Hello again, and thank you for the reviews. I LOVE them!
About the last chapter; yeah, I agree with reviews, but I see both sides of the thoughts about Letty's dress; yes, she should be able to wear whatever she liked, but yes, she was attracting trouble and perhaps it wasn't the best outfit. But it did look amazing and if that guy hadn't have been there, would nothing have happened? So really, it wasn't the dress' fault... although it may have factored.
Regardless, as you have been so patiently waiting *cough cough*, here you go. The aftermath of the creepy dude and the questionable dress.
Chapter Eleven; Damaged Deals
Letty felt the wind whip at her hair from the open window, slicing it against her alert sensitivity. She slid with every tight corner as he tugged the wheel hard from side to side and she gripped at the belt she had no recollection of putting on.
He sped like his ass was on fire, his headlights seeing very little as he navigated the back roads in the dark. He knew them well though, all too well to predict every corner and twist. He blasted the only red lights they encountered and Letty felt her confidence drop, she'd never met Dom like this.
She felt fear towards him.
She had felt love, hate, lust and anger towards him, but never fear.
"Dom?" she asked softly.
It broke his silence, but it broke his calm also.
"Don't." he snapped, his voice heavy and dark. A command, not a request.
Letty felt herself shrink, gripping the door for stability as he slammed another corner.
She slowly realised where they were heading.
"I told you." he started again, speaking through his teeth. "I fucking told you." He slammed a hand against the wheel, shocking her. "I told you not to wear that thing." His eyes slashed to her then back to the road.
He jabbed a foot at the clutch and downshifted for the roads incline. Sharp, crisp and precise. All highly intimidating.
"Why did you think it was a good idea?" he snapped again. "Just to defy me?!" His hands squeezed the wheel tighter, the material protesting audibly. "Do you know what could have happened tonight?!"
She did. It boiled her blood and froze her solid in the same thought.
It wasn't just her though.
"Do you realise what could have happened to you, or my sister?!"
Exactly, there was Mia.
Mia, who she had last seen crying.
Mia.
She needed to be there, to hug her, to tell her it wouldn't be like that with Alex, to tell her tonight should be forgotten entirely and reassure her she was okay.
Vince couldn't do that. As much as he wanted to.
"Do you?!" His anger needed an answer it seemed.
"Yes." she answer, wanting to desperately show him she really did understand.
"And?" he demanded justification.
"I handled it." She did. She took matters into her own hands, she kept them safe. She'd do it again.
"Handled it?!" It wasn't the right thing Dom wanted to hear, he overtook another car on a dangerous bend and slowed just enough to make the next exit he required. "You handled fuck all." She hated it when Dom swore, it made everything seem so much worse. "You're practically begging someone to take you." he spat out, disapproval clear.
Dust blew into the window as Dom took the roads that were less of roads and more of badly worn dirt tracks as they neared the destination. She'd been a few thousand times before, back when she was learning to drive. "Are you so desperate you don't even care who it is?!" he cut at her again, his eyes like lances as they peeled away all the defences she had. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Seriously?!" The car rumbled along the road as tarmac turned to uneven stones. "You'd really throw it all away because you can't get what you want?!" The dust kicked up a cloud as the stones riddled away and the dirt took over the pathway.
They were here.
Letty didn't think his anger was about the creeper anymore, not really, she could see the red ghoul shouting at her was judging her for every childish decision, for wanting what he said she couldn't have. For disrespecting him, for bringing his sister into it.
She caught the speedometer as she turned away from the dust cloud of the sharp corner that was never meant to be, it was pushing 65mph.
Perhaps this was her penance; death by horrific car crash.
Her mother would be mortified, she had never like Dom. Always thought of Mia's brother as a bad influence. Who could blame her when you saw the bruises he had from fights?
If her mother found the time to attend her funeral, she'd probably say something along the lines of 'I told my daughter that boy was trouble'.
"I told you." he ground out again. "You walk out in that stupid dress" which was slowly losing its bright white to the filth spewed up from the tyres. "Thinking you're so smart and clever, ready to give everything away and almost losing everything to… some horny stoner on a high?!"
Letty was familiar with the turns and curves of the road she used to visit daily. Used to beg someone to take her to. This was where she learned to drive.
Nobody came to the mud tracks by the freeway.
It was meant to be a housing development, then an industrial plant, every time funding fell through or business went bust and the land was given back to the earth and racers. Its heaps of dirt made for obstacles and jumps pleasing to all forms of transport. Its private land made for a lift on speed limits and plenty of space to test new cars to the extreme.
Dom took his car for stress-relief. He would drive as fast as he wanted, risk his life for a new high, new goal, new achievement and all his other problems would be lost under the spinning wheels.
This track was his therapy.
It seemed he'd dragged Letty along for the session.
He tugged the wheel around the largest of the dirt mounds and suddenly he was swerving, the smell of burning rubber and the awful screech of brake pads to hot tyres. He corrected quick, slamming to the car to the left and their bodies to the right. Letty thudded against the car door hard, her head bumping the door frame. The car stopped with the handbrake tugged tight, spun 270 from its original path, a cloud of dust revealing an abandoned mountain bike that had been in their path, narrowly missed.
