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art-outlaw · 7 months

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Private Number # Chapter Twenty One

Daniel Ricciardo x Aero Engineer!Reader

Summary: You didn’t like him. That much was clear to both of you. He was cocky and arrogant and totally oblivious to all of the work you and your team did for him. No one else saw him for the egomaniac he was - only you. You were forced to work for him but that didn’t mean you had to fall under the spell he had trapped everyone else under. And you made sure that he knew that.

Chapters: 21/?

Warnings/ Rating: Swearing.

Word Count: 2144

Posted: 18 Sep 2023

Waking up in Daniel’s arms was something you could very easily get used to. It hadn’t happened before, but the familiarity and pure rightness of it was hard to deny. Just like back at his apartment in Monaco that fateful afternoon – had it really only been a few days ago?– you drank in the sight of sun-kissed skin, the lean cuts of muscle and the delicate puffs of air escaping through his mouth every few seconds. But unlike the last time, there would be no running away from one another.

After the finally-spoken promise of sticking it out with each other last night, you doubted there would be much that could drag you from the side of this exceedingly irritating man. And he was still irritating to you, that much would always stay the same. Just like you imagined that you would stay impossibly stubborn and somewhat snooty to him – only now it was exasperatedly cute traits. The kind of softly admired traits people ‘aww’ed over when they weren’t tearing their hair out over them.

You dragged your gaze over the long curve of his nose and his still-closed eyelids, and your thoughts slowly wandered to what this day would bring for the both of you. In amongst the bliss of you both finally pulling your heads out of your asses, and finally admitting that the intense dislike you had for each other was something else entirely, both of you had pointedly ignored the large Christian Horner and Helmut Marko sized elephant in the room.

The two men and the marketing team’s plot to unveil your direct relation to one of the legends of the sport would mean that any privacy and anonymity you had worked to maintain on the grid and in your life would be shattered. Because it would never just be one interview that Red Bull would ask for, it would be repetitive and invasive, not to mention the rest of the media circus jumping on the bandwagon. Your work – the obviously more important contribution you made to the sport –would be completely side-lined for you to talk about a man that you loved but had barely known.

You had been so young when he died, that over the years memories had faded and been replaced. You were fairly sure that the only reason you could picture him so clearly in your mind was because of the millions of photos of him scattered across the internet. There were people still working on the paddock that knew him far better than you had ever got the chance to – and yet that wouldn’t stop journalists and teams from hounding you, the ever elusive child of legendary Jack Shelby. God, you could almost see the headlines now…

Add on top of that your new blossoming relationship with Daniel, and fucking hell, the entire sporting world would be in a tizzy. Not that you were even sure just how public Daniel and you had planned on making the relationship. Was it even a relationship yet? Like, it was obvious that the two of you felt something for each other – and that something was seriously intense if the rumple of your bedsheets and the tousled state of your bedroom, hallway and kitchen was to say.

“Those are some pretty deep frown lines for this early in the morning.” Daniel’s husky voice broke through your thoughts and dragged you back to reality. The same reality that showed you a tanned god of a man with his eyes still shut and a small smile playing on his lips, laying by your side.

“How would you even know? Your eyes are shut.” You quipped back, rolling up to your side and reaching the small distance to flick the tip of his nose gently. The tilt of his lips broke into a fully-fledged grin, but still he didn’t open his eyes.

“I don’t have to open them to know you’re frowning, your brain is exceptionally loud…even when you’re not saying anything.” Daniel mumbles, rubbing his face into the pillow harder. His eyes slowly flicker open, and his smile somehow grows even larger. “See, I knew you were frowning.”

You roll your eyes and flop back down beside him with a huffing laugh. “My apologies, I’ll try and control the volume of my thoughts in future,”

“What’s got your thoughts turned up to eleven this early in the morning? You’re not bailing on me already are you?” Insecurity and concern slipped into his last joking question, that you were quick to remedy with a peck to his lips.

“No bailing, just thinking about what plans Christian and Helmut are concocting… I worked so hard for so long to stay anonymous and now… It’s all about to just…implode. It’ll be like all the things I’ve done in the aero engineering space will just be completely invalidated just because of who I was born to, like my contributions are going up in a cloud of smoke.”

“Hey,” Daniel strokes a hand over the curve of your bare shoulder, gently running his hands down the soft skin of your arm, and back up. “You were never anonymous, your genius brain and loud mouth made sure that you were never hidden in the shadows. Hell, I’m pretty sure that no one else ever so obviously gave me shit as hard as you did – that gave you a pretty big rep around the paddock.”

