When he tells me how stiff and hard the suspension is getting, I tell him he sounds like Steel from my ridiculous book.
“Steel’s an asshole,” he replies.
“Oh, really?” I laugh.
“Yeah. He could have just paid for the kidney in chapter one, told Charlotte he was in love with her, and she wouldn’t have been forced to choose between him and her job.”
“Well, that wouldn’t be very dramatic then, would it?”
“I guess there had to be some plot to further all the sex scenes.”
“Wait,” I say as I move from behind the desk and stand right next to the elevated car, “how do you know Charlotte had to leave her job?”
“I read the book,” he says flatly, still going around and around the track on screen.
“You read. The book…”
“Mmm-hmm,” he says, biting his lip into a chicane.
“Why would you do that?”
“The suspense was killing me.”
“Cole…”
The car stops on screen, and he looks down at me from his elevated seat, “I read it because you read it. Just wanted to know more about the new you.”
I feel something shift in me, something dangerous. A small crack forming in my foundation.
I turn my head away from those lethal blue eyes looking down on me and stare at the Imperium logo on the wall, instead.
Cole pulls himself out of the seated car and stands up, then begins his descent down the stainless steel stairs attached to the platform. “Up you go,” he says when he reaches the bottom.
“What?”
“Up you go. You want to know how it feels, so, get in,” he points upward to the cockpit.
“I can’t, is, is that allowed?”
“Who gives a shit? Live a little, Em.”
I look at Cole, then look at the simulator, look at Cole, look at the Sim.
Oh, fuck it.
I climb up the steps apprehensively, but Cole’s right behind me and helps me get into the cockpit. He shows me all the controls I’ll need, tells me how to work the paddles and all the controls.
His hands run over mine as he puts them on the steering wheel, I can feel his breath on my neck as he bends over me to explain everything.
“There’s nothing you can break,” he reassures me. “Just have fun.”
Cole goes back down the ladder and restarts the computer program. The screen changes to starting position on the Hungarian grid. The lights go out, and I stretch my leg as far as it will go to mash the gas peddle down.
The car jerks forward, and I let out a squeal as the platform moves and shakes.
“Shift,” Cole laughs, my steering wheel showing me I’ve maxed the RPMs.
Oh hell, I was still in first gear. I shift into second, and as the first corner comes up, I hit the brakes, and the whole car rocks forward like it’s just hit a brick wall. The car sputters and dies.