For Real | Lando Norris

𝑺𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒆𝒏.

Ophelia

"Hey stranger." I say with a smile when I pick up the phone. It's Wednesday evening and I just got home from a dayshift in the café.

"I can hang up if you don't want to talk to me." He laughs on the other end of the line. Lando and I hadn't called since the first time we spoke. I need to admit that I missed his voice and hearing him makes my smile even wider.

"No, no I'm happy to hear your voice again. How was Jeddah?"

"Hang on!" He says and he hangs up. I look at my phone confused for a second, but then I get an incoming facetime call. My heart starts pounding heavier. I'm going to see him for the first time, and he me. I take my hair out of the messy bun I had put in after work and quickly change my hoodie for a shirt that's lying on the ground. I put a hand through my hair and sit up, leaning against the headboard of my bed, after which I answer his incoming call.

In a second my own face slides to the corner of the screen and I see the brown haired boy appear in front of me. When his eyes meet mine I smile and he mirrors my expression. "Hi there," he winks and I giggle. He actually makes me giggle. What is wrong with me? I feel my blood flow to my cheeks, but he doesn't seem to notice.

It's silent for a moment before he speaks again. "About Jeddah, it was okay. Like I said I'm happy with P7, but we need to improve before we can really battle for good points. I had a meeting yesterday about updates we are bringing to Italy, that's in four weeks, so I hope we can get some points with that. Although the next one is Australia and that's Danny's home race, so I think the updates are coming a little too late for him, but.. Oh I'm sorry I ramble about work." He laughs when he sees my confused expression.

I laugh and assure him, "It's okay, it shows you love what you do. But I just don't understand everything you tell me." He smiles and I feel my heart flutter. His smile is just as in his pictures, warm and full. It's contagious and I feel myself settling further into my bed. "Tell me everything."

While he talks about the upcoming events, meetings and training sessions I just listen to his happy voice and watch his face. I keep smiling all the way through his stories and feel myself getting more interested in his life, world and him as a person. He speaks with such passion that I admire his perseverance. Even when he speaks about his most boring meetings he sounds so passionate, although his hand slides and leans on his fist.

"But I am boring you so tell me about your day." He ends his explanation about the DRS function.

"You're not boring me. I love listening to you." I say and he is silent again. I feel my cheeks head up of embarrassment. He looks down with a little smile. "Lando?" I ask when he still doesn't say anything.

He looks up at me with a frown and seems to search for the right words. "I just like hearing you say the word 'love'. You say it with such meaning. I think people use it too much nowadays and, not to brag, but I hear it so much from fans and media that it lost its meaning a little. But when you say it, it sounds real."

My cheeks get even hotter and I feel the larvae in my stomach grow and become little caterpillars. I clear my throat and giggle "I didn't take you for a poet."

He snorts and then winks at me saying, "I'm full of surprises sunshine." I laugh and try not to think about the double meaning in those words. "But you were going to tell me about your day." He sounds genuinely interested and I smile.

"Well it was a slow day so I used my spare time to try and find an internship place for my study. We had this information day last Friday and we are encouraged to take an internship in our work field for six weeks. It's part of our graduation assignment." I sigh when thinking about it.

"I still haven't found anything. I need to start in a couple of weeks and I don't want to end up writing columns for the university paper, but it looks like I'll end up there anyway."

I see Lando fall back onto a bed and see him thinking, but he says nothing. "What are you thinking?" I ask. "How did you do that?" He claims with a grin. "Do what?!" I say sarcastic and laugh at him. "Read my mind," he replies. "You shifted positions and took a breath like you were going to say something and then you didn't."

"You are a wizard." He whispers with a feigned fear. "No, It's human knowledge and reading social cues." I counter. "Now tell me, I'm curious." He laughs and puts a hand through his hair. He hesitates for a moment and seems nervous to say what he wants to. "What is it?" I am even more curious now. Does he know a place? Then a realization comes to me and I get nervous when he starts talking.

"Well, you could apply at the MTC in our PR or social media department. It's just an Idea, think about it." The sentence comes out so quickly that I barely understand what he is saying. Then I get what he means. "Work at McLaren?" I ask slowly. He hums in response and I let that thought settle in my mind. It is a great company to learn about media and publishing. I don't know exactly what they do, but I can imagine.

"But I don't know the first thing about Formula 1 and do they even give out short internships?" I feel nervous about such a big company, but also that it's tied to Lando. If this thing what we are building doesn't work out I could be jeopardizing my studies.

He shrugs, "I can ask for you." I play with the necklace, a sign that I'm nervous about something. "I won't pressure, just let me know if you want me to," He tells me with a reassuring smile. He knew what I was thinking and that makes me feel things I wouldn't feel if I didn't like the guy. I nod, "Thank you, I will let you know. Do you maybe know what sort of job I will be doing?"

"It's all sorts of work and not only for Formula one, but that would be nice. Maybe you can come to the races and act as a second hand to Lucinda, she is my PR manager. She leads the interviews pre and post race and she works out details when I have a one on one with a network." He explains. I think about that. "I don't know. That's far from London and shouldn't I know more about F1 to be able to do that?"

"You'll learn, and it's more logistic work so you don't need to know anything about formula one. I will talk about that." His smile gets wider and he bounces on his bed. "You should come to the race. Just see what it's like!"

I feel my stomach turn around. "Then I need to fly across the globe to a place I don't with, I'm sorry but it's true, a guy I don't know watching a sport I don't know? That sounds like a good idea to you?" I arch my brow and look at him. I see his expression change to a pouting face and laugh about it. "I'm sorry but I can't just drop my life to fly to Australia next week."

He looks a little disappointed, but nods. "I get that, maybe I can arrange a tour around the MTC." I smile, "Yeah, maybe. I appreciate you thinking with me. Thank you."

"Of Course," he pauses for a second and then says the words that make the caterpillars wrinkle and come alive even more than they already are. "Sunshine."

--
I'm watching Eurovision tonight, but a quick update still can. Who do you think will win?

I hope you are enjoying the story so far? There is much more to come :)

Lots of love