Chapter 55 - Making the right choice
"You need to rest if you're gonna get better." Dom moved to grab Torrie again. She dodged his grasp. She was getting mad; Dom's attitude was getting old.
"I can rest here. I don't want to go back to bed." If she'd whined, it would have been childish. Since she said it plainly, it was clear she just wanted to stay with the team, have the company, and she was trying to tell him she was able to make that decision on her own. Dom clearly didn't see it that way.
"You're going back to bed. I don't want you to make yourself even more sick."
"I'm 22 years old and if I don't want to go bed I'm not going to. I'm going to stay up and watch TV and eat dinner with my friends." Torrie yelled.
"Well, I'm your boyfriend and your boss and when I tell you to do something important I expect you to do as I ask. I'm just trying to look out for you. Mia said you needed to rest!" Dom shouted back.
"Screw you! I'm not your property 'cause I'm your girlfriend. You don't own me! And you might be my boss at the garage but that doesn't carry over to home. I don't go in for the old fashioned 'the man is the boss of the house' attitude." Torrie was irate. Dom opened his mouth to argue with her further. "You know what, bump this, I'm outta here." With that Torrie had her butt off the couch and out the door with her keys before Dom could recover from the shock of being told off. He followed her out of the house at a run but not fast enough to catch her before she got into her car, got it started and took off. Dom cursed fate for having Torrie be the one parked on the street with Letty's car, not blocked in the driveway as he watched her squeal off.
"I can't believe she did that." Dom said, standing in his driveway, watching Torrie peel off their street. He was talking to himself and he was so shocked and angry he didn't even care. Why anything girls did still had the power to make him shocked he didn't know. After dating Letty for so many years he would have thought he'd seen it all. He shook his head and went to walk back into the house.
"You gonna go after her Brotha?" Vince asked.
"Nope. She'll come home when she calms down." Dom sighed and headed into the house.
"Why'd she flip?"
"I don't know. She normally likes it when we take care of her, but it was like I was stifling her and she couldn't take it. But I'm just trying to keep her safe. I don't want to see her sick or hurt. I really wish she wasn't off driving, in her attitude, and sick at that." Dom shook his head.
"Yeah, well, she's had a rough few days." Vince answered. "I mean, her dad came home from the dead.She got sick, she's been left home alone for the last couple days."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. But she just acts so young. She acts like she wants me to be the one to take care of her and make the decisions and then when I just do what I think she wants me to she flips out."
"Yeah, but I mean, most of the time she does act like she wants someone to take care of her, but when she tells you that she wants you to back off you need to back off man, not try to bully her into doing what you want. You should know that doesn't work with anyone Dom."
"I know. We're both so stubborn, we both want to get our own ways and neither of us ever wants to back off."
"That's for sure." Vince and Dom shared a look and headed into the house. They went to the kitchen and Mia had supper ready. Everyone but Torrie sat down and ate. Dom was worried about Torrie. When an hour went by and she still hadn't come back the worry intensified. He didn't know where to start looking for her so he didn't go. He still hoped she'd come back when she was ready.
Torrie drove around for 20 minutes aimlessly, not knowing where to go. She was so confused. After she realized she'd driven around the same park three times she figured she needed a place to go somewhere. She couldn't drive all night and she was getting tired again. Damn Dom anyway, she thought. If he'd just let her watch TV like she'd wanted to she wouldn't be out driving around at 6pm starting to fall asleep at the wheel.
She made a decision and turned the car around. She headed to her father's house. His note had said that he'd bought their house back and he was living there again. She knew her dad would take her in. She also knew that he'd be pleased that she and Dom fought. She didn't really want to deal with her dad giving her attitude over Dom, or gloating that they'd fought, but she wasn't ready to go back to Dom's yet, and her Dad's was close.
She pulled up to the front door of her old house and it was strange. It wasn't home anymore. It had been out of her life for so long that it wasn't her home anymore. She went to just walk in but that felt strange to her now. She knocked and hoped her dad was home. There was another car in the drive and she hoped it was his.
After a minute the door swung open and her dad was standing there. "Torrie, what are you doing here?"
"I had a fight with Dom." Torrie said, and like all the stress of the last few days hit her at once she started to sob. Her dad wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into the house. He easily swung her into his arms and carried her to one of the guest rooms. He lay her on the bed and pulled the covers up over her.
