Nitro Crew Complete Series, page 40
“Third drawer on the left.”
I grabbed the bottle opener form the drawer and leaned against the counter. “What other secrets are you looking to uncover?”
“Not secrets. Just looking to find more out about you.”
I popped open the top on the beer and tossed the cap on the counter. “So you know my parents took off, my sister is a saint, and I went to college with Frankie and Remy.”
“Did you and Frankie ever date?”
It was a justifiable question. “I tried once, but only ‘cause I didn’t know her.”
“You’re gonna have to explain that answer a little bit more.”
I sat back down and took a swig off my beer. “She was good-looking and knew how to turn a wrench. My teenage brain didn’t realize with all of that she had one hell of a chip on her shoulder from being brushed aside for being a girl.” That was an understatement when it came to Frankie, but there it was in a nutshell.
“Please tell me she put you in your place.”
I laughed and nodded. “She sure as hell did. Almost kicked me in the nuts, but I was able to duck out of the way before her foot made contact.”
“I think I might like Frankie,” she laughed.
“Most people do. Just don’t get on that woman’s wrong side. She’s constantly giving me shit at work.”
“About what?” Delaney asked.
I took another drink of beer. “Just that she thinks she’s the only one working around there.”
“But is that true?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Some of the time?”
Delaney laughed. “That is a yes to all of the time, then.”
It wasn’t true, but I didn’t want to look like a dick trying to prove my point. Frankie was a hard worker and so was I, just in different ways. “Next question, Del.”
“I don’t know what else to ask.” She tapped her finger on her shin. “Do you talk to your sister often?”
“She calls to pester me every couple of days. Her husband has two brothers that are into car building and drag racing so they’ve been out to a couple of the races this year. I probably won’t see them for a bit.”
She nodded and finished her pizza. “How disgusted would you be if I ate another piece of pizza?”
“Not at all. I would think you’re doing a good job at keeping the baby fed.” I grabbed another slice of pizza and laid it on her plate. “Eat up, Del.” There wasn’t a chance in hell that I would ever tell a woman she was eating too much. That wasn’t any of my business at all.
“I think the baby had no problem helping me eat up.” She finished her third slice of pizza then sat back in her chair with her hand on her belly.
“Full?” I asked. While she had chowed down on her pizza, I managed to shove two more pieces down so she didn’t feel like she was eating more than me. I wasn’t sure why I cared about that, but I didn’t want her to feel bad about eating in front of me.
“For now. It’s amazing how much I’ve been eating lately. I’m sure my doctor is going to tell me to start eating carrots and lettuce if I don’t want to gain five hundred pounds.”
I flipped the lid shut on the pizza and knew this was another moment I needed to be careful of what I said. “I’m sure it’ll be a good appointment.”
Delaney sipped on her milk. “I think that is the most politically correct response I have ever heard.”
I grabbed my beer and tipped it toward her. “Just trying to not get my balls kicked in.”
“Is that something you worry about often?”
“Only when I open my mouth.”
She burst out laughing. “At least you admit it.”
“I’m not as poised and smart like you, Del. My mouth has gotten me into trouble but it also happens to get me out of trouble sometimes.”
She scoffed. “I’m far from poised.”
That was a lie. “I could tell how together and smart you were when you were kneeling over me the other night.”
She flitted her had. “I’m good under pressure. That’s all that was.”
“I suppose that’s good for someone who wants to be a doctor?”
She finished her milk and nodded. “Comes in handy.”
“So what else were you planning on doing tonight?”
She raised her arms over her head and stretched. “I honestly was just going to veg out in front of the TV. I don’t have clinicals or have to work the next two days. Doing nothing is high up on my to-do list.”
“You got off Tuesday and Wednesday?” I thought I was one of the only ones who had weird days off from work. Roc had told us we could have Tuesday off and more than likely when we showed up to work on Wednesday, we would be out before noon.
“Yeah. Weekends are busiest at the restaurant and the doctor I’m shadowing took two personal days. His time off is my time off too.”
“Hold up.” I held up my hand shook my head. “You have two jobs?” Why the hell was she working two jobs when she was pregnant?
“Uh, I guess. Though I don’t get paid for my clinicals. I do those for experience.”
I blinked slowly. “You’re working your ass off and you’re not getting paid?” What in the hell was this shit? I wasn’t going to work for anyone without getting paid.
“That’s how clinicals work, Jay. Southern State is a teaching hospital that services the public so med students get experience and do hands-on procedure. I thought everyone knows that.”
“Uh, I barely made it through college working on cars, Del. I know absolutely nothing about being a med student.”
She stood up and grabbed the pizza box. “I go to school forever, work in the hospital for hands-on experience, and then, after about ten years, I can practice medicine on my own.”
“And how long away is that now?”
“Four more years,” she sang. She stuck the pizza in the fridge and turned back to look at me. “I’m watching cheesy movies on TV the rest of the night. You’re welcome to stay if you want or you can go.”
