Disclaimer: I do not own the Fast and the Furious.

Chapter 5: Corrosive

"Dom, what do you want me to do with this?" Mia asked me, waving a clipboard with invoices in front of my face. This was an escalation from the previous three times she'd asked me that question in the last ten minutes. I straightened up from the Cadillac I was replacing the filters on and slowly rolled my head to relieve the tension in my neck.

"I don't know Mia," I said evenly turning to face her head on. I wiped my hands on a rag I had lying about. She shoved the clipboard in my hands.

"Well you have to do something." I frowned.

"Isn't that why I brought you here?" If she wasn't able to make sense of these invoices, bills, and earning statements then I definitely wasn't going to be able to do it. Correction. I didn't want to devote the time needed to make sense of what the garage was doing administratively. Mia smacked the clipboard which pushed it towards my chest. My eyes narrowed.

"Read what I circled Dominic." I skimmed down the page on top, my eyes resting on a figure circled in red. Was that a negative sign? My eyes widened and I heaved in a large breath. Apparently the increase in business wasn't covering much more than the supply of parts for our client jobs and the utilities. I was thankful that the businesses and the house were mortgage free.

"Let's go talk in the office," I told her, turning to enter the place I refused to enter unless absolutely necessary. That meant I had been in this office twice since I'd been home, both times to scribe checks to cover Leon and Jesse's salaries. The desk was much neater than the last time I'd seen it. Mia had separated all of the paperwork into neat piles, the better to catch the books up to date. The filing cabinet was open with folders ready to receive the paper trail that was waiting for her to decide how she wanted to keep things organized. I sat in the swivel chair that was in front of the computer which left Mia the chair next to the desk after she closed the door. "So I over-drafted the garage account last month?"

"No Dom. That figure is what will be left this month once you pay Leon, Jesse, and the supplier for specialty parts for the fam…for erm uh…for all of our…" Mia faltered. She didn't seem to know what to call our quasi family. Leon and Jesse had grown on me since I had come home but I didn't necessarily consider them family yet.

"The team?" I supplied for her. That seemed like the best label for what we were. Not quite family, not exactly casual acquaintances either. She nodded.

"Yeah, specialty parts for the team." I raked my hand over my bald head, exhaling a frustrated sigh.

"Aside from that though, we're breaking even right?"

"Here? Just barely. But look at the big picture Dom," she leaned over and flipped to the second page where another figure was circled. At least this one wasn't negative, but it was very low. "The café is barely making it too and I'm there full time now." I looked at the numbers again then flipped to the page underneath and pinched the bridge of my nose.

"What is this?"

"The household expenses Dom." The number circled there was ridiculous. I saw in the margins dates and little numbers. Second, Third, Second, Second.

"Mia, what does this stuff mean?" I asked referring to her notes.

"What notice we're on and when they plan to cut off those services. Dom, the lights are on their third notice. They'll turn them off in ten days." Mia looked stressed. How did they survive while I was gone? I thought Mia had been paying the bills with the household account. Why hadn't she told me?

"How did things get like this?" I accused her. She looked into my eyes sharply, her temper flaring.

"Are you asking how we got in this mess or how I got us into this mess?" she said in a deadly low voice. It caught me off guard she sounded so much like Letty. It rankled.

"Watch your tone with me."

"No Dom," she yelled at me, "you watch your tone with me. If you weren't so busy ignoring your responsibilities," she waved to the stacks of paper sitting on the desk, "you'd realize that you can't fund mods on everyone's cars, and the charger, and pay salaries, and pay the bills on the nonexistent profit you're pulling in here," she was standing over me now. I resisted the urge to push the chair back.

"Papa did it," I defended.

"Papa's racing income paid for a lot of that," she countered.

"Well Vince did it," I tried again, desperate to win the battle. I didn't want this to be my fault. I also didn't want to physically push Mia out of my face either but her hostile posture was raising my temper.

The comment seemed to drain the fight out of Mia. She straightened up and regained her seat, "Vince wasn't doing it all. Not at home anyway. All that money Han was giving me kept up the property and everyone's car insurance," second notice, I read, "electricity," third notice, "water and sewage," second notice, "cable, phone, and internet," second notice.

