hiya! i’m amber, and you can find me under names amber-pope or amber-lovney ❤︎
i’m a hopeless romantic in my early thirties who aspires to become a published author.
my blog is nsfw and 18+ (minors and ageless do not interact) ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
here, i post my original stories of different genres, but they all feature spicy content ♡̶
please do not repost my work on any platform or turn it into a video of any kind. i also do not consent to my works being fed to and used to train any AI.
Quick PSA regarding moodboards:
simply because I place an image of an actor, a rally driver, or a person with a specifically coloured hair, it doesn't mean I'm imagining or suggesting that's how any of my MCs look like. It's just a moodboard, here to help with vibes, and not a blueprint that needs to be blindly followed <3
Summary: Lena just started her dream job as a personal assistant of the team principal of Yama Racing Rally Team. As she navigates her new life, she meets the love of her life.
Word count: 3.2k
Warnings: 18+ and smut (evenutally), minors and ageless do not interact, slow burn, mutual pining, slow start, no beta
Neither of them was aware how much time passed with them basically just staring at each other's faces, lit by ever-changing scenes on a small hotel TV. Unbeknownst to Lena, James got really worried, but was wary of doing anything. At times, he seriously considered wiping tears from her face, feeling guilty of triggering her tears by inadvertently forcing her to relive her hurtful memories. He noticed she seemed so off, almost like she shut down for a time. Guilt, mixing with anxiety, sent his mind into an overdrive, in that familiar overthinking that he was just now explaining to Lena.
This time around, everything went on so smoothly. Lena believed it was because she had already settled in the team, so she wasn’t that anxious about remembering everyone’s names and little titbits they shared about themselves.
Also, as she had so much more time to prepare, she managed to finish organising Riley’s whole schedule a good week before the actual rally; now, she was mostly reminding him of his schedule and following him to press conferences and media appearances.
What she was the happiest about was that not only did she manage to actually use her voice in the way she always wanted (a minor, but important), she also realised that what James Thompson told her on her very first day was actually true: everyone in the team was friendly and relaxed.
Lena was sure that, as the season progressed, that sentiment would change as well, especially as the championship battles would start to escalate. She was hopeful that, even if that happened, the team would not lose its spirit and motivation. Most of that will have depended on the drivers though, primarily on Galliard and Thompson.
More on Thompson, if Lena was asked, and more on Galliard, if her boss was asked. All in all, with Schmitt being replaced by another part-time driver during this rally, León Moreno, all three of their drivers finished Friday with amazing results, with Moreno in twelfth, Galliard in third, and Thompson actually leading the scoreboard, with more than sixteen seconds ahead. Although happy, Lena noticed that he looked the same exhausted self and hoped this result, together with four stage wins that day, would help him relax a bit.
Back in her hotel room after exciting Friday results, she was just washing her bangs after a shower, when she heard something in front of her door; a nervous male voice, almost on the brink of tears, stepping up and down her hallway. Due to a mix-up in the reservations, she was on a completely different end of the floor to where the rest of her team were staying, so she assumed it was simply somebody from rooms around when she heard it: that dragged-out Scottish monotone. He was almost whispering, but even before checking through the peephole, she knew who it was.
Quickly, she opened the door; James Thompson, completely startled and with tears in his eyes, looked like a deer in the headlights.
“Get in,” Lena ordered, checking if there was anyone else in the hallway.
“Mum, I gotta go, I’ll call,” he quickly whispered into his phone, but hesitated a bit.
“Get in,” she gritted through her teeth, in a way Riley would sometimes speak.
After closing the door behind herself, Lena took a deep breath to compose herself.
“Don’t you have your own room?” she asked him, sounding maybe a bit more annoyed than she actually was. If anything, she was more scared than irritated, but her voice wasn’t on board.
“I do, but I didn’t want anyone from the team to hear me,” Thompson kept rubbing his forehead and looking at the floor, like a little child being summoned to the principal’s office.
“And how is this better? Journalists, members of other teams could have heard you. Can you imagine the headlines tomorrow?” Lena gestured at him to sit, but he was too distracted to notice.
After a couple of seconds, he literally just started to shake, real tears running down his face, which he tried to hide with his hands. Fuck.
Lena decided not to ask or even speak, but managed to get him to sit. She recognised what he was experiencing and just wanted not to make him feel ashamed, mainly because, after suffering from panic attacks for years, Lena didn’t think they were anything of the sort.
Thinking back, she realised that both instances when she either caught him on the phone or when he stormed out of the elevator were him trying to handle anxiety, something he later in the evening confirmed himself.
“Can I help somehow?” she asked him after his tears seemed to cease for a bit.
“I don’t think so. I know I have a problem, I know,” he looked straight at Lena, his voice breaking in a small whimper.
“Oh, please don’t look at me like that,” he continued, looking at the floor again. “I don’t need pity.”
“You are conflating empathy with pity,” Lena answered, almost whispered, her heart breaking looking at him so helpless and scared. James was hesitant to speak, so she turned on the TV.
“Just so you can be sure no one could hear anything if standing in front of the room,” she tried to explain it. It was silly, but James seemed to appreciate it.
“I can’t sleep. I can’t concentrate. I’m constantly tired. I can’t eat. I have this panic, panic attacks,” his voice calmed a little, but his face stretched in a painful grimace.
At least that’s what Lena thought he said, as he slipped back into his accent that she was still struggling with. In any case, she was nodding along, wondering if she should pat him on the shoulder.
“I keep calling my mum,” his voice broke again, and he went into that quiet sob, where your whole body is shaking, but without making an actual sound.
To Lena, all of that sounded familiar, too familiar. Her anxiety, to her, manifested like running through mud or being pulled through quicksand.
She had a feeling that James might be experiencing something similar, although at least it looked like he had some sort of support system. Options he didn’t have were medications, due to rules, and with all the sneaking he did, Lena was sure he hadn’t had regular appointments with a psychiatrist. Knowing how resistant people would usually get to that idea, she didn’t plan on suggesting it right away , but rather to try and calm him down enough so he could be rested for tomorrow.
“I would also call my mum,” Lena finally piped up, passing him the glass of water and a tissue.
“And I still can’t sleep that well, especially in new places. And don’t you dare ask me why I accepted this job; most of the time I’m working at the HQ anyway.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” James still didn’t sound calm, but he was trying to. At least he sounded honest.
“You deserve this job, sleep or no sleep,” there was something in the way he said it that left Lena completely speechless.
“So… Do you want to cry for a bit more? Maybe we could alternate?”
That finally got a chuckle out of him, but before letting it go to awkward silence, Lena started asking him when it started (last year around last rounds of the championship), when it started to be noticeable (couple of weeks after he lost the championship), and if he talked to someone else about this (just his mum, but he had a feeling that Riley suspected something has been happening as well).
“I know how you feel, I really do,” Lena said in an attempt to make him feel understood and appreciated.
“I do think you will need to ask for some help, though,” she immediately saw the reluctance and desperation on his face, but she wasn’t going to let it go.
“I was only a student, without resources or even an understanding of what was happening. I tried to ask for help, but everyone kept telling me it was just stress, even after I had to repeat a year during my undergraduate studies. Only after I lost my volleyball career did they start to take me seriously and realise it’s not just stress.”
It was very painful for Lena to share this bit, as she still wasn’t completely over it, not even all these years later. However, she was always determined to help anyone with similar issues, not wanting anyone to go through the same pain, let alone the driver of the team she worked at. She turned to face James and saw tears in his eyes flooding over as he observed her face, his upper lip barely holding it together in a soft tremble.
