VIPER || Oscar Piastri

Chapter 113

[POV: Narrator]

The high-end stationary kit — portable laminator and label maker with custom fonts included — was waiting for Andi in her hotel room by the time she finally got back from camping.

Assuming it was a mistake, she picked it up (after circling it for a full ten minutes, resisting the urge to open it) and took it down the hall to Lando's room. Only on the way there, with the kit in her grasp, did the thought occur that maybe the placement wasn't a mistake, and maybe Lando had organised for it to be left with her on purpose to further rub it in her face that she'd lost the Survive to Drive Camping Games.

So she knocked a little angrily.

When he cracked the door open, clearly having just been woken up, she shoved the box at him.

"They left your prize in my room," she said, wanting him to take it so she'd stop staring at the list paper.

"It's yours," he mumbled, and started to close the door.

She blinked. "Uhm... what did you s—"

"I gave it to you. You like making lists," he added, flatly. "Now let me sleep."

The door closed.

She stood there for a moment, stunned. Then clutched the box to her chest and had a quiet, near-ecstatic breakdown right there in the corridor.

"I do like making lists!" she beamed, skipping back down the corridor to her room, where she collapsed into bed, the label maker already under her pillow.

The past 24 hours had been a blur anyway — asleep on Oscar's shoulder the whole bus ride back, airport nap on his lap, barely conscious flight, total blackout the second they got in the taxi.

Now it was morning in Mexico City, and she was driving him to the track in her Viper.

She still hadn't fully unfogged from sleep — a coffee cup permanently glued to one hand — but her fingers were already twitching with the need to laminate something.

Oscar looked unfairly awake. He hadn't said much on the drive, just tapped out a rhythm on his knee and looked over at her every couple of minutes like he wanted to ask something and couldn't decide if he was allowed.

When she pulled up to the paddock gate and threw the car in park, he didn't move.

"You're not coming?" he asked finally, quiet.

She shook her head. "Oscar, I already told you. I'm basically immobile. My feet ache. My legs ache. My arms ache. My—"

Oscar got it. He cut her off by saying, "Then I'll get you a chair."

She leaned her head against the headrest, closing her eyes. "I'm not coming."

He hesitated. "Are you sure?"

Andi looked over at him.

"I'm sure."

Oscar didn't reply; He leaned across the console and kissed her — a little messy from the angle, but his message clear. One hand went behind her neck, thumb brushing under her jaw like he wasn't in a hurry to stop.