“The rest of the world doesn’t know that though,” you mumbled, letting Daniel drag you back into the curve of his body. You rolled over and pressed your back into his chest, closing your eyes as Daniel’s lips replaced the hand that had stroked over your shoulder. “They're all going to call me a nepo-baby and it’s never going to be the same again.”

“Fuck ‘em all.” Daniel whispered. You let out a small laugh. Such an easy phrase for him to throw out, especially when Daniel was as self-assured as he was. When he’s in the top end of only twenty people in the world to compete in the sport he couldn’t afford not to be. “No, baby, I’m serious. You know who you are, you know what you’re worth. The car and the respect of your team speaks louder than any PR stunt of an interview ever could.”

You didn’t respond – you weren’t convinced, but Daniel’s unwavering faith had a flaming warmth building in your chest. You were pretty fucking sure it was more than just affection at this stage. Instead of speaking, you pressed harder against his chest, kissed the only bit of him you had access to –his bicep– and closed your eyes, prepared to sleep away your problems for just a little longer.

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“Okay, so here’s what I’m thinking–” Christian started, and already you were wishing he would just shut up. On top of that, you were also wishing that you had taken up Daniel’s offer of just calling in sick and lazing in bed with him all day. But you couldn’t hide from your problems forever, and you were done running from them. So there you were, sitting inside Christian’s office with him and some marketing PR lady and trying to find a way to navigate the minefield that was going to be this conversation.

The marketing/PR lady – Beth? Belle? – shit, you couldn’t remember her name now – politely cleared her throat. Christian cut himself off, and gestured for her to speak with a brief apology. “So we were thinking,” she started, “that we would release a couple short interviews with a few key members of our team, introduce them to the faces behind the success of this season. Just a person from each division, hit the key diversity points–“ god, there was so much wrong with that, you thought –”and then, BAM, we release a longer form interview where we break the internet; the aeroengineer genius who revolutionised our car, and not only that, she’s the long lost daughter of a legend of the sport. What do you think?”

Christian’s open grin told you all you needed to know about what he thought of the plan. But your stoney silence fell on deaf ears. Without even giving you the chance to speak your piece, Christian and Beth(?) had already started speaking again, brainstorming ideas of how to maximise exposure, the brand deals and other exploitative profit makers they could use you for.

You hadn’t even said that you’d agree, and they were talking about making a series out of it or getting the Netflix team involved, because ‘oh my gosh, Christian, imagine the exposure we’d get if they got her on Drive to Survive. It would go viral!’. And you were about ready to go and find a high cliff to jump off.

Damn it, you wish Daniel was here. He’d offered to come in with you, to make sure that you weren’t walked all over, but you had assured him that you were a big girl, independent and a boss bitch in her own right. You were sure that you could handle Christian and his marketing lackey by yourself. Now you weren’t too sure.

“Obviously, due to the overtime hours you’d be doing to facilitate this kind of promotional work, we’d be giving you a significant pay increase with all of these extra commitments,” Christian finally turned his attention back to you.

“I don’t want a pay increase. I don’t want to do any of this. I never wanted to be known as Jack Shelby’s daughter.” You said it with no inflection, working overtime to keep your voice emotionless. If you lost your cool, they’d never take you seriously. Ahh, the joys of being a professional woman.

“You’re obviously more than just Jack Shelby’s daughter,” Belle(?) said. “You’re a highly valued member of the team, but if we can just use this information to our advantage as a way of–”

“ –Use me to your advantage, you mean.” You cut her off. Words flowed from you, vitriol that you’d held in for the last twenty four hours spilling from you. You were not going to be used and abused for their own exploitative profit margins.

“I’ve given the last several years of my life to this team to make sure that the car you just said I revolutionised was the best on the grid, but when it comes to finally acknowledging me as someone in this team, it’s in conjunction with who I’m related to? I’m sorry, and I mean this with all the respect it deserves, but fuck that. I’m worth more than that. And so are the people who are just the ‘diversity key points’.”

Chrisian is the first to speak again, after the silence stretches on and on. “Of course you are, that’s why we would be offering you a significant bonus for–”

“ –No, I don’t think you are understanding me, Mr. Horner. So let me be perfectly clear: throwing money at me isn’t going to change my mind about this. I don’t want or need that money. I’m Jack Shelby’s daughter for god’s sake, I’ve inherited more than I can spend in my lifetime. What I want and need from this company is for them to respect my decision to differentiate myself from my father’s legacy, and to win a world championship with a car that I have spent thousands of hours working on. And I want to do that from behind the scenes.”