"There you go princess. What happened? You had a big fight with Dom?" Harry, much to Torrie's surprise didn't seem happy about her fight with Dom.
"Do you really care? I can tell you don't like Dom, I bet you're happy we fought." Torrie was upset and she wasn't really thinking clearly, plus she really did think that her dad felt that way.
"I don't not like Dom sweetheart, I just never saw him as the kind of guy I wanted you to end up with. I'm not happy you fought. I hate to see you upset. What did you fight over?" If Toretto had hurt her in any way Harry would hunt him down.
"I was feeling better today and I got up and went to watch some TV. Dom got home and yelled at me for being out of bed. I told him I was feeling fine and that I just wanted to hang out and watch TV and be with the team. Dom flipped at me, saying I should be in bed, that I had to go back to bed. He tried to make me go back and I wouldn't go. We fought about it and I took off. He was treating me like a little kid."
"But you are a little kid." Harry smiled.
"Well yeah, to you I guess I am, but I'm supposed to be Dom's girlfriend. He was treating me like I wasn't smart enough to make up my own mind, make a decision about if I wanted to get up or not. But the thing is I let him and the guys baby me a lot. It wasn't really fair of me to get mad at him for doing something I always acted like I liked before."
"He baby's you a lot huh?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, him and Vince always take care'a me. And normally I like it. I like them to look out for me and worry about me. But I can make my own mind up too you know? In some stuff I let Dom make the decisions because he knows better. But I think I can decide if I want to stay downstairs or not."
"Of course you can princess. But you're tired now, aren't you?"
"Yeah." She said in a small, childish voice. She wanted to go to sleep, let her daddy take care of her for a while, for a change. Her dad always knew how to take care of her before. Harry smoothed her hair back off her face.
"Does Dom know where you are?" Harry asked her.
"No, I just took off in my car. I was only going to go for a drive to cool off but I didn't want to go back to Dom while I was still mad then I got tired and I still didn't want to go back to Dom's house. I knew I was close to here so I came here."
"Well, you can sleep here, but I'm going to call Dom and just tell him that you're ok. Ok?"
"Yeah, but tell him not to come here. I'll go back home when I'm ready."
"I'll tell him."
Harry called Dom and relayed the message. Harry could tell Dom hadn't been happy that Torrie was with him. But he could hear the relief at knowing Torrie was safe and not out driving around or out in an accident somewhere. When Torrie woke up Harry planned on having his conversation with his daughter about her relationship with Dominic Toretto.
Dom hung up the phone and sighed.
"Who was it Dom?" Mia asked.
"Harry. Torrie's at her fathers house."
"Well, that's good right? She's safe."
"It's good that she's safe, but I didn't think we fought badly enough to drive her to run away. I thought she'd just go for a drive, cool down and come back."
"Maybe she thought if she came back any time soon she'd just be coming home to more fighting." Mia was always the voice of reason.
"Maybe. You're right, I guess, at least she's safe." Dom walked into the living room and sat down. He felt 5 sets of eyes on him. "It was Harry. She's with him and she's fine." He answered the unspoken question.
"Is she coming back?" Vince asked.
"I don't know." Dom answered honestly. "I hope so. It was just a little fight. We've fought worse then this before. I'm surprised she went to her dad. I'm sure she'll come home when she wakes up. Her dad said that she fell asleep pretty much as soon as she arrived. I hope she was just out driving and started to fall asleep and realized her dad's house was closer."
"I'm sure that's it Dawg." Leon answered. Dom wasn't sure. He hoped this was not the beginning of Torrie picking her dad and her life with Harry over her life with Dom. Dom got up and went to his room and lay down. He eventually fell asleep on top of the covers in all his cloths with thoughts of Torrie on his mind.
Torrie woke up. It was dark in her room and it wasn't immediately apparent what time of night it was. She sat up and checked the glowing red time of the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was 11pm. Time she went back to Dom's, since she was refreshed and figured she was up for the drive now. She got up and went downstairs.
Her dad was sitting in the living room. She walked to the door of the room. "Thanks for letting me crash here Daddy. I'm going to go home now. I'm feeling much better."
"You sure princess? You should just spend the night here and go back in the morning."
"I'm sure. The team will worry even though you called them. I'm going to go home." Harry knew that she didn't see this house as home anymore. She saw Toretto's house as home.
"I had hoped to speak to you some more in the morning before you went back Torrie." Harry wanted to talk to her about Dom while she was away from the man in question. He figured he'd get the most honest answers about their relationship then.
