I am, baby

Principality of Monaco,
May 2022

🏎️

Our day of retreat at Charles' house ended all too quickly.
On Friday I woke up early, I sat down among the scented blankets that we had changed the night before, when we had played with the sheets pretending to be ghosts. Between one pillow and another, even something as trivial as changing pillowcases, with Charles, became a special memory.

I glanced at the boy asleep by my side, and, doing all I couldn't to disturb his rest, slipped out of bed, quietly took my clothes out of the suitcase, and walked for the shower.

Friday and Saturday went very well for Ferrari, but especially for Charles who was the fastest of all in both free practice and qualifying, thus taking pole position. Which almost made the dream of winning the home Grand Prix come true.

Sunday was nicer, because walking through the paddocks, I was able to meet my friend Kyla, who had only managed to get the pass for the race day. We had lunch together and I introduced her to the two drivers of the team, she immediately got along with both of them. She stayed in the garage with me and at the beginning of the race I gave her a pair of headphones to hear the exchanges from the pit wall between Carlos and Charles.

The two Ferraris started first, but it rained a lot, and they were forced to use wet tyres, wet tyres and do more formation laps.

The cars began to slide on the asphalt, there were some small accidents and at the time of the last pit stop, the pit wall made some miscalculations, telling Charles to return to the pits and then thinking about it too late, when the Monegasque had already made his entrance and lost too much time, ending up behind a Verstappen who was not having a good race,  but which he was no longer able to overcome.

"Fuck!" I shouted at the moment of the incident, turning to Andrea and asking for explanations for this premature decision. It was not yet time to come in, especially if Carlos had just entered in front of him.

I could hear the curses of the number 16 through the headphones, who had not spared himself the worst insults against himself. Whatever mistake was made by the Ferrari pit wall, the boy took the blame in full, using words that were too offensive and senseless, especially if he hadn't made the mistake.

Ferrari and Red Bull alternated the top four positions in the standings, but instead of always being Verstappen, Perez won. 

The morale in the paddock was not the best, at the end of the race and after the award ceremony, all my colleagues snorted and left demoralized. 

Seeing this new expression on Charles' face, who had found himself at the bottom of the standings due to other people's mistakes, made me feel terribly bad. But that didn't stop me from hugging Carlos and being happy with his second position and points for the constructors' standings. 

On the way home, I noticed how the boy was lost, as in another dimension, he was standing there, motionless as a statue of salt. He didn't even notice the sudden braking I made while I was parking.

I wanted to console him, but everything that came to my mind seemed senseless; I decided it would be better to keep quiet, I tried to get him to focus instead on the notification I received.

Daniel had proposed to spend the evening together, half of the F1 drivers had a house in Monte Carlo, so it would have been a nice thing to see each other.

The Australian also began to ask who should book, because he didn't have the time to do it. Making me laugh at the message in which he said that Max had to book because he hadn't won the race. The Dutchman initially denied it, asking if anyone else did.

In the meantime, the others agreed to the evening, waiting for someone to book. After a few moments of silence in the chat, Max's message arrived, he had booked. I burst out laughing as I turned to my boyfriend.

Charles had regained some vitality even if you could see that he was still unnerved by the results. He never managed to make his successes go well, as if he always had to give more, when the moments of mistakes came it was even worse. He could never get enough of mortifying his person.

Past the door, Charles took a quick shower and in no time at all we were ready for the evening and I opted for one of my usual plain black dresses.

I told Kyla to join us, so that the three of us could go together to the place where we would meet the others. We called a taxi, because the Monegasque confided to me that he did not want to get behind the wheel until his job required it again.

"Ky, I'm going to introduce you to the other drivers today." I nudged the girl next to me, and she burst into a thunderous laugh.

"You never stop wanting to mate with someone, huh?" He asked the brunette without stopping smiling and starting to make some appreciation of the illuminated city.

"No, never." I replied ironically. 

The journey was very short, the Principality was not very large and it took very little to get around. Charles forced me to put the money in the bag, paying the taxi driver, who once looked better, recognized him as the Formula One driver.

"Are you Leclerc?" He shouted exalted and incredulous, so we lost a few minutes to his request for autographs and photos. 

We entered the restaurant, which seemed to be very expensive, and looked for Charles' colleagues, whom we found sitting at a round table, waiting for our arrival.

"Leclerc, let me tell you, you look like an alcoholic in the picture." Max shouted, referring to the profile picture of the group that Daniel had created, getting up to greet us but only observing my friend for a few seconds, without addressing her the slightest word.

"Carlos!" I ran to hug the runner-up and a few seconds later Kyla did too, as if the two were linked by being able to gossip behind my back.

We sat down and ordered a cocktail, my friend as usual immediately put herself at ease and with complete ease began to talk and joke with everyone, except Max. Above all, she seemed to have bonded a lot with Lewis, which even I had not been able to do. 

A few minutes after ten o'clock, the restaurant seemed to change, and from being selling pretzels, which the pilots had done nothing but brag about, it became almost a disco.

The thing that amazed me most was how my friend and the driver who won seven world championships, got up undisturbed and went dancing among the other people. The lights dimmed, as if to give some privacy to the participants. 

"Those two are already in love, how cute." Ricciardo laughed, nudging Max just because he was by his side, his friend moved snorting heavily. 

The mood of the two usual winners was on the ground and was ruining the atmosphere that Daniel tried to create in every moment of silence. I asked Charles to dance but he dismissed me with a wave of his hand, as if to move my words away from him.

"Come on guys!" I snorted bored, "Is anyone dancing with me?" I asked while draining the second cocktail of the evening.

The only one who seemed to accept my offer was Carlos who smiled at me and walked towards the track, expecting me to follow him.

I looked into the eyes of each person at the table trying to understand if they had the intention of reaching us and realizing that there was no way to move them, I turned and walked decisively in the direction of my friend and the two pilots.

The Spaniard signaled me to come closer and pointing with a gesture to the two boys at our side who were dancing a kind of speeded up slow, he asked me to imitate them.

"I'm not a good dancer." I said clasping my arms around his neck and feeling weird doing it with him and not with Charles.

"As long as one of us is, and I am, baby." He said hoarsely, ironically and began to move, asking me with his body to repeat his own movements. Oh...

He didn't tell a lie, Carlos really knew how to move and he seemed so sensual in those simple movements, that I could hardly stop looking at him. I placed my hands on his chest, thinking about how every time I had to force my eyes to stop watching, he in the meantime established his hands at the height of my hips, continuing to guide me.

Maybe after a few more drinks I found myself shiny and dancing with my partner was becoming too much fun or maybe... I had to shake my mind and it was inevitable to notice how firmly the Hispanic was holding me, but I turned to look for the others.

My friend had disappeared somewhere and Lewis was missing from the roll call. Max and Charles had been talking at the table all the time, sipping their glasses slowly, as if they wanted to stay there and be able to turn the tide of the day.

Initially I wanted to talk to Sainz about what happened and how the Monegasque was reacting to the race and especially to me, but in the end I forgot about it, getting lost in the Spaniard's moves.

When Daniel arrived, we started choreographing group dances to pop songs, which to tell the truth, had absolutely nothing to do with it. I didn't remember the end of the evening, only the moment when in bed, the predestined one said goodnight to me.

🏎️

Ire