Neither of them was aware how much time passed with them basically just staring at each other's faces, lit by ever-changing scenes on a small hotel TV. Unbeknownst to Lena, James got really worried, but was wary of doing anything. At times, he seriously considered wiping tears from her face, feeling guilty of triggering her tears by inadvertently forcing her to relive her hurtful memories. He noticed she seemed so off, almost like she shut down for a time. Guilt, mixing with anxiety, sent his mind into an overdrive, in that familiar overthinking that he was just now explaining to Lena.
He didn’t understand where that urge to just gently comfort her came from, but he was getting some serious courage to softly move a strand of her hair from her cheek, hoping it wouldn’t come out wrong, or worse, inappropriate. Her face was full of red patches on pale skin, and her eyes were almost completely closed, her breathing deep and slow, and yet it felt to James like she had some kind of an aura around her; he knew it was just a faint light, but the rollercoaster of emotions left his mind too weak to think clearly. Just as he made a final decision on what to do exactly, her phone rang, snapping them both out of it.
Lena excused herself to the hallway near the door, just to confirm all the meetings with Yama Technologies and then quickly went on to confirm the flights as well; she was a little bit excited because they were going to fly private, although Riley insisted on completely filling the whole manifest. All the calls and emails took much more than Lena anticipated, and when she walked back to her bed, James was lying on it; it took her a couple of seconds to realise he had fallen asleep.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to sort her thoughts into something comprehensive and tangible. As he was neatly taking up one side of the bed, Lena, completely exhausted and grateful for bigger-than-normal hotel beds, lay on the other side, silently blowing her nose. Then, she turned off the TV, but James seemed to be sound asleep.
She could wake him up at any given second, but the clock was already showing 2:30. That would mean that, if she were to do that, he would fall asleep at 3 in the best-case scenario and only have two, maybe two and a half hours of sleep before needing to wake up for day two of the rally. Taking into account what he told her about his countless sleepless nights that he refused to call insomnia because “that’s for people who have real problems”, Lena just shook her head and put a two-pillow barrier between them and then sent a text message to Riley.
“Your number one boy is crashing in my bed atm.”
She also included a picture of James curled up at the edge of the bed with it. She did not want to make a big deal out of it, but decided it was necessary to inform Riley at least, unsure if anyone had seen James enter her room. She tried to keep thoughts about possible rumours at bay, but her tired mind was failing her and various anxiety-inducing, almost intrusive, thoughts were plaguing her.
“???”
“It’s a long story, and not my story to tell, but he wasn’t feeling well, pacing in the hallway. I pulled him in because I didn’t want journalists or other teams to see him. While I was finalising our meeting confirmations and flight reservations, I guess he just fell asleep?”
Lena knew Riley wouldn’t even think something inappropriate had taken place, even though intra-team relationships were neither forbidden nor disapproved of.
“I just want to be as clear as possible about everything and I am honestly not comfortable about disclosing his personal issues to you either,” she quickly added.
The room was faintly lit up by a faraway street lamp with light creeping through a small slit between two heavy curtains, and the only sound was James’ deep, rhythmical breathing. Lena felt a little bit sorry for him; mental health care was still not talked about enough in the motorsport, not even in the whole world, if Lena was asked.
She often felt like people would fake compassion and empathy because they felt that was something they should do, not because they actually did, and then would turn around and stigmatise the illnesses even further. Not that things weren’t turning around for the better, but she felt that there was still a long road ahead, especially among the athletes, because asking for help was still perceived as a weakness.
“You did the right thing, don’t worry. I was actually afraid of something much worse, so this is a relief. Do you need me to come there and get him?”
“No, let him sleep, he’s clocking too few hours as it already is. When does he have to wake up the latest?”
“5.15 am. You sure you are good? We can switch rooms if you want.”
Although she really appreciated the proposition, Lena knew it was impossible to do it without waking James up, and she was, in all honesty, a little bit too grossed out to sleep in someone else’s bed, at least in this particular situation. She knew that would be a weird reason, but she couldn’t help herself really; she sometimes had some clinical ideas about the bathroom, and especially the bedroom, given her own sleep issues, which she did call insomnia.
“It’s fine. Can we deal with this internally? And by that I mean just the three of us?”
“Yes, of course. Can you come see me first thing in the morning?”
“Yeah, see you in two hours.”
Lena, however, wasn’t sure she would even get those two hours and was hoping she would be allowed to sleep afterwards, during the morning stages. She knew her thoughts would continue to torment her for the rest of the night, but she took her anxiolytic and called it a night.
Forcing her mind to focus on future things, she thought of exploring the city tomorrow or the day after. Slowly, she fell into a shallow sleep, waking up after what felt like barely a couple of minutes because she was sure she felt James’ hand touching hers.
Her eyes flashed open, feeling a little spacey. However, all she saw was a pillow falling onto her and absolutely no sound or movement from James’ side. She propped herself up and saw he was barely on the bed, sleeping so close to the edge of the bed that one of his arms was dangling off of it; his mouth was slightly open, and his other hand was resting on his chest. He was still in his sneakers, and his phone was on the bed next to him.
She checked her phone; it was just before 5. She stumbled to the bathroom to prepare herself for the day and woke up James just before 5.15.
“What’s the time?” he asked, his accent slipping into hard Scottish again.
“Quarter past five. You need to get ready for the day,” she was erroneously stuffing things in her backpack, yawning all the time. Her head was hurting already, so she checked all her notes to be sure she wouldn’t forget something important, whether it was documents or a later meeting.
“I am so sorry,” James immediately started apologising, looking mortified, “I was so tired, and I just wanted to close my eyes for a minute. I am really sorry.”
“It’s okay, but I snitched on you to Riley,” Lena said while flinging the drapes open and passing him her phone so he could read the conversation.
“I am sorry as well,” she almost fearfully waited for his reaction, hoping it wouldn’t send him into one of his famous moods that she was yet to witness, but nothing of the kind happened.
“No problem, you had to protect yourself, it’s understandable,” James kept nodding along.
“And I did sleep better than previous nights, so at least something, right?” he started to sound more and more unsure with every letter uttered, like his confidence was being drained from him by just breathing. He handed her back her phone and headed for the door.
Lena was looking at him and his smushed face and his tousled hair, and didn’t like the feeling that was slowly spreading through her body. Not one bit.
“I will not tell anyone about this, don’t worry,” he added, his eyes still getting used to morning light.
“Wait,” Lena almost yelled, causing him to turn immediately, “there are some appearances to be kept, right?”
She said it in her work Lena voice, and tossed him her hairbrush.
“Thanks,” James said, chuckling a bit, “see you in the park.”
Lena exited her room not even five minutes later, as she put on only the minimal makeup and hurried to the hotel lobby; Riley was already waiting for her.
“What did you mean by “worse” in the text message? What did you think was happening?” she was already on her second coffee (drank the first one back in the hotel lobby) and although the light hurt her eyes, her head has started to feel a bit better, especially after it turned out that today was, after couple of hours in the morning, her day off.
Riley took a deep breath before responding.
“I don’t know James that well. He’s new to the team, and I am new, well, to rally, really, this being my third year as a team principal. And when you take his inconsistencies and outbursts into account, well…” he paused, scratching his beard, before giving an actual answer, lines on his forehead becoming more prominent.
“Drugs. I thought it was drugs.”
**
The rest of the day went in such blur for Lena; she was on complete autopilot even during the sightseeing with Dana and two engineers whose names she promptly forgot. She had a lovely time just chatting, taking pictures, trying new food; she just wished she was more present. Others noticed her weariness, but she explained it away by work-related stress and lack of sleep. However, Lena couldn’t wait to get back to her room and get some rest, dreaming about her bed during the conversations.
