Chapter 11 - Little Toni's
The movie was fun, but Dean couldn't concentrate. He slouched in his seat and stole glances at AJ. He could tell she noticed a couple times, but he didn't care, and she didn't seem to mind. During quiet scenes, he'd slowly raise a limp string of licorice until it was about to go up her nose. AJ sat completely still, slowly moving her eyes to look at him and warn him not to go any further. Dean poked her nose anyway, and AJ had to stifle her laugh. It didn't help that Dean took the licorice back and ate it before she could grab it and retaliate.
"You hungry?" Dean asked as they walked out on the credits.
AJ touched a hand to her stomach. "I could have a salad. Maybe."
"How 'bout I take you to Little Toni's and you can have anything you want?"
When they walked into Toni's, there was a girl in a leopard print dress filing her nails at the hostess' stand.
"Hey." she said flatly without looking up, snapping her gum as she chewed it open-mouthed. "Welcome to Toni's. Sit anywhere ya like."
There was a guy across the room with a red apron on. He perked up as soon as he saw there were customers and hurried over, a nervous smile on his face.
"Carmella," he muttered under his breath to the hostess.. "How many times I gotta tell you, don't file your nails in the dining room?"
"I'm not in the dining room, 'zo."
"You're dining room adjacent. It counts, Carm!"
She wasn't looking at him, but her co-worker made a face and a gesture like he wanted to strangle her. He got ahold of himself, for the sake of his customers. Smiling again, he turned to Dean and AJ.
"Yo, follow me." he said. When he turned, he revealed a nose ring and the cheetah-print pattern shaved into the other side of his head. He led Dean and AJ to a booth where they got settled and took their menus.
"Apologies for the hostess, she's, uhh...new. My name is Enzo Amore, and I'll be your server tonight. You got any questions, you give me a shout and I'll be out here lickety splits."
"I have a question." Dean said before Enzo could leave them.
"Shoot, chief."
"Is your last name really Amore?"
Enzo gave Dean an incredulous stare, eyebrows jokingly furrowed, awed that anyone would doubt such a thing. "Yeah!" he said, like an uncle trying to convince a kid that fairies are real. "Don't you feel the love?"
"I feel it, brother." Dean replied. AJ had to bow her head and let her hair cover her face to keep from laughing.
"So are we on a date here or what?" Enzo asked them, turning to both of them and taking Dean's eyebrow raise as an affirmative answer.
"First date?"
AJ nodded.
Enzo nodded slowly. "Alright. I like it, I'm feelin' the chemistry between you two. We got a heart-shaped pizza, page three. Heart-shaped pepperoni, too. Not just for Valentine's day anymore. Would the lady be interested in any of our heart-shaped menu items?"
"I think we'll stick to the circular ones." said AJ.
"Not a problem, not a problem. Don't sleep on that pasta menu though, the Frutti di Mare is on point. Our secret is an Irish cook but don't tell anybody I told you that."
"Our lips are sealed." said Dean.
"How you gonna eat with sealed lips? I'm joking, of course. I'll give you a minute to look over the menu."
"Wow." as all AJ could say, when Enzo walked back to the front of the restaurant to make sure Carmella the hostess wasn't grooming herself.
"I think that's the owner's son," said Dean. "Haven't seen him in a while, must be filling in."
AJ watched Enzo; he seemed to be begging Carmella for a little more effort.
"I vouch for you, and this is what I get?"
Poor guy. AJ thought to herself with an internal chuckle. She glanced up at Dean and found him looking back at her.
"What?" AJ asked him. She stifled a smile.
Dean shrugged, a faint and casual smile turning one side of his mouth up. "I just feel like you have all these secrets. I want to unlock them."
AJ chuckled to herself and shook her head. "I don't have secrets. You just have to know what to ask."
Dean smiled and slouched back in his seat.
"You already know where I work." AJ reminded him.
"That's not a secret." Dean dismissed it, jokingly disappointed.
"Nobody else knows. Just you and your friends. And the other girls."
