Nitro Crew Complete Series, page 20
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?”
Frankie sputtered and glared at Kurt.
“I don’t even think she’s done with me yet.”
Kurt slapped me on the shoulder and hitched his thumb toward his car. “Then we better make a run for it before she winds up for another round.”
I took two steps toward his car and turned back to Frankie. “I’ll see you later, Frankie.”
She glared at me. “Not if you can’t find me.”
I threw a wink at her, and though I knew it was impossible, I swear I saw smoke come out of her ears. She hated me. As much as I knew this was going to be hard, I had to admit, I was kind of excited to see just what Frankie had in store for me. “I’ll find you, Frankie. You can’t expect something from someone you don’t know. Clue in, doll. I always win.”
*
Chapter Four
Frankie
“I’m making shepherd’s pie for dinner. It’s a new recipe I found.”
I set the last work order on the counter and looked at Violet. “I’m not really hungry.”
“Kurt called and let me know you stole his tacos today, but that was five hours ago. I know you are hungry. You have Jensen blood running through your veins. I know Luke needs to be fed every four hours or he becomes a raging maniac.”
She was right about Luke.
Possibly right about me being the same way. Remy had chucked a Snickers at me once when I was pissy. Not that I would admit it to him, but it helped after I ate it.
I was hungry. But I wasn’t sure that I was hungry enough to sit down to an experiment of a recipe Violet had just found. “We could order pizza. My treat.” I wasn’t getting paid right now, but I had a hefty savings so forking over sixty dollars for pizza wasn’t a problem.
Violet folded her arms over her chest and glared at me. “We are not doing pizza. Luke likes when I cook, so I’m cooking.”
Pretty sure that was a lie. Last week, Luke told me about the time Violet made beef stroganoff, and it looked like puke in the pot and tasted even worse than it looked. Shepherd’s pie, while in theory, wasn’t that complicated of a dish, it still had possibilities for Violet to turn it down the puke-in-a-pot lane.
“Can I help you?”
While I wasn’t Martha Stewart in the kitchen cooking every day, I did cook for Luke, Mitch, and Kurt before they duped Violet, Scarlett, and Leelee into marrying them.
A huge smile spread across Violet’s face, and she clapped her hands together. “Oh, my God, yes! I would totally love that! Ash has no desire to be in the kitchen with me, and Rose is way too young to do anything more than bang on pots.”
“Let me just lock up, change quick, and I’ll meet you in the kitchen.” I glanced over my shoulder to look out the window and sighed. So far, Brooks hadn’t been back. I figured for sure Kurt would drop his ass off after he took him to the bank, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I twisted the lock to the front door, pulled down the shade to cover the window, and jogged up the steps.
Now I was wondering what the hell Kurt was doing with him. My brothers gave me a hard time, but I knew they always had my back. The fact Kurt was more than likely spending his afternoon with the one guy I hated wasn’t sitting well with me.
“You finish the Cutlass and the Impala?” Luke was sprawled out on the couch watching TV. He was fully taking advantage of me being home by making me do all of the work.
“Done. Neither had anything majorly wrong with them. I locked up the shop, and Violet is downstairs emptying the till.”
I made my way down the hallway to my room but stopped when Luke called my name. “Yeah?” I hollered.
“I talked to Kurt this afternoon.”
Fuckity fucking fucksticks. Of course Kurt wasn’t going to keep his mouth shut about Brooks. “Oh yeah? What did he have to say?”
“That he took a twenty out of the till for the tacos you stole from him, and that he just so happens to have Brooks Cummings staying at the house with him and Leelee.”
“What?” I screeched. Kurt was just supposed to be taking the guy to the bank, not moving him into his own house.
“I’d like to think that you are surprised about Brooks being here, but I’m more than certain that you knew he was here but didn’t know that he was staying with Kurt.”
I closed my eyes and tilted my head back. “I know he’s here. I told him to leave. I meant by going back to Kentucky, not to Kurt’s house.” Though he did technically do what I had asked him to do.
“Doesn’t he have a race this weekend?”
