ੈ♡˳ SEVEN
best behaviour

INSTAGRAM — MILAMARZ

milamarz: baku, baby!

comments . . .

francolapinto: mi diosa 😍😍
⤥ milamarz: mi amorrrrr 😍🥰
⤥ user2: huh ‼️‼️

francolapinto: why was i the last to know u were here
⤥ milamarz: bc i have to work youre too tempting
⤥ francolapinto: 😔😔

user1: youre back!!!!!
⤥ milamarz: i ammmm :) howve you been?
⤥ user1: busy with uni atm, you?
⤥ milamarz: good :) did some travelling and now im back for work <3

dinobeganovic_: IM COMING OVER RN
⤥ milamarz: DONT YOU DARE

user3: she was gone for a whole week and suddenly franco's commenting worse than before what is going on someone pls im desperate
⤥ user4: before she disappeared she went out on a date with franco (the pics are all over twitter) and then presumably fucked him that night bc of what she posted
⤥ user5: she said on her priv that they just watched netflix
⤥ user4: you believe that??????
⤥ milamarz: yall dw i would tell you if we fucked duhhh 🙄🙄

kimi.antonelli: i took the first two 🥰

olliebearman: run me over

olliebearman: slayed too hard
⤥ user6: blink twice if avery is holding you hostage
⤥ milamarz: you serve cunt every other day oliver!

avesharris: gf
⤥ milamarz: gf

user7: oh so this is the reporter using her position to hook up with drivers
⤥ milamarz: wow thats actually a really great idea thanks for sharing.

user6: mila are you interviewing ollie this week?
⤥ milamarz: sadly not on wednesday but i will be after the race. hes a popular man i fear

user8: is it true you slept with lewis hamilton
⤥ user9: oh this is degenerate
⤥ user8: theres a thread on twitter that connects her to half the grid with evidence
⤥ user9: dm it to me
⤥ milamarz: sorry to disappoint guys im not the sex icon twitter makes me out to be

user10: mila getting more recognition but at what cost
⤥ user11: the slut shaming all over her socials is insane like let the girl breathe
⤥ user12: no fr like why cant we just laugh knowing she has no filter and vibe with it why are people so mad

user13: oh. ur mila

x

"UGH, FINALLY," MILA MUTTERED to herself, slamming the lid of her laptop shut and flopping over the table onto her countless list of notes. she blindly thrust her hand around, searching through countless pages of notes until she felt her phone just within reach. flipping it over, she grimaced at the brightness glaring back at her, and quickly fixing it so that it was way lower.

she had enough notifications to clog up her entire lockscreen, but the time displayed on the top didn't make her feel any better. 8:00. slaving away for hours on end to figure out what to ask and say to other drivers wasn't something she loved as much as she did adore her job. about a day out of every race week was used up to do research and gather information, and it was better to just get it all out of the way in one go. it was just like going on a trip to the grocery store and refusing to do five trips when you get home and so you do it all in one go instead.

NOTIFICATION CENTRE —

(13m ago) IMESSAGE — FRANCO 🩷
lmk when ur free :) miss ur face

(14m ago) IMESSAGE — ANDREA
dino is mad i didnt tell him you were here

can you hide me from him

(56m ago) IMESSAGE — EX #1
lils i have news

(1h ago) IMESSAGE — 🦖
what room are you in

be so fr rn why didnt you tell me you
were here.

(1h ago) IMESSAGE — JAKSTON
actually so betrayed rn be so fr

when did you get here?????

girl.

(2h ago) IMESSAGE — KAI <3
tell me about this colapinto guy

need to know who im gonna be
cheering for this weekend

(5h ago) INSTAGRAM —
[milamarz] jemmajazairi has followed you!

A LITTLE MORE EXCITED than she probably should be upon seeing a notification that the girl that paul was seeing had been the first to follow her, mila quickly followed jemma back before clearing out her notifications. she replied to dino and jak separately, telling them that she'd go out with them for breakfast tomorrow morning because wednesday was the final day of peace. she set up her schedule for tomorrow: go out with dino and jak in the morning, call her brother kai around midday to fill him and undoubtedly his fiancé in, and mentally prepare for the upcoming media day.

her thumb hovered over a certain unread message, his name lined by a pink heart. they hadn't stopped texting back and forth since last week when their date came to a close and he left to baku before she did, as well as the occasional facetime because he liked to talk while he did pretty much anything. mila didn't mind in the slightest considering the only social thing she really had going on before she left monza was participating in a girls day with the wags from F2 and F3.

