I can't thank everyone enough for the comments! You are all the most amazing beings ever! Enjoy this chapter that will include some feisty banter between our two lovable and completely oblivious dorks.
Chapter 2: Back Seat Driver
"Britt we need to go now." Brittany hears desperately called from her crew partner's gritted teeth a few feet away as she works from her position tucked below a cars steering column. There are wires and chips dangling in her face from the plastic dash that maintains the circuit cables for the sleek black Audi she's currently twisted upside down in.
She just wants to get the car started, no biggie right?
Except that this is not her car. And if she's being completely upfront about things, she doesn't really even know whom this car belongs to.
It's just another car that was on the list of cars that Hunter gave her and Joe to 'procure' before they left the garage this morning.
Apparently her pompous half-brother really needs a few key parts from this particular model of car. It is thus that Brittany and Joe find themselves in such a situation.
Boosting the Audi to bring it back to the crew's garage.
After all, that's what they do when they aren't racing cars; they're stealing them. Seems pretty logical considering their knack in the matter. They're car thieves and damn good ones at that. Brittany especially, she's been in the business for essentially ten of her twenty-three years of existence.
This particular situation: The Audi's new Retro Immobilizer system, a run on the whole keyless entry system, is presenting Brittany with a minor problem, in that she's having a hard time disabling the damn thing. Basically it's a chip that exists in the car that can effectively immobilize, hence the name, the entire system if she trips it incorrectly.
It's taking longer than Brittany had hoped it would and Joe can hear the police sirens screaming in the distance, signaling their ever-growing approach.
They've got to get out of there and now if they want to avoid a long term run in the Las Vegas penitentiary.
"Pierce, time's up seriously." Joe shouts as he huffs it back over to the side of the car that Brittany's still working in.
"Just one more twist." Brittany grunts out. She tweaks the body puller tool again to widen the steering column until the key mechanism becomes exposed to her searching eyes. Brittany reaches blindly to the seat where her feet are currently resting and fumbles around a bit before she finds the next tool she needs.
When she gets the screw driver in her hand she brings it back to the separated section of the steering column and slips the pointed edge into the gap, squinting as she tries to place the tip of the screwdriver in the right socket. There's a clinking noise that indicates she's successfully navigated into the starter, now all that's left to be done is haywire the car's immobilizer so that she can start the engine without the chip telling the car it's not okay to do so.
Brittany glances once more at the separate set of wires that dangle close to her face. She grasps her wire fusers and reaches out to pinch the red wire that has a strip of black running down the center. According to her sources, that is her computer guy Rory, this particular wire-if sectioned off correctly-will allow Brittany to bypass the immobilizer's enabling functions and turn the starter when she cranks the screwdriver.
Pinching the wire carefully, Brittany sits up from her position of hanging practically under the dash. She can hear the sirens in the not so distant distance, and she can tell that Joe's starting to sweat like a sinner in church. Taking a deep breath and praying to all the car thief gods she knows, Brittany turns the screwdriver.
There's an awful cranking noise at first until the screwdriver locks into place in the starter and turns the ignition over. In a second, the Audi roars to life and Brittany lets out a whoop.
"Ah ha! Damn right. Thank you Rory for being correct this time!" Brittany exclaims throwing her clenched hand into the air in a solid fist pump. In the next second, Joe rushes to the passenger side door and slides into the car just as Brittany packs up her boosting tools and swings her own driver's side door closed.
She hears Joe mumble out a 'Thank God' as he takes his seat and buckles his seatbelt, a feat that Brittany precariously raises her eyebrow at. Joe looks at her sheepishly and shrugs.
"What? I know how you drive Pierce, I'm not risking it."
Brittany smirks wider and rolls her eyes.
Ten point five seconds later, the black Audi is whipping out of the parking garage entrance and cruising down the street. Brittany has a solid grip on the steering wheel and her dominant hand on the gearshift. Just down the street there's flashing blue and red lights approaching her position.
Brittany shoots a cocky glance towards Joe who swallows and reaches up to grip the 'oh shit' strap.
