Banging Gears (Book 1)

Chapter 2: Banging Doors (Part 1)

"Please let me do it"

"No"

"Come on I've seen you do it"

"I said no"

"You're no fun!" Amelia, my little cousin yelled as soon as she got out of my car, banging the door in the process.

"No banging my freaking doors Amelia, or I'll make you pay for it again" I warned her, reminiscing about last year where my - oh so sweet - 6 years old cousin thought it would be funny to make my car shake from banging the doors, resulting in my passenger door handle breaking off and her having to pay for a replacement using her piggy bank.

"Your car is old anyways" Amelia said, crossing her arms.

Ignored.

"And ugly" she mocked.

"You're ugly" I pushed back.

"MUMMY, Kassidy called me ugly!" Amelia fake-cried, causing her mother to come out of the house and give me the look.

"Kass are you done with the decorations?" she asked, completely ignoring her 7 year old actress.

"Yeah everything's ready, I put half of them in your trunk and the other half I'll come again tomorrow and bring them to you at work" I explained, gathering my stuff and snatching my phone from Amelias hand.

"Great thank you, are you gonna stay for lunch? I made spaghetti" my aunt asked, picking up Claire, her youngest daughter.

"No but thanks, I'll probably go to the garage since it's Sunday and it's still early, I'll see you tomorrow" I said giving her a hug and taking the 50 bucks, as she promised.

"Still can't believe you prefer getting dirty under a car than doing anything better" she said, looking at me.

I just smiled, ruffled Amelias hair and headed towards the garage.

Being a woman in a male dominated industry is definitely not easy.

You get a lot of people criticising you, judging your work, belittling you without apparent reason.

Just the fact that you're a female is enough.

Your attempts at landing a job in any shop are almost always faced with immediate rejection, and you can't do anything about it because nobody believes you have what it takes.

And even if someone actually believes that you do, they don't "risk" hiring you in fear of losing costumers.

It's not easy, it's a hard job. It has a lot of heavy lifting, hundreds of tools you should and must know in order to do a decent job, it takes hours to do things that, from a clients perspective, it doesn't seem like a hard job

But trust me,

It is and it takes time.

Having no help from anyone around you outside of class, it's incredibly difficult.

So when I found Mr C's garage and he made the decision of letting me help around, I was overwhelmed with joy.

You can't become a mechanic just from school. Yes, they teach you everything you need to start, but in order to actually learn, you have to use the things they teach you in the actual world.

All fun and games 'till you f**k someone's car up.

That's why I keep on going to the shop, to learn and practise more than what I do in school.

Not everyone will support you, some people will straightforwardly tell you that you're making a mistake, that you should quit while its early so you can focus on another career

Others may not say it to your face, but they'll show it by making faces and judging everything you say. You can tell them how you rebuilt an engine for the first time by yourself and they'll look at you like you're a child telling them they ate their veggies.

And they'd be more stocked that a kid ate their veggies than you doing something so big.

I'm not saying anyone should be as excited as I am about stuff like that, but sometimes you need someone to atleast pretend that they care.

Apart from family, you'd expect your friends to atleast try and get to know what is it that you do and why it makes you so happy

Either that is cars, dancing ,music, drawing or even shopping.

At least that's what I'm trying to do whenever a friend of mine speaks to me about something that makes them happy.

