Burndown (Nitro Crew Book 1)

by Winter Travers

  “You’re just what Remy needs.” Rigid shook my hand I still had outstretched. “Damn kid is all work and no play.”

  “He’s a good kid,” Cyn chided. “Just because he isn’t going out on benders like you did when you were his age doesn’t mean he’s boring or a stick in the mud. Stable is good, Rig.”

  “He did land her,” the other guy put in with a nod toward me.

  Cyn huffed. “Do you two ever think before you speak? I swear, it’s a miracle Gwen and I put up with you too.”

  Ah, so this was Gwen’s husband. Gwen and Fayth had wandered off after Meg cleaned out the first two booths of all the apple candles. It was like they knew if they stayed, they would be stuck lugging around all of Meg’s bags.

  I turned to Gwen’s husband with my outstretched hand. “I’m Harlyn, and I’m the lucky one for landing Remy.”

  Rigid laughed, and Cyn sighed, “Young love.”

  “I’m Gambler, sweetheart.”

  I gave a small smile and took a step back. The man had a dangerous smile and charm about him that could snare any woman within a twenty mile radius.

  “Put away the charm, Casanova.” Gwen scolded as she set her bags down at Gambler’s feet. “She’s got the younger version.”

  Gambler snagged her around the waist and pulled her to his side. “You saying I’m old, woman?”

  She shrugged and threw a wink my way. “I mean, if the Bengay fits.”

  He lowered his voice. “I thought we weren’t going to discuss that in public? It was one time that we went on a long ride, and I was sore. You were the one that gave it to me.”

  Gwen reached up and patted his cheek. “I know, baby. It’s hard being thirty-nine.”

  “Once Grant and Greta go to sleep, you can bet your ass I’m going to show you just how old I am,” Gambler warned.

  “Lord, have mercy. I moved her away from King and Meg because they were about to get into it, and now I need to steer her somewhere else cause you to can’t keep your pants zipped.” Cyn hooked her arm through mine again. “Maybe we’ll get something to eat while you two cool down.”

  Gambler flipped Cyn off, and Gwen pelted him on the shoulder while yelling at him.

  Rigid fell into step next to Cyn but didn’t talk.

  “I’m assuming Remy warned you about his mom, but I’m sure he didn’t tell you the Devil’s Knights are their own brand of crazy, though,” Cyn explained.

  “It’s just the women,” Rigid put in. “The guys just try to keep up with them and make sure they don’t wind up in jail.”

  “One time the cops got called when Meg and I broke a bed, and no one can let it go.” Cyn tightened her hold on my arm and veered us away from Rigid a few steps.

  “Oh, I’ve heard about this bed incident. I think I’m going to need more details.” This was the third time I had heard mention of a broken bed, and my interest was more than piqued.

  Rigid laughed and pointed to the concession stand that didn’t have a line at the moment. “We’ll tell you all about it over a corn dog and a funnel cake.”

  *

  Chapter 23

  Remy

  “Harlyn?”

  “Hi,” Harlyn hiccuped into the phone.

  She was drunk. I should have known with her hanging out with my mom and the club that was going to happen. I adjusted the baseball hat on my head and leaned back in the chair I had managed to snag from the VIP area. “How’s it going, baby?”

  She groaned into the phone. “Your mom is awesome. All the girls are, except they can drink, Remy. Well, all for except Marley. She’s got a potato in the oven.”

  “Potato?”

  “Bun!” someone yelled.

  “Oh, yeah. Totally a bun,” she corrected herself.

  “That’s awesome.” I didn’t know Troy was going to be a dad again. The guy had been my mom’s best friend for years. “I’ll have to give him a call later.”

  “Do it later.”

  I chuckled and shook my head. “Good idea, baby.”

  “How did the car do today?”

  “Good. We should hopefully place tomorrow.”

  “Yay,” she sang out.

  “Exactly how drunk are you, and where are you?” I asked. I wasn’t concerned she was drunk, I was more worried about where she was drunk. I prayed she wasn’t going to say she was at the clubhouse.