This time, the silence stretched on longer than previously. It was clear that neither Christian or Beth knew what to say, and if their gaping fish mouths were anything to go by, they hadn’t expected their million-dollar-marketing-scheme to be so vehemently against being used. You could almost see their brains scrambling to find an alternative plan, another way to convince you to agree – but their plan was going to go up in smoke.

The scrape of your chair against the floor seemed to echo inside the office as you stood.

“If that will be all, I’d like to get back to work that actually matters.”

You almost made it out of the office before another thought struck you. In for a penny in for a pound. “Also, out of respect for the business I’m telling you this, Christian, not because you’re entitled to knowing my personal business but because you’re invested in his; Daniel and I are together. And before you ask, yes it's serious and no I will not be expanding on it any further than that. He and I will be speaking to HR about it soon.”

The glass door swung shut behind you, effectively cutting off any response the man could’ve possibly had to that particular bombshell. Covering your mouth, you disguise your proud little grin as you make your way down to the driving sim to see your boyfriend.

Your serious, soon-to-be-HR-approved boyfriend.

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For those who waited with such patience, and showed much kindness - thank you. I could never let this story live unfinished and rent free in my head forever. Hopefully the wait has been worth it x

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art-outlaw · 2 years

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Private Number # Chapter Twenty

Daniel Ricciardo x Aero Engineer!Reader

Chapters: 20/?

Warnings/ Rating: Swearing.

Word Count: 3521

Posted: 9 Sep 2022

You thought that having a glass of wine would take off the edge of anxiety that had you shaking in your seat, but there you were three glasses later and the tremor in your hands still hadn’t abated. You wouldn’t push your luck with a fourth. It was well past dusk, and if the nod that Daniel had subtly given you in the meeting was any indication, he was coming to your place any minute.

He loved you. He’d told you that he had. In the middle of your office, after receiving some of the most devastating news in your entire career at Red Bull, he’d called himself an idiot and told you that he loved you and that he had for months. And you hadn’t been able to respond at all before Katie walked in, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else to tell you both that you had a meeting that both of you were supposed to be in.

And that engineering meeting had dragged on and on and on and on. At least you had thought that it did. In all honesty, it was probably no longer than the normal meetings you had, but every piece of shit that had piled onto you in the minutes before it started only seemed to exacerbate your impatience.

When the meeting had finally ended, Daniel had shot up from his seat like his ass was on fire, and had practically sprinted to get away from you. Not exactly the reaction you had been hoping for after giving him the note – you’d honestly expected him to stick around and get more details from you. But you’d only received the curt nod as affirmation to your invite to your place.

And now it was 6:54pm, you had thrown back three glasses of wine with a price tag that should’ve had you sipping politely instead of chugging, and you were waiting on One curly-haired Australian. You’d sat on the couch and scrolled through your emails, you’d prepped your calendar for the next month, begrudgingly responded to a text your Aunt had sent you asking about when you were going to see her – not any time soon – and mindlessly scrolled through the only social media you had.

He still hadn’t arrived.

You sighed again and heaved yourself off the couch. The ingredients for a simple pasta dish awaited you in the fridge – it was the only recipe you could do without burning down your house – and it seemed like you were no longer expecting to have company for the meal.

Maybe another glass of wine wouldn’t hurt. You weren’t drowning your sorrows, just muting them slightly for the evening. The head noise of all your problems could come in the form of a hangover, but tonight… Well, your drinking habits could be future-you’s problem.

As the first splash of your fourth wine fell into the glass, the lightest knock on the door sent your hand tipping too far. The clattering of your glass, the bottle of wine and its contents went spilling across the stone countertop. “Fuck, fuck - hang on a minute! – fuck!”

Like you were in a cartoon, your eyes flicked between the wine slowly dripping onto the floor, towards your front door, and back again. Over and over, you couldn’t decide what to get first. It could only be Daniel at the front door, and it would be rude to keep him waiting, but at the same time you didn’t want him to walk into shattered glass and red wine everywhere.

Fuck it, the man had seen you naked after all, seeing your kitchen in complete disarray would honestly be a step down in terms of intimacy levels. You hastened to the front door and threw it open, yelling over your shoulder to a dumbstruck-looking Daniel to come on in, before you sprinted back into the kitchen, bare feet padding across the floor.

