Pretending.

Faking it.

Acting as if everything was fine when it was far from it.

Whatever you preferred to call it had been something that Valentina Rossi had become a master at over the last two years...

That's how long it had been since her childhood best friend, her first love, who she would have confidently said was the love of her life, had ended their four-year relationship and shattered Val's entire world, in favor of furthering his career in racing... the very career that she had supported from the very start, she was always the loudest to cheer him on and was at every single race that she could be at. She never understood what had brought that on, it seemed to her almost like someone else was putting words into her then boyfriend's mouth, which wouldn't be a far stretch, but we will touch more on that later.

Since then she had pretended to despise anything Formula 1 and Motorsports related, which she would learn was very difficult when her best friend Malina whom she had met when she moved from Monaco to Los Angeles her birthplace after the break-up, though she grew up in Monaco where she had lived with her father, was one of the biggest F1 fans known to man.

Yet the younger brunette was unaware of her best friend's past with a certain Ferrari driver, since they were pretty private about their relationship both being in the spotlight because of their jobs, it was something for just them and their friends to know the extent of when they were together.

Val had stumbled upon an old photo album on her phone titled 'Amore mio <3' (my love) it was just photos of her and him or just random photos she had taken of him... she closed her eyes and blew out a breath, she may put on a brave face and act as if she's moved on from him but the truth was that even two years after he shattered her heart that she was still in love with him. She could never bring herself to delete the photos for that very reason.

Like I said she had become a master at pretending.

"Val?" came the voice of Malina, through their shared Vegas apartment, they moved in here together about a year ago, and though they both traveled a lot this was home for them, (though Val's 'true' home would always be a tiny country off the coast of France. That was a place that she thought she could never truly return to because it would serve as a reminder of the worst day of her life.)

She shook her head, "Yeah Lina, in the living room what is it?"

The hopeful look on her best friend's face made her realize that she probably wouldn't like what she was about to say... "What did you do Lina?"

"Well, I may have been invited by McLaren to the Las Vegas Grand Prix next weekend, and they included two Paddock passes and I said that you would be coming with me..."

Val froze, registering the words before she shook her head, "Lina I can't do that." She knew that if she was inside the Paddock again that she could run into him which was the last thing she wanted to do. She also knew that a few other drivers would recognize her because they were friends when she was with him.

"Val come on... it's one weekend and my favorite team invited me and a friend to watch the race as special guests from the garage. I want to experience this for the first time with my best friend... I know you hate everything related to the sport but please just this once put it aside and experience this with me... yeah I've been to races before but never got to watch from a team garage like this and I've never asked you to go to a race with me before, so please?"

Val blew out a breath not having it in her to burst her bubble that she'd seen several races from the garage view because that would mean telling her about him and everything else and that was not something that Val wanted to do anytime soon,  "fine." she reluctantly agreed. 

Malina hugged her and squealed "Thank you! Thank you!" Val was basically holding her breath now as her best friend skipped over to the kitchen. The Italian-Mexican-American singer walked off to her bedroom. Lina looked confused never having been told why the older brunette 'despised' her favorite sport.

Val wanted to scream why the fuck did she just agree to that? Tears clouded her vision as she reached for her phone calling the one person who would know what to tell her... Lewis Hamilton, she had met him through her ex but they bonded, like a brother-sister type of bond and he was the only one from the F1 world that she stayed in contact with though that was something that he never mentioned to anyone.

"V? What's going on?" there was a twinge of worry in his voice knowing that she only calls when she's on the verge of a freakout. Normally she'll just text him.

She blew out a breath, "I'm fucked Lew, like properly fucked, why did I just agree to this shit?"

He took in the shakiness in her voice, "All right V, how about you start from the beginning and tell me what happened."

Malina cautiously approached her best friend's door, she was worried because that was a reaction that she wasn't expecting even knowing that Val 'hates' F1, but she stopped outside the door hearing Val's voice.

"Right sorry... but Malina was invited by McLaren, with a plus one to watch the Vegas Grand Prix, from the McLaren garage as a special guest and I just agreed to come with her as her plus one," She had put the call on speaker as she hit her head on the side of her bed as she was sitting on the floor now.

"Shit V, you know what that means right?"

"Obviously... or else I wouldn't have started this conversation with 'I'm fucked' Mierda." (fuck)

That was when Malina walked back toward the living room giving her best friend space to talk to whoever she was talking to that sounded oddly familiar when Lina thought about it.

"I see the dilemma here V, but hey at least it was McLaren and not Ferrari... that would have been awkward as fuck."

Val snorted, "I'd have straight up said fuck no, to that shit, at least I can hide in the McLaren garage if all else fails."

"True," the smirk could be heard in his voice, "or you could always ditch McLaren and hide in the Mercedes garage."

Val laughed at that, "That does sound tempting not going to lie here Lew."

"Feeling better now?"

"A little but I'm still nervous as fuck... I knew that you would know what to say which is why I called you to start with."

"That's understandable V... but it'll be okay, and if it gets too much just come and find one of us, no matter the circumstance someone will help you out." she smiled knowing that he was telling the truth.

"Yeah of course... I should be fine as long as I don't see him, which will be a task in itself... like it's been two years and still this fucking hung up on a man, that shattered my heart, but maybe that's because, I've always felt like something was off about the whole thing"

"What do you mean?" this was the first time she had mentioned this to anyone.

Val sighed and bit her lip, "I don't know how exactly to explain it Lew... I mean sure it came out of his mouth but it just didn't sound like him... the way he said everything it just didn't sound like him."

Lewis furrowed his brow in thought he had never pressed to know exactly what had been said that day but that made him curious... "you don't have to answer this V but what exactly did he say? you've never said and I didn't want to press and upset you."

Val chewed on her bottom lip for a moment before she decided to tell him, Lewis would be the first person that she had told exactly what happened to... "well I could tell that something was off when he came up to me that day..." and so she explained what her ex had said that shattered her world.

Lewis was silent for a moment thinking, about  what she had just told him "no because you're right V that really doesn't sound like him... like he completely adored you, like everyone always teased him and gave him shit about the look he always has whenever he talked about you or someone else mentioned you, so for him to say that just doesn't make sense."

"I've always just felt like something was off but I ended up brushing it off as me being delusional that he had a valid reason for doing what he did and that maybe he still cared."

That really got Lewis thinking about things and he made a mental note to speak to Toto about something that jumped to the forefront of his mind at his train of thought. But for now he changed the subject realizing that Val didn't want to talk about it anymore.

Val then spent the next hour talking to Lewis, who as always helped calm her down about the race weekend and everything. After they hung up she ventured out of her room and saw Lina on the couch with a random show playing on TV, as she made her way toward the kitchen to get something to eat.

Note:
I am really looking forward to this book :D

I hope that you guys enjoyed the chapter (: I honestly really debated who the love interest for this would be tbh but ended up going with Charles. 

I am absolutely in love with the plot I have in mind for this book :D but please note that this is a work of fiction and things/personalities may be altered slightly to match the way I want things to go, I do not own anything mentioned except for my OCs, I am also still fairly new to the F1 fandom as well, so I'm still learning about things.

Any language translations will be done with Google Translate... I think that covers everything :)