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“Are you uncomfortable around me?” He asks. His head hangs down as we walk as if he’s embarrassed.
It’s a question I should have to think about, but I don’t. Cole’s always made me feel comfortable, like a cozy pair of slippers that you slink into. My answer leaves my mouth immediately, “No.”
As we continue to walk through the lobby and toward the Simulation room, I pay attention to my thoughts, how my body feels. I’m not uncomfortable at all. I’m relaxed, there’s a calmness inside of me. Now that I recognize the feeling, I can’t remember the last time I didn’t feel awkward or have thoughts racing through my mind.
Probably six years ago.
I was here with Dante earlier in the week, but the Simulator room still makes me do a double-take. There’s a partial, mock F1 car raised up on a platform in the middle of the darkened room on four hydraulic legs. In front of it is an enormous one-hundred-eighty degree vision screen so the driver can experience what he’ll see on the track.
It looks like a theme park ride, but six times as expensive.
Running along the side of the room is a control station, and I plug my laptop into the data portal as Cole climbs the stairs into the cockpit and settles in. He’s running the Hungary track simulation today since that’s our next race.
I get the program pulled up, and the screen comes to life, the mock car rises up into the air. The program starts running as if the car was on the grid at the front of the race.
Data starts pouring in as the car rolls and pitches like a real car would. I watch Cole’s fingers snap the paddle shifters behind the steering wheel, watch where his eyes go on the screen, and how the car responds.
“Why did you do that?” I ask when he fiddles with a setting on his steering wheel, and the data points change.
“I like this suspension setup better.”
I huff and stare at him, he knows I need more than that.
“This track is all cornering and precise braking. I need the car with me. Adding more negative camber makes it… tighter,” he speaks his words in chunks as he goes around the track on screen and the car rocks and shakes.
I just noticed he bites his lip when he goes around corners. You’d never see that under a helmet.
“Do you do that because you’re nervous in the corners?” I ask. That would make sense with the tire problems.
“Do what?”
“Bite your lip.”
He smiles and slowly runs his tongue over his bottom lip before answering me, “Just concentrating. You’re making it difficult.”
“How am I making it difficult?” I’m just standing here!
“Looking at my ass, looking at my lips, it’s distracting.”
I glare at him then look down at the controls before me. I fiddle with the brake controls, turn them way down.
Cole swings into the next corner on the screen. I hear him hit the brake pedal a few times, and then his virtual car sails off into the grass. The hydraulics of the platform jump around and rock the mock car violently back and forth.
I crack up laughing and think I even snort.
It feels so good to laugh with him again, like an eraser rubbing on those tarnished parts of my heart.
“Real nice. That’s real nice, Em.”
I continue snickering as I reset the computer, and Cole starts fake-driving again, but I’m hung up on him calling me Em. No one else ever has, except one short-lived boyfriend and I asked him to stop it.
We run through several programs and dozens of laps. Cole's doing well explaining how the car feels, and I have all kinds of notes. This next track is known to be very hard on tires, so it’s essential I understand as much as possible, and Dante was not as helpful in the Sim.
Dante is all one-word answers and has a hard time expressing how something feels versus facts. At one point, he tried mansplaining downforce, and we had to have a little chat.
At this point, I think I have everything I need from Cole in the simulator, but I’m enjoying watching him and talking to him, even if it is about the car. He thinks he’s clever, but he’s been sneaking plenty of innuendos into his descriptions.
The car feels tight, the brakes are so hot.