"Fucking arseholes." Dom muttered to himself angrily.
Letty rubbed her head but the more immediate pain was in her right arm where it had slammed into the door frame, she resisted the need to touch it and cradled it into herself.
It wasn't broken; all fingers were wiggling. Painful but wiggle-able.
"Letty?"
"I know." she answered shortly. "I'm an idiot who wore a stupid dress in an attempt to get an asshole who doesn't want me to change his mind." she admitted self depreciatively, head turned away from him.
She heard a long sigh and a thump as a head rested back on the seat. She could imagine he would be rubbing the bridge of his nose, deciding just what to do to again. What to do with the selfish child that couldn't get over him. "I won't do it again. I've learnt my lesson." Letty spoke again in the silence. Anything to end the day.
To go back to Mia and laugh about some cheesy movie like they'd never gone to the races.
"Letty."
"Take me home?" her voice was quiet, her gaze out the open window on the motorcross bike that had almost killed them.
"Yeah." he sighed, but opened his door, striding across the dirt to lift the bike from the path, dragging it to throw off the track completely. Asshole deserved his bike totalled. Letty waited for the engine to restart as he settled himself back in the seat, instead, he seemed to be thinking things over again. "Letty." he started, then stopped himself. "What are you going to do?"
It was a loaded question indeed. What was she going to do?
Go home, buy a cat and resign herself to being the only person to die of old age still being a virgin.
She was done with everyone else and Dom wasn't even starting with her.
So it left her with nothing. "Damn it Letty, will you just look at me for 5 seconds." he pleaded, still angry.
She didn't move.
"I just want to go back and see Mia."
But something, whatever it was had him out of the car and suddenly appearing before her open window. He pulled the door open and Letty expected another round of yelling until someone three towns over complained. She didn't expect him to reach across and unbuckle her. She certainly didn't expect his hands lifting her surprised body out of the car and onto her wobbly feet.
"Just take me home." she complained more forcefully, turning from him, but he stopped her, finally meeting her eyes.
"Jesus Letty, why didn't you say something?" His hand went to her head, fingers brushing the hair away from the reddening skin on her forehead that was sure to bruise.
"It's fine." she tried to step back but all she succeeded in doing was stepping out of her heels wrestling his grasp single handedly. He noticed, and took her right arm in his grip, she winced at his touch and he recoiled.
"Jesus Letty." he spoke again. "Come on, I'll take you to A&E."
"Don't bother." She picked the heels from the dirt and dropped them into the car, her body quick to follow. "I've broken my arm before; it's not broken."
"Looks like it hurts, Let."
"I've had worse." And she couldn't stop her eyes from cutting at him; it made her point. The pain was nothing compared to the stomping he did on her heart.
Dom was used to throwing himself around on the track, he was used to the high speed turns and he positioned himself away from pain. He didn't usually take passengers though. He hadn't even thought of what he'd done to Letty until her sullen mood had twisted deeper into him than he thought possible.
Whether he liked it or not; he was intertwined and twisted tightly with Letty. He thought time and ignorance would divide them; it seemed it just tightened the knot.
"You need someone to look at it." he insisted.
"I'm not showing my mother." she answered sharply. No, it would come with too many questions. It wasn't worth it for a few free painkillers. She'd spend her own money in exchange for privacy.
"She'll notice the bruising."
"Long sleeves." The answer came with certainty like it had been tried and tested beforehand.
"Le-"
"Please take me home."
It was the please that stalled him. He rarely heard it from either of the girls. Less so from the terror sitting in her seat awaiting her ride home.
But something had changed.
It changed that he dropped to a squat beside the car, resting on his ankles.
"I can't give you a relationship." he started, softly. "I can't be there when you need me and I can't remember all the things you might want me to." His fingers wrapped around hers when she finally looked at him again. "I can't change who I am, racers and girls included." Letty started to wonder why she was listening to the same speech over again, until a plot twist flowed out. "But if you need me to show you that for you to get over me, then I'll do that." Her face must have showed her confusion because he clarified. "If you want to play house to get me out of your system, we can."
"I don't want to play house." she gritted out. She wasn't a child.
"It's this or nothing Letty."
The decision didn't take long.
"Fine, but in exchange. I want you to teach me."
"Teach you?" he rose an eyebrow.
"Everything. Everything you want to do with all the others girls. I want you to teach me how to do it all."
"I'm not running a brothel, Letty."
"It's this or nothing." she parroted.
"Fine." he agreed. "but we go slowly." Especially after what almost happened tonight. At least it would keep her out of slutty dresses and backseats for a while. His jealousy would be gone, he would be happier… but, he just prayed she got over him before he fell too deep with her.
"Fine." Letty agreed. "So what now?"
"You go home. I destroy my sisters closet and you take it easy at work tomorrow." he answered, thinking on his feet. "If you still want to."
"And us?"
"We'll figure it out." he responded, standing back to his height and sliding back into the driver's seat.