"Well, we'll get together really soon and talk all you want." Torrie added and went for the front door.
"Ok princess. Be carefull driving home. It's late." Harry didn't want to let her drive anywhere but he knew he'd just have a fight on his hands like Dom did if he tried to stop her.
"I'll be careful Daddy. See you soon. Maybe tomorrow for lunch?" He nodded and watched her drive off down the road.
Torrie drove home and parked. She let herself in the front door and found the whole team other then Dom in the living room. "Hey guys." She stated and walked into the room. "Where's Dominic?"
"He went upstairs and never came back down." Vince answered her from the floor where he was playing PS2 with Chris. "You ok?"
"I'm fine. I'm going to go find Dom. Night guys."
"Night." They all chorused. Torrie headed upstairs and opened the door of their room. She found Dom asleep on his side in all his clothes on top of the covers looking sad. He'd clearly not planned on falling asleep because the lamp was still on.
She walked up to him and pushed him onto his back, then pulled his socks off his feet first. He still slept on. She undid his pants and pulled them off his big body next and he still didn't wake up. She somehow got his shirt off over his head and he just snored away. She slowly worked the blankets down from under him, crawled into bed and pulled the blankets up over them. It was going better then she'd hoped. He'd just wake up in the morning, she'd already be there and most of his anger would be forgotten. She hoped.
Dom woke up a short time later to the realization that he had nothing but his shorts on and that he wasn't alone. He checked the clock and saw it was 12:30. He turned the lamp on and it illuminated Torrie's sleeping face. He wondered when she'd gotten back and how she'd managed to get him to bed and not wake him up. While he was looking at her, her eyes blinked open.
"Hey." He said softly.
"Hey." She murmered.
"When'd you get home?"
"11 and the guys said you were already in bed."
"Yeah. I wasn't in the mood to be good company." Dom sighed.
"Go back to sleep baby." Torrie answered. She didn't want to get into a conversation about what happened in the middle of the night.
"Ok, but there's one thing I have to do first." That said he leaned down and kissed her. She kissed him right back and he knew everything was going to be ok. She hadn't stayed with her dad for the night, she'd come home to him. They went to sleep and Dom forgot the alarm.
"You need to rest if you're gonna get better." Dom moved to grab Torrie again. She dodged his grasp. She was getting mad; Dom's attitude was getting old.
"I can rest here. I don't want to go back to bed." If she'd whined, it would have been childish. Since she said it plainly, it was clear she just wanted to stay with the team, have the company, and she was trying to tell him she was able to make that decision on her own. Dom clearly didn't see it that way.
"You're going back to bed. I don't want you to make yourself even more sick."
"I'm 22 years old and if I don't want to go bed I'm not going to. I'm going to stay up and watch TV and eat dinner with my friends." Torrie yelled.
"Well, I'm your boyfriend and your boss and when I tell you to do something important I expect you to do as I ask. I'm just trying to look out for you. Mia said you needed to rest!" Dom shouted back.
"Screw you! I'm not your property 'cause I'm your girlfriend. You don't own me! And you might be my boss at the garage but that doesn't carry over to home. I don't go in for the old fashioned 'the man is the boss of the house' attitude." Torrie was irate. Dom opened his mouth to argue with her further. "You know what, bump this, I'm outta here." With that Torrie had her butt off the couch and out the door with her keys before Dom could recover from the shock of being told off. He followed her out of the house at a run but not fast enough to catch her before she got into her car, got it started and took off. Dom cursed fate for having Torrie be the one parked on the street with Letty's car, not blocked in the driveway as he watched her squeal off.
"I can't believe she did that." Dom said, standing in his driveway, watching Torrie peel off their street. He was talking to himself and he was so shocked and angry he didn't even care. Why anything girls did still had the power to make him shocked he didn't know. After dating Letty for so many years he would have thought he'd seen it all. He shook his head and went to walk back into the house.
"You gonna go after her Brotha?" Vince asked.
"Nope. She'll come home when she calms down." Dom sighed and headed into the house.
"Why'd she flip?"
"I don't know. She normally likes it when we take care of her, but it was like I was stifling her and she couldn't take it. But I'm just trying to keep her safe. I don't want to see her sick or hurt. I really wish she wasn't off driving, in her attitude, and sick at that." Dom shook his head.
