Chapter 8 - You'll never get out alive
AN: thanks for letting me know that the story is being read. By the way, the emotions are confusing because Letty is confused. She loves Dom and without giving too much away she will end up back with him. Don't worry about that. That's the whole point of the story after all. But the point is also how she gets there. She needs to grow and remember who she is. I've decided to just tell the story from her point of view but then when it's done I may go and tell it again from Dom's point of view. You'll find out stuff from LA when she talks to the team on the phone. I really don't have this one planned out. It's a fly by the seat of my pants type of story that at this time is writing itself so I can't tell you how it's going to go, just that I have an ending in mind. Peace and enjoy.
I walked away from Brian and his group of friends. I was lost in thought about what was up in my life. Here I was all upset and crying myself to sleep nights over Dom, then the first day I'm around people after I run away from the one man I've ever loved I get a school girl crush on another guy? It doesn't make sense. I don't know what it is.
I sat down in a free lounge chair and pulled my shades down off my head and over my eyes and just watched the crowd of people ebb and flow around me. Rome was cute. Ok, he was damn hot and one of the finest guys I'd ever seen. But Dom was just as cute. So the attraction wasn't just over cute. Rome definitely didn't take life as serious as Dom. Maybe that was part of it. I heard this somewhere once, I don't remember where but it's true. Don't take your life too seriously; you'll never get out alive. It's true. No matter what you do you're going to end up dead someday. You may as well enjoy your life while you're living it. Dom didn't get that anymore. We never did anything just for fun anymore.
We use to do stuff just for fun. We use to go to the beach as a team and swim and sunbath and play volley ball. We use to have barbeques all the time and laugh and joke as a team. We use to buy old cars and fix them up and sell them to see how much more then what we paid we could get for them. It was what we did every day at the garage I know, fix cars, but when it was these cars that we did on the side we all worked on them together and we had a good time doing it. Dom and I use to go out, just the two of us to movies and hold hands in the back row. We use to go to the drive in and fog up the windows. We use to go out to dinner and then walk on the beach. We use to go downtown and race the ricers and laugh about it together. But lately all we'd been doing was surviving.
Hell, racing use to be fun. Then Dom decided that this, that and the other thing on his car needed to be replaced. And that stuff on my car and Leon's car and Vince's car wasn't good enough. And that we didn't make enough with the garage and the store to pay for it all. Then racing became serious. And only Dom was allowed to race because he was the only one who won consistently.
Dom's the best racer on the team. I'm not going to try and dispute it because he is and I wouldn't want to take that away from him anyway. He had to work at it to some extent and it's something the men in his family have done for some time, I think he's the third generation or fourth maybe of Toretto's that race. But I'm close to as good as Dom and I like to race too. Dom took all the fun out of it for everyone because he acted like if we lost a race it would mark the end of us. He lost sight of the fact that we all like to race even though we aren't all next to unbeatable. We weren't around just to be his cheering section, but it was like he didn't know that.
He always had a different reason not to let me race. 'It's not safe Letty.' 'We can't afford the money if you lose Letty.' 'Your car needs a new something before it's ready to race again Letty.' 'I can beat these guys and we need the money so let me take this one Letty.' It was always something, some excuse. He pulled the same shit on V and Leon too. I don't know why Leon put up with it. Vince does what Dom wants him to, I've given up on making that change but Leon's another story.
Let's face it. If Leon wasn't dependant on Dom's good will for a place to live and a job he could likely take Dom in a race and win. Well, that's how Leon came to be a permanent fixture around the place anyway, so that's a proven fact, not a maybe or what if.
Leon came to the team not too long after Van was killed. He rolled up on races one Saturday night and no one had ever heard of him before, never seen him around before. He wanted to race and of course Dom was the one to beat even then. It was just me and Dom and Vince and Mia around the place at the time. Dom's dad had been gone for about 3 months and the garage was DT by that time and no longer Toretto's garage.
We really needed help around the garage too. It was getting to be too much for the three of us to handle. Mia was keeping up with the books ok but it was summer and she had no school. It was likely to get harder for her when she started her first year of college that fall, but at the time she was doing ok. We, the grease monkeys, on the other hand were swamped. Dom had quite the reputation on the streets and there was no shortage of people who wanted him to work on their cars. But it was hard to do when you were so far behind you had to tell people that it could be weeks before you had time to do something as simple as change shocks or whatever. But Dom was picky and he'd been seeing people who came for the job for weeks but no one was good enough.
