Unchained Melody (Daniel Ricciardo)

Here we are

Ayla is sitting across Daniel at a small table in the hotel bar. There's no hiding from him now. They both have a drink in hand and the silence is deafening between them.

"I... I was looking for you in that beach club, but you weren't there." Daniel starts after taking a sip of his drink for courage.
He can feel the burning sensation in his throat and he is glad the next race won't be until the next weekend. He can have a couple of drinks tonight.

"I know. I couldn't stay there. Not after my dad.." she pauses.
"What? You sent me away saying he wouldn't hurt you. He did didn't he?"
Daniel feels so guilty when he sees her face drop, he didn't want to leave her alone with her dad, but she told him it would be fine.
Now it seems that he did hurt her and he is so pissed off about it.

"I was convinced he wouldn't. He was definitely not himself. To be fair, he still isn't." She shrugs. It happened, there's nothing they can do about it now.
"I shouldn't have left you alone with him. I am so sorry." He says looking at her.
"I told you to go. I was afraid you staying there would have only made it worse. Now I know it didn't exactly matter. But that's in the past now."

It is, but she hasn't really been able to forgive her father for what he did. She still feels it was uncalled for and he had no right to hit her. But she can't change what happened so she tries not to think about it too much.

"Where did you go after that though? Nobody knew where you went. Seb didn't, Christian didn't." Daniel would love to know.
"I moved to Amsterdam with Amy. I threw my phone away and got a new one. I just needed a break, but it turned into a four year break." She smiles apologetically.

"Damn. So what did you do in Amsterdam?" Daniel asks and Ayla decides he doesn't need to know everything. She doesn't want to see a look of disgust when he hears about all the one night stands she had while she was there.
"I worked at a bar and I partied quite a lot. I had to blow off some steam. My mom wanted me to experience the life all my college classmates had while I was taking care of her. So I did just that."

Maybe a bit too much, but she's going to keep that to herself.
"Ok yeah I get that. God it's really good to see you. Your hair is awesome and you look amazing. When did you start working for Red Bull though?"
Daniel can't believe he hadn't seen her in the paddock this weekend. She must have been walking around there a lot and he completely missed her.

He was obviously not expecting a girl with black and colorful hair and he didn't know she was working here so he wasn't exactly looking for her. He did see her jogging though, now he feels stupid for not recognizing her. But with her hair, the cap and her sunglasses maybe it's not that weird that he didn't.

"Well Amy got a pretty big part in a movie that is being shot in London so she told me she was going to move and that she was worried about me. She pretty much convinced me to call Christian and eventually I realized she was right. So I called him and he offered me the job right that moment. I even live in his guest house now." She tells Daniel who now feels even worse for leaving Red Bull.

If he didn't fall for Zak's promises about the winning car, the first driver status and the shit load of money, he could have been working with Ayla now.

"So you at McLaren? That was quite a surprise I have to admit." She looks up at him with her, almost silver eyes.
"Yeah I thought it would be good to go for a new challenge. See what I can do in a different team."

He isn't going to tell her how crap he felt today and how he just can't seem to connect with the car at all. It feels like he is driving on ice and he has no idea what he is doing.