Checkmate - [F1 - Pierre Gasly / Lance Stroll]

16

Authors Note: Thank you for your support of this new and little story. I appreciate every vote and comment! Enjoy! 

Rose looked out the small plane window, the previous week had passed with a blur. She spent time at home in Canada with her dad, watching and talking about F1. Which he thoroughly enjoyed because Rose had a lot of insider information. She enjoyed spending time with her dad, and she could tell that he was proud of her, but something was missing.

The plane was landing in Belgium. Her heart fluttered as the plane hit the tarmac and she turned on her phone. She smiled as she turned off airplane mode, and the texts from Pierre came flooding in. She was busy reading the sweet messages and grinning to herself, when Eleanor leaned over from beside her.

Rose quickly snapped out of her daze and shook her head to clear her thoughts.

She smiled sheepishly at Eleanor. "Sorry, Eleanor."

"It's okay, but who's making you smile like that?" She asked, as she raised an eyebrow at Rose.

"Uh..." Rose stammered. Her phone then started to vibrate and bing with constant notifications.

She quickly silenced her phone then looked down at the stream of instagram notifications she was getting.

Her heart lurched in her stomach. As she opened Instagram she noted that she now had at least 50,000 followers and she quickly scrolled through her notification page to find what in the world had happened.

Then she saw it. A photo dump that was posted by Gwen. With a bunch of photos from the weekend in Hungary. The very last photo was the picture of Pierre and Rose that was taken by Gwen, and Gwen had tagged them both in the post. Rose figured that was Gwen's way to get more attention on her social media.

Panic started to rise in her chest, she had no idea what to do. She had people commenting on her photos, some of them kind. Most of the comments were unfortunately not kind. They were calling her a slut, gold digger or her favourite: a fame whore. These comments were completely uncalled for. She went silent and then there was a tap on her shoulder.

Eleanor had reached out and in the palm of her hand was a sour candy.

"It looks like you need this," she whispered.

Rose nodded and accepted the candy. The panic started to decline and she started to take normal breaths again.

"What happened?" Eleanor asked.

"Social Media stuff, don't worry." Rose quickly brushed it off and opened her messages from Pierre.

Rose - Sorry, Plane just landed. Not going to lie, I'm a bit overwhelmed by this social media stuff. I'll talk to you once I'm in my room.

She gathered her things and followed Eleanor off the plane and into an awaiting car. Rose was thankful that Gwen and Lance didn't go home to Canada after Hungary so she didn't have to deal with talking to Gwen about the post.

The car took off down the tarmac and onto the main road. While the car flew down the highway to their hotel, Rosemary scrolled through the seemingly endless notifications on her phone. Anger burned in her when she made it back to Gwen's post. Who did she think she was? She didn't talk to her about the post, and Rose thought she was pretty clear about her thoughts on social media. Now with Pierre, Lance, Esteban and Charles following her on Instagram, the followers on her account grew and so did the criticism.

She exhaled and looked out the window, just as the car pulled up to the hotel. There were fans like usual lining the streets. Something that had never stressed Rose out before, now caused her chest to tighten. She quickly slipped out of the car and into the lobby as Eleanor followed behind.