VIPER || Oscar Piastri

Chapter 69

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[POV: Narrator]

Oscar had been telling himself for the past thirty minutes — with increasing urgency and decreasing success — that it wasn't that deep.

It was a ploy—  a move. A faked kiss for a faked relationship in a fake plan to make Charles Leclerc wish he'd never been born. That's all. Andi had done what she had to do. He'd followed suit.

So why, in the name of all that was rational and professional, had he been pacing in the back corner of the hospitality unit like a malfunctioning wind-up toy, running the same three thoughts on loop?

Act normal.

Don't make it weird.

It was easy enough.

Except for the part where it wasn't easy at all.

And— another thing, He mentally conversed with himself, Lando wasn't even there. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

He sat, then stood again. Ran both hands down his face, then let them fall into his lap like they didn't belong to him.

And now I'm supposed to... what? Give her a friendly wave and talk normally?

His brain felt like it was trying to shift gears while the clutch was still halfway out. He wanted to seem unaffected. Not like someone who could barely concentrate during the Grand Prix because he'd instead been replaying the moment in his head and then got irrationally irritated at himself for doing it. For remembering how her hand curled into his shirt collar— and how it wasn't remotely relevant. Or helpful.

He needed a script. Something that didn't scream, Hi, I've spiraled into emotional freefall over all this and would like to confirm that everything's still good, please and thank you. Whatever it was, it had to land somewhere between utter indifference and vague awareness of her existence.

He ran through everything again, just to feel grounded.

Andi was fine. She'd probably moved on. She was probably already thinking up the next chess move in the Grand Charles Manipulation Saga. She wasn't spinning her wheels like he was. She wasn't pacing a ten-foot stretch of floor like a character in a Shakespearean tragedy who just discovered what feelings were.

He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his temples.

It was nearing the time they'd agreed upon to leave for the day, and he was nowhere near collected enough to face her.

Then — footsteps.

He looked up before he could prepare, and there she was, walking toward him quickly, exactly like she had done before the race. Her expression gave away precisely nothing, which was somehow worse than if she looked angry or nervous or amused.

She started talking before he could come up with anything to say. Words had already started tumbling out of her mouth, slightly too fast, slightly too shaky, before she'd really prepared herself. "I'm sorry," she'd began, voice cracking like she hadn't rehearsed this five different ways. Still, she tried her best to look put together. "About earlier. I didn't think. It was panic—a code red. Well, no— purple. Or like... a mix... Anyway. It was high-grade enough to justify what I did. But I didn't mean to— uhm... I didn't—"

She was apologizing, but Oscar couldn't really tell.

He only caught the sound of her voice, not the meaning.

Oscar didn't say anything.

Which would've been fine, if he hadn't also been looking at her like that.