Chapter 5 - All about the Car?
"What's with bringing her back here Dawg?" Leon gave Vince an incredulous look. Vince never took girls home. He wasn't even drunk, and he'd taken off in the middle of a party. Leon was not really sure what to think.
"She's harmless, well other then being Manda Williams' cousin." Vince shrugged. "She had no where else to go. She was gonna sleep in her garage on the floor out in the middle of no where and I wasn't leaving her there. Plus you guys bring girls over all the time." Vince added defensively. He didn't see the big deal over who he brought home with him.
"Not to do nothing but sleep in the same bed. She's not a skank you brought home for the night V. You goin soft on us?" Leon smirked, figuring old Coyote had finally met a girl he really liked.
"No, I'll show you soft." Vince made a threatening hand gesture at his friend. "She's got this sweet car that I'm gonna get to drive while I teach her how. You'll understand when you see her car. Plus, you saw her, not half bad huh?" Vince cocked an eyebrow, a habit he'd picked up from Letty. It was Leon's turn to shrug. The girl hadn't really been his type. He was more into willowy blondes then compact brunettes. Vince continued. "Enough about my personal life already. What'd Dom want?"
"He had to move the big job up two days to Monday. So don't make any plans then."
"Well that's fine with me; I'm pretty open this week." They all laughed at that. Vince did his own thing; no one was really sure what that consisted of. Some times he worked for Dom at the DT garage, but no one knew how he got enough money to live like he did. Besides that, Vince did something with his days when he wasn't at the garage. But coyote played his hand close, he didn't talk about it and the others didn't press.
"I'm going to bed now guys. Later." With that Vince went and knocked on his own door. He shook his head at the absurdity. "You decent Nyssa?"
"Yes." The answer came and he went into the room. Her hair was up on top of her head in a messy riot of curls but she was still wearing all her clothes.
"Why didn't you change for bed?" Vince was slightly hurt, thinking it was because she didn't trust him not to force himself on her in the night. He shook the feeling off. What did he care if she wanted to sleep in her clothes?
"My night stuff is at Manda's so I have nothing to change into. I thought I had it in my bag but I didn't put it in there before we left the house. I thought that's where I'd be sleeping. I'll just sleep in my clothes. No big deal."
"I guess you didn't expect to be crashing in a strange place. I'll find you something." He went to his dresser and rooted around for a minute. He found an old shirt of his. It should cover her from her neck to her mid thigh at least. That had to be better then sleeping in leather pants. "Here, wear this. I'll turn my back while you change."
He turned around and she turned her back to him and striped off. Vince peaked while she was turned around. She had a nice ass he thought. He turned back around before she could catch him looking. She told him she was done and he faced her again. He told her to get in the bed and he did so too. She curled up on her side facing away from him. He lay on his side and looked at her back.
"Vince?" A small voice whispered in the dark. It was clear she was uncomfortable with what she had to say.
"Yeah?" He asked, making an effort not to come off angry or curt. He felt a difficult conversation coming on, something to be avoided at all costs.
"Thanks for doing this for me. It's been a long time since anyone worried."
"No problem girl, go to sleep." He listened as her breathing changed to the deep, even timber of relaxation. He was glad she'd gone to sleep and not kept talking to him. He had a lot on his mind. Was he going soft? Maybe, he answered his own question.
Why was this not a problem? It should be. The old Vince would not have brought a strange girl home out of concern for her. He only would have brought her down here if he thought he was going to get laid out of it. He didn't know if Nyssa would have slept with him or not but he found he didn't care as much as he thought he should. He hadn't wanted to think of her out there trying to sleep on the floor. And he wanted to know why she was scared of her step father too. He finally drifted off after about half an hour of musing about his new found companion.
Vince woke up with the girl in his arms. How did that happen? Last he remembered they had been on opposite sides of the bed. He never ended up wrapped around the skanks he took to bed. Of course he kicked most of them out of his room long before the morning after.
