#formu

“One cupcake, please.” 

Are your ears deceiving you? You quickly whip around to have your eyes meet a pair of green ones. “You’re here!” You exhale, refusing to believe that he’s standing in front of you. The person in front of you has his hands shoved into his pockets, awkwardly kicking at the ground. “Well, I know how excited you were for this…” Lando offers you a shy smile, as if he doesn’t want you to think much about this small thing that he’s done. You shoot him an even bigger smile and pull him into a hug, relishing in the familiarity that comes rushing to you. You want to sink into this hug because it reminds you of simpler days; of home and being safe. It takes a couple of seconds before Lando wraps his arms around you and you can feel him relax into the hug too. 

Your friendship with Lando has always been one of low-maintenance because you understood early on how your dynamic with each other would be. Lando, as a professional racer, was always busy. You’d been friends with him for a couple of years now and you could count on one.. or fine, maybe two hands the amount of times when you could pull up to Lando’s for a spontaneous hangout with each other. He’d always been so focused on achieving his dreams of being an F1 driver that it often felt like he always had to be somewhere else. You, being the amazing and great best friend that you are, would never want to get in the way of that. So instead of the usual things best friends did, you happily settled into brief late night calls for quick life updates or seeing him once or twice every couple of months over a meal. You knew in your heart you could see him more often if you wanted to and Lando would probably make the time for you but you just always felt like you never wanted to be the person to derail Lando’s goals for himself. It was a “his success is your happiness” kind of thing. 

You pull away from the hug and smile at him again, just purely happy to see him. “I didn’t even know you knew I was doing this today.” You look around the park, where the annual bake sale was happening. Your mom was usually the one who made the effort to bake the goods and man the booth during these type of events, but your mom had already told you long ago that she wouldn’t be able to physically be here today and required you to man the booth for her instead. “It’s all you really talked about the last time I saw you,” Lando teases. “What kind of a friend would I be if I didn’t come and support?” You think back to the last time you saw him a few months back. 

“This tastes delicious.” You say-nearly moan-as you take a bite of the cake Lando has taken out of his fridge. Lando has an amused expression on his face. “You look like you want to make love to it, Y/N. You got the crazy eyes going on.” You wiggle your eyebrows at him. “Is it that obvious?” Lando shakes his head and laughs. You were used to clearing out the food in his fridge since he was always on some diet to maintain his weight for racing. You don’t really need to force yourself to make small talk to fill the silence since Lando was someone you didn’t need to be constantly speaking to in order to feel comfortable. You could sit in a room with him, say absolutely nothing to each other, and it would still be pleasant. “I don’t know how I’m going to sell all of those cupcakes for my mom during the bake sale.” You sigh. Lando simply hums in respond. You look at Lando to see his attention is on his phone. His eyebrows are furrowed and he’s typing something back. He’s probably dealing with something important.

It doesn’t bother you that he isn’t really responding to you. You’ve gotten quite used to it and frankly, you’re just glad that you get to spend time with him since the rest of your friends have been telling you that they don’t ever get to see Lando anymore. It makes you feel kinda special that Lando still prioritizes the friendship you have with him and chooses to spend his free time with you. “Imagine how awkward I’m going to be.” You laugh at the thought of yourself making small talk with random people. Lando glances up from his phone and shoots you a small smile too. He quickly turns his attention back to his phone and begins typing away again. 

“I didn’t think you were even listening.” You tease back. Lando’s smile drops and he shoots you a frown. “I’m always listening to what you say, Y/N.” You shake your head at him and laugh. “Seriously! I take what you say as very important news to me.” He continues, smiling but trying to convince you that he’s being completely honest in the moment. “It’s okay, Lando,” You say, trying to push his buttons a bit more. “There are more interesting things in life than what silly old me has to say.” There’s a brief hint of guilt that flashes through Lando’s eyes but it goes as quickly as it comes. “Yeah, yeah, I’m the bad friend now.” He playfully rolls his eyes and dismissively runs his hand through his hair. 

“But I’m the bad friend that will always show up for things important to you. No matter how silly or small you think they are. So I’ll take it.” 

Your heart warms at the last thing Lando has said. Lando has never really been the friend to say sweet things to you because your friendship wasn’t ever really like that. The two of you preferred the banter; the friendly arguing and teasing because it both made you laugh a lot at how silly you two could get. You knew, however, in your heart that Lando was actually someone who thought a lot about how to stay connected with not just you, but all of his other friends in life. He just didn’t know how to express it most of the time so he always did it through the subtle ways. He’d send you small trinkets from the places he traveled to for races. He’d take pictures of odd things that reminded him of you and send you them. He’d call you in the middle of the week just to fill you in on how he was doing and ask you how your week was. You never held the lack of his physical presence in your friendship against him because you just understood the position he was in. So it’s always a pleasant surprise when bits of the sweetness Lando has in him comes out. 

“I take it back. You’re falling in love with me as we speak. I’m never supporting you again.” This time, you roll your eyes and punch him jokingly. “Yeah, it’s actually throwing my whole day off seeing you. I think you should leave.” “Is that how you treat a paying customer?” He retorts. You reach your hand out, palm up, and leave it in front of him. Lando looks at it and his eyebrows furrow, clearly confused. He hesitantly places a finger in my palm. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me here.” He says. You gently slap his finger away. “Ouch!” “Pay up first, duh.” Lando laughs and then proceeds to come around the table to take a place beside you. He plops himself down on the seat that was originally placed there for you. You shoot him a disappointed look, but love that it seems he’s staying longer than just a brief hello and goodbye. “I’ve thought it through. You can go and sell your cupcakes while I sit here and provide you comedic relief while you’re at it. We all know I’m the funny one anyway.” You simply laugh and allow him to remain in the seat as a mother and child approach your table. As you hand the mother her change, you turn back to Lando. He’s already watching you. “Seriously, why are you here? Not that I’m complaining or anything. I thought you were busy this week.” You ask. He nods but keeps eye contact as he says, “I’m always busy but surely you know I’d make time for you, of all people.” You flash him a genuine smile, not caring if he’s going to tease you again in order to mask how sweet the things he’s been saying are. 

“Well, I missed you a lot so I’m glad you’re here.” You say.