Frankie was gonna make me go gray and blow a damn blood vessel if she kept keeping shit to herself and leaving whenever the hell she felt like it.
I fell into my chair and stared at the door willing her to walk in.
Finally, after five minutes of waiting, she breezed in.
“Shut it and lock it,” I growled.
She did as I asked, then stood by the door with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Sit.”
“Last I checked, I’m not a dog, so I’m going to ignore what you just said.”
I shot up from my chair and stalked toward her.
She maybe pissed, but I was fucking livid.
When I was within arm’s reach of her, it dawned on her that she wasn't going to be able to be her normally sassy self with me. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close.
She put her hands on my chest and tried to push away. “What are you doing?” she demanded. She looked over her shoulder at the door. “We’re at work, Brooks.”
“I’m fully aware of where we are right now,” I growled.
“Then take yo—”
“Quiet,” I growled. She wasn’t going to tell me to do anything right now. I was calling the shots. “Why did you leave?”
“We were done. I saw the car ran fine. There wasn’t a reason for me to stay.”
“You didn’t need to help load up the car?” At the local track where we tested, we stored the basics we normally needed there so all we needed to do was bring the hauler with the car and any specials tools we might need. It didn’t take much to load up, but normally no one left before everything was done. Frankie leaving was a slap to the face of everyone on the crew.
“They had it under control.”
“Really?” Frankie was pissed, and I knew why. She just was being stubborn and not telling me.
“If you called me in here to yell at me for leaving early, then can I go? Your job is done.”
“I’m not yelling at you, Frankie. I’m trying to figure out where the hell your head is.”
“You wanna know where my head is?” she snapped.
I pulled her flush against my body. “What the hell happened to the woman who left my bed this morning?”
“That woman who left your bed is standing right in front of you. Though she’s kind of confused about the man who came into the trailer today and treated her like she was nobody and demanded she fix everything.”
“It’s your job, Frankie. I was asking you to do your job.”
“And my job is to have to deal with you being a demanding asshole? I know how to do my job, Brooks, and I can do it without you walking around beating your chest like you’re King fucking Kong. I get this is yours, and I’m just here to get you down the track.”
“That wasn’t how it was,” I growled. I may have been a bit demanding, but I didn’t think I was asking anything of her that I shouldn’t. She had wanted me to come to her and tell her what a great job she was doing to give her credit for her work, but didn’t that also translate into me coming to her when I needed something that she was fixing?
“Then how was it, Brooks? Tell me what that was, because all I heard was you being a raging dick demanding I do something that I already was.” She tried again to pull out of my arms, but I wasn’t going to let her go anywhere before she heard what I had to say. She was right, but she was going to understand where I was coming from.
“You’re right. I was a dick to you, but I didn’t know how else to act.”
“Try being nice,” she hissed.
“Like you are all of the time? I may have overreacted when I came into the trailer, but you did the same thing when you left the track without helping pack up.” We both made mistakes today, and we were going to keep making them if we didn’t figure out what the hell was going on between us.
“Then maybe we just shouldn’t talk, or I should find another job. That might be the thing to fix everything.”
“Neither of those things are going to fucking happen.”
She rolled her eyes. “You only want me here because I got your car running good, Brooks. Maybe we shouldn’t act like it’s anything more than that.”
But it was more than that. I wasn’t upset she wanted to find another job because I needed her to be my car chief. I was fucking livid she never wanted to talk to me again. Fuck racing, and fuck her being my car chief. I wanted her in my bed, in my house, and always by my side.
“I want you here because ever since you threw a fucking wrench at me, all I’ve wanted was you in my bed with your lush, soft body beneath me. I want you here so you can call me on my shit and throw your fucking attitude around like God damn confetti. I want you here to eat dinner with Mom and me every night because you treat her like there isn’t anything wrong with her. I want you here because I don’t want to remember what it was like before you walked into my garage and into my life. I want you here because you just make my fucking life better by just breathing, Frankie. Quit your job, but you won’t get rid of me.”
My breathing was labored, and it was taking all of my strength to not press her against the wall to fuck all my anger out on her. I wanted her, and I wasn’t going to accept anything else than her with me.
*
Frankie
People talk about the moments in their life where everything changed, and it all just makes sense.
I wasn’t having one of those moments. I was in a complete “what in the fuck is going on” moment. Brooks was the star of that moment, and he had completely blown my mind with a handful of words I never thought anyone would say to me. “Okay.”
“Okay?” he growled.
So maybe I should have more to say, but I didn’t know what that was.
Brooks Cummings had just poured his heart out to me, and all the while he did it, the only thought that was running through my head was he must have the wrong person. “I...” I cleared my throat and tried to figure out what I was feeling. “I’ve never had someone just need me to breath.”
“Well, get used to it. That’s all I want from you. I don’t need you working on my car if it means we’re going to argue and you think I’m a dick.”
“You’re not a dick.”
“I was today, and probably fifty times before today.”
“And I was a bitch when I told you to get out, and if you asked anyone I’ve ever talked to before, they’ll tell you I’m a bitch with an ice-cold heart.”
“That’s not true.” His hand traveled up my back and slipped under my shirt. “Whoever calls you that or thinks that about you doesn’t know you. Not like I know you.”
“I even think it about myself, Brooks,” I laughed.
“Well, you’re wrong, Frankie.”
I rolled my eyes. “Moving on.” Time to tell him all the things he had wanted from me were wrong and he was better off finding it with someone else.
“Not interested in what you have to say if it’s you telling me I’m wrong.”
“So I can never tell you you’re wrong?” I scoffed.
“If it has to do with what I just said to you, then yes. You’re not allowed to say anything about it. You just gotta accept the fact I’m not going anywhere.”