it was nice to be invited, of course. not that there was any reason that she wouldn't be invited despite not falling into the wag category, but because she'd dealt with her fair share of people who just didn't want to involve themselves with her because she was a journalist. not that she'd ever name names, but there were wags, both old and new, in the F1 space who would steer clear from her because they were worried that they'd say something that mila would use in an article. mila would never, she had a code of conduct she strictly followed, and though it was kind of ugh to deal with, she didn't necessarily blame them.

there was no use in saying 'i quite literally do not give a shit about your personal life at all' to them anymore, so she just avoided certain people altogether and was glad she had her friends to fall back on.

even when franco asked how her day was, she explained it in detail that didn't bring up anything anyone said. mila wasn't a gossip unless it was related to drivers and rumours surrounding them, never the people they were with.

why not? she thought, her thumb hitting franco's name so that their texts were pulled up. it couldn't hurt to indulge in a little messaging now that she'd completed all of her work.

IMESSAGE —

FRANCO 🩷 + MILA 💗

FRANCO 🩷
lmk when ur free :) miss ur face

MILA 💗
ciao :)

FRANCO 🩷
😲😲

hola!!!!

did u get all your work
done?

MILA 💗
i did ty for asking <3

how are you!! sorry i've
been so busy

FRANCO 🩷
you dont need to apologise
i see you all weekend anyway :)

im good :) so much busier now than
before

so crazy and i dont even have a full time
seat 🙄🙄

MILA 💗
if someone doesnt snatch you up
im gonna be so surprised

FRANCO 🩷
i mean

u could.

MILA 💗
i def could but im talking about
your career </3

FRANCO 🩷
i could be your resident media
subject

MILA 💗
????

FRANCO 🩷
like u interview me ALL the
time next year or smth

i'm like ur inside source

undercover agent type shit

MILA 💗
wait why is that so

okay bet if you're unemployed
or back with f2 we open our own
show where you have inside
knowledge and i ask the questions

kinda like jenson and nico at sky

FRANCO 🩷
the mila + franco show ‼️

we could totally have an off
season podcast too

MILA 💗
i think i need to marry you
right now

actually no

i need to like,, fully devour you
whole or smth

FRANCO 🩷
u actually think it's a good idea???

(you could devour me any day and
id say ty)

MILA 💗
duh???!!

i'm a businesswoman at heart and
this is a brilliant idea

FRANCO 🩷
thank youuuuuuu

💗💖💓💝💘💝💞

MILA 💗
are you free tmrw night

FRANCO 🩷
should be yeah

i just fucking realised ur
not interviewing me until
saturday im quitting.

MILA 💗
i know :( we were too powerful
in monza williams is out to get us

how ever will we make up for lost
time 😔😔

FRANCO 🩷
where r u staying

MILA 💗
...

...same hotel as you 😬

FRANCO 🩷
AND I DIDNT KNOW??????

MILA 💗
oops?

FRANCO 🩷
count ur days milan

count your days.

x

BEING FILLED WITH ANXIETY was not a typical thing for mila marziani. she coped well nowadays, and spontaneity didn't scare her like it used to. however, being called in for an F1 press conference at the last fucking minute after she had spent hours and hours preparing to speak to kevin, nico, george, alex and pierre was enough to hurt. her prized notebook was now full of things that needed to be scrapped, impossible to reuse now that they had no meaning, and yet she couldn't bring herself to tear out the pages and move on like it was nothing.

"who the fuck calls in sick an hour before a press con," she grumbled in the comforting lull of italian, spinning her purple pen between and around her fingers, her knee bouncing the notebook in her lap. "fuck, man."

"that guy, obviously," kimi responded calmly, taking his left hand off the steering wheel and holding it out for her. mila gratefully clasped her hand in his own, appreciating the reassuring squeeze he gave. he'd been the first one she called about it the second she found out, preferring to go straight to him first, and it was also a plus when he hadn't left for the track just yet. "you got this, lil. plus, ollie is in group one, no?"

"he is," mila nodded slowly. "uh, and . . ." she opened her phone to the email the F1 media team had sent her after the phone call to remember the rest of the details. "franco and zhou are in that group. group two is daniel, pierre and fernando. i only have notes for pierre." ollie and franco both being in the same group was comforting with a concerning undertone — ollie liked to stir the pot when it came to mila, and though he probably wouldn't do it publicly, it wouldn't stop him from talking to franco when she wasn't. she had to hope they were on opposite ends of the couch.

"improvise," kimi said, "you're good at that."