“Why would I want to go?” The only plans I had tonight were to worm my way into Delaney’s house. I was here, and I didn’t want to leave. At least, not yet.
“Didn’t know if you had other plans or something.” She reached over the sink and turned on the light above. She moved to flipped the kitchen light off and folded her arms over her chest as she stared at me.
“Why would I come over here if I had plans to do something else?” I could see the wheels in her mind spinning. Delaney had already formed an opinion of me, and I could tell it wasn’t a good one.
“I don’t know, Jay. I just don’t want you to think you need to be here.”
“So you don’t plan on holding me captive by cuffing me to the bed and playing doctor with me?”
Her jaw dropped, and her pretty eyes bugged out. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Sure? You could change your mind right now and say that is what you want.” I held my arms out in front of me. “I won’t put up a fight.”
“Are you serious right now?” she whispered.
I was on the borderline of pushing Delaney too far. “Yes, but you can pretend I didn’t say it.”
She blinked twice. “I think I’ll do that. At least, for now.”
“That mean eventually you’re going to want to visit strapping me to the bed?” I knew there was a physical attraction between us since we had wound up in bed before. I was hopeful it would happen again, but I knew it was way too soon to see if she was ready to revisit things.
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “It means I’m going to go watch TV and not think about you and…well…you at all.”
I stood up and pushed my stool under the counter. “Gonna be kinda hard to do that when I’m sitting right next to you.”
Her eyes snapped open. “I’m sitting in the recliner. You can have the whole couch to yourself.”
I held up my hands. “Whatever you want, Del.” I had definitely pushed her far enough.
“Follow me,” she mumbled.
It wasn’t like I needed her to lead me into the living room. The house was open so I saw the living room right when I walked in.
“You, there.” She pointed at the couch and snatched the remote off of the coffee table in front of it. She scurried over to the recliner.
“Del, you’re crazy, girl.”
She grabbed the blanket that was draped over the back of the recliner and laid it over her as she sat down. “Smart, Jay. I’m smart. I’ve already fallen for your charming ways.” She pointed to her stomach. “Need I remind you of the baby I’m cooking in my stomach right now?”
I grabbed one of the flowery throw pillows and stuffed it under my head as I laid down. “No need to remind me about it. It’s all I’ve been thinking about since you told me.” The baby and she were all I thought about.
She huffed and pointed the remote at the TV. “There’s a blanket over the back of the couch if you want one.”
“I’m good right now.”
She flipped through the channels, stopping every now and then to watch a show for a few minutes.
“Del, pick a damn channel already,” I grumbled. She had been flipping the channels for the past half an hour.
“I can’t find anything good to watch. What do you normally watch?”
“I don’t watch TV often, but when I do the TV is normally on the Speed or Discovery channel.” Except last week when I was watching that girl shit mindlessly while I freaked out about Delaney being pregnant.
“That is not going to happen,” she muttered under her breath.
“Whatever you want,” I laughed.
Delaney finally settled on the new Herbie movie. “Compromise?” she asked. “It’s got a car and stuff in it, but I still like it.”
I didn’t want to tell her I wasn’t interested in a magically Volkswagen Beetle. “That’ll do.”
She sat back in the chair and pulled the blanket up to her chin.
I wasn’t going to watch the movie.
The thing that had my attention was the pretty woman sitting in the recliner who was cooking my baby, as she put it.
Best thing I had watched in a long fucking time.
*
Chapter Eight
Delaney
That was probably the most boring night Jay had ever had in his life.
Ten minutes after I had settled on watching the Herbie movie, I had promptly fallen asleep.
It was now five AM, and I was standing over a sleeping Jay.
“Crap.” Should I wake him up and tell him to go home?
I knew sleeping on the couch wasn’t comfortable. It was old, worn out, and if you sat on it just right, a spring poked you in the butt. Or in Jay’s case, it was probably poking him in the back right now.
“Are you okay?” he grumbled.
I jumped back and bumped into the coffee table.
His arm shot out, and he wrapped it around my legs to steady me. “Easy, Del.” His voice was rough and low and sent a shiver down my spine.
“I’m fine,” I said breathlessly,
“Then why are you awake?”
“I had to pee.” There was me being straight to the point.
“You go?”
“Uh, yeah?” I had spotted him when I had woken up, but my bladder told me I better get my ass into the bathroom before I started freaking out over Jay being on my couch.
“Good. Why don’t you get in your bed and get a couple more hours of sleep?”
“Um, what about you?”
He rolled onto his side and crammed the pillow back under his head. “I’m good here.”
“How?”
He cracked open one eye. “Have you ever been in a race trailer?”
I shook my head.
“This couch is good, Del. Once you see where I sleep on race weekends, you’ll get it.” He shut his eyes and reached blindly behind him for the blanket.
I pushed his hand out of the way and laid the blanket over him. “There’s a spare bedroom if this gets too uncomfortable. It’s the first door at the top of the stairs.”