"Yeah, well, she's had a rough few days." Vince answered. "I mean, her dad came home from the dead.She got sick, she's been left home alone for the last couple days."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. But she just acts so young. She acts like she wants me to be the one to take care of her and make the decisions and then when I just do what I think she wants me to she flips out."
"Yeah, but I mean, most of the time she does act like she wants someone to take care of her, but when she tells you that she wants you to back off you need to back off man, not try to bully her into doing what you want. You should know that doesn't work with anyone Dom."
"I know. We're both so stubborn, we both want to get our own ways and neither of us ever wants to back off."
"That's for sure." Vince and Dom shared a look and headed into the house. They went to the kitchen and Mia had supper ready. Everyone but Torrie sat down and ate. Dom was worried about Torrie. When an hour went by and she still hadn't come back the worry intensified. He didn't know where to start looking for her so he didn't go. He still hoped she'd come back when she was ready.
Torrie drove around for 20 minutes aimlessly, not knowing where to go. She was so confused. After she realized she'd driven around the same park three times she figured she needed a place to go somewhere. She couldn't drive all night and she was getting tired again. Damn Dom anyway, she thought. If he'd just let her watch TV like she'd wanted to she wouldn't be out driving around at 6pm starting to fall asleep at the wheel.
She made a decision and turned the car around. She headed to her father's house. His note had said that he'd bought their house back and he was living there again. She knew her dad would take her in. She also knew that he'd be pleased that she and Dom fought. She didn't really want to deal with her dad giving her attitude over Dom, or gloating that they'd fought, but she wasn't ready to go back to Dom's yet, and her Dad's was close.
She pulled up to the front door of her old house and it was strange. It wasn't home anymore. It had been out of her life for so long that it wasn't her home anymore. She went to just walk in but that felt strange to her now. She knocked and hoped her dad was home. There was another car in the drive and she hoped it was his.
After a minute the door swung open and her dad was standing there. "Torrie, what are you doing here?"
"I had a fight with Dom." Torrie said, and like all the stress of the last few days hit her at once she started to sob. Her dad wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into the house. He easily swung her into his arms and carried her to one of the guest rooms. He lay her on the bed and pulled the covers up over her.
"There you go princess. What happened? You had a big fight with Dom?" Harry, much to Torrie's surprise didn't seem happy about her fight with Dom.
"Do you really care? I can tell you don't like Dom, I bet you're happy we fought." Torrie was upset and she wasn't really thinking clearly, plus she really did think that her dad felt that way.
"I don't not like Dom sweetheart, I just never saw him as the kind of guy I wanted you to end up with. I'm not happy you fought. I hate to see you upset. What did you fight over?" If Toretto had hurt her in any way Harry would hunt him down.
"I was feeling better today and I got up and went to watch some TV. Dom got home and yelled at me for being out of bed. I told him I was feeling fine and that I just wanted to hang out and watch TV and be with the team. Dom flipped at me, saying I should be in bed, that I had to go back to bed. He tried to make me go back and I wouldn't go. We fought about it and I took off. He was treating me like a little kid."
"But you are a little kid." Harry smiled.
"Well yeah, to you I guess I am, but I'm supposed to be Dom's girlfriend. He was treating me like I wasn't smart enough to make up my own mind, make a decision about if I wanted to get up or not. But the thing is I let him and the guys baby me a lot. It wasn't really fair of me to get mad at him for doing something I always acted like I liked before."
"He baby's you a lot huh?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, him and Vince always take care'a me. And normally I like it. I like them to look out for me and worry about me. But I can make my own mind up too you know? In some stuff I let Dom make the decisions because he knows better. But I think I can decide if I want to stay downstairs or not."
"Of course you can princess. But you're tired now, aren't you?"
"Yeah." She said in a small, childish voice. She wanted to go to sleep, let her daddy take care of her for a while, for a change. Her dad always knew how to take care of her before. Harry smoothed her hair back off her face.
"Does Dom know where you are?" Harry asked her.
"No, I just took off in my car. I was only going to go for a drive to cool off but I didn't want to go back to Dom while I was still mad then I got tired and I still didn't want to go back to Dom's house. I knew I was close to here so I came here."
"Well, you can sleep here, but I'm going to call Dom and just tell him that you're ok. Ok?"
"Yeah, but tell him not to come here. I'll go back home when I'm ready."
"I'll tell him."
