SEVENTY FOUR

"Happy tenth friendversary."

Larissa Cohen burst in to laughter as she looked down at her double espresso, wrinkles forming around her eyes which were covered with a pair of dark sunglasses, which had previously belonged to her father.

"I'm surprised that you remembered." Larissa spoke as she shook her head from side to side, a slight tone of disbelief evident in her voice.

The Brazilian leant her head back as a pair of hands began to massage her toned and muscled shoulders, before a pair of lips pressed down on to the top of her head.

"How could I forget that small child running up to me to congratulate me for winning the championship?"

Jenson Button grinned as he stood behind his young friend, squeezing her shoulders with his large hands before he wrapped his arms around her small frame, pulling her up from her seat and to her feet.

"And ten years later, that very same kid won her own championship." Larissa grinned as she leapt in to his arms, allowing the man to throw her over his shoulder.

The Button man spun himself around as he held the young woman over his shoulder, laughing hysterically as he could hear her happy squeals, screams and cheers.

Her happiness always warmed his heart.

Ever since she had barrelled in to his life, she had filled it with happiness, laughter and love.

His children loved their godmother so much, since she was always great with them, showing them around her garage and buying them whatever gifts they wanted.

"Just letting you know, Mansell, Prost, Piquet, Häkkinen, Hill and Stewart have all asked for invites to your party, what would you like to do?"

"Invite all of them except Piquet." Larissa spoke as she hung casually from the British man's shoulder. "One, he hates me and two, he hates Lew and nobody hates my brother."

"You don't want any Brazilians there?"

"No, I don't want any racists there. Barrichello is coming, so is Felipe and Drugo and the last time that I checked my messages, Enzo and his grandfather were coming. I think I can cope without the Piquet's. I'm not exactly going to cry because he's not there."

Larissa rolled the dark of her eyes, though she released a short scream as Jenson suddenly let go of her legs, allowing her body to fall even more over his shoulder until her face was barely above the ground.

"Be nice!" Jenson scolded, though he was still try to stop himself from laughing.

"I was being nice! I could have said filho de trinta putas!"

"Now what the hell does that mean?" Jenson laughed, since he could tell by her mischievous grin that it was not nice.

"Ask Mick."

"No I'm asking you."

"Ask Nando."

"Again, I'm asking you."

"Ask Kimi."

"Nope."

"Ask Sebby."

"Not happening."

"Ask Michael."

Jenson just shook his head as he heard her cackling, figuring that he would not find out from her, giving up on the matter as she started to evil laugh, the sound being familiar.

"You're still as much as a troublemaker as you were when I first met you, aren't you, little firecracker?" The Button man lowered the girl to the ground so that he could tickle her.

The Cohen girl wriggled helplessly as she tried to avoid the tickles that were being forced upon her.

"You've put up with me for ten years, Jensie, here's to another fifty!"

____________________________________________________

"Abu Dhabi."

Arthur Leclerc smiled as he held his arm around the shoulder of the girlfriend of his brother, smiling as he was wearing a t-shirt with the face of his brother on it.

"Abu Dhabi."

Larissa Cohen laughed as she stood on the tips of her toes to ruffle the young Monégasque's hair, barely reaching due to the boy having grown since she had last seen him.

"Abu Dhabi."

Pierre Gasly chuckled as he walked on the other side of the Cohen girl, his cap backwards and sunglasses on, sweating heavily from the heat.

"Abu Dhabi."

Charles Leclerc spoke breathlessly as he had ran only seconds before to catch up with them, having stopped to tie his shoe laces only for them to deliberately run away from him.

"New Zealand."

Liam Lawson smiled as he walked alongside them, having finally been able to go to a race where his idol, Larissa, was driving. He was just happy to be there.

"So, Charles are you planning on losing badly to Lar?" Arthur grinned, scrunching his nose up to mock and annoy his older brother.

Since he vastly preferred Larissa to his own brother.

"Well, I never plan to, she is just too good." Charles beamed with pride, his eyes sparkling as he stared at the love of his life.

"That and you've got shit strategists." Larissa teased lightly, wrinkles forming around her eyes from how bright her smile was.

"I second that." Pierre nodded his head as he agreed with his best friend, lightly fist bumping her.

"I third it!" Arthur added.

"I fourth it!" Liam pitched in, gaining all of their attention. "Sorry, I just wanted to get involved."

"I can't believe I'm saying it, but you're not wrong." The elder Leclerc smiled as he stared at the ground, his head shaking from side to side.

"Give it ten years and maybe your strategies will be competent enough to compete with my skill and my talent." The Cohen girl playfully flicked her dark hair away from her face, making the four boys laugh.

"Better make it thirty." Pierre muttered underneath his breath, earning a small giggle from his former team mate.

