Chapter 14 – Racer Girl Barbie
Brian and I left not too long after we had the talk about how easy the money was for criminals. We were walking back to his boat together and I decided I had to know what his team knew about me'n Dom and what we'd done before I got to know them any better.
"Um, Bri?"
"Yeah Let."
"How much does your team know about me and what went on while you were with me in L.A.?" I asked and my nervousness showed in my tone.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, do they know how you know me? Do they know that we're the reason why you're not a cop anymore? Do they know what Dom and Vince were doing? I mean, are they looking at me like I'm some criminal who's team is responsible for Bullit not being a cop anymore?" Do they look down at me for being a petty crook? I wanted to ask it but I couldn't get the words out and I figured that my meaning was pretty clear just in how I'd asked.
"They know I know you from LA. They don't know just why I do. They do know you are Dom's girlfriend and they do know that Dom is the guy who was behind the thing that made me not want to be a cop anymore. They do not know your exact roll in the whole thing and they will not look down at you for anything. Oh, and for the record, I was offered a job with the police again after Rome and I brought down Verone. I turned it down. I don't want to be a cop anymore."
"Why not?" I asked. Brian seemed like an ideal cop type. He was mostly honest, a hard worker, an analytical thinker, and smart. He knew how to calm people down, make them trust him, and he was good at getting information out of people. Even if it was information they didn't want to give.
"It's just not for me anymore. At least, detective work isn't. What happened with you all taught me that life and people aren't as cut and dry as the police force would have you think. I mean, yeah, I know you guys were breaking the law. But then again you aren't bad people. You're good people who were doing a bad thing. But Dom had his reasons to want to as well. Maybe he shouldn't have done it no matter what but he felt he had to. He was so caught up in the fact that he had to take care of you and Mia and keep the house and the store and the garage up that he thought he had to do something to make the money. And even if he went about it in a stupid way, that's an admirable sentiment."
"Don't forget he did it for his stupid car. He had to have the best of everything for his stupid car and he couldn't afford it if he took care of all of us and the store. I don't want to make you think less of the great Dom Toretto but we could have survived on what we made in the store and the garage when you consider Dom and the rest of us did ok at racing."
"Letty. I know you aren't trying to tell me you think Dom's car is more important to him then you and Mia?" Brian clearly couldn't believe I would think that, let alone that it could be true.
"I know the car's not more important to him then Mia. Mia's the love of his life. Me on the other hand..." I trailed off.
"Letty, I know you're pissed at him right now but he loves you more then he loves his car." Brian tried to reassure me about Dom's affection as we walked onto the boat.
I wasn't buying it but I didn't want to fight about it any more either. I decided to let it drop. I was just about to tell Brian I was going to bed when his cell rang. And not the cell he used every day. THE cell. The one he gave me to call home. We shared a look.
"Does anyone have that number?" I asked him, worried.
"Not that I know of. It's likely a wrong number." Brian answered and picked up the phone.
"Maybe you should just let it ring." I told him.
"It's a wrong number or it's the FBI. It'll be fine." Brian told me then answered his cell with a curt 'hello'.
There's a sentence for you. Hey Letty, it's fine. If it's not a wrong number it's just the FBI. Hello Brian, I'm Letty, the girl who was hijacking transfer trucks. Yeah, the FBI is my fucken best friend! The fact that it could be the FBI was not the most reassuring thing that he could have told me.
"Um, yeah, she's here. Just a second while I find her." Brian used his hand to cover the mouthpiece of the phone. "It's Vince. I don't know how in the hell he got the number but I'll be getting a new phone soon I'll tell you that. He didn't know who I was, I don't think. He didn't flip and I'd think he would if he recognized my voice. You wanna talk to him or should I tell him I couldn't find you?"
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. It was all I could think. How in the blue hell did Vince get the untraceable number?
"I thought you said the number wasn't traceable." I hissed at Brian.
"It wasn't supposed to be able to be. It was supposed to show unknown and be totally untraceable. I'll have to call my boss at the FBI and find out what's up. But if you talk to him we can change the phone tomorrow. It's not like he'll know where you are from getting the number. The phone's activated out of Minnesota. He doesn't even know the right area code for where you are from the number."
"Ok, give it here." I took the phone from him. "Hello." I said as I put the phone to my ear.
"Letty."
