Teach Me Something // LH44

Chapter Twelve

"What do you mean I don't get to know who he is?" Jenny asks, her inquisition feeling eternal at this point as I shake my head at her.

"It's a casual thing, why do you need to know?" I ask her for what I swear is the twelfth time over the last couple of days and she scoffs, shaking her head at me.

"He bought you like 5k worth of things and you're saying it's casual? Where can I find a man like that?" She groans as she falls back on her chair in the pub where we're meeting everyone, although we were here early and so the questioning had continued. It had been going on for so long that the drink in front of me was disappearing with surprising pace. She looks into my eyes and I try my hardest to not blink in return until she finally does and goes in a huff on her phone and so I copy, going straight to my messages.

Me
You're on the TV right now.

The thought is invasive and only prompted because he actually does pop up on the screen in front of me at that moment. This time I'd chosen to take the seat that was facing the screen near our regular table, finally able to admit to myself that I was interested in seeing what the hype was about. Even though it wasn't serious, something that we had both agreed before I'd gotten out of his car with double the clothes I'd arrived at his home with, I was interested. As a friend. I'm a good friend, what can I say?

"No, I actually demand to know... it's not fair that I don't. I need to make sure he's a good guy because this like amount of money and travelling? He's got to be a drug dealer or like Jesus, Lewis Hamilton levels of busy and wealthy," she groans but fortunately, she's distracted by her phone as she murmurs these points to me and isn't looking to see my reaction to her words. If she had she'd have seen that I was shocked and likely would have given away the full farm.

Unknown Number
Are you watching?

It was the same message I'd had every weekend he'd raced and each time I'd had the same answer because I was determined not to get attached. I'd replied with a simple 'nope', not wanting to get involved with that aspect of his life in case I overstepped and crossed boundaries. I didn't want to feel like part of his normal life because I was more comfortable with the idea that I was a small part of his... and that was the main part.

However, as time was passing I was slowly folding. I slyly took a photo of the screen before sending it to him with a smiley face, replicated in real life as I put my phone back down when Lilly and Chris walk in the door and come towards us. He had been true to his word and while we didn't speak every day, we'd had several phone calls to fill the time and even a Facetime one Sunday when he didn't have a race. But this was the final week, the final race and I knew he was excited for it to be over. Not just because he'd been 'fighting with the car' (his words) all weekend but because he was excited to never have to get in it ever again. When he'd been asked if he wanted to do post-season testing he'd told me very enthusiastically that they could not pay him to get in that car again and that he would rather retire than drive it for a kilometre more than was needed, let alone fifty.

Safe to say that I was pretty confident he was telling the truth when he said he was excited to leave and come home...

... the only thing was that I still didn't know when that was.

On the few (purely friendly and innocent) interactions we had, he had skilfully avoided letting me know when he was planning on being back in London. His avoidance and guilt only led me to the undeniable truth that he was likely not coming back any time soon. The group piles in and eventually the race starts and despite my best effort to pay attention to the conversation, my eyes kept on drifting up to the race as I saw Lewis's race going from bad to worse.