My eyes snapped open, and I grinned. “He sure does!” It was Wednesday, and I knew Brooks was going to have to be at the track by Friday morning. I only had to possibly put up with him for one more day if he showed his face again.
“You going back with him?”
“Hell to the no!” I pushed open my bedroom door and slammed it behind me. I pulled my t-shirt over my head and dropped it on the floor next to the bed.
Brooks was going to only be here for one more day. I pumped my fist in the air and hopped from one foot to the other. I was happy as hell.
I grabbed a clean, white tank top from the laundry basket at the foot of my bed, tossed it on the bed, and shimmied off my jeans. I needed to hurry up and get out to the kitchen before Violet started cooking without me. After I yanked the shirt over my head and grabbed a pair of cutoff jean shorts from the basket, I tugged them on and skipped down the hallway with happy thoughts of Brooks leaving.
Violet’s voice carried down to me, and I skidded to a halt when Kurt spoke and a familiar voice with a low timber followed. “Shit,” I hissed. How could I have been so stupid to think that he wouldn’t show up after I had closed the shop.
“I heard that.”
I whirled around and looked down at Ash. I pressed a finger to my lips and shook my head.
He held out his hand and smirked. “Five bucks,” he demanded softly.
The thought of paying my nephew five bucks to quiet him was too appealing to pass up. If I could just make it back to my bedroom without anyone knowing I was five steps away from the kitchen, then I would be off scot free. I patted my back pocket and growled. “I’ll get you in the morning. Just let me get back to my room.”
He moved to the right when I tried to step around him and blocked my way. “I wasn’t born yesterday. I need to see the money before I agree to a deal.”
Christ, Luke was raising a little hustler. If he ever got into street racing like his dad, he would make a hell of a money guy. “I’m your aunt,” I insisted.
He quirked his eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest. “This isn’t about family. It’s about money.”
He was such a little shithead. “I can’t exactly pull five bucks out of my ass, Ash. Follow me to my room, and I’ll get it for you.”
“Well, well. What do we have here?”
Son of a donkey. I was caught. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Kurt standing at the mouth of the hallway. “I was just headed to the bathroom.”
“No, she wasn’t,” Ash shouted. “She was trying to bribe me to cover for her. I feel a little violated.”
Oh, for God's sake. Did he really just say he felt violated? I was the one who should feel violated. He was trying to weasel five bucks out of me just to walk down the hallway. I stuck my finger in his face and hissed, “You get nothing from me. I was the cool aunt, but not anymore.”
He rolled his eyes and pushed past me toward Kurt. I turned around and propped my hands on my hips.
“Leelee is the fun one. She feeds me ice cream, donuts, and soda all of the time. All you’ve done since you’ve been home is watch tv and work on cars. Give her heck, Uncle Kurt.” He bumped fists with Kurt and strutted into the living room.
I wasn’t afraid of Kurt. It was the man whose voice I had heard but whose handsome face I hadn’t seen yet who was making me uneasy. He was the one I didn’t want to see. I wasn’t afraid, but I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to talk to him.
“You can’t hide forever, Frankie,” Kurt chided.
I could, but it wouldn’t help me much. I had a feeling Brooks wasn’t going to give up until I actually gave him the boot and told him to shove it where the sun don’t shine. I slowly made my way down the rest of the hallway and slugged Kurt in the stomach before he saw it coming. He always underestimated me when it came to hitting him. While he probably was my favorite brother since he was closer to my age, he still drove me insane. Bringing Brooks to dinner was his latest stunt to piss me off.
“Oh, Frankie! Look who came to dinner! I think we might have to make something else to eat, though. I don’t have enough ingredients for shepherd’s pie.” Violet stood at the kitchen island flipping through a pile of recipes she had printed off the internet.
Luke stood behind her mouthing for me to do something.
I didn’t want to help him since I’m sure he had something do with the fact that Brooks was here, but I was also starving and didn’t want to have to choke down whatever Violet was thinking of making. “Oh, well, then let me make something. You know I don’t have access to a kitchen on the road so cooking for everyone will be fun.”