When she finally reached her room, she realised she was in a pickle; despite showering, meditating, and preparing everything in advance for tomorrow, she just couldn’t fall asleep. She kept checking the results of every stage of the rally, which still showed James at the top of the leaderboard. She also turned on the TV, more from a habit than a need, but no matter how much she tried to focus on another weekly murder mystery, she kept forgetting the names of the characters and how things related to each other. Curled up around the phone, she closed her eyes, hoping that sleep would finally engulf her.
If you like my writing, all interactions are greatly appreciated-`♡´-
Writers have two modes and they are "i haven't written in three weeks and i am rotting from the inside and everything feels wrong and i don't know who i am anymore" and "i wrote for four hours straight and forgot to eat and it's dark outside and when did that happen and i feel like a god" and there is nothing in between. no chill. no medium setting. just famine or feast and a very confused nervous system.
Summary: Lena just started her dream job as a personal assistant of the team principal of Yama Racing Rally Team. As she navigates her new life, she meets the love of her life.
Word count: 3.2k
Warnings: 18+ and smut (evenutally), minors and ageless do not interact, slow burn, mutual pining, slow start, no beta
Neither of them was aware how much time passed with them basically just staring at each other's faces, lit by ever-changing scenes on a small hotel TV. Unbeknownst to Lena, James got really worried, but was wary of doing anything. At times, he seriously considered wiping tears from her face, feeling guilty of triggering her tears by inadvertently forcing her to relive her hurtful memories. He noticed she seemed so off, almost like she shut down for a time. Guilt, mixing with anxiety, sent his mind into an overdrive, in that familiar overthinking that he was just now explaining to Lena.
This time around, everything went on so smoothly. Lena believed it was because she had already settled in the team, so she wasn’t that anxious about remembering everyone’s names and little titbits they shared about themselves.
Also, as she had so much more time to prepare, she managed to finish organising Riley’s whole schedule a good week before the actual rally; now, she was mostly reminding him of his schedule and following him to press conferences and media appearances.
What she was the happiest about was that not only did she manage to actually use her voice in the way she always wanted (a minor, but important), she also realised that what James Thompson told her on her very first day was actually true: everyone in the team was friendly and relaxed.
Lena was sure that, as the season progressed, that sentiment would change as well, especially as the championship battles would start to escalate. She was hopeful that, even if that happened, the team would not lose its spirit and motivation. Most of that will have depended on the drivers though, primarily on Galliard and Thompson.
More on Thompson, if Lena was asked, and more on Galliard, if her boss was asked. All in all, with Schmitt being replaced by another part-time driver during this rally, León Moreno, all three of their drivers finished Friday with amazing results, with Moreno in twelfth, Galliard in third, and Thompson actually leading the scoreboard, with more than sixteen seconds ahead. Although happy, Lena noticed that he looked the same exhausted self and hoped this result, together with four stage wins that day, would help him relax a bit.
Back in her hotel room after exciting Friday results, she was just washing her bangs after a shower, when she heard something in front of her door; a nervous male voice, almost on the brink of tears, stepping up and down her hallway. Due to a mix-up in the reservations, she was on a completely different end of the floor to where the rest of her team were staying, so she assumed it was simply somebody from rooms around when she heard it: that dragged-out Scottish monotone. He was almost whispering, but even before checking through the peephole, she knew who it was.
Quickly, she opened the door; James Thompson, completely startled and with tears in his eyes, looked like a deer in the headlights.
“Get in,” Lena ordered, checking if there was anyone else in the hallway.
“Mum, I gotta go, I’ll call,” he quickly whispered into his phone, but hesitated a bit.
“Get in,” she gritted through her teeth, in a way Riley would sometimes speak.
After closing the door behind herself, Lena took a deep breath to compose herself.
“Don’t you have your own room?” she asked him, sounding maybe a bit more annoyed than she actually was. If anything, she was more scared than irritated, but her voice wasn’t on board.
“I do, but I didn’t want anyone from the team to hear me,” Thompson kept rubbing his forehead and looking at the floor, like a little child being summoned to the principal’s office.
“And how is this better? Journalists, members of other teams could have heard you. Can you imagine the headlines tomorrow?” Lena gestured at him to sit, but he was too distracted to notice.
After a couple of seconds, he literally just started to shake, real tears running down his face, which he tried to hide with his hands. Fuck.
Lena decided not to ask or even speak, but managed to get him to sit. She recognised what he was experiencing and just wanted not to make him feel ashamed, mainly because, after suffering from panic attacks for years, Lena didn’t think they were anything of the sort.
Thinking back, she realised that both instances when she either caught him on the phone or when he stormed out of the elevator were him trying to handle anxiety, something he later in the evening confirmed himself.
“Can I help somehow?” she asked him after his tears seemed to cease for a bit.
“I don’t think so. I know I have a problem, I know,” he looked straight at Lena, his voice breaking in a small whimper.
“Oh, please don’t look at me like that,” he continued, looking at the floor again. “I don’t need pity.”
“You are conflating empathy with pity,” Lena answered, almost whispered, her heart breaking looking at him so helpless and scared. James was hesitant to speak, so she turned on the TV.
“Just so you can be sure no one could hear anything if standing in front of the room,” she tried to explain it. It was silly, but James seemed to appreciate it.
“I can’t sleep. I can’t concentrate. I’m constantly tired. I can’t eat. I have this panic, panic attacks,” his voice calmed a little, but his face stretched in a painful grimace.
At least that’s what Lena thought he said, as he slipped back into his accent that she was still struggling with. In any case, she was nodding along, wondering if she should pat him on the shoulder.
“I keep calling my mum,” his voice broke again, and he went into that quiet sob, where your whole body is shaking, but without making an actual sound.
To Lena, all of that sounded familiar, too familiar. Her anxiety, to her, manifested like running through mud or being pulled through quicksand.
She had a feeling that James might be experiencing something similar, although at least it looked like he had some sort of support system. Options he didn’t have were medications, due to rules, and with all the sneaking he did, Lena was sure he hadn’t had regular appointments with a psychiatrist. Knowing how resistant people would usually get to that idea, she didn’t plan on suggesting it right away , but rather to try and calm him down enough so he could be rested for tomorrow.
“I would also call my mum,” Lena finally piped up, passing him the glass of water and a tissue.
“And I still can’t sleep that well, especially in new places. And don’t you dare ask me why I accepted this job; most of the time I’m working at the HQ anyway.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” James still didn’t sound calm, but he was trying to. At least he sounded honest.
“You deserve this job, sleep or no sleep,” there was something in the way he said it that left Lena completely speechless.
“So… Do you want to cry for a bit more? Maybe we could alternate?”
That finally got a chuckle out of him, but before letting it go to awkward silence, Lena started asking him when it started (last year around last rounds of the championship), when it started to be noticeable (couple of weeks after he lost the championship), and if he talked to someone else about this (just his mum, but he had a feeling that Riley suspected something has been happening as well).
“I know how you feel, I really do,” Lena said in an attempt to make him feel understood and appreciated.
“I do think you will need to ask for some help, though,” she immediately saw the reluctance and desperation on his face, but she wasn’t going to let it go.
“I was only a student, without resources or even an understanding of what was happening. I tried to ask for help, but everyone kept telling me it was just stress, even after I had to repeat a year during my undergraduate studies. Only after I lost my volleyball career did they start to take me seriously and realise it’s not just stress.”
It was very painful for Lena to share this bit, as she still wasn’t completely over it, not even all these years later. However, she was always determined to help anyone with similar issues, not wanting anyone to go through the same pain, let alone the driver of the team she worked at. She turned to face James and saw tears in his eyes flooding over as he observed her face, his upper lip barely holding it together in a soft tremble.
