charles from time to time, they were racing together in the previous years as well.

I took his hand and shook it, "Honour is on my side, Pierre," I smiled politely. After I've gotten to meet Daniel Ricciardo, Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and his girlfriend Kelly, George Russell and Carmen, Alex Albon and Lily, Oscar Piastri and with the rest I just nodded heads as a greeting.

But as I thought the greetings and meetings were over, a new presence was introduced right behind me. "Hello everyone, my apologies I'm late."

I turned around and saw the winner of today's Grand Prix, Lando Norris, in a black half unbuttoned shirt, black jeans and white Nike shoes. "It's alright, mate, we were just meeting Elianna here," Daniel said as he gave him a fist bump.

"Oh?" His gaze focused on me, scanning me up and down, "Nice to see you again, Elianna."

My face stayed unbothered, "Likewise, Lando."

When his hard eye contact became too much to bear, I turned my head aside to Charles and sat down next to him. I sat between him and Lily, who was a super sweet girl and I made great conversations with during the dinner.

"So, Elianna, what do you think about all of this?" George asked when our food arrived, motioning his hands around, indicating he meant their careers.

I swallowed my bite, "I think it's amazing what you guys do, I really enjoyed my time here," I gave a small smile to Charles, "And I'm grateful for this guy and that he gave me this opportunity."

"You guys met like when you were little, right?" Max chimed in the conversation.

"Yeah, I was ten and you seven, right?" Charles answered.

I nodded and continued with the story, "My mum is a photographer. One time she received a commission in Monaco and thought it would be cool to bring me with her. The people that wanted to be photographed happened to be the Leclerc family and so that's how I met them."

"If it wasn't for me, we would never talk," Charles chuckled and I immediately scoffed in disagreement, "What? She was super quiet, I swear!"

"Who wouldn't be intimidated by three boys if you're a little girl!" I defended and our half of the table laughed at mine and Charles's friendly bicker.

Our conversation then shifted to a conversation about childhoods and as the night carried on, we all got to know each other better, and I genuinely felt good in their presence. Or at least with the ones I was talking with.

However, for the whole time, I noticed Lando wasn't speaking much about himself. Ever so often I'd catch him looking at me and whenever I looked back, he either winked or focused his view on something else. It made me wonder what happened to his cocky-ish personality he carried whenever he spoke to me.

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Late update today! Sorry I couldn't update the story yesterday - on Wednesday - I was super busy and didn't have anything prepared in advance.
Hopefully you'd not mind :)

adiós, c