CHAPTER 4 - CHEESE PIZZA
cheese pizza
CHAPTER four
Christmas came and went without fanfare. David met Noah’s parents over a video call and tried not to feel guilty for taking their son away from them, but Noah’s mom made it harder when she cried because she missed Noah so much. David felt sick for the rest of the day after that, though he put on a smile for Noah. They exchanged gifts, and David immediately wore the scarf Noah bought him—it was real cashmere and very warm. David had bought Noah an espresso machine identical to the one in David’s apartment, but it was being delivered to Colorado once they returned to the States. He also bought Noah a big piece of chocolate that he happily ate while they walked the city together.
David had wondered if holidays would feel different without his dad, and it turned out that losing him meant losing the rest of his family. David thought maybe his sister, Kristin, would text him a picture of his nephew, but Christmas Day came and went without a single text. He knew he should be thankful to spend Christmas with someone he loved so much, but he didn’t realize how much he’d hoped his sister would still want a relationship him until it became clear she didn’t.
Noah went back to work the following Monday, giving David entirely too much time to wander Milan alone. He visited the tourist attractions, practiced his Italian at cafes, and met up with Noah every day for lunch to spend time with him.
“Want to pick me up from work tonight?” Noah asked as he pushed in his chair at the pizza place they’d chosen for lunch.
“Sure,” David said, stepping up to him for a kiss. “Text me when you’re wrapping up, and I’ll be there.”
Noah’s hand settled on the nape of his neck, thumbing the short hair there. “Don’t get into trouble without me.”
David smiled into their next kiss. “You’re the one who gets into all the trouble.”
“There are several Oxbow mechanics who would disagree with that statement,” Noah teased.
David plucked a piece of melted cheese from his plate and popped it in his mouth with a shrug. “Don’t turn in on me, then.”
Two years ago, they’d exploded on each other in the briefing room in Las Vegas, saying basically the same thing. Now David had a championship, and he really didn’t give a shit what the younger version of him thought was right or wrong.
“Can’t wait to taste your garlic breath later, but I gotta run,” Noah said with a glance at his phone. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” David said, and then Noah was gone, scurrying off to his next fitting.
David shoved his hands in his coat pockets and pulled out a breath mint. He popped it in his mouth and sucked on it as he walked, noting the different buildings and fashionable people going about their days.
He didn’t make it far before his phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out to see an incoming call from Hugh Warren, Oxbow Racing’s team principal. David’s stomach dropped as he answered—Hugh never called to chitchat.
“David. Is now a good time?” Hugh asked in his British accent.
“Sure,” David said, ducking into an alleyway to avoid disrupting the sidewalk traffic. “How did the wind tunnel tests go?”
“That’s what I’m calling about,” Hugh said. “They went bloody awful. We’re reconfiguring the wings.”
“Shit.” David had only heard bits and pieces about Cobalt’s development, but Noah would have said something if they were having issues with aerodynamics.
“We need you here on Friday for simulator testing,” Hugh said. “We’re working out the pay changes for calling you back early, but that’s for the lawyers to sort.”
David gritted his teeth. “I’m not due back for two weeks, Hugh. I have plans.”
“Excuse me? If you want to have any hope of defending your championship, you’re needed here.” Hugh scoffed. “Plans? What is this, volunteer hours? You’re the first seat driver on this team. You think Jacob Pitts would even hesitate to come back early?”
“He would also give you terrible feedback and fuck up the car,” David growled. Jacob, his teammate, was Caroline’s cousin and not the sharpest tool in the shed. He had racing in his blood, though, and his natural talent had earned him runner-up last season. Jacob and Finlay were his biggest competition without Noah on the grid.
“Jochmann, travel is going to contact you with flight options for tomorrow. Get here and be ready to test.”
Anger simmered in David once again, but it quickly burned itself out. He had no excuses except a desire to spend time with Noah, and that didn’t cut it. Oxbow didn’t pay him millions of dollars to sit around with his boyfriend.
“Fine,” David said, and he hung up.
He slumped against the wall behind him and tilted his face toward the sky to stop the emotion from welling over in him. He needed more time with Noah. He needed a real life with Noah before he went back to work.
Boo-hoo, rich boy , he thought. Wipe your tears with your money.