"Be cool Brittany. Hunter will kill you if you scratch this car." Joe says, his eyes wide in pleading and panic. Brittany just smirks at him again, as if she's scared of what Hunter might do-he's never had any solid hold on her. He's her younger brother, and he's has been part of her life for a shorter amount of time than she's been alive. Besides that, what fun is it boosting a car if you can't mess with the coppers a little?
As the Audi gets in line to pass the speeding patrol cars, Brittany rolls her window down and gives a casual yet flirty wave to the cop closest to passing her. She knows she shouldn't, because all the cops in Vegas know what she looks like and further are very aware of the fact that she doesn't drive an Audi, but again where's the excitement if she doesn't at least tease a little. It's one of the things Brittany's best at. The cops in Vegas usually do have the time or the resources to track down car thieves on their word alone.
She watches in her rearview mirror as realization must dawn on the cops as they both whip their cars around to give chase but Brittany's already two hundred yards ahead of them and is gunning it to propel the car down the less roamed outskirts of the city of Las Vegas.
The good news is; Brittany grew up in this city so she knows every back street and shortcut. The bad news? She's got a whiny toddler baby in the passenger seat crying about how bad of an idea this is.
"Holy shit, not again!" Joe exclaims as he grabs his safety strap with both hands and attempts to hold on for dear life while Brittany laughs joyously from the driver's seat as she cranks the wheel left and then right just at the perfect apex to skirt the car around sharp corners. She can hear the sirens somewhere behind her but she doesn't see any flashing lights.
"Fuck yeah!" Brittany exclaims at the same time that Joe releases his own terrified cry as they coast over a slight dip and incline in the road and launch the car a few inches off the ground.
Brittany finds herself laughing more manically the longer Joe cowers in his seat. It's not as though she's an evil person, it's just funny watching the self-stated 'tough guy' cry out in fear, especially when it's due to her own actions.
Deciding to finally take pity on the poor guy, Brittany maneuvers the Audi into a narrow alleyway and drives to a specifically sectioned off area. Back before Vegas was Vegas, mobsters ran the town and built all sorts of underground type hideaways and tunnels that connected through hidden and disguised buildings.
This particular tunnel is carved into the side of a building, there's an electronic type door that Brittany has to hack into. She takes a few moments to connect the right wires, and splice the ones she doesn't need, fashioning the electrical box into a mess of wires until the door slides open enough for her to drive the car through.
The door slides closed seconds after Brittany has the car safely tucked into the dark area. She turns the headlights on and follows the parking garage type tunnel through a few dips and turns until she comes to another door. Once through that one, Brittany and Joe find themselves back on a Vegas strip of highway, blending right in and listening to the call of police sirens on the very opposite side of the highway division.
With a smirk towards Joe, Brittany guns the Audi to flow with traffic and they make their way back towards the crew garage.
Once parked safely in the shop, and after tossing the keys to Mike, Brittany and Joe step from the car and make their way towards the main section of the two-story building they call home.
"I knew you could do it." Joe speaks up from just behind Brittany as she makes her way through the glass doors of the hotel type lobby entrance and walks into the main section of the building. She quirks an eyebrow and glances towards her dreaded hair booster buddy.
"Oh is that what your 'Please don't let me die' screams were really saying?" she teases him and receives a frown of disdain in return. Brittany chuckles and rolls her eyes, stretching her arms above her head to loosen the tenseness in her muscles. She happens to glance off to the right of the building where large panoramic windows give sight to the outside of the shop.
She's not expecting to find an Agent Orange Nissan parked not so subtly just outside the shop's garage doors. She narrows her eyes and whips her attention around to the hallway that leads to Hunter's 'office'.
"Screw this, I'm not ready to deal with that right now." Brittany mutters to herself before she turns from Joe, who's staring at her in confusion, and walks back out to the garage. She'd rather rebuild a transmission than have any sort of discussion with the mohawk haired man or that Latina girl she saw.
That's just too much to think about right now.
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"What the hell?" Brittany mumbles to herself as she rifles through her toolbox and comes up short of her favorite wrench. She checks the counter, under the counter, the toolbox in the corner, and the toolbox by the jack. She can't find it anywhere.
