Loud and Clear (F1 x CL16)

16. Merriment

It was the morning after we got back from our ski trip. I was exhausted, just like Pierre, who was driving the car. We were on our way to the airport to pick up his parents. They just arrived and needed to wait for their luggage.
I hadn't texted Charles since last night. I wanted to, but was kind of unsure about where we stood right now. Things weren't clear between us. Mainly about being public with our families and being public with our fans. Better off, did he even want to date me? I couldn't close an eye the entire night because of those thoughts. These last few days had been amazing, but it was just one big fantasy. And tonight we would be celebrating Christmas together. I felt hungover by all these thoughts and the only thing I would love to do was sleep. But I missed his presence from when he was sleeping next to me. I even missed his arms around me as we slept the last night of the ski trip. I fell before even thinking of what was at the end of the cliff.
"You okay?" Pierre asked as he quickly looked to his right to take a glance at me.
"Yeah. I'm fine. I'm just thinking about..." should I talk about my feelings with Pierre? It would be weird, right? I mean it's his best friend...
"Charles?" Pierre asked.
"Yes. I'm just so unsure about our status right now... like how does he want to go out in public? Friends or dating? How will we handle this at Ferrari?" All my thoughts escaped from my lips.
Pierre nodded his head as he drove onto the road to the airport, the big buildings already coming into view. "That's a lot to think about. But I should talk about boundaries if I were you. It will be better for the both of you." Pierre suggested and I kept the idea in my mind. But no time to talk anymore, because we had arrived. And we now had to search for Pierre's parents.
We got out of the car and walked over to the entrance. We were just about to go in when our names were called.
"Pierre!" A woman's voice echoed over the open space of the parking lot. We turned around to see Pascale running towards us. Jean-Jacques quickly following with four bags hanging around his arms.
"Mom!" Pierre said as he took his mom in a tight hug. She gave him a tight hug back and her eyes quickly found mine and a wide smile covered half of her face.
"Oh sweetie! How long it has been since I've seen you." She took me in a tight hug, squishing me like a bug. "How are you, petit?" Petit was a nickname she gave me ever since I was three. I was short. And even though girls were normally longer than boys for at least half their childhood, I was still a few inches shorter than Pierre. And now a whole damn foot.
"I'm doing just fine. How was your flight?" I asked.
"Chaotic, luckily not all too long. I'm happy we didn't had to fly to Milan!" She joked and I giggled at her.
"Well shall we go to my place than? I would love to show you two around." I said to Pierre's parents. I hadn't seen them since the Belgium Grand Prix. They always visited at Spa since it's close by.
"Oh I'd love to see the new place! And will your teammate be there? I would love to see Cha again after such a long time." Pascale knew about us, since Pierre immediately called his parents after finding out Charles and I had kissed. But we still aren't dating. So I wasn't sure how much he said to his parents.
"He'll attend the dinner, with his family." I said and Pascale nodded. We got to the car and got everything in the trunk. And within a minute we were all buckled up and ready to drive back to my place.
"So how long have you been together with Charles now, Brigitte?" Pascale asked the moment Pierre drove off onto the highway.
"We're not together actually." I said, wishing to get out of this situation.
As if someone was listening to me, I got a message. I quickly opened my phone and saw the message was from Charles. My heart skipped a beat when I saw his name on my screen.
'Hey, slept well?' The message said. A smile formed on my lips, just so small that Pascale wouldn't catch on to it.
'Hi. Didn't sleep at all... we just picked up Pascale and Jean.' I texted back. He immediately started to text back.
'Try to sleep when you get back, please. I wouldn't want to see you fall face first in your food when we're dining.' Charles' text made me laugh a little, which gave me a few looks from Pascale and Pierre. Jean-Jacques didn't really care thankfully.
'I'll try. See you around 7?' We didn't really have a time to start, so I just thought about a random time.
'I will come around 6, so I can help you with dinner.' My heart warmed up as I read his text.
I just stared at the text for a bit before texting back: 'Alright. See you soon.'