"mhm," she hummed. "i don't like that it is a space where other people can ask questions. not after all the stuff i have going on with franco at the moment . . . it is good for my platform and he said he avoids the questions individually, but we have a third party now for this, kimi. i was told they weren't having me on for any more press conferences until next year because they were trialing some new guy for the last few races and . . ." mila sighed. "i don't want to make things weird."

"look," kimi spared her a glance, his eyes off the road for merely a second. "i promise you that franco would've shut things down back in monza if there was a problem. you both have your limits clearly, and caring about the media isn't one of them. remember what you tell me?"

"you owe the media nothing," mila said softly, a phrase she'd repeated over and over to kimi whenever he was dreading talking to the press over the years. "you tell them nothing and they have no real story."

having a freshly-turned eighteen year old calm you down was definitely humbling. especially when mila considered kimi antonelli to be the younger brother that she had just adopted one day years back — potentially because at one point she had been the one calming him down and now he was the one repaying it back. certainly humbling.

"exactly," kimi squeezed her hand again, a light smile spread across his lips. "you're the media, mila. you control that conference, not the third-party journalists," he let go of her hand, placing it back on the wheel. "write what you need, you can bullshit your way through that whole thing without anyone knowing."

"god, i love you," mila smiled over at him before she flipped her notebook back open, finding the first blank page and opening safari on her phone. "okay . . ." she trailed off, tapping the pen against the book for a few seconds before putting pen to paper.

x

"YOU'RE GONNA KILL IT, mila," ollie promised, giving the girl a quick hug as she got ready to walk into the area for the press conference behind zhou. "we won't make it difficult for you, trust."

"you better not, oliver," mila pointedly glared up at him as if daring him to, but she hugged him back either way. "i will make it hell if you do."

"we will be on our best behaviour," franco joined the back of the line as ollie laughed and walked into the open room in front of the journalists. she could feel his hand against her side as he lightly kissed her right cheek. "only because there are so many journalists around."

"yeah," she nodded. at least they were on the same page without needing to communicate it. when they were one-on-one in the media pen it was fair game, but anything they said in this one could fully be twisted by everyone else. they couldn't do that in her one-on-one interviews because then they had to cite her word for word. "you missed my mouth, though."

"ah, i apologise," franco grinned charmingly, "i'll make it up to you after if you'd like."

"would be very much appreciated," she nodded affirmatively, making a mental note to find him later if he was still around in the paddock after she finished up with both groups in around an hour from now.

they split ways for a moment so that he could settle in the gap between zhou and ollie on the white couch — not what she was hoping for, especially when the two rookies had immediately started gossiping, but that was that, she supposed. cool. awesome.

she walked out not long after, picking up her microphone off the white armchair and sitting down with a few polite greetings to the sauber driver.

"welcome everyone to the drivers' press conference ahead of the FIA formula one azerbaijan grand prix," mila spoke slower, clearer, wanting to get her english across perfectly so that she didn't hear about it later. it stopped the conversation between ollie and franco — the later rolling his eyes at whatever ollie had just said to him as he shifted over to the middle — and they fixed up their mics to what was comfortable for them.

"we have two groups of three today," mila didn't have to gesture to them because it wasn't like she was in the frame of the camera anyway, she just spoke. "closest to me we have zhou guanyu, then we have our two rookies technically, franco colapinto with williams and ollie bearman with haas this time around. ollie, why don't we start with you — welcome back to F1, and a full race weekend for you this time. what are your expectations coming into this one?"

it was her least favourite thing to ask. what are you expectations this weekend? what do you want to get out of it? how do you feel about this weekend? it was bland, boring, and a line that literally every journalist out there use. that wasn't what she was about, but press conferences ran differently, and under formula one instead of herself, she had to follow their rules.

it was a completely different atmosphere that she didn't like her name being branded under, ollie's straight-to-the-point serious answer proved that. peak professionalism. "yeah, it's nice to be back first of all, um, of course not the circumstances i would've hoped but nonetheless it's a great opportunity to build up my experience . . ."

she mentioned a few things about how well he seemed to gel to baku — it seemed to be one of his best tracks despite the trickiness of it, and he was overall explaining how he was excited for more F1 experience, which was certainly great when he was on the grid next year. he was definitely one of the lucky ones to be getting this much track time in instead of being thrown in blindly next year.

asking franco to talk about monza again was not something she wanted to do, and technically she didn't have to. he'd explained it over and over and over again, and if these journalists wanted to hear about it again, they could go google it for themselves. there were a million other things she could ask and mention now that she'd moved down the line from ollie.

so, she settled for the most basic thing ever after mentioning how well he did during the race ( she would be blind if she said she didn't see her praise get to his head ), "what was the biggest thing you learnt in monza?"

