Lights Out • 1 • Formula One ✔️

Chapter 88

When I woke up the next morning, Max was still in a deep slumber beside me. I know that I shouldn't have caved in; that I should've said goodbye last night before anything happened. The truth is I really miss him, and it hurts that we can't be together right now. I wish I could risk staying with him, but being demoted to Williams could be career suicide especially since I don't know where I'm going to be next year.

I padded into the kitchen area of my hotel room to start preparing to make breakfast. He cooked for me on the morning after my birthday (since I was flying for the majority of it) so I thought it'd be a nice sentiment if I attempted to make him something nice. I looked up a simple pancake recipe on my phone and screenshot the ingredients. Since I'm in a hotel and don't have access to my usual ingredients, I'll have to go to the shop across the street. Japan has everything that you could possibly need on the streets alone so I doubt it'd be hard.

I was only gone for fifteen minutes before I returned with two bags worth of items. I bought a mixing bowl, a whisk, a ladle, and the ingredients needed for the pancakes and toppings. There was already a pan provided in the room so there was no need to purchase one of those. A quick check in on Max confirmed that he was still asleep. Hopefully the sound of my cooking won't wake him up, or the smoke alarm (that'll probably be inevitable). Before I started, I remembered to actually turn on the hobs.

So I didn't feel so stressed when I began to prepare the ingredients, I decided to put on a mellow Spotify playlist. 'Location' by Kahlid was the first song to come on and it was definitely a favourite of mine from a couple of years ago. I have a lot of memories with Marcus, Kudzai, Damien, and I singing it together on road trips, or just generally around the house. I couldn't help but hum along and reminisce the good times that we had as the four of us. A part of me wants to go back to a simpler time, but then that would mean I wouldn't have a career and that I wouldn't have met some of the most amazing people in my life at the moment.

I glanced up at the clock on the wall just so I had an idea for when Max is likely to wake up. Since he's not yet on work hours, I predict he'll be up between 09:30 and 10:00 since that's the time he woke up for the majority of the Portugal trip. That would give me a little under half an hour to be done as it's currently 09:03. For an avid cook, that probably sounds like a long time, however for me, since I'm probably going to have to redo the mixture several times, it's going to be tight.

Measuring out the ingredients took me longer than anticipated because apparently I'm better at predicting braking points than I am predicting the weight of flour. There were also different scale options, such as grams and ounces, whereas my recipe gave it to me in cups. That took a while extra level of converting into something I'm actually familiar with.

For a future career, I'm definitely not going to be transitioning into the world of cooking anytime soon. I'll stick to what I'm comfortable with and that's driving a car at 300+km/h.

I continued to hum along to the music and even softly sing the acoustic version of 'Wings' by Birdie. It lifted the weight of any stress off my shoulders and made an activity I usually hate rather enjoyable.

The first pancake is always meant to go wrong, right? Well, mine definitely did. It resembled a crepe rather than a thicker pancake. I let out a sigh as I dumped it messily onto a plate. As long as it tastes good... I hesitantly cut up a section and forked it into my mouth. I had very low expectations so was genuinely surprised when it didn't taste awful. A little lemon juice, sugar, or syrup and they should be good!

My second attempt took me by surprise at how good it looked. Sure, they weren't pancakes, but crepes for breakfast is always enjoyable. Each one I made seemed to look better and better, however any gaff ones I put on my plate for myself.