He looked up at me and smiled. I didn’t know if the hint of nerves I noticed in his eyes made me feel better because at least he felt the same way, or worse because seeing that nervousness was going to make it even harder to convince myself we were only friends.
“Hey there, Kelly,” Gus said, looking up at me.
“Good morning,” I said. “Looks like the two of you already got quite the start today. What are you up to?”
He gave me a rundown of what the two of them had been doing and why. He explained the issues Darren was having with the bike and his goals for improved performance and pointed out the different things they were considering trying. I listened carefully, organizing it all in my brain so I would know how to best work on what he needed.
“What would you recommend?” Gus finally asked when he was done.
It was a sincere question. The older man honestly wanted to have my input in the situation and know what I thought about their ideas. It didn’t feel like the tests I’d been put through by other companies when trying to land jobs.
But Gus didn’t use that tone. He really wanted to know, and it made me feel like he was completely confident in recommending me as their new hire. I was already a part of the team. Eager to live up to it, I pushed up my sleeves and dug right into work.
Crouching down to get closer to the machine, I rested my hands on it. I didn’t want to rush with my response to him. Sounding like an eager second grader participating in my first spelling bee wasn’t going to make me look like I knew what I was talking about. I needed to carefully go over everything the two men told me, compare it to what I was observing in the machine and its parts, and bring it all together into a cohesive response.
Not holding back from touching and handling the different parts, I talked Gus and Darren through every step I would take to mitigate the issues he was having and improve the performance of the bike. I already noticed a few problems that could easily be rectified and give him a dramatically improved ride experience. Part of me felt a little strange talking to the former owner of the racing company and the professional rider this way, breaking it down for them and implying there were things they didn’t see or know. But when I made myself step back from that, I realized it was silly to feel that way. Just because they were familiar with the bikes and worked on them frequently didn’t mean they had all the answers. I was a professional and damn good at what I did. If they didn’t need the insight, they wouldn’t have hired me.
They listened to me as I explained everything, then let me take the lead as we embarked on the actual repairs. Happiness and contentment filled me as I got my hands dirty in my favorite way. It was refreshing and exciting to be in a garage again, doing what I’d always loved. I didn’t even realize how long the three of us had been working when Darren’s phone trilled an alert. He wiped his hands before looking down at the phone.
“Ah,” he said. “Quentin ordered lunch. Time to eat.”
Gus immediately put down the tools he was working with and started for the door of the garage, but I kept working. Darren just said his brother ordered lunch, not who it was for, and I didn’t know if I was invited. I didn’t want to be presumptuous or create an awkward situation, so I just stayed where I was and kept going. But Gus walked behind me and clapped a hand down on my shoulder.
“Come on, Kelly. There are some sinks over here where we can wash up,” he said.
I smiled as I followed him, and we got cleaned up for lunch. Ten minutes later I was sitting at the edge of a picnic blanket in the big green field, my legs stretched out in front of me as I ate pizza and chatted with Quentin. A pretty woman with a round belly and big eyes came out and dropped down beside him, sighing happily as she rested her head on his shoulder. Everyone was so comfortable, so casual, it shocked me. But I was beginning to believe I was going to be permanently surprised by the people at Freeman Racing.
13 Darren
In the first two weeks Kelly worked at the complex, we fell into a steady routine. It became second nature to us pretty quickly. It felt good to have not just predictability, but reliability. I knew I could absolutely rely on her to be at the garage first thing in the morning, ready to tackle any challenges set ahead of her. I could also rely on her to have incredible insights about my bikes and my performance I never would have thought about. I had always considered myself fairly well versed in the mechanics of the bikes and even convinced myself I knew them in some intrinsic way nobody else did. But having Kelly around proved me wrong about that.
She was unlike all the other mechanics who had been on the complex for years. Not that they weren’t smart and skilled, which they absolutely were. Instead, it was as though she was able to explain things to me in a way they had never been able to. She could get past my subtly arrogant bullshit and tell me bluntly what I was wrong about, what I needed to do, and how she was going to make sure my problems went away so I could get things done. I trusted her and depended on her to keep me in check and stop me from getting