"And everyone else that ever goes there." Dean teased her.
"Have you ever been there?" AJ asked, that slightly defiant look entering her eyes.
Dean pressed his lips together, suppressing a smile. "Mm." He made that sound like the truth wanted to come out and he wouldn't let it. "How do I answer that?" he asked.
"Honestly. It's not like I'll judge you for going. I make a living there, you know."
Dean dropped the mental fidgeting act. "I've been there a couple times." he admitted casually. "A boy's gotta have his eighteenth birthday somewhere."
"Did you like it?"
"Of course I liked it. But none of the girls back then were as cute as you."
AJ took the compliment with a pleased smile, but he wasn't off the hook yet.
"Did you tip them well?" she asked.
"You saw the money I have spilling out of my pants, of course I tipped them well."
"I think you have secrets." she countered, "Now that you mention it."
"I guess I do." he replied matter-of-factly. "I mean, who asks their date if they're a drug dealer?"
"I do." said AJ, still defiant since he was still teasing her. "Who carries their money like that?"
"I do." Dean echoed, verbally sticking his tongue out.
"I spend a lot of nights serving guys who carry cash like that. I just wanted to get it over with, so I'd know."
"Would you have walked away if I said yes?"
"Probably. I don't have time to deal with that right now."
"How do you know, have you been with a drug dealer before?"
AJ grinned at his logic. "No..." she said truthfully.
"Then how do you know?" he asked, still teasing her for her defiant attitude.
"I just know." AJ said with a smirk, not backing down.
Enzo stopped by their table with two glasses of water, leaving them right afterward so they could continue chatting and looking over the menu. They both leaned toward the table, bowing their heads to read. After a few seconds, Dean looked up at AJ.
"You just want a normal guy?" Dean asked, picking up where they left off.
"Not normal," she said, stressing the word as if it meant boring. "Just...honest."
"Well, I'm not a drug dealer."
AJ glanced up from her menu. "...Good."
"But..." Dean added, hesitating afterward.
AJ tilted her head and made a disappointed face.
"...That money isn't from driving limos."
"See?" said AJ. "I should trust my instincts."
"I just don't know if the truth is better or worse, you know?"
"Well let's see, what could be worse...are you a hitman?"
"It's still car money. I wasn't lying."
AJ hesitated as she put two and two together. In hindsight it was pretty obvious, knowing what he was so famous for in high school.
"...Do you steal cars?"
Dean didn't say anything at first. His slight smile was revealing. AJ's silence was not; she seemed to be digesting the information slowly. Dean leaned forward, hunching over the table with his biceps pressed against the edge of the table.
"Did I ruin the date?" he asked quietly.
"No." AJ said softly.
"It wasn't exactly a secret, back in the day." he pointed out.
"You did have a reputation." AJ admitted, cracking the smallest of smirks. It was unsure, as if she wanted to say more. Dean kept watching her face, but she was using the menu as a way to avoid eye contact.
"...Can I ask you something?" she said, looking up.
"You can ask me anything." He looked at her patiently while she decided whether or not she really wanted to hear the answer.
"...Why do you do it?" she eventually asked.
Dean looked down at his menu. Hmm.
"I mean, is it just for the money?" AJ wondered. "Is it exciting?"
"The money is good." Dean said with a shrug. "And easy. We got so good at it, it doesn't even feel like stealing anymore. It just feels natural. Like we're just picking up an order."
AJ looked puzzled. Dean leaned forward again.
"There's this guy who takes the cars." Dean explained in a lower voice. "I don't know where they go after that, or who buys them. He pays us to drop them off at his garage. He'll tell us a color, a size...sometimes we pick one out ourselves based on what he likes."
"'We'?"
"Me, Roman and Seth. We're a team." he said with another shrug, as if there were no other way to live his life. He was happy to see a smile spreading over AJ's face. The same smile was reflected in Dean's eyes. There was a genuine sparkle there as he explained it.
