VIPER || Oscar Piastri

Chapter 43

[POV: Narrator]

"What?! It's not like I could've said no!" Andi argued while she was stood with her arms crossed beside her car. The two had been silent the whole way back from the beach; Oscar needed time to build up the courage to confront her about what she'd just sprung on him.

Andi could tell.
It was fairly obvious, from the way he scratched the back of his neck several times and even started mouthing the words he was going to use; memorizing his script.

"Uh, yeah! You could've!" Oscar barked back, "You're usually all, y'know, quick-thinking and all that! You usually have some elaborate escape plan! All you needed to do was tell him I already have a hotel booked."

Andi blinked, "Okay," she said, straightening her lips and shrugging. "You do it, then." She stepped towards him, face dropping, "You call him up, on your phone," she yanked his phone from his back pocket and shoved it into his chest, "and tell him that you refuse his kind offer of — free! free, by the way! — lodging, and that you don't want to stay at your own girlfriends house!"

Oscar stunted his movements at the mention of the 'g' word. He still wasn't used to that. He took in a breath, taking his phone back. He then, without a word, paced around to his side of the car, waiting for Andi to unlock it. The girl scoffed, shocked that he didn't retaliate.

"Are you actually pissed?" she questioned him, realising something profound.

"No." He said, tugging on the car door. Still not unlocked.

Andi beamed, "You so are!" She was now bordering at a laugh. "Oh my god— I never thought I'd see the day!" Oscar looked at her, confused as to how she found any amusement in this conversation. She then unlocked her Dodge Viper and climbed in. Oscar followed suit.

"Oscar Jack Piastri is finally phased by something," she stated, placing both hands on the steering wheel and shaking her head in disbelief. "Bit offended that it's because you have to share a house with me, but hey! I knew you had it in you."

A couple seconds went by. Andi wasn't done.

"I mean, I know you already told me you weren't on drugs or anything, but I did actually start to wonder if you had like — I dunno — missed that day at school or something. Like, maybe your brain just didn't have the 'anger' part to it. Or! Or!" she continued; Every second Andi rambled, the more uneasy Oscar got.

He didn't like that she was completely misreading him. He found it annoying to have someone relay back to him what they thought he was feeling, with confidence too, even though he was feeling a totally different thing. He wasn't angry, or 'pissed' as Andi said. In fact, when Andi had said he was to stay with her while in Monaco, his initial thought was oh, that's nice of her. But then, the more he thought about it, and imagined how that would go, he started to feel apprehensive. Thing is—

He knew what the close proximity would end up doing to him.

"... ooooooo-r maybe you were one of those people who, like, has insane spurts of anger, so as a precaution they act super super calm and collected at all times as like a— a defence mechanism! Ooooo-r—"

"It's fine," Oscar finally cut Andi off. She'd end up rambling the whole way back if he didn't stop her. "I'm not— I'm not pissed, okay?" he sighed, debating whether he'd rather reveal what he was actually feeling or if he'd rather pretend that yes, he was a raging angry lunatic in disguise. "Thank you for letting me stay with you, that's—" he paused, "it makes sense. Makes things easier."

"With the plan, you mean?"

"Yeah. With the plan."

Andi looked over at him, checking he wasn't going red in the face, fists clenched, about to burst into a fit of rage. Her ideas about his anger had gotten to her head a little.