  “Where am I?” Harlyn called out.

  Jesus Christ. I was going to wring my mom’s neck for taking Harlyn out.

  “My house.”

  “We’re at my house,” Harlyn repeated. She busted out laughing, and there was a ton of cackling in the background.

  It took a good thirty seconds before she got her shit together and was able to talk without busting out laughing again. “We’re at your mom’s,” she said slowly.

  That was a relief. “You’re just staying the night there, right?”

  She giggled and told me to hold on a second. I heard muffled noises but was unable to figure out who she was talking to or what she was doing.

  “Remy?” she whispered. The loud background noise of laughing and talking died away.

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “I’m in your room.”

  Oh hell. Of course Mom would have her sleep in my old bed. “Really?”

  “Yup. Sure am. I’m so stealing a shirt out of your drawer to sleep in too.” I heard the sliding of drawers opening, and then she squealed. “You have a Top Gun shirt that is going to look awesome on me.” A thud sounded through the phone.

  She had dropped the phone to put the shirt on. Lord, have mercy, Harlyn was crazy when she was drunk. She must have been fitting right in with my mom and her friends.

  “I’m sending you a picture,” she called. Ten seconds later, my phone dinged letting me know I had a message. “Did you get it?” she yelled into the phone.

  I opened the message she sent, and my jaw hit the ground. “Holy hell, baby.” The dark blue t-shirt hit her mid-thigh and was like any other t-shirt. It was the way she looked in it that had me going a bit crazy.

  She was standing in my room, facing the long mirror I had on the back of the door, looking like a sexy angel sent from Heaven. Her one hand was holding up the phone to take the picture, while the other had hitched up the hem of the shirt, exposing her sexy sky blue panties she had on.

  “Cute, right?” she asked when I put the phone back to my ear.

  More like hot as hell. “Sexy, baby.”

  She sighed. “I’m tired. Your mom wore me out about three hours ago, but she refused to let me go to bed without having a drink with her. That one drink was six drinks ago. Or was it five,” she mumbled.

  It was probably seven. “Why don’t you lay down, baby, and get some sleep.”

  “I am,” she muttered. “Your bed is super soft.”

  A vision of Harlyn lying in my bed in nothing but those sexy panties flashed through my mind. Harlyn was made of all of the wet dreams I had lying in that exact bed. Wouldn’t you know when whose dreams actually come true that I’m five hundred miles away. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. If I kept picturing Harlyn, I wasn’t going to be able to stand up without everyone seeing my stiffie. “What else did you do today?” Talking about anything but my bed was a good idea.

  “We did the whole craft fair thing. Lo gave me a ride on his bike. Or is it King?” she asked.

  Lo was the only one who I couldn’t get upset at for giving Harlyn a ride. He was married to my mom, after all. “It’s King to everyone except for my mom, Ethel, and me.”

  “Oh, I called him Lo today. Like, all day.”

  A chuckle rumbled from my chest. “I’m sure it was fine, baby. He just doesn’t like people affiliated with the club to call him Lo. Club shit and all of that.”

  “Makes sense,” she said through a yawn. “The other girls are hilarious. I spent most of my time with Cyn, though. I really like her.”

  Cyn was another one I had known a long time. Long before my mom had met Lo. Whe
n all of the shit went down with her ex beating her, it was hard to see her suffer ‘til she hooked up with Rigid. “She’s a good one to like, baby.” Although, any of the girls were easy to like. They were all like family to me.

  “Hmm,” she sighed. “I think I’m going to fall asleep,” she mumbled.

  It was half past eleven, and if Harlyn had been hanging out with my mom for most of the day, then she was definitely tired. “Get some sleep, and I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”

  “Sounds good,” she slurred. Being drunk on top of tired, it was amazing that Harlyn was still awake. “I miss you, Remy,” she whispered.

  Damn the woman for being adorable and then telling me she missed me. The woman completely knocked me off my axis. “I miss you too, Harlyn. I’ll call you as soon as I wake up.”

