Rivalry

|20.|

"JO! WAKE UP!" I hear in my ear and I groan and put the blanket over my face. "No." I groan. "Qualifying is in an hour. Get your butt up." "No." I groan again.

"Yes." The voice says again. "Noooo." I groan again and open my eyes and roll over to see Brad there in his firesuit. "Looking good babe." I say and pull myself up to give him a kiss.

"Thanks. Now get up and ready." He laughs. "Hey Brad wait!" I call and he walks back into the room. "Yessum?" He asks. "I love you." I smile.

"I love you too, grumpy gills." He smiles and walks out to leave me to get ready. I take a shower and get into my firesuit.

*after qualifying.

I get out of my 13 machine and take my helmet off and throw it into my car angrily. "Jo!" Chase calls after me and I ignore him and walk to my garage.

"Jo!" Chase calls again and runs after me and I see Brad in the garage already. "What's wrong?" He asks getting up and I walk to the back and go into a room and close the door behind me.

I just need to calm down. I'm not very happy right now. At all. "Jo! Open the door. Let me in." Brad says calmly.

"I'm not happy right now, Brad." I say with my head in my hands. "Hey is Jo in there?" I hear Chase ask Brad from the other side of the door.

"Yeah. All she said is she isn't happy." Brad says. "Can we please come in?" Chase asks. "Fine." I growl.

I unlock the door and sit back down and they walk in. "What's wrong?" Brad asks.

"Did you see what position I qualified? 30th! What the hell is wrong?" I ask pissed. "It's okay Jo. You will make time during the race. You ain't gonna stay 30th." Chase says reassuring me.

That's one thing Chase and I have in common and it's not the best thing- being too hard on ourselves.

"You sure aren't Jo. You will probably finish top 5." Brad says. "I know, I'm just pissed because I thought I was going to qualify better than this. This is the first time I have qualified lower than 20th! My car is too tight in the middle and everything they do doesn't help and I'm just stressing out." I say and put my head in my hands again.

"Why don't you go talk to Jamy and get this situated?" Chase asks. "I will. Thanks guys for making me feel better. I love y'all." I smile and hug both of them.

"Love you too sis. Stop being so hard on yourself!" Chase says. "You too buddy." I say and Brad grabs me and hugs me tight.

"No matter how you finish good or bad, you know I still love you." He whispers. "I love you too Brad, no matter what. And congrats on the pole." I say and peck him on the lips and we all head back to the track and I head to Jamy.

"Hey Jo! Sorry about how you qualified." He says. "It's fine. I will just have to kick ass harder tonight." I laugh. "Car is way too tight in the middle. When we adjusted before qualifying, it was okay, but when I went about 10 laps, started getting tight again then about 20 laps, it was ridiculous." I say.

"Okay. It will be better by tonight." Jamy smiles. "Thank you." I say and walk off and I see Brad in the distance, but he is talking to Paul and I don't want to bother him. So, I go and find Denny, who is eating a hamburger.

"Hi loser." I laugh and sit down next to him. "Hi extra loser." He says and takes a bite of his burger. "You're gonna get ketchup on your firesuit." I laugh.

He looks down and pulls the napkin up and ketchup then falls to the napkin. I laugh at the face he is making.

"So, how are you doing?" I ask. "Small talk. I don't do small talk." He laughs. "I can tell. Your making it awkward." I laugh really hard.