Neither of them was aware how much time passed with them basically just staring at each other's faces, lit by ever-changing scenes on a small hotel TV. Unbeknownst to Lena, James got really worried, but was wary of doing anything. At times, he seriously considered wiping tears from her face, feeling guilty of triggering her tears by inadvertently forcing her to relive her hurtful memories. He noticed she seemed so off, almost like she shut down for a time. Guilt, mixing with anxiety, sent his mind into an overdrive, in that familiar overthinking that he was just now explaining to Lena.
He didn’t understand where that urge to just gently comfort her came from, but he was getting some serious courage to softly move a strand of her hair from her cheek, hoping it wouldn’t come out wrong, or worse, inappropriate. Her face was full of red patches on pale skin, and her eyes were almost completely closed, her breathing deep and slow, and yet it felt to James like she had some kind of an aura around her; he knew it was just a faint light, but the rollercoaster of emotions left his mind too weak to think clearly. Just as he made a final decision on what to do exactly, her phone rang, snapping them both out of it.
Lena excused herself to the hallway near the door, just to confirm all the meetings with Yama Technologies and then quickly went on to confirm the flights as well; she was a little bit excited because they were going to fly private, although Riley insisted on completely filling the whole manifest. All the calls and emails took much more than Lena anticipated, and when she walked back to her bed, James was lying on it; it took her a couple of seconds to realise he had fallen asleep.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to sort her thoughts into something comprehensive and tangible. As he was neatly taking up one side of the bed, Lena, completely exhausted and grateful for bigger-than-normal hotel beds, lay on the other side, silently blowing her nose. Then, she turned off the TV, but James seemed to be sound asleep.
She could wake him up at any given second, but the clock was already showing 2:30. That would mean that, if she were to do that, he would fall asleep at 3 in the best-case scenario and only have two, maybe two and a half hours of sleep before needing to wake up for day two of the rally. Taking into account what he told her about his countless sleepless nights that he refused to call insomnia because “that’s for people who have real problems”, Lena just shook her head and put a two-pillow barrier between them and then sent a text message to Riley.
“Your number one boy is crashing in my bed atm.”
She also included a picture of James curled up at the edge of the bed with it. She did not want to make a big deal out of it, but decided it was necessary to inform Riley at least, unsure if anyone had seen James enter her room. She tried to keep thoughts about possible rumours at bay, but her tired mind was failing her and various anxiety-inducing, almost intrusive, thoughts were plaguing her.
“???”
“It’s a long story, and not my story to tell, but he wasn’t feeling well, pacing in the hallway. I pulled him in because I didn’t want journalists or other teams to see him. While I was finalising our meeting confirmations and flight reservations, I guess he just fell asleep?”
Lena knew Riley wouldn’t even think something inappropriate had taken place, even though intra-team relationships were neither forbidden nor disapproved of.
“I just want to be as clear as possible about everything and I am honestly not comfortable about disclosing his personal issues to you either,” she quickly added.
The room was faintly lit up by a faraway street lamp with light creeping through a small slit between two heavy curtains, and the only sound was James’ deep, rhythmical breathing. Lena felt a little bit sorry for him; mental health care was still not talked about enough in the motorsport, not even in the whole world, if Lena was asked.
She often felt like people would fake compassion and empathy because they felt that was something they should do, not because they actually did, and then would turn around and stigmatise the illnesses even further. Not that things weren’t turning around for the better, but she felt that there was still a long road ahead, especially among the athletes, because asking for help was still perceived as a weakness.
“You did the right thing, don’t worry. I was actually afraid of something much worse, so this is a relief. Do you need me to come there and get him?”
“No, let him sleep, he’s clocking too few hours as it already is. When does he have to wake up the latest?”
“5.15 am. You sure you are good? We can switch rooms if you want.”
Although she really appreciated the proposition, Lena knew it was impossible to do it without waking James up, and she was, in all honesty, a little bit too grossed out to sleep in someone else’s bed, at least in this particular situation. She knew that would be a weird reason, but she couldn’t help herself really; she sometimes had some clinical ideas about the bathroom, and especially the bedroom, given her own sleep issues, which she did call insomnia.
“It’s fine. Can we deal with this internally? And by that I mean just the three of us?”
“Yes, of course. Can you come see me first thing in the morning?”
“Yeah, see you in two hours.”
Lena, however, wasn’t sure she would even get those two hours and was hoping she would be allowed to sleep afterwards, during the morning stages. She knew her thoughts would continue to torment her for the rest of the night, but she took her anxiolytic and called it a night.
Forcing her mind to focus on future things, she thought of exploring the city tomorrow or the day after. Slowly, she fell into a shallow sleep, waking up after what felt like barely a couple of minutes because she was sure she felt James’ hand touching hers.
Her eyes flashed open, feeling a little spacey. However, all she saw was a pillow falling onto her and absolutely no sound or movement from James’ side. She propped herself up and saw he was barely on the bed, sleeping so close to the edge of the bed that one of his arms was dangling off of it; his mouth was slightly open, and his other hand was resting on his chest. He was still in his sneakers, and his phone was on the bed next to him.
She checked her phone; it was just before 5. She stumbled to the bathroom to prepare herself for the day and woke up James just before 5.15.
“What’s the time?” he asked, his accent slipping into hard Scottish again.
“Quarter past five. You need to get ready for the day,” she was erroneously stuffing things in her backpack, yawning all the time. Her head was hurting already, so she checked all her notes to be sure she wouldn’t forget something important, whether it was documents or a later meeting.
“I am so sorry,” James immediately started apologising, looking mortified, “I was so tired, and I just wanted to close my eyes for a minute. I am really sorry.”
“It’s okay, but I snitched on you to Riley,” Lena said while flinging the drapes open and passing him her phone so he could read the conversation.
“I am sorry as well,” she almost fearfully waited for his reaction, hoping it wouldn’t send him into one of his famous moods that she was yet to witness, but nothing of the kind happened.
“No problem, you had to protect yourself, it’s understandable,” James kept nodding along.
“And I did sleep better than previous nights, so at least something, right?” he started to sound more and more unsure with every letter uttered, like his confidence was being drained from him by just breathing. He handed her back her phone and headed for the door.
Lena was looking at him and his smushed face and his tousled hair, and didn’t like the feeling that was slowly spreading through her body. Not one bit.
“I will not tell anyone about this, don’t worry,” he added, his eyes still getting used to morning light.
“Wait,” Lena almost yelled, causing him to turn immediately, “there are some appearances to be kept, right?”
She said it in her work Lena voice, and tossed him her hairbrush.
“Thanks,” James said, chuckling a bit, “see you in the park.”
Lena exited her room not even five minutes later, as she put on only the minimal makeup and hurried to the hotel lobby; Riley was already waiting for her.
“What did you mean by “worse” in the text message? What did you think was happening?” she was already on her second coffee (drank the first one back in the hotel lobby) and although the light hurt her eyes, her head has started to feel a bit better, especially after it turned out that today was, after couple of hours in the morning, her day off.
Riley took a deep breath before responding.
“I don’t know James that well. He’s new to the team, and I am new, well, to rally, really, this being my third year as a team principal. And when you take his inconsistencies and outbursts into account, well…” he paused, scratching his beard, before giving an actual answer, lines on his forehead becoming more prominent.
“Drugs. I thought it was drugs.”
**
The rest of the day went in such blur for Lena; she was on complete autopilot even during the sightseeing with Dana and two engineers whose names she promptly forgot. She had a lovely time just chatting, taking pictures, trying new food; she just wished she was more present. Others noticed her weariness, but she explained it away by work-related stress and lack of sleep. However, Lena couldn’t wait to get back to her room and get some rest, dreaming about her bed during the conversations.
