Bikers, Chains and Bad Boys

Chapter 2

I put together a couple ham and cheese sandwiches, wrapped them in plastic and set a bag of chips on the counter with the note I leave everyday.

Dad,

Sandwiches are on the top shelf.

Have a good day, I love you.

-H

After I was finished I went back to my room and threw on jeans, a tanktop and a t-shirt. Grabbing the paperwork, I headed out to my first day of work with a real smile on my face.

~*~

As I was coming up on the shop, I heard loud laughter and voices. Nobody really paid any attention to it, just went about their business. I pulled out my phone to check the time. 8:47 am. Good. Dad always taught me to be early.

I let my eyes roam around as I slowly entered the garage. The guys from yesterday were all there but I didn't see Andy anywhere.

"Hey, Cool Whip!" I swivelled around at the voice. The laughter had stopped and everyone's attention was directed at me. I blushed. Cool Whip?

"Hey." I gave a slight laugh. "Uh, Cool Whip?" I squinted my eyes and made a face at Dustin.

"Yeah!" He exclaimed, slapping Paul's back as he said, "'Cause you whipped his ass yesterday!" Paul scowled as his face flushed. The loud laughter that followed caused Andy and a guy about my age to come out of the office to see what was going on.

"What the hell's so fu-" Andy started before he saw me. "Oh, hey. Finally someone who shows up on time." Shouts of protest sounded through the room. I smiled at him. It got quiet for a second before I stepped toward him, holding out the forms he gave me yesterday. "Thanks."

"Sure." I smiled again.

"Alright," He turned, starting toward the middle of the room. "I'm a little curious about what you know and what you can do. So, after you left yesterday, the boys came up with a little test for you since Paul-" Paul grunted. "-and a couple others think that what you did yesterday was just luck."

We stopped and formed a circle around four bikes. "There's something wrong with each of these bikes and we're going to time you to see how long it takes you to figure out the problem with each one, if you can. Then we'll time you on how long it takes you to fix each of them." I glanced up to see a bunch of smirks directed at me. I raised an eyebrow and looked at Andy.

"Everything you need is in this shop." He said, making his way to a chair a few feet away.

I smirked and made my way towards the bike closest to me as the rest of them moved to sit down. I looked to Andy, waiting for him to tell me when to start. He lifted the stopwatch in his hand and looked at me as he clicked the button.

"Go."

The first one was easy to figure out. There was a leak in the brake line. I saw it as soon as I walked around it because there was an generous puddle underneath the bike. Obviously these guys thought I was stupid.

"Six seconds." Andy chuckled. "That was Corey's." I looked at Corey and he winked at me with a smile. "Next is Paul's."

I smiled and walked around the second bike, not seeing any obvious problems. I stopped and thought for a second. This is Paul's bike. Okay.

I looked up to see Paul trying to hide a smirk. Squinting at him, I walked up to the bike and straddled it. I saw the frown on Paul's face before I reached up to start the bike. Unsurprisingly, it didn't start.