That Saturday night Leon was driving a skyline. That is the only reason some unknown got to race the 'great one' on his first night on the scene. Skylines are still rare and they were damn near unheard of back then. Leon always says he knew about them before all these stupid movies based off our crowds lives came out. Pisses him off that now all the Bev Hills crowd is trying to get one just because Daddy has money and they only want one because some movie told them it was the best car to have and some movie told them the thing to do to rebel against your trust fund and college education was to race your car on the street on the weekends cause it's illegal.
But anyway Leon just pulled up in his yellow skyline that night and told someone he wanted to race. The attitude he got was mostly so what, get in line. There was always a list of guys waiting for their shot at Dom. Still is a line to this day. You have to be somebody. Edwin, Yenko, Justin, these are all guys who've proved they can race time and time again. It's why they get their shots at Dom. Dom ultimately does decide who he's going to race but I can't remember the last time he raced an unknown. Oh wait, it was Brian. Look how smart that was.
You see, it's kind of a misconception in these movies. In the movies you show up, shoot your mouth off, and then get to race in a 3 g race against the best of the best. It doesn't work that way. You need to show up and prove you can race your car first. You might have to race someone going down the street in traffic just to start a name for yourself. If people start to say things like, 'see that NSX, he walked me downtown last night, damn I wonder what he's running.' That's when talk about you starts to go through our world and then it starts the big fish thinking about what you might be running and the fact that you might be a worthy competitor. I mean sure, the money spends the same no matter how hard Dom has to work to take it but he gets off on the race, on the rush, on the skill it takes him to win. So if he walks everyone he races then he doesn't really get much of a rush. If he has to run it to 160 and use his spray to win he gets that adrenaline high.
So the crowd had Leon pretty much convinced he was going to have to go make a name for himself and come back before he was going to get to race anyone of consequence on that first night. But a rumour started to go through the crowd, passed on by people who knew what they were looking at when they saw Leon's car about what a skyline could do. And of course when Dom heard about the fact that there was a guy in a skyline at our races who wanted to race Dom personally invited the guy to ante up and race. It ties back into that whole adrenaline rush, wanting to race someone good thing. Dom figured if this guy had a skyline, unless the guy was a totally horrible driver it was going to be a real race for a change.
And Dom wasn't wrong. Dom got walked that night. Leon owned him. It was the worst loss Dom's ever had. Leon schooled Dom that night. Dom took it with good humour and charmed Leon into a peak under the hood. Dom was impressed. If someone builds an engine that impresses Dom that's saying something. Dom was so impressed he forgot that he was supposed to hate everyone who made him look bad in front of his adoring public by making him lose.
Dom started asking Leon what he was doing in town and it turned out that Leon had no plans. We all started asking him things like 'what made you decide to map the fuel curve like that?' 'Why a HKS turbo but a Greddy wastegate?' 'What's up with that intercooler?' Then Leon explained that he just drove and built the cars. He got Jesse out of the car and introduced the mastermind behind the strange yet wonderful engine we were looking at.
Dom was all like 'so he designs it and you build it and race it' and Leon told him that was about it. Dom wanted to know if Jesse was good at anything but designs and Leon told Dom that Jesse was one hell of a mechanic and tuner too. When Dom found out they had no where to stay and they were going to be sleeping in the skyline that was it. He offered them our spare room while they got on their feet and a job in our garage and the rest is history. They've been with us ever since. 'While you get on your feet' turned into forever and we wouldn't have it any other way. Jesse'n Leon are like family now.
The things that kid thinks to do with cars just wouldn't occur to anyone else but he tunes the best engines ever. He can hear a weak spot in a fuel MAP. That's unreal. He can smell an engine that's too rich or too lean. He knows instinctively how much boost an engine can take and not implode. Leon's his half brother and they're very close. They ran away from something in New Mexico, which is where they're from. Something really bad. They didn't want to talk about it and we didn't want to press so I don't really know what but it wasn't good. We'd all defend Jesse with our lives and I know Dom looks out for Leon too.