Anyways, I try not to think much about it

Instead, I focus on making it bigger

For myself.

~~~~~~

After about thirty minutes of driving from my aunts place, I pull up to the coffee shop I'm working so I can get some drinks for the guys back at the shop, thinking of doing something nice for them.

Walking up the 2 small steps of the entrance, I can already see my coworker and - Bestest f*****g Friend - trying to manage the delivery orders as well as the take away ones, while our Manager keeps on ignoring the workload as usual.

So, so usual.

"Morning Gen" I greeted my best friend.

"Oh hey Kass, I'm just finishing up here,I'll be over there in a sec" Gen yelled from way back at the bar.

"Kassidy are you here for work or did you come to disrupt my workers again?" Nate, our manager, asked me while looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Sup Nate, you seem tense, did you try to suck your bosses d**k for a raise and failed yet again? Don't worry bud, you'll win him over one day!" I exclaimed loud enough for an approaching Gen to hear and for Nate to start fuming like every other day he talks to me.

" You do know I can f*****g fire you right? Why don't you try to show me some respect? How about appreciating how nice I am and stop being a b***h?" Nate said, yet again threatening to fire me like he didn't just try last week and our boss mostly chewed his face off for trying.

" How about you get over yourself and stop trying to pose as a superior, dude we're the same age, we get paid the same, we literally have been here together for 3 years. Aren't you bored pretending to hate us already?" I asked a now fumbling Nate, getting bored of this whole" I hate you guys, I don't want to associate with you " act.

" How about Nate going back to do inventory since he's in charge of that, and you Kass stop giving him s**t when you know he's not really that much of a d**k "Gen intervened, trying to control the situation.

With Nate huffing and turning on his heel to go back to do his job, I turn to my best friend with a curious look on my face.

" Did you reeeally mean that he's not that much of a d**k? " I asked, not even in the slightest convinced.

Gen looks behind her to make sure no one's listening and then turns to me

"No, no he's such a f*****g d**k" she admits and we laugh trying to at least keep it down so our lovely manager won't hear.

"Knew it, so speaking of d***s, would you be a doll and make some coffee for the guys at the shop?" I asked her, gently touching her hand, trying to mimic last weeks number one costumer, an older gentleman that tried his moves on Gen and me with not much success.

We did give him his coffee for free tho, it was a nice try for a guy in his 60s.

"Sure babe, the usual?" She asks and I nod.

"So you going back there now?What are you doing tonight?" She asks me while having already 2 cups done from my order.

"Yeah I'm done with my child labor for the wedding, it's still 12 and the garage closes at 8 so I need to go and do some minor changes on my car. I guess I'll be done by then, why do you ask?" I informed her, simultaneously grabbing 2 cup holders for my 4 drinks that are now ready.

" You're not a child Kass, you're 21"

"I don't really see your point"

"It's not child labor if you're 21"

"You're as old as you feel like and I'm pretty confident I'm around 13"

Gen shakes her head with a smile and continues.

" I was thinking of going out, either a party or a girls night out, whatever fits your mood best " she suggested.

" So my options are a) a party, or b) the same party but calling it a girls night so I won't say no?" I said, giving Gen a look while she chuckles.

" Yeah that sounds about right, I bet you'll like it tho, the party is at the lake near Heavens Corner, so you'll definitely have something to look forward to "

Gen knew from the start exactly how this conversation was going to end.

She wants us to go to a party, but knowing it's Sunday and that I usually stay in the shop until close to midnight, she had to find a way to convince me to come.

Heavens Corner is a really fast, really narrow turn located at the end of a huge straight road stretch near the lake and the only road around here truly known for street racing and car meet ups in general.

She knows I always loved that place, since that's where I started experimenting with cars from as young as 15 years old.

She knows, because that's where she met me and the third part of our clique, Nat.

But that's a story I'll tell when I'm drunk enough to remember all the humiliating details.

So probably tonight?

Yeah, sounds about right.

"OK then, girls night it is. I'll come and pick you up around 10:30, be ready and I'll call Nat later to see if she wants a ride there" I said, silently agreeing with the fact that I would never deny a pass at Heavens Corner.

"Coolio babe, I'll be ready"

" Who the hell says Coolio nowadays?" I wondered.

"Only cool people do, you wouldn't know cool if you saw it in an ad commercial, you grease monkey" Gen laughed.

"OK so this is getting too embarrassing and I have s**t to do, tone down your coolness for tonight alright? I'll see you later" I bid my goodbyes at her and got in my car, finally ready to go and get some work done.

"We have big plans for tonight baby,it's time for me to get you some exercise" I thought out loud, caressing my steering wheel, slowly getting more and more excited every minute that passes.

Our time to shine again