"Vince how'd you get this number?" I sounded pissed. And I was. But I was scared too. I was glad it was pissed that came across. "I thought you weren't going to dig if I promised to call you every once in a while."
"It's not digging if it shows up on call display Letty. Where the hell is that area code from anyway? Jesse says Minnesota. Why would you go to Minnesota?"
Thank god he thought I was in Minnesota.
"Why not?" I asked, neither confirming nor denying his suspicions.
"What's there for you to do? Leon says you're working in a garage. Doesn't it suck to work in a garage in winter in a place where it snows? And you shouldn't be driving the 240 in the snow. It'll rust out."
Vince sounded like he was panicking more about me running the car in a place with snow and salt then he was about me turning up missing. And I can't have him running around Minnesota looking for me after all.
"Vince I'm not in Minnesota ok. I got the phone activated out of another state to hide my whereabouts." I sighed. I wanted to let him think I was in Minnesota but he was just the kind of thick skulled, bull headed man to take it upon himself to 'come visit' to check out my employer and make sure he was on the up and up and to make sure that I was living in accommodations he found suitable.
"Ok. Is everything ok?"
"As ok as it was when I talked to you this afternoon." I sighed.
"Um good. Cause, um..." Vince clearly didn't want to say what he felt he had to say to me.
"What is it Vince. I'm about to go to bed here. It's been a long ass day and I'd like it to end some time soon."
"Dom wants to talk to you. He's standing here staring at me. He says there are some things he wants to say to you. Will you talk to him?"
Will I talk to him? Really don't want to. The pain of what he did is still too fresh. It's only been 4 days since he broke my heart. But I'm going to have to talk to him eventually. It may as well be now. If I can just keep my voice level. Just make him think I'm fine. That I'm doing ok without him. That I don't miss him. That I haven't been finding out first hand how much it sucks to have nightmares. Then I'll be fine.
"Fine." I made myself sound irritated. "Put him on."
"Thank you Let." Vince breathed out. He had clearly been dreading telling Dominic that I wouldn't speak to him.
"Whateva, just put Dom on."
"Hello?" Dom sounded uncertain, like it might not be me.
"Hi Dom. What do ya want?" I asked. I sounded too pissed at him to please myself. I'd wanted to just sound indifferent.
"I just want to make sure you're ok." He told me.
Yeah, I'm fine. He made me lose my family, friends, job and pretty much everything else that was ever important to me other then my car. I'm fucken super! But that's me, the sarcastic bitch.
"I'm just great Dom! You broke up with me, told me all sorts of shit and made me have to leave my home. I'm fucken super!" Hey it's a good line. I may as well use it on him. Can't let all that yummy sarcasm go to waste in my own head after all.
Brian was watching me talk with a sort of horrified humour. Like he found the whole situation horrible but still funny. Then he must have realized I might want to have this one out alone and left the room for his own bedroom.
"Letty. It wasn't what I had in mind and you know it. Come home. It'll all work out. I...The team misses you." Dom sighed.
If he can't even admit he misses me, if it has to be 'the team' then how can he say he's ready to have me back? He can't be. Not if he can't admit to something as simple as how much he needs me and how he misses me.
"Really. You figure any of your shit out yet Dominic? Or are you just catching hell from Mia and V and trying to make your life easier?"
Cruel, but true. Why should I go easy on him now? I didn't even want to talk to him. I didn't want them to have a way to call me. The day that had been going so well was rapidly going to hell at its finish.
"It's not that Letty. And no, I still have shit to work out. But I do wish you'd come home. How'm I supposed to work out anything if I'm worrying about you all the time and I don't know where you are or if someone's mistreating you and shit?"
"I'm fine Dom. And I'ma be fine. I'm working, I'm racing, I'm winning and I've already made some friends. I'll keep being fine and doing ok till you tell me you're feeling better or I decide that I want to come home anyway. That's the end of the story right there. I have some shit to work out too."
And if I looked deep into myself it was true. I was fine. And I would keep being fine. I might get sad. I might miss the team. I might miss Dom. But I was going to be fine. And that was a good thing. And I did have some stuff to work through too.
"You're racing?" Dom jumped on that one.
"Yes. I am racing. It turns out that an s14 Silvia with a full HKS exhaust, turbos, NOS, Sparcos, and Toyo tires just to name a few is a car that is meant to be raced Dom. Contrary to what you seemed to think it's not for me to lean against and look good standing there. It's for me to drive and kick ass. So I'm finally using it for the purpose I build it for."