  A light snore reached my ears, and I knew she was out.

  I hung up the phone and instantly called my mom.

  “Hello, Remington.”

  “You kidnap my girlfriend, and then get her plowed?”

  Mom scoffed. “She was hardly plowed. And for the record, that was not kidnapping. Just ask Cyn.”

  “I think talking to Lo about it would be better. I wouldn’t be able to get a straight answer out of Cyn about it.”

  She tsked. “Did you call to scold your mother again?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No. I just called to let you know Harlyn fell asleep in my room.”

  “Okay. I’ll go check on her in a little bit. She did kind of drink a lot.”

  At least she could admit it.

  “Remy,” she called.

  “Yeah, Mom.”

  “I really like her. I think she’s perfect for you. She’s got the right balance of class and crazy.”

  I sighed and kicked my feet out in front of me. “Just like you, Mom.”

  She laughed softly. “You and I both know I’m ninety-nine percent crazy and one percent class.”

  Mom always got crap about being crazy, but she owned it. Her crazy was fun and being whoever she wanted to be. Saying what was on her mind and just doing the best she could. “You still kick ass.”

  “As do you, Remy. Thank goodness I kidnapped her, or I know you would have kept her to yourself forever.”

  “Could you have blamed me if I had?”

  She laughed. “I guess not. Just be good to each other, Remy.”

  “I’m not you and Dad, Mom.”

  “You know I worry that I somehow messed you up internally by staying with your father for as long as I did.”

  “Are we really going to go over this again, Mom?” I didn’t know how many times I would have to tell her that she hadn’t messed up as a parent.

  She sighed heavily. “No. Partly because I’m realizing I’m not as young as I used to be, and I’m so freakin’ tired right now. I’m going to have to call Lo and tell him to put me to bed.”

  “Lo isn’t there?”

  “He is. He’s outside with all of the guys, burning and blowing shit up.”

  “Uh, can you be the one to check on Harlyn?” I hoped she had managed to make it under the covers, but if she hadn’t, I didn’t want Lo to be the one to find out.

  “Jesus, this is where the whole mom thing gets weird. I don’t want to know why you need it to be me, but yes, I will be the one to check on her.”

  “She wasn’t on the phone long enough,” either Cyn or Gwen yelled in the background.

  I moaned and knew it was time to get off the phone before our nice conversation turned down in the gutter. “Just check on her, Mom.”

  “I will, baby. I’ll take good care of her until you get here Monday.”

  “Later, Mom.”

  “You were talking to your mom for that long?” Jay asked. He grabbed a chair from behind the barrier of the VIP section and turned it backward to straddle it.

  “Nah, not the whole time.”

  He nodded his head. “You happen to see Frankie at all?”

  “Not since the last qualifying. She took off when the car made it back to the pit.”

  He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “I saw her earlier. She got into it with Brooks.”

  “Really?” I didn’t think Frankie ever talked to Brooks. Everything seemed to be communicated through Roc.

  “Yeah, man. He came in asking Roc questions about the car, and Roc didn’t have the answers because he was asking about shit Frankie knew. She tried to talk to him, and he completely blew her off. I’m talking, she looked him right in the eye, and he ignored her.”

  “What the hell?’ I whispered. “Wonder what that is all about.”

  Jay shrugged. “I mean, I ain’t never really talked to the guy before, but it’s like a different level with Frankie.”

  “She took off?”

  “Yeah. Told him he could stick it where the sun don’t shine and threw a wrench at him.”

  “Holy fuck,” I breathed out. “I bet he didn’t like that.”

  Jay shook his head. “He told Roc he needed to talk to him in his trailer, and they both disappeared.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “‘Bout an hour ago. I tried to track her down, but she was gone, man. A couple people saw her head off, but that was it.”

  I sighed and tilted my head back. “Should have known something like this was going to happen. Not sure what Brooks’ deal is, but he seems to think that Frankie is invisible.” My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out to see Frankie had messaged me. “Speak of the devil.”

  I’m taking off. Heading home early. Just letting you know.

