The Funeral of a Good Girl
By – TempestRaces
Chapter 13 – Of Hypocrites and Sweet Little Lies

Vince stopped the car beside the billboard at the little beach they had hung out at as kids to do their drinking before they were legal, among other things they had been doing that they hadn't wanted the adults in their lives to know about. He set the parking brake and got out of his car.

Knowing what he was going to do, Tempest locked her door. She hadn't counted on him having the keyless entry clicker with him, however. She couldn't keep locking the door faster than he could unlock it remotely, though she did try. He got the door open and hauled her out of the back seat, their foolish battle of wills with the door lock taking his temper up from a slow boil to a simmer. "You're gonna come talk to me, so you might as well walk so I don't have to carry you over my shoulder."

"You have nothing to say that I want to hear."

"Guess you're gonna hear some things you don't wanna then, because you are gonna listen to me."

"Not if I can help it," she told him before she broke loose from his hold and started walking toward the highway.

"Where you goin?"

"Where ever I have to go to find a phone and have Jess come get me."

"By now Jess likely isn't in any state to drive."

"Yeah, because he's worried about me being upset with him about him not waiting for me, and worried about me being alone with you."

"He damn well should be worried about what's gonna happen to him for forgetting you in the shuffle. I'm gonna kick his ass."

"Everyone loves a hypocrite," she answered with a sarcastic snort.

"Come again?"

She spun around to face him, eyes snapping green fire his way. "You're pissed at Jess for forgetting to wait for me when he was scrambling away from the cops and he's not used to me being around without my own ride, but it was cool for you to forget you brought me in your car after asking me to go with you, while you practically made out with three girls on the hood of said car while I was right beside the passenger side door. After how things have been between us since I got here." She finally met his eyes. The look on her face was incredulous. She clearly couldn't believe he could honestly be so obtuse, or self-righteous. "Jesse likely knows his car isn't as fast as everyone else's, and given he's kinda nervous going to begin with, I can easily justify what he did. What's your excuse?"

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair in agitation. He remembered the look on her face while she fixed it for him, and the look on her face after he kissed her. It should have been such a good night, ending happily in his room some time around three am. He only had himself to blame for how it was ending instead, a fact which made him very frustrated. He wasn't getting any from her tonight, and if he decided to get some elsewhere, she'd likely fillet him alive. With Letty's help. He couldn't win. Therefore, he was going to have to try his best to fix this situation, before it got any farther out of hand. He walked up to her and took her by the tops of both arms, holding her gently and caressing her skin with his thumbs in slow circles. "I fucked up. I don't know what else to say."

"Nothing, Vince. Don't say a word. Just take me home," she bit out, keeping her eyes on her feet and effectively shutting him out.

"Please don't do this."

"Don't do what?" she snapped.

"Stay mad at me for the rest of your visit."

"I'm not mad at you, strangely enough. Well, maybe a little that you dragged me here against my will. But mostly, I'm mad at myself. I shoulda known fuckin' better, but I didn't. I mean, I had to go and talk to another guy before you started to give a fuck you didn't know where I was."

"That's not true. I realized you were gone and then I found you with that guy. It wasn't you being with that guy that made me go looking for you."

"Whatever." She shook her head, unwilling and unable to see his position. Unable to believe him. "I'm cold and tired. Can we go home now please?"

"If you're cold I'll warm you up, but we can't go home until you forgive me for being an asshole."

"I told you I wasn't mad at you. There's nothing to forgive, but if you think there is, you're forgiven. There, can we go now?" She shivered.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest, resting his chin on her head. "I'm sorry," he sighed.

"What for now?" If she just believed him, she might even find it inside herself to do it. Forgive him. But she wasn't sure from his tone whether he was really sorry, or upset that he'd caused himself an inconvenience.

"For making you feel so bad. We are friends T. I know I didn't act like it tonight. Maybe it's no excuse but I'm just a creature of habit. I shoulda known better and I shoulda paid more attention to you, but I fucked up."