When she finally reached her room, she realised she was in a pickle; despite showering, meditating, and preparing everything in advance for tomorrow, she just couldn’t fall asleep. She kept checking the results of every stage of the rally, which still showed James at the top of the leaderboard. She also turned on the TV, more from a habit than a need, but no matter how much she tried to focus on another weekly murder mystery, she kept forgetting the names of the characters and how things related to each other. Curled up around the phone, she closed her eyes, hoping that sleep would finally engulf her.
If you like my writing, all interactions are greatly appreciated-`♡´-
Summary: Lena just started her dream job as a personal assistant of the team principal of Yama Racing Rally Team. As she navigates her new life, she meets the love of her life.
Word count: 3.2k
Warnings: 18+ and smut (evenutally), minors and ageless do not interact, slow burn, mutual pining, slow start, no beta
Neither of them was aware how much time passed with them basically just staring at each other's faces, lit by ever-changing scenes on a small hotel TV. Unbeknownst to Lena, James got really worried, but was wary of doing anything. At times, he seriously considered wiping tears from her face, feeling guilty of triggering her tears by inadvertently forcing her to relive her hurtful memories. He noticed she seemed so off, almost like she shut down for a time. Guilt, mixing with anxiety, sent his mind into an overdrive, in that familiar overthinking that he was just now explaining to Lena.
This time around, everything went on so smoothly. Lena believed it was because she had already settled in the team, so she wasn’t that anxious about remembering everyone’s names and little titbits they shared about themselves.
Also, as she had so much more time to prepare, she managed to finish organising Riley’s whole schedule a good week before the actual rally; now, she was mostly reminding him of his schedule and following him to press conferences and media appearances.
What she was the happiest about was that not only did she manage to actually use her voice in the way she always wanted (a minor, but important), she also realised that what James Thompson told her on her very first day was actually true: everyone in the team was friendly and relaxed.
Lena was sure that, as the season progressed, that sentiment would change as well, especially as the championship battles would start to escalate. She was hopeful that, even if that happened, the team would not lose its spirit and motivation. Most of that will have depended on the drivers though, primarily on Galliard and Thompson.
More on Thompson, if Lena was asked, and more on Galliard, if her boss was asked. All in all, with Schmitt being replaced by another part-time driver during this rally, León Moreno, all three of their drivers finished Friday with amazing results, with Moreno in twelfth, Galliard in third, and Thompson actually leading the scoreboard, with more than sixteen seconds ahead. Although happy, Lena noticed that he looked the same exhausted self and hoped this result, together with four stage wins that day, would help him relax a bit.
Back in her hotel room after exciting Friday results, she was just washing her bangs after a shower, when she heard something in front of her door; a nervous male voice, almost on the brink of tears, stepping up and down her hallway. Due to a mix-up in the reservations, she was on a completely different end of the floor to where the rest of her team were staying, so she assumed it was simply somebody from rooms around when she heard it: that dragged-out Scottish monotone. He was almost whispering, but even before checking through the peephole, she knew who it was.
Quickly, she opened the door; James Thompson, completely startled and with tears in his eyes, looked like a deer in the headlights.
“Get in,” Lena ordered, checking if there was anyone else in the hallway.
“Mum, I gotta go, I’ll call,” he quickly whispered into his phone, but hesitated a bit.
“Get in,” she gritted through her teeth, in a way Riley would sometimes speak.
After closing the door behind herself, Lena took a deep breath to compose herself.
“Don’t you have your own room?” she asked him, sounding maybe a bit more annoyed than she actually was. If anything, she was more scared than irritated, but her voice wasn’t on board.
“I do, but I didn’t want anyone from the team to hear me,” Thompson kept rubbing his forehead and looking at the floor, like a little child being summoned to the principal’s office.
“And how is this better? Journalists, members of other teams could have heard you. Can you imagine the headlines tomorrow?” Lena gestured at him to sit, but he was too distracted to notice.
After a couple of seconds, he literally just started to shake, real tears running down his face, which he tried to hide with his hands. Fuck.
Lena decided not to ask or even speak, but managed to get him to sit. She recognised what he was experiencing and just wanted not to make him feel ashamed, mainly because, after suffering from panic attacks for years, Lena didn’t think they were anything of the sort.
Thinking back, she realised that both instances when she either caught him on the phone or when he stormed out of the elevator were him trying to handle anxiety, something he later in the evening confirmed himself.
“Can I help somehow?” she asked him after his tears seemed to cease for a bit.
“I don’t think so. I know I have a problem, I know,” he looked straight at Lena, his voice breaking in a small whimper.
“Oh, please don’t look at me like that,” he continued, looking at the floor again. “I don’t need pity.”
“You are conflating empathy with pity,” Lena answered, almost whispered, her heart breaking looking at him so helpless and scared. James was hesitant to speak, so she turned on the TV.
“Just so you can be sure no one could hear anything if standing in front of the room,” she tried to explain it. It was silly, but James seemed to appreciate it.
“I can’t sleep. I can’t concentrate. I’m constantly tired. I can’t eat. I have this panic, panic attacks,” his voice calmed a little, but his face stretched in a painful grimace.
At least that’s what Lena thought he said, as he slipped back into his accent that she was still struggling with. In any case, she was nodding along, wondering if she should pat him on the shoulder.
“I keep calling my mum,” his voice broke again, and he went into that quiet sob, where your whole body is shaking, but without making an actual sound.
To Lena, all of that sounded familiar, too familiar. Her anxiety, to her, manifested like running through mud or being pulled through quicksand.
She had a feeling that James might be experiencing something similar, although at least it looked like he had some sort of support system. Options he didn’t have were medications, due to rules, and with all the sneaking he did, Lena was sure he hadn’t had regular appointments with a psychiatrist. Knowing how resistant people would usually get to that idea, she didn’t plan on suggesting it right away , but rather to try and calm him down enough so he could be rested for tomorrow.
“I would also call my mum,” Lena finally piped up, passing him the glass of water and a tissue.
“And I still can’t sleep that well, especially in new places. And don’t you dare ask me why I accepted this job; most of the time I’m working at the HQ anyway.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” James still didn’t sound calm, but he was trying to. At least he sounded honest.
“You deserve this job, sleep or no sleep,” there was something in the way he said it that left Lena completely speechless.
“So… Do you want to cry for a bit more? Maybe we could alternate?”
That finally got a chuckle out of him, but before letting it go to awkward silence, Lena started asking him when it started (last year around last rounds of the championship), when it started to be noticeable (couple of weeks after he lost the championship), and if he talked to someone else about this (just his mum, but he had a feeling that Riley suspected something has been happening as well).
“I know how you feel, I really do,” Lena said in an attempt to make him feel understood and appreciated.
“I do think you will need to ask for some help, though,” she immediately saw the reluctance and desperation on his face, but she wasn’t going to let it go.
“I was only a student, without resources or even an understanding of what was happening. I tried to ask for help, but everyone kept telling me it was just stress, even after I had to repeat a year during my undergraduate studies. Only after I lost my volleyball career did they start to take me seriously and realise it’s not just stress.”
It was very painful for Lena to share this bit, as she still wasn’t completely over it, not even all these years later. However, she was always determined to help anyone with similar issues, not wanting anyone to go through the same pain, let alone the driver of the team she worked at. She turned to face James and saw tears in his eyes flooding over as he observed her face, his upper lip barely holding it together in a soft tremble.
Neither of them was aware how much time passed with them basically just staring at each other's faces, lit by ever-changing scenes on a small hotel TV. Unbeknownst to Lena, James got really worried, but was wary of doing anything. At times, he seriously considered wiping tears from her face, feeling guilty of triggering her tears by inadvertently forcing her to relive her hurtful memories. He noticed she seemed so off, almost like she shut down for a time. Guilt, mixing with anxiety, sent his mind into an overdrive, in that familiar overthinking that he was just now explaining to Lena.