“Sorry, I just broke a glass so be careful not to step on– oh my fucking–” And then you let out a high pitch cry. The glass you had so fortuitously warned him about not stepping on, was now lodged firmly into the sole of your foot. A litany of swears escape you, and the tears rise unbidden to your eyes as the sharp pain radiates up the arch of your foot.

You hop to one of the seats at the kitchen bench, and plop onto it. Taking a few deep breaths to steady yourself, you glance down to see blood pouring out of the open wound, the inky redness of it slowly mixing with the red of the wine. Bile rises in your throat. The gash wasn’t big and by no means serious, but the shard of glass still sticking out of it, combined with the three wines you’d already had and the nervousness of Daniel coming over – it would’ve been enough to send someone with a weaker stomach over the edge.

“You okay in there?” Daniel’s voice calls out from the hallway. The worry in his voice wrapping around his accent, and your stomach flips again. He was here, and you’d just stepped on glass and definitely put a dampener on the plans you’d had in mind. “I hear a lot of swearing, and I don’t want to be stabbed. You never specified why you wanted me to come over, and if it was just to murder me, I am gonna have to decline and go.”

“No, no! No murder plans just yet.” You call back to him, looking up at the ceiling and hissing out a breath as you try to grasp one of the larger shards imbedded into the soft skin. “I just broke a glass, and stepped in it like a dumbass –”

Daniel rounds the corner, and immediately gasps your name as he takes in the scene in front of him. In the few seconds since letting him in till now, your kitchen had transformed from a humble heart of the home into a crime scene. You grin at him, and give him a bloodied two fingered salute.

“Welcome to my place?” you say sheepishly.

He snorts and makes his way towards you, waving off your protests about stepping on glass and wine. “I’m wearing shoes, dumbass. Unlike you–” he gently grabs at your ankle to twist your foot towards him better. Your heart jumps to your throat at the casual move. “-- when someone warns me about broken glass, I don’t go running towards it barefoot.”

“I’ll deal with this, you go hang out in the lounge room or something. I’ll just be a minute.” You grasp at his shoulders with your un-bloodied hand to gently push him away. “I’d offer you a wine, but I just smashed what I think might be the last bottle in my house.”

You glance up from your foot, to see Daniel rolling his eyes at you. When he meets your gaze, the amber burn of them traps you in place. His voice drops an octave. “Let me help you.”

“It’s okay, I don’t need it.” It feels like deja vu all over again, the echo of your conversation earlier that day.

“I know you don’t need it, but you’re gonna accept it anyway. Where’s your first aid stuff?”

You quietly direct him around your kitchen, trying not to cringe as the tinkle of glass breaking underneath his boots breaks the silence. You pull your foot up into your lap, and survey the damage closely. “It won’t need stitches, but it definitely still has glass in it.” You say absentmindedly, as you poke around the wound.

“Stop touching it, and let me be the judge of that. I’m still debating whether I should be taking you to the hospital for this or not.” Daniel’s voice is closer again, and you recognise the warmth radiating off of him. You finally take notice of what he’s wearing. Basic black jeans, a white crew neck shirt and a well-fitting leather jacket, the perfect match to the boots on his feet. He looks… fucking hot.

Vaguely, as your brain gets lost in the thoughts around Daniel’s profile and how good he looks in that jacket, you recognise he’s still talking. You take in the shape of his mouth as he speaks, letting the words wash over you totally unheard, and appreciate that whoever was in charge of the universe must’ve taken their time when crafting the image of the man in front of you. And then he pulls out a shard of glass with a pair of tweezers, and you can’t help but smack him in retaliation.

“Ow, fuck! Warning would’ve been nice!” You gasp out.

Daniel rubs at his shoulder, with a grumble. “I did warn you! I literally counted down from three, how did you not hear me?”

And you were too busy staring at him to hear the warning. “Sorry,” you mumble back. “I’m ready now.”

And slowly, with a slew of tears, profanity and a whole lot of coaxing murmurs from Daniel, all of the glass – every tiny shard of it – was tweezed out. You marvel at Daniel’s gentleness, and the gracefulness of his hands as he gently manipulates your foot around as he cleans it. His fingers are lean and long, longer than you would’ve thought for him. And the veins across the backs of his hands twist up his wrist and onto his forearms.

You drink in the sight of them as he works. The pain of your foot dulled just by the sight of him in your kitchen, with glass still scattered everywhere and his brow furrowed in concentration.

