“Frankie,” Brooks repeated.
My eyes snapped to his, and I frowned. “What do you want?” The man had already caused enough problems for me by asking me to stay last night when I really should have left. Now his tone was pissing me off, and all I wanted to do was knee him in the nuts.
“Take a breath.”
I rolled my eyes and tucked my shirt in. “Yeah, that isn’t going to help, Brooks.”
Breathe.
Ha. He was nuts.
I eyed him wearily. “I should have went back to my trailer last night.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t. Not much you can do about it now.” He ran his fingers through his hair, and I couldn’t help but admire how he looked having just rolled out of bed. Or, off the couch. His normally clean shaven face was dusted with scruff, and his hair begged for me to thread my fingers through it.
I needed to get out of here before I did something else I shouldn’t do. I had already paddled my way up shit creek and didn’t need to set up and camp and stay there. “I have to go.” I moved to the door, and Brooks called my name. “What?” I hissed.
“Thank you for staying with me last night.”
I looked over my shoulder at him, and all of the stabby rage I had been feeling dissipated. There was so much in the way he was looking at me. His eyes were soft, his body was relaxed, and I could tell he really did need me to stay with him last night. There was so much going on with Brooks that I didn’t know, and I needed to know what it was. “You’re welcome. I’m sorry I’m such a bitch.” That was an apology I had never made before. Most people expected my bitchy attitude and just accepted it. Brooks made me want to reel it in and try to be less of a bitch.
“You’re not a bitch, doll.”
“Then what am I?” I whispered.
“Misunderstood.”
I shook my head and laughed. “That’s a creative was to say bitchy.” I pushed open the door to the trailer and stepped out into the early morning light. “Later, Brooks.” I shut the door, and looked around to make sure no one was around.
Thankfully, I didn’t spot anyone and made my dash to the pits. I racked my brain trying to figure out what I could tell the guys about me being late, but my mind came up blank.
“Jensen, where the hell have you been?” Roc stood by the front of the car with his arms folded over his chest and a scowl on his face.
“Uh, I had some problems.”
“Problems?” he thundered.
This was going as well as I had expected. “Yeah, you know, girlie problems.” I couldn’t believe that I had just said the words girlie problems.
Roc cringed and took a step back. “I do not want to hear another word out of your mouth.” He pointed to the guys working on the car. “Make sure this car is ready to win, and I’ll never bring up the fact you just said girlie problems.” He stalked to the hauler without a backward glance.
“Dude,” Remy called. “Where the hell were you last night? We were all thinking you took off again.”
“Yeah,” Jay agreed. “Though we didn’t hear about you trying to kill Brooks again so we really weren’t sure if you had quit or been abducted by aliens.”
“Uh, I just needed the night to myself. No big deal.” I walked over to my toolbox and pulled out a drawer. If I looked like I was trying to work, maybe they wouldn’t ask any more questions.
“Where the hell did you sleep?” Jay asked. I should ask him the same question every morning he would walk through the door wearing the same clothes from the night before.
“Yeah, you just had off for like three weeks. You had all that time to yourself then,” Remy chimed in.
Argh. I hated that these two weren’t getting the hint that I didn’t want to talk. “Just at the hotel in town.”
“How did you get there?” Jay added. That was it. Jay better prepare for the grilling I was going to give him the next time he didn’t sleep in his bed.
I slammed the drawer shut and turned to look at them. “Are you two my father’s now? Do I have to check in with you guys when I want to do something? I mean damn, guys. I needed some time to myself, and I forgot to set an alarm last night before I fell asleep. End of story.”
“Morning.”
I spun around and came face to face with Brooks. How in the hell did he manage to shower, get dressed, and look so damn sexy in less than fifteen minutes?
“Morning, Bossman. You ready to win the Sundown Nationals today?” Thank God for Jay never being able to keep his mouth shut.
“Uh, I think we’re in the best position possible to do that. It’s up to me right now to not be asleep at the line,” Brooks drawled.
Jay clapped him on the shoulder. “Like that is going to happen. You have the best reaction time out of all of those guys. I mean, your name should be Brooks ‘Holeshot’ Cummings.”
Brooks laughed nervously. “Yeah, not sure that was true last week, was it?”
Jay pointed at me. “Yeah, but now we have Frank back. We got this shit in the bag. We should just tell McDougal he doesn’t even need to show up today.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I mumbled. I preferred to not be so cocky and go into the races thinking everyone had a chance to win. Maybe we had a little better chance to win, but I wasn’t cocky like Jay.
“I’m sure the car is running great, Frankie.” Brooks threw a wink at me, and I felt my cheeks heat under his gaze.
I noticed Remy tilted his head to the side as he looked at me, and I spun away from the three of them back to my toolbox. “Let’s hope so. I better go over everything one more time before the first pass.” I grabbed a couple of tools, not really noticing what I took, and walked over to the car.
Jay and Remy talked to Brooks for a couple of minutes before they made their way over to me.
“Uh, how's it going?” Remy asked.
I looked up from the engine. “Just fine.”
