Chase You -1- Formula 1

103. Somewhere in a sweaty dance club

The thing is, I love birthday parties, but only if they're mine, Lando's or Teddy's. Mainly because they then happened in my own house and I was in control of who showed up. Now Charles' party couldn't be that bad as I knew quite some of his friends, and half of mine got invited too.

I sat on a stool at the bar, crossed legs, hands folded on my knees. Charles wasn't very original when it came to locations I realised. It was the same place as last year, but with different people. Not that I really cared, I preferred this as I was familiar with some of them and I easily talked to various people.

Lando sat next to me, gazing at me for the entire time we were here. I looked around to spot other people, hoping they'd walk up to us. My stilettos were literally the most uncomfortable shoes I've ever worn, they rubbed the back of my ankle with every movement and I craved to take them off when this party ended. I should've gone for an outfit in my signature colour, paired with shoes I genuinely liked wearing, but no; I had to experiment and went with white- out of all colours, white. I loved my dress, I had the same one in red (and I should've worn that one). It was the shoes that killed me today.

"Are we going to dance today?" Lando asked me, his voice rising in question. "Because we happen to be good dancers." I laughed, shaking my head. The only time we didn't fail when we danced was at David's wedding, or that was what I thought. I later got shown the wedding movie- that uh, had a bit of an anti-climax for the newlyweds with the groom dying and all that. Back to the relevant subject; our dancing was questionable to say at least. Then we had the other wedding where we danced, the wedding of our good friends Kate and Lewis, and back then I tripped over Roscoe, self-explanatory. "Come on, sunshine... I'll request our song?"

Now that's a bitch move on Charles' birthday. His actual birthday, not just his party. "Maybe that's not a great idea," I commented, twirling a strand of hair around my finger. Lando raised one brow. "What if there is a couple around here, who want to claim our song as their song?"

"That's a vague excuse, but valid enough," Lando said. "It's not like you don't want to dance with me in front of these people then? Are you ashamed of me?"

"No, of course not," I responded. "I'd marry you in front of these people." Even though I don't know half of them. "No shame."

Lando smiled at me, squeezed my hand, and I smiled back. "Do you have his birthday gift with you?" I asked him. We bought Charles socks, but I assumed that if we didn't tell Charles we brought a gift, he wouldn't ask. So then I could take off my shoes, wear the socks and look even more ridiculous dancing with my best friend. Lando shook his head and pointed at my purse. "Oh." I opened my bag and unwrapped our birthday gift. I stuffed the messed up gift paper back in the purse and changed my shoes for the socks, which were a bit too big for me, but much more comfortable than the torture devices that I previously wore.

"We need to gift him something," Lando claimed and he leaned over the bar. When the bartender wasn't looking he grabbed a half-empty bottle of wine and put the cork back on it. He looked at the purse and gestured for me to grab the paper again. By now it was a quite crumbled, but it worked. I smoothened it a bit and together we rolled the bottle of wine in it. I had clear plasters somewhere at the bottom of my purse and we used those to finish the wrap. Lando then stole a corsage from an overdressed drunkard and stuck it on our present.

"We need to write a card too," I said, but I realised we still had the card we planned to gift with the socks. When we were done and examined the messed up gift, we couldn't help but laugh. "We're not getting an invite next year."

"You cheated on him with me and now we're both invited, I don't think he cares that much," Lando pointed out. "He even invited Max. The bar is low, sunshine."