  “Holy fuck.” I looked up at Jay. “She took off, man. She’s gone.”

  “Dammit, I was afraid of that.” Jay stood up and paced back and forth. “She’s probably leaving before Roc fires her.”

  “You really think that?”

  “That Roc is going to fire her? Fuck yeah. She threw a damn wrench at the owner of the car, Remy. You really think she can get away with that?”

  I didn’t know what she could get away with. Frankie was the backbone of this team. Brooks may act like he couldn’t see her, but the rest of us knew the reason the car ran as well as it did was because of how talented Frankie was. “Right now, I don’t think she cares if she has a job or not.”

  What the hell happened?

  She answered almost instantly. I can’t deal with Brooks anymore. If I want to be ignored, I’ll just work for one of my brothers.

  Frankie had three brothers. Luke owned and ran Jensen Auto with her brother Mitch, while Kurt owned a speed shop with his wife Leelee. She really did have good options if she went home, but the reason she got a job with Cummings Racing, was because she wanted to make a name for herself. A name that had nothing to do with Luke, Mitch, or Kurt.

  You sure about this, Frankie? She was pissed off, but I didn’t want her to make a decision she was going to regret in the morning. Frankie, Jay, and I had all came to work for Cummings Racing at the same time. From where I sat, we were all in this together.

  I talked to Roc. I’m suspended for a week. What happens after that I don’t know. Just need to get out of here for a bit.

  It sucked that she was suspended, but it sounded like she still had a job. Let me know if you need anything.

  “So?” Jay asked. “What in the hell is going on?”

  I sighed and shoved my phone back in my pocket. “She got suspended. Still has a job for now, though.”

  “What do you mean ‘for now?’”

  “Who knows if she is going to want to come back, Jay. I think this is a much bigger deal to Frankie than we know.”

  “Fuck. What the hell are we going to do about tomorrow?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “That’s Roc’s problem. He has to know suspending Frankie is going to hurt the team.”

  “Jesus. Just when we start doing good, this shit has to happen.” He ran his fingers through his short hair. “I’m gonna head to bed and pray this shit is all just a dream. We are so fucked without Frankie.” H
e wandered off in the direction to the hauler, his head bowed.

  I looked up at the sky and sighed. It seemed like in life, you never had everything going good. You may have three things going perfectly, but there's always that fourth thing that is sitting and waiting to come and fuck your world up. Today, that thing was Frankie leaving the team.

  We just had to make it through tomorrow, hopefully placing in the top five, and then pray things with Frankie would get worked out.

  I just hoped when that happened, something else wouldn’t go to hell.

  *

  Chapter 24

  Harlyn

  “Look! There he is,” Meg exclaimed.

  Lo looked over at her. “Babe, that is the tenth time the camera has panned over to him in the five minutes. You don’t need to yell every time they do.”

  She smacked him on the shoulder. “You’re just jealous cause you're not the one who is on TV right now.”

  Lo rolled his eyes and gently pushed her feet off his lap. “You act like he’s some Hollywood movie star. He’s the clutch assistant on a pit crew. Awesome, but not up there with a movie star.”

  “He’s such an ass,” she mumbled.

  Meg and Lo were camped out on the couch, while I had commandeered the recliner for the whole afternoon.

  When I had finally woken up at eleven, I was surprised to find I wasn’t much far behind Lo and Meg. While I had gone to bed somewhat early, Lo and Meg had stayed up ‘til two having a bonfire in the backyard. Something I wished I hadn’t missed, but knew that I would have fallen asleep in my chair by the fire if I had tried to stay awake.

  It was now half past three, and Brooks’ car was on the line, ready to make its final pass. I was burrowed under the blanket Meg had given me, silently praying Brooks was going to win.

  “We sit around waiting for the race longer than for how long the damn race actually is.”

  Lo was right about that. Once the green light went off, three and a half seconds, give or take a few tenths, and the race was over. It was fast, but it was downright thrilling.

  Meg hushed Lo, and we all sat on the edges of our seats.