Casey wiped her brow on her sleeve, smearing the grease on her face even more all over the place than it was before. Her knees were aching from crouching and she was tired. They were almost finished with the second practice session for the Malaysian Grand Prix and Suzie was in the garage after Seb reported a balance issue. She vaguely appreciated that the problems that were beginning to arise from the RB10 were not her direct responsibility, but she also felt a natural nagging desire to want to help fix them. Sebastian was still strapped in as the technicians and engineers poured over the front wing hurriedly, hoping they could improve it for him before sending him back out.
She absent-mindedly readjusted the tyre warmer she was holding in place and looked up at the ceiling for a few moments. Brand stood to her right, holding the fan into the cockpit to keep Seb cool while his personal trainer, Heikki, kept doing runs for bags of ice which he would dump into Seb's lap every so often.
Her eyes wandered around the room as she observed her teammates scrambling to figure out what had to be done. She looked to Evan who was chatting animatedly to a guy named Jacob, a technician who was so on his tire changing team for pit stops. Jacob might have sensed her gaze as he looked up and shot her a quick smile mid-sentence without skipping a beat. She smiled back, although his eyes had already shifted off her as he leaned in towards Evan, trying to hear him over all the noise. Jacob was similar in age to Evan, they even looked a bit alike, though Jacob's dark features contrasted Evan's light ones.
Casey's mind idled as she eyeballed the two boys opposite her, though only briefly. Suddenly, she felt a bitingly cold sensation against the back of her neck and let out a sharp yelp. Her hand flew up to rub the spot and she twisted around to see the perpetrator, only to find a huge grin on Heikki's face as he twiddled a piece of ice in his gloved hand. Casey's mouth dropped in a melodramatic manner and she squinted at him. He looked awfully pleased with himself and shrugged, motioning that he 'dropped a piece'. She shook her head and looked over at Seb, and although he was mostly hidden under his helmet, it was clear in his eyes that he was just as amused as Heikki.
"Prats," Casey mouthed, opting not to shout over the noise.
She continued to rub the spot on her neck, pouting a little. Still crouching, she swivelled slightly so as to keep Heikki, who was busy smirking, firmly planted in her peripheral vision.
Sebastian watched Casey and Heikki as they kept each other in strategic view. He should have been completely focused, but it was too hot, and he'd been sitting motionless for too long. He was quite simply, well, a bit bored. Frustration was seeping into his mood again. Another problem with the car. He poked at his latest melted bag of ice as it slipped towards his knees. A wasted session. This wasn't the way the season was meant to start.
He looked up from the cockpit again, towards his front left tyre where Casey remained attentively perched. He had never had a female mechanic in his pit crew before. There were plenty of women in the team in other roles, just never usually crouching next to his tyre playing ice wars with his personal trainer. Now completely distracted, he watched a bead of sweat trickle down the side of her neck as she stared warily toward the back of the garage.
Sadly, the session ended without the team managing to release Sebastian for any further lap attempts.
Casey trudged along next to Brand back to the minibus after they had finished packing up. Everyone from their side of the garage was looking and feeling a bit disheartened as they slumped into seats on the bus. Casey slipped into a window seat and kicked her backpack under the seat in front. A moment later, Evan slipped in beside her and patted his own shoulder. She gratefully took up residence, resting her head under the nook of his chin and closing her eyes, almost instantly dropping into a half-conscious state as the bus purred to life beneath them. Evan leaned his cheek on top of her head and closed his eyes too.
Back at the hotel, as the crew piled out of the minibuses and into the lobby, plans began to form that they would all have dinner together in the hotel restaurant in a few hours time. This gave everyone a chance to clean up and have a rest beforehand which they all desperately needed. Casey quietly appreciated that their team seemed close and hung out often even though they didn't have to. It was only her second Grand Prix away with them but they were already starting to feel like a kind of family. She'd known most of them for several years now anyway, though only had limited contact with a lot of them when she had worked back at headquarters. Except Evan. They had already become good friends during their time together back at the factory. And now being on the away team together seemed to have cemented their friendship even more.
Evan swiped Casey's access card against their room door and they stumbled in, ditching their back packs at the door. "Shower dibs!" he called, suddenly finding the energy to hurtle into the bathroom before she could even reply.