“I’m good here. Now get in bed. You need to sleep, Del.” He reached out again and brushed his hand down my legs. “Take care of our baby,” he whispered sleepily.
“Okay,” I whispered back.
Part of me wanted to crawl onto the couch with him and the other wanted to run out of the house.
What in the heck were feelings like these? Things were normally so cut and dry in my head. When Jay was around, I didn’t know what I wanted though my body tried to tell me exactly what it wanted.
Jay.
I slipped out of his hold and lightly jogged up the steps. I climbed into bed without even turning on the light and stared up at the dark ceiling.
“What the heck is going on, baby?” I whispered. I laid my hand on my stomach and sighed.
It had to be that I was still tired. That was the only thing that could explain me wanting to climb into Jay’s arms.
I knew exactly what kind of guy he was.
I had to hand it to him for trying to get to know me, but I knew his interest in me would fade once I had the baby. As long as he stuck around to be a dad to our baby, he could forget about me.
All that mattered was he loved the baby.
In the end, that would make me happy.
*
Chapter Nine
Jay
“Wanna go see a movie?”
Delaney looked up from her coffee.
For the record, Delaney was not a morning person. Not. At. All.
“What?” she grunted.
I, on the other hand, was totally a morning person. I may not wake up super early, but when I was awake, I was ready to go.
Delaney and I had both slept ‘til past ten, and now we were sitting at the kitchen island. I was trying to figure out what we could do today while Delaney was just trying to wake up.
“We could go see a movie today,” I suggested.
She shook her head. “There isn’t anything good out.”
“How do you know that?” I couldn’t remember the last time I had been to the movies in an actual movie theatre with popcorn and everything.
“Uh, because I watch the previews on TV.”
“Then what do you want to do today, Del?”
Her eyes dropped back to her coffee cup. “Right now, I’m wishing this tea would turn into coffee. That’s as far as I’ve planned for today.”
“Why don’t you drink decaf?” Decaf seemed to be a better thing to drink than watered down tea. I set my empty cup in the sink and crossed my arms over my chest.
“Because that is an even bigger tease. Like false advertising. It has the amazing taste of coffee but none of the caffeine to make me go. This way, I know I’ll have zero energy drinking this.” She took another sip and looked like she was ready to cry.
“Del, I think you gotta start drinking decaf. You, at least, will get a little happiness from it instead of looking like you’re crying while you drink that piss.”
She looked down in the cup. “It does look like piss, doesn’t it?”
It sure as shit did. “Get dressed. We’ll find a place for lunch and then we’ll go to the store.”
“Those are our plans for the day?” she laughed. “I’m surprised you haven’t fallen asleep hanging out with me.”
So we weren’t doing the most exciting things, but sometimes, I needed to slow it down and just relax. Being on the road with the race team was plenty excitement for me. Slowing it down on my off days with Delaney seemed perfect. “Get dressed. Don’t worry about me.”
She rolled her eyes and moved around the island to drop her cup into the sink. “Better bring a pillow along just in case,” she sassed.
“Just get dressed, woman.”
She looked me up and down. “You want me to wear the same thing I did yesterday so we can match?”
“You’re mighty sassy in the morning,” I drawled. “We’re stopping at my place on the way to our exciting day.”
“Fine, fine,” she mumbled. She shuffled up the stairs, and I leaned against the kitchen counter.
I had no idea what Delaney and I were going to do after we got her decaf coffee, but I needed to figure something out quickly. I wanted to impress her, but all I really wanted to do was come back here to watch TV and hope she let me sit on the couch with her. Hell, I’d even sit on the recliner and have her perched on my lap.
Anything to get her closer to me.
I was seeing why I was drawn to her before. Too bad I was too drunk to remember any of it.
It wasn’t often I blacked out to the point where I didn’t remember anything, but wouldn’t you know it, the time I do is when I was with Delaney.
Delaney jogged down the stairs wearing basically the same thing she had worn yesterday except her shirt was the color of the red light on the light pole of a drag race. Normally a color you didn’t want to see, but it looked amazing on her.
She shoved her feet into a pair of tennis shoes and “All ready, Playboy.”
Not at all, but that didn’t matter.
*
Delaney
“What are we doing here?”
Jay unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the car without a word.
“Okay,” I mumbled.
We were in Hilltop at the huge car dealership by the hospital. I had no idea why we were, though.
Jay tapped on my window and motioned for me to get out. “Come on, Del.”
I wished like hell that Jay’s car wasn’t so fancy so I could crank down the window instead of having to open the door because I needed the car on to roll down my window. “What are we doing?” I shouted through the glass.
“Uh, looking at cars?”
This is what he did for fun on his days off? “I’ll stay here.” Admiring cars was not my thing.
He opened the door, rested his arm on the roof, and leaned down. “Get out of the car, Del.”
“Why?” There wasn’t a reason I could think of that was good enough to get me out of this car. Jay was a car guy. I totally got that. He needed to get that didn’t mean I was going to follow him around while he looked at cars.