Leon and Vince got close somehow. Vince doesn't often warm up to new people. It was a given that he'd like Jess. Jess needs more watching over then anyone else I've ever seen. He's got quite a knack for getting himself into trouble. Vince loves anyone who wants him to fight for them. But Leon can take care of himself. He's street smart and he can fight too. He's not as big as Vince but what he doesn't have in brute strength he makes up for in smarts. Vince and Leon just hit it off. They tease each other and have running contests they think I don't know about where they try to get more phone numbers then each other. Leon, the ladies man is up by 7 numbers last time I conned an update out of him.
I'm making myself homesick which wasn't my intent when I came out here but all this stuff is likely still going on at home and I'm missing it. Which reminds me I need to call Vince again soon or he's going to send a search party. I told him I'd call every few weeks which means every few days or he's going to have Jesse start digging online to try to find me. I've been pretty careful not to leave a trail but Jesse is as scary with the computer and as he is with tuning and as good at finding stuff online as he is at scrounging car parts that we need.
As I finished that thought something blocked out the sun. I looked up, and up and finally into the face of Rome. His eyes were also covered by shades.
"What put that frown on your face Senorita?"
"I was just squinting in the sun." I lied. I didn't want to think about home anymore let alone talk about it with a stranger. I could tell he knew I was lying.
"I'd like to meet this car I've heard so much about. You think you could hook that up?" Rome asked me like a kid asking for candy. What is it about men and cars? But it was my car and one thing I loved was showing it off.
"Sure. It's in the garage. You want to see it now?" Rome nodded so I stood up and started toward the garage. "So you and Brian work together sometimes?" I asked wanting to make conversation and get to know Rome better.
"Yeah. When they need someone with street credentials they call us in. More for me then the white boy." Rome laughed and I joined him.
"Sounds fun but you don't seem like the cop type." And he didn't either. He seemed too high strung for it. Too much like the law didn't really mean a lot to him. He didn't seem to take much seriously and it seemed like taking stuff serious was a pre-requisite for being a cop to me.
"Well, I'm the opposite of the cop type. I'm not a cop, not like Brian. They just call me when they have a need of something I'm good at. But I get to keep the car they gave me when I did the thing with Brian which is cool."
"What kind of car is it?" So the cops gave Rome a car too. I'm in the wrong profession. I want a free car like an Evo VII too.
"You'll see." Rome wouldn't answer my question. "So you're the girl." Rome looked me up and down.
"What girl?" I asked, one eyebrow raised. What girl and what was this about?
"The queen that Bri told me about." Rome looked at me speculatively. "You know he wanted the guy from LA to do the job with him. The job he got me to do. He was too scared to ask the guy from LA."
"The guy has a name. It's Dom. What makes you say he wanted Dom?"
"Just the way he acted. The way he talks about the g.Dom to this day. He wanted to use the Verone job as a way to make up with Dom," Rome stuttered over the unfamiliar name each time he used it. "But he was scared that Dom didn't want to make up with him. Plus he was scared of the girl, the sister."
"Her name's Mia." I told him and it came out kind of bitchy. Mia is not just a girl that dated Brian, nor is she just Dom's sister. She's a great person in her own right. Brian should have told his friends our real names for crying out loud.
"Sorry. He's scared of Mia. He's such a player. I know you wouldn't know to look at him." We both laughed. Brian did look like a player. "And he was always in trouble over some chick. The girls all fell for him but he never fell for the girls. He was always immune to them. He'd use girls if he had to in his undercover work and he never kept a girlfriend longer then a few days. But the girl in LA, Mia," Rome added, looking at me. "Got to him. She got under his skin. She got through to Brian O'Connor and that never happened to him before. So he's been running scared ever since. You got him nervous now with making him go back when you go."
"Good, he needs to be nervous. But I'm glad about Mia. She really fell for him too so I hope that at least they can both get some closure and move on or it'd be really cool if they could make another go at it, if you think that Brian still has feelings for her." Rome just nodded.
At the door of the garage I stopped, hand on the doorknob. "You ready for this?"
"Yeah. I'm ready but you got me wondering what kind of car I'm about to see." I opened the door and we walked in. Rome went right up to my car. It was the only one he didn't recognize I guess and that was likely how he knew it was mine. He walked around it. "This is nice."
