Velocity

Part seven

"What are you doing?" I ask looking at him confused. "What does it look like I'm doing?" He asks me back like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

The thing is, it definitely isn't. Not to a normal person anyway.

He is writing down numbers like a crazy person. If you ask me it looks like he is either writing down as much of pie as he remembers or he is predicting dates in the future.

And if it's not that, then I wouldn't have another guess. Either way, I figured I should be worried.

"Well Einstein, you tell me." I say while looking over his shoulder to the notebook in front of him. He scribbled down countless of numbers, always in the same pattern.

He chuckles softly in his deep voice that sends tickles down my body. "You're looking at the past." He says cryptic. "Yeah, now I'm sure you've lost it."

"Well, I lost the race. So I kind of did." He sighs at the sight of the numbers. He doesn't only sound worried, he looks like it too. "Wait? Are this your lap times from last week?" He nods.

"Why do you keep staring at them like they're gonna change?" He drops the pen from his hand and turns to look at me. "Cause they should, if I ever want to make it into formula one."

I want to tell him he's beging dramatic and that one race isn't going to kill him. But I know enough about the sport to know that would be a lie. "But does looking at the numbers really help?" I ask genuinely interested in his answer.

"No, but not looking at them doesn't either." Well, I can't argue with that one. "What's with the colors?" I ask because he marked certain times with pink, green and yellow.

"All the yellow laps are laps where improvement is required. Meaning, laps where I fucked up my race." He points down all the yellow marked times with his index finger. Most of them are at the bottom of the page.

"All the green laps, are laps where I did fine, but not great. And they should be, you know?" I tilt my head, asking him a silent question. "I am the son of a racing legend. I can't be mid."

"You are not mid, Carlos. Not even close." I shake my head. "I was this race!" His voice goes up in frustration. I give him a second to cool down before I ask "And what does pink mean."

He blushes while he looks from his paper to me and back. "Nothing, it's stupid." I jokingly push his head while I say "No, it's not. Tell me." He sighs again, this time biting his lip.

"Laps that would make people proud." He whispers his words so softly that I just stare at him for a second to make sure he really said it. "See it's stupid, like I said." He says when I don't respond.

I push his shoulder so he turns to me, but he resists. I push him a little harder until he finally gives in. "It is not stupid. I think it's cute." Judging from his face that was not the right call to make.

"It is not cute!" He whisper shouts. "Yes it is, you even used my favorite color." I joke. He folds his arms and looks like a mad child back to his desk.

After a while of silence I whisper "Pink really is your color, prinses." If he wasn't mad at me, he is now. He turns in an explosion of fake fury. He stands and towers over me with way too much height.

Before I realize what is happening, he has put his hands at my sides and started tickling me. I gasp for a breath in between giggles and he goes on with his torture.

I playfully slap his hands away, but it's a lost cause. Because even though he isn't a formule one driver yet, his reflexes are crazily fast.

I giggle and giggle until I have no oxygen left in my body. The back of my knees feel the edge of his bed and I let myself fall down.