"um . . . i learnt so, so, so much stuff," he began, a soft chuckle breaking apart his english. mila was currently envious that he could just speak quickly at a normal pace unlike her, but she really did enjoy listening to his accent in full force whenever he wasn't speaking spanish. "but to be honest we were going into the race with a lot of question marks, i haven't done more than eight laps in a row in a formula one car before that. it was very tough, there were many circumstances where i wasn't sure what to do, and i was learning during the race . . ."

in other words, while he droned on and she was very much mesmerised, it solidified what she had noticed prior: franco colapinto liked to talk. a natural-born yapper, as some may say. it was either a journalist's nightmare or dream come true, because for one you got so much out of him in so much unnecessary detail, but it was also so hard to interrupt him once he began. mila loved it because she too could talk for hours on end without getting bored, and maybe that was why they got along so well in a professional and personal level.

franco gave a very in depth analysis on his entire weekend in monza ( and she wasn't going to interrupt that ) before she moved onto zhou, where she started off by asking if he had any advice for the two rookies before focusing on his own performance ( or lack thereof . . . not that she would say that. he was too sweet for her to be like 'oh so sauber sucks this year, thoughts?' ).

"thank you, best of luck to all of you this weekend," mila turned so she was facing those out in the audience now. "opening up questions from the broadcasters now . . ." and she was glad that people were asking normal questions that weren't boring. then again, she'd covered all the boring ones already.

a lot of the questions were for franco, mostly from spanish and argentine journalists ( which he clearly was more relaxed by talking to ), and it was very unsurprising because mila had watched argentina explode in real time the second franco replaced logan.

and then exactly what she fucking expected occurred. the one thing she had gone twenty minutes without hearing in what she would call a perfect thursday press conference.

all mila had caught when she signalled for the man to speak was that his name was ethan and he was from some small company that she had never heard of. which was cool, small company representation was nothing she would ever hate on because everyone had to start somewhere, but it wasn't cool when a lot of those people like ethan thought that it meant they had to push a lot more boundaries than necessary to get their name out there. it did get their articles and clips trending, but for all the wrong reasons — you want to be known as a respective broadcast outlet, not a gossip page.

"question for you, franco," ethan followed up with, and mila watched franco's attention shift back towards those in front of him now that zhou had finished answering his question. "you've had such a successful start for your first time in F1," franco quickly thanked him, not wanting to cut him off, "it seems that way off-track, too." mila watched ethan's eyes flicker over to her, but she remained still, calm. "milan marziani—"

"she's lovely, isn't she?" franco close-up looked unamused, and she noticed a slight shift in his tone. ollie noticed it too, because the brit's eyes locked immediately on her to see how she was reacting. "i have felt very welcome around here with mila inviting me into her circle, thank you for noticing."

"that's not what i—"

"thank you for your time, ethan," mila cut in this time, her eyes boring straight into the man's head. "it is great to hear that you and your outlet are very interested in racing, no?"

small company and professionalism didn't seem to merge very well. "we all saw the photos and the things you post on social media," ethan was not giving up, turning to question her now as if that was just allowed. she kinda respected the grind. "i'm sure everyone's a little bit curious, given the nature of them."

"and it is almost like i'm not one of the three very interesting drivers you could ask about," mila giggled, "i run the conference, and that means you aren't invited back for group two." the angry look on his face was highly entertaining.

"anyway," her voice returned back to being level as security made sure that ethan couldn't open up his mouth again to interrupt. "thank you zhou, franco and ollie for your time today, and good luck this weekend."

it came to a close with reporters gathering their things and leaving, and the drivers discarding their microphones and doing the same. mila stayed in place, gathering her things as they walked past. ollie fluffed up her hair in a silent form of goodbye as he moved on to walk off to where he was needed next with the media rep from haas, but franco lingered.

"meet me in the carpark when you are done," he mumbled just loud enough for her to hear, his fingertips trailing down her arm. "can you squeeze me into your schedule?"

"always," she tilted her head back to look up at him fully, melting into his gentle eyes. "give me forty-five minutes," mila looked back at her things and his fingers disappeared, footsteps disappearing to wherever he was off to next.

. . .

notes,

kimi and mila are so precious to me

this is almost 4k words worth of me waffling i am so sorry LMAOOO