Fast and Loaded: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (8 page)

I
hadn’t been
up that early in at least five years. Not since long before I started my racing career. No one wanted to watch a race take place at nine in the morning, so for me, there was never any reason to be out of bed before ten.

Today was different, though. I knew that Amber would be in the shop and starting to take apart Theresa early in the morning. I didn’t blame her. Even with the three days’ grace that we had gotten because of the storm, she still seemed pretty worried about the car.

When I arrived and opened the door at six in the morning, I wasn’t surprised to see Amber already working on the car. She turned to look at me as I walked in. “Hey, I didn’t think you knew what six am looked like,” she said playfully.

I smiled, “I have been known to very rarely get out of bed.”

Even with the friendly banter going back and forth between us, I could tell that she was worried. I had never before seen her so concerned about anything, especially not about Theresa. I looked over her shoulder to see what she was doing, but I didn’t know enough to be of much help.

Sure, I knew the basics, but from where I was standing everything just looked like it was covered in sand. There was no way that I could tell if she was fixable. All I could do was stand and watch as she worked.

After a little while, I found my patience starting to wear thin. I hadn’t gotten up so early so that I could sit in a shop and not talk about what was going on with the car.

Clearing my throat, I started, “So, what have you found?”

She rolled her eyes, “Nothing yet. I am still just taking things apart.”

“How long do you think it’s going to take?” I asked her.

“I have no idea Desmond; it could take hours,” she replied, already with a short temper.

“I was just wondering. What do you think happened out there?” I asked Amber.

She sighed, “Isn’t it obvious? Luke removed the filter.”

I made a noise, and she looked over at me and asked, “What?”

“Well, don’t you think that is something that you should have checked?” I asked her.

Now she glared at me. I had no idea why. It seemed like a pretty straight forward question. Mechanics were supposed to keep an eye on their cars, especially with someone as shady as Luke walking around the place.

She laughed, “Right, and when was I supposed to do this? Between him grabbing my ass and you kissing me before you raced off?”

I had no idea why she was getting so upset. “I just don’t think that it would have been hard to give everything a quick once over is all.”

“Then do it yourself next time,” she hissed at me.

I fell silent. It didn’t seem like she wanted to talk as her hands dug further into the car. She pulled out small part after part and set them carefully in order. I would never be able to remember where all the small pieces went, but she seemed to know that everything had a home and where that home was.

“Have you found anything yet?” I asked again a little while later.

Her attitude wasn’t any better, “Yeah. Sand.”

I shook my head; I wasn’t in the mood for her humor at all. “I don’t even know why you wanted me to race him in the first place really. He was just being the same jerk that he always was.”

“Are you kidding me?” She asked. “You wanted to race him too!”

“I don’t know why.” I muttered weakly.

“I don’t know, maybe because he called me easy then insulted your car?” Amber said, her voice almost a yell.

“Yeah,” I muttered again, “Theresa.”

Before I knew what was happening, a tool was flying at my head. I jumped up from my seat and glared at her.

“What the hell are you doing? Have you lost your damn mind, Amber? You could have killed me!” I screamed at her.

“No, if I wanted to kill you, I would have aimed for your head. You better change your attitude and stop trying to pin everything on me. Got it?” she yelled right back at me.

I looked at her in stunned silence. I didn’t realize that she was taking everything I had said personally. In my mind, I was just doing what I always did when something went wrong. I was just talking about everything. As I replayed the conversation in my head, I realized how I must have sounded. Really though, as long as Theresa was okay, then nothing else would matter.

Amber and I would hit our stride once again; we just needed to win the final leg of the race. It didn’t matter what had gone wrong. She was all I needed any more, her and the Grand Nevada win of course. I let my mind drift, but it didn’t do me any good.

Each time Amber made a sound, I was pulled back into what she was doing, waiting for any information on how long it would take before she could fix Theresa. I had confidence in her skills but the night before still had me spooked.

As I watched her work, I felt every single turn of the wrench, wondering what the outcome was going to be.

Suddenly, Amber froze. The bolts were all removed, and I watched silently as she pulled off a large casing from the engine. The color drained from her face as she looked at me. I knew something was wrong; something was very wrong.

“What?” I asked.

“I’m so sorry Desmond. The interior engine filter is ruined; it couldn’t take the pressure of all the sand,” she replied to me.

I let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, well that’s not so bad, you can replace it, can’t you?”

She nodded her head. “I can replace the filter, but it won’t do any good. The entire engine is seized up from the sand. There is no way I can get the parts in three days.”

