heatwave | Charles Leclerc | re-writing

Chapter 1

Paris, October 2022 - Victoria Marino

I'd just landed in Paris and I was already homesick. Sure, my job did enquire a lot of travelling, but there was nothing like home. Milan was, at the end of the day, my safe city and my Chicago.

There was something about the way italians were so passionate, loyal and ambitious all at the same time, without making it tiring or weird.

I was there to visit one of my old friends, Francisca Gomes, a portuguese model. We met eachother at a Schiaparelli event and we quickly became bestfriends. Even though we would spend six months straight without seeing eachother, we would face time and text everyday. The thing I loved about us was that our friendship was low maintance, which was perfect, because we were both so busy all the time it wouldn't really matter if we had time to take care of our relationship, due to the fact that our conection never got lost.

As usual, I hadn't seen her in a year. At the moment she was in a full ass relationship with this french Formula 1 driver, Pierre Gasly, that drove for Alpine. She was really in love with him and, as long as she was happy, I was happy too.

We agreed to meet at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, and after we'd go to her appartment to have dinner and just settle down as a travel day was always exhausting. It was a beatiful evening, you could see the sunset in the sky, painting it with beautiful shades of pink and orange overlapping the natural bright blue.

There she was, with a backpack and a cap on her head, a ponytail keeping her hair away from her angelical face. She was wearing a black workout jumpsuit and a gray hoodie over it, because it was actually could outside, the autumn breeze hitting the romantic city. I sped up my pace, strolling in her direction and hugged her with all my strenght, my arms flying around her neck.

"Oh my God," my muffled voice could be heard, "I missed you so, so much."

"I missed you too," she kissed my cheek softly and brushed my hair down. "You're so stunning today... as you always are, of course," she snorted and, with her head, she called me to start walking. "Altough I do have to tell you that Pierre invited some of his friends over to have dinner with us, but they are so nice and I think that you'll love them."

"What friends?," I requested, a bit scared. Yes, the modelling world required a lot of socialization during shootings, emails, interviews, meetings and much more, but that didn't change the fact that I was shy and I hated to socialize with strange people.

"Some f1 drivers," she ran her hand over her nose, "I promise you, you'll like them. And plus, there's nothing stopping you from throwing yourself out of the window if you want," she joked,  holding my hands. "They're cool, Victoria, just chill. They aren't sharks, trust me. They're all different from eachother, with different personalities, but they create a very interesting puzzle together that makes so much sense, and if one is missing, it loses the magic, you know?"

Well, I didn't know, but in pure truth, I was now, at least, intrigued to know and understand what she was talking about.

"Okay," I agreed, but still hesitant, "but you'll have to pay my lunch tomorrow," I pointed my index to her, holding a snort.

"Okay," she nodded, a smile plastered on her lips.

We got in her car and she stopped at her appartment, parking at the garage. It was a few streets away from the Eiffel Tower, so it didn't make much sense to me that she took her car to pick me up, because we could perfectly walk her on our own, even with my bags.

We climbed the stairs to the top floor of the building, where their appartment was. If Pierre has to do a workout everyday - as Kika always yaps about - these stairs were perfect for it. I was so nervous and Kika could tell just from the way she was side-eyeing me.