He didn’t understand where that urge to just gently comfort her came from, but he was getting some serious courage to softly move a strand of her hair from her cheek, hoping it wouldn’t come out wrong, or worse, inappropriate. Her face was full of red patches on pale skin, and her eyes were almost completely closed, her breathing deep and slow, and yet it felt to James like she had some kind of an aura around her; he knew it was just a faint light, but the rollercoaster of emotions left his mind too weak to think clearly. Just as he made a final decision on what to do exactly, her phone rang, snapping them both out of it.
Lena excused herself to the hallway near the door, just to confirm all the meetings with Yama Technologies and then quickly went on to confirm the flights as well; she was a little bit excited because they were going to fly private, although Riley insisted on completely filling the whole manifest. All the calls and emails took much more than Lena anticipated, and when she walked back to her bed, James was lying on it; it took her a couple of seconds to realise he had fallen asleep.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to sort her thoughts into something comprehensive and tangible. As he was neatly taking up one side of the bed, Lena, completely exhausted and grateful for bigger-than-normal hotel beds, lay on the other side, silently blowing her nose. Then, she turned off the TV, but James seemed to be sound asleep.
She could wake him up at any given second, but the clock was already showing 2:30. That would mean that, if she were to do that, he would fall asleep at 3 in the best-case scenario and only have two, maybe two and a half hours of sleep before needing to wake up for day two of the rally. Taking into account what he told her about his countless sleepless nights that he refused to call insomnia because “that’s for people who have real problems”, Lena just shook her head and put a two-pillow barrier between them and then sent a text message to Riley.
“Your number one boy is crashing in my bed atm.”
She also included a picture of James curled up at the edge of the bed with it. She did not want to make a big deal out of it, but decided it was necessary to inform Riley at least, unsure if anyone had seen James enter her room. She tried to keep thoughts about possible rumours at bay, but her tired mind was failing her and various anxiety-inducing, almost intrusive, thoughts were plaguing her.
“???”
“It’s a long story, and not my story to tell, but he wasn’t feeling well, pacing in the hallway. I pulled him in because I didn’t want journalists or other teams to see him. While I was finalising our meeting confirmations and flight reservations, I guess he just fell asleep?”
Lena knew Riley wouldn’t even think something inappropriate had taken place, even though intra-team relationships were neither forbidden nor disapproved of.
“I just want to be as clear as possible about everything and I am honestly not comfortable about disclosing his personal issues to you either,” she quickly added.
The room was faintly lit up by a faraway street lamp with light creeping through a small slit between two heavy curtains, and the only sound was James’ deep, rhythmical breathing. Lena felt a little bit sorry for him; mental health care was still not talked about enough in the motorsport, not even in the whole world, if Lena was asked.
She often felt like people would fake compassion and empathy because they felt that was something they should do, not because they actually did, and then would turn around and stigmatise the illnesses even further. Not that things weren’t turning around for the better, but she felt that there was still a long road ahead, especially among the athletes, because asking for help was still perceived as a weakness.
“You did the right thing, don’t worry. I was actually afraid of something much worse, so this is a relief. Do you need me to come there and get him?”
“No, let him sleep, he’s clocking too few hours as it already is. When does he have to wake up the latest?”
“5.15 am. You sure you are good? We can switch rooms if you want.”
Although she really appreciated the proposition, Lena knew it was impossible to do it without waking James up, and she was, in all honesty, a little bit too grossed out to sleep in someone else’s bed, at least in this particular situation. She knew that would be a weird reason, but she couldn’t help herself really; she sometimes had some clinical ideas about the bathroom, and especially the bedroom, given her own sleep issues, which she did call insomnia.
“It’s fine. Can we deal with this internally? And by that I mean just the three of us?”
“Yes, of course. Can you come see me first thing in the morning?”
“Yeah, see you in two hours.”
Lena, however, wasn’t sure she would even get those two hours and was hoping she would be allowed to sleep afterwards, during the morning stages. She knew her thoughts would continue to torment her for the rest of the night, but she took her anxiolytic and called it a night.
Forcing her mind to focus on future things, she thought of exploring the city tomorrow or the day after. Slowly, she fell into a shallow sleep, waking up after what felt like barely a couple of minutes because she was sure she felt James’ hand touching hers.
Her eyes flashed open, feeling a little spacey. However, all she saw was a pillow falling onto her and absolutely no sound or movement from James’ side. She propped herself up and saw he was barely on the bed, sleeping so close to the edge of the bed that one of his arms was dangling off of it; his mouth was slightly open, and his other hand was resting on his chest. He was still in his sneakers, and his phone was on the bed next to him.
She checked her phone; it was just before 5. She stumbled to the bathroom to prepare herself for the day and woke up James just before 5.15.
“What’s the time?” he asked, his accent slipping into hard Scottish again.
“Quarter past five. You need to get ready for the day,” she was erroneously stuffing things in her backpack, yawning all the time. Her head was hurting already, so she checked all her notes to be sure she wouldn’t forget something important, whether it was documents or a later meeting.
“I am so sorry,” James immediately started apologising, looking mortified, “I was so tired, and I just wanted to close my eyes for a minute. I am really sorry.”
“It’s okay, but I snitched on you to Riley,” Lena said while flinging the drapes open and passing him her phone so he could read the conversation.
“I am sorry as well,” she almost fearfully waited for his reaction, hoping it wouldn’t send him into one of his famous moods that she was yet to witness, but nothing of the kind happened.
“No problem, you had to protect yourself, it’s understandable,” James kept nodding along.
“And I did sleep better than previous nights, so at least something, right?” he started to sound more and more unsure with every letter uttered, like his confidence was being drained from him by just breathing. He handed her back her phone and headed for the door.
Lena was looking at him and his smushed face and his tousled hair, and didn’t like the feeling that was slowly spreading through her body. Not one bit.
“I will not tell anyone about this, don’t worry,” he added, his eyes still getting used to morning light.
“Wait,” Lena almost yelled, causing him to turn immediately, “there are some appearances to be kept, right?”
She said it in her work Lena voice, and tossed him her hairbrush.
“Thanks,” James said, chuckling a bit, “see you in the park.”
Lena exited her room not even five minutes later, as she put on only the minimal makeup and hurried to the hotel lobby; Riley was already waiting for her.
“What did you mean by “worse” in the text message? What did you think was happening?” she was already on her second coffee (drank the first one back in the hotel lobby) and although the light hurt her eyes, her head has started to feel a bit better, especially after it turned out that today was, after couple of hours in the morning, her day off.
Riley took a deep breath before responding.
“I don’t know James that well. He’s new to the team, and I am new, well, to rally, really, this being my third year as a team principal. And when you take his inconsistencies and outbursts into account, well…” he paused, scratching his beard, before giving an actual answer, lines on his forehead becoming more prominent.
“Drugs. I thought it was drugs.”
**
The rest of the day went in such blur for Lena; she was on complete autopilot even during the sightseeing with Dana and two engineers whose names she promptly forgot. She had a lovely time just chatting, taking pictures, trying new food; she just wished she was more present. Others noticed her weariness, but she explained it away by work-related stress and lack of sleep. However, Lena couldn’t wait to get back to her room and get some rest, dreaming about her bed during the conversations.