"Letty. It's too dangerous. You shouldn't be street racing!" He almost yelled at me. "I'm not there and..." He trailed off. I bet the sentence would have ended like you're not smart enough to decide what races to take on and how to win them.
"Guess what Dom. I won a car on my first race here ok. I don't need you to pick people for me to race. I don't need you to decide what's safe for me to do or not. I'm an adult and you gave up any right you had to run my life when you broke up with me!"
God it felt good to yell at him about that. It was about time he figured it out, even if I did have to spell it out for him, that it pissed me off when he treated me like Racer Girl Barbie. A person who's sole purpose in life was to stand around wearing tight clothes some one else dressed me in and looked good with my 36 inch boobs and 24 inch waist and 36 inch hips hoping that Racer Boy Ken would throw a bone of affection my way. And maybe, just maybe, if I was a good little ornament he might let me race the occasional race.
I am not a Barbie. I'm not made of plastic. The sum off all my feelings is not 'hope Ken likes this outfit'. I'm me. I'm strong. I'm passionate. Hell, I'm a Latina. I'm passionate in the extreme. The only person who can come close is Mia. And the Italians are pretty passionate too.
Dom sputtered on the other end of the phone.
"I didn't break up with you. I wanted to take a break. You broke up with me."
"I bet you use that line all the time don't you Dom. Bet it makes all the skanks soooo very sorry for you huh. Big bad Letty broke up with me when all I wanted was to take a break from boring old her so that I could get with you fine ladies who only want to fuck me, not have me make some commitment to them. And then I bet they fall over each other to kneel at your" I cleared my throat. "feet and beg you to be the one you allow the privilege of comforting you in this trying time of not having a girlfriend to warm your bed."
I was screaming at him and I didn't care if Brian could hear and I'd stopped caring if I let Dom know how pissed I was at him still either. I continued before he could get a word in.
"You are so selfish you know that? You needed your space to figure your shit out. You needed the money from races so I never could. You couldn't keep it in your pants. You had to get more money. You had to fight Johnny Tran. You had to have sex with his sister. You give that stupid little speech about how you live your life a quarter mile at a time and nothing else matters because for that 10 seconds or whatever you're free. Do you even know how selfish that sounds? All of us giving our whole effort to run your store and be your team and work in your garage and you go around telling people that none of it matters as long as you get your high from a fucken quarter mile race. Guess what Dom? There's more to life then chasing some 10 second adrenaline high and it's time you figured that out!"
I heard Brian snort from his room, likely about how stupid the fucken 10 second at a time speech really was.
And it was a noble sentiment in one way. To live one's life one piece at a time. Take it one quarter at a time, do your best and move on to the next. I lived my life like that. Taking it one day at a time, doing my best for that day then moving on to the next to try and do my best for another day.
But Dom's speech wasn't about doing his best and moving on to try and do better. It was about using each race as a quarter mile break from everyone else in his life. Like we were such a burden to him that he really needed the break from us.
Well, let me tell you, carrying the king of the L.A. streets around is more of a burden on us as his team then we'll ever be to him. Poor Vince was the only one with the balls to stand up to him and tell him like it was instead of how it wouldn't make him mad. And even Vince didn't want to push his buttons half the time. I didn't care. He'd driven me beyond caring. And besides that, he had no idea where I was.
"I know there's more to my life then racing Letty. I know how stupid that speech sounded and I'm so fucken sorry for all the other stuff too. But you weren't totally innocent either you know. Nothing I ever did was good enough after you found out about Sakura Tran."
"That's not true and you know it! If it had stopped after Sakura then I could have dealt. But it happened so many more times."
"Well, half the time you accused me of cheating on you right afterward I hadn't so I guess since you were going to fucken convict me of doing it I figured I may as well actually have done something to be yelled at over." Dom yelled back.
We were on opposite sides of the country and I was still pushing his buttons into showing me some sort of reaction. As it was, is, and ever shall be I guess. Damn Van and Mia and all their dragging me to Catholic church.