He looked over at his clock. Ah shit, it was 1pm. Nyssa was going to flip. He vaguely remembered her saying something about having school in the morning when they'd been talking last night. He was going to have to wake her. He wondered what school she was in. He had been done by 19. It had been technical school, but he had still been done and he got a trade out of it. He shook her.
"Wake up Nyssa. Hey wake up."
She swatted at his face without waking up and snuggled against him closer. He wanted to let her sleep. She felt somehow right tucked up beside him. But he knew she was going to be upset as it was, besides the thought of her belonging in his bed scared the shit out of him and he had to escape. He shook her shoulder. "Nyssa, it's like 1 o'clock. You need to wake up."
She came to with a start. She looked up at him, violet eyes wide with shock and disorientation.
"Where am I?"
"You don't remember?"
The whole evening came back to her at his slightly disbelieving question. "I remember now. Thanks for letting me crash here. What time did you say it was?"
"It's, well, um, it's 1pm." Vince hated it when girls flipped out, and he figured he was about to see one do so.
She jumped out of bed. "Oh shit, oh shit. I missed school. If they tell Ed I'm dead. Manda was going to drive me this morning. Oh man." Nyssa moaned. "I gotta call Manda and see if she told anyone anything about me."
"Calm down Nyssa, and get dressed. I'll run you where ever. I'll even go in and tell them you being late is all my fault if you want. Why are you still in school anyway? Shouldn't you have graduated by now?" Vince figured he'd get a few answers to his questions while he tried to calm her down.
"Yes I should have, but when my brother died I failed a year. And the last thing I need is a strange guy coming in to tell the principal I'm late because we overslept." She shot Vince a dirty look, telling him with her gaze that he should have realized how bad that would be.
"Ok, I can see that would look bad." Vince laughed at the thought of how that would sound. Especially since she was standing in his bedroom wearing nothing but his old jersey. She joined him in the laughter, having come to the same visualization herself. "Want me to hide my head down under the blanket while you dress?"
"No, I want to put on a strip tease for you." Vince looked hopeful for a second till she set him straight. "What are you, simple? That was sarcasm. Hide yourself!" Nyssa wondered again at her flippant boldness with this man. She was normally shy with new people. Especially new male people.
He hid his head and she pulled out the clean change of clothes she had in her bag and got dressed. Today she was feeling more like herself. Black wife- beater, black leather low riders, chunky black boots, no makeup. She wondered why she was so comfortable with Vince already while she dressed. She normally didn't trust people till she got to know them.
She'd dated a boy when she was 16 who'd taken care of that for her. He had pretended to like her and then when she finally gave into his pressuring and slept with him he dumped her. She had been chubby at the time with a bad attitude as well and Doug and his jock friends had a bet to see if he could get the ice princess into bed. Well he had then her dad had taken care of him. She brought herself back from the past to the present. After all that was why she took care of herself now and while she didn't have a great deal of friends the ones she did have were true friends.
"Kay, I'm ready if you want to emerge now." Nyssa giggled at how foolish they must look.
Vince got up, and just started to get ready; he never had her turn around. She turned on her own, face flaming. She'd never seen a naked man before, just a naked boy. Even though the light hadn't been very strong when she'd been with Doug she had seen enough in both cases to notice the differences.
They headed upstairs once Vince was dressed and found Dom was in the kitchen. Vince hadn't expected Dom to be home. He knew Dom should have been at the garage since it was not even lunch time.
"Wondered when you were getting up Vince. Who's that with you?" Dom expected to hear, no one she was just leaving. That was the standard 'I had a skank over last night' answer for all of them. After all Vince had been crushing on Mia since Dom himself had hooked up with Letty. He knew Vince slept with other girls but that was all it was to him normally. He was a man, with a man's needs. He was not going to wait around for Mia forever. But the girls were always skanks.
