Chapter 62
Pierre was in their nest in their Paris appartement, together with Kika, little Tony in between them in his baby nest, wearing a light green onesie and hat.
“He is so cute” Pierre whispered. They were both laying on their sides, facing their little pup, Pierre’s hand on the pup’s stomach.
“Yeah, he is.” Kika said, laying on the other side of Tony.
“You’re such a hero.” He then said to her, kissing her forehead.
“And it is okay for you that I won’t be at the next races?”
“Absolutely. You take your time, alright, for however long you want, you stay in this nest. A steady nest is more comfortable for him as well.” Pierre said to her “Oh, by the way, us drivers are pretty sure Oscar is pregnant.”
“I’ve heard he’s eating a lot of churros.” Kika said.
“A lot? No. Tons. I don’t think I have seen him in Mexico or Brazil without a bag or napkin full of churros.” Pierre said.
“Yeah, he’s definitely pregnant. With his health snacks and stuff … those things are fried in oil and sugared, he wouldn’t eat them as much.”
“I can’t really imagine Lando as a dad, though.”
“Well, he will have to be … somehow.”
“He will be the most lenient dad.”
“That baby is going to fool him non-stop.”
“And make him buy anything, no regards for money.”
“They’ll be allowed to eat sweets for breakfast if Oscar isn’t there.”
“Oh, I can’t promise I won’t allow him to do that, either.” Pierre said with a smile towards Tony.
“I’m going back to therapy.” Max said, dividing the pasta into two bowls.
“What?” Charles asked from the couch.
“Well, I went after Kelly’s death.”
“Yeah, I know, but why now? Not that I’m against it, I’m just curious.” Charles asked, taking one of the bowls from Max.
“Truthfully, because of what you said.”
“What? What did I do?” Charles asked in shock.
“Nothing bad. It’s … when you said I’m not the best at talking and that I even, like, try to prove something in bed after something happened that didn’t have anything to do with you … things like that aren’t good. Not in the long run. I’m going a week after the final and she said we will just see where I am and if I need it or if I’m just panicking.”
“Panicking?”
“She asked if I might panic because you know … you are the first one after Kelly and that I maybe pressure myself too much or stuff like that.”
“I thought there was someone between us?”
“Well … okay … let’s eat first, then I’ll tell you about that, alright?” Max said, blowing on the pasta.
“Okay” Charles said “This is really good.” Charles said a little later, eating the linguini with spinach ricotta sauce. “Okay, eating is done.”
“Okay, sooooo … you know, back when both Daniel and I were at Redbull, we had something going.”
“Something going in, like, an affair?”
“Uuuhm, well, for him apparently. After a while, management found out and they gave us an ultimatum. Break up or go public. Daniel said immediately that he would leave the team by the end of the year and that it would just be over earlier then.” Max said and swallowed “We didn’t really talk off camera for the rest of the season. He broke my heart back then and … I slept around for a while, until I met Kelly, actually. After she died … about three months later I had a really bad day, Penelope was colicky and started an ear infection, Lando was in England, Pierre in France, I had a really long meeting and was awake for more than 36 hours because P cried so much. Daniel came over, bringing some equipment I lent him. I just broke down, he took care of P and I slept for a couple of hours. I’m not even sure how it started … we had a quicky in the hallway. I felt so bad afterwards, I just wanted to feel something or whatever, I apologized to him and told him it was a mistake, it never was about Daniel. The next time we talked was a couple months later, remember the evening you celebrated in that restaurant with your mum? That you got into F1?”
“Of course. You were sitting at the other table together. I thought it was just a dinner as friends.”
“It was … for me. I had invited him, not thinking about it. I just wanted to go out and be in adult companionship. Lando and Oscar had just met and were in their honeymoon phase. When I drove him home, he suggested that I could come upstairs, make ourselves comfortable. I declined and even yelled a little that I don’t want anything with him. That it’s over. We never talked about anything like that again, that’s why I was so surprised when he started dating Nicole. I’m happy for him, I really am, they seem great together and he is really happy. To sum it up, that was the only time I had sex between Kelly and you, as wanking doesn’t count. Thought about you since I saw you half naked after Saudi-Arabia anyway.”
“Saudi-Arabia?!” Charles asked loudly “You’ve been pining over me since then?!”
“Yeah, kind of. Why, when did you start?” Max asked.
“Japan. When you got out of that car all sweaty and took that water bottle, emptying it down into your shirt … my imagination went wild.” Charles smiled.
