Perfect Strangers | Sebastian Stan

[5] Almost There

"WE should be okay here." Jane opened the door to Scott's office and let the two men inside.

Scott's office has glass windows acting as walls so he could monitor what was going on down on the main floor without having to walk in and out, but since he was managing three other branches throughout the country, he rarely stayed in one HQ for long periods of time.

"Scott is currently out of town, checking on our other HQs, would it be okay if it's just me?" Jane took a seat on the couch opposite the two clients.

"Yeah, it's fine." Charles clapped his hands excitedly. "I'm so excited to start this project, you have no idea how long I've been waiting for this."

Jane caught onto his smile bug and soon the excitement was shared between the two. She showed Charles the schematics of the modifications that will be done to his R8, complete with the 3D rendering of the plan.

"Wow, so this will give me how big of a horse?" Charles looked up from the screen.

"This will roughly get the car to 1050 plus horsepower with 750 ft-lbs of torque, that is if you use racing fuel." She said proudly.

"Holy shit." Charles said with a grin, turning his attention to Sebastian who tried his best at understanding what the two were talking about.

"Aside form the turbo kit that I'll be installing, I'll also be doing suspension modifications and exhaust conditioning to match the new engine power."

"I'm honestly too excited to think of anything else, I'm giving this a go, whatever it takes."

"Well, this will cost you a little bit." She gave Charles a cringey smile.

"Oh right, so how much will this all cost me? Just hit me with it." He closed his eyes playfully.

Jane chuckled. "Well, the turbo kit alone is around 40 grand, plus the suspension, exhaust kit and labor, I think it'll cost roughly just under a hundred."

Charles opened his eyes and grinned. "Well, that wasn't so bad."

"So, before we go any further. Is there anything you guys would like to ask me?" Jane tucked one of her legs under her bottom to get more comfortable. "I mean, this is going to be a long project and you know," Jane waved her hands around to get the point across.

"No, no, yeah. Totally." Charles saved Jane from embarrassment and began thinking. "I, uh, let me just start by saying that I wasn't expecting Riley to be a Jane Riley."

Jane laughed. "I get that a lot."

"So, have you worked here long?"

Jane scratched the nonexistent itch on her chin. "Uh, not as long as the other guys, but quite a while now."

"Have you worked on an Audi before this?"

"Yeah, I have. I did a project a year ago, although it was just an intake manifold upgrade."

"Do you do all cars, do you get to pick?" This time, the question came from Sebastian.

"Depends on the manpower. Sometimes I got no choice in doing a project, but mostly I do import cars, European and Japanese." Jane answered Sebastian's question with a straight face.

"What got you into this anyway? The whole car thing." Jane turned to face Charles and her face lit up; she always loved it when people ask her about her passion, she could go on and on about it.

"Well, my father got me hooked since I was practically a toddler, but I think it's just my love for engineering in general."

The conversation went on for a little while before Jane took the two back down to the main floor to show Charles his car. Jane went on to show him where the modification will happen and how that will affect the car's performance while Sebastian stood behind, taking the whole thing in.