"Larissa is unbeatable." Liam spoke in confidence.

"Charles beat her twice this season! Actually he beat her more than that! She crashed out four times!" Arthur argued, hearing a loud gasp leave the lips of the Brazilian.

"Yeah but that was because I was heavily depressed!"

"Yes, you can not use them against her record." Charles defended his love, knowing exactly why it had been that way.

"Yeah but have you seen her recovery drives? If something goes wrong, it's like she's a fighter jet in a playground!" The Lawson boy started a debate, excitement flooding his body.

After all, he was getting to watch Larissa race, in her garage.

"Liam?" The boy immediately shot his head up to face the Cohen girl as he heard his name leave her lips, a grin filled with childlike excitement on his youthful face. "How would you like to join the Larissa Cohen Fan club?"

"Wait? I can finally become a member?! Ohmygod, I've always wanted to be part of your official fan club!"

Liam Lawson bounced up and down as he clebrated, fist pumping the air repeatedly, forgetting that four sets of eyes were watching him closely.

"Is it just me or is he acting as if he's your child?" Pierre smirked as he watched the New Zealand boys antics, chuckling quietly.

Larissa giggled as she shot her hand to cover her mouth, trying to muffle the sounds, though the warm fuzzy feeling that was inside of her chest right now, would not go away.

"I'll take him."

____________________________________________________

"Safety car deployed, safety car deployed."

"Yeah I know, I saw Kimi go off, make sure he's okay for me."

Larissa Cohen spoke as she passed another driver, having suffered from a long pit stop which had made her drop down to twelfth position on the very last race of the season.

Just as she had moved up to tenth position, she had witnessed in her mirror that her uncle Kimi had his car clipped which made his car spin and come to a stop, making a safety car be deployed.

She knew that her uncle would most likely be okay, but she just wanted to make sure, since he was one of her favorite ever people, who she loved very very much.

He was essentially her second dad.

After a further twenty minutes of driving and waiting, she finally received the update that she had been waiting for.

"Kimi is okay, he's being checked over at the medical centre."

"Tell him that I called him a pussy."

"Are you trying to get me punched in the face?"

"It'll make you look better."

"You know, I'm not gonna miss talking to you every two weeks."

Larissa cackled to herself as she heard her radio engineer laughing in her ears, overtaking yet another driver to move up to fourth place which also made her radio engineer release a small and happy cheer.

She honestly couldn't believe that it was already the end of her first season at Merecedes, her second season in Formula one in general, it seemed as though it had passed by within the blink of an eye.

It was the first of many, she knew that, but she also knew it was by far the toughest. She had gotten used to loss throughout her life, but her lifeline had now gone too so it always made her heart ache, a large part of it having been where her asticot, had been.

No more annual sleepovers, no more hot chocolate Thursdays, no more Spice Girls Sundays.

None of that.

But, she knew that both Pierre and herself would battle with everything left within their bodies to make him proud, since it was that they had promised him that they would do.

They could not let him down.

"P1 Cohen! What a way to end a season, world Champion!"

____________________________________________________

"Everybody is here for you, Lar!"

Esteban Ocon shouted as the bright lights flashed around them from within the large room that they were hosting the party in.

Larissa Cohen's party for winning her first World Championship.

"Well yeah, I would hope so."

Larissa teased her best friend with a bright grin on her face, having decided to host her party from her home in São Paulo, Brazil.

After all, she had plenty of room for the people who would get too drunk whilst partying, for example Lando.

It was incredibly strange for her, since she had her closest friends and family, yet she also had some of the icons from the world of Formula One, of which a handful of those she had last seen when her father was still alive.

From what she could tell, there was at least a hundred and fifty people inside of her house, possibly up to two hundred.

How many people knew her name? How many people knew who she was?

"Miss Cohen!"

An excited voice shouted as it grew closer to her, signalling that the person behind the voice was quickly approaching her, until they were right beside her.

"Hi Miss Cohen!"

Pato O'Ward smiled happily as he bounced on the tips of his toes, overwhelmed that he was in her presence, as well as in her home, because of two drivers within the IndyCar series had been able to persuade the Cohen girl to give him an invite.

"Hey there, P." Larissa smiled as she noticed the boys excitement, happy to meet the boy who offered her a lot of support.

He would also comment on all of her social media posts, which she found adorable.

"I just wanted to meet you and congratulate you on winning your first Championship! I'm a huge fan of you, and it's an honor to be invited at your party!" Pato grinned, since she was one of his idols.

He nearly fainted when she hugged him.

"I've gotta go and meet others but you're more than welcome to introduce yourself to other drivers here. You can always ask Alex to introduce you, if you're nervous." Larissa ruffled the young drivers hair as she stepped away from him, watching him run to find the Rossi man amongst the sea of people.

