VIPER || Oscar Piastri

Chapter 15

[POV: Narrator]

You know that feeling you get when you've just woken up and your eyes keep closing on their own, your breathing is heavy, you know you can't fall back asleep but you want to more than anything?

Well, Andreanna Saunterre has been experiencing that since 5am. It is now 3pm.

She'd been rudely awoken when her phone wouldn't stop buzzing, leaving her no choice but to unlock the thing and mute whoever was, clearly, craving a death wish. But, when she saw who it was, her fury woke her up enough to deal with the situation.

It was Lando. Of course it's fucking Lando, is what she thought upon viewing the messages. And there were many messages.

As it turned out, when Andi and Oscar had left the bar early, Max offered to let Lando "crash" at his place. Lando, or rather, drunk Lando, said yes straight away. He tends to do that when he's wasted: Say yes to anything and everything, without thinking.
So, having woken up sober in Max Verstappen's hotel room, he panicked.

Andi, knowing that Lando has this weird habit of getting incredibly shy around Max when their not both drunk, had no choice but to go and pick up the full-grown adult, as insane as it sounds. Plus, she did feel a little bad that she and Oscar technically ditched him.

The whole situation reminded her of when she used to ring home at sleepovers to ask her parents to pick her up. That little anecdote didn't amuse Lando at all when she told him.

So, as a result of her 5am pickup, Andi remained in a half-asleep state throughout the day, meaning that the Australian GP went by in a sort of slow blink. Everything blurred, from the beginning of the race to the end, making her have to ask several times who'd won it, since she couldn't concentrate enough to register the results.

Now, all she had to do was wait for her dad to give her the all-clear so that she could head home.

...And stay awake until then.

*

[POV: Andreanna Saunterre]

"Andi?"

No, it's not time to wake up yet.

"Andreanna!"

I groaned, shaking my head. Let me rest, for the love of—

"Andreanna Saunterre!"

My eyes snapped open.

"Y- Yes!" I straightened my posture with great struggle and took my head away from the wall it had been leaning on. "Hi, Dad." I cleared my throat, rubbed my eyes and folded my arms, slightly embarrassed to have been found in such a state.

I could see the face my dad was making, and I knew what it meant. He raised an eyebrow at me before saying: "I've just got a couple more things to do then we're out of here, okay? It'll be 40 minutes tops," which came as both a relief and a pain. On one hand, I was glad he didn't have a dig at me for dozing off while at the Paddock. On the other hand, I wasn't sure I'd be able to last another 40 minutes, especially with a perfectly good wall right beside me.

I cleared my throat once again, still not having woken up fully. "Okay, yeah, no problem."

"How was the race? Enjoy it?"

Ah, okay then. Here's the dig.

"Uh..." I looked towards the direction of the pit-lane that was still bustling with reporters, the occasional driver, etc. If I was being honest, I'd say that it was a great race. If I was extremely honest, I'd say that I had no idea if it was a great race and asked a passerby how it went and they informed me of everything. Today, I felt like being honest. "Yep!" I said, "best one so far."