"You know you can't really do anything to Rick, huh?" Letty asked me as I laid down beside her in the bed.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, the annoyance clearly coming out in my tone.
"Hey man, I'm not dating him. It ain't my place to tell you about Mia's love life," she said defensively.
"Would have been nice to have a heads up," I told her.
"Maybe you should ask yourself why Mia didn't tell you," she replied.
"Let's just not talk about it," I uttered.
"Now you don't want to talk about it. You're something else," she said rolling over, away from me.
God. Today just needed to be over. It really had been downhill since I got out of bed this morning.
I couldn't fall asleep. I kept thinking about what Letty and Mia had said to me tonight. I don't know why Mia didn't feel like she could tell me. Mia had sent me countless letters and had come to visit me while I was at Lompoc. But, she had never mentioned this. 'A couple of months'. She had been seeing this guy for a couple of months. I didn't really know if that meant two or like six. Shit they could have been seeing each other for two years and I wouldn't know the difference apparently. But, regardless. Mia liked him because he was nothing like me. And, evidently, I couldn't do anything about Rick. I didn't know who I was more pissed off at. I didn't know if it was Mia for not feeling like she could tell me, Letty, Leon, Vince, and Jesse for keeping it from me, or Rick for fucking up my world. I think it was all of them.
I decided that since I clearly wasn't sleeping I would just get up. Maybe there was something I could do that would keep me busy. I didn't want to continue to replay the night's events over and over in my head. I sat up on the bed and rubbed my head. I was tired. I was exhausted. But, I wasn't going to lay here and drive myself crazy. I was out of prison; it was supposed to be time for restful sleep. That wasn't happening. So, I stood up.
"Where you going?" I heard Letty ask groggily.
It was 4 a.m., what were the options? But, instead of saying that I just said, "Can't sleep. What are you doing up?"
"Can't stop thinking about all the shit that went down tonight. And, I guess yesterday too," she replied.
I turned around. I didn't walk back over to the bed. Instead, I leaned against the bedroom wall. At least I wasn't the only one.
"Yeah," I said, half-heartedly agreeing.
"Know what I wonder?" she said. Was this a rhetorical question? This was one of those questions that regardless of which answer I gave, yes or no, she was going to interpret it as me wanting to know.
"Hm?" I grumbled, instead of verbally responding.
"How everything is possibly going to be able to work out now. I mean, I just don't see it happening," she said straight up.
This hit me like a bus. What the fuck did that mean? I hadn't even been worried about everything working out a few seconds ago. Now, hell. Did she mean work out between us? Being with Letty was the only thing I was sure about. The only thing that made sense right now. It was the only thing that hadn't seemed to change. It was my normal.
"Awesome! Thanks. That makes me feel a lot better," I said sarcastically and much louder than necessary. Fuck.
I turned around and reached out for the door handle. There was no reason for me to sit here. I needed to go figure things out. Was that Letty's way of starting to break up with me? We hadn't even had time to get things off the ground. I couldn't understand what had gone so wrong between yesterday and today to allow for this move on her part.
"Stop!" she exclaimed. "Don't walk out!"
"Letty, today's pretty much sucked. I don't want to sit here and fucking listen to you…rag on me, break up with me. Whatever you're trying to do," I explained, fumbling around with my words. It was 4 o'clock in the morning. I wasn't extremely coherent.
"Come here," she said.
I didn't respond.
"Dominic…please," she said again, changing her tone. It was softer.
I sighed and walked over to the bed. I didn't sit down. I felt her hand reach out and grab mine. She pulled my hand down and over. I allowed her to lead me onto the bed. I didn't want things to change between her and me.
"Since I know that you ain't going to want to talk about shit right now, I will. You can listen," she started. "I love you, Dom. I have for…a really long time. But, since you've come back, it ain't been the same."
"Letty," I started.
She didn't let me continue. She said, "Wait. Let me finish. I love what a leader you are. You know that. It's incredibly sexy. But, you got to realize that we've had to go for two years without you. You can't just step back up and try to control everyone's life."
"That's not what I been trying to do," I explained.
"Don't matter what you been trying to do. That's what it seems like you're doing. You need to relax. And this thing with Mia. The Dominic that I fell in love with would want his sister to be happy. I don't know if this is the guy for her. But, fuck, put your damn pride on hold. I know you're mad that you didn't know about it. But work on becoming part of this family again. Support your fucking sister. She's smart girl. She has better taste in guys than I do," she said.
I was listening really intently to what she was saying. Everything she was saying was right. It took me a minute to catch on to that last part, though. 'Better taste in guys'. I hoped Mia had better taste in guys than Letty. It made me laugh- as much as I could with all the stress I felt like I was under.
"Don't push Mia away. You push her too far you may lose her. That don't mean that you got to be best friends with everyone she wants to date. And I'm not saying don't scare them a little. But, you don't let Mia see that. You show her support. You show her that you trust her choices. She's an adult Dom. Let her live. You can't jump on her every time she makes a decision that you don't think is right," Letty explained.
I pondered what she said for a second. She was right. I wasn't being a good brother to Mia. I was pissed that everyone knew something I didn't. I was kind of mad about everyone keeping a 'secret' from me. But, Mia could date whomever she wanted. I wanted her to feel like she could bring them around. I didn't want her sneaking off seeing people. I didn't want to cause her to go run to the wrong guy.
But, that made me think of another point. "I get what you're saying. I do. You're right. But, what's this got to do us?" I asked.
"Us? Listen, shit's going to fall back into place with the team. And with you racing. But, you can't rush things. This 'too much, too fast' thing you got in your head right now is going to kill us, Dom. Let things happen. And when they do, then we'll ride or die," she said, repeating a phrase we had used so many times. It was our philosophy, as a team. We used it to refer to everything- our racing, our relationships, our work, our lives. Give it your all or else give up. But, I understood the idea she was attempting to convey to me. I couldn't jump back into my spot. I would get there, but I had to get there gradually. That sucked.