"There's logic for you Dom. Since she already caught me and doesn't trust me why don't I go ahead and do it a few more times? Even Vince knows that's stupid reasoning and goes against logic." I was still talking in raised tones and I knew my slight on his intelligence would not go unnoticed. Again, Vince is not stupid. But he can be kinda thick. Especially about girls. So I know me telling Dom that Vince could have figured something about girls out but Dom himself can't is going to piss him off.
I heard Brian laugh at that statement and then try to cover it with a cough. I couldn't blame him for listening. I was practically screaming at Dominic after all. But I couldn't just let him get away with laughing at something that had me so upset either. But it was kind of funny to think of Mr. Casanova himself, Dominic Toretto, having girl problems that Mr. Coyote would not.
"It's not funny B!" I yelled in the direction of his door even as I laughed with him. Thank god I didn't say Brian instead of B.
"Wait a second. Who's B?" Dom asked, anger leaving his voice as he went into deathly calm mode. Uh oh!
"No one."
"Must be someone. He's close enough to hear your conversation so I assume he's in the same house as you." Dom sounded so calm I knew it was a deception. He was pissed as hell I was with another man.
"How do you know it's a man? I just said the first letter of a name. It could be anyone."
"Well, is it a girl or a guy?"
Who the fuck died and made it any of his business? He wanted a break. And it's semantics who broke up with who at this point. Either way he wanted his space. But did I want to point out the fact it was none of his business or did I want to rub it in that it was a guy?
"It's a man. I couldn't get my own place right away so I have a roomie." I answered, knowing it was the answer that would infuriate him the most.
"Where the fuck are you Letty? I'm coming to take you home." He growled at me.
Oh no he wasn't. Clearly he wasn't ready to have me back in his life yet or he'd know that I'm not a possession he can order around. I'm not a toy he can have that stays in its proper place till he wants to take it out. Not a toy he can put away in a closet when he wasn't using me. I was free for the first time since I was 16 and I was going to enjoy it.
"I don't care to tell you Dominic. You know what? For the next while when I'm living without you running my life I'm free. When you realize I'm not your possession or your toy and you want me in your life because you love me and I add something to your life then you give me call. Till then I don't want to hear from you. Understand?" And without waiting for his answer I hit the end button on the cell phone, then the power button in case he tried to call me right back.
And then I slid down the kitchen counter to sit on the floor and started to sob.
Brian and I left not too long after we had the talk about how easy the money was for criminals. We were walking back to his boat together and I decided I had to know what his team knew about me'n Dom and what we'd done before I got to know them any better.
"Um, Bri?"
"Yeah Let."
"How much does your team know about me and what went on while you were with me in L.A.?" I asked and my nervousness showed in my tone.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, do they know how you know me? Do they know that we're the reason why you're not a cop anymore? Do they know what Dom and Vince were doing? I mean, are they looking at me like I'm some criminal who's team is responsible for Bullit not being a cop anymore?" Do they look down at me for being a petty crook? I wanted to ask it but I couldn't get the words out and I figured that my meaning was pretty clear just in how I'd asked.
"They know I know you from LA. They don't know just why I do. They do know you are Dom's girlfriend and they do know that Dom is the guy who was behind the thing that made me not want to be a cop anymore. They do not know your exact roll in the whole thing and they will not look down at you for anything. Oh, and for the record, I was offered a job with the police again after Rome and I brought down Verone. I turned it down. I don't want to be a cop anymore."
"Why not?" I asked. Brian seemed like an ideal cop type. He was mostly honest, a hard worker, an analytical thinker, and smart. He knew how to calm people down, make them trust him, and he was good at getting information out of people. Even if it was information they didn't want to give.
"It's just not for me anymore. At least, detective work isn't. What happened with you all taught me that life and people aren't as cut and dry as the police force would have you think. I mean, yeah, I know you guys were breaking the law. But then again you aren't bad people. You're good people who were doing a bad thing. But Dom had his reasons to want to as well. Maybe he shouldn't have done it no matter what but he felt he had to. He was so caught up in the fact that he had to take care of you and Mia and keep the house and the store and the garage up that he thought he had to do something to make the money. And even if he went about it in a stupid way, that's an admirable sentiment."
"Don't forget he did it for his stupid car. He had to have the best of everything for his stupid car and he couldn't afford it if he took care of all of us and the store. I don't want to make you think less of the great Dom Toretto but we could have survived on what we made in the store and the garage when you consider Dom and the rest of us did ok at racing."