He gently shushes the small whimpers you let out as he wraps a bandage around your foot – where he’d even found it in the mess of your meagre first aid kit was a mystery to you. But when he’d finally tied off the bandage, he didn’t make any indication he planned on moving any further away from you. You could still feel the warmth radiating off of him, and smell the intoxicating musk rolling off of him. The leather jacket only added to the crisp, petrichor scent of him.

“I think you’re all fixed up now,” He said quietly, the coolness of his breath blowing over your shoulder, sending shivers cascading down your spine. “Won’t even scar.”

“Have you got a doctorate since I last saw you?” You hated the way your voice was breathy as you spoke. A telltale sign that you were more than slightly affected by his closeness.

“No, but I have a body covered in scars from childhood scrapes and a mother who’s first aid advice was to rub spit on it. Trust me, honey, you’ll be fine.”

Honey. God, you were turning into a sap. A simple pet name and you were putty in his hands.

“There goes my plans of cooking us dinner,” You look around the kitchen helplessly, knowing the second you put pressure back down onto your foot you’d be crying again. “I’m sorry, Dan, I had this whole plan to cook us dinner and talk, and now I can’t even freakin’ stand and–”

And then he was kissing you. And murmuring against your mouth to shut up. You bit his bottom lip, and his laugh floated across your lips. You couldn’t help but join him, eyes closed and drinking in the taste of him. Your hands wound themselves into his hair and dragged him further down to you, until it felt like he surrounded you.

Everything around you was overcome by Daniel – everything you saw, you smelt and felt. All of it was him. Nothing else, in that moment, mattered more than how it felt to have your cheeks trapped by his hands, the caress of his bottom lip against yours, and loosening in your bones like you were coming home.

Eventually he pulled back, his hands effectively holding you back from chasing after him. He didn’t move far, only just far enough to speak to you. Your eyes were still closed, and you couldn’t bring yourself to open them. Not if it broke the small bubble that had already enclosed over this moment. But they fluttered open anyway, as the soft timbre of his whispered voice washed over you.

“Not only do I know your foot won’t scar, but I also come from an Italian family. If you think I don’t know how to cook the meanest pasta of your life, you’d be dead wrong.” And then he ducks down, and presses the chastest of kisses back to your lips. You can’t help the small giggle that escapes you.

“How did you know I was going to make us pasta? I don’t even have any of the ingredients out.” You try to make the accusation in your voice strong, but even your own indignation was no match to the sudden warmth spreading through your veins. Pure liquid happiness, injected straight into your bloodstream just from his presence.

His thumb brushed across your cheek, swiping gently under your eye. You leaned into his palm, letting him take the weight of your head. “No offense to you – you know I think you’re brilliant – but I kind of assumed that the only thing you might be able to cook is a pasta dish.”

Even with your cheeks squished in his hands, you glared up at his accusingly and pouted. “And what could possibly have led you to make that assumption?”

Daniel raised his eyebrows at you, but his answering grin was mischievous. He ducked another kiss to your lips, lightning fast. “You said you grew up in a boarding school and then spent years studying your degrees, and then you’ve spent the last few years eating at hotels and restaurants nine months out of the year during the race season. Doesn’t leave a lot of time to develop any sort of chef skills, hmm?”

You didn’t say anything back, but your silence was enough of an answer for him. That, and your glare. You could only watch him in open appreciation as he tipped his head back to laugh, and watch the bob of his Adam's apple in the thick line of his throat. A primal urge to bite the thick muscle on the side of his neck overwhelmed you briefly.

“Okay, so you might be right about that, but I don’t like being typecast.” You finally relent, the ‘fire’ of your fake outrage burning out too quickly to maintain. Daniel only threw his head back with a barking laugh that echoed off of the stark walls of your place. Only a few framed photos, and a couple of artworks adorned your walls – you hadn’t spent long enough in the humble abode for a continued amount of time for you to worry about making it particularly homely. But now, with Daniel standing in it like a personified sunshine, the cold emptiness of it rang loudly in your heart.

“Well, little Miss ‘I won’t be stereotyped’, you sit there and look pretty and I’ll cook us dinner. Sound okay to you?”

And just like that, your own personified sunshine started moving about the kitchen – at your direction – to cook you dinner. And your heart fucking melted. It had been so goddamn long since someone had taken care of you, properly taken care of you that you couldn’t help but feel the fissures of age-old fractures in your heart healing as he chatted away to you by the stove.

