“Making a parts run for six hours must be exhausting,” I mumbled.
He shrugged. “Not my fault they don’t have the parts ready when I get there so I have to wait.”
“I can’t stand you.” Frankie laid down on the couch and tossed her arm over her face. “Remy and I have been running around like chickens with our heads cut off while you sit on your ass doing nothing.”
“Hey, Jay!” Brooks stuck his head in the hauler. “Thanks for running to get those parts this week. We’d be dead in the water without them.”
Jay waved and nodded. “No problem, man. Anything to get the car running.”
Brooks pointed a finger at Jay. “That’s what I like to hear.” He moseyed off in the direction of the food trucks, and again, Brooks didn’t give Frankie the time of day.
Frankie slowly sat up, her jaw dropped to her chest. She was about to lose her shit. “We’d be dead in the water without Jay? Are you fucking kidding me? How about the thirty fucking hours I put into dialing in the fucking engine the past two days?”
A smirk spread across Jay’s face. “I can’t help it he recognizes the root of where things are.”
“The root of where things are?” she repeated slowly.
“Here we go,” I mumbled.
Frankie shot up from the couch and got in Jay’s face. “You think you actually do shit around here, Jay?” She stood toe-to-toe with him, her head tilted back. She may be six inches shorter than Jay, but that didn’t matter. “While Remy and I are working our asses off to get ahead around here, and earn some fucking respect, all you do is stand around. While you’re standing around, the fucking team owner comes in, and thanks you for all the hard work you do. ‘Hard work’ and ‘Jay Perez’ are four words that do not go together.”
“I work, Frankie,” he growled.
She threw her head back and cackled. “He works,” she shouted. “He works at hanging out with the people who are actually carrying this team on their backs. You manage to stick just close enough to Remy and me so you can take all the fucking credit. Fucking. Sick. Of. It.” She enunciated each word clearly, and a small sprinkle of saliva sprayed up in his face. She was pissed.
“Last I checked, you wouldn’t be anywhere if I hadn’t run to get those parts.” Jay was grasping at straws.
“Because you’re the only one around here who knows how to drive, right? Not like Roc or I could have gotten those parts, right? You were out the damn door before Roc even asked someone to run and get them. Should we go into the fact your dumbass should have called ahead to see if they had the parts ready before you left? No, why would you do that, right? If you would have called, you would have had to stick around here and do some fucking work.”
“Sorry I can’t be like you, Saint Frankie,” he spat. And now Jay was pissed.
It had been a rough week all around, and Frankie had evidently reached the end of her rope. Roc had been on the warpath, demanding the car be in top condition for qualifying Friday, and we had all been working tirelessly to do just that. Jay, not so much, though. “You both need to chill out,” I called. I agreed with Frankie that Jay seemed to always dodge actually working, but it wasn’t our job to be the ones to tell him to get to work. As of now, Roc didn’t have a problem with Jay’s work ethic, or lack thereof.
“My problem is you don’t even seem to try, Jay. The only thing you try at is finding the easiest thing to do. Do nothing, but take all of the credit. That’s how you live, right?” She poked a finger into his chest. “Your sister catered to your every whim when you were growing up, so now you think everyone is going to do that.”
Jay stood up straight and glared daggers at Frankie. “You don’t know shit about my life, Frankie. Don’t act like you fucking do.”
“I know a hell of a lot more than you think I do. Try taking that damn horseshoe you have shoved up your ass out, and do some actual work.” Frankie stormed out of the trailer, her long hair streaming behind her.
Jay grabbed a wrench off the bench and threw it at the wall of the hauler. “That’s fucking bullshit.” He ran his fingers through his hair and paced back and forth.
“Just chill out, brother. Frankie deals with a hell of a lot of shit.”
Jay flailed his arm to the back of the trailer. “And how in the fuck is that my fault? Maybe she could be doing more.”
Now the fucker was about to piss me off. “You just took credit for getting the car dialed in, when all you did was drive to get the damn part.”
“Now you too, huh? What the hell was I supposed to do?”
“Say thanks, and then tell him Frankie did all the work. She deals with Roc going over all her shit twice, and now the car owner doesn’t even recognize her.”
“Not my fucking fault,” he growled.
No, it wasn’t his fault, but he could try to help her out a bit. “Just stay away from her for a bit, Jay.” That was going to be the only thing that would cool her down.
He grabbed the wrench he threw off the floor and tossed it on the bench. “No fucking problem there.” He stalked out of the trailer and headed in the opposite direction Frankie had stormed off.
Half the time, I felt like I was babysitting those two, and then the other half, it was like a wrestling match about to break out. I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before they went at it. Frankie was dealing with a lot of shit just because she was a chick, and Jay should have been trying to help her, not taking credit for everything she was busting her ass on.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and saw it was already half past eleven. I hadn’t talked Harlyn since yesterday morning when I had sent her a quick message saying morning. Talking to her always seemed to make things a little better.
If I sat back and thought about it, it was damn baffling how a woman I had only met a little over a week before had turned into someone who could turn my mood around. I still didn’t know much about her, but each time I talked to her, I seemed to glimpse a little bit more of her personality.
On Tuesday, I had called her, and we talked for almost an hour. The thing was, we didn’t talk about anything important. She told me about where she was from, her schooling, and I did the same. Whenever she laughed at one of my dumb jokes, a smile crossed my lips knowing I was the one who she thought was funny.
You awake?
After five minutes of waiting for her response, I figured she must have been tucked in for the night. I turned off the lights in the hauler and shut the doors. My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see Harlyn was calling me.
“Are you okay?” she mumbled into the phone sleepily. Add that to the list of things I liked about her. Her soft, sleep-laden voice in my ear was something I wouldn’t mind hearing every morning.
I leaned against the closed doors of the trailer. “Better now. I just wanted to say goodnight.”
She hummed low. “Then you should have called two hours ago.”
“Damn, baby. You were asleep before ten?”
“It’s been a long week. Everything kind of caught up with me when I pulled into the driveway, and I barely made it through dinner before I fell asleep.”
“Not even through your first week of work, and they’re working you too hard. I might have a talk with your boss, letting him know he needs to lay off you.”