"And you used it all."

"Yeah, it's long gone Dom and I've been using the money from the café to keep us all fed and in Corona." Mia gave me a rueful smile then shook her head, "so, what do you want me to do with this?"

I didn't have an answer for her. I'd lived these last two months in ignorant bliss of what our financial situation was like. My anger was dissipating rapidly being replaced by a gargantuan hole formed by that corrosive chemical called guilt. It was eating up the progress I thought I had made with Mia regarding trust. I desperately wanted her to feel she could trust me to take care of her and here I was running us into the ground. I rubbed my hand over my face, stood then pulled Mia up into a hug.

"I'll take care of it," I said quietly. She pulled back, her eyes questioning me. I needed to remove the stressed look from her face. "I promise. Don't stress."

But Mia looked stressed that night at dinner. Vince and Letty didn't know why we'd been yelling at the garage but they had known us long enough not to mention it. Toretto's needed to stew first before we could calmly discuss a problem. Three hours would not have made the situation less fresh for either of us. So I worked hard to ignore Mia's stress and Vince suggested we watch a movie. If he or Letty were expecting that extra two hours to give us time to look less aggravated, they were sorely mistaken. Mia was still stressed and I was still feeling both lost and irritated.

By nine I had retreated to my room, stripped down to my boxers, and lay on my back in the dark looking unseeingly at the ceiling. I didn't need to look at the reports Mia'd shown me earlier that day. The figures kept writing themselves in traffic light neon colors on the imaginary dry erase board I'd mentally erected on the ceiling. Two thousand dollars times two employees plus a fluctuating tab that was six grand this month for specialty parts. Ten thousand flashed in red. I needed to figure out how to stop the bleed here. I made a note to ask Vince how he'd been able to pay Leon and Jesse this long without putting the garage in the red.

I already knew why that other tab had become weighty. I was starting to rebuild the charger. I'd been inspired by Han. He'd called the other night to catch up and mentioned that he'd rebuilt his car. If he could rebuild his car less than a year after Daphne's death then I could stand to rebuild papa's charger after two years. But I was also sinking money into my Mazda. Two years of random care had left it needing a few upgrades and a massive tune up. I'd also let Letty and Vince continue to order whatever they needed to keep their cars in working order. Papa had never paid us what others might consider a 'salary' however; he had made sure that none of us had to worry about getting the essentials for car care or room and board. I felt that since Letty and Vince were still operating under the old system I owed it to them not to make them feel guilty by mentioning that I couldn't foot the bill.

Regardless of what I could do to get the expenses managed at the garage, it still didn't pay the bills at home. Property insurance for the garage, café and house was averaging three hundred a month. Then tack on six hundred in car insurance for the Mazda, charger, Maxima, and 240sx. Add the fees and it came to two g's. Electricity wasn't bad: a hundred twenty dollars a month except it was three months behind and the fees had brought the grand total to eight hundred. Water and sewage was more reasonable at four hundred. The cable, phone and internet bill was a ludicrous twelve hundred. Then again, Mia had combined the phone to mean cell phones as well. The grand total of four thousand, four hundred dollars and zero over one hundred cents flashed in red on my mental dry erase board. There wasn't any way to stop the bleed here. We needed all of those things. Well, maybe not the cell phones, but I couldn't fathom us living without them.

I thought about the café again. Three hundred dollars in profit remained. But Mia had already itemized out her two hundred dollar trip to the grocery store this month and a two hundred dollar deduction she'd labeled 'gas'. I groaned. We had this small chip can in the kitchen cabinet where we kept our communal gas money. I never even thought about how money made it to that can until tonight. Mia had been using first Han's money, now the café's, to fund our gas guzzling. For the first time in my life I thought about going to that can and there not being enough money for anyone to put gas in their car to even go to work. The thought made me sick to my stomach.

