Burning Heart // CL16

Sixty

Charles's POV

"I cannot believe you have a baby," Lando says as he and Max are loading into the next game on my PS5 while I sit next to them, far more distracted by Ruby than them. She has seemingly mastered walking all by herself and won't really stop - much to my great concern. Every time I turned away for a second I found her several metres away from where I last saw her. I had no idea how Alessia had done this for days all by herself because right now I couldn't help but feel that something was going to go wrong and Alessia would never forgive me for letting something happen to her.

Her walking... well it truly felt like she was just moments away from disaster.

"Me too... I definitely thought Max would be first," I mutter as I watch Dylan follow her around, tail wagging as though similarly sensing my need to make sure that she was okay. Both Max and Lando laugh at that as I stay distracted by Ruby who is in a very cute little NFL style jersey dress with a number 16 on it that Max brought with him. "Ruby... no," I tell her as I see her walking towards the PS5 with a lot of purpose and she has the audacity to turn around and look at me with surprise. I think it was 'no'. It wasn't a word I think she has ever heard coming from me yet but without Alessia around I felt the need to make sure she was still behaving even with her mum's absence.

However she was her mother's daughter and similar to Alessia though... telling Ruby no seemed to only make her want it more. My eyes narrow as Ruby sends me a cute little smile and takes another step towards the console that she knows she isn't meant to touch. Especially as Lando is actually beating Max for once. "Ruby..." I tell her warningly, leaning forward from where I was previously sat relaxed on the sofa next to the two of them. She just takes another step, now letting out a little giggle as though that will mean that I haven't noticed what she's trying to do. I say no once more and this results in her temporarily stopping in her tracks and looking back at me.

"Car," she tells me in response and I let out a chuckle as I shake my head at her. "Car!" She says more demandingly this time as she stomps her little foot and again, I laugh as I stand up to grab her, her anger slightly more amusing to me than it should be. She's now only an arms length away from the console and ready to act at a moment's notice to get what she wants. But now that I know what it is that she wants to watch F1 on the TV and she's bored of FIFA it's easy for me to fix.

"Nope néne, we can watch on the iPad?" I ask her as I take a couple of steps towards her - trying to be careful to stay away from the TV so that the other two drivers don't get annoyed. Before she can reach out to switch it off, which her eyes are very clearly telling me she has every intention of doing, I reach my arms out and whisk her away. I ignore the amused laughs of Max and Lando as they've already paused the game to watch me stop her sabotage. Little do they know that in doing so, I've upset her tremendously, her eyes instantly filling with tears as her lower lip wobbles and my heart panics the same way it always did when I received the same look from Alessia all those years ago.

"Mama," she says shakily and I stop breathing as I shake my head, suddenly realising where this is going. The panic increases as I try to throw her lightly in the air in an attempt to distract her. I fail and am just met with an even more tearful question, "Where mama?"

"Mama is in London néne... she'll be back tomorrow," I tell her softly as the tears start to fall and her cry rings out loud as I'm left gently using one thumb to wipe away the tears that are streaming down her cheeks. I try rocking her before quickly realising that it's not at all having the hoped affect and her cries only get louder as her blubbering continues. "No, no, no baby girl... mama is coming home so soon, I promise," I try to soothe her, looking at Max and Lando in panic as I feel Ruby taking a deep breath in and I know that the crying and screaming is really about to start if I don't act fast. I find myself looking around for help like I normally would but there's no Alessia to help, instead I'm looking at two bewildered boys for help as they just look at each other and shrug, wincing as they're prepared to hear her crying go up an octave.