SEVENTEEN

Tala Villanueva woke up a very big headache.

Her exhausted body moved slowly, struggling to keep going to the point where she was practically having to drag herself across her bedroom floor in order to reach her door.

As soon as she did reach it and pulled it open, the small woman released a panicked scream, her soul quickly leaving her body.

"Punyeta Ka!"

"AHHH!"

The two people screamed in unison, their bodies in equal shock and surprise, their eyes wide and alert, having not expected to come face to face with somebody super early.

Daniel Ricciardo held his hand tightly against his chest, the fear running through him from the shock of having had the shit scared out of him at seven thirty in the morning.

Since they had been reunited in Italy, Daniel had indeed been dropped from Formula One, and in order to make himself feel better and get over all the hate that he had received, he had been going to George's for drinking nights with Tala.

He had just been heading towards the bathroom when Tala's bedroom door shot open, nearly giving him a fucking heart attack, his body still slightly shaking from the shock.

"Jesus, T-swizzle! Way to make a guy piss himself!"

"You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

The duo argued briefly, before Tala rather aggressively pushed the Australian in to the bathroom so that she could try and calm her heartbeat which was incredibly wild and rapid because of him.

When he returned, the Filipino girl was sitting on the kitchen counter with a glass of water, her head resting in her hands, some bacon sitting on a plate next to her.

"Made you some bacon, I hope you choke on it." Tala muttered underneath her breath as she grabbed a hold of the plate, shoving it in to his chest.

"I thought you loved me, T-swizzle! I'm hurt! I'm offended!"

"And I've got a headache, which I presume is because of you and your determination to sing every single song by Luke Combs, because you just kept fucking going." Tala released a small groan, knowing that in an attempt to make him feel better that she played some music, only to end up with a karaoke champion in her company.

"I can't help it, I love his music!" Daniel smiled back at her, knowing that whilst she was snapping at him now, that in a matter of hours that she will be very happy that he was there.

"And I love the music of Tupac but you don't hear me screaming every song of his, do ya!" Tala slapped her hands against her forehead before jumping off the kitchen counter, stepping forwards until her head was resting against his chest.

"Sorry, Tala."

The Australian moved his arms so that they were loosely wrapping over her shoulders, giving her a small hug which he knew that she needed.

"I'm never drinking with you again, I swear."

______________________________________________

"Are we looking at Tala being at seven races in a season?"

Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc grinned at the sight of their friend as she entered the paddock to the Mexican Grand Prix, her body looking tired and slightly jet lagged.

Charles and Lando let even brighter smiles lit up their features as their eyes recognised a jersey and jacket that they had not seen in a long time.

After all, Dakila Villanueva was known by drivers to always wear jerseys and jackets from his favorite sports teams.

This time, she was wearing his clothes of the Los Angeles Lakers.

She came to a stop in front of them with a small smile upon her youthful face, dark circles evident underneath her tired brown eyes.

"If there's any crashes, I'm blaming you guys for making me challenge the curse."

Tala Villanueva spoke, greeting the three of her friends with small hugs, though she did give the Spanish man a slightly bigger hug since it had been a little bit longer since she had seen and spoken to him.

"You coming to Ferrari?" Carlos questioned, with both Charles and himself crossing their fingers as they hoped.

"Nope, I'm in Mercedes. I've got separation anxiety from Roscoe so I'm gonna make sure that I steal him after the race." Tala explained softly, noticing in the corner of her eye that she was being ushered over to the Mercedes garage, quickly waving goodbye to her friends before she made her way over there.

"Where's George?"

"Media but Lewis told me to give you this."

Toto Wolff smiled as he held a dog, one who was waiting patiently to be handed over to his friend, his ass wiggling as soon as he reached her arms, his tongue softly licking at her cheek in order to kiss her, having missed her.

"Thanks Toto, can you tell George that I'll be in his trailer?"

Toto nodded his head up and down a couple of times as she moved towards the trailer of the Russell boy, wanting to spend some time with him, as well as Roscoe.

She hadn't really spoken to him much in the past week, and she did feel bad about it, but she couldn't explain what was happening to her.

Why was she blushing so hard around her best friend? She was wanting to be hugging him all the time, talking to him every second of every day, getting butterflies whenever he was near her, or even when she just heard his voice.

She was dreading what it could mean.

There was no way that she could have caught feelings for him, it was impossible, so there had to be another reason.

Maybe she was ill and she was allergic to his cologne.

George Russell was her best friend, it wasn't possible for her to have caught feelings for him. He had helped her through so much, her grief, her nightmares, her sleep deprivation, her flashbacks, her outbursts. He had helped her with all of those, helping her combat them or overcome them.

He had helped her understand that she wasn't to blame for Dakila's death, that she couldn't hate herself for it and that it was an accident.

He had helped her come back out of her shell, to come off her anti depressant medication, to rejoin society and interact with her friends and to not run away when they were near.

He had helped her get back to supporting her friends at races, one by one, and now she was at seven races in a season, something that she would have never dreamt of doing before because of the curse.

It wasn't possible to fall for him, it just wasn't. She wasn't allowed to fall for him.

And yet, as George Russell walked in to his driver trailer and her eyes fell upon him, the butterflies reappeared, the blush coating her cheeks happened once again and she could only think of one single word.

Fuck.

A/N

This should be done by Friday, hopefully!!! (It's currently Tuesday morning and I've done 6 chapters in under 12 hours,

What do you think?

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

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

Love you all,

-RUBY 🇵🇸🇨🇩🇸🇩🇸🇸🇺🇦🇾🇪🇱🇧