I lay there my brain on economic meltdown, my eyes still wide open. That's how Letty found me at a quarter to midnight. She slipped into the room and closed the door, pausing to pull her pants off. She stood indecisive for a moment and my libido was able to figure out what she was thinking. If she went to the drawer for a pair of my boxers then I could expect trouble if I wanted sex. If she came to bed in her underwear and that spaghetti strap top she could expect that I'd give her the business sometime between her slipping under the covers and us getting ready for work tomorrow. I counted to sixty in my mind before she decided to toss her pants in the corner, pulled her hair out the ponytail, and came to lie down beside me. She rested her head on my chest, her body tense at first, waiting expectantly for me to give her some indication that I recognized she was there. Would I put my arm around her waist or would I rub her ass? I started counting again. I just wished she would fall asleep. I didn't want to move my arms from behind my head. The numbers were still blinking through my mind. There was no yellow. Only red, more red, and a minimal green. Silly green, it kept fading in an out. Slowly the tension faded out of her body and I recognized that she'd relaxed into sleep. It would take me till three a.m. before I would allow myself to follow her.

Two days later I was standing downstairs with Vince waiting for Letty and Mia. This would be the first time since I got home that anyone would have gone to the races. I was getting frustrated. We were going to be so late we might miss the whole purpose of going to the races to begin with. I folded my arms then sucked in a deep breath to bellow at them.

"Yo, let's go already." I heard stomping start overhead which got louder as they descended the stairs.

"Alright already, geez," Mia shot back. Mia had started going to races while I was away. She was wearing a short black skirt, some black heels, and a flimsy bright green thing that was masquerading as a top. I raised an eyebrow at her. She had the audacity to raise one back.

"You want to change your top?" I asked dryly.

"I thought you were ready to go?" she asked conversationally.

"Not with you dressed like that," I growled.

Vince coughed then added in a gruff voice, "You look good Mia." My head spun around to look at him. I would have to talk to Vince about his growing infatuation with my sister. Letty jangled her keys to catch our attention. I noticed that she was wearing a skirt too. It was as short as Mia's and her top was just as flimsy but in purple to match her car. Her hair was also hanging loose. Was that makeup on her eyes and lips? I frowned. Who told them they could dress like that?

"Come on," she looked at me, widening her eyes slightly and motioning towards the door with her head. I didn't even bother to comment. Instead we all walked outside, Mia locking up before sliding into the car with Letty. I followed Vince and Letty to the empty warehouse district that had become the permanent meet place for the race scene. I felt my adrenaline start to make me hyped the further the house was behind us. By the time we reached the scene I was ready for what I needed to do. This was familiar. The cars lined up in two rows, creating a walkway for people to walk around. There were girls out here with more scandalous clothes on than Mia and Letty, strutting between cars and racers, trying to scope out who they wanted to take them home tonight, only caring about who the winners would be. Racers were sitting on their cars or else next to their cars, showing people their mods and paint jobs. And in the middle of this chaos was Hector. Vince had told me that Hector was now helping to run the races and often held the money if his cousin wasn't. We exited the cars and made our way towards Hector. Although Letty and Mia were behind me and Vince, I was aware of them, thankful that they were sticking close. As I approached Hector, he looked up, a wide smile on his face.

"Yo man, welcome back to the scene," Hector said giving me a manly handshake complete with hug.

"I figured ya'll saved enough money. I'm here to collect," I told him, my voice deep and cocky. Hector laughed.

"Yeah I got you." Hector motioned to Letty and Mia who each waved in turn. I did not like the appreciative look he gave them so I decided to regain his attention.

"So who's racing tonight?"

Hector's eyes lit up, "One of Tran's crew, some random cousin I think. Wale, he's new to you but he's fast, and Sam. Why you want in?" Easy pickings, or at least it would have been two years ago. Who knew how much these racers had improved since I had left? I looked at Vince out of my peripheral and saw him nod once. Anyone else would have seen him nodding his assent at Hector's assessment of the racers stepping up to the line. I knew it was a signal for me to put myself in.

"What's the buy in?"

"One g." I reached in my pocket and handed Hector the money. He counted it, then satisfied yelled to the crowd, "We got a fourth, let's race!" His pronouncement brought a flurry of activity. Hoods clanged shut, music muted as people entered their vehicles, and the sound of engines roaring to life replaced the cacophony of musical noise and crowd chatter. I let the familiarity of the sounds wash over me. It wasn't until I got to the line that I let the panic of what I was doing settle into my chest. I took that money from the garage account knowing that losing it would make it impossible to make the bills next week that were being covered currently as noted by Mia's spreadsheet.