“So, what are you doing with a wire cutter?” Jay snatched the red handled wire cutter I had grabbed absently. “You really think using these are going to help the car?”
I snatched them out of his hand and tucked them into my back pocket. “You never know when you’ll need a wire cutter.” That was the lamest thing I had ever said. I’ll just add that to the girlie problems from before.
“As long as you don’t use them today,” Jay mumbled. He leaned against the rear wheel of the car and crossed his arms over his chest.
Remy stood next to me and watched me work. “It was nice to see Brooks before staging.”
I glanced over at him. “Is there a point to what you just said?” He was on to me. I knew by the way he looked at me when I blushed that Remy knew something.
He shrugged and looked off in the distance. “Just saying it’s nice to see him when you normally wouldn’t see him. Wouldn’t you agree?”
I rolled my eyes. “No, I wouldn’t agree, Remy, because I don’t care about Brooks.”
“Interesting,” he muttered.
“Am I missing something here?” Jay asked.
He always was the last one to catch on. Some of that needed to wear off on Remy. He was much too intuitive to whatever was going on with Brooks and me. Though, to be fair, I didn’t even know what was going on with Brooks so he couldn’t be figuring things out that easily. “Yeah, you’re standing there doing nothing while I’m working.”
“Careful there, Jay. She’s liable to chuck a wrench at you,” Ronald, the clutch guy, called from the other side of the car.
“I’m never going to live that down,” I grumbled.
Remy clapped me on the shoulder. “Nope, you’re going to have to live with that one for the rest of your life, or at least until one of us does something ridiculous.”
Jay wandered off, more than likely to hide away ‘til the first round of eliminations, and Remy moved over by Ronald to help him.
I was finally able to work in peace, and my mind was racing a mile a minute with nothing but thoughts of Brooks.
The
re were so many questions.
Did I like him? He was…okay.
Just okay? Fine. He was…great.
“Frankie, check those springs and make sure whatever voodoo you did they are good to go.” Roc was always barking orders. I nodded in his direction. I had already checked them, but if Roc wanted them checked a third time, then that was what he was going to get.
What was it I liked about Brooks? He was a dick, but then he realized he was a dick, and now he’s nice. He’s handsome. More like hot with four t’s. I checked over the springs one last time and stood up. I brushed my hands on my jeans and sighed.
I had walked mindlessly through my pre-race checklist, and while I had been thinking through everything with Brooks, there was still one question that needed to be answered but I was too afraid to think it.
What did I want from Brooks? Did I want him to just be the boss, or did I want to be more to him than just his car chief?
“All right. Brooks is headed to the driver intros, and then after that, it’s time to have some fun.” Roc stood next to the car and motioned for everyone to gather around. “Gather round, assholes.”
This is why I got along so well on the Cummings Racing pit crew. We were all a bunch of sarcastic assholes. “Time for Roc’s motivational speech. I wonder what pearls of wisdom he’s going to impart on us today.”
Roc pulled out his phone, typed in a few words, then flicked his finger a couple of times to scroll.
“You ever wonder what he types in?” Jay whispered.
I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Nice to see you made it back in time.”
He shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. “Shh,” he hushed me. “He’s got one.”
Roc cleared his throat and moved his lips as he read over what was on the screen. “That’s not going to work,” he muttered.
“Come one, now you need to tell us what it is,” Remy called.
“Just for you, Grain,” he muttered. “Never let anyone treat you like a yellow Starburst. You are a pink Starburst.”
This was the shit that Roc did that completely contradicted the gruff hardass he was ninety percent of the time. Everyone snickered, and Ronald let out a snort. “What if I want to be a red Starburst?”
“Yuck it up, smartasses.” Roc continued to scroll and let out a little chuckle. “Now this is what I’m looking for.” He looked up from his phone. “You assholes ready? This one is a damn gem.”
Jay bumped me trying to get closer to hear. “I bet it’s about unicorns or raccoons.”
Remy scoffed, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Shh,” I hushed him.
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.” Roc shoved his phone in his pocket. “For the record, we ain’t fucking learning today. We’re fucking winning.” Roc stalked away with a farewell grunt.
“Someone needs to explain to Roc what an inspirational pep talk is.” Ronald shook his head and slapped his ball cap back on his head.
“What would be the fun in that?” I much prefer Roc giving lame, fake pep talks to loosen us up instead of some inspirational bullshit.
The guys worked on pushing the car from the stall out into the pit lane. Ronald backed the suped-up golf cart to the dragster, and I hooked up the tow rope. Remy and Jay both hopped on scooters to lead the way down the busy pit row to get to the staging lanes.
Brooks was in the third pair going, and I saw him duck into the staging car that followed behind the dragster. I grabbed my computer that was hooked up to all the electronics running through the car and hopped on the back of the golf cart that was hauling the car.
This was it.
No matter what had happened today, it all came down to right now.
I may not know what the hell was going on with Brooks and me, but all of that didn’t matter right now.
Right now, we all had the same goals in mind.
Get to the end of the track.
Don’t crash.