She stood stiff in his arms. Not sorry for doing what he did. Sorry that what he had done had made her feel bad, and she was quite sure that translated into sorry now that you feel bad you won't want anything to do with me tonight. He wasn't getting off the hook that easily. No sirree bob. "I'm glad you realized it. If you ever find another girl stupid enough to allow you in her life, you'll know for next time what not to say and how not to act," she said. Her tone was flat, filled with anger and disgust.

"What the fuck do you want from me?" he roared, pushing her away from him and holding her at arm's length in front of himself. Her need to continually act like what he had done was the worst thing anyone had ever done was getting frustrating. He shook her before he realized what he was doing and stopped. The way her hurt green eyes shone told him loud and clear her hold over her temper and her angry, hurt tears was tenuous at best. He was fairly sure he didn't really like himself in that moment. At least he hadn't hit her, but holding her against her will was tantamount to it.

"I want you to take me home," she ground out, low and angry. It was an order, not a request; a fact that showed through clearly.

Guilt curled in his belly over how he'd made her feel and mixed with his anger and frustration over her continuing need to ignore everything he said, until it expanded in an explosive mixture inside his gut. He snarled, "Fine, fuck you! You won't believe I'm sorry, you won't listen to me, fine. Fuckin' so be it. It's not worth this much frustration!"

"That's pretty much what I thought," she replied in a small voice.

"Fuck!" he exclaimed. He kept saying the wrong things to her. She was never going to forgive him after he'd said what he'd said. Telling someone you were trying to make up with 'fuck you' and that they weren't worth the trouble wasn't exactly the right foot to stand on. He took another deep breath, tried counting to ten. It didn't help that much. "Come on. You win. Let's go home," he growled. He walked over to the passenger side of the car and opened the front door. There was no way he was driving her around in the back seat like she was a child. After watching her slide onto the seat he closed the door, slamming it as hard as he could. When he saw her flinch away from the window he started around to the other side. "Fuck!" he yelled at himself. Was there something he could do right this evening? He got in the car and started for home, his driving fast, erratic and jerky. His engine was roaring, throttle full open as he raced home, trying to work off some of his anger and frustration with the speed. She curled up in her seat and looked out the side window the whole time. The look on her face reflected in the glass made him feel even more like an asshole than he had. She was hurt, pissed off, and scared and he knew it, though she had managed to hide her fear well. He kept wanting to say something to her, but he didn't know what to say beyond sorry again and he knew it wouldn't cut it.

They parked at the end of the driveway and walked into the house. Dom looked up when he heard the front door open, watched them walk in and watched as Tempest slipped away as quickly as she could without running and disappeared into the crowd. He watched Vince walk his way. "Take it she still ain't talkin' to you?"

"No. Shit I fucked up."

"So what? She won't talk to you for the rest of the time she's here and then she goes home. What'd you care?"

"Dunno, but I do. She's important to Jesse."

"Still, that ain't gonna change over you. So why sweat it?"

He could tell Dom wasn't trying to make him feel better, but rather to rub in how right he'd been all along. Dom didn't like Tempest and he didn't like the idea of him sleeping with her either, and it wasn't a fact he'd ever tried to hide from the rest of the world. But after all he'd been through already tonight, the last thing Vince was ready to handle was another fight, especially not with Dom. "I need a drink," he stated, instead of touching Dom's last comment.

Dom shrugged before he answered, "Beer in the fridge."

Vince wandered toward the kitchen. He found Tempest talking to Leon, a drink in her hand. He ignored them, figuring that was what she would want, and got a beer out of the fridge. He wandered back into the living room and sat down before picking up his guitar and picking at it aimlessly.

Leon watched as Tempest drained her third very strong drink made since she had arrived in the kitchen, and started to mix herself another. It was easy to see she was upset from the lines of tension in her face and the strain around her eyes. In short, her grip on reality was tenuous at best, and he really didn't think she was following the best path toward dealing with her issues.