"And, I don't know if this makes a difference, but we don't just take random cars. We only take high-end stuff from people who have insurance and can take a hit or two. Or they just have so much money they have three cars already, I dunno. I'm not Robinhood, it's not like we give the cars to the poor."
AJ let out an involuntary chuckle. Dean smiled.
"...But, taking from the rich does have its appeal."
AJ thought about Dolph and his friends - especially Cody - who considered their vehicles to be one of the most important symbols of their social status. After her recent interaction with them, she was inclined to agree with Dean.
"It does make a difference." she admitted, much to Dean's delight. She flashed back to their rainy night, to the comments she'd found so cryptic, and a few more pieces of the puzzle fell into place. "Were you driving a stolen car when you picked me up that night?" she asked.
"Yeah." Dean admitted, a sheepish grin forming.
"Does your dad know?"
"No, he has no idea I'm doing that now. I mean, he remembers my teenage years. And he used to be into all kinds of gangster shit when he was younger. He spent some time in jail. He went completely straight after he got out, though. He didn't want to go back there. Then he got custody of me. He says that helped him stay out of trouble too."
"What did he go to jail for?"
"Dealing drugs." Dean said, smiling because of their recent conversation.
AJ smiled sheepishly.
"Aren't you scared of getting caught with the cars?" she asked.
Dean leaned forward. "Look into my eyes."
AJ humored him and leaned forward, smirking preemptively.
"...You think I couldn't charm my way out of jail?" he asked.
AJ cracked up and rolled her eyes. "Haven't you seen Oz? I know what happens to pretty boys in prison."
Dean was grinning in reaction to AJ's comment when Enzo returned to the table.
"She thinks I'm pretty." Dean said to Enzo.
"You're the most beautiful man I've ever laid eyes on." Enzo deadpanned, his pen poised on a pad of paper. "You ready to order?"
They hadn't looked at the menu yet, but Enzo was patient and made a few more suggestions. After telling him what they wanted to eat, AJ waited for Enzo to walk away before she turned her attention back to Dean.
"If you're so good at stealing cars, then why are your hands always taped up? It looks like you punch holes through the windows."
Dean sat back and put a hand to his chest, as if she'd shot an arrow through his heart. "First of all: ouch." he scolded her. "That's only happened once, by the way. Yeah, I'm as surprised as you are. Second of all, these bloody stumps have nothing to do with the car stealing. And third, it's my turn to interrogate you."
"Oh boy, here we go..."
"What's the deal with you and Dolph?"
AJ tilted her head back and groaned.
"Come on now, you abandoned me in line to go talk to that fool. You gotta spill."
"...Okay, that's fair." AJ said, once again smiling at his logic.
"You guys dated in high school?"
"Yes, the last two years. We broke up when he went to college."
"Did you finally realize he was a douche bag and dump him?"
AJ sighed. "No. He dumped me so he could date sorority girls and I cried for weeks. So embarrassing."
"He wasn't worth it." Dean told her.
"I know that now," AJ replied, smirking. "But back then, I thought he was so sweet to me. Even though his friends always made me feel like shit. He never got it, he always thought I was being too sensitive."
AJ played with the straw in her water, stirring the ice as she reminisced about her high school days.
"Dolph was nice when it was just the two of us. But he was the leader of his little group and had to act 'cool' when they were around. He was so spoiled, too. They'd always go on trips that I couldn't afford. And then he'd act offended, like I was betraying him by being poor."
"Douche bag." Dean repeated, trying to be supportive.
"No kidding." AJ said appreciatively. "It took me a long time to realize what had happened. We were just from different worlds. I pretended I was someone else so I could be one of them, and they saw right through me. Cody, in particular - you remember him? - he did not let up for a second. He would make me cry all the time, just by making fun of my cheap clothes or how short I was."
"Now I wish I'd gone over there when I had the chance..."
AJ chuckled. "I'm over it."
"Doesn't mean they don't deserve an ass-kicking." Dean pointed out. Bullying struck a nerve with him on a very personal level.
