From the moment I first saw her, something inside me shifted. She was older than me. But the age gap didn’t matter. I knew right then and there that I wanted to try.

She was intriguing, independent, always two steps ahead of me. I was determined to prove that age was just a number. The problem was, no matter how hard I tried, she kept seeing me as a boy, not a man.

"Lando, you’re wonderful, but this just doesn’t make sense," she told me once. "You’re young. You need someone who’s in the same place in life as you."

Young. That word echoed in my head over and over. I wasn’t a teenager anymore, but somehow she couldn’t see past my age.

I tried in every possible way. I’d find excuses to talk to her, to show her I could be confident, mature, someone worth her attention. Every time I got close, she gently pushed me away, as if she was afraid to cross some invisible line.

One evening, after a long day on the track, I ran into her at the hotel bar. She was sipping a glass of wine. I sat down beside her.

"What are you doing here, Lando?" she asked with a faint smile.

"Trying to figure out why you keep pushing me away," I said honestly.

She looked at me, surprised. She hadn’t expected me to be so direct.

"It’s not that I’m pushing you away," she said after a moment. "I just… don’t know if you’re ready."

"Why won’t you let me prove it to you?" I asked. "You keep saying I’m young, that I don’t understand, but you’ve never given me the chance to show you who I really am."

I could tell she was tired of having this conversation.

"Give me a week," I said suddenly.

"What?"

"A week. Come on holiday with me. Just us. Let me show you that I’m not the childish guy you think I am. If, after that week, you still think this isn’t going to work, I’ll leave you alone."

She froze for a moment.

"This is crazy," she said, but her voice was softer than usual.

"Then do something crazy," I said, a small smile tugging at my lips. "A week. Nothing more. Please."