How I Met Charles Leclerc

Chapter 23 - Sneaking Out (Smut Warning)

Playlist -
1- Day 'N' Nite - Kid Cudi
2- I Feel Like I'm Drowning - Two Feet
3- Die For You - The Weeknd

'Hey hey hey', Pierre announces as we climb into the car. Straight away, he hops out of the car to open the front passenger seat for my best friend. To my surprise, the front passenger seat was occupied by our champion, Max Verstappen, who jumps into the back with Charles and I, allowing a dressed-up Mila to replace his seat.

I discreetly shoot a nod of approval to Charles as Pierre makes his first chivalrous move on my best friend.

'Where we going tonight? I hear you all ask?' Pierre shouts over his car music, interrupting Max and I's conversation.

'Go on, then', Charles shouts, making eye contact with Pierre through the mirror, 'Tell us'.

'We're going to the woods to camp. Don't worry, I have tents and marshmallows', his french accent echoes through the car.

'What?' Max shouts, clearly not made aware of Pierre's plans. 'What?' Max yells again.

'What?' Charles and I mimic Max's exaggerated rising intonation.

The 'what' competition continues as we speed through country lanes, Pierre announcing how close we are to our destination every few miles.

'Are we nearly there yet?' Max screams from the back seat. Pierre ignores him, in too deep with Mila in the front seat. I look over to Max, watching him pull out a bottle of whiskey from underneath Pierre's car seat. He unscrews the top excitedly, taking a large sip and offering some to Charles and I. Charles declines but I accept with no questions asked.

Max whispers into my ear over the music to not disturb the flirtatious moment going on between the front seat lovers, 'Get Charles' attention'.

I shake Charles' knee, pulling his gaze from the scenery flying past us. 'Max wants you', I point to Max who is holding a little cardboard box.

'The fuck?' I laugh, not interrupting Mila and Pierre with my quietened tone.

My boyfriend and I watch Max produce a variety of miniatures from the box - whiskey, vodka, gin, you name it; he's got it. Cautious not to make the glass bottles rattle, Charles reaches over my body and digs through to find a suitable drink. He settles on Smirnoff vodka. I choose the same as him and Max follows suit with his drink of choice. We count down via nods and neck back our drinks - our driver still utterly oblivious to our antics.

***

To everyone's relief, Pierre had organised a legit camping pitch at a legit camping place. A few drinks and toasted marshmallows in, he announces a game of Hide and Seek - immediately my mind floats to the idea that this is his way of making a secret move on Mila - four can play that game. Charles, here I come.

After searching for a good place to hide, we fix our eyes on a tree with a hollow inside, just about big enough to hide us both out of sight from our seekers - Pierre and Mila. God knows where Max has gotten to.

'Do you think he'll find us here?' I whisper to Charles as we squeeze ourselves into the tree.

'No. Never', Charles responds.

The tree is bigger inside than we'd both anticipated; we can both stand up straight and we have a little room to pace a few steps either side of us. But overall, space is very limited, Charles and I almost body to body. There would be no possibility of sitting down.

'It's like a little fairy home here', I whisper, falling away into a daydream.

Rather romantic, I find that the only light source we have is the full moon filtering through the trees and into the entrance to the hollow tree. The positioning of the moonlight aligns with Charles' eyes perfectly, illuminating them like ethereal crystals. I looked away from him shyly as soon as he caught me looking at him.