Lock Up ⏐Charles Leclerc

Chapter 15

"I'm still good." I said because I knew he was still wide awake. Despite my words, I felt sleepiness overcome me and I promised I was still awake despite closing my eyes.

"Still stubborn as hell." Charles said to himself before I faded into sleep but not before feeling a feathered kiss on the side of my head.

*****

The next day, I woke up with a post-it stuck to my forehead and Charles' handwriting on it.

come over when you wake up

p.s. you sleep with your mouth open so thanks for giving me the chance to be a paparazzi

I sent him a short text telling him I was awake along with a photo of me giving him the finger. The weather outside was warmer today so I opted to wear some black leggings and a cropped white shirt. The fuzzy socks were on my feet as I descended the stairs and slid my feet into some slides. It was obviously a lazy day since the plan was just to watch some races so there's no use in dressing up.

I locked the door behind me and made the short walk over to Charles' house that was once again unlocked. I found him over at the kitchen pulling out something from his oven and when I neared, I noticed it was homemade pizza.

"Our trainers are going to kill us." I said as I walked over to his side to give him a short hug.

"Which is why this is a secret, yeah?" He smiled before grabbing some plates for the both of us. "Can you get some drinks? We'll be watching upstairs."

I grabbed some water and orange juice, not knowing which he preferred before following him up the stairs. I thought he was going to head into the room where his piano was but then he suddenly turned right and opened the door to a room I've never seen before.

It was a bit bigger than my art room with a huge television mounted on the wall and across from it were chairs that could be better fit for cinemas. What caught my eye was the machine at the other end of the room surrounded by three screens.

"What's this?" I asked, putting down the drinks and walking towards it.

"This is my simulator." Charles said, placing his hand over the steering wheel. There were a bunch of buttons that I didn't even know how to ask about because there were so much of them. "I can tell you more about it after watching a few races so that we can cover the basics first."

"Why do I feel like I'm being trained to become a fan?" I smirked as we both moved to the chairs and he set up the television. He had an array of race videos before picking one from 2019.

"I don't need to train you, Bellerose. It'll come naturally." He winked before pressing play and the words 2019 Italian Grand Prix flashed in the screen.

We watched all three free practice sessions as Charles talked about the teams that were participating in 2019 as well as the drivers. When we moved on to the qualifying session, it took a while for me to understand the circuit since he began talking about turns, DRS zones, and the racing line. I listened intently the entire time, asking a few questions about the car mainly because there was a lot of jargon that I didn't understand whenever the drivers' radios would come on.

By the time we reached the race itself, I couldn't help but react vocally whenever a driver would overtake or spin off the track. Charles failed to tell me that he'd be winning the race against both Mercedes drivers. When I asked about it during the last few laps, he only smiled at me and told me to keep watching.