AN: My hands are all cramped up from writing updates to everything in one
sitting. So please leave a review and make it worth losing my circulation
over :) Besides 80 chapters is a milestone I think.
Chapter 80 – The 8 Can't Lose.
Vince trudged slowly up the stairs and knocked on Chris's door.
"Who is it?" She called and her voice sounded strange. Vince figured she'd been crying. He was not looking forward to talking to her and his mood did not improve when he realized that she might start crying in the middle of what he had to say.
"Vince. Can I come in?"
"I'd rather you didn't." The soft answer came from just on the other side of the door.
"I really think we need to talk." Vince answered softly back.
"About what?" Chris asked suspiciously, like she was scared he wanted to tell her bad news, like he didn't like her or he wanted her to leave.
She'd been planning on leaving at some point right from the time she'd moved in but now she didn't really want to. She liked Mia a whole lot. She'd never had a good friend like Mia before, or someone like Mia to take care of her. She also liked Leon and Jesse too. Leon was funny and Jesse was always nice to her.
She had feelings for Vince stronger then just like but she didn't know how he felt about her and it made her feel insecure. It really hadn't helped when he'd taken off after Torrie when the other girl had hit her. It really didn't seem fair.
"Stuff. It's important to me." Vince implored.
Chris opened the door.
"I guess then."
"Thanks." Vince replied and walked in. He walked up to the chair that was at the desk in the room and, turning it around he straddled it. "Why don't you have a seat?"
Chris sat on her bed.
"What did you want to talk about?" She asked, not meeting his eyes.
"About you and Torrie and Torrie and Me and you and me."
Chris looked up and she looked scared.
"It's ok, but there are some things we really need to discuss."
"Alright." Chris agreed on a sigh.
"Well, first of all, I'm sorry that I chased Torrie instead of staying here with you but you need to know I had my reasons."
Chris looked up like she couldn't believe he was really sorry.
"Torrie's like this really highly tuned car." Vince was going to try to explain things in terms he understood. "She has to have high test gas and she's really touchy about stuff. Like you cut the wheel too sharp and she's going to over steer and you're likely to crash. Or if you pop the clutch in high rmps, there's gonna be an afterburn and she's gonna spit flames and backfire in your face."
Chris looked at him strangely but also like she understood.
"And when you push her too far she does things you don't expect, just like when you push that highly tuned car too far or too fast."
"I see."
Vince continued.
"And it wasn't your fault, so don't think that's what I'm saying because I'm not. But the day that you and Torrie had your big fight I'd just picked her up from the airport because she'd run away from Dom because she thought that Dom had cheated on her."
Chris sucked in a sharp breath. "I didn't know."
"I know you didn't. But she found some shirt in Dom's room with some other chick's makeup on it and she flipped. Dom pushed her too far and like that same car, when you push the accelerator too hard the thing pulls away like a sonofabitch but you might not be able to control where it goes or how it acts. So I went to get her from the airport and I mostly convinced her things were fine, and that she over reacted. Because she had. Dom didn't really do anything. But it was hard to convince her of that because he use to cheat on his ex girl Letty."
"Why is Torrie dating him then?"
"Because she loves him. But when she first came here she was like you in a lot of ways. She'd just lost her world. Her mom had died about 8 months before and her dad about 3 or 4. She had no one, her home was about to be repo'ed and she raced Dom for slips and lost to him. When she first came here Dom was treating her kinda bad because he wanted her but he didn't want to want her. He told himself he didn't want to be with any girl. That he just wanted to sleep with Torrie because he thought she was pretty."
"She is pretty." Chris felt she had to say something.
"Yeah, she is. But Dom was also the first man she ever wanted to really date, he was her first serious boyfriend. She wasn't...well...experienced in any way...when she and he finally got together."
"She was a..." Chris couldn't say it, she was too embarrassed.
"Yeah. And she started to work on a birthday present for him. He'd written off his dad's car a while before and she decided to get it back for him and rebuild it. It was hard work and she was in over her head. She's a pretty good mechanic but she's not really as strong as she'd like to think and she didn't know enough about big block dodges to rebuild the engine on her own. She and I had become friends before that. I can't explain what it is about her but she's just like a little sister to me. I have to look out for her and I have to take care of her and god help anyone who hurts her. So she asked me to help her with the car and of course I agreed."