"Thanks." I told him. I was grinning like an idiot. I love it when people compliment me on the car. I know Dom picked it out and painted it but I built it. No one but me. And Jesse if I'm fair. But building it was one thing Dom didn't really have a hand in. It was all me, what I wanted.
We looked over my car some more and I even let Rome talk me into showing him the engine. Don't know how he did that. What I have under the hood is very closely guarded secret under most circumstances. Rome was suitably impressed. He told me he wanted a drive in it someday and I agreed to take him for a spin sometime.
Then he showed me his Eclipse Spyder that he got from the cops for the job he did. What a sweet car. But ugly. The rims on it are like 20's and chrome. Which would be ok if it wasn't for the horrible, flashy paint on it. It's such a nice car, with really nice rims but because of the paint it looks totally riced out. Not at all like a serious race car. I racked my brain for what to say before he realized I didn't really like the look of it.
"Nice rims. What's your quarter mile time?" I hoped to throw him off the looks debate by getting him to brag about his numbers.
"Thanks. My best quarter mile was 13.2@120." He was giving me a look. I think he knew what was on my mind.
"Not bad." I nodded as I pretended to think about his stats.
"What's your best time in your bad boy?" Rome asked me. He was smiling. I think he expected his time to be impossible for me to beat. I get that a lot. Because I'm a girl I won't have a good quarter time. People who think that are wrong.
"11.4@140." I grinned as I told him.
"Really?" He asked me. Why do people always do that when I tell them my time? Like I'm going to tell them if I'm lying. But I'm not. That's my time.
"Yeah, that's my best time. That's without the spray too."
"No shit. I'm gonna have to get my ass to the track and do some practising. You've got the best time I've ever heard of and that includes Bri in that rocket ship he drives."
"I can beat that time. Dom's best time is 9.9 at 160 on the spray of course."
"Holy shit. So this Dom guy's pretty special then?"
"Yeah. Pretty special." I answered and we locked up the garage and walked back down to where Brian was still sitting with Tej and Suki. It was time to call home again and I wasn't looking forward to it. I had to keep not only my location secret now but who I was staying with and what I was doing. It was not going to be fun.
AN: thanks for letting me know that the story is being read. By the way, the emotions are confusing because Letty is confused. She loves Dom and without giving too much away she will end up back with him. Don't worry about that. That's the whole point of the story after all. But the point is also how she gets there. She needs to grow and remember who she is. I've decided to just tell the story from her point of view but then when it's done I may go and tell it again from Dom's point of view. You'll find out stuff from LA when she talks to the team on the phone. I really don't have this one planned out. It's a fly by the seat of my pants type of story that at this time is writing itself so I can't tell you how it's going to go, just that I have an ending in mind. Peace and enjoy.
I walked away from Brian and his group of friends. I was lost in thought about what was up in my life. Here I was all upset and crying myself to sleep nights over Dom, then the first day I'm around people after I run away from the one man I've ever loved I get a school girl crush on another guy? It doesn't make sense. I don't know what it is.
I sat down in a free lounge chair and pulled my shades down off my head and over my eyes and just watched the crowd of people ebb and flow around me. Rome was cute. Ok, he was damn hot and one of the finest guys I'd ever seen. But Dom was just as cute. So the attraction wasn't just over cute. Rome definitely didn't take life as serious as Dom. Maybe that was part of it. I heard this somewhere once, I don't remember where but it's true. Don't take your life too seriously; you'll never get out alive. It's true. No matter what you do you're going to end up dead someday. You may as well enjoy your life while you're living it. Dom didn't get that anymore. We never did anything just for fun anymore.
We use to do stuff just for fun. We use to go to the beach as a team and swim and sunbath and play volley ball. We use to have barbeques all the time and laugh and joke as a team. We use to buy old cars and fix them up and sell them to see how much more then what we paid we could get for them. It was what we did every day at the garage I know, fix cars, but when it was these cars that we did on the side we all worked on them together and we had a good time doing it. Dom and I use to go out, just the two of us to movies and hold hands in the back row. We use to go to the drive in and fog up the windows. We use to go out to dinner and then walk on the beach. We use to go downtown and race the ricers and laugh about it together. But lately all we'd been doing was surviving.
