Never Again

Chapter 25: Hiding

Normally he would use Mondays after a race weekend to sleep in and do practically nothing all day. However he was looking forward to seeing Keira again and that's why he was already dressed and outside. The race weekend had been very positive after all, qualifying tenth of course wasn't what he had wanted, but to turn that into a solid second place was an excellent comeback. If only Jenson hadn't been that far up the road already, he would've loved to battle with him for the victory. At least Fernando didn't score any points, so he closed the gap in the championship by eighteen points, not a bad effort at all. Of course he would've liked to score those points on merit, Fernando almost dying hadn't been in his script, but points were points in the end. It had also ignited the team again to believe that the WDC was still possible for one of their drivers and therefore it had been a very positive garage he had left on Sunday night. He would like to prove everyone wrong and show them that he was going to get his third championship this year. It was a very steep hill still to climb, but he was absolutely sure that he could do it. When he had spoken to Christian he had said exactly the same thing, just keep doing what you're doing and the team would make sure to provide him with the best car possible. He smiled and zipped open the jacket he was wearing. The sun had came out and it had warmed up pretty quickly.

The cafe was already quite busy, although he was an hour earlier than normal. He pushed open the door and made his way to his table by the window, luckily it was still empty. While darting his eyes through the room he took off his jacket and hung it neatly over the back of his chair. He couldn't see Keira yet, but maybe she was in the back doing other things than helping customers. He scanned the room again and he was sure that she wasn't in here. Only a few grandmas, teenagers who clearly had a few free hours and a lot of business people were filling the seats. He pulled out his phone and opened the news app to pass the time.

'Can I get you something to drink?' a voice said.

He looked up from his phone hoping to see Keira, but it wasn't her. It was the blonde colleague and he could read on her apron that she was called Elsa. He nodded and she smiled broadly in response.

'What would you like to order?' she asked with still that broad smile on her face.

'Americano, please,' he responded politely.

'OK, I'll be right back.'

He watched her walk away and he wondered why she had taken his order and not Keira. She always took his order, not that she really took his order anymore because it was always the same, but she always brought him his coffee. Maybe she started later today and he didn't know about that, maybe he should ask her colleague about it when she brought the coffee. He felt slightly disappointed that she wasn't here, he liked hanging out with her and it always provided an opportunity to talk about something different than racing. He loved his racing and everything that came with it, but sometimes it was nice to forget about all of it and do what every other normal 25 year old guy did.

'Here you are,' Elsa put down his coffee in front of him, almost knocking it over in the process. 'Oops, sorry,' she said.

'No problem,' he answered when she cleaned up the spilled coffee. 'Can I ask you something?'

She looked up in surprise. 'Of course,' she said and then straightened her back to be able to look at him.

'Do you know where Keira is?'

Elsa raised her eyebrows. 'Didn't she tell you?'

'Tell me what?' he said confused. He didn't understand what she meant at all.

'She has called in sick today and it sounded like she isn't able to come in the rest of the week. Didn't she tell you?'

He frowned and looked down at his phone that was laying on the table. 'No, she hasn't,' he answered. Why hadn't she told him? Especially when it sounded this serious. He knew they never texted much, only about places where to meet up or how late, but he still felt kind of hurt that she hadn't told him. Maybe he was being stupid and they weren't as close friends as he thought and therefore she didn't want to share this with him. Nevertheless he really wanted to know how she was doing, so maybe he just should send her a text.