Hector came to stand between Sam and Wale, raised his arms, and then let them fall quickly to his side. Instinctively I threw myself into gear, my foot mashing the pedal then switching to clutch to throw myself into second. I was climbing to fifth in about five seconds. The road, the crowd, the other racers. All this melted into the background. It was only me in the car, listening to the Mazda whining, begging to cross the line before the others. I obliged by hitting the little red button which added a shot of nitrous to catapult me over the spray painted line a quarter mile away from where we'd all began. The colors, people, and objects faded back in and I realized that I was three grand richer than when I started. I heaved a sigh of relief. We'd be able to keep the lights on and pay off some of the bills too. Pulling up to the starting line, I collected myself and opened the car door only to be swarmed by the crowd. Hector fought his way over to me then handed me the money. I grinned then passed it to Vince who whispered in Mia's ear then handed the wad of cash to her. I could see her counting it while Vince looked menacingly at the crowd around her, daring someone to try and take the cash from her nimble fingers. She finished then gave a wide grin. It was all there. I meanwhile was continuing to get slaps on the back from guys and propositions from some of the girls.

I searched for Letty, finding her standing an arm's reach away. My relief at winning the race kept my adrenaline high. I reached for her, grabbing a fistful of her hair right before I gave her a passionate kiss. Oh yeah, there was no way she was going to sleep early tonight. I heard some people snickering and I slowly let her go, rubbing my hands along her hips before pushing her towards her car. The look in her eyes told me that she was as excited as I was to go home. I heard Hector yelling that there would be a party at some club near his garage and people started to disperse. Others might be going to party but my family trudged back home. Everyone made for their respective bedrooms, excited that I had won my first race back on the streets. I heard Mia turn on her radio in her room and knew she's be in there, putting away a mountain of clothes that she'd tried on before leaving tonight so she could find her bed. Vince was probably working out. He'd mentioned feeling restless and using the space between wakefulness and sleep to keep his muscle mass.

That just left me and Letty, not even pretending that we wanted to do anything other than rip each other's clothes off. Once the door closed to our room I started kissing her, making these kisses a continuation of what I started at the race. I felt her hands working on my shirt and I got impatient, breaking our latest kiss long enough to snatch it over my head. I reached for her again, untying that ridiculously flimsy top, letting it drop to the floor. Shoes got kicked off and discarded. I pushed her on the bed, letting her fall back before I pulled off her skirt. She grinned at my impatience. 'I'll show her impatient,' I thought to myself. And once I got my pants off, I proceeded to show her how impatient I could make her for the rest of the night.

Post –race euphoria had finally leveled out for me the following morning. I was sitting in the kitchen with my stack of bills in one pile, money from last night in another, and paperclips. I started by taking out the grand I needed to put back into the garage account today. Ok, three left. First the electric bill. I clipped eight hundred dollars to it. Satisfied. Then I pulled out the cable, and phone bills. I clipped a few more hundreds to those, satisfied when those twelve hundred dollars were appropriated. Then I stared at the remaining bills. Water and sewage or insurance? This one grand would only put a dent in the insurance bill but it would pay off the whole water and sewage thing. Still, I didn't know what would be a better use of the money I had leftover. I started to feel the frustration coming back. Yeah, I had made some money quickly last night but just as quickly I was back down to our last dollars and I hadn't even gotten a handle on what to do at the garage yet.

Mia joined me in the kitchen ten minutes later, and I made a snap decision. Picking up the water and sewage bill, I clipped four hundred dollars to it. Mia looked perplexed for a moment before going to the fridge to grab eggs and bacon for breakfast. I waited until she had broken the eggs before I spoke, taking care to keep my voice calm.