"That's a nice thing for her to want to do."
"It was. And we started to slave over it. I helped her all I could. I could have done more because she was already trying to work off what she owed Dom down at DT and running her own store but I had lots of free time. Dom was giving her a hard time about taking time to work at 'The Racer's Edge' and it was hard for her to get time to work on the project. But she wouldn't hear of letting me do it without her. It was her baby and she only wanted me working on it when she was there. She's the most stubborn person I know other then Dom. So she was sneaking around a lot. And lots of times when Dom couldn't find her he couldn't find me either."
"So he put 2 and 2 together and came up with 5?"
"Right. He accused us of having an affair in front of the whole team. They had a huge fight and she almost ran away over it. It sort of drove us closer together then we even had been."
"I guess I can see why..." Chris admitted.
"That's good." Vince answered. "But then whenever her and Dom would fight she'd come running to me and I'd take care of her. It was only the same thing I'd done for Letty all the time, only Torrie and I were closer in a lot of ways. But that's why she turns to me when she can't turn to Dom and why we seem so close. That's all there is to it. And I just have to take care of her because she needs me to."
"Thanks for explaining it to me Vince. I really do see why you feel the need to take care of her. But don't take this the wrong way or anything, but she needs to learn to cope on her own someday."
"She is learning. But it's a slow process. It turns out her dad wasn't dead and he just came back into her life a short time ago. Add into that time she was almost raped and I think you can see it's been a hard time for her of late. And I'm not saying it hasn't been for you. But Torrie's just so high strung that upsetting things to other people throw her right over the roof and she just freaks out and looses it. If I'd let her run off on her own that night we likely would have gotten a call that she wrapped her car around a phone poll while she drifted some corner or drove drunk and killed herself and or other people."
"Is she mental?" Chris asked, not to be mean, but just to understand.
"No, just high strung and dealing with a lot of shit."
"That is one wild story, how her life has been."
"Yeah. And you should know that Dom would do anything for her. I don't want ot make you scared of her or anything but if she tells Dom she wants you out of here he'll likely ask me to get you to go." Chris went to speak but Vince held up a hand and continued. "Now she told Dom that she didn't want that because she knew she'd said some things that were out of line. But I'm just saying that Dom's very protective of her. And I want you around so I don't want to see it come down that Dom tells you to go."
"You want me around?"
"Yeah I do. But it might be best to take it slow at first. And it might be strange for you to see me be so buddy buddy with Torr, but it's just that, she's my friend. And I really think if you're honest you didn't help the situation any with how you've treated her since the first time you met her."
"You're right. I didn't. And neither did she, but this is her home and I'm pretty much a guest here."
"That's true. But I think if you just talked to her, told her that you're sorry for how you've been acting and told her why it is you felt that way about her she'll get over it all really fast. She has one hell of a temper but she doesn't hold grudges at all. She'd likely even feel she owed you an apology for how she talked to you and stuff."
"I'll think about that Vince." Chris did think about it. And she wanted to be around. She liked Vince and she liked living with a team, a family. And she didn't want to be always fighting with the girl who was dating the team captain. And Vince, Mia, and Letty sure did love Torrie. The girl must be doing something right.
And Chris had nothing but sympathy for anyone who'd ever been sexually assaulted, even if the bastard who did it didn't get to go all the way with it. She made up her mind.
"Where is Torrie now?"
"Chrashed out in her room. She's sick and she took this medicine that knocks her out. You two can talk tomorrow. I'm gonna go to bed now myself. I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Sure. Goodnight."
"'night" Vince said and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
The next day Torrie was sitting in the living room watching TV when Chris walked down the stairs. Torrie didn't know what to say to the other girl or how she felt about her so she didn't say anything.
"Can we talk?" Chris started.
Torrie turned off the TV and looked at Chris. "Sure." She answered, politely but coolly.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry for what I said and for how I've been acting toward you. I made up my mind not to like you from the first time we met based on how other people acted before I even met you and it was wrong. I'm not saying I agree with how you treated me since then but I guess I didn't make it easy to like me. I didn't know how sore the subject I was talking about was."