My mouth felt dry as she spoke. Her words hit me, but they wouldn’t sink in. I felt like the world was closing in around me. I had been so close to having everything. This race was going to be the final stretch for me, the last charade before leaving the world of race cars. I had it all planned out until last night. Until Amber pushed me to take that stupid bet. If I had just let it go and walked away, none of this would have happened.

My eyes darted to her and narrowed. “This is all your fault.”

She looked shocked. For the first time since I arrived, she set her tools down and stepped away from the car.

“What?” she said in a whisper.

“This.” I repeated, waving to the sand, “This is entire thing was your fault. If you hadn’t of pushed me into that stupid late night race, then this wouldn’t have happened. Or if you had bothered to check the car. This whole situation is your fault. Luke has never gotten to me like this, at least not until you came around. I can’t believe that you let this happen!”

She didn’t say anything; I thought it was because she knew I was right. For the first time since I had met her, Amber was silent. I didn’t know how to react without her banter coming back at me. I picked up the wrench she had thrown at me and launched it across the room in the opposite direction of her and the car. The sound of it hitting the window and shattering the glass was deafening.

“I have worked so hard to get to this point in my life. I put everything on hold. My parents died in a car crash, but still I pushed through the pain to follow my dream. My father left me Theresa when he died. He knew that she was my whole life, and you have taken that away from me. You and that foolish bet of yours. I hope you are happy with what you have done.” I ended my rant and spun around.

As I stomped out the front door, I could hear the crew waking up from the sound of the glass breaking, but I didn’t turn back around. I didn’t want to deal with any of them. With Theresa gone, there was no reason for me to deal with any of them anymore. I had never, in all my life, failed at anything I put my mind to. This was a first for me. Now I was going to have to forfeit the race all together.

Just as I reached the outskirts of the track, my phone started to vibrate. I looked down and saw it was Glen. The fact that he was up so early was startling to me. He was like me, never one for mornings. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but I knew him well enough to know that he would just keep calling. He had friends on the pit crew; I could guess what the call was about.

“What?” I barked into the phone.

“What the hell man? James just told me that you ripped into Amber?” Glen mumbled, obviously still half asleep.

“Theresa is dead. She can’t be fixed after last night, so yeah, I ripped into her. It was her fault; she was the one who wanted me to race.” I told him.

Each time I said the words, I felt like a child. I slowed down as I started to realize that I had approached everything wrong.

“Dude, Amber is a saint to you. She didn’t jack up Theresa. You went into that race on your own free will. With fifty people around, who knows how Luke even slipped that filter off to start with?”

His words made sense, but I wasn’t ready to admit that just yet. I knew that I had taken out my anger on the wrong person. Amber hadn’t done anything wrong, but I had treated her worse than I had ever even treated Luke. Thinking about everything that I had said to her, I cringed again.

“Oh shit,” I muttered.

Glen chuckled, “Yeah Desmond, you screwed this one up pretty bad. If you have feelings for her, you better find a way to fix it and fix it fast. James said you almost made him want to curl up in a ball and die. He heard the whole thing, and he’s a tough fella.”

“Yeah, I was a real dick.” I agreed, “What am I going to do?”

I
couldn’t believe
everything that Desmond had just said to me. My heart felt like it was breaking into a thousand little pieces. For the first time since my father’s death, I felt a tear run down my cheek. How could he have been so mean? I stood there, in stunned silence while the shop around me started to wake up. It was still early, but Desmond’s outburst must have woken the entire track.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to pull myself together. Everything he said was right. I was the one who had pushed him to enter the race, and I should have checked the car before he left last night. When had Luke ever not taken the opportunity to show Desmond just how much damage he could do to Theresa? Now, it was too late. There was nothing that I could do to fix the engine.

I stood there, looking like a fool and wondering what was going to happen next. I didn’t want to leave without winning. It was the reason I came. I was going to have to close down the shop because of this. Without the income that this win would generate, there was no way that I could keep things going any longer. It was a wonder that things hadn’t gone south before now. I knew that there was nothing left to be done.

For a long time, I just waited for someone to come pull me out of the pity party that I was having for myself. I knew just as well as anyone, that no one was going to come and fix everything for me. I was going to have to fix this myself. Finally, like a light going off in my head, I snapped out of the daze and looked back at Theresa. I couldn’t give up, not on her. She meant everything to Desmond.

It may have been my fault that she was in her current state, but I was the best mechanic around. I would find a way to bring her back to life, even if it meant that I would need to rebuild everything and drive to Africa to get the parts needed to do it.

No matter what happened, I was going to make sure that she was ready for the race in three days. There was no other way; it was the only way for me to show Desmond how sorry I was and just how much I cared. Then, once the race was over, we could part ways and never see each other again.

