Driving Miss Catherine

Cat canceled her plans the next day, claiming she had a headache, but really she just wasn’t ready to face her driver yet. She was supposed to see Heikki, whom she had completely forgotten about when she learned Seb’s true identity. She suddenly saw everything: the subtle worry lines in his forehead, the tiredness hidden behind the glint in his eyes, the sad, forlorn look he sometimes got when he thought no one was looking. These were his battle scars, the remnants of a past life he wished he could forget about and hide from. They were the reminders of everything he lost; everything he’d worked so hard for, lost in a single afternoon, a split second of indecision.

The one thing Cat couldn’t get over was what happened to the other diver involved. Seb walked away from the crash, but the other driver, his best friend, was left clinging to his life. It had been several moths and it still was not known if he would survive or not, or even how severe his injuries were. What little Cat knew about car racing and F1, she knew that was a bad crash. She also thought it was ironic that the car Seb had bought to replace the old Lincoln was a Ferrari. Very ironic.

The next day she again tried to stay home, but her dad insisted she not miss this appointment. He almost called it a date, but he didn’t want to push the fact that he would be more than happy if Cat and Heikki had some kind of relationship.

“Can’t I just drive myself?” Cat complained over breakfast.

“Nonsense, Sebastian will be here in thirty minutes. Besides, since when do you know how to drive?” Albert eyed his daughter curiously. Raised in the city, and with a chauffeur always available, he never felt it necessary for her to take driving lessons.

“Seb’s been teaching me to drive; I’m actually getting good enough to maybe pass my driver’s test,” Cat smiled up at her dad, though she knew he was unhappy. This was the last thing he wanted to hear: his daughter was getting diving lessons from a disgraced racecar driver.

“No, Mr. Vettel will drive you…and please don’t call him ‘Seb.’ It makes it sound like you two are friends or something,” her father replied, giving her one last concerned look, before leaving her alone, a look that said ‘don’t you dare think of becoming friends with (or something more than friends) with this guy’. Completely unready to face Seb (Cat was not going to call him Mr. Vettel), she took her time eating breakfast, and rushed to get dressed and brush her teeth before he arrived. When she finally skipped down the front steps, she found him waiting in the Ferrari. Cat had a sudden flash of the pictures and articles she’d read a few days before, the sight of the crashed and mangled Ferrari F1 car still haunting her memory. She carefully slipped into the passenger seat next to Seb and tried not to look at him.

He seemed tense. They were quiet for a few minutes. “So, you’re going on a date.” He stated, more than asked.

“Is that what my dad called it?” Cat tried to laugh it off, but she couldn’t hide the uneasiness in her tone. “It’s just coffee with Heikki, nothing special.”

“That blond guy you played golf with the other day?” Seb sounded slightly judgmental, but tried to sound conversationally curious.

“Yes, he’s in the Finnish Navy; I’m not sure how long he’s on leave, but I think he said he had a few months off. He was much better at golf than I expected, but I guess I assumed that he didn’t get many opportunities to play golf if he was always on a boat, or out on the ocean,” Cat realized she was gushing and stopped. Seb seemed even less amused than he had been before.

“Yes, well, guys like that tend to have those kinds of skills: golfing, tennis… I bet he goes shooting on the weekend, too,” He replied.

“What do you mean ‘Guys like that?’ You mean because he’s in the Navy?” Cat turned to face him, noticing his annoyed expression for the first time, and immediately regretted asking him that. He looked like he might snap at her.

“No, but those are the kinds of things you might find people with money doing, and he seems like the kind of guy who likes to hang out with people who have money,” Seb explained, feeling a little apologetic. Perhaps it wasn’t his place to be saying this to Cat, but he was concerned. Cat was quiet for a minute, thinking this over, and Seb worried he had offended her.

“He did call me an heiress the night we first met,” Cat said quietly, replaying that conversation in her head. “But he was so…charming, I guess that’s the word. He was so charming that I forgot about it.”

“I’m not saying he’s after your money, but look closely and you’ll see signs of it. He doesn’t come from money, but he pretends and hides it very well. I used to know people like that,” he added, with a quick glance at her that told her he knew that she knew who he was. Cat didn’t know what to say to that.

“Thanks, I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for that,” she said as they pulled up to the café where she was supposed to meet Heikki. With one last smile at Seb, she hopped out of the car and walked a few feet before she heard him take off into the busy New York traffic. She looked after him for a few seconds, rethinking what he’d warned her, when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

“Hey, how are you?” Heikki said with his perfect accent that Cat loved a little too much. Her frown twitched into a smile as she turned to face him

“I’m fine, thanks,” she laughed, suddenly at a loss for words as he smiled that gorgeous smile that showed off his beautiful teeth.