"You sure you should be drinkin' like that right now?" he asked gently. "You're still kinda shook up girl, and all that liquor isn't gonna help."

"I'm fine. I just need to take the edge off."

"I think you had enough for that. You're well on your way to sloshed."

She smiled, the first he'd seen on her face since they'd talked in his car. "That's the plan, Stan."

"Be better if you didn't."

"Maybe, but I'm not all that good at doing what's good for me, if tonight has illustrated anything for me that's it."

"Remember what I told you in the car. Just keep it in mind."

"I will." She drained her drink with a grimace and started making another right away. She wasn't ready to tell Leon or anyone else about the fight she'd had with Vince after he rescued her from the cops. She knew without being told that it would go from being between him and her into being between him and her and Dom and Leon and Jesse, not to mention Letty, and Mia would then have every right to say 'I told you so', and none of that was anything she was equipped to deal with right now. So she was going to drink and keep on drinking until she didn't have to remember the fact that she'd been scared of Vince. That his fury had actually made her afraid of what he might be capable of doing to her. She smiled at Leon one last time before starting into the living room. She found Jesse standing with Mia. "Hey cuz," she said.

Jesse hugged her. "I'm sorry I took off. I thought you were still with Leon."

"It's my fault Jess. I wasn't with anyone. I wanted to be alone for a minute so I wandered off on my own and when people started to run for cover I was too far away to holler at you guys that I needed a ride too."

"You work anything out with V?"

She shook her head and took a huge gulp of her drink to hide her discomfort.

"How many of those have you had?"

"This is five, I think."

"You up to your old tricks?"

"Nope, not this time."

"Please be careful T. I don't wanna end up taking you to have your stomach pumped."

"I'll stop after this one, or maybe one more."

He nodded.

"I'll catch you around, ok?" she asked, and without waiting for an answer wandered off into the crowd.

"She's pretty messed up," Mia observed.

"Yeah. She's being hard on herself for things."

"Why? She didn't do anything wrong. She's just finding out the hard way that Vince is a prick first and everything else second."

"She might not have done anything wrong, but she thought that they were friends. Well, friends with an unconventional relationship. Now she has herself convinced that he was just using her, and that she shouldn't have allowed it to happen."

"That's what I've been saying all along."

"But it's not true. He does like her as a friend, and maybe more. But he's too stubborn and set in his ways to allow himself to see it. It'll work itself out, I just don't know how." Jesse walked away to get himself another drink.

Tempest didn't keep up her end of the deal with Jesse. She ended up having three or maybe four more drinks and by the time two am rolled around she was so wrecked she could hardly stand. When she caught herself giggling at a very lame joke one of the wannabes told her as they danced together, she knew it was time to call it a night. She decided it was time to take herself off to bed before she passed out someplace upstairs or made another mistake that might make her life even more fucked up than it already was. Like encourage the loser she was dancing with to keep flirting with her in front of Vince, which she knew wasn't a great idea. She was just too far gone to care anymore. But that didn't mean she wanted to see some drunk, vapid racer wannabe get the life beaten out of him. It was obvious, even to her in the state she was in, that Vince was just itching for an excuse to beat the tar out of someone and since he couldn't beat it out of her, one of the guys getting her attention would make a good substitute.

When she got downstairs she changed into a pair of terry sweat shorts and a tank top before curling up in a ball on the couch. She passed out almost immediately. She woke up half an hour later with an urgent need to throw up. She heard the sounds of people who weren't alone or doing any sleeping in their beds out of both Leon's room and Jesse's as she raced into the bathroom. She managed to slam the door shut behind herself before she was violently ill. With a groan she stumbled back to her couch and fell onto it. Her head was spinning so badly it felt like the room was actually in motion around her while she stayed still, and she wasn't sure how much longer she could wait to go throw up again. She definitely didn't want to be hearing what she was hearing out of the two rooms with closed doors. Now Vince just has to take one of his little girlfriends down here and my night will be complete, she thought sanguinely.