"Us - the team, or us - you and me?" I asked.
"You'll always be part of the team. I mean, hell, you and V, founding members. You can't kick out the Godfather," she joked.
"Damn straight," I agreed.
"And, us, you and me, I don't want to lose you Dom. Not again," she stated.
"So then what ain't going to work?" I said. I was confused at where that initial 'wondering' statement of hers had come from. I was worried too.
"Hopefully everything will. But, I was talking about this family," she answered. "You're stuck with me until you decide to leave."
"Alright, well," I said, standing up off the bed, pretending to leave.
"Get back over here," she said, reaching out and pulling me back down on the bed.
"Fine, thought I had a choice," I joked.
"Oh, you wouldn't last two days without me," she retorted.
"Well, wouldn't want to anyway," I told her.
"So you got to apologize to Mia tomorrow," she told me.
I let out a huge sigh.
"You suck at apologies so try hard," she added.
"What? No, I don't," I said, shocked.
"Yeah you do," she laughed.
"Really?" I asked. Granted, I had never thought they were my specialty, and I always really hated doing it, but this was the first I'd ever heard of my actually sucking at them.
"Hate to break it to you," she said. "But, apparently it don't matter. I still take you back."
"Can't resist the charm," I said cockily.
"Something like that."
We didn't say anything else. We just laid there. I held her in my arms. I looked out the window and, despite all the ambient light from the city, saw some stars.
-
The next morning I woke up alone. I looked around the room. Definitely alone. I rolled over and closed my eyes, refusing to get up yet. I had no idea what time it was, I didn't want to put forth the effort of looking at the clock. I was about to drift back off to sleep when I heard a loud commotion out in the hallway.
"The fuck dawg?" I heard Leon scream.
"Nah, hell nah, I know you ain't mad about that shit," Vince yelled.
I pulled the pillow over my head, trying to muffle the noise from the chaos outside. What the hell could be such a big deal that they had to scream at each other first thing in the morning? I wanted to kill them both. But, that would involve getting up, which I was not ready to do.
"How could you do that, bro?" Leon yelled.
"Do what? You ain't with her," Vince replied.
"Shut the fuck up," I yelled out to them.
"Man, I's trying to get with her. You knew that," Leon said, only slightly quieter.
"Maybe you should've told her that," Vince retorted.
"Thought telling you would be enough!"
"You said you wanted to try to hit that. How's that different from what you say about most girls. You didn't miss out on much, bro."
I didn't want to hear their conversation right now. I could care less about who had hooked up with whom at this hour. There was a moment of silence. I tried hard to fall back to sleep but heard a loud crash in the hallway.
"Fuck dude!" Vince yelled. "What the hell was that for?"
With that, I slammed my pillow down. They needed to take it, whatever it was, somewhere else. These guys were my family, my team, but they were about to be dead if they didn't quiet down. I reached hastily for the doorknob and yanked open the door.
"Shut the fuck up!" I yelled before even opening my eyes. I saw Vince, his nose bleeding, holding his jaw.
I glanced over at Leon. He pulled his fist back, ready to take another shot at Vince.
"Whoa, whoa," I said, grabbing Leon before he could make contact with Vince's face again. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Dom," Leon said, shaking his head. I could tell that he wanted to say more. But, he stopped. His body language relaxed. He stood there, completely still. Finally, he shook his head, turned around, and walked off.
"What'd you do?" I asked, looking directly at Vince.
"Why's this all coming back to me?" Vince asked, wiping some of the blood from his nose.
"You tell me, V. I's trying to sleep. What the hell's Leon doing punching you at…I don't even know what time it is. Too early for all this," I said yawning and rubbing my eyes.
"Monica," he replied. Then, giving a smile and half-laugh he added, "you know her."
"Monica who?" I asked. We knew about ten girls named Monica.
"Long blonde hair, real hot. Runs with Amber and whatever that other chick's name is. Used to date Toby back in high school," he clarified.
"Yeah, I know who you talking about. Ain't worth fighting over," I said. I knew her. I knew her before Letty and I got together. And she definitely wasn't worth fighting over. She was a carbon copy of about seventy other racer-chasers that tagged along each weekend.
"I told him that."
"Alright. This is you guys deal so, whatever," I said. I was not getting into drama surrounding Vince, Leon, and some girl I had slept with back in the day. I think this was what Letty had been referring to. I wanted to take her advice. I wanted to back off. So, instead of pressing him further, I left and walked down the stairs.
By the time I made it down to the kitchen, I heard Leon's tires squeal out of the driveway. I lifted the blinds enough to see him leave a trail of smoke behind. Damn. It took a lot to piss Leon off like that. This was, apparently, yet another situation I was completely obvious to. I saw Letty sitting on the counter nursing a cup of coffee. I didn't say a word. I made my way up to hear and began slowly kissing her neck. My hands began snaking their way up the back of her shirt when I was abruptly interrupted.
"Yeah, here it is, Letty. This is what I was talking…" Mia started but stopped. "Morning, Dom. Nice of you to decide to wake up today."
"Urgh," I groaned, pulling my hands out from under Letty's shirt. "When did everyone start getting up so early?"
I had strategically placed myself in between Letty's legs. I didn't move from this position. I tried to continue my work on her neck but she stopped me. Instead, her mouth found my left ear. She began tracing it with her tongue. I smiled as the intensity grew.
"Now's your chance," Letty whispered. Then, she stopped. I looked at her, slightly surprised by her sudden disengagement. She just smiled and jumped off the counter, leaving the room. This left me alone. With Mia. And, apparently, this was my chance.
TBC
---
AJ