Hell, racing use to be fun. Then Dom decided that this, that and the other thing on his car needed to be replaced. And that stuff on my car and Leon's car and Vince's car wasn't good enough. And that we didn't make enough with the garage and the store to pay for it all. Then racing became serious. And only Dom was allowed to race because he was the only one who won consistently.
Dom's the best racer on the team. I'm not going to try and dispute it because he is and I wouldn't want to take that away from him anyway. He had to work at it to some extent and it's something the men in his family have done for some time, I think he's the third generation or fourth maybe of Toretto's that race. But I'm close to as good as Dom and I like to race too. Dom took all the fun out of it for everyone because he acted like if we lost a race it would mark the end of us. He lost sight of the fact that we all like to race even though we aren't all next to unbeatable. We weren't around just to be his cheering section, but it was like he didn't know that.
He always had a different reason not to let me race. 'It's not safe Letty.' 'We can't afford the money if you lose Letty.' 'Your car needs a new something before it's ready to race again Letty.' 'I can beat these guys and we need the money so let me take this one Letty.' It was always something, some excuse. He pulled the same shit on V and Leon too. I don't know why Leon put up with it. Vince does what Dom wants him to, I've given up on making that change but Leon's another story.
Let's face it. If Leon wasn't dependant on Dom's good will for a place to live and a job he could likely take Dom in a race and win. Well, that's how Leon came to be a permanent fixture around the place anyway, so that's a proven fact, not a maybe or what if.
Leon came to the team not too long after Van was killed. He rolled up on races one Saturday night and no one had ever heard of him before, never seen him around before. He wanted to race and of course Dom was the one to beat even then. It was just me and Dom and Vince and Mia around the place at the time. Dom's dad had been gone for about 3 months and the garage was DT by that time and no longer Toretto's garage.
We really needed help around the garage too. It was getting to be too much for the three of us to handle. Mia was keeping up with the books ok but it was summer and she had no school. It was likely to get harder for her when she started her first year of college that fall, but at the time she was doing ok. We, the grease monkeys, on the other hand were swamped. Dom had quite the reputation on the streets and there was no shortage of people who wanted him to work on their cars. But it was hard to do when you were so far behind you had to tell people that it could be weeks before you had time to do something as simple as change shocks or whatever. But Dom was picky and he'd been seeing people who came for the job for weeks but no one was good enough.
That Saturday night Leon was driving a skyline. That is the only reason some unknown got to race the 'great one' on his first night on the scene. Skylines are still rare and they were damn near unheard of back then. Leon always says he knew about them before all these stupid movies based off our crowds lives came out. Pisses him off that now all the Bev Hills crowd is trying to get one just because Daddy has money and they only want one because some movie told them it was the best car to have and some movie told them the thing to do to rebel against your trust fund and college education was to race your car on the street on the weekends cause it's illegal.
But anyway Leon just pulled up in his yellow skyline that night and told someone he wanted to race. The attitude he got was mostly so what, get in line. There was always a list of guys waiting for their shot at Dom. Still is a line to this day. You have to be somebody. Edwin, Yenko, Justin, these are all guys who've proved they can race time and time again. It's why they get their shots at Dom. Dom ultimately does decide who he's going to race but I can't remember the last time he raced an unknown. Oh wait, it was Brian. Look how smart that was.
You see, it's kind of a misconception in these movies. In the movies you show up, shoot your mouth off, and then get to race in a 3 g race against the best of the best. It doesn't work that way. You need to show up and prove you can race your car first. You might have to race someone going down the street in traffic just to start a name for yourself. If people start to say things like, 'see that NSX, he walked me downtown last night, damn I wonder what he's running.' That's when talk about you starts to go through our world and then it starts the big fish thinking about what you might be running and the fact that you might be a worthy competitor. I mean sure, the money spends the same no matter how hard Dom has to work to take it but he gets off on the race, on the rush, on the skill it takes him to win. So if he walks everyone he races then he doesn't really get much of a rush. If he has to run it to 160 and use his spray to win he gets that adrenaline high.
