This Ain't A Fairytale- Lando Norris

12. Where's that man who'd throw blankets over my barbed wire?

Hannah had been sat in Miami airport, Isla sleeping on her lap, as she waited for her flight back to Nice when she saw it. Her endless scrolling through TikTok pausing as the snippet of Lando's interview came up on the screen.

She turned the volume up, holding the phone to her ear as she strained to hear what he was saying over the noise of the airport terminal.

She'd initially thought the clip that had caught her attention had been taken out of context, but she was wrong.

As she pulled up the clip of the whole interview she could see how unhappy he looked from the start. It was very rare to see him in front of the camera without that signature cheeky smile and usually a laugh or two, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him look so upset.

He'd answered most of the questions in one word, staring off into space behind the camera. He'd avoided the topic all together of his potential contract renewal and future with the team. He hadn't even done it in an inconspicuous way, he'd just outright refused to answer the question in a way that made Hannah cringe.

The final question though, describe life in formula one in one word.

"Lonely."

His voice was soft, a flicker of something in his eyes Hannah hadn't seen in a long time. Regret maybe? She couldn't put her finger on it.

She swiped to close the video, pulling up his contact details to call him on autopilot.

"Hannah?" He answered the phone sounding confused. "Is everything okay? Is Isla okay?"

She faltered for a moment, she hadn't thought through what she was going to say. She could hear in his voice how tired he sounded and it tugged at her heart.

"I wanted to check you were okay, I saw the video of your interview." She said softly, glancing down to check Isla was still asleep.

Lando let out a hollow laugh. "It's maybe not been one of my best days. I made an intern cry today."

She fought back the urge to ask why. She couldn't imagine him ever losing his temper that badly. Usually if someone was crying around him it was from laughter.

"We're at the airport on our way back home." She said. "We were going to surprise you."

"I uh... I'm still in Woking." He mumbled. "I've got a meeting with Zak tomorrow morning. I'll call him and move it up if I can. I could be home mid afternoon?"

"We'll be there, whenever you get home." Hannah agreed, noticing he sounded a lot happier already at the idea of her coming home. "We love you, okay. Don't forget that. We'll work this out."

"I love you." He whispered.

She'd been expecting him to hang up but he just sat there in silence on the other end of the phone. From the muffled sounds on his end of the line she was fairly sure he was crying.

It wasn't something she'd had a lot of experience with from him. He'd always been the one to tell her it was okay, he'd pretty much dragged her through that whole mess with Joe and Cassie and been the only thing that had kept her afloat. He'd never so much as wavered in spite of everything that was going on.

He handled it all so well most of the time, sometimes it was easy to forget just how much pressure he was under both at home and from the team.

"Lando, are you sure you're okay?" She asked quietly.

"Mmhmm." He mumbled, but it was far from convincing.

"I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" She said softly. "We'll get takeout from that place with the spring rolls you like? Isla's been dying to show off her new dance moves too and I've got no idea where she learned them from, maybe we blame Carlos for that too? Either way, you're in for a treat."