"Letty. I know you aren't trying to tell me you think Dom's car is more important to him then you and Mia?" Brian clearly couldn't believe I would think that, let alone that it could be true.
"I know the car's not more important to him then Mia. Mia's the love of his life. Me on the other hand..." I trailed off.
"Letty, I know you're pissed at him right now but he loves you more then he loves his car." Brian tried to reassure me about Dom's affection as we walked onto the boat.
I wasn't buying it but I didn't want to fight about it any more either. I decided to let it drop. I was just about to tell Brian I was going to bed when his cell rang. And not the cell he used every day. THE cell. The one he gave me to call home. We shared a look.
"Does anyone have that number?" I asked him, worried.
"Not that I know of. It's likely a wrong number." Brian answered and picked up the phone.
"Maybe you should just let it ring." I told him.
"It's a wrong number or it's the FBI. It'll be fine." Brian told me then answered his cell with a curt 'hello'.
There's a sentence for you. Hey Letty, it's fine. If it's not a wrong number it's just the FBI. Hello Brian, I'm Letty, the girl who was hijacking transfer trucks. Yeah, the FBI is my fucken best friend! The fact that it could be the FBI was not the most reassuring thing that he could have told me.
"Um, yeah, she's here. Just a second while I find her." Brian used his hand to cover the mouthpiece of the phone. "It's Vince. I don't know how in the hell he got the number but I'll be getting a new phone soon I'll tell you that. He didn't know who I was, I don't think. He didn't flip and I'd think he would if he recognized my voice. You wanna talk to him or should I tell him I couldn't find you?"
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. It was all I could think. How in the blue hell did Vince get the untraceable number?
"I thought you said the number wasn't traceable." I hissed at Brian.
"It wasn't supposed to be able to be. It was supposed to show unknown and be totally untraceable. I'll have to call my boss at the FBI and find out what's up. But if you talk to him we can change the phone tomorrow. It's not like he'll know where you are from getting the number. The phone's activated out of Minnesota. He doesn't even know the right area code for where you are from the number."
"Ok, give it here." I took the phone from him. "Hello." I said as I put the phone to my ear.
"Letty."
"Vince how'd you get this number?" I sounded pissed. And I was. But I was scared too. I was glad it was pissed that came across. "I thought you weren't going to dig if I promised to call you every once in a while."
"It's not digging if it shows up on call display Letty. Where the hell is that area code from anyway? Jesse says Minnesota. Why would you go to Minnesota?"
Thank god he thought I was in Minnesota.
"Why not?" I asked, neither confirming nor denying his suspicions.
"What's there for you to do? Leon says you're working in a garage. Doesn't it suck to work in a garage in winter in a place where it snows? And you shouldn't be driving the 240 in the snow. It'll rust out."
Vince sounded like he was panicking more about me running the car in a place with snow and salt then he was about me turning up missing. And I can't have him running around Minnesota looking for me after all.
"Vince I'm not in Minnesota ok. I got the phone activated out of another state to hide my whereabouts." I sighed. I wanted to let him think I was in Minnesota but he was just the kind of thick skulled, bull headed man to take it upon himself to 'come visit' to check out my employer and make sure he was on the up and up and to make sure that I was living in accommodations he found suitable.
"Ok. Is everything ok?"
"As ok as it was when I talked to you this afternoon." I sighed.
"Um good. Cause, um..." Vince clearly didn't want to say what he felt he had to say to me.
"What is it Vince. I'm about to go to bed here. It's been a long ass day and I'd like it to end some time soon."
"Dom wants to talk to you. He's standing here staring at me. He says there are some things he wants to say to you. Will you talk to him?"
Will I talk to him? Really don't want to. The pain of what he did is still too fresh. It's only been 4 days since he broke my heart. But I'm going to have to talk to him eventually. It may as well be now. If I can just keep my voice level. Just make him think I'm fine. That I'm doing ok without him. That I don't miss him. That I haven't been finding out first hand how much it sucks to have nightmares. Then I'll be fine.
"Fine." I made myself sound irritated. "Put him on."
"Thank you Let." Vince breathed out. He had clearly been dreading telling Dominic that I wouldn't speak to him.
"Whateva, just put Dom on."
"Hello?" Dom sounded uncertain, like it might not be me.
"Hi Dom. What do ya want?" I asked. I sounded too pissed at him to please myself. I'd wanted to just sound indifferent.