So the crowd had Leon pretty much convinced he was going to have to go make a name for himself and come back before he was going to get to race anyone of consequence on that first night. But a rumour started to go through the crowd, passed on by people who knew what they were looking at when they saw Leon's car about what a skyline could do. And of course when Dom heard about the fact that there was a guy in a skyline at our races who wanted to race Dom personally invited the guy to ante up and race. It ties back into that whole adrenaline rush, wanting to race someone good thing. Dom figured if this guy had a skyline, unless the guy was a totally horrible driver it was going to be a real race for a change.
And Dom wasn't wrong. Dom got walked that night. Leon owned him. It was the worst loss Dom's ever had. Leon schooled Dom that night. Dom took it with good humour and charmed Leon into a peak under the hood. Dom was impressed. If someone builds an engine that impresses Dom that's saying something. Dom was so impressed he forgot that he was supposed to hate everyone who made him look bad in front of his adoring public by making him lose.
Dom started asking Leon what he was doing in town and it turned out that Leon had no plans. We all started asking him things like 'what made you decide to map the fuel curve like that?' 'Why a HKS turbo but a Greddy wastegate?' 'What's up with that intercooler?' Then Leon explained that he just drove and built the cars. He got Jesse out of the car and introduced the mastermind behind the strange yet wonderful engine we were looking at.
Dom was all like 'so he designs it and you build it and race it' and Leon told him that was about it. Dom wanted to know if Jesse was good at anything but designs and Leon told Dom that Jesse was one hell of a mechanic and tuner too. When Dom found out they had no where to stay and they were going to be sleeping in the skyline that was it. He offered them our spare room while they got on their feet and a job in our garage and the rest is history. They've been with us ever since. 'While you get on your feet' turned into forever and we wouldn't have it any other way. Jesse'n Leon are like family now.
The things that kid thinks to do with cars just wouldn't occur to anyone else but he tunes the best engines ever. He can hear a weak spot in a fuel MAP. That's unreal. He can smell an engine that's too rich or too lean. He knows instinctively how much boost an engine can take and not implode. Leon's his half brother and they're very close. They ran away from something in New Mexico, which is where they're from. Something really bad. They didn't want to talk about it and we didn't want to press so I don't really know what but it wasn't good. We'd all defend Jesse with our lives and I know Dom looks out for Leon too.
Leon and Vince got close somehow. Vince doesn't often warm up to new people. It was a given that he'd like Jess. Jess needs more watching over then anyone else I've ever seen. He's got quite a knack for getting himself into trouble. Vince loves anyone who wants him to fight for them. But Leon can take care of himself. He's street smart and he can fight too. He's not as big as Vince but what he doesn't have in brute strength he makes up for in smarts. Vince and Leon just hit it off. They tease each other and have running contests they think I don't know about where they try to get more phone numbers then each other. Leon, the ladies man is up by 7 numbers last time I conned an update out of him.
I'm making myself homesick which wasn't my intent when I came out here but all this stuff is likely still going on at home and I'm missing it. Which reminds me I need to call Vince again soon or he's going to send a search party. I told him I'd call every few weeks which means every few days or he's going to have Jesse start digging online to try to find me. I've been pretty careful not to leave a trail but Jesse is as scary with the computer and as he is with tuning and as good at finding stuff online as he is at scrounging car parts that we need.
As I finished that thought something blocked out the sun. I looked up, and up and finally into the face of Rome. His eyes were also covered by shades.
"What put that frown on your face Senorita?"
"I was just squinting in the sun." I lied. I didn't want to think about home anymore let alone talk about it with a stranger. I could tell he knew I was lying.
"I'd like to meet this car I've heard so much about. You think you could hook that up?" Rome asked me like a kid asking for candy. What is it about men and cars? But it was my car and one thing I loved was showing it off.
"Sure. It's in the garage. You want to see it now?" Rome nodded so I stood up and started toward the garage. "So you and Brian work together sometimes?" I asked wanting to make conversation and get to know Rome better.
"Yeah. When they need someone with street credentials they call us in. More for me then the white boy." Rome laughed and I joined him.
"Sounds fun but you don't seem like the cop type." And he didn't either. He seemed too high strung for it. Too much like the law didn't really mean a lot to him. He didn't seem to take much seriously and it seemed like taking stuff serious was a pre-requisite for being a cop to me.
"Well, I'm the opposite of the cop type. I'm not a cop, not like Brian. They just call me when they have a need of something I'm good at. But I get to keep the car they gave me when I did the thing with Brian which is cool."
