“Dumbass.” Frankie shook her head. “You know the car has brakes, right?”
Brooks scoffed. “The fucker was fast. He wasn’t there, then he was, and then he was thumping under the car. You fixed it in time for the next race so I wasn’t concerned about it.”
Frankie looked at me. “You can have the team back. They’re going to make me go insane.”
I chuckled. “Welcome to my world, doll. You think this gray hair comes naturally? It’s you assholes making me gray.”
“When are you coming back?” Jay asked. “Not like that chair is keeping you out of the garage. Figure it’s only a matter of time before manage to get in the car hauler and come to races.”
I glanced over at Mave.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess there isn’t a reason why you can’t travel. You have a doctor’s appointment this week. That will help give you a better idea of how well you are healing and when you can get fully back into work.”
“Uh,” Jay drawled. “Aren’t you his doctor?”
Delaney elbowed him. “I told you she wasn’t his doctor.”
“You have a doctor staying with you but the doctor can’t tell you how you are doing and when you can get back to work.” Jay pointed his finger at Delaney. “I feel like that is some bullshit so you need to make sure that doesn’t happen to you.”
“Yeah, because I’m totally going to take your advice when you have no idea what you’re talking about.” Delaney rolled her eyes. “Mave isn’t his doctor, Jay. She’s a doctor, but not his.”
“Kind of like she plays a doctor on TV.”
Now it was Remy’s turn for everyone to stare at him.
“Oh, baby. Did you really just say that?” Harlyn put her head in her hand. “He had such good promise and then he says that.”
Remy cleared his throat. “I meant it like she’s a doctor but not everyone's doctor.”
Mave tipped her head to the side. “Exactly, but I’m not sure why you said the thing about being a doctor on TV,” she laughed.
Remy took a drink of his beer. “I’m not really sure why either. It sounded right but then—”
“Then you said it out loud and sounded like a moron,” Jay finished.
Remy tipped his beer toward Jay. “Bingo.”
Frankie shook her head and stood up. “You guys are too much for me. I’m gonna play basketball. Anyone else want to play?”
The guys all agreed to play while Harlyn and Delaney said they would be cheerleaders on the sideline.
Mave and I worked on clearing the empty dishes and food off of the picnic table while everyone went around to the front of the house to the basketball hoop.
“You see now why I think Harlyn could do better?”
Mave rolled her eyes. “No, I don’t.”
“Doc, he compared you to some actor on TV.”
“Roc,” she whispered. She leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to my lips. She popped back up and twisted the cap on the mayo and handed it to me. “He also looks at your daughter like she is the only woman he sees. He asked her if she wanted him to make her a plate. He made sure she was set before he even grabbed his own food. He loves your daughter, Roc, and yeah, he may say some stupid stuff, but don’t we all? You gotta look at the bigger picture here.”
I couldn’t really argue with any of that. “But he said you were like a doctor on TV.”
I couldn’t get past that just yet. I also wanted another kiss.
“You want me to get you another beer? Might help you forget about it.”
I shook my head. “Gonna need something stronger than that. I think you’re about the only thing that is going to make me forget that.”
She headed back into the house and looked at me over her shoulder. “I’ll see what I can find.”
“You’re going the wrong way, Doc.” Where in the hell was she going?
“Right now, you get a drink.”
“And later?”
A smile spread across her lips. “Later, you get me.”
She ducked back into the house, and I sorted out the rest of the stuff on the picnic table.
It was nice having Mave here. There were times when I was around the rest of the pit crew that I felt old as hell but having her here helped that. Mave wasn’t quite as old as I was, but she got me more than the rest of the crew did.
Mave was good to have around, and I didn’t want her to go anywhere.
*
Chapter Fourteen
Mave
“Are you excited to come back to work?”
I glanced at Delaney. “Girl, you are crazy to think that I am excited to come back to work. If I was going up to peds, I would be excited, but I have one more week I need to be in the ER. Besides, I still have three more days ‘til I’m back.”
It was Friday afternoon, and I was sitting on Roc’s front porch with Delaney. The race crew was in Nevada for the weekend so Delaney and Harlyn came over for dinner and to watch qualifying.
“So, when you go back to work, are you going to still stay here?” Delaney asked.
I nodded. “Yep. I told Roc I would hang around until he was back on his feet.”
“And what about when he’s back on his feet?” Harlyn tipped her wine glass toward me. “My dad likes you.”
My gaze moved to the driveway where my car had sat for the past two weeks. “He likes that I’m helping him get around, Harlyn. His strength is finally coming back, and he’s not falling asleep at the drop of a hat. Soon, he’s not going to need me for anything.”
I wasn’t going to mention anything about Roc and me. It had been an amazing few days, but we hadn’t discussed anything about the future.
Roc and I had a good system with how we got him around, but each day Roc was figuring out how to do most things by himself. Monday, we were supposed to go to the doctor and hopefully find out when he would be starting physical therapy. Roc was chomping at the bit to really get back to work.
The past week, we were at the garage every day, and on Wednesday, we had gone to the local track to test out the car. Roc was back to work; the only thing he wasn’t doing was going to the races.
I had never been that close to a drag car before, and it was an experience I would never forget. The ground had rumbled beneath my feet when Brooks had fired it up, and I thanked God for the earmuffs Roc had given me.
Even now, two days after we had been at the track, I could remember exactly how it felt and the smells in the air.
Harlyn laughed and combed her fingers through her hair. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Mave. My dad has the hots for you.”
“I think maybe we should cut Harlyn off already,” I mumbled.
Roc wasn’t hiding the fact that we were kissing and getting to know each other very well. I knew the looks she was talking about. They were smoldering ones that gave me goosebumps and made me yearn for his kisses.
Delaney snickered. “She might be right, Mave. I haven’t been around you and Roc a whole lot, but Jay mentioned earlier this week that Roc seemed to be mellowed out a bit.”
“Not sure what that has to do with me.”