“And you’re okay with Daniel and me?”
“Yes, I kind of … suspected that there at least was something going on at one point. Didn’t think it was a real, longer thing, though.”
“Mhm.”
“Okay Mick, change time next lap.” Mick heard a voice through his intercom.
“Already?” Mick asked shocked.
“Yes. Box next lap for driver’s change.”
“Copy” Mick said, speeding up a little and getting into the box on the next lap. It had gone by so quickly. There was so much traffic, he couldn’t keep counting the laps. There were cars all over, it felt like they tried to push him off. That’s what NASCAR must feel like.
“Hey, you okay?” an engineer asked.
“Yeah, sorry, I’m good.” He said and made his way towards the back and into their tent. This wasn’t F1. Glitz and glam was kept at a minimum. He let himself drop down on a chair, taking a water bottle from the cooling box. He sat around for a bit and drank his water until someone stuck their head in.
“Hey Marcus” Mick said “What’s up?”
“I’ll hand you over” Marcus Ericsson said, handing him the phone “it’s for you.”
“Hello?” Mick asked.
“Hi Mick, it’s Christian. Good job out there. Las Vegas Grand Prix, our hospitality after second practice, can you do that?”
“I will be there.” Mick simply said.
“Very good. Bring an estimate from your manager.” Christian said and hung up.
“Thank you” he said to Marcus and handed the phone back.
“So, you’re getting back into F1?” Marcus asked.
“Don’t know yet, maybe.” Mick said with a hopeful smile.
“If you get a second chance, take it, don’t waste your chance and don’t fool around.” Marcus said with a smirk, leaving the tent.
“I don’t want to leave you alone.” Lando mumbled against Oscar’s chest, stroking his belly.
“You’re not leaving me alone. I’m staying here, at your parent’s house, while you’re going to work. See it as a training session, I’m going to skip quite a couple races next year.”
“Even more reason to see you as much as possible until then.” Lando groaned.
“And by the way, I’m not sure I can hide our nectarines in Qatar still. I thought about a sweater, but I didn’t really count in that it’s the middle east, so it’ll be really hot.”
“Hey, I don’t mind if it’s coming out earlier. I’m happy either way. Even though we didn’t tell anyone, I’m sure almost all of them know, anyway. So, it would just be the public finding out.”
“How would they know?” Oscar asked and Lando looked at him.
“Really? The mood swings, the crying, the excessive churro eating? Vomiting like crazy? Anything of that sounding familiar?” Lando asked, kissing Oscar’s stomach.
“Yeah, I’m really happy the vomiting weeks are over.”
“Yeah, it was really terrible to see that.”
“I’m still in the mood for churros, though.” Oscar said, stroking Lando’s hair.
“I have to go and buy churros now, don’t I?” Lando asked a minute later.
“Yes please, I ate all the churros your mum bought, but also get some apricots, apparently they are good during pregnancy because of all their benefits.” Oscar admitted and Lando laughed, kissing Oscar before getting up.
“Why are you up, already?” Cisca asked when Lando came down the stairs.
“Oscar wants churros and apricots.” Lando said, putting on his shoes.
“There are some in the cupboard.” Adam said.
“No there are not.” Lando answered and left the house. He came back half an hour later, arms full of churros and two packages of apricots.
“What took you so long?” Oscar asked, walking up and taking some of the churros, opening the package while walking back to the breakfast table, making Adam shake his head.
“Thank you, Lando.” Adam said sternly to Oscar.
“Manksh” Oscar said, his mouth full.
“You’re welcome.” Lando said, washing the apricots and cutting up a couple, bringing the bowl to Oscar.
“I found a really nice store in France, about half an hour to the border, they seem to have everything from pregnancy to about, like, three or four years.” Cisca was just saying.
“What are you planning?” Lando asked.
“Shopping spree for baby stuff.” Adam mumbled and Lando looked at Oscar a little questioningly.
“Don’t worry, we will go after the final earliest and I would never buy any of the really important stuff without you.”
“What about your appartement, anyway?” Cisca asked.
“What do you mean?” Oscar asked, eating some apricots.
“Well, of course they will sleep in your nest for the first time and then probably in the bedroom next to yours, but at some point they will need their own bedrooms, also to not wake each other up.”
“Oh, I didn’t think about that.”