Fucking win.
*
Chapter Nineteen
Brooks
I tilted my head back and squeezed a few moisturizing drops into each eye. I blinked a few times and tossed the bottle on the seat next to me.
Roc opened the door to the pit car and handed me my mouth guard and helmet. “We’re ready. One more pair to go, and then it’s go time.”
I nodded and popped the mouth guard into my mouth. Roc knew not to talk to me more than he needed to. The short ride over to the staging lanes was when I got my mind focused and thought only of the next one thousand feet and few seconds.
Mark, one of the pit guys, helped me put my gloves on, and I stretched my arms and legs before I walked over to the car waiting for me. In my ear, I could hear the crew going over last minute changes and adjusting the wheelie bar height.
Remy gave me a thumbs-up. “Good to go, bossman. Keep ‘er between the lines, and we’ll see you on the other end.”
Frankie and Roc were on the other side of the car talking intently. So much goes into a racing a car a measly thousand feet down the track. Granted, those thousand feet flew by when you were going over three hundred miles an hour.
Mark helped strap me into the seven-point harness, and the body of the car was lowered.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. My hands gripped the steering wheel, and I cleared my mind of everything.
“Ready?” Roc crackled over the radio.
My eyes snapped open and everything disappeared. I flipped on the ignition and data-logger switches. Once I heard the car start, I pulled the nitrous lever all the way on, and as it ran, I moved the lever to the right gallons per minute.
After about twenty seconds of idling, Roc gave me the signal to roll through the water box.
I rolled through the water, and after three rotations of the tires, my foot released the clutch and I let the tires roll into a burnout. I let the burnout run ‘til the start line and let the car come to a slow roll.
“One minute, Brooks. How she feel?”
Roc stood by the side of the car, and I gave him a thumbs up. Everything about the car felt right. Roc motioned for me to backup, and I rolled ‘til I saw the twenty-foot line marker and eased on the brake. Five feet behind the start line, I stopped and took another deep breath.
Here we go.
I slowly crept forward while Jay directed me to within six inches of the starting line. Roc made his final idle adjustments and put his hand in front of me. I snapped the visor down on my helmet and took my last final deep breath.
My fingers flipped the fuel pump full-on, and I took my foot off the clutch and inched the car into the staging beam with the handbrake.
My eyes were focused on the tree.
Time stopped and the yellow lights lit up one, two, three, and I simultaneously hit the throttle and dropped the brake handle as fast as I could.
Over eight thousand RPMs coursed through the car, and I was launched off the line at over five Gs. The half a second it took for me to look from the tree to the track, I had already gone fifty feet and I didn’t even blink.
Almost halfway down the track, I knew I had it right. I had it off the line, and I felt the constant pull of power course through me the whole way.
As much as I wanted to look over to check on Rodgers, I didn’t. I was focused on exactly where I wanted to go. Exactly down the groove. If I looked over in the other lane, I would’ve driven over there.
Within fifty feet of the finish line, I shut down. I punched the parachute button and stepped off the throttle. Once my foot was off the pedal, I had crossed the line and I could breathe again.
The two parachutes deployed, and I was hit with over five Gs of deceleration. The back end got extremely light, and I could feel the car wanting to hop around. My hand held the hand break, but the parachutes slowed me down to where I didn’t need to pull it.
The final pop-pop signaled the engine is cut-off, and I toggled the ignition and switch to turn off the computer.
It was eerily quiet,
and I took a deep breath.
Roc’s cheer sounded through my earpiece, and I smiled.
I did it.
*
Frankie
No matter how many times the car you worked on crossed the finish line first, you still jumped for joy and screamed like a lunatic.
When it all fell into place perfectly, you couldn’t help but pump your fist in the air and scream. I may not have been in the car, but without me and the eight guys shouting with me, it never would have made it there.
Jay and Remy hopped on their scooters and raced down the side lane to Brooks, and I couldn’t help but have a huge ass smile on my face.
“There’s that smile.”
I looked over at Ronald who started up the golf cart. “We won.”
“Sure as shit did. Didn’t have any doubts about it.” He cranked the cart around and headed back to pit row.
A few crew members from other teams offered shouts of congratulations as we drove back, and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.
That was why I loved my job.
Except we couldn’t celebrate too much right now. We may have won that round, but we had for sure one more pass. If we won that one, then we had to go again.
If everything went right, we would have to make four total passes today.
I spotted the car being pulled by the pit car with Jay and Remy following behind.
“Ready to get back to work, girlie?”
I glanced over at Ronald. “I was born for this shit, Ronnie.”
*
Chapter Twenty
Brooks
“How does it feel to win your first Sundown Nationals, Brooks?”
I was in my third interview of the night, and I was ready to be done. I celebrated with the team for a whole fifteen minutes before Blain whisked me away. That had been over two hours ago, and my adrenaline was still running high. “Uh, it feels amazing, Susan. No matter how many times I get in the driver’s seat, the rush of having that many Gs pulling at you never wains. Winning is the cherry on top of an already amazing experience.”
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