Harry called Dom and relayed the message. Harry could tell Dom hadn't been happy that Torrie was with him. But he could hear the relief at knowing Torrie was safe and not out driving around or out in an accident somewhere. When Torrie woke up Harry planned on having his conversation with his daughter about her relationship with Dominic Toretto.
Dom hung up the phone and sighed.
"Who was it Dom?" Mia asked.
"Harry. Torrie's at her fathers house."
"Well, that's good right? She's safe."
"It's good that she's safe, but I didn't think we fought badly enough to drive her to run away. I thought she'd just go for a drive, cool down and come back."
"Maybe she thought if she came back any time soon she'd just be coming home to more fighting." Mia was always the voice of reason.
"Maybe. You're right, I guess, at least she's safe." Dom walked into the living room and sat down. He felt 5 sets of eyes on him. "It was Harry. She's with him and she's fine." He answered the unspoken question.
"Is she coming back?" Vince asked.
"I don't know." Dom answered honestly. "I hope so. It was just a little fight. We've fought worse then this before. I'm surprised she went to her dad. I'm sure she'll come home when she wakes up. Her dad said that she fell asleep pretty much as soon as she arrived. I hope she was just out driving and started to fall asleep and realized her dad's house was closer."
"I'm sure that's it Dawg." Leon answered. Dom wasn't sure. He hoped this was not the beginning of Torrie picking her dad and her life with Harry over her life with Dom. Dom got up and went to his room and lay down. He eventually fell asleep on top of the covers in all his cloths with thoughts of Torrie on his mind.
Torrie woke up. It was dark in her room and it wasn't immediately apparent what time of night it was. She sat up and checked the glowing red time of the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was 11pm. Time she went back to Dom's, since she was refreshed and figured she was up for the drive now. She got up and went downstairs.
Her dad was sitting in the living room. She walked to the door of the room. "Thanks for letting me crash here Daddy. I'm going to go home now. I'm feeling much better."
"You sure princess? You should just spend the night here and go back in the morning."
"I'm sure. The team will worry even though you called them. I'm going to go home." Harry knew that she didn't see this house as home anymore. She saw Toretto's house as home.
"I had hoped to speak to you some more in the morning before you went back Torrie." Harry wanted to talk to her about Dom while she was away from the man in question. He figured he'd get the most honest answers about their relationship then.
"Well, we'll get together really soon and talk all you want." Torrie added and went for the front door.
"Ok princess. Be carefull driving home. It's late." Harry didn't want to let her drive anywhere but he knew he'd just have a fight on his hands like Dom did if he tried to stop her.
"I'll be careful Daddy. See you soon. Maybe tomorrow for lunch?" He nodded and watched her drive off down the road.
Torrie drove home and parked. She let herself in the front door and found the whole team other then Dom in the living room. "Hey guys." She stated and walked into the room. "Where's Dominic?"
"He went upstairs and never came back down." Vince answered her from the floor where he was playing PS2 with Chris. "You ok?"
"I'm fine. I'm going to go find Dom. Night guys."
"Night." They all chorused. Torrie headed upstairs and opened the door of their room. She found Dom asleep on his side in all his clothes on top of the covers looking sad. He'd clearly not planned on falling asleep because the lamp was still on.
She walked up to him and pushed him onto his back, then pulled his socks off his feet first. He still slept on. She undid his pants and pulled them off his big body next and he still didn't wake up. She somehow got his shirt off over his head and he just snored away. She slowly worked the blankets down from under him, crawled into bed and pulled the blankets up over them. It was going better then she'd hoped. He'd just wake up in the morning, she'd already be there and most of his anger would be forgotten. She hoped.
Dom woke up a short time later to the realization that he had nothing but his shorts on and that he wasn't alone. He checked the clock and saw it was 12:30. He turned the lamp on and it illuminated Torrie's sleeping face. He wondered when she'd gotten back and how she'd managed to get him to bed and not wake him up. While he was looking at her, her eyes blinked open.
"Hey." He said softly.
"Hey." She murmered.
"When'd you get home?"
"11 and the guys said you were already in bed."
"Yeah. I wasn't in the mood to be good company." Dom sighed.
"Go back to sleep baby." Torrie answered. She didn't want to get into a conversation about what happened in the middle of the night.
"Ok, but there's one thing I have to do first." That said he leaned down and kissed her. She kissed him right back and he knew everything was going to be ok. She hadn't stayed with her dad for the night, she'd come home to him. They went to sleep and Dom forgot the alarm.