Lifeline (Daniel Ricciardo)

Chapter 57: Something New

Paris, March 2015

I hummed quietly to myself as French chatter filled the canteen during our lunch break. The space was busy, but not as busy as what it would have been at Red Bull's HQ in Milton Keynes. Less people worked for Renault F1 here in the French capital and there was something about it that I had started to genuinely love.

Gilou, a friend who I worked with, finally made up his mind on what he was going to eat after picking up the same salad three times.

"You didn't want that, did you?" he asked, offering it to me. His eyes darted around the refectory. His tall figure cast a shadow over the points that were displayed instead of prices. Each month we got allocated several hundred and if we needed more, they could be purchased.

"Non," I chuckled. "I'm going to demolish a burger."

"Demolish? What?" His eyes widened. I was hungry; I had been working very hard in the lead up to the 2015 Formula 1 season.

"I'm very hungry." I translated and rubbed my stomach, it was making gurgling sounds which the rest of the guys were only laughing at.

"You eat so much!" Gilou protested, handing me the food I wanted anyway. "At Juliette's last week so much you scoffed. Are you nervous?"

"Hormonal." I joked and that shut him up.

"Hey, Anné! Can you save three seats, please?" I called out to a colleague who I was officially in charge of. She beamed, and nodded. Things were so much more positive.

I'd had up until the end of November last year to get my head straight and now I was back working in Motorsport, spending weekdays in Paris and weekends in Switzerland with friends and family there. There were a few things missing but over time the emptiness was getting filled with good people that I'd pushed away all that time ago.

"Ready to fly out to Melbourne?" Gilou asked, moving my tray whilst I fussed with my phone. The home button on it wasn't working properly after it got dropped into a fish tank at a 'small' house gathering.

"I'm not going, I'm staying here and watching to see if you fall over on TV..." I sniggered and he slapped my arm, his dark grey eyes growing gradually serious.

"What do you mean you aren't going? It would be a waste of time if we went and you didn't...seeing as you give us the...green light?"

"Ok, ok...that's enough." I wiped my eyes from the laughter and put my phone away. "What do you want to drink?"

"Pepsi." Gilou frowned and took the food over to the seats Anné had saved. Chloè would be joining us in a minute and before long, the rest of the guys would be pulling up a chair. "Want me to get them if your hip is playing up?"

"Hey, I'm not that much of a cripple anymore." I spoke back, giving my hip a rub with my free hand. After finding a weakness there just before Christmas, it had been replaced. Repelling memories of why I'd been injured out of my mind further.

"I know, I was surprised at the gym the other day at now nimble you are."

"Sprinting around the paddock does you favours." Pausing, I frowned and looked around, "French guys are also more demanding if you get what I mean."

"So not this Australian bloke that we've been kept in the dark about?" Gilou protested and grabbed an extra can of Pepsi for later.

"Well, it's the only thing you don't know about me." I bargained and flicked my hair over my shoulder.

"Someone in the big team?"

"I've forgotten." But, of course I hadn't.

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