The plan was to go straight home, but as they passed the races, cars were putting gas to the floor and red and blue sirens were flashing around the buildings. Cops had broken up the party it seemed.
Dom swore and threw the car around the next street, caught unawares and unprepared. There was a security system in place listening to the radio scanners for police activity, but this looked like a planned manoeuvre with little time to react.
Supercars sped past them at green lights and Dom once again had to evade at speed. He pulled the handbrake, drifting the car around the other speeding vehicle, ending up facing the wrong direction on a one way street and restarting the junction at a speed disadvantage.
A disadvantage that had a cop car infront of him.
He pulled another curse from his expansive dictionary of offensive words and slid the car into reverse, bombing down an alley to find the time to slide back into first gear and hit the road the wrong way, dodging parked cars and ongoing racer traffic.
Letty felt every bump and turn on her arm.
Dom took a turn a bit too tight and she couldn't help but wince aloud.
"Fuck. Letty." he groaned. She could see the decisions flying behind his eyes.
"Don't stop!" but his decision was made when she noticed the car slowing. "I can't get arrested, Dom!"
"You won't." he swore, pulling the car to a stop on the side of the road. "Jessica was having a party tonight, you crashed it but some guys scared you off at the door and you changed your mind. You called me to pick you up. We were never at the races." Dom narrated for her.
"Dom!" Letty called, the red and blue lights filling up the rear view, her heart beating fast. "Dom I can't get arrested, my mom won't let me out."
"You won't. You did nothing wrong, you just wanted a lift home from the party."
"Turn off the engine and step out of the vehicle with your hands raised." The officer called.
The engine turned off and Letty's eyes were wide as saucers. Her mother was going to kill her.
"Stay here. Don't move Letty." Dom instructed, reaching outside his open window slowly to open his door. "Don't run." he insisted, seeing the look in her eyes.
Letty watched as Dom stepped out of the car and two officers approached as he knelt to the floor.
"She's my sister's best friend. She's 16." Dom spoke instantly as they took the ID from his wallet.
"Miss, step outside of the car." Letty met the eyes of the female officer, a petite thing, probably fast, but Letty still couldn't shake the idea of running.
"Dom." Letty called.
"Miss, step outside the car with your hands raised." The officer insisted again.
"Letty, it's okay. Go with her." he called and Letty could see the male officer was putting cuffs on Dom's wrists.
"Letty? Is that your name? I need you to step out of the car, now."
Letty moved slowly, afraid of what would happen if not, and she found herself pressed against the car as soon as she stepped out, crying out in pain as her arms were placed behind her back and locked in handcuffs.
Letty found herself walked barefoot across the hot tarmac and towards the police car.
Dom was on his feet, eyes on her, pleading with her to behave.
Mia looked up the instant the door opened. She broke past Vince's extended hand, over-protective as always, and straight into Letty's arms.
"You okay?" Both girls asked at the same time, the arms around them comfort and a reminder at the same time.
"Thank you." Mia whispered against her best friends shoulder. "I don't know what would have happened and it was so scary. I'm glad you're my best friend."
Letty squeezed Mia tighter for a second then stepped back, her arm unable to maintain much more without passing her pain threshold.
"Where's Dom?" Vince asked.
"I don't give a damn if he's lying dead in a ditch somewhere." Mia spat. "Did he yell at you?" she turned back to Letty.
He may have yelled but he had bartered, bargained and begged for the police to take the cuffs off of Letty the second he saw they were on, the second he saw the pain spiralling up her arm.
"Yeah." Letty answered, still amazed with the day.
She had been dropped off by police escort to her home address. They were going to speak to her mother, but another call came across the radio and the female police officer just had her swear to stay away from trouble and left her at the door.
Evidentially, there was very little to say Letty was anything but an innocent bystander desperate for a ride home from a bad party experience.
Dom, however, he had a list of priors that kept on reeling.
She'd watched them sit him in the back of the car like a common criminal. She'd heard them read him his rights. She'd been under his eyes the entire time. He didn't give a shit about his rights, or the charges, or even the traffic violation they were listing out to him. No, for once, his eyes were only for Letty.
Guilt; Letty pinned it to.
He felt guilty she was in pain.
It must be.
It was clear Dom's feelings for her were as fleeting as the wind so why put stock in them now.
Maybe it was blame.
He wouldn't have thought twice about running from the cops; his car could certainly manage it. But because of her… he had to stop.
Did he look at her and see the blame for all of the infractions he was not listening to?
Letty's heart sank from its sky high.
But Letty had raced the streets over, carrying her heels in her hand for one person; Mia.
She raked her eyes over the teenager in her pyjamas with Vince's jacket over her shoulders.
Ignorant of the pain it caused, she pulled Mia back into a sharp hug.
"Letty." Vince's voice was soft, but rightfully questioning. "Where's Dom?" Obviously he'd heard about the races being broken by sirens.
Jesse and Leon had even paused the elaborate attempt at cooking in the kitchen for the seriousness in Vince's tone.
Letty uncurled her bad arm from Mia and faced the boys that would take the news the hardest.
"He was arrested."