My One And Only [Pato O'Ward]

5.

Rowan's pov

As we pulled into the parking lot, I grabbed my things and unbuckled my seatbelt. Remembering everything that had happened with Pato, I sighed to myself, making it my mission to just avoid him as much as I could. I got out of the car and walked towards the building with David slowly trailing behind. We were greeted by the first couple of employees we passed, giving me a slight smile on my face. Deep down inside, I felt consumed by the nervousness and could only hope that it didn't show.

I walked into Zak's office to ask him a few questions about the F1 team, but he wasn't there. I didn't know what he wanted me to do for the day either, meaning I would have to go find him. I sighed and went to find the nearest employee to ask, hoping he wouldn't be with the drivers. Of course she answered with the unavoidable location, and yet it still made my heart skip a beat.

I found myself in the sim room eventually, and saw Zak watching the 3 drivers. Thankfully, they all had headphones on, so my chances of not being noticed were quite high. Walking over to Zak, I quickly asked him if we could talk privately. He agreed, so we moved to the hallway. "What's up, Rowan?" He asked. "So, since the F1 season lasts longer than Indycar, I was wondering if I could do any work to help out there?" I nervously replied. He told me to wait a minute, and that we had to go to his office to talk about it. I sighed, 'Back to the office again..'

"So, why do we need to go to your office?" I curiously asked him, wondering what was so important. He replied with a quick, "Nothing much, just need to check some documents to see if there's anything you can do." With much relief, I quickly let go of the breath I didn't realize I had been holding. I nervously fidgeted with my hands while he was looking. "Looks like the only time we could use some help is during FP1 at Abu Dhabi. Lando's engineer can't make it on time, so we could have you fill in and gain some experience. Are you up for it?" He responded. "Yes, I would love to! But, isn't Pato driving during FP1?" I asked, and he nodded. "Is there an issue with that?" he asked, "If you don't want to fill the spot, you don't have to. I don't want you to be uncomfortable." I sighed and told him, "It's ok, just wondered."

Me and Zak walked back to the sim room. Before we got there, we passed the cafeteria. Yes, I had only been there for an hour and a half at most, but I've got my priorities. I took a sharp turn and pulled a grin onto my face. I quickly grabbed some food and sat down, when all of a sudden, someone else sat down across from me.

"Hola, chica." The voice said, immediately identifying who he was. "Hi, Pato. I thought you were in the sim room?" I replied, trying not to choke on my food. "I was, but if you didn't know, I'm quite the foodie." Trying not to laugh, I responded with a quick "And out of all the open seats, you chose to sit here?" He nodded and flashed his signature wink. When I tell you I was trying to hold myself together, I really mean it. No wonder people love this man so much.

As I finished eating everything on my plate, I got up to throw everything away. Before I even could, a hand grabbed my wrist. "No chica!! Stay here please." He whined. "Look Pato, I've got a job to do and so do you. I'll talk to you later, ok?" I replied, earning a small nod from him. I felt bad leaving him there, but I really had stuff to do. I went to the engineering room and thankfully found everyone there.

"Hey Rowan, what's up?" Will asked. "Zak gave me the opportunity to work as the race engineer in Abu Dhabi this year during FP1. Since you're Pato's Indycar race engineer, I was wondering if you could help me understand more of his style?" I asked him. "Oh, sure, I can help you with that!" He replied, "I'll schedule a meeting with Zak and Pato next week so we can talk about this, is that ok?" I nodded, and with that, I was off.

It was now around lunch time, but since I had already ate, I enjoyed the nice silence in the engineering room. I was sent David's stats from the sim and now had to figure out how to improve them. Grabbing my phone, I quickly called him. "Hello? Why is your name saved as 'the family rat'??" I heard from a familiar voice. Panicking, I replied with a quick "Don't worry Pato, his name is saved as 'snotty snail'. Now where's David?"

A long silence was heard, until David's voice came on. "What do you need?" I thankfully sighed. "Can you come to the engineering room? It'll take 30 minutes tops. And before you ask, yes, you can bring your food." I responded. He said ok, and then the waiting process began. He's honestly probably the slowest walking race car driver on earth, and there's not a whole lot of competition for that role.

10 minutes later, he finally walked through the door. "You must've gotten lost, maybe for Christmas, I'll get you a map of the place. Although, it really isn't that hard to walk through a few hallways." I snarkily commented. He rolled his eyes and sat down next to me. "What did you even need me here for?" He asked. "If you take a look at the screen, these are your sim stats compared to your teammates. This isn't 100% reliable since we haven't gotten your stats in the actual car yet, but look at how you compare."

"So what could I do to be closer in skill to Pato and Alex?" He asked again. "That's why you're here. What could we do to the car to make it feel more like it's yours and not just a spec car? What changes do you think would make you faster?" I asked back. "Well, how do the brakes and steering on the sim compare to the actual car?"

As we talked through it, we ultimately decided that we would need to see him drive in next weeks testing to talk more about the changes. Checking the time, I realized that we needed to quickly get home. David, go let everyone know that we need to leave. We have to move soon." He nodded while I packed up.

On my way out, I made sure Zak knew we were leaving, and hopped in the car. David got in shortly after, and that was that. Rolling down the window, I yelled a quick "SEE YA SOON, INDY!"

--

Sorry it took so long, the past few weeks have been super busy. I've got some finals stuff next week so I'll try my best to get another chapter out tomorrow. Winter break starts soon so I'll probably write a mass amount of chapters during it. Just know that however long it takes, my goal is to get this story to 30+ chapters (Even if it takes like 4 years, which at this rate, it might).

THAT LAST SENTENCE WAS A JOKE