Ok, this is my first story so please review and be gentle!!Hopefully it'll get better. Umm, I don't own anyone except Chole, and maybe some other non FATF characters that may pop up later down the track. Enjoy!!
Mia was bored. No, scratch that, Mia was extremely bored, the kind of bored you get when poking something in your eye sounds like a fun thing to do. She was dying here, at the café. The hadn't been a customer for what felt like hours, which when you were alone felt more like days. The sound of an engine caught her attention she held her breath hoping it might be one of the team. That would make her day more interesting. She listened for a moment longer and sighed, that engine sounded like it was on its last legs. As if any member of the team would ever let their car become so broken down. 'They'd sell themselves on Hollywood Boulevard before letting something happen to their cars' she thought.
As the car pulled up and the engine cut Mia straightened up, finally a customer, she hated Tuesdays, no-one ever came into the café, except the team, and Dom was busy at DT Automotive so he wasn't working in the backroom. As a car door slammed Mia looked up, squinting into the late morning sun, all she could see was the outline of a woman.
"Mia...Mia...that you?" She heard the silhouette call out walking into the store. She recognised that voice.
"Chloe? What are you doing down here" Mia exclaimed walking around the counter to give her friend a hug.
"Jeeze Mia, you make it sound like we live worlds away. Its not that far, anyway haven't seen you on campus for ages so I thought 'hey haven't seen Mia for ages why not visit her, she was forever complaining about how boring Tuesdays were!" She let go of her friend and took off her oversized Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses letting her crystal green eyes adjust to the relative darkness of the store.
"Oh Mia, its so good to see you!" she repeated, "We totally have to do another subject together, its not as much fun without you!" Chloe laughed at the memories of their collage classes together. Mia joined in the laughter; she always found Chloe's cheerfulness infectious.
"Our time with Kenneth was all you" she gasped trying to find her breath, remembering how they hassled their old professor. Chloe took a deep breath, trying to regain some control.
"Enough of that, which was totally you by the way, what have you been up to?" Chloe asked folding her sunglasses and putting them into her baby pink handbag. 'Both designer' Mia noted. Not that it bothered her, everyone had their weakness. Mia and the teams were cars; Chloe's was shopping, and shopping for the 'good stuff' as she put it. They all went without for their weakness.
"Not much, you know studying, working, the races, not much else, not enough time, Dom's decided I should become a doctor" Chloe rolled her eyes sarcastically, she remembered what Mia had told her about her brother.
"All that studying should be fun"
"Yeah, now I have like 10 more years... I'll never finish!" Mia moaned, although she didn't mind the idea of becoming a doctor, her brothers decision still bothered her.
"Oh, it won't be that bad, your smart enough and I think you'd be a great doctor, anyway at least you have a 'plan' for the rest of your life. Paul...you remember Paul well he dumped me 'cause he couldn't cope with me not having a 'plan'. 'You can't be a dance teacher and spend all your money on clothes all your life" she said mimicking her ex's voice.
"What did you say to that?" Mia asked. Chloe's face broke into a wicked grin.
"I said, 'clothes, you think I spend ALL my money on clothes?...What about shoes, bags and sunnies...don't you notice anything?!' Haven't seen him since" she shrugged her shoulders "doesn't matter, sex wasn't that great anyway!" she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at her last comment. Mia couldn't tell if her friend was upset about the break-up or not, but that wasn't anything new, Chloe had an ability to pull a screen over her emotions so that you were never sure what was going on under the surface.
"Still sucks though" she said before moving to the counter. For a moment Mia could have sworn she saw a flash of pain dull Chloe's normally sparkling eyes. But in a blink it was gone so fast that Mia wasn't sure she'd seen it at all. Chloe took a glace around the café/market.
"So what's good?" she asked settling on a stool in the middle of the counter opposite Mia. "Do you still do a mean CLM?" Mia grinned at the memories that the abbreviation brought up, of the little collage fling that Chloe knew she'd had.
"Oh shut up!" she blushed at Chloe's deep suggestive laugh "Chicken, lettuce and mayo? Chloe nodded "Coming up, and no were not going to talk about my CLM"
"Sure" Chloe said slowly, a big grin still on her face as Mia began to make her sandwich.
"No butter remember" she patted her stomach "Its my effort to be healthy"
"What about the lettuce?" Mia asked squirting on some mayo.
"I think the mayo and crumbed chicken cancel it out"
"Miss Anna still on about how fat you are?" Mia said the last comment sarcastically, she remembered how frustratingly angry her friend would get as her boss at the Westside Academy of Dance felt she was overweight. In reality Mia couldn't imagine her friend losing any weight, she was a size 10 at the most, but Mia knew from previous rantings that it was her curves that got her into trouble. 'Dancers shouldn't have curves, no hips, no butts, no boobs'.
"Yeah I still don't know why she can't just get over it, I'm a teacher anyway, not that it should make a difference if I was a student either, if I'm a good dancer, that's all that should matter. Anyway as I teacher I'm not getting marked on my body so who really cares but hey you know how it goes". Chloe took a long breath trying to stop herself from getting into the inevitable rant that came out when she thought about old Miss Anna's weight problem.
"In any case it's not that bad at the moment. I've got a couple more ballet classes instead of Jazz ones this year, I'm more in my zone, although I did give my new intermediate ballet class a bit of a fright when we began to do our bar exercises to Queens of the Stone Age and Eminem instead of the normal classical piano shit so..." Mia cut the sandwich into two diagonally and placed it and a glass of coke in front of Chloe, she bent down to grasp a cloth to clean up when she heard the familiar hum of the teams cars. She straightened up and peered past her friend, she hadn't expected to see them so early in the day. Chloe with a mouthful of chicken glanced behind her to where Mia was looking.
"I take it these are your boys?"
"The team Chloe, not my boys"
"Oh ahuh, same diff really from what you've said sounds like they're wrapped around your little finger!" she smiled as four cars pulled up. Mia took quick stock of the cars that were lined up outside the café. Dom was missing, but he was probably off sulking, Mia mused, he always did that around this time of the year, around the time of their father's death.
"What is this shit box, and why is it parked outside the café?" The two of them heard a gruff voice from the car park outside the front of the shop.
"Vincent, mind your manners, there's a lady in here" Mia yelled back, embarrassed at his outburst. The occupants of the other cars got out to survey the scene, it seemed like Mia and Vince always got into fights about shit, they couldn't help it. They had all taken stock of the very crappy looking car and wondered who it belonged to, most of their friends and the people that stoped by the café were racers, and if they weren't they drove better cars that this piece of junk.
"Hey, you insulting my car?" A strange voice questioned, they all looked into the storefront from the shadows they could make out the image of a woman.
Vince smiled at the challenge. "Hell yeah, it's a piece of shit."
"Ok just checking you were talking about the car, not me." She said swivelling back around on her chair to concentrate on finishing her sandwich. Vince stood speechless for a moment, not quite sure what to say, then he bust into laughter. Letty, Jesse and Leon who had been standing around tensely for a couple of moment all let out long sighs of relief, there would be no Vince tantrums yet. They all walked into the store, curious as to who the new woman was who was talking to Mia like they were old friends.