Bang Bang Bang!
This was the nature of the noise that roused Letty Ortiz from her slumber, startled as she was. She flinched against the bright light of day.
Bang Bang Bang!
She'd almost fallen back to sleep when the pounding started again, forcing her to an even more conscious state of wakefulness. She'd only come back from her latest endeavor a mere three hours earlier and was anything but pleased at being woken up at…
Seven forty-five?! Whoever was pounding on her door was in for a world of hurt. She stood from her bed, pulling on an oversized plaid button-down and padded towards the door.
Bang Bang Bang!
"Fucking WHAT?" Letty demanded as she pulled the door open, one eye still squeezed shut against the bright early morning sunlight. She slammed the door shut within a nanosecond, muttering, "It's too early for this shit."
Bang Bang Bang!
"Open the door, Ms. Ortiz."
Ms. Ortiz? This guy had been sent by her father. Letty groaned and went back to the door, pulling it open.
"What did I do?" She asked, motioning for him to come inside. "It's too fucking early for this so what the fuck did I do?"
The guy smirked at her before speaking.
"I'm your new bodyguard." Letty stared at him, both eyes wide open now.
"My what?" She didn't need a bodyguard and she said as much. "In case my father has failed to notice, I'm twenty-five years old. I'm a big girl, don't need a bodyguard."
"Your father thinks you do and I'm just here to do the job," was the response her "bodyguard" gave. "We can do this the hard way, you fighting me every step of the way, or the easy way, you just letting me do my job and neither of us has to catch any grief about it from your dad."
"So what, you gonna camp outside my door till my old man tells you otherwise? Hate to break it to you but in this building that's gonna raise more than a few eyebrows, ya know?" Letty said as she moved into the kitchen area of her apartment. The man followed, watching as Letty set up the coffee maker and pushed the "brew" button multiple times as if willing it to make the machine work any faster than possible. "You want a cup?" She asked as she pulled a mug from a cabinet.
"What?"
"Coffee."
"Oh," Coffee. "Sure."
"You know, why my father decided I need a bodyguard now is beyond me." Letty said as the coffee maker finished with a sputter-like noise. "You…I've seen you before. Who are you, anyway?"
"Name's Toretto, ma'am."
"You got a first name, Toretto?" Letty asked, placing both mugs on the counter and grabbing the cream from the mini-fridge. "Cream?"
"Ma'am?"
"Coffee. Do you like cream with your coffee?" Letty asked, adding the white liquid to her own cup. "And then I asked you if you had a first name."
"Yes. Coffee. With cream." Dom said, taking the carton of creamer Letty held out in his direction. "And the name's Dom."
"And you're my bodyguard." She said, looking him over. Sure, he was ripped, reasonably good-looking, and clearly something other than white; that much seemed to be the list of criteria for her father's henchmen. "You look barely old enough to drink, man."
"Would you rather have some pasty white guy who can barely benchpress his own weight for your bodyguard, ma'am?" Dom asked dryly.
"No, I'd rather not have one at all!"
"Mr. Ortiz doesn't quite seem to care. I'm just here to do a job, ma'am." Dom said as he moved to the counter, picking up two pink packets. He ripped them open and emptied the contents into his mug.
Letty gaped at him.
"So what, just because my dad made you my bodyguard doesn't mean you have to be such a smart ass…" was the only retort the Latina was able to come up with. "Ya know, most of his goons are usually too stupid to drink anything but beer."
"I'm not most of them."
"Nah, you definitely seem smarter than they are for the most part." She almost grinned at him as he turned around. "How'd you wind up the unlucky guy guarding Eduardo's daughter?"
"Your old man's crew offered me protection in prison," came the quiet answer. She stared at him.
"You kill somebody?"
"Almost." Still quiet. "Beat a man so bad he's gotta take the bus to work at a high school as a janitor every day…" Another long pause followed. "Two years in Lompoc."
Shit.
"And now he's got you babysitting me as repayment." Letty deadpanned.
"'Least I ain't gotta change your diapers or nothin'."
"Like that would have been a problem." Letty snorted. "So what, you just gotta watch me all day? How does this whole bodyguard deal work?"
"You go about your life, and I make sure it doesn't change." He replied simply, taking a drink from his cup.
"And what if I straight up don't want you anywhere near me or my life?" Letty said, fingers tapping against the mug in her hands.
"Unfortunately there ain't nothin' I can do about that one." Toretto said gruffly. "'Less you wanna take it up with your dad."
"You say that like we don't both already know no matter how much screaming I do or how much shit gets thrown, I'm not gonna get my way. End of story."
"Then I guess you're just gonna have to put on your big girl panties and deal with it, huh?" Toretto had the nerve to smirk at her as he said this.
"The very fact that you're even thinking about my panties five minute after having met me says that, despite your insistence that you're not like the rest of my old man's goon squad, you actually are exactly like them."
"Kid, you might think I'm just as bad as those fucks, but ask almost any woman I ever been with, and they'll tell ya I can be just as good." There was that fucking smirk again. "You know, in case you suddenly acting like one of those frilly girls who can't stand getting grease or oil or whatever under their nails."
Letty's eyes followed his, landing on her right hand. There went the argument that he didn't know what kind of girl she was.
"Fuck off. If you're done fucking up my morning, I'm going back to bed. I had a late night."
Dom sighed and leaned back against the kitchen counter when he heard Letty's footsteps returning toward the kitchen.
"And don't fucking call me 'ma'am'."
And that was how Leticia Ortiz met her bodyguard, Dominic Toretto, ex-con and her apparent new shadow.