"I just want to make sure you're ok." He told me.
Yeah, I'm fine. He made me lose my family, friends, job and pretty much everything else that was ever important to me other then my car. I'm fucken super! But that's me, the sarcastic bitch.
"I'm just great Dom! You broke up with me, told me all sorts of shit and made me have to leave my home. I'm fucken super!" Hey it's a good line. I may as well use it on him. Can't let all that yummy sarcasm go to waste in my own head after all.
Brian was watching me talk with a sort of horrified humour. Like he found the whole situation horrible but still funny. Then he must have realized I might want to have this one out alone and left the room for his own bedroom.
"Letty. It wasn't what I had in mind and you know it. Come home. It'll all work out. I...The team misses you." Dom sighed.
If he can't even admit he misses me, if it has to be 'the team' then how can he say he's ready to have me back? He can't be. Not if he can't admit to something as simple as how much he needs me and how he misses me.
"Really. You figure any of your shit out yet Dominic? Or are you just catching hell from Mia and V and trying to make your life easier?"
Cruel, but true. Why should I go easy on him now? I didn't even want to talk to him. I didn't want them to have a way to call me. The day that had been going so well was rapidly going to hell at its finish.
"It's not that Letty. And no, I still have shit to work out. But I do wish you'd come home. How'm I supposed to work out anything if I'm worrying about you all the time and I don't know where you are or if someone's mistreating you and shit?"
"I'm fine Dom. And I'ma be fine. I'm working, I'm racing, I'm winning and I've already made some friends. I'll keep being fine and doing ok till you tell me you're feeling better or I decide that I want to come home anyway. That's the end of the story right there. I have some shit to work out too."
And if I looked deep into myself it was true. I was fine. And I would keep being fine. I might get sad. I might miss the team. I might miss Dom. But I was going to be fine. And that was a good thing. And I did have some stuff to work through too.
"You're racing?" Dom jumped on that one.
"Yes. I am racing. It turns out that an s14 Silvia with a full HKS exhaust, turbos, NOS, Sparcos, and Toyo tires just to name a few is a car that is meant to be raced Dom. Contrary to what you seemed to think it's not for me to lean against and look good standing there. It's for me to drive and kick ass. So I'm finally using it for the purpose I build it for."
"Letty. It's too dangerous. You shouldn't be street racing!" He almost yelled at me. "I'm not there and..." He trailed off. I bet the sentence would have ended like you're not smart enough to decide what races to take on and how to win them.
"Guess what Dom. I won a car on my first race here ok. I don't need you to pick people for me to race. I don't need you to decide what's safe for me to do or not. I'm an adult and you gave up any right you had to run my life when you broke up with me!"
God it felt good to yell at him about that. It was about time he figured it out, even if I did have to spell it out for him, that it pissed me off when he treated me like Racer Girl Barbie. A person who's sole purpose in life was to stand around wearing tight clothes some one else dressed me in and looked good with my 36 inch boobs and 24 inch waist and 36 inch hips hoping that Racer Boy Ken would throw a bone of affection my way. And maybe, just maybe, if I was a good little ornament he might let me race the occasional race.
I am not a Barbie. I'm not made of plastic. The sum off all my feelings is not 'hope Ken likes this outfit'. I'm me. I'm strong. I'm passionate. Hell, I'm a Latina. I'm passionate in the extreme. The only person who can come close is Mia. And the Italians are pretty passionate too.
Dom sputtered on the other end of the phone.
"I didn't break up with you. I wanted to take a break. You broke up with me."
"I bet you use that line all the time don't you Dom. Bet it makes all the skanks soooo very sorry for you huh. Big bad Letty broke up with me when all I wanted was to take a break from boring old her so that I could get with you fine ladies who only want to fuck me, not have me make some commitment to them. And then I bet they fall over each other to kneel at your" I cleared my throat. "feet and beg you to be the one you allow the privilege of comforting you in this trying time of not having a girlfriend to warm your bed."
I was screaming at him and I didn't care if Brian could hear and I'd stopped caring if I let Dom know how pissed I was at him still either. I continued before he could get a word in.
