What Party? The Party!

the weekend of Bahrain

While I am setting up my PlayStation they all sit down. Carlos and Alex sit down on the bed, Lando claims the chair, which leaves me and Charles on the floor.

'You lot claimed the comfortable seats so we get to play the first game!' Charles shouts way too loud again.

They all put up some small protests but in the end myself and Charles start the first match. It is a way too chaotic game while usually I am great at Fifa. That is mainly because we are way too competitive. Just like always actually, what else would we expect.

'Yes you scored again!' Everyone shouts at me just cheering us both on at every opportunity. Even though I scored 4 more goals than Charles which was obviously the most important.

-

After playing a few matches I became second, Charles became second behind me, Carlos being first, Lando being third and Alex coming in last with only two points behind Lando. Me and Carlos both beat everyone and he beat me when we played so I don't think it was such a fair game. It was decided between the five of us that the games we had played were just warm up matches ready for the proper tournament we were going to have when George arrived. Speaking of which, there came a knock on the door and Alex leapt up off the bed to go and answer it. As I suspected it was George at the door. Alex jumped on George, wrapping his arms around the Mercedes driver's neck. Considering they had last seen each other half an hour ago, they were acting like they hadn't seen each other for weeks.

'Now that everybody's here, lets get the Fifa tournament started!' Lando yelled, met by a cheer from all of us in the room. This ended up taking my mind of George and Alex for the time being as I concentrated trying to be the best at FIFA. After a bit of debating between us, we decided that we would go into two groups of three and play the people in our group twice, meaning that we would play four games each. The top two from each group would go through to the next round and the winners from that would play in the final. Then there was the matter of sorting out the groups. Eventually, Lando came up with a good idea, for a change. He suggested the we draw the groups from a hat, first name drawn would go in the first group, second name in the second group and alternate between the groups. I ended up being with Lando and George, whilst Charles, Carlos and Alex were in the other group. I thought that I ended up with the slightly easier group although I didn't make the mistake of underestimating them like Carlos did last time we played.

The first game was between Charles and Alex, so Alex moved to sit down on the floor where I was, leaving me to sit in the now empty spot on the bed behind Charles. The game was pretty evenly matched and unfortunately quite boring. This led to my mind wondering whilst staring at the back of Charles's head. His hair was lighter than I first thought with the shorter hair starting to curl round. At some point, Carlos nudged me in the ribs, which hurt thank you very much, and bought me out of my thinking.

'Max, Max your staring' Carlos whispered into my ear as I came back to reality.

'What, no I wasnt,' I defended myself quietly eventhough I knew that I had been staring at the back of Charles's head.

'Thats what you think.'

'Hey, are you two paying any attention, Alex just managed to beat Charles!' George yelled, displaying a level of excitement purely reserved for when Alex managed to do anything he felt the rest of us should know about.

'So Max, who's playing the next game?' Charles questioned me, turning his green eyes and looking right at me.

'Erm I think next should be me and George,' I said whilst turning to look at George to see if he agreed with me. He did, giving a nod of confirmation that he would be a willing participant in the next game of FIFA. We took our seats at the foot of the bed, with me sitting in the spot recently vacated by Charles. The rest of the 'group games' as we called them went by very quickly. I topped my group with Carlos narrowly getting top spot in his group, beating Alex by a mear one point. This meant I played Alex and Carlos was set to play Lando who managed to just about better George by scoring a last minute winner in his game against him. Alex decided that he wanted Carlos and Lando to play first so we all switched seats to enable Carlos and Lando to take their places on the floor. George and Alex sat together on the chair with Alex practically sitting in Georges lap which meant I had to sit on the bed next to Charles. Truthfully, I didn't particularly mind this but there was still something that made me a tad uncomfortable about sitting this close to him. Charles helped to ease that feeling slightly by striking up a conversation with me.

'So Max, who do you think is going to win this.'

I contemplated the answer for a second before answering, 'Well, I am pretty sure that Carlos is going to absolutely wipe the floor with Lando.'

'Possibly, but I think that Lando could surprise us though.'

'True, who do you think will win out of me and Alex.'

'You of course.' Charles gave this little laugh that sent my stomach doing somersaults for some reason.

'I hope I don't disappoint.' I answered before returning my attention back to the game. True to what Charles said, Lando was proving to be a stubborn opponent up against Carlos and thus the score was still level. In the end though, Lando prevailed and Carlos finished the game victorious. This meant that it was now my turn to play and my nerves were starting to play up, not being helped by Charles whispering good luck to me in my ear as I moved to sit down on the floor. My mind was elsewhere when the game started which led to a few close calls where Alex nearly scored. Thankfully, this woke me back up and I got my head back in the game. In the end I won 5-3 and it was time for the final against Carlos. I knew that this was not going to be an easy game so I got my game face on, blocking out any distractions. Mainly those distractions that began with a C and ended with harles. He was sitting directly behind me with Lando now sitting behind Carlos and I could feel his breath on the back of my neck.

'Are you ready Max?'

'Yeah, may the best man win Carlos.'

'Indeed.'

It was a tense match, not as easy as my other matches as me and Carlos were both very evenly matched in terms of ability. It also didn't help that our playing styles were very similar as well as it was a good end-to-end game that was very tense. In the background I could hear everybody giving their commentary on the game, but I had blocked it all out as my only focus was now on the screen in front of me. My hard work eventually paid off and I came out the winner of me and Carlos. The one thing I can say about Carlos is that he is very gracious in defeat so congratulated me. Then Alex and George said that they had better get going with Carlos and Lando following shortly after. Charles stayed slightly longer before saying that he had better go as well. I led him to the door, even though there was no reason to and let him out. Just as he was about to go down the corridor, he whispered once more in my ear.

'I enjoyed this Max, we should do it again some time.'

Once I had managed to find my voice again as my throat had closed up at his words, he was already halfway down the corridor and almost out of sight. Deciding there was only one thing I could do, I called Daniel and arranged for him to come round.