Secrets || Lando Norris

032

Elianna

I've never been to Austria before. To be quite frank, I didn't even have the desire to visit it in any way. But then actually coming here for the race and seeing the beauty of the mountains and the fresh air made me change my opinion about the country.

As planned before, me and Lando met up with Charles and Daniel in the hotel lobby at six in the evening. Turned out, we stumbled across Max Verstappen with his girlfriend Kelly, who were just about to go on a little trip to Spielberg as well, and decided to join our group.

First things first we went to one of the local restaurants because the drivers were hungry and I quote "needed fuel after the race". On our way there, some fans approached - in which me and Kelly happily helped with getting them an autograph or delivered the gifts they had for the drivers.

One of the gifts was from a girl that could be around nine years old, who was clearly a McLaren fan. She handed me an embroidered bracelet with LN on it and said - in a broken English mixed with German - she made it herself for her favourite driver. I promised to give him the bracelet and she smiled shyly before she wrapped her arms around me, caughting me in an unexpected hug that made my silly heart warm in awe.

I made my way to Lando after we got away from the fans, all smiley and giddy from the cute interaction, in which he immediately furrowed his brows and smirked, "What's got you so chuffed?"

"Little gift for you from an adorable fan," I handed him the bracelet that he examined in his hands, smiling contently before he slid it onto his hand that was already wrapped in a lot of other bracelets. He didn't seem like he minded that.

We got into the restaurant, where we sat down to a big table. I was sat between Charles and Lando, with Kelly on the opposite side of me in the middle of Daniel and Max. We ordered our food and chatted whilst waiting.

"Oh! Do you remember that one time when we flew together on a plane and you took unreasonably long in the restroom?"

"Not this again, please," Charles whined and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. Daniel on the other hand wasn't looking like he would stop with the story and I decided to push Charles even more.

"Actually, Charles did that a few times when we were on vacations together as well - I remember one time when we flew to Italy, he spent like an hour there."

"Do you think he has a phobia of flying?"

"I believe that's called aerophobia, right?"

"Alright you two! You just decided to conspire against me and torture me today, it works, congratulations!" Charles exclaimed with throwing his arms in the air, annoyance visible in his eyes.

I patted him playfully on his arm, "You're just really easy to tease and of course I'm not gonna let myself not join the fun."

"Ay! You're my new partner in crime," Daniel reached his hand toward me and gave me a fist bump at which we all laughed - except for Charles who was still pretending to be angry with us and Lando, who was giving us a dirty look.

"I thought I was your partner in crime?" Lando asked the Aussie with furrowed brows, at which Daniel waved a hand at him.

"This girl is better at mischief, sorry brother."

"Okay, first you steal my manager by charming her and now you're gonna steal my partner in crime? What else is on your bucket list?" Lando turned to me and I looked at him with pursed lips, pretending to think.

"She's gonna steal your heart," Max said completely unbothered but it caught both me and the Brit next to me off guard. We looked at each other for a split second before Lando quickly looked up to the waiter that was approaching with the food.

"Oh look, our food is here," I never thought I would be so happy to see food being given to us. Lando seemed like that too.

Even after the subject got changed completely, I still felt weird sensations over my body. I didn't know why, I just did. When I was with Lando alone, it was easy to play pretend, but when we were in front of our friends, where we had to lie straight into their faces, it felt wrong and rubbish.

Charles sneaked his hand under the table and tapped on my knee which succeeded to bring me back from zoning out. I looked at him as he gave me a questioning look, silently saying 'are you okay?' in which I nodded with a small smile as a yes.

In reality I wasn't sure.

After the dinner it was our time to explore Spielberg. Since it was summer, the sun stayed on the sky till late evening, which made us able to hang out and go around the city even though it was already approaching nine o'clock.

Me and Kelly often stayed in the back of the group, talking more about the girly-ish topics and generally got to know each other a bit better. We also often stopped at some insta-friendly spots and took pictures that we could later post. The guys were clearly annoyed with us more each time we did that, but we couldn't care less.

We then came across street stands with varieties of things to buy, in which we split because everyone wanted to go somewhere else. I got stuck on my own, just walking through each stand, looking at the products which were often homemade food or embroidery.

Suddenly, an arm snaked around my waist, making me almost scream before the person put their palm against my mouth. Turning around to see Lando, I immediately tried to push him away, angry at him that he scared me. However he was far more stronger than me and kept me glued to his side and shushed me, "Fans."

I looked the way he was looking and stopped wiggling away from his grip on me when I spotted some clearly F1 fans on the opposite side of the street. I shot him an annoyed look, "You should've at least tell me before scaring the crap out of me."

"Sorry, Sparkles, but sometimes my actions take over my thought process."

"Sounds like a problem you should solve soon, Norris," I retorted with narrowed eyes and he shook his head at me, still holding me firmly. He was so close. So, so close.

If I moved my head just a little, I'm pretty sure I would have my face pressed to his.

"Hey, lovebirds! Ice cream calls!" Daniel's voice echoed to us, as he stood next to gelateria with the rest of the group, waiting at us.

Without breaking apart, me and Lando made our way to them as they already waited in line for the ice cream. As the turn almost came to us, Lando asked me, "Your favourite is cherry vanilla, right?"

I nodded at him, smiling that he remembered it from one of our date dinners where we asked each other many questions. Honestly I thought he would forget, since he seemed uninterested in many of them.

Before I got to order for myself when it was our turn, he quickly said, "Can I have one cherry vanilla and one chocolate please?"

A gasp left my mouth and I pouted at him, "It was my turn to pay today!"

"Sucks to suck, I was faster," he handed me the cherry ice cream with an amused smirk on his face.

He got his ice cream and together we went back to the rest of our group, who were already happily devouring their ice creams. I turned to Lando, "By the way, I still think you're really boring with your choice of favourite ice cream."

"Says the one who's favourite movie is The Lion King."

"Hey! Don't criticise my comfort movie," I smacked his arm playfully and he laughed at me as he sat down next to Max on a bench.

Charles turned to me, "What are you guys arguing about?"

"He thinks The Lion King is boring," I deadpanned and Charles turned to Lando with a judgemental look and mouth wide open.

"How can you—"

"She's literally judging me for my favourite ice cream flavour!"

"What's your favourite flavour?" Max asked the Brit sitting next to him, who already had his mouth full of the brown coloured ice cream.

"Chocolate."

"Oh that's boring," Charles scoffed and I happily fist bumped him.

"Aren't you two siblings?" Daniel pointed between me and Charles.

"Not by blood for sure," Charles chuckled.