"Her name's Nyssa. Nyssa, Dom, Dom, Nyssa." Nyssa shook Dom's hand nervously, remembering the angry man from the evening previous. Vince didn't want to make small talk all day. He thought quickly. "I have to drive her, um, home, and then I'll be back Dom." Telling Dom he had to drive her to high school just sounded really bad. Nyssa looked at him like the same thing occurred to her and she was glad he fibbed.
"Just a second Vince. Where did you meet her? Who is she? I'd like to know more about the pretty lady."
Oh shit, Vince thought, he thinks she's a race skank. He likely thinks she'll jump right from my bed to his if he snaps his fingers. After all he is the catch most of the skanks are after. But Dom had also made a promise to stop acting like he had the right to chase other girls too. Vince gave Dom a sharp look. "She's Nyssa. I met her at the races last night. She's a friend of mine. I think she is going to become an even better friend of mine, and she has to get home or she's gonna be late for work."
"Oh, ok." Dom took the hint from Vince saying she was going to become a better friend. That meant she was not a skank. Well that was good. Vince needed to get over Mia, who was never going to love him in that way. He watched the two head to Vince's car. They sped off. Dom figured there was nothing out of the ordinary about that and went back out to the garage.
Vince drove Nyssa to school and let her off in front. "So when you done for the day? I could come back for you and we could take your car for a spin." What the hell was he thinking making plans with her again already? She was going to think he was desperate. He should have waited a few days then called her.
"Ok Vince that sounds great. I'm done at 3:15 ok?"
"See you then, right back here."
"See you then." She ran into the school and went strait to the principal's office. "Hey Mister Morris, sorry I missed this morning. I had bad cramps."
"Oh, that's...well, that's f...it's just fine." Her principal told her fine and gave her a pass to get into the rest of the day's classes. Mr. Morris could not handle talk about the female body or its functions. Out of Tampax was the magic phrase to get an afternoon off. He'd rather let girls out of class then risk hearing a biological term he had no desire to hear.
Nyssa ran out of his office and sat down in her chem. lab beside Manda. Manda was a year younger so due to Nyssa being held back a year they had all the same classes. Manda gave her the third degree on the break. Nyssa told Manda everything. How she had stayed with Vince but nothing happened. How she met Dom and how Vince was going to teach her to drive the Skyline and maybe even race it. Manda was so envious of her it was obvious to see. Nyssa didn't care because of how her cousin had abandoned her rather then wait with her and accept their fate together.
When Nyssa told Manda Vince was picking her up after school she could swear Manda almost decked her. Oh well, that's what you get for abandoning me last night, Nyssa though.
The final bell rang and she ran out to where Vince was supposed to meet her. And there he was, standing beside his car, leaning on the passenger side door. She hadn't expected him to show, in all honesty. She ran up to him and he actually hugged her. It was hard to tell which one was more surprised. He set her down and asked her how her day had gone.
"Oh, same old. Boring as hell. I can't wait to be done so I don't have to go anymore," she told him. He helped her into the car and then they took off.
Manda watched them go, blue eyes flashing. Her ungrateful cousin never even asked her if she needed a ride. And Manda had to cover for her that morning when her stupid stepfather called looking for her. The fact that Manda had had a car handed to her for her 16th and never had to worry about drives didn't figure into her anger with her cousin.
Nyssa and Vince arrived at Nyssa's garage and parked Vince's car. "So Vince how do you wanna do this? Do you want to leave your car here and take mine or do you want me to follow you where ever?"
"No, lets just take your car together. Let me drive it to the track?" He asked with such a hopeful look on his face she laughed.
"Sure you can drive it there. Do you like me at all or is this interest all for my car?" She asked, semi serious.
"No, I like you too. But I really want to drive this car."
"Aight, let's get a move on. I have to go home for supper."
"Do you have to go home for supper? I was kinda going to take you out to this great little Cuban restaurant I know. After all it's Friday." No he wasn't! That just kind of slipped out. What was with him? Where had that come from? But he found the idea pleasant now that he thought about it.