"You are so selfish you know that? You needed your space to figure your shit out. You needed the money from races so I never could. You couldn't keep it in your pants. You had to get more money. You had to fight Johnny Tran. You had to have sex with his sister. You give that stupid little speech about how you live your life a quarter mile at a time and nothing else matters because for that 10 seconds or whatever you're free. Do you even know how selfish that sounds? All of us giving our whole effort to run your store and be your team and work in your garage and you go around telling people that none of it matters as long as you get your high from a fucken quarter mile race. Guess what Dom? There's more to life then chasing some 10 second adrenaline high and it's time you figured that out!"
I heard Brian snort from his room, likely about how stupid the fucken 10 second at a time speech really was.
And it was a noble sentiment in one way. To live one's life one piece at a time. Take it one quarter at a time, do your best and move on to the next. I lived my life like that. Taking it one day at a time, doing my best for that day then moving on to the next to try and do my best for another day.
But Dom's speech wasn't about doing his best and moving on to try and do better. It was about using each race as a quarter mile break from everyone else in his life. Like we were such a burden to him that he really needed the break from us.
Well, let me tell you, carrying the king of the L.A. streets around is more of a burden on us as his team then we'll ever be to him. Poor Vince was the only one with the balls to stand up to him and tell him like it was instead of how it wouldn't make him mad. And even Vince didn't want to push his buttons half the time. I didn't care. He'd driven me beyond caring. And besides that, he had no idea where I was.
"I know there's more to my life then racing Letty. I know how stupid that speech sounded and I'm so fucken sorry for all the other stuff too. But you weren't totally innocent either you know. Nothing I ever did was good enough after you found out about Sakura Tran."
"That's not true and you know it! If it had stopped after Sakura then I could have dealt. But it happened so many more times."
"Well, half the time you accused me of cheating on you right afterward I hadn't so I guess since you were going to fucken convict me of doing it I figured I may as well actually have done something to be yelled at over." Dom yelled back.
We were on opposite sides of the country and I was still pushing his buttons into showing me some sort of reaction. As it was, is, and ever shall be I guess. Damn Van and Mia and all their dragging me to Catholic church.
"There's logic for you Dom. Since she already caught me and doesn't trust me why don't I go ahead and do it a few more times? Even Vince knows that's stupid reasoning and goes against logic." I was still talking in raised tones and I knew my slight on his intelligence would not go unnoticed. Again, Vince is not stupid. But he can be kinda thick. Especially about girls. So I know me telling Dom that Vince could have figured something about girls out but Dom himself can't is going to piss him off.
I heard Brian laugh at that statement and then try to cover it with a cough. I couldn't blame him for listening. I was practically screaming at Dominic after all. But I couldn't just let him get away with laughing at something that had me so upset either. But it was kind of funny to think of Mr. Casanova himself, Dominic Toretto, having girl problems that Mr. Coyote would not.
"It's not funny B!" I yelled in the direction of his door even as I laughed with him. Thank god I didn't say Brian instead of B.
"Wait a second. Who's B?" Dom asked, anger leaving his voice as he went into deathly calm mode. Uh oh!
"No one."
"Must be someone. He's close enough to hear your conversation so I assume he's in the same house as you." Dom sounded so calm I knew it was a deception. He was pissed as hell I was with another man.
"How do you know it's a man? I just said the first letter of a name. It could be anyone."
"Well, is it a girl or a guy?"
Who the fuck died and made it any of his business? He wanted a break. And it's semantics who broke up with who at this point. Either way he wanted his space. But did I want to point out the fact it was none of his business or did I want to rub it in that it was a guy?
"It's a man. I couldn't get my own place right away so I have a roomie." I answered, knowing it was the answer that would infuriate him the most.
"Where the fuck are you Letty? I'm coming to take you home." He growled at me.
Oh no he wasn't. Clearly he wasn't ready to have me back in his life yet or he'd know that I'm not a possession he can order around. I'm not a toy he can have that stays in its proper place till he wants to take it out. Not a toy he can put away in a closet when he wasn't using me. I was free for the first time since I was 16 and I was going to enjoy it.
"I don't care to tell you Dominic. You know what? For the next while when I'm living without you running my life I'm free. When you realize I'm not your possession or your toy and you want me in your life because you love me and I add something to your life then you give me call. Till then I don't want to hear from you. Understand?" And without waiting for his answer I hit the end button on the cell phone, then the power button in case he tried to call me right back.
And then I slid down the kitchen counter to sit on the floor and started to sob.