Nitro Crew Complete Series, page 32
“John Mayer, and I can see your ass cheek, Frankie.”
Brooks moved to block me from view. “The weekend is yours and let Harlyn know to get you tickets. You speak of this to no one.”
I couldn’t see Jay, but I knew he had a smug look on his face. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Brooks. I’ll see you at the shop later.”
Brooks stayed in front of me until I heard the slam of Jay’s door, and his car flew past us. “Did that really just happen?”
I looked at Brooks and busted out laughing. “That totally just happened,” I wheezed.
“Oh, you think this is funny?” Brooks demanded. He reached over and tickled my stomach which sent me off into a completely new round of giggling.
“Stop, stop,” I insisted. I finally got a hold of his hand and moved it away from me. “You don’t play fair, Mr. Cummings.”
He leaned in and pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose. “And neither do you, Miss Jensen. I do believe you were the one who had suggested road head to begin with.”
He had me there. “You could have said no.”
“Name one man who would ever say no to the suggestion of getting road head.” He sat back in his seat and folded his arms over his chest. “I’ll just wait while you make up some ridiculous name.”
I finished snapping the button on my jeans. “Don’t you think we should get back on the road and not talk about things that don’t really matter?”
Brooks shook his head. “You’re pretty good at avoiding arguments you know you’re going to lose, doll.”
I was not going to lose that argument. “There has to be at least one guy in this whole world that isn’t into receiving road head at the drop of a hat.” I was not going to concede defeat.
Brooks shook his head and finished zipping up his pants now that Jay was gone. “You wanna get ice cream and head back to the house?”
“Are you now ignoring me ignoring the argument?”
“It seems like the best idea right now. You’re in a good mood. I’m in a fucking fantastic mood, so I figure I’ll try to see if I can go a day without you calling me a dick.” Brooks started the car and put his blinker on to merge back onto the road.
“I think I called you dick three times over dinner, so you might want to try the whole nondick thing another day.”
He pulled back onto the road and headed into Leeds Square. “So, tomorrow when we wake up, you try not to call me a dick.”
“Uh, how about you try not to be a dick, and then I won’t have to call you a dick.”
He looked over at me and smiled. “I think I’ll just skip this idea completely. If you don’t call me a dick, I’m going to feel like I’m not doing something right.”
“Wait,” I called. “You said tomorrow when we wake up as if you think I’ll be spending the night with you. I never agreed to that.”
He flipped on his blinker and came to a roll at a stop sign. “You will be waking up with me tomorrow because I know you’re just like me.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
“It means we may have just had sex, but you and I both know we want more.”
“Hmph.” I sat back in my seat and crossed my arms over my chest. “We’ll just see about that.”
He ended up being right, and we both fell asleep in his bed together after having ice cream with his mom and Susan then sex twice in his amazingly plush mattress.
I hated he was right, but I had to admit it felt pretty damn good to fall asleep in his arms.
Brooks Cummings really wasn’t a dick like I had first imagined.
Who woulda thunk?
*
Chapter Twenty-Five
Brooks
“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.
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.”