"I felt bad for his new girlfriend." AJ admitted. "Cody is still exactly the same. Dolph is too, I'm sure."
"He seemed very happy to see you."
"Ugh. We're barely friends anymore." AJ continued to stir ice. "It feels like so long ago."
Dean chuckled to himself, recalling the way Dolph's face lit up when he saw AJ in the lobby.
"I don't think Dolph sees it that way."
"Well...that's too bad." said AJ. She looked up and smiled. "Because I'm on a date with you."
Dean smiled back and took the hint. "Where do you train?" he asked, more than happy to steer the subject away from other guys and back to AJ.
"Right now I'm doing one-on-one training with Phil Brooks at Knox. But...everyone calls him Punk."
"Punk?" Dean echoed incredulously.
"Yeah, Punk." AJ defended her coach. "What about you?"
"Officially, I was at Champion's, training with Shawn Michaels up until a few days ago."
"What happened a few days ago?"
"Eh..." Dean groaned. "I was letting loose on Zack. Going a little too hard. Coach had warned me about it but I just go to this place..."
AJ rested her chin on her hand and watched Dean. He was gesturing around his head, not sure how to describe his tendency to lose himself in a fight. He didn't exactly talk about it with anyone. Ever.
"Does this have anything to do with you 'forgetting your gloves'?" AJ asked.
Dean lifted his hands up to look at the knuckles, even though he knew exactly what he'd see. It had been a while since they didn't have tape around them.
"I've been getting into fights since I was a kid. I used to get the shit kicked out of me. After a certain point I started kicking back."
"You got beaten up?" AJ asked. Her eyebrows moved in a way that made her look sad. Dean had braced himself for being mocked or pitied, but AJ's reaction touched a different part of him. From what she said about Dolph's dear friend Cody, he figured she understood better than most.
"I was that poor kid with only one outfit that never got washed." Dean explained. "The other kids fuckin' hated me. Like they sensed a weakness in the herd and they had to eliminate it."
"I got picked on for being a nerd and a tomboy," AJ admitted. "But they never beat me up."
"There was just something about me, I guess." Dean grabbed his water glass from the table and took a long sip through the straw. "That's why Seth and Roman and I are so close. Didn't meet 'em until I moved in with my dad and started going to the same school as them. But they were both scrawny little victims of life like me when we met up."
"You were scrawny?" AJ could not imagine it, not on any of them. "When were you scrawny?"
"The first ten years of our lives, we had everyone telling us we were nothing. I mean, they didn't have to tell us, we just knew it. I had no one that gave a shit, and they were passed around like unwanted puppies, between relatives or in foster care. So we were nothing. But then we met up, and we told each other we could be something. We made a vow that we'd never let anyone fuck with us ever again. Luckily, we all grew a few feet right after that."
AJ chuckled.
"And we discovered the school's weight room right around then too. That helped too."
"Do you mind if I ask you what happened to your mom?"
"I told you you can ask me anything you want."
AJ smiled. "You said your dad got custody..."
"Ah. Well, see, my mom...she was a coke whore."
AJ blushed. She'd never heard anyone seriously refer to their own mother that way. She knew Dean had a sick sense of humor, but she could tell he wasn't joking about this.
"I'm pretty sure she would have sold me for a bump, if it had come to that." Dean continued, not for shock value, not for sympathy, just his honest version of the truth. "But, at the same time, she was also crazy possessive and always told me my dad had abandoned us. He was in jail for a while, when I was a kid, so it was easy to convince me. I know now that he would have been there for us if he could have been. Between the drugs and the other stuff on his record, that was enough for my mom to get full custody. Her version was all about how he hated me and that I was damn lucky to have her or else I'd be all alone. And she lied about everything else too, all the time. She lied to my dad, she'd lie to me, she'd lie to my teachers about why I was absent from school all the time. All for the drugs. That was all that mattered. Just keeping a path clear for the drugs. Eventually that meant living with some guys that weren't exactly step-father material."