When she finally reached her room, she realised she was in a pickle; despite showering, meditating, and preparing everything in advance for tomorrow, she just couldn’t fall asleep. She kept checking the results of every stage of the rally, which still showed James at the top of the leaderboard. She also turned on the TV, more from a habit than a need, but no matter how much she tried to focus on another weekly murder mystery, she kept forgetting the names of the characters and how things related to each other. Curled up around the phone, she closed her eyes, hoping that sleep would finally engulf her.
If you like my writing, all interactions are greatly appreciated-`♡´-
Summary: Lena just started her dream job as a personal assistant of the team principal of Yama Racing Rally Team. As she navigates her new life, she meets the love of her life.
Word count: 3.2k
Warnings: 18+ and smut (evenutally), minors and ageless do not interact, slow burn, mutual pining, slow start, no beta
Neither of them was aware how much time passed with them basically just staring at each other's faces, lit by ever-changing scenes on a small hotel TV. Unbeknownst to Lena, James got really worried, but was wary of doing anything. At times, he seriously considered wiping tears from her face, feeling guilty of triggering her tears by inadvertently forcing her to relive her hurtful memories. He noticed she seemed so off, almost like she shut down for a time. Guilt, mixing with anxiety, sent his mind into an overdrive, in that familiar overthinking that he was just now explaining to Lena.
This time around, everything went on so smoothly. Lena believed it was because she had already settled in the team, so she wasn’t that anxious about remembering everyone’s names and little titbits they shared about themselves.
Also, as she had so much more time to prepare, she managed to finish organising Riley’s whole schedule a good week before the actual rally; now, she was mostly reminding him of his schedule and following him to press conferences and media appearances.
What she was the happiest about was that not only did she manage to actually use her voice in the way she always wanted (a minor, but important), she also realised that what James Thompson told her on her very first day was actually true: everyone in the team was friendly and relaxed.
Lena was sure that, as the season progressed, that sentiment would change as well, especially as the championship battles would start to escalate. She was hopeful that, even if that happened, the team would not lose its spirit and motivation. Most of that will have depended on the drivers though, primarily on Galliard and Thompson.
More on Thompson, if Lena was asked, and more on Galliard, if her boss was asked. All in all, with Schmitt being replaced by another part-time driver during this rally, León Moreno, all three of their drivers finished Friday with amazing results, with Moreno in twelfth, Galliard in third, and Thompson actually leading the scoreboard, with more than sixteen seconds ahead. Although happy, Lena noticed that he looked the same exhausted self and hoped this result, together with four stage wins that day, would help him relax a bit.
Back in her hotel room after exciting Friday results, she was just washing her bangs after a shower, when she heard something in front of her door; a nervous male voice, almost on the brink of tears, stepping up and down her hallway. Due to a mix-up in the reservations, she was on a completely different end of the floor to where the rest of her team were staying, so she assumed it was simply somebody from rooms around when she heard it: that dragged-out Scottish monotone. He was almost whispering, but even before checking through the peephole, she knew who it was.
Quickly, she opened the door; James Thompson, completely startled and with tears in his eyes, looked like a deer in the headlights.
“Get in,” Lena ordered, checking if there was anyone else in the hallway.
“Mum, I gotta go, I’ll call,” he quickly whispered into his phone, but hesitated a bit.
“Get in,” she gritted through her teeth, in a way Riley would sometimes speak.
After closing the door behind herself, Lena took a deep breath to compose herself.
“Don’t you have your own room?” she asked him, sounding maybe a bit more annoyed than she actually was. If anything, she was more scared than irritated, but her voice wasn’t on board.
“I do, but I didn’t want anyone from the team to hear me,” Thompson kept rubbing his forehead and looking at the floor, like a little child being summoned to the principal’s office.
“And how is this better? Journalists, members of other teams could have heard you. Can you imagine the headlines tomorrow?” Lena gestured at him to sit, but he was too distracted to notice.
After a couple of seconds, he literally just started to shake, real tears running down his face, which he tried to hide with his hands. Fuck.
Lena decided not to ask or even speak, but managed to get him to sit. She recognised what he was experiencing and just wanted not to make him feel ashamed, mainly because, after suffering from panic attacks for years, Lena didn’t think they were anything of the sort.
Thinking back, she realised that both instances when she either caught him on the phone or when he stormed out of the elevator were him trying to handle anxiety, something he later in the evening confirmed himself.
“Can I help somehow?” she asked him after his tears seemed to cease for a bit.
“I don’t think so. I know I have a problem, I know,” he looked straight at Lena, his voice breaking in a small whimper.
“Oh, please don’t look at me like that,” he continued, looking at the floor again. “I don’t need pity.”
“You are conflating empathy with pity,” Lena answered, almost whispered, her heart breaking looking at him so helpless and scared. James was hesitant to speak, so she turned on the TV.
“Just so you can be sure no one could hear anything if standing in front of the room,” she tried to explain it. It was silly, but James seemed to appreciate it.
“I can’t sleep. I can’t concentrate. I’m constantly tired. I can’t eat. I have this panic, panic attacks,” his voice calmed a little, but his face stretched in a painful grimace.
At least that’s what Lena thought he said, as he slipped back into his accent that she was still struggling with. In any case, she was nodding along, wondering if she should pat him on the shoulder.
“I keep calling my mum,” his voice broke again, and he went into that quiet sob, where your whole body is shaking, but without making an actual sound.
To Lena, all of that sounded familiar, too familiar. Her anxiety, to her, manifested like running through mud or being pulled through quicksand.
She had a feeling that James might be experiencing something similar, although at least it looked like he had some sort of support system. Options he didn’t have were medications, due to rules, and with all the sneaking he did, Lena was sure he hadn’t had regular appointments with a psychiatrist. Knowing how resistant people would usually get to that idea, she didn’t plan on suggesting it right away , but rather to try and calm him down enough so he could be rested for tomorrow.
“I would also call my mum,” Lena finally piped up, passing him the glass of water and a tissue.
“And I still can’t sleep that well, especially in new places. And don’t you dare ask me why I accepted this job; most of the time I’m working at the HQ anyway.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” James still didn’t sound calm, but he was trying to. At least he sounded honest.
“You deserve this job, sleep or no sleep,” there was something in the way he said it that left Lena completely speechless.
“So… Do you want to cry for a bit more? Maybe we could alternate?”
That finally got a chuckle out of him, but before letting it go to awkward silence, Lena started asking him when it started (last year around last rounds of the championship), when it started to be noticeable (couple of weeks after he lost the championship), and if he talked to someone else about this (just his mum, but he had a feeling that Riley suspected something has been happening as well).
“I know how you feel, I really do,” Lena said in an attempt to make him feel understood and appreciated.
“I do think you will need to ask for some help, though,” she immediately saw the reluctance and desperation on his face, but she wasn’t going to let it go.
“I was only a student, without resources or even an understanding of what was happening. I tried to ask for help, but everyone kept telling me it was just stress, even after I had to repeat a year during my undergraduate studies. Only after I lost my volleyball career did they start to take me seriously and realise it’s not just stress.”
It was very painful for Lena to share this bit, as she still wasn’t completely over it, not even all these years later. However, she was always determined to help anyone with similar issues, not wanting anyone to go through the same pain, let alone the driver of the team she worked at. She turned to face James and saw tears in his eyes flooding over as he observed her face, his upper lip barely holding it together in a soft tremble.
Neither of them was aware how much time passed with them basically just staring at each other's faces, lit by ever-changing scenes on a small hotel TV. Unbeknownst to Lena, James got really worried, but was wary of doing anything. At times, he seriously considered wiping tears from her face, feeling guilty of triggering her tears by inadvertently forcing her to relive her hurtful memories. He noticed she seemed so off, almost like she shut down for a time. Guilt, mixing with anxiety, sent his mind into an overdrive, in that familiar overthinking that he was just now explaining to Lena.
