peridot | lando norris

35|brighton|

lando pov.

i could tell something was off the second maeve sat down across from me. she was jittery, her fingers tracing the edge of her coffee cup that i'd ordered for her, but she hadn't taken a single sip. she kept looking out toward the ocean like she was searching for an escape.

while wrapping up with my quadrant crew, i called up maeve just as she'd asked. i hadn't expected her to drive out an hour to brighton to have this conversation. it certainly wasn't normal and i had no idea what to expect now. 

i mean, we sat in a completely different end of the uk than what the either of us was used to, to talk. as wonderful as the past few weeks had been, the tension in the air today was thick.

brighton was new to us, though—the sea, the breeze wasn't, the sense of freedom it gave was. we brought niamh here a few times, back when everything was simpler.

but things hadn't been simple in a long time.

"niamh's at home?" i asked, trying to start off easy, give her some space to settle in. it was my go-to when things felt tense, talk about niamh. it was the one topic that always seemed to ground us, no matter how much distance had come between maeve and me over the years for the obvious reason.

"she's got class," she said softly, not looking at me. her smile was faint, almost sad. "it's the last day for this year and they'll be finalising the crew for germany. i'm almost positive she's gonna make it now, since she's got all your championship confidence in her" maeve chuckled, looking proud of her analogy.

i couldn't help but smile. "that's my girl." and she was. niamh was everything to me. even though maeve and i had our history—our mess.there was always something i couldn't quite figure out with maeve. why she kept me at arm's length, even when it didn't have to be that way.

maeve still wasn't meeting my eyes, and the silence stretched out too long. something was wrong, and i could feel it deep in my gut. almost as if neither of us knew how to start off. i took off my sunglasses, setting them down on the table beside my empty latte cup.

"so... you said you needed to talk? that you'd tell me..." i leaned forward, studying her. "what's going on?"

she froze, her hand tightening around the coat in her lap. she didn't look scared- maeve wasn't the type to scare easily but whatever this was, it had her rattled. finally, she spoke, her voice low and shaky.

"they're assholes and they won't stop bugging me now." she said, silencing her phone that lay on the table. i faintly caught a glimpse of ashton's contact showing up.

i frowned. "who?"

"my parents."

maeve never talked about her family, i mean never talked them down as openly.

to be fair, i barely knew anything about them now, except for the fact they were rich. and not just wealthy rich-old money. the kind that came with power and influence that stretched across the uk. they were the kind of people who got what they wanted, no matter what. the clarkes were still affiliated with the fia, had been celebrating quite a few milestones and ronan's upcoming projects kept some buzz live in the world of the elite.

i personally hadn't seen or heard from them since... well, since niamh was born.

i motioned for maeve to go on and she huffed. 

"i'm just gonna say this to get it out of the way first- what i'm gonna tell is something that has absolutely nothing with what's been going on these past few months with the will and share transfer. none of that. i've got that sorted out but this...it's been lingering for a while and they just really want me to do something about it because i've taken up on something that..." maeve said, sounding rather unsure.