“You said you had a headache yesterday, are you feeling better now?” He asked, brows furrowing just enough to show he was concerned. (Cat was too distracted by his smile to question whether that concern was genuine or not.)

“Yes, I’m much better now,” she blushed and almost started giggling when she stopped herself. “Why don’t we get some coffee?” She nodded toward the coffee shop they had been standing in front of, taking up space on the busy sidewalk. Heikki held the door for her, and even offered to pay, but realized he ‘didn’t have enough American money with him at the time.’ Cat immediately thought of what Seb had warned her about, but dismissed those thoughts. ‘It’s just coffee,’ she thought, ‘He isn’t trying to steal my trust fund…’ Cat soon forgot about this when Heikki smiled again.

After coffee, they walked a few blocks to the park. They were the only people in the small, secluded park since it had started to drizzle. Heikki pulled Cat under a tree where they were shielded from the rain. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders as they sat on a park bench, watching the light rain.

“This is actually kind of nice,” he remarked, casually pulling her a little closer. Cat agreed, and was about to comment on the weather they’d been experiencing that summer when her phone buzzed. Instinctively, she pulled out her phone to see who had texted her, and frowned when she saw it.

“Who is it?” Heikki asked, sounding slightly protective/concerned.

“It’s my driver; he just wants to know when I’ll need to be picked up,” Cat explained and texted him that she didn’t know.

“I guess Vettel’s still getting used to being a chauffeur,” Heikki commented with a slightly malicious grin.

“No, he’s doing really well. He’s even teaching me how to drive,” Cat added proudly, although most people she knew her age already knew how to drive.

“I just think it’s odd….” Heikki started, and thought for a moment. “After what he did…and now your dad wants him to drive you around?”

“From what I read, it wasn’t really his fault. And he’s certainly a different driver off the track; I have never once felt unsafe with him. But my dad likes to show off his money, so I’m not surprised he asked a four time world champion driver to be my chauffeur,” Cat glanced at Heikki and saw a slight twitch in his perfect, charming façade.

“No, the crash was definitely his fault, and he clearly could have prevented it,” Heikki responded with a surprising amount of emotion. “I’m sorry, that was out of place. It’s just that the guy he hit was from my home country and my favorite driver.”

“I’m so sorry; I guess you must really hate Seb,” Cat noticed that Heikki almost flinched when she called him ‘Seb,’ but he didn’t say anything.

“No, I don’t hate him, but that is one of the reasons I’m not overly fond of him,” Heikki did not elaborate what he meant by this.

“From what I’ve read, the other driver’s condition is unknown. Have you heard anything about him?” Cat asked.

“About Kimi? No, he has completely disappeared; I guess he’s in a rehabilitation center in Switzerland, but no one really knows exactly what’s wrong with him. It was speculated that he might not walk again, but not much is really known about his injuries,” Heikki said mournfully and shook his head. He was quiet for a minute, and Cat tried to think of something consoling to say. She tried to put her hand on his leg comfortingly, but it ended up being an uncoordinated knee pat/awkward caressing

“Looks like it has stopped raining,” he observed, putting his hand lightly on her hand to stop her from any further embarrassment and Cat nodded.

“Yup, looks like it has,” she pulled her hand away and blushed. Every time she tried to show she liked him, she ended up embarrassing herself and proving that she had no idea what she was doing. And every time, she was reminded that Heikki knew exactly what he was doing, and that made her a little uneasy. They stood up and slowly began strolling along the path back toward the street. Cat texted Seb where to pick her up, and hoped he would be a few minutes late. She wanted an excuse to spend a couple more minutes with Heikki, even though all she seemed to be doing was humiliating herself.

But of course, Seb arrived on time, if not early, saving her from any further embarrassment. She gave Heikki a brief hug good bye while Seb opened the door for her.

“And thanks for the coffee!” Heikki said as she got in the car.

“No problem, anytime!” She replied before shutting the door. Seb pulled away quickly and they rode out of the city in silence.

“So, you bought him coffee?” Seb asked suspiciously, raising one eyebrow as if to say ‘I told you so.’

“It was just coffee!” She gently hit his arm playfully and couldn’t help a smile from creeping up around the corner of her lips.

“I’m sorry,” he smiled back at her. “I was being stupid, just ignore me. But I still think I’m right about him. Or, maybe he doesn’t care about your money, maybe he loves your outgoing, laid back personality,” Seb teased, and earned another light smack from Cat.

“Shut up,” she laughed, but he teased her all the way home. As distracting as that was, she still couldn’t stop thinking about that crash. She wanted to know if the other driver was okay, if not to satisfy her own curiosity, for Seb’s sake. Cat was determined to find out what happened to Kimi Raikkonen.