"I'm sorry for what I said when I was so upset. I just acted on instinct and I was wrong." Torrie answered.
"I'd like to think we could get along..." Chris started.
"Me too." Torrie answered. "I think for now we'll just start over and take it slow, huh?" Torrie continued.
"I'd like that." Chris replied.
Chris went off to work in the café and Torrie headed down to DT feeling better then she had in a long time.
The rest of the two weeks that Dom was going to be gone for seemed to fly by and before Torrie knew it, it was the day before he was due home.
It was Saturday night and Dom was coming home on Sunday. Torrie couldn't wait. She'd missed Dom so much she was going to love having him back but she was going to miss driving his car and racing it too.
She decided to take it to races that night so she could drive it for the last time in races before Dom came home.
They all got ready and headed for races. Chris rode with Vince, Mia rode with Letty, Leon and Jesse took their own cars and Torrie took the 8. Brian had to work and Letty was meeting Rome at races.
They rolled up with Torrie at the point of the flying V. They parked and got out of their cars. Edwin and Hector walked up to Torrie.
"Hey little Dawg. When's the big Dawg Coming home?"
"Tomorrow." Torrie answered with a huge smile. "So I'm taking this last chance to race his car. Who wants in?"
People started to murmur and slowly people walked up to get in on the race.
"Alright, let's go. I can't wait to take home that prize money. I need some new shoes."
"You that sure you're gonna win?" One of the other people in the race asked.
"Of course. The 8 can't loose!" Torrie laughed.
"Specially not when her real owner drives her!" A gravely voice said from behind Torrie.
Torrie spun around in shock.
"Dominic!" She squealed and jumped into his arms. They were locked into a passionate kiss in seconds. After a minute Dom let her come up for air.
"That's the kind of welcome I wanted, not to find my girl racing my baby again."
Torrie blushed. "I like racing your car. Made me feel closer to you. Welcome home."
"It's good to be back." Dom picked Torrie up and swung her around. "It's great to be back."
Chapter 80 – The 8 Can't Lose.
Vince trudged slowly up the stairs and knocked on Chris's door.
"Who is it?" She called and her voice sounded strange. Vince figured she'd been crying. He was not looking forward to talking to her and his mood did not improve when he realized that she might start crying in the middle of what he had to say.
"Vince. Can I come in?"
"I'd rather you didn't." The soft answer came from just on the other side of the door.
"I really think we need to talk." Vince answered softly back.
"About what?" Chris asked suspiciously, like she was scared he wanted to tell her bad news, like he didn't like her or he wanted her to leave.
She'd been planning on leaving at some point right from the time she'd moved in but now she didn't really want to. She liked Mia a whole lot. She'd never had a good friend like Mia before, or someone like Mia to take care of her. She also liked Leon and Jesse too. Leon was funny and Jesse was always nice to her.
She had feelings for Vince stronger then just like but she didn't know how he felt about her and it made her feel insecure. It really hadn't helped when he'd taken off after Torrie when the other girl had hit her. It really didn't seem fair.
"Stuff. It's important to me." Vince implored.
Chris opened the door.
"I guess then."
"Thanks." Vince replied and walked in. He walked up to the chair that was at the desk in the room and, turning it around he straddled it. "Why don't you have a seat?"
Chris sat on her bed.
"What did you want to talk about?" She asked, not meeting his eyes.
"About you and Torrie and Torrie and Me and you and me."
Chris looked up and she looked scared.
"It's ok, but there are some things we really need to discuss."
"Alright." Chris agreed on a sigh.
"Well, first of all, I'm sorry that I chased Torrie instead of staying here with you but you need to know I had my reasons."
Chris looked up like she couldn't believe he was really sorry.
"Torrie's like this really highly tuned car." Vince was going to try to explain things in terms he understood. "She has to have high test gas and she's really touchy about stuff. Like you cut the wheel too sharp and she's going to over steer and you're likely to crash. Or if you pop the clutch in high rmps, there's gonna be an afterburn and she's gonna spit flames and backfire in your face."