"What kind of car is it?" So the cops gave Rome a car too. I'm in the wrong profession. I want a free car like an Evo VII too.
"You'll see." Rome wouldn't answer my question. "So you're the girl." Rome looked me up and down.
"What girl?" I asked, one eyebrow raised. What girl and what was this about?
"The queen that Bri told me about." Rome looked at me speculatively. "You know he wanted the guy from LA to do the job with him. The job he got me to do. He was too scared to ask the guy from LA."
"The guy has a name. It's Dom. What makes you say he wanted Dom?"
"Just the way he acted. The way he talks about the g.Dom to this day. He wanted to use the Verone job as a way to make up with Dom," Rome stuttered over the unfamiliar name each time he used it. "But he was scared that Dom didn't want to make up with him. Plus he was scared of the girl, the sister."
"Her name's Mia." I told him and it came out kind of bitchy. Mia is not just a girl that dated Brian, nor is she just Dom's sister. She's a great person in her own right. Brian should have told his friends our real names for crying out loud.
"Sorry. He's scared of Mia. He's such a player. I know you wouldn't know to look at him." We both laughed. Brian did look like a player. "And he was always in trouble over some chick. The girls all fell for him but he never fell for the girls. He was always immune to them. He'd use girls if he had to in his undercover work and he never kept a girlfriend longer then a few days. But the girl in LA, Mia," Rome added, looking at me. "Got to him. She got under his skin. She got through to Brian O'Connor and that never happened to him before. So he's been running scared ever since. You got him nervous now with making him go back when you go."
"Good, he needs to be nervous. But I'm glad about Mia. She really fell for him too so I hope that at least they can both get some closure and move on or it'd be really cool if they could make another go at it, if you think that Brian still has feelings for her." Rome just nodded.
At the door of the garage I stopped, hand on the doorknob. "You ready for this?"
"Yeah. I'm ready but you got me wondering what kind of car I'm about to see." I opened the door and we walked in. Rome went right up to my car. It was the only one he didn't recognize I guess and that was likely how he knew it was mine. He walked around it. "This is nice."
"Thanks." I told him. I was grinning like an idiot. I love it when people compliment me on the car. I know Dom picked it out and painted it but I built it. No one but me. And Jesse if I'm fair. But building it was one thing Dom didn't really have a hand in. It was all me, what I wanted.
We looked over my car some more and I even let Rome talk me into showing him the engine. Don't know how he did that. What I have under the hood is very closely guarded secret under most circumstances. Rome was suitably impressed. He told me he wanted a drive in it someday and I agreed to take him for a spin sometime.
Then he showed me his Eclipse Spyder that he got from the cops for the job he did. What a sweet car. But ugly. The rims on it are like 20's and chrome. Which would be ok if it wasn't for the horrible, flashy paint on it. It's such a nice car, with really nice rims but because of the paint it looks totally riced out. Not at all like a serious race car. I racked my brain for what to say before he realized I didn't really like the look of it.
"Nice rims. What's your quarter mile time?" I hoped to throw him off the looks debate by getting him to brag about his numbers.
"Thanks. My best quarter mile was 13.2@120." He was giving me a look. I think he knew what was on my mind.
"Not bad." I nodded as I pretended to think about his stats.
"What's your best time in your bad boy?" Rome asked me. He was smiling. I think he expected his time to be impossible for me to beat. I get that a lot. Because I'm a girl I won't have a good quarter time. People who think that are wrong.
"11.4@140." I grinned as I told him.
"Really?" He asked me. Why do people always do that when I tell them my time? Like I'm going to tell them if I'm lying. But I'm not. That's my time.
"Yeah, that's my best time. That's without the spray too."
"No shit. I'm gonna have to get my ass to the track and do some practising. You've got the best time I've ever heard of and that includes Bri in that rocket ship he drives."
"I can beat that time. Dom's best time is 9.9 at 160 on the spray of course."
"Holy shit. So this Dom guy's pretty special then?"
"Yeah. Pretty special." I answered and we locked up the garage and walked back down to where Brian was still sitting with Tej and Suki. It was time to call home again and I wasn't looking forward to it. I had to keep not only my location secret now but who I was staying with and what I was doing. It was not going to be fun.