Faking it || Lando Norris LN

49

I was printing polaroid pictures of the last few weeks before my virtual meeting with Gianna when my eyes landed on a picture I didn't even recall saving to my gallery.

It was from the Monaco Grand Prix when I had tried teaching Lando how to ride a bike. His eyes were wide as the photographers captured the first few seconds of him over the bike, and my smile was wide as I stood a couple of steps behind him with his sunglasses perched over my nose. I printed it without giving it much thought and placed it inside one of the books I wanted to bring with me for the next few races.

I couldn't even think of another word to describe it other than cute, and so I knew that gifting it to Lando would either make him gag as a joke or bring a smile to his face. I didn't care. I really wanted him to have it.

"I just saw the Vogue Beauty Secrets videos you sent me! I loved them," Gianna beamed through my phone's speaker during the meeting. "God, I'm so excited. Pop a bottle of champagne open. We're just getting started."

"AAHHH!!" I beamed back into the microphone and did a short but immensely embarrassing little dance inside my room.

I was crazy excited about the Vogue Beauty Secrets videos coming out. I'd just filmed the second one, but I simply couldn't wait for them to air. I'd filmed two of them, as I'd told Gianna weeks ago. I wanted to be transparent with people watching, especially young girls. And so, I filmed a video in which my skin had breakouts and another one with my normal skin. Breakouts weren't uncommon for me, given that most of my weekends involved exposing my skin to completely opposite types of weather and sweating my ass off inside a helmet. Still, people often didn't even see them because of said helmet.

I wanted to film the kind of videos my younger self would've wanted to see. The kind where people are straightforward with the fact that skin doesn't look perfect all the time and that it's fine. Breakouts appear now and then, but it doesn't mean that our worth vanishes as they come.

I filmed the breakout one right as I landed in Guadalajara since my skin loved doing that every time I got home, and this had been the second one, a week after caring intensively for my skin and resting. I was so proud of the final product, and hearing Gianna say she'd loved them as well only made me a million times more excited.

After almost an hour discussing updates and catching up, it turned out that not only was everything officially looking perfect with my contracts, but I had also signed a new brand deal and had two more brands negotiating terms with Gianna to get the campaigns started as soon as possible.

"On another note... I want to test the public's perception of you before the summer break. I have a good chunk of data already and I've been polishing new strategies but people's opinions are ever-changing and I want to be sure we're keeping up with them," Gianna explained over FaceTime. "I know you're enjoying your family so I did my best to schedule the flight, the Colbert interview, and the Clinique photoshoot on the same day and scheduled them for Sunday. You won't need to hop on a plane until midday. It's the best I could do to make sure you enjoyed as much of your week off as possible." She arched her brows and smiled at me, as if wondering if it was okay.

"Oh," my brows were raised with surprise. "Thanks, Gi. That's very, very kind."

"Of course," she shrugged off. "You'll have the photoshoot first, so you only have to change clothes and head for the interview with your hair and makeup done. After that, you can either spend the night there and have an early morning to head for Belgium, or I can have a cab pick you up after the interview to drive you to the airport right away."

"Mmm, I think it's better to get to the airport right away. The flight is about 8 hours long, so I can sleep on the way there," I reasoned. "What time would I be landing?"