“How’s she feel?”
I took off my helmet and handed it to Remy. “You didn’t see my ass all over the place on that last run?” I asked Roc. “It felt like shit.”
Roc shook his head. “We’re working on an issue with the springs.”
“I don’t get why we have an issue with the springs. I thought we had that all figured out after I made a fool of myself.”
“We did, but I told you Croft wasn’t going to sponsor us if we kept MaxLite on the front.”
“We don’t need a fucking sponsor, Roc. Just put both of them on the car, and I’ll pay for the fucking Croft ones out of my own pocket.”
“We tried that, Brooks. MaxLite got wind that Croft was on the car, so now they’re saying they don’t want their name on the car either if we keep Croft on the back.”
I ran my fingers through my hair and growled. “Then fuck them both, and send me the damn bill.”
“You’re in a contract with MaxLite for the rest of the season. We can’t say fuck ‘em without a whole lot of red tape and money flying out of the team.”
“What the hell are we going to do, then?” I demanded. I paid these guys to solve these problems so they better have something up their sleeve.
“Frankie tried a different combination of the MaxLite springs on your car.”
“It was shit,” I growled.
“Yeah, we figured that out, Brooks.”
It was Thursday. We were leaving for the Meyer Royal, and right now, I had a car I could barely keep in my lane. Whatever chill feelings I had from waking up in the same bed as Frankie were replaced with frustration and anxiety about the fact my car sucked.
“Where is Frankie?” She was the one who had figured out how to have my car run so good in the first place, so she was going to have to pull something from her sleeve to get us ready for qualifying tomorrow.
“She’s in the hauler going over all of the data.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “There are a ton of things she can throw at you in there, so you might want to stay alert.”
I stalked into the trailer hauler and was surprised to see Frankie was the only one in there. “The car sucks.”
She looked up from the computer and glared at me. “Hello to you, too.”
“Hello. The car sucks.”
She turned back to the computer and shook her head. “I know. If that’s all you came in here to say then you can leave.”
“So, what are you doing to fix it?” I walked over to her and leaned against the table she had the computer on.
“I’m going over the data.”
“And?”
She looked up at me. “And I’m figuring shit out.”
“You mind telling me just what you’re doing to figure it out?”
“You mind telling me why you’re being a dick right now? Jesus, Brooks. It’s not my fault MaxLite and Croft are a bunch of bitches that don’t wanna share space on the car with each other.”
“No, it’s not your fault, but it is your job to figure out what we’re going to do.”
She snapped the laptop shut and stood up. “I’m not sure what the hell is going on here, but I don’t like the tone in your voice.”
I pushed off the bench and stood toe-to-toe with her. “Fix the car, and you won’t have to deal with the tone.”
“I’m not sure why you’re being a huuuge dick to me, but get out of here and go shit your pants, Brooks.” Her cheeks were flushed, and she was on the verge of doing more than telling me to go shit my pants.
“Shit my pants?”
“Yes,” she hissed. “Leave and shit yourself.”
I don’t think anyone had ever told me off the way Frankie could. “We’re doing one more pass in an hour. Get the car fixed or you’ll have to deal with me.” I stalked out of the trailer and slammed the door shut behind me.
Jesus Christ. I had never dealt with a more confusing person. She had just told me to get out and shit myself, and all I wanted to do was bend her over the workbench and fuck the attitude right out of her.
If she didn’t get the car running right, that was exactly what I was going to do.
*
Frankie
“So what’d you do?”
I looked over at Remy. “I altered the MaxLite springs to make them more like the Croft ones.”
We both watched Brooks creep up to the start line, and I held my breath. I had no clue if this was going to work. I wasn’t a mechanist, and the adjustments I had made to the MaxLite springs wasn’t guaranteed to make a difference.
Roc went through the paces of getting the car adjusted, then gave Brooks the thumbs us.
“Here we go,” Remy mumbled.
Here we go was right. I was either going to have a job after this, or Brooks was going to tell me to take a hike. I had spent all night in the man's bed, and then he had come into the trailer demanding to know what was going on like some steroid raging asshole.
The three yellow lights on the tree lit up, and Brooks was off the line not even two tenths of a second after the light turned green. The car took off like a bullet, and from what I could see with the naked eye, the car was running better. At least he didn’t look like he was trying to fight it from veering into the wall the whole time.
“How was that?” Roc asked over the radio.
“Better. So good, I could have shit my pants.”
“Uh, is that a good thing?” Roc asked, unsure.
“Whatever you guys did to the car, don’t change it. We’re winning the Meyer Royal this weekend.”
I took off my headset and handed it to Remy. “I’ll meet you back at the shop.”
“Wait, what?” He grabbed the headset and looked at me like I had a second head coming out of my shoulders. “You fixed the car. Where the hell are you going?”
I walked away from Remy without a word because I didn’t know what the hell I was thinking, but I had to leave. Brooks had treated me like shit an hour ago, and all I wanted to do was tell him to go to hell and then climb on top of him to fuck my anger out on him.
“What the hell is that?” I asked myself once I slipped into my car. I pounded my hand on the steering wheel and tried to get a grip on what I was feeling.
Brooks had pissed me off, but it had pushed me to do the best job I could on the car. The lines were so blurred with us now, I didn’t know what to do.
Throw another wrench at him?
Fuck his brains out?
Whatever it was, I needed to figure it out.
*
Chapter Twenty-Six
Brooks
“Tell Frankie I want to see her in my office right now.”
Harlyn jumped up from her chair and grabbed the phone. “Uh, yes, sir.”
I was pissed
So fucking pissed.
Whatever she had done to the car had worked. When I had gotten back to the hauler, she wasn’t there. Remy said as soon as I had made it past the finish line, she had gotten in her car and left.
She fucking left.
I stormed into my office and slammed the door shut. Who the fuck leaves in the middle of testing? And once again, no one really knew what she had done to the car because she hadn’t told anyone.