Chris looked at him strangely but also like she understood.
"And when you push her too far she does things you don't expect, just like when you push that highly tuned car too far or too fast."
"I see."
Vince continued.
"And it wasn't your fault, so don't think that's what I'm saying because I'm not. But the day that you and Torrie had your big fight I'd just picked her up from the airport because she'd run away from Dom because she thought that Dom had cheated on her."
Chris sucked in a sharp breath. "I didn't know."
"I know you didn't. But she found some shirt in Dom's room with some other chick's makeup on it and she flipped. Dom pushed her too far and like that same car, when you push the accelerator too hard the thing pulls away like a sonofabitch but you might not be able to control where it goes or how it acts. So I went to get her from the airport and I mostly convinced her things were fine, and that she over reacted. Because she had. Dom didn't really do anything. But it was hard to convince her of that because he use to cheat on his ex girl Letty."
"Why is Torrie dating him then?"
"Because she loves him. But when she first came here she was like you in a lot of ways. She'd just lost her world. Her mom had died about 8 months before and her dad about 3 or 4. She had no one, her home was about to be repo'ed and she raced Dom for slips and lost to him. When she first came here Dom was treating her kinda bad because he wanted her but he didn't want to want her. He told himself he didn't want to be with any girl. That he just wanted to sleep with Torrie because he thought she was pretty."
"She is pretty." Chris felt she had to say something.
"Yeah, she is. But Dom was also the first man she ever wanted to really date, he was her first serious boyfriend. She wasn't...well...experienced in any way...when she and he finally got together."
"She was a..." Chris couldn't say it, she was too embarrassed.
"Yeah. And she started to work on a birthday present for him. He'd written off his dad's car a while before and she decided to get it back for him and rebuild it. It was hard work and she was in over her head. She's a pretty good mechanic but she's not really as strong as she'd like to think and she didn't know enough about big block dodges to rebuild the engine on her own. She and I had become friends before that. I can't explain what it is about her but she's just like a little sister to me. I have to look out for her and I have to take care of her and god help anyone who hurts her. So she asked me to help her with the car and of course I agreed."
"That's a nice thing for her to want to do."
"It was. And we started to slave over it. I helped her all I could. I could have done more because she was already trying to work off what she owed Dom down at DT and running her own store but I had lots of free time. Dom was giving her a hard time about taking time to work at 'The Racer's Edge' and it was hard for her to get time to work on the project. But she wouldn't hear of letting me do it without her. It was her baby and she only wanted me working on it when she was there. She's the most stubborn person I know other then Dom. So she was sneaking around a lot. And lots of times when Dom couldn't find her he couldn't find me either."
"So he put 2 and 2 together and came up with 5?"
"Right. He accused us of having an affair in front of the whole team. They had a huge fight and she almost ran away over it. It sort of drove us closer together then we even had been."
"I guess I can see why..." Chris admitted.
"That's good." Vince answered. "But then whenever her and Dom would fight she'd come running to me and I'd take care of her. It was only the same thing I'd done for Letty all the time, only Torrie and I were closer in a lot of ways. But that's why she turns to me when she can't turn to Dom and why we seem so close. That's all there is to it. And I just have to take care of her because she needs me to."
"Thanks for explaining it to me Vince. I really do see why you feel the need to take care of her. But don't take this the wrong way or anything, but she needs to learn to cope on her own someday."
"She is learning. But it's a slow process. It turns out her dad wasn't dead and he just came back into her life a short time ago. Add into that time she was almost raped and I think you can see it's been a hard time for her of late. And I'm not saying it hasn't been for you. But Torrie's just so high strung that upsetting things to other people throw her right over the roof and she just freaks out and looses it. If I'd let her run off on her own that night we likely would have gotten a call that she wrapped her car around a phone poll while she drifted some corner or drove drunk and killed herself and or other people."
"Is she mental?" Chris asked, not to be mean, but just to understand.
"No, just high strung and dealing with a lot of shit."
"That is one wild story, how her life has been."