"Here, pay these," I said, tapping the pile with the money clipped to it. I frowned at the six hundred left over then added, "And save this to pay them up for this month." Mia kept scrambling the eggs, taking care not to burn them. I gathered the insurance bills and went to take a shower. I wasn't hungry anymore. By the time I finished everyone else had eaten and were getting ready for work. I left early, choosing to stop by the bank and deposit the money back into the garage account before starting at DT. I was opening the bay doors when Leon and Jesse walked in, all smiles, ready for work. How pissed off would they be when I couldn't pay their salaries? The corrosive guilt was back again, this time eating a hole through my stomach. I let that deter me from lunch. By three o'clock I was feeling light headed and nauseous so I went to hide out in the office.

"Yo Dom," Letty called out around three fifteen. I looked up from the desk to see her standing next to a very irate customer. I did not need to deal with something like this today. My face gave away that I was angry she interrupted me because the nasty look she shot back made me want to throttle her. 'Fine!' If she wanted me to deal with this guy in the mood I was in, more power to her. My headache made me slam the door as I opened it, which startled the guy. I saw his eyes getting wider in fear as I ate up the ground between me and him.

"What is your issue," I stated. I wasn't asking. I wasn't going to play nice.

"Er, I think the price you're charging me is ridiculous," he stammered out. I snatched the bill from him. Six fifty was standard for new front breaks and rotors plus proper disposal and labor.

"That's standard. You knew this before we started the job," I ground out. We always told people what they would be expected to pay before we started the repairs. It kept us from getting stiffed on the repair bill like this guy was trying to do.

"Yeah, but I thought that a real mechanic was going to work on my vehicle, not this…" he trailed off, insulting Letty. Oh, so he thought Letty wasn't a good enough mechanic because she was a girl. I seethed knowing I would hear her mouth tonight.

"Fine. Letty, rip them out," I said savagely. She looked at me incredulously, her mouth going slack. I couldn't tell if it was because I didn't respond to the comment about her being a real mechanic or that I was being downright nasty to a customer.

"What?" the guy sounded lost.

"You heard me, rip 'em out."

"But you can't do that to me," the guy blustered. He was losing his cool.

"The hell I can't. This is my garage and ya ain't comin' in here pissin' off my employees and trying to weasel out of payin'," I roared. Everything in the garage had stopped. No one was pretending to be absorbed in their work. The silence following my pronouncement stretched until the guy gave a cough and pulled out his wallet. He paid in cash, Letty handed him his keys, and he peeled out of the drive. My head was pounding in earnest now but I was on a roll. I was too angry to check my feelings. I turned to Letty, accusation in my voice.

"Part of being a good mechanic is handling your own crap." Her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms. Why was I eliciting this response with the women in my life?

"Part of being in charge is handling that crap for all of us, not just the 'woman mechanic'," she shot back. Great, so I wouldn't get a break till we got home. She wanted to have this out here.

"You think I'm not handling things?"

"You showed us you're not handling things! You don't bite off a customer's head Dom! You don't disappear for hours at a time to take a nap during the work day! You don't…" she was shouting in earnest now, but finally someone stepped in.

"Yo Letty, chill girl. Dom's got a lot to adjust to," Leon said, his voice placating. He slowly inched forward finally reaching her and placing an arm around her shoulders. I couldn't tell if the gesture was meant to keep her in place or to give him good position to stand between us in case this fight came to blows. What it did do was make me jealous that he felt comfortable enough to do that. I started to feel a cloud covering my vision. Viciously I stalked past all of them, pulling my keys out of my pocket. I peeled off so fast in the Mazda that I left skid marks on the road.

Around six I started hearing cars pull up in the driveway. I'd eaten a sandwich, downed a Corona, and popped an aspirin. All it had done was taken the edge off my headache. The fury I'd felt before I left had waned, the corrosive guilt coming back. I made an effort to move from the kitchen table but suddenly I felt too weary to do so. Let them see me like this. Maybe Letty would take pity and not continue our argument from before.

"Dom?" a hesitant voice asked. Mia. She walked in, sitting down in the chair to my right, placing her hands over mine. I heard boots clanking to a stop nearby, the scrape of a chair, and then Vince sat down on my left.