I dropped everything that was I doing and went to the small office area in the makeshift mechanic’s shop. Plopping down into the chair, I pulled out my phone. The parts that I needed were uncommon, but with a little bit of luck, I would know someone who had them.

I started to look through the contacts in my phone, wondering if anyone was going to be awake so early. It didn’t matter, though; this was something worth waking up for. They would love to help me out and I knew it.

“Thanks Frankie,” I said two hours later. “Yeah, I know, I called him too.”

I said goodbye to the last of the contacts in my phone and tossed it down onto the desk. It had been hours of making phone calls to every mechanic that I had ever known. The parts that I needed though were rare. I couldn’t just walk into an auto parts store and grab them off from the shelves. At least one was a custom item. Theresa could run without it, but it would give the other cars around her a huge edge to beat her out. Plus, it didn’t do me any good without all the other parts that I needed.

My phone vibrated on the desk, and my heart jumped a little bit. Maybe someone had found something! Looking down, I sighed. No such luck.

“Hey Diana now’s not really a good time,” I said to my sister, crestfallen.

“Wow. You sound terrible!” she replied.

“Yeah, it’s been a pretty awful day and night,” I replied.

I told her everything. It wasn’t like me just to open up to anyone so boldly, but I needed to talk. I needed someone to know that I was doing everything in my power to make the situation right again. I knew that I was failing and that I was probably going to leave the race as a disgrace, but I still kept trying.

I didn’t want Desmond to lose his dream too. It didn’t seem right that both of us had to give up on them just because of the mistake I made.

“Well, first of all. It doesn’t sound like it was all your fault. I would be telling that Desmond Keys a thing or two!” yelled my sister.

I smiled, “Thanks, Diana. I know that he was just angry, but he was right too. We will have to forfeit the race.”

I heard her let out a sigh, “I am really sorry about all this Amber. I know how much it meant to you to be there.”

“Yeah, I guess some dreams are just ones that aren’t meant to come true. I am sure I can find work somewhere else. I just wish the shop wasn’t going to close, without it, a lot of good men are going to lose their jobs.” I told her.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “I wish that cars were like body parts; you know? If you are lucky, and one of your parts starts to fail, like a heart or a kidney, you can just pull one out of a donor and replace it.”

I laughed, listening to her with only half my thoughts, I was distracted by everything going on around me in the shop. The men knew that things were pretty much hopeless, and a few had already started to silently pack things away. It was one of the most depressing things that I had ever seen. It wasn’t just my hopes and those of Desmond. Each man there knew it was an honor to be on that racing team.

"Like dad’s old car that he never fixed. I don’t know how many times I saw him take the motor out of it just to tinker around.” Diana was still talking.

Something about what she was saying, it pulled me back in. My father’s old car. What was it about that old ride that had always been so special to him? It was the engine. He had worked on it for years, making everything about it run perfectly.

When I had asked why he never tested it out, he said that the timing just wasn’t right. He wasn’t ready to find out if he was the driver he had always thought he was in his mind.

“A motor like this, Amber,” He had said to me. “It deserves something special. It’s not the type of thing that you just take to Sunday dinner. This is something special. It deserves a home among the best.”

The memory came flooding back to me in waves.

“Oh my God, Diana!” I screamed into the phone, “That’s it! I can’t believe it! You are so smart!”

I hung up on my sister, not waiting for a response. I called the shop, and Jason answered, he was always at work and ready to go as early as possible. I didn’t want to think about how much overtime was costing me while I was at the race. I told him what needed to be done, and he listened in stunned silence. I wasn’t surprised; I had never let anyone touch the motor. If anyone was going to pull it off, I knew that Jason would do so carefully.

“I need it here in twenty-four hours Jason,” I said to him.

“Whoa, who do you want to drive it down?” he asked me, knowing that the timeline was tight.

“You, I don’t want anyone else going near it. I know that sounds rough, but that car was my dad’s baby. I need this engine to come and save the day for me okay?” I told him.

“Alright boss, whatever you say,” he muttered.

“Jason, get here as fast as you can. The longer it takes you, the less time I have to try and save our asses and the shop all together. You know how hard things have been for me since my father died. If we don’t win here, I don’t think that I can keep the shop above water any longer.” I told him.

He fell silent then said he would be there as fast as possible. I didn’t like to share the money problems we were having with any of my employees. It wasn’t their job to worry. All I needed them to do was work, and I would always make sure they had a paycheck. With everything going downhill, I wasn’t going to be able to guarantee them anything for much longer.