Casey was excited for the upcoming day's events.
A week had passed since the Malaysian Grand Prix and the team had been frantic ever since with only one week separating it from the Bahrain Grand Prix.
It was the Tuesday after the Bahrain Grand Prix and management had planned a special event for the team as a reward for their hard work.
Unfortunately, Sebastian had retired half way through the race due to a gearbox failure, and Daniel had only managed to scrape an 8th place with an intermittent software problem.
Apart from learning from their faults, it was a race the team had all decided to forget.
Today, they were being thrown a party of their own. It was going to be held on the roof of the exceptionally beautiful hotel they were all staying in. There would be music, a barbecue and a pool. Casey was more than ready to relax and enjoy a day off.
What are we supposed to wear?... she tapped into her phone, sending the message in a group conversation with Gemma and Isla.
Gemma responded almost instantly, "Swimsuit under a t-shirt and shorts will do."
Evan stomped around the corner in his swimming trunks and looked over at Casey expectantly. She looked up at him and chuckled, "You look fine, stop scowling."
"They barely even fit me anymore!" he whined.
"Just be thankful you don't have to wear a bikini in front of a million guys you work with today. Now that is something to complain about," she groaned.
His features broke out into an evil grin, "True, that would be awful."
She sighed in resignation and crouched next to her suitcase, rifling around for her swimwear. Once she found it, she shooed him from the room and put it on, eagerly covering up further with a loose t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts.
---
Half an hour later, Casey sat on the edge of a lounge chair between Evan and Jacob. The three of them were balancing paper plates on their knees and delightedly devouring a variety of barbecued delights. The atmosphere was perfect; the sun was beating down on them from above and melting their icy drinks, upbeat music was playing from a set of speakers on the corner of the rooftop, people were floating on inflatable rafts and donuts on the pool and everyone around them were laughing and smiling. Perfect.
Casey was becoming more and more amused by the behaviour of Evan and Jacob. She was very attached to Evan, but now, Jacob was quickly become closer to her too. Though they always seemed to be on opposite sides of her in almost any situation. It was as though she was being used as a shield so that neither boy would suspect the other, even though the situation now seemed blatantly obvious to her.
They finished their meals and set the plates aside.
Jacob flopped backwards on the lounger and she followed suit, resting the back of her head on his extended arm. He curled his hand around to reach a lock of her hair and began twirling it through his fingers as they lay there, staring at the sky above.
Evan was standing quietly beside them, gazing at the occupants of the pool quietly.
"Shall we go in?" he asked after a moment, clapping his hands together.
"Ev, are you trying to kill us all? We just ate," Casey murmured sleepily. The warm sun and a full stomach always made her drowsy.
"That is a total myth and you should know better," Evan scolded, "Jake?"
The sleepy brunette let out a small grunt, "Oh alright, if you insist."
He plucked his arm out from beneath Casey and sat up, stretching his arms up above him. Casey watched Evan sneak a glance at the Jacob gun show and sniggered to herself. Once Jacob had stood up and walked towards the pool with Evan, she readjusted herself on the lounger and stretched out happily, quickly falling into a light sleep.
---
Casey's brain failed to properly understand what was happening as she was awoken by a strong, warm body collecting her from her lounger bridal-style and striding quickly towards the pool.
As she finally gained her bearings, she immediately began to squirm and protest, but it made little impact. They reached the pool's edge and she looked up to see the face of her captor. "Heikki! Don't you even fucking dare..."
Heikki just laughed like she was some sort of adorable puppy barking at an intruder.
"I will murder you, seriously - argh no!" she cried out as he flung her into the air and she tumbled into the water.
Sebastian leaned against the other side of the pool's edge and laughed at the sight. Though moments earlier, somewhere deep down, he had found it annoying that Heikki was carrying Casey like that.
She surfaced from the water a moment later and scowled fiercely back up at the towering Finn, "You might want to consider sleeping with a knife tonight," she threatened. Sebastian looked up at Heikki who was laughing, completely un-phased by her threats. He wondered if Heikki had an interest in her, or was just being friendly. This wasn't the first time he had singled her out for a practical joke, after all. Maybe he was just a flirt.
Casey huffed and spun around in the water. She spotted Seb across the pool, watching them with a coy smile on his face. She quickly scolded him too, "Can't you control him? Tell him off! He requires immediate discipline!"
Sebastian laughed at her and shrugged, "He's technically off the clock. It's out of my jurisdiction."
She scowled and swatted a handful of water in his general direction before swimming over to take a spot against the wall next to him. She turned around to eyeball Heikki from her new, safe distance. He was now sitting on the edge of the pool and smiling innocently back at her. She squinted at him, which only made him laugh again.
Sebastian watched as she suddenly dunked herself completely under the water and resurfaced a few seconds later with her now-saturated t-shirt balled up in her hand. She lifted it out of the water and laid it out flat on the ledge in front of her to dry. She repeated the process with her shorts. At least that was one way of getting in the pool without having to parade around in a bikini beforehand.
