"I am officially done with this weekend," Lando announced as he walked into the dining hall.

"Right," Dakota said, not glancing up from her papers.

"Are you not going to ask me what happened?"

"Sure."

Lando blinked before deciding he would tell her anyway.

"Alessandro is pissed at me for breaking your phone."

"Mhm, that must suck," she replied, scribbling something down.

"Dakota?"

'Hm?"

"Are you listening?"

"Mhm."

Lando leaned forward and pulled the paper away from her.

"Lando!"

"Dakota!"

"Fine, I'll listen to you. What?"

"Alessandro is in the worst mood ever. He won't stop lecturing me! I'm the victim of this heinous hate crime!"

"That makes two of us," Dakota sighed, taking a sip of her water.

"You're not helping," Lando frowned, crossing his arms.

"Him talking is not a hate crime."

"Yeah, but I hate it," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing ever.

"And I hate you. No, in fact, I hate both of you. Don't hear me complaining," Dakota said, slapping her pen on the table.

"You wound me," Lando sighed, falling into the chair beside her.

"What's up with you two anyways?"

"What do you mean?" Dakota asked, feigning innocence.

"You guys have been... extra harsh with each other this weekend."

"Nothing. He's just an asshole," she shrugged.

Lando raised his eyebrows in surprise. That wasn't the response he was expecting.

"Care to share?" he asked, leaning forward in his seat.

She snorted before replying with a firm 'no'.

"I'm not wasting my time talking about him."

"Riiight. So he just happens to be an asshole all of a sudden?"

"Yup. But you should know that already, he's your teammate," she replied, sorting out her papers.

Lando stared at her for a good minute, trying to figure her out.

He spotted her partner, Mark, in the back and quickly made his way over to him.

"Hey, hows it going?"

"Good," Mark replied, eyeing him skeptically.

"Would you happen to know what happened between Kota and Alessandro?"

"Huh? Something happened? What happened?" Mark asked eagerly, his eyes darting over to the brunette.

"Oh, I dunno. That's why I'm asking you," Lando said, now even more confused.

"Why, do you think something happened?"

"No, she just said he was an asshole."

"Mate, that's her favorite word to describe people. I wouldn't think much of it if I were you," Marko said, grabbing his plate of salad.

"Oh. Right. Thanks anyways," Lando called, quickly walking away from him.

"Bye?" Mark trailed off, looking towards Dakota in confusion.

----------------------------------

"Mate, just apologize to her! It's not that hard," Carlos rolled his eyes.

The boys had met up for dinner after the race at a restaurant close to the airport so they could fly out immediately after.

Alessandro's nerve before the race were absolutely haywire. He was nearly sick from the nerves. He felt an immense amount of pressure to perform well. He had seen the tweets and comments. He knew people were watching him, waiting for him to slip up.

Aaron, his physiotherapist, tried his best to calm the Italian.

It helped a bit, but until the lights went out, Alessandro was a nervous wreck.

It was that moment that he realized he really missed Dakota's presence in the garage before races. He missed her clever remarks that made him feel at ease. Her easy going attitude reminded him to have fun out on that track. At the end of the day, he was doing what he loved.

His last thought before the formation lap began had been something Dakota usually said just to irritate him.

Keep calm and carry on.

The race had been quite exciting from what the drivers had heard from the mechanics. Of course, being unable to watch the race themselves, their crew was quick to reveal that the strategy calls had kept them on their toes.

Alessandro had been disappointed at the halfway point in the race when the team had asked him to swap places. He was on fresher tires meaning better pace.

Despite feeling dejected by the teams call, he kept up with Lando and managed to finish the race right behind him in P6.

Alessandro had revealed his dilemma after relentless pestering from Lando.

"I mean, she's pretty harsh, but not that harsh. What did you do to make her rip you to shreds like that?" he had asked.

He noticed the way the two were at each others' throats all weekend long.

"Yeah, that was a dick move," George said, taking a bite of his pasta.

"You think I don't know that? I've been relentlessly attacked by her all weekend," he groaned.

"Well, you messed with the wrong chick," Lando shrugged.

"Look, in case nobody told you Alessandro, that's not how you get a date with a woman," Carlos said in a serious manner.

"I don't want a date with her," he scowled, stabbing a piece of steak.

"Sure, keep telling yourself that."

"Woah, this is news to me. Alessandro and Dakota?" George asked, his eyes wide.

"Sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G," Lando grinned, his mouth still full of food.

"Oh for fucks sake," Alessandro sighed, setting down his silverware.

"Ok, but tell me I am wrong," Carlos said. "You're always looking at her like you want to eat her."

He choked on his steak, coughing loudly and reaching for his water.

"That is very true," George nodded.

Lando watched the exchange, thoroughly enjoying his teammate being publicly embarrassed.

"Look, I just want her to stop verbally abusing me. There's only so many comebacks I have stored in my head that aren't too offensive."

"Why can't you use all of them?"

"Because she'd probably castrate me if I said them out loud."

"Ah so half of them are sexual? Good to know," George nodded.

"What? No! I never said that," Alessandro groaned in frustration.

"It's three words, Alé. I. Am. Sorry."

"It can be two if you want. I'm. Sorry," Lando offered, pointing his fork at the Italian.

"See, even Lando knows. If he can do it, you can do it," Carlos nodded, patting his best friends back.

"Then you can apologize for breaking her phone too," the Brit added.

"Sorry, for what?" George asked, unsure if he'd heard correctly.

"Thanks a lot Lando," Alessandro deadpanned, knowing he had said it on purpose.

"What? Two birds with one stone." "You broke her phone too? Ai yai yai, hermano, what are you doing mate?" Carlos asked, shaking his head.

"That was Lando's fault. I dropped her phone because he threw his water bottle at me."