"Mike! What the hell did you do with my wrench!?" she yells out not making any effort to turn around as she hears someone enter the garage.
"Didn't know there were his and her wrenches." A voice trails over to Brittany's ears. Her body stiffens as she realizes she's never heard this voice before, but the tingles that are running down her arms suggest that it definitely has a desirable effect on her.
The voice is husky and low, like that sultry voice you would hear from the other side of some vaudeville curtain, smooth like honey but with a raspy nature that acutely catches your attention. All too suddenly, Brittany thinks she might know just whom the voice belongs to.
She glances over her shoulder and her suspicions are confirmed.
Standing a few feet away is the incredibly hot racer woman from the other night, and Brittany almost can't believe the outfit this she has on. This may be Vegas, but that dress she's wearing is short enough to cause traffic jams if those tantalizingly toned and tan legs were strutting down the strip. The top half doesn't leave any warm-blooded person much of a chance at living through the sight either.
And God it's tight. Like it was professionally painted on her. All grey and silver sparkly in its long-sleeved frock glory. The cut out at the chest doesn't do much to avert Brittany's eyes, but she supposes that's probably the point.
"Like what you see honey?" the woman speaks up again and Brittany raises her eyes from where they had been focused very near the woman's cleavage. She mentally scolds herself for being such a careless observer. Normally, she's really good at hiding it. Normally, she doesn't have to hide it. She swallows as subtly as possible and scoffs.
"Sorry but no angel face. You're not my type." Brittany sneers, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. The lie sounds nowhere near convincing to her own ears. This woman is affecting her more so than she should. Brittany knows that this woman is hot, that's undeniable, but she doesn't do stuck up racer girls, no matter how hot they are or how fast they drive.
"Do you have my wrench or what?" Brittany then implores, giving an exasperated roll of her eyes. To give the other woman credit, she doesn't bat an eyelash as she struts over to Brittany and slaps the tool down in the taller girl's open hand.
"I saw how you replaced the cast-iron intake on that Mustang with an aluminum one. That was smart. If you replaced those clunky hydraulic lifters with some roller fulcrums, you'll have a lot better horsepower output. Oh and the pressure on those tires might be too high for the weight of the car." The woman says after releasing the tool and taking a step back. She folds her arms across her chest and waits for Brittany's reply.
And that's what just about does it for Brittany.
First of all, you don't use her tools. Second of all, you don't fucking use her tools. But third of all, and this is most important, Brittany's the last one that anyone needs to be trying to give car knowledge to. And she certainly doesn't need it from this woman in her fancy heels and supermodel toned body.
Brittany grits her teeth and raises her pointer finger at the caramel-skinned woman, fire pumping through her veins.
"Listen here because I'm only going to say this once. I don't need your backseat driving and I definitely don't need you messing around with any of my things in my garage. So why don't you pack up your things and go back to wherever it is you came from."
The woman's eyes narrow at the brush off. Brittany can tell that the gears in this woman's head are turning, trying to figure out where this attitude is coming from. Brittany doesn't play nice, not when it comes to her cars, her shop, or her things.
"Okay first of all, I wasn't touching anything, I was simply borrowing the wrench to tune up my GTR. And second of all, last I checked, your brother agreed to an arrangement with my crew and I was waiting to introduce myself to you."
"I don't need to be introduced to anyone and my brother doesn't run this place, I do." Brittany extends with an exaggerated flourish of her hands. "So take your stuff, take your flashy car and your glamorous outfit that belongs nowhere near a garage and make like a tree."
This seems to push the woman further and Brittany watches as her eyes burn with fury.
"I'm going to pretend that you weren't just incredibly stuck up and rude for no apparent reason because I think somewhere deep down inside, that's not who you are. But, I'm warning you that you had better cool off." The feisty woman says before she turns in her white two-inch pumps and storms off.
Brittany hates the way her body shivers at the words that escaped the other woman's lips, they elicit another involuntary reaction Brittany just can't seem to shake.
By the time the garage door swings shut from where the woman left, Brittany regrets how she handled the situation, even if she is still pissed at the other woman's apparent lack of understanding for privacy and space. And Brittany may also kind of regret the way she may have watched that fine ass walk out of her shop. Then again, maybe not so much that part.