"Brotha, we need to talk to you," he sniffed and flexed his muscles. I didn't have enough strength to tell him I wasn't in a position to physically fight anyone right now. I nodded. Leon and Jesse took this as their cue to sit down: Leon next to Mia and Jesse at the opposite end of the table. This left Letty the chair next to Vince. She stomped in then slumped into the chair, her body language telling me that she'd like nothing better than to run me over.

"Mia mentioned trouble. So how bad is it?" Jesse piped up. He was looking nervously from face to face. Tension and silence were not a good mix for his nerves. I frowned and Jesse gulped.

"You're discussing family business with outsiders?" I asked Mia, flicking my eyes over Leon and Jesse quickly before settling on Mia again. She shrugged.

"You were the one who said they were a part of our team."

"Team?" Jesse sounded confused. I thought about telling him that what I said had been a slip but then I looked down the table at him and it hit me. It would have been easy to fire him and Leon but in my mind they had already become my responsibility, part of my family.

"Yeah, team," the realization made my voice sound gruff.

Leon spoke up, "then what's going on?"

Reluctantly I told them about the bills, the fact that we weren't scraping by. I felt ashamed but I pressed on. Vince shuffled in his seat when I mentioned the part about paying the salaries. He coughed.

"I meant for that to be a temporary fix," he said as an apology.

"But then that thing with Han happened and we needed the help longer," Mia added. Vince already felt bad for needing the extra hands so Mia wouldn't make him suffer by explaining how temporary help had turned into permanent employees. That still didn't change the fact that I couldn't pay them which I mentioned to the group. I saw Jesse's eyes start tracing patterns in the table. He was really disappointed.

"Well how are the rest of you making it if you're not getting paid?" Leon sounded confused. Apparently he thought we were all making salaries too. Vince explained about papa's pay schedule and the benefits of living a-la-Toretto. "Ah," was all he could say. We sat in silence for a few moments before Jesse spoke back up.

"I like working at DT's," he sounded petulant. I pictured him standing up, scuffing his toes in the dirt. It made me grin.

"I want you to stay," I said earnestly, "in fact if you want, you could stay here." The last part spilled from my lips I didn't have time to censor them. That wasn't like me to offer up my house to random people at all. Then again, these guys had been with everyone else far longer than I had known them. Mia smiled wide.

"We do have the extra rooms in the basement," she added conversationally. Apparently Mia had a soft spot where Jesse was concerned too. If Jesse was a puppy he would have wagged his tail in assent.

"Le, can we?" Jesse asked excitedly. Leon looked like he was on the fence.

"This means you'd get paid like the rest of us," I warned then thought about the rules that we prescribed to around here and felt I should be honest about those too, "and you're expected to put this family first…"

Mia cut across me, "he means mandatory attendance at family barbeques…"

Vince added, "Keeping family business strictly in the family…"

"…and we don't race each other," I finished, rolling my eyes at Mia for good measure.

"I think we could handle that," Leon said while Jesse pumped his arms in the air in triumph.

"As for the rest, I guess I can keep racing for it," I told them, thinking about what I'd been able to do with last night's winnings and not feeling quite as sick about it now.

"Don't worry man, we'll help," Leon said to murmured assent around the table from everyone but Letty. She hadn't added anything to the conversation. Mia, sensing that whatever was going on between me and Letty deserved privacy pushed away from the table, signaling that the impromptu meeting was adjourned. She went to the kitchen to start dinner while Vince motioned to Leon and Jesse, the three of them moving to the basement to discuss room assignments. I stood and so did Letty. She pushed away from the table so forcefully that the chair fell over. Not bothering to pick it up she stalked upstairs and slammed the bedroom door. I sighed. She was still angry. Setting the chair right I slowly moved upstairs, grateful she hadn't locked the door, her body tense face down on the bed. I removed my shoes then straddled her legs. She didn't move. I started rubbing her back, kneading her shoulders, removing the knots produced by vigorous work in the garage and rage filled silence for the remainder of the afternoon. I kept this up until she grunted.

"Letty," I continued massaging her, "you know you're a great mechanic." I might as well head this one off before she brought it up. She grunted again which meant I could continue. "I didn't want you to worry about the bills." She started squirming to get up but I placed my hands on her back to keep her still. She grunted again, this time in agitation.

