Just Him ❤

75. Hanging out with friends.

There was just enough light in the room to play pool with Eva and Steef in the shabby looking Irish bar they were currently in in a somewhat less affluent part of Modena, Italy. The bar had been Steef's idea, thinking that this was somewhere where noone would expect to see a four times world champion formula one driver, and he was right as noone seemed to twig on who Seb was at all and they were left well alone.
"Yes! Get in!" Chloe did a little fist pump as her second shot hit the pocket while Eva and Steef exchanged a look as they noticed Seb's unusually quiet demeanor, Chloe had been a little quiet too and while you could see that they were together they didn't seem as close as they usually were.

"Are you two ok?" Eva approached him.

"Yeah, were fine." He gave her a smile for good measure.

"Have you two had an argument? You both seem a little off today." She mused.

"Shit!" Chloe hissed, annoyed that she'd missed the pocket by just a fraction, her reaction caused everyone to look at her.

"Liebe?" Seb waved her over and she broke out into a smile as he held his hand out to her. Accepting his hand with a noticeably relieved smile she passed her cue to Steef. "Have we rowed today?" He asked her.

"What kind of question is that?" She frowned. "No, nothing of the sort." She added, nothing had happened between them in every sense of the word and while they were still together they hadn't been togther in the way she wanted since Saturday night and she was missing their intimacy terribly. After everything he had found out on Sunday, Seb had kept his promise of not losing his temper and had vowed to support her as much as he could but seeing the images and video on her phone had been a bitter pill for him to swallow especially when Chloe had originally told him that she'd only kissed Michael when she was working for him. Meeting her former love outside the paddock gates after telling people that was she feeling ill had also dented his trust in her. While Seb hadn't reacted as she'd feared, he'd become withdrawn from her and had barely laid a finger on her ever since, not even cuddling up to her in bed. For Chloe, this felt just as bad, if not worse, than it would have if he'd had a go at her about it.

"Eva was a little concerned about us." Seb said, giving her hand a little squeeze.

"Oh, we're good Eva, really." She smiled before looking up at Seb, her heart sunk a little as he didn't look her way.

"Hey Eva!" Steef approached his wife and pulled her in for kiss while grabbing her bum, Chloe looked to the floor awkwardly. "Your shot sexy!" He pulled away and slapped Eva's bum as he passed her the cue, she shrieked and then laughed and Chloe felt as though she wanted to leave the room. Noticing Chloe's apparent discomfort, Eva nudged Steef before she went to the pool table, the gap between their two friends seemed enormous, something was definitely not right.

                 ~*~

With the girls winning the first game, Eva joined Steef at the bar in an effort to give Chloe a few minutes alone with Seb.
"What do you think?" Eva whispered, while glancing at the two of them.

"It's probably just the pressure of working and living together in formula one, I'm sure they'll be fine." Steef replied, waving to catch the barman's attention.

"We work and live together and we're ok." She placed a kiss on his bicep.

"It's a high pressure environment they're in though, in Ferrari." Steef took a glance at them himself, Seb was looking at his phone and Chloe looked unhappy.

"We need to do something to bring them back togther again." Eva sighed. "I think Seb needs a little encouragement."

"Seb?" With a moment alone, Chloe moved to stand in front him.