VIPER || Oscar Piastri

Chapter 56

[ Meanwhile: Outside the restaurant ]

Andi was standing by the entrance, her phone in her hand, fingers impatiently swiping up and down as she reread messages between her and Oscar. As she did, another came through. He'd finally texted: "Just got here, be there in a minute."

Finally, she exhaled, half a sigh of relief, half impatience.

She'd been standing here far too long, but that was better than sitting down with the traitor and the weirdo. Plus, it wasn't so much the waiting that was making her restless, more-so everything else that'd gone down in the span of ten minutes. The lies, the questions—especially from Max. And then Charles... His comment had her mind racing, but she couldn't afford to overthink. Not here. She wanted to get out of this strange, uncalled-for situation.

And also eat.

She was still hungry.

She stayed where she was, arms crossed, shifting her weight from foot to foot as she tried to tune everything out. Her jaw clenched. This entire night had been a disaster from the moment Lando opened his mouth. As she looked out at the street, she heard a faint sound—footsteps. And then, from behind her, a familiar voice:

"Sorry about Max," it said. Andi turned her head. Charles was there, having stopped before returning to his seat. "He gets weird when he's drunk. You know how he is."

Andi blinked.

Her head tilted slightly as she gave him a once-over, before simply saying "Yeah. Right," not giving him the opportunity to continue chit-chatting.

She narrowed her eyes at him slightly, but Charles didn't notice. Or if he did, he didn't care. He just walked off, sensing her disconnect, hands in his pockets, posture relaxed, like nothing was out of the ordinary.

Andi scoffed.

I'm not an idiot.

She bit her tongue, standing there with the knowledge that she'd just asked Max if he was drunk to his face, and he'd denied it. Sober, he'd said.

Why are you lying?

She turned her body fully now, watching as he made his way back inside and sat back down, reengaging in conversation.

Weird.

Really fucking weird.

She didn't like it.

She didn't like any of it.

But before she could think too hard about it—

"Hey."

His voice came from behind her; she could hear his footsteps approaching.

Her breath caught as froze— that automatic pull at the corners of her lips that she had to force away.

Took long enough.

She didn't turn right away. Not because she didn't hear him, not because she didn't want to, but because for a second, she thought she'd imagined it. When she did turn, though, Oscar was still walking towards her, slightly out of breath, hair as it usually was. He wore a casual tee with jeans.

He didn't get the memo, either. Thank god.

As soon as she saw him, she moved before her brain did; she was already gone, closing the space between them— a sudden pull that had her moving forward. With no time to process it—her arms were around him, pulling him in as she clutched the fabric of his shirt. Oscar hesitated for a second, surprised that she'd even initiated it, before be he reciprocated. Andi felt his hands slide around her and up her back, and as he did, she could feel him breathing heavily.

Did he run here?

She almost laughed, the corners of her lips twitching in spite of herself as she moved to hide it.

It was a tiny bit of relief. That he was back. But Andi was quick to silence that voice in her head. She wasn't relieved because he was here—well, not entirely, anyway. It was just that now...

While it was a 1v1. Her versus Max.

Now it was a 2v1.

And that made things a little easier to handle.

For that tiny, microcosmic second, it was okay that Lando had lied. It was okay that Max was on to them, and that Charles had thrown her off completely.

Because Oscar was there.

Neither of them moved for a while, but, eventually, Andi pulled back, slowly, her hands sliding down to rest on his arms. She lifted her head up to look at him for the first time, a tired smile pulling at her lips. Oscar gave her one in return, but it quickly faded when his gaze went over her shoulder, seeing the whole grid sitting behind her in the room. His face went blank.

"But Lando said—"

Andi laughed at him, not meaning to, and covered her smile. Still standing awfully close, she moved her hand which was on his arm to his hand, taking it and intertwining their fingers. "I know. I told you he was a traitor."

She tried to lead him into the room, but then, suddenly, she stopped.

Turning back to him, Andi slammed her hand onto his chest like a physical pause. "Wait!" She gasped, "I forgot to tell you..."

Oscar scrunched his brows. "What?"

"Max is onto us," Andi said, her voice quiet now, her eyes flickering nervously towards the table of drivers.

Oscar's gaze darted to Max too, who was looking directly at them, his expression serious and robotic. He then looked back at Andi, still processing what she'd said. "How? Why does he—"

"I don't know!" she held her hands up in defence,"he's just been asking me a bunch of questions, and he even said that you and me were the new— Andi and Charles."

Oscar's face soured at her words, clearly not pleased.

He didn't like that

Andi nodded, rolling her eyes at it, agreeing with his reaction. "I know. Just... be cool. And take these." She fished around in her bag, pulling out a pair of sunglasses and handing them to him.

Oscar looked at the glasses for a moment, confused. "Why?"

"Trust me. You'll need them."

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