"You think this is just about your secrets or my pride?" she ground out.

"Well what else is there?" I asked gently. I needed to keep my cool here for us to make up before dinner. Mia'd lose her mind if I we weren't both on the mend by then.

Her jaw tightened and the words sounded forced, "You can't jump down my throat, our throats, when we call you on your shit Dom." It was true I had been nasty when she started listing all the things I was neglecting to do. I started to massage her again, this time letting the gestures slowly turn into sensual strokes. She groaned this time so I proceeded.

"Ah, you got me," I told her with just enough resign in my voice to sound credible. It wasn't a promise to change. I didn't know if I'd ever have enough control over my temper to do that but I would acknowledge that it was something I did. More like a character flaw. She squirmed.

"Dom?" her voice was husky. I knew what she wanted because I wanted it too. We never did make it down for dinner that night.

By the time December had rolled in, we'd settled into a routine at the Toretto household. Work, home, and races. Thankfully no one was losing races so we kept the income coming in, satisfying our obligations at the house and at the garage too. This was a strategic effort on our part. We'd wait until others had committed to a race then decided, based on skill, which member would race from our team. I was glad we were doing it this way because it meant that no one car would require extensive amounts of work at any given time, spreading out the rewards of specialty parts to everyone guilt free.

I was in the small garage behind the house today, working on the charger. It was one of the few stress free moments I'd let myself feel since I found out how difficult it was to be responsible for five other people. I pulled out a three quarter torque wrench and weighed it in my hands, the feeling of the tool no longer bringing the ache it used to when I thought of it and the circumstances that led to my stint in Lompoc. A gentle cough interrupted my musings.

"You hungry?" it was Mia, a sandwich in one hand, a cold Corona in the other. I nodded and she waited for me to rinse off my hands with the remainder of a bottle of water before she relinquished my meal. I bit into the sandwich then coughed. Tuna again. I raised my eyebrow at me and she had the nerve to shrug. "Guess this recipe wasn't good either." I shook my head, took another bite then promptly chased it with the beer.

"You shouldn't ruin good beer like this," I told her. Mia had been trying to perfect a decent tasting tuna salad for the past two weeks. She needed to give it up.

"Give me the sandwich back," she said snatching for it. I took another bite. I would eat the sandwich to placate her. Her mouth turned down at the corners determining if she would be able to get it away from me without getting hurt in the process then deciding it wasn't worth it. She started looking around, pausing to stare at pictures of papa in his heyday at the tracks, pictures of his crew scattered around. There was a picture in here of us over a decade old: me, her, and papa sitting on the hood of the charger, our grins identical. She looked at it wistfully.

"Mi, I think you should start community college in the spring." Her head spun so she could stare at me.

"Are you crazy? Dom, we can barely afford to live! I can't go to college." I cringed. She was so matter-of-fact about the money aspect.

"We'll make do. Papa would want you to go," I told her, using his wishes to my advantage. She looked cowed for a moment so I pressed on, "community is only a couple grand a semester. I'll even take out a mortgage on the garage to help pay for it if we have to." She started to shake her head no. "It would only be for a little while."

"Dom, we're not going into debt so I can go to school. That's a luxury we don't need."

"No, rebuilding the charger is a luxury we don't need," I countered. I meant it too. If I needed to lay off the rebuild of the charger to pay for Mia to go to school then I would make the sacrifice. She threw up her hands in disgust.

"And what would I study huh?"

"I don't care. I could use an accountant but doctors make more money," I threw out flippantly.

"Any profession I chose will require me to finish at a university. Universities cost big bucks," she reminded me feebly. Her mind was already turning over majors and classes.

"Like I said, I'll make it work. Humor me and sign up for school ok?" Mia looked at me hard in the eyes before coming to hug me.

"I promise I'll make you and papa proud," she said solemnly. I kissed her forehead.

"Good. Now take this crappy tuna sandwich and get outta my garage," I told her, shoving the sandwich into her stunned hands before pushing her out of the door. I could hear her laughing as she re-entered the house. I made my way to the picture of me, Mia, and my papa, taking care to stare into his eyes. I grinned. I'd be getting Mia textbooks for Christmas this year.