Switched | Sebastian Vettel

Chapter 8 | Nicknames

The next morning Brad was bright and early back in my room, waiting to go to breakfast together. He was waiting on my bed, texting Maureen now that I gave him my actual phone number, while I tried to grab all my stuff together since we would go straight to the track to get some breakfast.
'Maureen thinks I'm gonna flirt with you,' Brad grinned while his eyes slowly met mine.
'Are you?' I asked while shoving all my stuff in a bag. I looked at him with my eyebrows up. He shrugged.
'Not gonna lie, I will try, but I bet that Daniel will be jealous.. Or do they know you're not Maureen?' Brad asked. I decided to ignore the first few words of his sentence and instead answered the question.
'No, you're the only one. And we'll keep it that way. I don't want Maureen to get any trouble out of this,' I said after I put my Red Bull jacket on.
'I won't even tell a ghost,' he said while pulling himself up from the bed. I pulled my bag over my shoulder and together with we walked to go downstairs to the shuttle bus that would take us to the track.

'Maureen, feeling better?' Adrien asked when Brad and I sat behind him. I smiled at him and nodded and gave Brad a short look.
'Much better,' I said while I looked how Brad put his arm around me. He started to grin while I shook my head.

'I can't believe you're fooling everyone here that easy,' Brad whispered in my ear.
'It's what Maureen and I learned at school,' I whispered back with a laugh. It felt like now that I told Brad the situation, that I finally get why Maureen and he are so close. Yes he can be very boyish with his commands, but I knew enough guys that were even worse.

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I was sitting with Brad alone on a bench in the paddock. We had a few minutes before we had to get back to the garage for qualifying. I was nervous. I thought yesterday was quite hectic, but today is a whole other level and I wouldn't want to know how tomorrow's gonna look like.
'You seem nervous,' Brad said.
'I'm on the edge of pissing my pants,' I told Brad. He let out a giggle which surprised me as I haven't heard that sound coming out of him yet.
'You and Maureen are just the same with expressing your feelings,' he laughed. 'but don't be nervous. I'll drag you along this weekend so you won't mess up,'
'Thanks,' I said a little bit sarcastic after his last two words. I gave him a playful push against his shoulder, which he immediately returned. I was glad that Brad wasn't bothered that I wasn't Maureen and kept hanging out with me, even more now so then before.
'Oh, look who's walking over there,' Brad suddenly said. I tried to follow Brad's eyes to where he was looking. It wasn't as hard, as the person Brad was looking at was waving at us with a big smile.
'If you can't get him to date Maureen, you're a bad sister,' Brad told me fastly before Daniel stopped before us. I couldn't even give Brad an offended look for what he just said.
'Hey Daniel!' was Brad the first to greet the Australian. He smiled back at us.
'Hey, Brad, Maureen. You feeling better?' Daniel asked while his whole attention went to me. I smiled and nodded.
'I think she couldn't handle that one sip of beer that she had yesterday,' Brad said. I shook my head while keeping my eyes on Daniel as the corners of my mouth slowly raised up.
'Did you hear something?' I then asked Daniel. He shook his head, playing along.
'No, nothing.' I give Brad a smug smile. As a return he smiled back at me, sarcastically. 'But aren't you guys needed in the garage?' Daniel then asked.
'No, actually we were needed in the sun, because everyone thought there was a ghost walking around in Red Bull, turned out it was MAUREEN here,' Brad looked at me with an amused smile. Happy to not make fun only to one person, but two persons in one.
'I can't help that I'm one hundred procent British and that I can't tan like you guys can,' I sighed. It wasn't the first time I heard someone calling me a ghost.

'Come to Australia for a few weeks, maybe that will do something to you, ghosty,' Daniel had his biggest smile on his face as he made the new nickname for me. He had his hands on his hips while still being in his race suit. I didn't really got a chance to say something about the nickname, or that he just invited me... or actually Maureen to Australia, because he got called to get back by one of his engineers. Which also meant that maybe it was a good idea for Brad and I to return to the garage too.

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Qualifying was disappointing for our side of the garage. Sebastian qualified 13th place while Daniel had qualified himself on the 5th place. One was definitely happier then the other. As both cars were in Parc fermé and we were done for today Brad and I decided to go to my hotel room and order some food. While we were waiting for the food to arrive Brad facetimed my sister again. They were talking about qualifying and Brad even joked about how Maureen didn't had to come back because I was better, which he took immediately back after Maureen's outrage. I just had a smirk on my face while trying to find something comfortable to wear.
'Maya? Don't hang out with this guy too much, don't want him to fall in love with you!' Maureen said in a loud voice, probably as a revenge for Brad's bad joke.
'Hey!' Brad said immediately. 'Why can't it be the other way around?'
'Because my sister is smarter then that,' Maureen laughed. Brad looked at me, raising his eyebrows at me, trying to get an answer back from me that told him what my sister said was not true. I laughed and shook my head while slowly heading to the bathroom.
'In your dreams,' I told him and shut the door close. I went for a quick shower and put on a big sweater together with some sweatpants. When returning back from the bathroom, Brad was still sitting on my bed, talking to Maureen, but not surrounded with food.
'Couldn't you just wait for me before you started eating?' I asked him while joining him on the bed.

'You girls take long showers and I didn't want to waste warm food,' Brad said, while taking a bite of his chicken. I shook my head while taking my food on my lap.

'Maya, are you enjoying yourself off track too?' Maureen asked after a while when I was eating quietly and listening to the conversation between Brad and Maureen.
'Sure,' I said with my mouth full with food.
'Yeah, she is charming all the men around the paddock,' Brad laughed, mostly sarcastic. I wiggled with my eyebrows, something that Maureen couldn't see anymore as Brad aimed the camera back to him.
'Don't let her come close to Daniel, please.' Maureen begged Brad. He looked at me while I was rolling with my eyes, before he looked back at the camera.

'She won't,' Brad told my sister. I looked at him surprised, but apperently he wasn't finished talking. 'after we arranged a date for you with Daniel,'
'Don't you two dare! I will bring my ass back to you immediately!' Both Brad and I started to laugh.
'Hurry up then!' Brad said back, making it also the end of their conversation and hanging up so that he could put his whole attention to me. The whole night we just told each other random facts about ourselves and really got to know each other more and more like Brad knows my sister.

A/N: tried to edit this chapter a little bit in the train on my way home. Hope it's alright, because when I get home I will immediately open a wine bottle and a bag of Maltesers. My shitty internship is finally over and I need to celebrate (and probably cut this period out of my mind)