"Now you're just pointing fingers," Lando accused, narrowing his eyes at him.

"Are you kidding me? Shut up and eat your food Lando."

The Brit huffed, but continued eating anyways.

Less than an hour later, the two drivers found themselves in an Apple store.

"Do you know what phone this is?" Lando whispered, staring at Dakota's cracked iPhone.

"It's a 12, obviously."

"You should buy her the new one. Out of pure generosity."

"Right, generosity. I'm trying to do this without her finding out I broke her old one you dumbass. That means replacing it with the exact one."

"Oh," Lando replied, feeling dumb.

Alessandro was lucky Dakota didn't have any scratches or other identifiers on the iPhone itself. If he replaced the old phone with a new one and kept the same case, hopefully she wouldn't notice.

The phone was still working and the two managed to snag the last of the navy blue iPhone 12 Pro.

But there was one thing Alessandro hadn't thought of.

The password.

"Fuck," he muttered as the phone refused to open without a 4 digit code.

"Any guesses?" Lando asked.

"No clue. Her birthday?"

"0802."

"You know her birthday?"

"You don't?"

The two stared at her for a moment before Alessandro shook his head, putting in the number.

"Try 0208."

Still nothing.

"Excuse me, would it be possible for you to unlock this phone?" Lando asked one of the store associates.

"I can, but everything on the phone would be erased during the restoration process."

That's definitely not what they wanted.

"Try asking Mark?" Alessandro asked, wincing slightly at the suggestion.

"The things I do for you," Lando rolled his eyes, pulling out his phone.

"Why do you want her passcode?" was the first think he asked.

"Well, you see..." Lando began, but Alessandro cut him off.

"We wanted to play a prank on her and put alarms every 5 minutes. Don't worry, we won't go through her stuff or anything. Just the alarms."

"Can't you do that by swiping down on the lock screen?" Mark asked.

"Yeah but..." Alessandro panicked, looking to Lando for help.

"Uh we wanna change her wallpaper too. It'll be fun to see her reaction," he said quickly.

They held their breaths, waiting for him to reply.

"You two really like digging your own graves, don't you?" Mark sighed.

"I was never involved, alright? You're lucky she hasn't noticed it's missing yet. You should hurry though, her flight leaves at 10. I honestly have no clue what it could be, but the code on her locker where her things are during the race is 9124."

Alessandro quickly put in the code, holding his breath.

The phone unlocked.

"Oh thank the lord," Lando sighed, ending the call.

In less than 45 minutes, all the data had been transferred to the new phone.

He quickly placed the clear phone case on, a sigh of relief leaving his lips.

"Wow, we make a great team. We should be teammates in real life," Lando said, giving Alessandro a high five.

The two chuckled as they left the store, Lando on his way to the airport and Alessandro heading back to the track.

Meanwhile, Mark was busy helping the team pack up. All the tools had been put away and the cars were being loaded onto the trucks, supervised by Dakota of course.

Only when he saw the McLaren pit wall being folded shut, did he realize his mistake.

He had sent Dakota several texts regarding the incident reports, including photos of them. He knew no one aside from the two of them would see it, so he never worried about anyone finding out. If someone did find out, they would be in big trouble.

And he had just given both McLaren drivers access to her phone, including her text messages.

He just hoped they stayed true to their word and only accessed what they needed.

Alessandro arrived at the paddock just past 7. He could see Dakota's long ponytail in the distance as he drove into the parking lot. He was about to get out of the car, when several text messages came through on her phone. By default, the new phone no longer had a password meaning he could read every text.

Mark Twain:

he said he could meet us at 9 but ur flight is at 10

what do I tell him?

Dakota?

hellooooo

bruv are u dead

what do I tell Zaaaaak

Alessandro frowned, staring at the notifications on the screen. His fingers itched to unlock her phone, but he held himself back as more messages came through.

I printed out the incident report from Monaco and Baku

It's blurry from the photo but I think it should work

Zak said he'll request the radio recordings from the FIA

and all the data from Alessandro's car

He paused, reading the words again.

and all the data from Alessandro's car

What data? And why from his car? And why was Zak meeting with them? How did he get the incident reports?

Alessandro jumped when a text from Lando made his phone vibrate.

Did she notice?

I haven't given it to her yet. In the car park rn

Hurry, she has to leave for her flight

He quickly got out of the car, running towards the hospitality where he'd last seen her.

"I swear I had it before the race started, and then I don't know where it went!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air.

"Looking for this?" Alessandro asked, making Dakota whirl around.

A look of relief passed over Mark's face when he realized Alessandro had finally arrived with her phone. He wouldn't be able to put up lying to Dakota for much longer.

"Oh thank fuck!" she exclaimed in relief.

She moved to take her phone back, but Alessandro quickly pulled it out of her reach.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"No," she replied, reaching for her phone again.

"Please?"

Dakota blinked, surprised at the soft look on his face.

"Fine," she grumbled, following him out of the hospitality.

Alessandro cleared his throat, handing her phone back.

"Thanks. I thought you left for the airport already?"

"I did. Then I realized I had you phone and... yeah, I came back to give it to you," he explained, scratching the back of his neck.

Dakota held back a smile.

That was nice of him.

"Thank you."

"Of course."

A blanket of silence fell over them as Dakota looked at him curiously. He seemed nervous.

"Dakota I- I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that to you. You were just trying to help and I was an asshole."

"You were," she muttered, looking down at her feet.

A long sigh left her lips before she looked up at him again.

"It's fine. Forget it ever happened. You're right, I'll stop bothering you. Y'know, let you do your thing. Anyways, have a nice flight and uh, see you in Austria," she said, turning on her heels.

Alessandro couldn't say anything because she'd already disappeared into the Paddock.