Half an hour later, Daniel was placing a steaming bowl of the most decadent smelling pasta dish of your life in front of you. You could only sit and stare at it in gobsmacked silence. You weren’t sure where he had pulled this dish from, but you weren’t entirely sure that you had even had the ingredients to make what was now sitting on the bench in front of you.

“Bon appetit,” he said, the smug grin he’d been sporting for the last few minutes fading into a shyer one. Daniel’s hands twisted in front of him as you picked up your fork to twirl a piece of spaghetti around the tines. You shovelled the piece in with less grace than you honestly should have, but the second the flavours burst across your tongue, there was no holding back the moan that escaped you.

“Oh my, God, where on Earth did you learn to cook like this?” The words come out garbled from your mouth, having already pushed another forkful of the pasta in. You roll your eyes into the back of your head and you can’t help but moan your delight again. When you’ve finally swallowed the food, you finish with, “And can you please teach me?”

Daniel’s head was thrown back, and you again appreciate the thick line of his throat and the bark of his laughter. Momentarily, you forget about the pasta sitting in front of you, the view across the island bench suddenly much more enrapturing than the food. Only he could have you wrapped so tightly around his finger. You weren’t sure any other person alive could hold a candle to the wild flame of his presence in your life.

And then Daniel told you exactly where he learned to cook like that – his parents were Italian, what did she expect? – and so much more. For the longest time, until time meant nothing anymore, you and Daniel sat across from one another and finally, after all of these months, spent the uninterrupted moment getting to know one another. You already knew everything you needed to know, just like you figured he knew everything he needed to know about you, but filling in the blanks and answering any unspoken questions that had built between you over time.

It was…extraordinary.

And when the plates had been cleared away and the kitchen tidied – again, Daniel insisting you remain where you were with your bandaged foot – and another bottle of wine had been and gone, the conversation came to where it was supposed to be. The reason he had come to your house in the first place.

In the dimmed lighting of your kitchen, when the laughter had faded out and the atmosphere had become more weighted, and the sharp tang of wine tannins lingering across your tongue, you finally asked him what had been sitting at the forefront of your mind for the last eight hours.

“Did you mean it? What you said in my office today? That you–” You cut yourself off. You couldn’t repeat his words exactly. Not on the off chance that he took them back right now. You weren’t sure whether you could handle that.

But he didn’t leave the question lingering in the air. His response was immediate and full of conviction, and it sent a rush of butterflies through your chest, fluttering and palpitation inducing. “I love you. And I should’ve told you when I first realised it, and not waited until the worst possible moment. But I’ve made a point in my life to take opportunities where they come, and I won’t let this one slip by. I love you, and I want – I need – you to tell me that you feel the same because I don’t think I could stand another minute pretending like I hate you when I know that it's a lie.”

You swallow loudly. The words hang like a dead weight in the air, and you feel like if you reached a hand up right now, you could physically pull them into existence. But you can’t find the words to speak, and your tongue feels leaden in your mouth.

Instead, you stand slowly and cringe slightly at the sharp squealing drag of the kitchen stool dragging over the floor. And then, hobbling slightly, you round the corner of the bench to the side where Daniel sits, his eyes transfixed on you, and stand before him. Even sitting, he only needed to tilt his head slightly upwards to keep his gaze on yours.

And then your hands fist their way into his hair and grip tightly, before your lips fall harshly against his. It’s not a pretty kiss, and not the first of the evening, but you were damn sure going to make it the first one of the rest of your lives. Because you loved this man with every fibre of your being as much as you hated him.

Pulling back, you watch his eyes flicker until the amber brown is all that you can see. You’re drowning in pools of whiskey, and the words leave you without any thought. “You’re so goddamn lucky I love you, because if I didn’t you can be damn sure that I would hate you with every bit of me that I have to give. There’s a fine line between love and hate, Daniel Ricciardo, and you toyed with that line for too long and now you’re stuck with me.”

A shaky exhale of a laugh escapes him. “Is that a promise?”

“I wrote it down for you, and you’re still questioning me? You are an idiot, Daniel, but you’re now my idiot.”

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Hi guys, I know it has been a couple of months since the last update but I promise it has been for a good reason. Life got hectic for a minute there: I finished my degree and finally graduated, I resigned from my job of five years, had a couple health issues and finally, I might’ve fallen in love (I’ll keep you posted on that one).

But, as promised, here is another update of PN. This story likely only has a few chapters left to it, so emotionally prepare yourselves to say goodbye (eventually!).

As always, thank you for reading, and any love, comments, criticisms and general sort of interaction is greatly appreciated. XX

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