David straightened up again and tempered himself into stillness. He closed his eyes, quieting the sounds of the city in his mind. His father taught him how to drown things out—pain, hunger, sadness. Noah was important, but David’s career was his livelihood. Without driving, he was nothing. Without driving, he never would have gotten Noah’s attention or earned enough money to live on his own.
So, he stomped down the part of him that wanted to cry and dialed Oxbow’s travel coordinator. He had to be a fucking adult. He had to be Oxbow’s champion.
******
Two days later, David stepped into Oxbow headquarters with bags under his eyes and the sensation that he was being watched. There hadn’t been enough time to secure a temporary place to stay that would meet his security criteria, so he’d spent the night at his apartment in LA. He didn’t sleep at all, and every noise made him jolt up in bed with his phone at the ready.
As if his phone would be any defense against a steel bat.
Noah and Caroline were both upset that he’d left early. Noah had fought with Josie about the housing issue, but there wasn’t time to find a place that would know to kick his father out like they did at the apartment complex. Noah begged him to stay in his apartment one floor below, where Jacob was currently living, but David refused. Jacob would probably be thrilled to have a roommate-teammate, but David thought that sounded like torture. Besides, getting too close to Jacob would only lead to Klaus putting a target on his back.
“Hey, Jochmann!” One of the engineers slapped his back as he passed, snapping David out of his groggy thoughts.
David offered a weak wave in return, nodding hello to several other employees on his way to the simulator room. The thought of sitting in a simulator cockpit in the dark with his back to the door made him want to throw up.
His race engineer, Aiden Yates, stood outside the door to the simulator lab, speaking with a few other engineers David didn’t know. They looked like interns.
“Hey, Aiden,” David said, and the other engineers jumped to attention. Definitely interns.
“Ah, there he is,” Aiden said, putting a hand on David’s shoulder. “Everyone, this is David Jochmann. David, these are our upcoming spring interns—Leslie, Forrest, and Sam.”
“Hi,” David said, nodding to them. He wouldn’t remember their names in the next ten seconds. “Is it ready in there?”
“Yep, we’re good to go,” Aiden said. “Have you spoken to Hugh yet?”
David shook his head. “He’s in a meeting. I’m scheduled to see him after.”
Aiden opened the door to the simulator room. It smelled like a hardware store, and the simulator looked like something out of a movie. It had a full motion rig to replicate car movement, triple monitors to give him his real vision range, and the cockpit and steering wheel were identical to the real thing.
David paused as he crossed the threshold. “Hey, could I get a helmet to wear?”
Aiden blinked at him. “You want to wear a helmet for testing?”
Some drivers insisted on it, but David had always preferred full range of motion for the simulator during early tests. He only wore a helmet in the sim during the days leading up to the real race weekend.
“Yeah. I’ll try something new for this season,” David said. Something a steel bat can’t break.
“Got it. I’ll be right back then.”
Aiden scurried off. Movement caught his attention, and David glanced at the window into the data room, where several engineers sat at monitors, preparing for a test run. All of them wore headsets like they did during the real race, and David knew a dozen other people around the world were joining in virtually to watch his laps. Running a simulator as a driver in Formula America was a lot more than just driving around in a pretend cockpit.
And he had wanted to sit on Noah’s couch while all of these people worked their asses off to make him a better car.
He stepped up to a small table near the simulator. He set his watch and phone on it before grabbing his racing boots and gloves—both brand new. He slipped out of his trainers and shoved his feet into the flexible, thin soles of his racing boots. The familiar feel settled him, and he released his mind to go into the routine of race mode.
He tucked his gloves under his arm and approached the black carbon-fiber cockpit that was his second home. David used to spend so much time in the simulator when he first started with Oxbow, determined to beat Noah. Noah had still kicked his ass that first season and probably would have caught up with him last season at Cobalt if he hadn’t fucked up his wrist.
Aiden appeared, holding out David’s sky blue race helmet, the same color he kept since his karting days, despite how it clashed with Oxbow’s red and black team colors.
“Here you go—it’s last year’s helmet. They’re still workshopping the design for this year,” Aiden explained.
This year, David opted for a new look. He left it up to the team—he didn’t want to make any decisions that would piss off his dad even further, though a new helmet design would undoubtedly make him angry, since his dad had helped him design this one.