“There would be a solution I wanted to talk to you about later” Lando started, looking at Oscar “The appartement next to ours is for sale. There would be some remodelling, I will show you the suggestion later. To make it short, we would turn our bedroom and the small two next to it into three good sized bedrooms and baths, lock the balcony doors for safety, of course. We open up the wall next to the kitchen, building a walk through by the gym and pantry to a new master suite. It will shrink the other appartement, of course, but Ollie is still looking for something decently sized and he would be interested. It would hold two bedrooms, looking a little like Logan’s appartement, sell Olli that one. Or someone else, of course.”
“That would be amazing, I love our appartement and Max is there and all the others are close, my mum is a 10-minute walk away.”
“Then it’s done already?”
“I would still like to look at the floorplan suggestion, maybe we can fit in a little office somewhere, nothing big.”
“I’m pretty sure we can do that.” Lando smiled.
They said goodbye in the late afternoon, Lando getting a taxi to the airport and travelled to Vegas, Oscar and Cisca going to Monaco two days later, arriving in time for some grocery shopping and first practice. The reporters pretty much instantly found out that Oscar wasn’t there, making all kinds of assumptions from illness, break-up, work, pregnant to also the possibility that he maybe got bored of racing.
“Really? Bored?” Oscar asked, sitting on the couch with Cisca, Kika being with them via facetime, needing someone to chat to during practice. They were all still cuddled up in blankets, drinking tea.
“Ooooh, that didn’t look good.” Oscar let out, seeing Carlos’ Ferrari slow down, sparks flying behind him.
“That’s got to be some heavy floor damage.” Kika agreed.
“Really?” Cisca asked a couple minutes later “We got up for that?” First practice was cancelled, as a drain cover got lifted by the downforce of the Ferrari, resulting in the race director’s decision to check all drain covers before resuming any kind of racing on the track. That would take hours.
“Thank god I stayed in bed.” Kika said, having baby Tony against her chest, burping him.
Second practice was postponed for about two hours, then started and stayed pretty uneventful, although Kika had spent most of practice walking up and down, trying to calm Tony.
Lando called Oscar an hour after practice, asking him how he was, talking a bit before Lando had to go to his post-race meeting, calling them again before he went to bed.
Cisca and Oscar spent the rest of their day doing a little shopping and starting to pack their bags for their cruise, which would leave Marseille on Sunday evening.
The race was Sunday morning in their time zone, them sitting on the couch again. They heard before that it would be really cold for the race, but that night set almost a record low. You could see the little white puffs in front of the reporter’s mouths at times, wearing thick jackets and coats.
The cars were sliding around for the first ten laps or so, not really warming up. For some reason, the Aston Martins handled this the best, giving them good positions, as did the Haas. The Alpine started with their last update, new floorboards and other things making their cars lighter and easier to handle.
“I don’t feel well” suddenly was displayed on the screen, coming from Charles “I don’t know what’s wrong”
“Are you okay to drive?” the engineer asked calmly, but sounded worried as well.
“I – I’m I feel weird.” Charles mumbled.
“Okay, if you don’t feel well, stop the car on the sidelines, there is no shame in being unwell.” The engineer.
“I can go” Charles said then, but didn’t sound better.
“If you feel you can do it, go ahead, but if you don’t feel fine, get yourself off the track, Charlie, there is no problem with that.” The engineer said again. Half a lap later, Charles slowed down, causing a yellow sector and started rolling into the roll off zone next to the track, the car going slightly sideways, touching the wall before stopping a couple lengths later. The race was officially yellow flagged and Charles was helped from the car, looking weak and unsure on his feet, being helped by a marshall on each side into an ambulance waiting behind the barrier, getting wrapped in a blanket. A couple laps before the finish they got news from the hospital. Extreme hypothermia. The race suits were built to shield them from heat more than from the cold, the wind rushing past apparently doing the rest. Even though the racing itself made him sweat and warm up, it wasn’t enough, for once the omega inside him was not able to handle the cold on its own.
Max won the race by two seconds in front of Lando, followed by Lance, getting another podium, beating Logan by a car’s length. The other points went to Esteban, Oliver, George, Yuki, Nico and Fernando, getting both Haas in the points.
22-Vegas
VER339
NOR428
STR124
SAR240
OCO59
BEA72
RUS105
TSU94
HUL8
ALO20
LAW6
HAM36
GAS11
SAI237
BOT12
RIC128
ALB43
ZHO2
LAT0
LEC228