On that note she got up to run to the bathroom again. She finished up and went back to the couch to lay in the semi darkness in abject misery, shivering. The door at the top of the stairs was open and light and noise from the party which was still going on drifted down to wash over her. She thanked god for small miracles that it practically drowned out the sound of Jesse and Leon doing what they were doing. The walls had to be like paper. She drifted in and out of consciousness, always shivering. She wished her teeth would just stop chattering for thirty seconds so she might just fall asleep.

Vince gave up on the party around quarter to three. How he hadn't killed anyone he didn't know. Mostly everyone was gone home and none of his team was anywhere to be found, other than Mia, who was kicking people out gently so she could lock up. He wasn't yet sure how he'd managed to watch 'the fuckin' bitch'—as he'd spent the night calling her in his own head—dance with other guys and let them all live. He hauled ass down the stairs, only to hear what Tempest had heard, his two friends getting lucky in their rooms. That served to rub in his idiocy to him nicely. Then he looked at the couch and found where 'the fuckin' bitch' had gone.

She was so pale her skin looked translucent, breathing shallowly and shivering as she lay on her side, facing into the room and curled into a little ball on the couch, which she hadn't even bothered to unfold. "Great," he muttered. He'd spent the night calling her names in his head, and she'd spent the night getting shit faced beyond sense and he hadn't even spent enough time really looking at her to notice. He'd seen her rubbing his nose in the fact she could pick up other guys and had looked right past what he'd made her deal with, the hurt and the anger, the doubts and no doubt a touch of fear too. He walked over to her and crouched down beside her with a sigh. Asshole! "Temp, you ok?"

"What?" she mumbled in a thready voice. She didn't open her eyes to look at him with her question.

"You ok?"

"I don't think so," she admitted.

Her voice sounded weak, and nothing could hide the upset. Fuckin' Asshole! "How much did you drink?"

"A lot."

He tried to preserve his patience. "How much is a lot?"

"I don't know, I was drunk for the last part of it. Maybe three quarters of a quart. A bit more," she whispered.

"Than shouldn't you be fine? You drank more than that on Saturday."

"I didn't drink it all in just under an hour on Saturday." Even drunk she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of knowing how she'd kept up with him.

"Jesus Trouble." He ran a hand through his hair. He knew she had done something to keep up with him on Saturday, he just couldn't figure what. But now she hadn't done whatever it was she did that allowed her to drink more than she physically should have been possible to do. She had simply downed enough liquor put her in serious danger if it was all still in her system. And it was all his fault. "You throw up?"

"Twice," she answered, trying hard not to break down and cry in front of him. There was nothing she wanted less. There was nothing to make you see your own stupidity like getting shit faced and ending up with nothing but time on your hands to analyze your every word and action over the course of a whole disastrous event. Her whole evening just kept replaying over and over in her mind. She couldn't make it stop, and it just made her think over and over again how singularly stupid she had been to allow herself to get involved with Vince, knowing what she had about him from the start, both from Jesse's antidotes about his friend, and what she'd seen and inferred first hand. And now there he was, seeing her in the glorious aftermath of her attempt to deal with what he'd done. Just fuckin' super!

He felt her forehead, brushing her hair off her face as he did so. Her skin felt like ice. She was in a cold sweat. "Why are you so cold?" Was being cold when it was anything but in the room a sign of alcohol poisoning?

"Dunno."

"Come on. You're staying in my room tonight."

"No way," she seemed to wake up a bit more when he told her that, almost seemed to panic. "I'm ok." She was quick to try and reassure him. "Just gimme an hour or two and I'll be fine. Just like last time."

After the way he'd acted to her at the beach he couldn't fault her for it. He could and did fault himself, but it wasn't the time to deal with his own feelings and he knew it. He'd scared her and he knew he deserved her fear and distrust. But he wasn't going to leave her to choke to death in her sleep either. "No you're not. You're freezing and I'd rather you were somewhere someone was keeping an ear out for you. Either you put up with me watching out for you or you let me take you to a hospital. Take your pick."