Book 2: Beginning Again -Carlos Sainz

Chapter 14

"It's a hit!"

Gavin's smile at Marie made her feel like a million bucks. No, a trillion bucks. Like putting the last puzzle piece in on a thousand piece puzzle that took you weeks. She couldn't help it when a massive grin broke out on her face.

"I know! F1 twitter is eating it up. There's reaction memes and everything. Our social media accounts have blown up with follow numbers, Dad."

"I should've trusted you more with this, Marie," Gavin said as he pulled his daughter in for a hug. "You knocked it out of the park with this one. I can't wait to see the next one and continue growing with this!" Gavin got pulled away by someone as Marie felt her smile disappear

"He's already thinking about the next one?" she thought, letting the familiarity of the panic hit her.

They had just landed in Austin, Texas for something that everyone kept referring to as "COTA." She got some inquisitive looks from some mechanics when she asked what that meant, but someone finally told her it meant 'Circuit of the Americas'. She knew she was meant to film another video this weekend, one that she was pretty excited about. This week she would follow around the boys as they went and experienced the Texas culture, including some barbecue, horses, and chatting with fans. Marie's bubbling excitement and nervousness was quickly squandered by the text message she had just seen on her phone.

Erin: don't look at instagram.

Okay, well, now I have to look. Marie

Curiously, she tapped her finger onto the app and refreshed the page, not ready to see what the first post was that popped up. Her body went cold, and the sounds of the airport around her dissipated into white noise. She almost lost grip strength of her phone, but quickly saved it from falling out of her hand. She brought the phone closer to her face, as if that would help her see it better. But there it was, a photo of Chad and his knockoff, excuse me, girlfriend, kissing. She sat on his lap like she always was with his hands looped around her. They were definitely on holiday together, with the palm trees and the sunburned skin they both were flaunting. But it wasn't the photo that made her entire world go numb, it was the caption underneath it.

"You're my everything. I love you!"

The same words he had said to her a thousand times. The same words he captioned their first instagram photo with. Either he was really un-original, or he was playing games. Marie felt her heart sinking down to her stomach, watching as his life went on completely unaffected and happy while she felt like hers was falling apart. Like their whole relationship was a blip on the radar. Marie was still staring at her phone when she saw a large hand waving on top of it. He whistled too, causing her to snap away from her phone.

"What's going on there?" Carlos said as he leaned onto his suitcase.

"Nothing," Marie replied, avoiding eye contact. He had some way of disarming her with his eyes that she was not in the mood for.

"Doesn't look like nothing," he replied, cocking his head to the side.

"Have you ever moved on from a relationship, like really fast?"

"What?"

"You heard me. Have you ever ended things with someone and then gotten into another relationship within, like, two weeks?" Marie was talking really fast now, desperate for some understanding of what on earth she was feeling.

"Uhhh," Carlos said, fidgeting with his hands and glancing around at the crew around them. "I've never... really been in a real relationship."

"Because my ex moved on so quickly and it just makes me feel- wait what?"