Charles had always been fascinated by thunderstorms. When he was little he would take a chair from the dining room and place it next to a window when it stormed, so he could look at the grey clouds and the lighting coming down. Even the hard crashes of sounds coming from the sky didn't scare him. He didn't understand how it happened, the rain, the light and the sounds but he was in awe of the mighty power of the event.
Later he learned that thunderstorms are caused by friction between strongly rising hot air and strongly descending cold air. These two airflows come close together at high speed and electrical particles charge the cloud like a huge capacitor. This makes discharges possible between the cloud and other clouds.
At twentyfive he now knows that not only grey clouds can cause that friction. Her eyes are like the storms he watched when he was younger. The intense shade of grey, so rich and with all sorts of textures in them that are now burned into his brain. The friction in him feels like an unbearable buildup of hot and cold air flows which alternate each other everytime she is near him.
She causes him to feel so hot he gets prickly and irritated. She is so good at provoking him and he doesn't know how to handle himself. The next moment she is capable of turning all those hot feelings into such cold that he feels chills run over his skin. It is starting to feel inevitable that they are going to collide one of these days and he doesn't know if he is going to be able to handle the storm that it is going to cause.
He tries.
He tries to focus on something else. Get her grey eyes out of his head. Tries to push down the hot and the cold. He tries.
He fails.
Her grey eyes have not left him since the moment she walked away from him. The scent of her vanilla and orange skin that always seems to surround her stuck in his nostrils. The hot feeling of her breath on his skin still tingling in his neck.
It is infuriating. Exasperating. Insufferable.
He swings his arm with all the might he can lay into it. The ball collides with his padel racket, sending the little ball flying over the net to the back of the court. It comes back in full force and Arthur doesn't act quick enough so the ball goes to the ground, giving their opponents a point. Max and Lando share a high-five while Charles' brother just looks at him with annoyance.
"Can you cut it out?" He walks off to take a sip from his water bottle that stands on the side. Charles follows him and shakes his head.
"Sorry, Thur. My head is not in the game." He throws the towel laying on the ground over his neck, wiping at the sweat that has been building there.
"No shit," Arthur replies with a glare. Charles just sighs and takes a big swig from his water bottle, almost draining the contents.
"Need a break already Leclerc's? We're just starting." Lando jumps a few times to show that he is indeed full of energy. They are halfway their second game of padel and Charles is, bluntly speaking, sucking. He is missing all the balls or hitting them too hard and Arthur is getting frustrated with him, as is not an unreasonable thing.
"This fucker needs to take a second and come back to earth," his brother spits out, before taking another sip and putting his bottle down. "I am not planning on getting hit by a misplaced swing."
Charles just glares not in the mood to get bashed by his baby brother.
With the Monaco Grand Prix around the corner Arthur had been staying with their mother. When Lando had asked them to come out for a round of padel and bring a teammate because he was claiming Max Charles had asked Arthur, who was willing to come.
"He is a little right, mate. You suck today, what's going on?" You wouldn't say it when you see Max teh racing driver, but as a friend he is mostly the best to talk to. He sees right through people and doesn't beat around the bush when he is observing something is wrong. Maybe it's his Dutch sobriety, but most of the time it's really nice. Charles hates it at this moment.
"Nothing, just not having my day I guess," he grumbles and picks his racket back up. "Let's go on, I'll try to be better." The other three seem to share a look, but they go along with Charles' brush-off. He really doesn't want to think about what has been bothering him, because that would make it more annoying than it already is.
They play on and in some miracle way Charles seems to get his head back in the game. They still lose, but it's a close game.
"Want to switch teams?" Lando asks no one in particular. Arthur shrugs, Max hums and Charles gives a short "sure". Lando walks around the net and taps Arthur on his shoulder, signalling he will take over from him. He nods and takes the place Lando has just vacated.
"Ready?" Max yells at them, bouncing the ball on the ground a few times like he is readying it. The others take their positions and Max serves.
"You have seen the articles I take?" Lando asks while smashing the ball to the right side. His voice is loud enough for Charles to hear, but not enough for the other two players to follow what he is saying. The Monegasque goes stiff at that, nearly missing the return ball from Arthur.
Yes he had seen the articles. Those damned pictures of him and Fayen in Imola. They were not all bad. Most of them were also about Pierre and Fayen. Kym had posted a 'double featured Gasly' post that had gotten a bunch of attention.