Dean paused to take another gulp of water. It seemed like he just wanted to get it all out at once, so AJ did not interrupt.
"The last guy we lived with had a temper. For a while he was smart and sober enough to hit me where that one stupid outfit would hide it, but this one time, the last time...I decided to mouth off and he put me in the hospital. Bruises all around my neck, black eyes, busted teeth." Dean pointed to his slightly crooked front tooth. "That's the day I got my charming smile."
AJ smiled sadly. It was charming. She just wished it had a different origin story.
"So, those injuries weren't going to stay hidden for long. I don't remember everything from back then, repressed memories and all that shit. But I do remember my teacher crying when she saw me walk into class like that. I don't think I realized before that, that my life wasn't normal. I just figured every kid had one terrible fucking parent and a replacement dad that hated their guts for no reason. They had to explain it to me, my teacher and the principal. Why I wasn't going back home."
Dean laughed a bitter laugh.
"'Cause I thought that was the punishment. I never saw the boyfriend again after that, aside from the day in court when they told my mother she was trash and couldn't see me anymore. Same day I saw my dad again, for the first time in seven years. That's when I started to realize I wasn't being punished. I was being rescued."
Enzo came over with their appetizer. If he sensed the serious tone of their conversation, he didn't mention or make light of it. "Take your time with this one." he said, referring to the dish, or maybe to the date. AJ wasn't sure, but his concern that they thoroughly enjoy their date in his restaurant did amuse her.
Dean didn't hesitate to grab the first bite. He figured it could help him change the damn subject.
"I'm a real barrel of laughs, huh?" he said. "I'd ask you to share the worst thing that ever happened to you, but I don't think that would lighten the mood."
AJ chuckled sympathetically, taking some cheese and garlic smothered bread from the basket. "I'm glad you told me. Thank you...for being honest. About everything."
"Can't help myself." said Dean. "I think you have a power over me."
"I'm glad you had your dad after that."
"He'd been clean for a few years by then. He'd been trying to contact me, to get shared custody at least. Took what happened for the state to take him seriously."
"And you met Roman and Seth at your new school?"
"On my first day they pulled me aside and said I could sit with them for lunch. They told me all the fucked up nicknames they had for all the kids that made fun of them. I came up with new ones and we've been best friends ever since. My brothers from other mothers."
AJ smiled. She'd seen firsthand, all through high school, how close they were.
"My dad became their dad too. He was a tough guy with all these cool cars and stories, so...we worshipped him. He taught us how to fight fair and have fun without getting into too much trouble. He didn't realize it, but he taught us how to do a lot of things without getting into trouble."
Dean and AJ laughed at that together.
"What about your dad, do I have to worry about him?" Dean asked.
"Depends." AJ answered slyly.
"Oh fuck." said Dean.
AJ giggled.
"What does he think of your ass-kicking hobby?"
"My training?" AJ smiled, correcting him. "He's proud of me. He doesn't want me to stop paying for the lessons." AJ's smile faltered.
"He works a lot?" Dean asked, remembering their other conversations.
"Almost non-stop. Every time we're about to break even, something else comes up. The worst thing that's ever happened to me? I feel like it's always about to happen. They'll lose the house, or my mom..."
AJ trailed off, pulling at another piece of cheesy bread.
"Well I'm not a doctor," Dean pointed out the obvious. "But...if you need money...?"
AJ shook her head. "My dad wouldn't take it. Especially if he knew where it came from."
"Would he need to know?"
"He would definitely need to know that."
"What if you roll up tomorrow in a vintage Mustang?"
"I already rolled away in one. As long as he gets me back I think he'll be okay."
Dean smiled. Enzo brought their entrees a few minutes later, and they tasted as good as they smelled.
"Your folks got you on a curfew tonight?" Dean asked casually, lifting a big fork full of spaghetti to his mouth.
AJ smiled coyly and shook her head. Dean smiled and reached for the red pepper shaker, watching AJ as he chewed.
"Good." he said. There was a look in his eyes that almost made AJ blush again.