She let out a sigh and leaned back against the wall of the pool, shutting her eyes and enjoying the feel of the hot sun against her exposed skin. Sebastian looked at her again and smiled to himself sombrely.
He felt a weird, uncomfortable urge to pull her body closer to his and feel her bare hips in his hands. He frowned at himself and looked away. Clearly, it was time to bring a random girl back to his hotel and get it out of his system again. He couldn't think about his teammates like that, but neither could he push away the vision of her wrapping her legs around his waist. He shook his head and tried to think about something else.
Casey opened her eyes as she heard yelling at the other end of the pool. Sebastian too was quietly looking over at the scene from beside her. They both watched Brand wading through the pool with Gemma on his shoulders. He was taunting nearby swimmers into challenging them. Gemma looked radiantly pleased about the situation.
Casey giggled to herself and grinned as she watched Jacob and Evan take up the challenge. Evan disappeared under the water and came back up with Jacob on his shoulders. Gemma suddenly looked unsure about the likelihood of her victory.
The fight was on and Gemma and Jacob were locked in each other's grasp from Evan and Brand's shoulders. Everyone in and around the pool was watching and cheering for one or the other. "Come on Jake!" Casey yelled, grinning as she watched Gemma finally topple to the side and Jacob thrust his arms in the air.
"Whose next then?" Evan bellowed, swinging around to urge on his teammates. Several teams slowly appeared, one by one, and a great pool fight commenced. Casey watched on, laughing at each defeat and cheering for Evan and Jacob.
Sebastian eventually turned to her with a mischievous look on his face, "We could take them out."
She nodded in approval and grinned at him, "I'm in."
"Do we have a plan?" he asked, turning to face her.
She allowed herself to drift in closer to Seb, tentatively placing her hands on his shoulders before leaning in closer to murmur in his ear, "Evan is fatally ticklish. I'll distract Jake and all you have to do is stab Evan in the ribs and he'll go down like the titanic."
When she leaned back Seb was grinning. She was also intensely aware that that was the first time she had ever touched his bare skin, aside from a handshake or two. She felt a bit awkward now, but he didn't seem phased.
He agreed to her instructions before disappearing under the water. She took that as her cue to climb on his shoulders and braced herself for him to rise back up. She bit her lip and suppressed a smile, thinking about how she did not wake up today expecting she would at any point find herself sitting atop of Sebastian Vettel.
After a moment he raised back out of the water as though she weighed nothing, similar to how Heikki had lifted her. Instinctively, she reached down and pushed his hair back from his forehead, making it stand up just like she had seen him do a hundred times.
"Danke."
"Gerne geschehen," she laughed.
She couldn't see his face from above him, but sensed he was amused. She mentally added 'running hand through Sebastian Vettel's hair' to her list of things she did not expect to do today. Or ever, for that matter.
"Was! Sprechen sie Deutsch?" he asked, sounding surprised.
"Only a very small amount. I keep forgetting to practice."
"Ah," he chuckled, "Well, I can help with that."
They waded over toward the battleground and Evan quickly spotted them. "Well, well..." he taunted as they turned to face Casey and Sebastian. Other pairs were still in the midst of battle behind them, though most attention had now turned to the new pair of challengers.
It was quickly all on, Casey gripped Jacob's shoulders and attempted to upset his balance. For all the force he was putting into trying to do the same back to her, she barely noticed it as Seb took the brunt of it from below. He seemed to be like a cement rock, holding her in place easily and never once losing balance or letting her slip.
She tightened her grip and adjusted her balance as one of Seb's arms stopped supporting her, instead reaching out to prod Evan in the ribs repeatedly. Evan let out a muffled cry as he became distracted and unbalanced, slipping into the water a bit. Casey quickly took advantage and put her whole weight into pushing Jacob backwards. She watched smugly as the two boys propelled backwards into the water and raised her arms in triumph. She could hear Seb celebrating below and the spectators around the pool were shouting and cheering.
She swung her leg back over Seb's shoulder and allowed herself to slip back into the water beside him. He turned to face her and held his hand up for her to high-five.
Evan and Jacob had meanwhile composed themselves again and were shouting for a re-match. She smirked and shook her head, "We regret to inform you that Team Vettel-Larsen has retired, and wouldn't want you to suffer another crushing defeat anyway."
Evan shoved a wall of water in their direction and Seb turned his back to it, enveloping Casey against his chest as a human shelter.
She didn't object, placing her hands against his bare skin again and ducking under his chin while laughing at Evan's attempted retribution.
They subtly backed away from the scene as more battles started up again and watched on as Jacob and Evan took up a new challenge, this time against Kyle and Harry. Evan and Jacob seemed to be getting noticeably more comfortable with each other. Casey suspected it wouldn't be long now before something could, maybe just, happen between them.