She tries to calm her breathing but finds her pulse and heart rate are out of control. Brittany can't tell if she's angry with herself for getting so worked up over this woman or if she's angry with this woman for getting so under her skin.
She supposes that in the end none of it matters and what she might have thought of the other woman is old news now. Honestly, she can't really think anything else because the woman's gone now and it's done.
With a huff of irritation, Brittany glances down at the wrench in her hand before she resolves to return to her original plan of working on Hunter's Mustang. Shop work always calms her down. It's soothing to the soul. Brittany takes her newfound determination and makes her way further into the garage.
##############
"Hey Pierce. Hunter wants to talk to you about something."
Brittany's got the top half of her body leaned over the front end of the Mustang so that she's practically in the engine compartment. She makes a noise of protest but works her way out of the car and turns to face Mike, the crews head mechanic. He does the stuff that Brittany doesn't want to do, or he helps her out with anything else.
Grabbing a grease rag, Brittany wipes her hands off on the material before she walks over to her big black and red rolling toolbox. It takes Mike a second, but soon he recognizes the signs of Brittany ignoring him. He should know because she does it a lot.
"I'm just the messenger Brittany." He tells her and turns to exit the garage, knowing there's nothing else he can say or do to get his blonde friend to move, react or listen to the words of her brother.
Mike gets it, Brittany's the older sibling so technically it should be fully her crew, but since it was Hunter whose parents were the last to be together, their father left the business to both of them. Equally. Which means, in Hunter's eyes, since he's the guy in the family he gets top say. Brittany could care less about who actually runs the crew, except in matter's like crew partnership, she knows Hunter needs her regardless, but she really hates when her little brother tries to boss her around.
She finishes cranking the last of the nuts and bolts on the newly installed secret weapon just below the intake manifold of the Mustang with a triumphant grin. If little miss painted on dress thinks she can tell Brittany a thing or two about making cars go faster, Brittany will just have to show her how wrong she is.
Not that she's thinking about the fiery woman.
With as much installed and tweaked as can be for the time being, Brittany sighs and glances towards the shop exit. It'd probably be best if she went and figured out what the hell Hunter wants. She's not about to get him into one of his whiny moods, that's the last thing she wants or needs right now.
Brittany tosses the grease rag in her used pile and walks out of the garage, flicking the lights off as she goes.
A few seconds later, Brittany is striding into Hunter's 'office' without even the pleasantries of a knock. Not as though he deserves it anyway.
Hunter glances up from his desk, and Brittany rolls her eyes at the sight before her. It's not as though her brother has any real use of a desk, but he has one anyway and he sits at the damn thing like it's his saving grace. Brittany crosses her arms over her chest and leans back against the door, a look of 'gives no fucks' clearly plastered on her face.
"Ahh big sis, nice of you to finally join us."
Only when her brother starts talking does she notice the other person in the room.
"Noah, this is my sister Brittany Pierce. We share the same father. She's probably one of the best racers in the country." Hunter introduces the mohawked man sitting in the chair next to his desk before he turns to Brittany.
"Sis, you remember that street crew in Miami I was telling you about?" Hunter questions.
Something pings in Brittany's chest at that question. It's been a while since anyone talked about other crews. She swallows but nods.
"Yeah, Libre AlbedrÃo. It's run by a Hector something."
"Hector Lopez yes. Well, this is his right hand man, Noah Puckerman." Hunter informs Brittany, who gives a nod of confirmation before her eyes flash to the door where her recently departed, or so she thought, tan skinned nemesis enters the room.
"And this is Hector's little sister Santana. They say that she's the best racer on the East Coast."
Brittany feels her heart clench tightly in her chest. She can't believe this is happening. She watches, blind fury brewing under the surface of her skin, as Santana, the very woman she so desperately loathes at present, waltzes over to the chair that Noah Puckerman is sitting in and perches upon the edge of it like she owns the damn place.
And then Hunter speaks several words Brittany hoped she'd never hear.
"They've come to us with a proposition and they're going to be staying with us for a while."