"Yeah. And you should know that Dom would do anything for her. I don't want ot make you scared of her or anything but if she tells Dom she wants you out of here he'll likely ask me to get you to go." Chris went to speak but Vince held up a hand and continued. "Now she told Dom that she didn't want that because she knew she'd said some things that were out of line. But I'm just saying that Dom's very protective of her. And I want you around so I don't want to see it come down that Dom tells you to go."
"You want me around?"
"Yeah I do. But it might be best to take it slow at first. And it might be strange for you to see me be so buddy buddy with Torr, but it's just that, she's my friend. And I really think if you're honest you didn't help the situation any with how you've treated her since the first time you met her."
"You're right. I didn't. And neither did she, but this is her home and I'm pretty much a guest here."
"That's true. But I think if you just talked to her, told her that you're sorry for how you've been acting and told her why it is you felt that way about her she'll get over it all really fast. She has one hell of a temper but she doesn't hold grudges at all. She'd likely even feel she owed you an apology for how she talked to you and stuff."
"I'll think about that Vince." Chris did think about it. And she wanted to be around. She liked Vince and she liked living with a team, a family. And she didn't want to be always fighting with the girl who was dating the team captain. And Vince, Mia, and Letty sure did love Torrie. The girl must be doing something right.
And Chris had nothing but sympathy for anyone who'd ever been sexually assaulted, even if the bastard who did it didn't get to go all the way with it. She made up her mind.
"Where is Torrie now?"
"Chrashed out in her room. She's sick and she took this medicine that knocks her out. You two can talk tomorrow. I'm gonna go to bed now myself. I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Sure. Goodnight."
"'night" Vince said and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
The next day Torrie was sitting in the living room watching TV when Chris walked down the stairs. Torrie didn't know what to say to the other girl or how she felt about her so she didn't say anything.
"Can we talk?" Chris started.
Torrie turned off the TV and looked at Chris. "Sure." She answered, politely but coolly.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry for what I said and for how I've been acting toward you. I made up my mind not to like you from the first time we met based on how other people acted before I even met you and it was wrong. I'm not saying I agree with how you treated me since then but I guess I didn't make it easy to like me. I didn't know how sore the subject I was talking about was."
"I'm sorry for what I said when I was so upset. I just acted on instinct and I was wrong." Torrie answered.
"I'd like to think we could get along..." Chris started.
"Me too." Torrie answered. "I think for now we'll just start over and take it slow, huh?" Torrie continued.
"I'd like that." Chris replied.
Chris went off to work in the café and Torrie headed down to DT feeling better then she had in a long time.
The rest of the two weeks that Dom was going to be gone for seemed to fly by and before Torrie knew it, it was the day before he was due home.
It was Saturday night and Dom was coming home on Sunday. Torrie couldn't wait. She'd missed Dom so much she was going to love having him back but she was going to miss driving his car and racing it too.
She decided to take it to races that night so she could drive it for the last time in races before Dom came home.
They all got ready and headed for races. Chris rode with Vince, Mia rode with Letty, Leon and Jesse took their own cars and Torrie took the 8. Brian had to work and Letty was meeting Rome at races.
They rolled up with Torrie at the point of the flying V. They parked and got out of their cars. Edwin and Hector walked up to Torrie.
"Hey little Dawg. When's the big Dawg Coming home?"
"Tomorrow." Torrie answered with a huge smile. "So I'm taking this last chance to race his car. Who wants in?"
People started to murmur and slowly people walked up to get in on the race.
"Alright, let's go. I can't wait to take home that prize money. I need some new shoes."
"You that sure you're gonna win?" One of the other people in the race asked.
"Of course. The 8 can't loose!" Torrie laughed.
"Specially not when her real owner drives her!" A gravely voice said from behind Torrie.
Torrie spun around in shock.
"Dominic!" She squealed and jumped into his arms. They were locked into a passionate kiss in seconds. After a minute Dom let her come up for air.
"That's the kind of welcome I wanted, not to find my girl racing my baby again."
Torrie blushed. "I like racing your car. Made me feel closer to you. Welcome home."
"It's good to be back." Dom picked Torrie up and swung her around. "It's great to be back."