Page 21 of Midnight Racers

That pressure increased in my chest again and I fussed around pouring coffee to cover my confusion. Women had been in my life to be used for sex and to entertain me. Charlotte was the first woman to break through that stereotype and land in the friends category. She was funny and witty and made me smile. Unfortunately, she was sexy as hell and made me want to do inappropriate things to her while she was handcuffed to the metal beam in my workshop.

She was crawling under my skin and creating an itch that I desperately wanted to scratch. This tiny, feisty woman could be my damnation.

***

Chapter Eight

Charlotte

The rest of the crew appeared over the next few days. It seemed that they worked here, but also had another mysterious job with Flynn that involved Jordan as well. They didn’t even blink when they walked in to find a woman working in their garage. I had learnt to live with some of the derogatory comments I had received, and was now beginning to realise that it wasn’t normal and the environment I had been in was toxic.

They accepted me as part of their team, sharing their thoughts about how to implement my ideas. There had been times I’d had to go in at night to carry out work myself as the other mechanics had refused to help. Had I really stayed in that situation for so long?

“You the mechanic in that article?” Pete asked and I froze, expecting the worst. “My girlfriend was reading it and said there should be more women in the business. She does all her own work on her bike.”

“Really? I’d love to meet her sometime. I started by working on bikes as well, and the obsession grew.”

“She’d love that. Wouldn’t believe that I was working with a celebrity.”

I rolled my eyes at him, but there was no harm in his comments, no prickly barb to sting me. Joshua disappeared at lunchtime and came back ladened down with McDonald’s.

“It’s a Friday,” he explained. “We always go there for lunch on a Friday. Different days of the week have different lunch venues. We go to KFC on a Wednesday and Pizza Hut on a Thursday.”

“What about Monday and Tuesday?” I asked.

He grinned. “It’s too early in the week to work on those days.”

I relaxed as they all started to talk about going to the track this weekend to test the cars. From what I understood, their spare cars were kept in storage there, so they could all race each other after the official testing.

“It’s a race to see who can grab which car first,” Dave said. “Flynn and Jay are really competitive, so they practically climb over each other to grab their favourite cars.”

Joshua laughed. “Best bring your running shoes, because you need to be quick.”

They made it sound fun instead of an intense day of testing new parts. No one but Dale had raced the cars at my last job, so we all just stood around and looked at the information being fed back.

“I’ll do my best to grab a car,” I replied.

“Oh, there’s plenty for everyone. Sometimes we bring them back here and work on them. Flynn lets us enter them in races as long as the main car is ready.” Joshua said before shoving a handful of chips in his mouth.

“Is he not here every day?” I asked. I didn’t want anyone to work out that I had been keeping an eye out for him, but I hadn’t seen him since the night we had dinner. He drove me back to pick up my car and that was the last contact I’d had with him. I missed him and that shocked me more than I cared to admit.

“He’s away for a few days with Jay,” Joshua replied. “Flynn tends to be hands-on with the cars, but their business funds this business.”

How very cryptic.

Jordan was a barrister, and after chatting to Flynn I knew he had trained as a mechanic but had another mysterious job that he said tended to take him around the world. What did those two men have in common that created a business?

The enigma of Flynn seemed to grow bigger every day. True to his word, everything I had put an order in for had been authorised and placed. I would have had to explain every detail to my last team and beg them. He just took me at my word, and that was refreshing.

“Okay, guys, you know what time it is,” Declan shouted from the doorway and all the guys cheered. “Time to put your money where your mouth is.”

“Show us what you have,” Joshua said with a grin, beckoning me to follow them out of the canteen area.

Trepidation fluttered in my stomach as I had no idea what was going on.

All the guys went into a room at the west side of the complex, and I followed slowly. I couldn’t help the grin that emerged. Inside were all the game machines I loved to play on when I was younger — motorbikes, racing cars. Race simulators that allowed you to compete with others.

“Pick a machine,” Declan said. “This is how we unwind at the end of the week.”

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