David thanked Aiden and pulled on his helmet—though it was strange to do so without his fireproof balaclava on underneath. Sound muffled, and the thick padding squeezed his cheeks. He cracked his neck, feeling out the familiar weight. When he drove the real car, his helmet would weigh up to 80 pounds under the g-forces of harsh corners.
Once his helmet was secured, David pulled on his gloves and pulled them tight. The sim monitors flared to life to show the grid for the Los Angeles street circuit, Oxbow’s home track, and the first race on the calendar for Formula America.
David crawled over the halo and slid into the cockpit, grimacing as his seat pressed against the backs of his thighs and his lower back, slightly off. His seat fit was scheduled for the day before first practice, so he’d have to do with the old one for now. He also had to hit the gym to get back to his regular weight and muscle.
The LED screen on his steering wheel came to life and calibrated while he buckled himself in and pulled the straps as tight as he could. He plugged in his in-helmet radio next, running through his mental checklist for driving.
“Radio check,” he said as he pressed the radio button on the wheel.
“Got you loud and clear,” Aiden replied. “Welcome back, David.”
“Thanks, mate.” He tried to look behind him, but his helmet and the cockpit didn’t allow him to. “Hey, the door is locked, right? Don’t want any distractions for these first runs, please.”
“Sending one of the interns to lock it now,” Aiden replied.
A locked door wouldn’t delay Klaus for long, but maybe it would stop him long enough for one of the posted security guards to tackle him if he tried coming in. Even if it didn’t, David had his helmet for additional protection.
“Okay, let’s get a few laps in to get the feel and set a baseline,” Aiden said over the comms. “Then we’ll plan for around a hundred laps, starting with twenty high fuel load with stock setup, then quali fuel, and we’ll start tweaking on high fuel after that. Goal for today is to learn what the wing changes will help and hurt. Sound good?”
David settled back in his seat. “Got it.”
“Great, you’re clear to drive.”
David held the clutch and revved a few times, then took off down the straight. He’d driven this track so many times he could probably drive it with his eyes closed, and churning out a hundred laps would be boring but a good refresher.
“You’re driving with the updated track laser scans,” Aiden said as David pulled out onto the straight. “More bumps in the second sector, and watch the curbs in the final sector; looks like the pavement might be unsettled there.”
“Of course it’s unsettled; it’s LA,” David muttered, weaving to warm up his tires. A fan kicked on to simulate wind, but it wasn’t the same as the real thing.
The seams on his gloves were thicker than last year, and he felt the fabric bunch under his middle finger every time he went up or down a gear.He made a note to ask if the seam could be cut shorter or sewn closer to the edge of the fabric. His race boots were more flexible than last year, though, and made it easier to feel when the car started to lose traction in the front tires.
It only took ten laps to see they had major problems. The car was sluggish compared to last year, so much so that David found himself braking too late and nearly going off track, despite using last year’s braking points.
“It’s heavy as fuck,” David said into the radio as he came around for another lap. “I can feel the back end scrubbing, too.”
“Noted,” Aiden said.
Fifty laps in, and David was barely within a second of last year’s times with race fuel. He couldn’t get rotation into the longer turns, and it was fucking their exits. He tried every trick he knew to get the car to respond, but it wanted to go straight—and it wasn’t even fast there. By the time they were on lap ninety-nine, David wanted to scream in frustration.
“This is fucking ridiculous, mate,” David said as he started his final lap. Sweat had flattened his hair to his skull under the helmet, and his calves and glutes hurt from braking so hard, so often. “It’s like driving a truck.”
“We’re getting great data, though,” Aiden said. “One lap left.”
David hauled the car into the second sector, reflexively checking his mirrors even though there were no other cars on track. Aiden listed out a few engine modes he wanted to check, and David flipped through screens on the steering wheel while hitting his apexes, but nothing gained him any more speed.
When he finally pulled the car back into the pits and parked it, he was ready to go home. A headache threatened to split his skull, and his stomach growled so loudly that he was pretty sure they could hear it in the data room.
“Great work,” Aiden said. “Everyone take lunch. We’ll meet up in briefing room five once we’re finished. David, we’d love you in there.”
“Of course,” David said. “If someone could check to make sure that won’t mess with my meeting with Hugh, I’d appreciate it.”
“We’re on it,” Aiden replied. Having a race engineer was so helpful. Aiden never wasted time.
David unbuckled himself and got out of the car, grimacing at the feeling of cool sweat on his back as he stood up straight. He shucked off his racing boots and peeled his gloves off with his teeth, shaking from the adrenaline and the chill of the air conditioner.