Pierre Gasly was spotted a lot with his girlfriend last week, but this week another woman is standing at his side. His sister is a person we do not see that often in the paddock, but I was lucky enough to snap this picture of the two siblings. Taken moments before Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc bumped into her and ruined her outfit.
Luckily that unfortunate moment had not been captured by Kyms lens or he had just had the common sense not to share it on his account, but the damage was done. Everywhere he had seen people speculating about what had happened and if Charles and Fayen knew each other. This makes Charles sick with worry for Fayen. She was trying to stay out of the spotlight. She had made that abundantly clear and now people were looking for her.
He had seen some old pictures pop up from when she had attended races of other seasons. There were some photos from her in Melbourne together with Grace. Even some pictures from the event in Miami where she was photographed going in. Charles was never in one of the pictures, but still people liked to speculate. It is ridiculous if you ask him. And it's certainly not improving his mood.
"Articles is a big word. I've been on social media, yes. What of it?" Charles throws Lando a quick glance while Arthur gets ready to serve after Lando had scored the point.
The Brit just shrugs and the corner of his mouth twitches, as if he is suppressing a smile. "Just figured, because of the mood."
Charles rolls his eyes at this and curses himself for even asking Lando. He was fishing. He sends the ball into the back wall, but Max manages to swing it over with such low speed that Lando needs to sprint to the net. He misses, the ball dropping on their half of the court.
"I know what you're doing." Because Charles does know. He remembers Fayen telling him she was invited to Imola by Lando. He also knows this was not because Pierre asked. When he asked Pierre, pathetically because he just wanted to know what was going on, he had told him he was also very surprised by her visit. That Grace had been talking to Fayen and that those conversations got back to Lando was also not a hard thing to guess. But why his friend was starting a coupling action on him was still a mystery and especially since it is Fayen they want to set him up with.
"I'm playing padel," Lando says, the grin breaking out on his face now. Charles rolls his eyes and whacks his racket in the general direction of his friend.
"Sure you are." Charles turns back and catches a ball from Arthur perfectly on his racket, returning it with a hard smash. Max almost falls over to try and catch it, but he is too late and this results in the winning point for Lando and Charles.
"Whoo! Three wins in a row, baby. I'm on a roll." Lando does a little victory dance and laughs at Arthur's sour face who has only lost. "Ah, cheer up little Leclerc, you'll get your chance."
Arthur just rolls his eyes, walking to the net to shake hands. "You know I am way taller than you?"
Lando makes a face and waves the comment away with a hand gesture. "Details, details." Which makes Arthur look at Charles for help, who shrugs and his finger circles to the side of his head in a gesture that says 'he's just weird'. This makes Arthur laugh and Lando looks behind him to find Charles portraying innocence.
"Hey, have you guys been thinking about the Monaco Grand Prix, what's the plan?" Max asks, drying his neck with Charles' towel.
"Dude," the man in question groans, gesturing to Max's towel that is literally behind him. Max turns around but ignores the problem. Charles' mouth falls open and the Dutchman just laughs sheepishly.
"Win for once," Charles smirks at him and Max glares back. "Or at least try not to let the Leclerc curse take over again."
This makes them all laugh. "I hope it's a Charles curse, otherwise I'm fucked too," Arthur says, shoving Charels' shoulder with his own. He just rolls his eyes and shoves him right back.
"I was more thinking about after," Max elaborates.
"I thought we would go to Jimmy'z after?" Lando says after swallowing just a little too much water in one go. Charles nods, agreeing with him. That had been the plan since last year had been a success. Although, for most of them. Charles feels the memory of that night get back to him and the feelings accompanying it. He tries not to think about Charlotte now and pushes the memories back into the far corners of his brain.
"Sure, okay. I just wanted to know." Max smiles and starts packing up his stuff. "Could we meet up at someone's before going? Can't at mine," Max adds the last part quickly as Lando starts to open his mouth.
Charles shrugs. "Who is 'we' in this? Because my place is fine, but I don't know how many we are going out with."
"Probs most drivers, but we could limit the people coming to you. How about we ask Carlos, Pierre and Alex , I don't know if the girls are coming?" Max suggests.
"I know Isa is not coming," Charles answers. "For the rest no idea, but we can ask them and they can just bring the girls if they want to."
Lando clasps his hands. "Excellent, I'll be bringing Grace." But the smile on his face suggests he is up to more than only inviting his girlfriend. Charles lets it glide off him, thinking about the prospect of driving his home Grand Prix soon. Letting that happy feeling fill him, instead of the nerves Lando's suggestive grin gives him.
-