“Why are you here? I notified Harlyn I wasn’t an employee of Cummings Racing anymore.”
And she officially wasn’t going to make this easy on me. “I got that memo.”
She cocked her hip out and took a large bite of the taco in her hand. “Then I guess I’m just a little bit confused on why you’re here,” she mumbled. Lettuce hung from her mouth, and there was a smear of sour cream on the corner of her lips. My stomach growled, and I had to talk myself down from grabbing the food from her hand.
“I don’t accept it.”
“You don’t accept it?” she repeated slowly.
I nodded and dropped my duffel bag on the ground at my feet. “You think maybe we can have this conversation after I’ve had some food and a shower?”
She looked around and shrugged. “I don’t think anyone is keeping you here. You are more than welcome to leave.”
“You gonna introduce me?”
I glanced over my shoulder at the guy who had just paid for my cab. “Brooks Cummings.”
He walked up to me and held out his hand. “Frankie’s brother. Kurt Jensen.” His handshake was firm, and he eyed me up. “Didn’t know you were coming by. You’re a long way from Kentucky.”
Yep, Frankie had already spun her tale of me being a ginormous dick, and Kurt, being her brother, was going to protect her from me. Not that Frankie needed protecting from anyone. From what I had seen of her throwing arm and the wrench that had sailed over my head, she really didn’t need protecting. “Had some business to take care of.”
Kurt leaned to the side and smirked at Frankie. “You hear that? You’re business, Frank.”
“You hear that?” she called. I looked over my shoulder to see her hand cupped to her ear. “Nobody gives a fuck.”
Kurt tsked. “Such language in front of your boss.” Kurt winked at me. “If I would have known you were coming, I would have hidden all the wrenches,” he whispered.
I chuckled and watched a pissed off look come over Frankie’s face. “You know what? Why don’t I leave you two alone? Two jackasses like yourselves deserve to have time together.”
“She’s totally not going to invite you, man. And my wife likes me having my balls so I’m really not prepared to invite you in.” Kurt took a step away from me. “You really can’t hear what the guy has to say, Frank?”
Frankie tapped her foot and glared at me. “I’m sure I know what he has to say, and frankly, I’m not interested in hearing it right now.”
Here was my opening. “Then how about you have some mercy on a guy with no money and who hasn’t eaten since last night?”
Frankie kept staring at me, but Kurt’s jaw dropped and he sputtered, “Frankie quits Cummings Racing and then you go broke. Holy fuck. You need to show some mercy to this guy, Frank.”
“I’m not sure I really care,” she muttered. The icy edge she had on her voice melted away a millimeter, and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Look, I’m not broke. Well, at the moment I’m broke, but not in the sense you are talking about, Kurt. I somehow managed to leave home today without my wallet so I’m a bit hungry since I planned to grab something to eat at the airport but couldn’t do that since as much as I hate to admit, I can’t buy things off my name. If one of you could just give me a ride to the nearest Midwest Bank, I had Harlyn wire some money there for me.”
“I’m busy,” Frankie replied instantly. She pointed to the car behind her. “Some asshole flattened my tires, so I don’t have a way to give you a ride even if I wanted to.”
“I can give you a ride, man. I’m the one to blame for her flat tires since she stole my tacos,” Kurt sighed.
Frankie held up a wrapped taco in her hand. “I’ll accept flat tires if it means I get tacos from Miguel’s.” A sly smile spread across Frankie’s lips. “I guess I should be thanking you for being such a dick, Kurt.”
“Let me grab my keys. I dropped them on the bench before.”
Kurt walked into the shop, and I took a step back to look up at SRK Motors. “So this is where you grew up?” I asked Frankie.
It was nice. Super nice. The building was dark gray with three lighter gray large bay doors, and to the right of the large doors was what must have been an office. SRK Motors was scrawled out in large letter above the doors, and there were quite a few nice, fast cars sitting out front.
“Can we skip this part?”
I looked over at Frankie. “Uh, which part?”
“The part where you pretend to actually care about me and my family. Just say what you came to say, and then leave, Brooks.”
“Who said I was pretending?”
“Well, if your past is anything to go by, I really doubt you care about someone whose name you figured out after they quit.”
“I knew your name before you tried to maim me with a wrench.” It might have only been a couple of seconds before that incident that I learned her name, but I still knew it before she tried to behead me.
She rolled her eyes. “You do know if I wanted to hit you with that wrench, I would have, right?”
I had no doubt about that. “And you should know that I knew your name.”
“It doesn’t really matter. You’re not my boss anymore, and I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about you knowing my name.”
If she really didn’t care about whether or not I knew her name, then she wouldn’t be so pissed off at me. I’m sure there was more to her being irritated with me than not knowing her name, but that obviously bugged the hell out of her. “Why did you quit? Roc only suspended you for a week.”
“It was bullshit that I was suspended.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You don’t think throwing a wrench at someone warrants being suspended?”
“If the person who does the throwing is provoked, then no, I don’t think they should have been suspended.”
“And who is to decide if the person was provoked?”
“The person who was provoked, obviously.” She rolled her eyes and shoved the last bite of her taco into her mouth. “I really don’t have time to go over this with you. I have to get air back in my tires and then I promised Luke I would look at two more cars today.”
“I see you didn’t waste time finding a new job.”
She finished chewing and shook her head. “I don’t work here. I’m just helping Luke out.” She opened the wrapper of the other taco and nodded at me. “You really did waste your time coming here.”
I unfolded my arms and dropped them to my sides. “I didn’t.”
She took a huge bite of the taco and looked me up and down as she chewed. “Yes, you did.”
I spotted Kurt walking toward us, and I knew I had about fifteen seconds to get my point across to Frankie. “You may think you have the upper hand here, Frankie, and for the time being, you do, but for the record, you don’t know me.” I slid my sunglasses back over my eyes. “You have no idea what lengths I’m willing to go to.”
Kurt made it back over to us and grabbed my bag from the ground. “She done being bitchy to you?”