Violet looked up from the stack, and her face fell. “Are you sure? I really don’t mind making dinner.”
I walked over to the pantry and pulled open the door. “You can help if you want. Though it’s probably not going to be anything fancy.” I scanned the shelves and tried to think of what I could make that would feed nine people.
Yes, I had seen Brooks sitting on the other side of Violet, but I had ignored him. In the two point five seconds I had looked, he seemed refreshed and not so haggard like he was before. His bright blue polo shirt was stretched across chest, and his hands had been folded in front of him. His eyes had been trained on me but I hadn’t given him the time of day.
I grabbed two boxes of spaghetti and turned around to toss them on the counter. “We can do spaghetti and meatballs. Do we have any French bread?” I asked Violet.
“There should be a loaf in the freezer.”
“Vi, that’s not French bread. It’s just a loaf of white bread,” Luke snickered.
Violet stood up and walked over to the freezer. “Well, bread is bread. How am I supposed to know it’s French, English, or German?” She grabbed the loaf of bread and chucked it at Luke.
Luke snatched it mid-air and laughed. “You’re rather feisty tonight.”
I grabbed the loaf of bread from him and set it next to the noodles. “This will work, Violet. I can make pieces of garlic toast with this.” It was best to try to keep her happy before she started chucking more food around.
Thankfully making spaghetti and giving Violet things to do gave me the excuse I needed to ignore Brooks. Luke herded Kurt and Brooks into the living room to watch some show while Violet and I cooked.
“Is Leelee coming over?” I looked over my shoulder and watched Violet sawing some onions to put into the sauce.
“Uh, Kurt said she was working late on some car she needed done by tomorrow. She might be by later if it’s not too late.” She stuck her tongue out and carefully sliced the last piece of onion. It was a miracle she was able to put food on the table for Luke, Ash, and Rose. “Want me to toss this in?”
I lifted the lid to the sauce, and she carried the onion over to the pot. I stirred in the onion and set the timer on the stove for half an hour. While the sauce cooked, we needed to roll meatballs and get the bread ready.
The sauce bubbled away on the stove, and we worked side by side chatting about nothing while I kept one ear trained on the living room listening to the guys. For the most part, Luke and Kurt were doing most of the talking with occasional input from Brooks.
The timer on the stove went off, and I pulled the pan of bread from the oven. I had dropped the meatballs into the sauce fifteen minutes ago, and we were just minutes away from eating.
“Holy hell. It smells amazing in here so either you guys ordered in, or Frankie is cooking.” Leelee stepped through the front door and kicked off her work boots.
Violet slammed a pile of forks down on the counter. “Really Lee? That is how you are going to play me? How about we talk about when you and Kurt are going to make me an aunt?”
“Nevah!” Kurt shouted from the couch.
Leelee rolled her eyes and strutted into the kitchen. “As soon as Kurt grows up, I’ll be all about that life. For the time being, you need to realize you already are an aunt. Scarlett and Mitch have two kids.” Leelee sat down at the island and propped her head up on her hands. “And don’t act like you are some Martha Stewart. I chipped a tooth on those fucking cookies you sent home with Kurt last month.”
“She did,” Kurt confirmed.
Violet threw her hands up in the air. “I cannot be blamed for your chipped tooth. That could have happened at any time that you were eating.”
“Pictures or it didn’t happen,” Luke called. He may give Violet shit about her cooking, but he always had her back at the end of the day.
“Who in the hell takes pictures of their chipped teeth?” Leelee wondered.
“Dinner done?” Kurt asked.
I stirred the pot of sauce one more time and turned off the burner. “Just need to drain the noodles, and we are good to go.” I dumped the huge pot of noodles into the colander and drizzled a little olive oil over them.
Ash came streaking into the kitchen and grabbed a plate from the stack Violet had set out. “I call dibs on the non-French bread.”
Violet rolled her eyes and sat down next to Leelee. “So I don’t know the names of every freakin’ bread on the planet. Who cares?”