He didn’t understand where that urge to just gently comfort her came from, but he was getting some serious courage to softly move a strand of her hair from her cheek, hoping it wouldn’t come out wrong, or worse, inappropriate. Her face was full of red patches on pale skin, and her eyes were almost completely closed, her breathing deep and slow, and yet it felt to James like she had some kind of an aura around her; he knew it was just a faint light, but the rollercoaster of emotions left his mind too weak to think clearly. Just as he made a final decision on what to do exactly, her phone rang, snapping them both out of it.
Lena excused herself to the hallway near the door, just to confirm all the meetings with Yama Technologies and then quickly went on to confirm the flights as well; she was a little bit excited because they were going to fly private, although Riley insisted on completely filling the whole manifest. All the calls and emails took much more than Lena anticipated, and when she walked back to her bed, James was lying on it; it took her a couple of seconds to realise he had fallen asleep.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to sort her thoughts into something comprehensive and tangible. As he was neatly taking up one side of the bed, Lena, completely exhausted and grateful for bigger-than-normal hotel beds, lay on the other side, silently blowing her nose. Then, she turned off the TV, but James seemed to be sound asleep.
She could wake him up at any given second, but the clock was already showing 2:30. That would mean that, if she were to do that, he would fall asleep at 3 in the best-case scenario and only have two, maybe two and a half hours of sleep before needing to wake up for day two of the rally. Taking into account what he told her about his countless sleepless nights that he refused to call insomnia because “that’s for people who have real problems”, Lena just shook her head and put a two-pillow barrier between them and then sent a text message to Riley.
“Your number one boy is crashing in my bed atm.”
She also included a picture of James curled up at the edge of the bed with it. She did not want to make a big deal out of it, but decided it was necessary to inform Riley at least, unsure if anyone had seen James enter her room. She tried to keep thoughts about possible rumours at bay, but her tired mind was failing her and various anxiety-inducing, almost intrusive, thoughts were plaguing her.
“???”
“It’s a long story, and not my story to tell, but he wasn’t feeling well, pacing in the hallway. I pulled him in because I didn’t want journalists or other teams to see him. While I was finalising our meeting confirmations and flight reservations, I guess he just fell asleep?”
Lena knew Riley wouldn’t even think something inappropriate had taken place, even though intra-team relationships were neither forbidden nor disapproved of.
“I just want to be as clear as possible about everything and I am honestly not comfortable about disclosing his personal issues to you either,” she quickly added.
The room was faintly lit up by a faraway street lamp with light creeping through a small slit between two heavy curtains, and the only sound was James’ deep, rhythmical breathing. Lena felt a little bit sorry for him; mental health care was still not talked about enough in the motorsport, not even in the whole world, if Lena was asked.
She often felt like people would fake compassion and empathy because they felt that was something they should do, not because they actually did, and then would turn around and stigmatise the illnesses even further. Not that things weren’t turning around for the better, but she felt that there was still a long road ahead, especially among the athletes, because asking for help was still perceived as a weakness.
“You did the right thing, don’t worry. I was actually afraid of something much worse, so this is a relief. Do you need me to come there and get him?”
“No, let him sleep, he’s clocking too few hours as it already is. When does he have to wake up the latest?”
“5.15 am. You sure you are good? We can switch rooms if you want.”
Although she really appreciated the proposition, Lena knew it was impossible to do it without waking James up, and she was, in all honesty, a little bit too grossed out to sleep in someone else’s bed, at least in this particular situation. She knew that would be a weird reason, but she couldn’t help herself really; she sometimes had some clinical ideas about the bathroom, and especially the bedroom, given her own sleep issues, which she did call insomnia.
“It’s fine. Can we deal with this internally? And by that I mean just the three of us?”
“Yes, of course. Can you come see me first thing in the morning?”
“Yeah, see you in two hours.”
Lena, however, wasn’t sure she would even get those two hours and was hoping she would be allowed to sleep afterwards, during the morning stages. She knew her thoughts would continue to torment her for the rest of the night, but she took her anxiolytic and called it a night.
Forcing her mind to focus on future things, she thought of exploring the city tomorrow or the day after. Slowly, she fell into a shallow sleep, waking up after what felt like barely a couple of minutes because she was sure she felt James’ hand touching hers.
Her eyes flashed open, feeling a little spacey. However, all she saw was a pillow falling onto her and absolutely no sound or movement from James’ side. She propped herself up and saw he was barely on the bed, sleeping so close to the edge of the bed that one of his arms was dangling off of it; his mouth was slightly open, and his other hand was resting on his chest. He was still in his sneakers, and his phone was on the bed next to him.
She checked her phone; it was just before 5. She stumbled to the bathroom to prepare herself for the day and woke up James just before 5.15.
“What’s the time?” he asked, his accent slipping into hard Scottish again.
“Quarter past five. You need to get ready for the day,” she was erroneously stuffing things in her backpack, yawning all the time. Her head was hurting already, so she checked all her notes to be sure she wouldn’t forget something important, whether it was documents or a later meeting.
“I am so sorry,” James immediately started apologising, looking mortified, “I was so tired, and I just wanted to close my eyes for a minute. I am really sorry.”
“It’s okay, but I snitched on you to Riley,” Lena said while flinging the drapes open and passing him her phone so he could read the conversation.
“I am sorry as well,” she almost fearfully waited for his reaction, hoping it wouldn’t send him into one of his famous moods that she was yet to witness, but nothing of the kind happened.
“No problem, you had to protect yourself, it’s understandable,” James kept nodding along.
“And I did sleep better than previous nights, so at least something, right?” he started to sound more and more unsure with every letter uttered, like his confidence was being drained from him by just breathing. He handed her back her phone and headed for the door.
Lena was looking at him and his smushed face and his tousled hair, and didn’t like the feeling that was slowly spreading through her body. Not one bit.
“I will not tell anyone about this, don’t worry,” he added, his eyes still getting used to morning light.
“Wait,” Lena almost yelled, causing him to turn immediately, “there are some appearances to be kept, right?”
She said it in her work Lena voice, and tossed him her hairbrush.
“Thanks,” James said, chuckling a bit, “see you in the park.”
Lena exited her room not even five minutes later, as she put on only the minimal makeup and hurried to the hotel lobby; Riley was already waiting for her.
“What did you mean by “worse” in the text message? What did you think was happening?” she was already on her second coffee (drank the first one back in the hotel lobby) and although the light hurt her eyes, her head has started to feel a bit better, especially after it turned out that today was, after couple of hours in the morning, her day off.
Riley took a deep breath before responding.
“I don’t know James that well. He’s new to the team, and I am new, well, to rally, really, this being my third year as a team principal. And when you take his inconsistencies and outbursts into account, well…” he paused, scratching his beard, before giving an actual answer, lines on his forehead becoming more prominent.
“Drugs. I thought it was drugs.”
**
The rest of the day went in such blur for Lena; she was on complete autopilot even during the sightseeing with Dana and two engineers whose names she promptly forgot. She had a lovely time just chatting, taking pictures, trying new food; she just wished she was more present. Others noticed her weariness, but she explained it away by work-related stress and lack of sleep. However, Lena couldn’t wait to get back to her room and get some rest, dreaming about her bed during the conversations.
When she finally reached her room, she realised she was in a pickle; despite showering, meditating, and preparing everything in advance for tomorrow, she just couldn’t fall asleep. She kept checking the results of every stage of the rally, which still showed James at the top of the leaderboard. She also turned on the TV, more from a habit than a need, but no matter how much she tried to focus on another weekly murder mystery, she kept forgetting the names of the characters and how things related to each other. Curled up around the phone, she closed her eyes, hoping that sleep would finally engulf her.
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