He slipped back into his regular shoes and shrugged on a waiting Oxbow team jacket as he stepped out into the bright light of the hallway, where Aiden stood waiting for him.
Aiden patted his shoulder with a grin. “Good stuff, man. That’s going to help us loads.”
“No problem,” David said. “I’m gonna piss and go grab some lunch.”
Aiden gave him a little salute, taking the cue to leave him alone. Aiden usually ate lunch with him, but David needed a good meal and a nap alone before he even thought about giving any feedback.
He stepped into the bathroom and splashed water on his face to get the sweat off, then decided to stick his whole head under the faucet to clean his hair. Noah would abhor the use of tap water on his scalp—just imagining a rant about tap water damage made David smile.
Once he finished in the bathroom, he stepped out in the hallway and pulled out his phone, ducking into a free space by the water fountains to check his texts. Noah had sent him a picture of a plate of spaghetti and an empty seat across from him.
missing you :(
David’s heart warmed. miss you more. just finished testing. off to lunch then briefing.
“—don’t know how to acknowledge it, you know?” someone said at the end of the hall.
“Yeah, I get what you mean,” another voice replied. “It’s like, what’s an HR violation and what’s not?”
“Exactly.”
David flicked to his text chain with Caroline. She sent a mirror selfie, frowning with a hand on her belly. Her belly looked slightly swollen—rounder than he remembered.
does this count as showing? was sick this morning but doctor says i’m lucky and it may not last very long. i hope not!
“I worked with Noah for, like, two years. Never suspected he was gay.”
David lifted his head. One of the engineers from Jacob’s side of the garage stood with a squat, older man who seemed like an Oxbow corporate type. They were leaned against the corner of the hallways, looking out at the expanse of cubicles beyond, their backs to him.
“Really?” the squat man said. “I always thought there was something off about him. Too into fashion for a serious driver.”
The engineer snorted. “That’s just called being rich.”
“Yeah, well, there was something off. David’s the one I never expected.”
“Same. Guys on his team had to do extra sensitivity training—did you hear about that?”
The squat man chuckled. “Hear about it? I organized it.”
David’s phone buzzed in his hand with a text from Noah.
nap during lunch. video call me when you’re going to bed. i’ll wake up early and stay on the phone so you can sleep.
“Kinda fucked up,” the engineer said. “Like, now I have to wonder if Noah was checking me out in the bathroom or something. Even if he didn’t, you think back on everything, you know?
“Absolutely. I get it.”
David pocketed his phone, his mouth twisting into a snarl. How fucking dare they. After all Noah had given to this team, they wanted to stand there and talk about him like that? Not to mention, a guy like Noah would never be interested in creeps like them.
Noah had been terrified of being caught when they were together during their time at Oxbow. David had naively assumed no one on the team would be this homophobic—his worry had been about losing sponsorship deals. Yet another thing to add to his list of stupidity.
The squat guy nudged the engineer. “So, who takes it in the ass?”
David started walking as the engineer laughed and said, “Noah, definitely. I bet he loves it, too. I bet he—”
“Hey!” David barked, and both men jumped. Rage boiled inside him, starting up a roar in his ears so loud he was sure both men could hear it.
Noah had never been self-conscious about his body or about the fact that he liked to bottom. David loved topping, but it wasn’t because of some masculinity thing like these idiots were trying to imply. Making a joke about something so personal made David so angry he couldn’t see straight.
The engineer turned to him, his eyes flying wide. “Oh my god. Hey, man, it wasn’t—“
David slugged him so hard that he felt the indents in his skin from his race glove seams when the punch connected. The engineer flew backward, falling to the ground in a heap.
“Fuck you,” David snarled, letting the rage unfurl inside him once more. He moved in for another blow, but suddenly dozens of people were grabbing him, hauling him back as the engineer came to, clutching his bleeding nose.
“Talk about Noah like that again, and I’ll fucking kill you!” David spat, struggling against the people holding him back. “I swear to god, you’ll be fucking dead!”
“Jochmann.” Hugh Warren’s voice cut through the noise. David stopped struggling only because a few employees guided the engineer out of his sight.
David turned toward Hugh, still breathing hard.
Hugh glared at him, his mouth set in a thin line. “My office. Now.”