She ended up chatting to a whole bunch of people, Hanna Vettel, Nigel Mansell, Sir Jackie Stewart, Nyck De Vries, Jacques Villeneuve, Antonio Giovinazzi, Nicholas Latifi and Nico Rosberg.

"Little shit, congratulations, I'm so proud of you."

Nico Rosberg chuckled as he wrapped his arms tightly around the shoulders of his young friend in order to hug her, the smell of alcohol incredibly strong which caused the Brazilian to roll the dark of her eyes.

"Thanks bro, but you are wasted." Larissa laughed as she pushed the man off her, quickly spinning her body around so that she could hold his body weight up.

"I really love you, little shit." Nico's eyes rolled multiple times as he hiccuped, smiling as he heard her giggles. "And I love Lewis too."

"You do?" Larissa smiled as she heard his drunken ramblings, happiness flooding her body.

"Yeah, I've missed him, I really love him." Nico giggled as the drunkenness hit him. "He's my best friend."

"And what am I?"

"Our baby."

The Cohen girl couldn't hold back her laughter as she heard the drunk words that left his lips, nodding her head up and down multiple times as she remembered how things used to be when she was younger, back when they were team mates.

For the rest of her party, it was the drunken words of the German man that had plagued her mind the entire time.

For years, she really had been a child of divorce, but now, they had finally reunited.

____________________________________________________

Larissa Cohen woke up with a pile of bodies laying over hers.

The music was still playing from the party and she could see that people who she expected would leave, had actually stayed.

Pato, Nyck, Mark, Drugo, Robert, Alexander, Felipe, Checo, Gunther, Michael, Gina, Jacques, Alain, Lucy and her husband.

As she slowly moved the bodies from off hers so that she could move in to the kitchen and make herself some breakfast, she was taken by surprise to see two of her best friends already awake and tidying up for her.

"Of course you're awake before anybody else."

Mick Schumacher laughed as he noticed his sister walking in to her kitchen, of which was covered in a mass of bottles and cans that were empty, having been drained of alcohol.

"I'm surprised that you're both not hungover." Larissa laughed, lifting one of her arms to hug the both of them.

"Oh we are, but we thought that we would help clean up." Esteban Ocon grinned, his cheeks pink as he collected the rubbish in a large black rubbish bag.

"And Esteban here, has something to tell you, don't you?" Mick stared at the French man with a grin upon his young face, lightly nudging his friend with his elbow.

"Uh, yeah so I may have drunkenly proposed to Zahra last night." Esteban spoke slowly, worried for what his best friend would say to him.

Larissa blinked multiple times before answering.

"Ah shit, you can always blame it on the alcohol so it doesn't make things awkward." Larissa patted her best friend on his shoulder.

"Actually, uh, she said yes."

"I'm sorry to hear that, my friend." Larissa grinned as she lightly punched his shoulder, happiness flooding her at the realisation that she was now standing in front of an engaged man.

"You're not against it? You don't think that it's too soon for us to be engaged?" Esteban frowned in confusion at her reaction.

"You're my best friends and you make each other happy, it doesn't matter how long you've been together. However, I'll have to hurt the both of you if one of you hurts the other. I can't be seen having favorites." The Cohen girl teased before she barrelled in to the French man, hugging him tightly.

"I'm so happy for the both of you, losers."

____________________________________________________

"I have the Cohen for a team mate?"

Mick Schumacher grinned in happiness as he walked in to his new Mercedes garage, since Toto Wolff had chosen him to replace the retiring Valterri Bottas to be the new team mate of the five time world Champion, Larissa Kimi Cohen.

"I have the Schumacher for a team mate?"

Five time world Champion Larissa Cohen grinned as she ran to hug her brother, celebrating the seat that he had taken, becoming her team mate.

It was the season of two thousand and twenty four, and Larissa was going to be starting her campaign to beat the records of both her brother, Lewis and her father.

She had the same number of Championships as her father, and she knew that she was capable of beating his record.

And now, she had her brother by her side whenever she was on the track, which only made it better.

"Are you ready to kick ass, mausi?" Mick wrapped his arms around the arms of his sister, knowing that together, they could achieve the world.

"Irmão, I'm always ready."

____________________________________________________

A/N

ALL THAT'S LEFT IS THE EPILOGUE, I CANT BELIEVE IT

What do you think?

Anyway, I hope that you all enjoy this chapter and I'll see you all soon for the final one!!

Thankyou so much for all of your support on this book, it has really been a dream, I will never forget the love that you have given this, thankyou!

I'm so proud of all of you, my loves,

Love you all,

-RUBY 🇵🇸