She sighed and began to prepare her clothes for when she would get out of the shower, choosing some black jeans and a navy blue hoodie. Evan eventually emerged from the shower with a towel around his waist and she took her turn, but not before awkwardly catching a glimpse of Evan's indisputably impressive upper physique. Thankfully, he didn't seem to notice.
After they had both showered and dressed, Casey set an alarm in her phone for two hours so they could wake up and join the others for dinner. She took her spot on the sofa bed and relished the feel of the soft pillows and blankets. Evan flopped down on to the bed too and almost immediately fell asleep.
It was painful to wake up after only a short hour and a half sleep, but they did it. Eventually they dragged themselves out of the room and made it up to the 25th floor of the hotel where the restaurant was located.
She tried to disguise her yawn as she took an empty seat at the long banquet table that had been reserved for them. Everyone was either milling around the table or taking seats and staring blankly at the menu. Evan had wandered off to the other end of the table to chat with Jacob.
Casey sat quietly with her elbow on the table, propping up her head as she looked blankly at the menu before her. Her eyes fluttered closed as sleep tried to creep back in, though not for long. She jolted awake as she sensed people taking up some of the nearby seats. Noticing with a start that it was Christian, Rocky and a couple of other high-ranking managers who had joined her, she suddenly felt very out of place. She glanced down the table and noticed the rest of her crew taking seats down the other end, all chatting animatedly together.
Then came the awkward moment where she knew she should probably move seats, but didn't want to earn any attention in doing so. She was folding up her menu as the final empty seat on her left was pulled out and Sebastian sat down next to her, raising his brow just slightly and giving her a 'look' that she deemed to be of amusement.
"I should probably move," she said, pushing her chair back.
"Should I be offended?" Sebastian quipped, giving her another look. His eyes were always so emotive.
She smiled sheepishly and shook her head, pulling her chair back in.
"What have you chosen?" he asked her.
She took a moment to realise he was referring to the menu and snatched it back up, "Oh, uhh, something exotic... like a burger."
He snorted and opened his menu, scanning it at seemingly lightning speed before closing it again. She looked at him questioningly.
"Garden salad," he responded mournfully.
She opened her mouth in horror, "Who do you think you are? Victoria Beckham?"
He chuckled quietly and shook his head. At that moment the waiter came to the table and began taking orders, starting with Christian and working through the managers before reaching Sebastian.
"And for you Mr. Vettel?" the waiter asked.
"Two of the burgers and extra fries," he replied confidently, jutting his head slightly in Casey's direction to indicate he had ordered for her too. The waiter nodded once, scribbling on his pad of paper before bowing slightly and moving down the table to the person on Casey's other side.
She stared at Sebastian with an eyebrow raised and her lips pursed to the side.
"So, that'll be a pretty calorie-intensive garden salad then," she teased.
"Are you trying to tell me that potato is not a vegetable and that there is no lettuce on a burger?" he challenged.
"Soon enough we'll be winching you into the car," she retorted with a grin.
"You sound just like Heikki," he replied in mock disgust, shaking his head with exaggerated hurt. Another waiter came to the table then and began serving an array of beautiful looking drinks of all colours from a silver trolley. It kind of reminded Casey of being on an airplane.
It wasn't until they had nearly finished eating that she realised she didn't even know who was sitting on her other side. With a pang of shame, she turned to her right to find an engineer from Daniel's team, whose name she had forgotten. He was deep in conversation with the person on his right, and didn't seem phased by her non-existent company.
She was starting to feel more comfortable talking to Sebastian. He was light-hearted and easy to joke with. He chatted happily with everyone at their end of the table, but spent most of his meal pointing out to her all of the elements of their dinner that made it a "healthy" and "necessary" choice.
"You're very good at bullshitting, I have to hand it to you," she laughed, setting her knife and fork down as she finished eating.
"I'm very experienced at arguing with Heikki," he replied, "I know I have to eat well, but that is no reason to make his job easy."
She smirked and nodded in agreement, "Of course not."
She hadn't managed to finish all of her dinner, as the portion sizes were quite large. Before her brain could process what was happening, Sebastian had stabbed a fork-full of her left-over fries and dumped them on his own plate before peering down the table with wide eyes, "Heikki isn't here, right?" he muttered absent-mindedly.
She snorted and shook her head, "Can't say I've seen him," she replied, nudging her plate towards him to assist in his thievery.
He shot her a grin before continuing with his meal. She watched him for a few seconds before turning her head away from him and smiling to herself.