AN: Ok, so I likely should have edited some of this chapter out, but I didn't. It's likely not all that far above M, if it even is, and the parts that I feel maybe should have been removed are important to the story, as far as I'm concerned, so they stay. As always, please lemme know what you think. I crave critique so feel free to bring it on.
The Funeral of a Good Girl
By – TempestRaces
Chapter 14- Of Predators and Prey
"Either way, before we decide I need the bathroom again." She scrambled unsteadily to her feet and rushed the washroom. Despite the closed door he walked in, helped her marshal her hair while she heaved, helped her brush her teeth at her insistence and made her drink two glasses of water. "Its just gonna come up again," she insisted.
"So be it. You need to get some water into your system. Now, bed for you."
She gave up on fighting him. He was such a dominate personality she knew that as weak as she was feeling, she couldn't fight him off. He would get his way. Either she would have to allow him to take her to an ER or allow him to baby sit her for the night. She allowed him to help her into his room and tuck her under the blankets before he changed into a pair of shorts himself and slid in the other side.
He could tell she was still shivering. He came up on his side behind her and tucked her against him, his chin on the top of her head. "Better?"
She didn't answer. Leon was right; she shouldn't have drunk all that liquor. She just felt worse, now that she couldn't prevent herself from thinking back, and couldn't even slink off alone to deal with her feelings. It was so confusing in her state to have the man who'd been so very cruel to her mere hours before decide to be so very kind to her now. She started to cry, losing her battle against tears against her will. She tried to stop, but it was like the more she tried to stop the harder she cried. She wanted her mother! She barely stopped herself from crying her want out loud. Second place to her mom would have been Jesse, but there was no way she was getting Vince to go interrupt what Jesse was doing just to come and see her have a drunken breakdown.
When her sobbing started he forcefully bit back a curse. He wished someone would teach him how to deal with the waterworks of a female he really didn't want to see hurting. It wasn't that he ever knew how to deal with a crying female, but it was a million times worse when it was someone he cared for, and someone he had caused to cry. He also figured he felt like ten times the asshole because he knew crying wasn't something she did. She wasn't one of those women who used her tears to get her way or one of those women who didn't have control over her emotions either. Mia cried over every happy moment and every upset. It was like she had no control over her emotions. Tempest normally had a stony control over hers. He had already seen her upset and angry and her normal reaction was to either mouth off until she was in even more trouble or get this icy cold, obstinate look on her face, like 'what the fuck do you want me to do about it?' All he knew was if she didn't stop soon, he was in danger of joining her out of a sheer sense of helplessness. Ok, maybe that was overstating it. But he didn't know what he'd do if she kept sobbing brokenly, like nothing would ever be right in her world again. Seeing how as he knew it was all his fault. "Aw, please don't cry Temp. I can't stand it." He rubbed her stomach idly in circles as she sobbed. Where the admission came from, he didn't know. He consoled himself she wasn't likely to remember very much of her evening by the time she woke up. "You crying about being sick, or about what happened tonight?"
"Both," she mumbled through her tears.
He sighed. There was only one way that he might possibly fix what he'd broken and he didn't like it. Not one bit. "I didn't start out to hurt you. I wish you'd believe me."
"I do. It doesn't make it any better that I allowed myself to pretend things were different." She had little control over what left her mouth. She was too drunk and too upset to think before she spoke. She knew that she hadn't been intending to give him any more information about how she felt. But in the insular world of her present, with only her upset and his presence for company, she didn't know how to keep her words in check.
He sighed at her admission. She was too astute to lie to, and it was one thing he'd picked up on about her right off. She was in tune to the moods of people around her to a scary degree. If he tried to shit her she'd know, even in her condition. But he wasn't about to tell her what he'd told himself either. That he'd just sleep with her while it was convenient and be glad when she was gone. No, that reassuring little lie would stay a mental trick of his own. So his only open avenue was honesty. Not what she had told herself was the score, and not the story he was using to keep himself from panicking about reality either.
"I'm not gonna insult your intelligence and tell you that I wasn't always counting on the fact you were too smart to want to try and keep this thing with us going once you went home. I knew the whole three thousand miles between us thing wasn't something you would think was an overcomeable obstacle, that much is true. But I like being with you Trouble. You're smart and funny and the way you won't take my shit keeps me on my toes. I never intended to fuck up this bad with you. I thought once you went home we would still be friends. I thought I could make it work." Female friends he knew how to have. He and Letty had a great relationship. It was this something more he had with Tempest that had him thrown. When his words didn't have his desired effect on her he kissed her shoulder. "I'm sorrier than you'll ever know Trouble. I never had a girl who I was sleeping with who was my friend too before and I'm just as outta water about how to act about it as you are. I know I didn't do very good, but I been tryin. Please stop crying. You're killin' me." What could he say to make her stop? "I'll make it all up to you tomorrow. Well, when you're done bein' sick. Ok?"
"You scared the hell outta me tonight Vince, and I don't know how you'll ever make that up to me."En vino et veretas, didn't they say? She hadn't ever intended to tell him that, but there she went anyway. She wasn't scared of anything, at least as far as she had ever intended to allow him to be concerned. But, truth be told, she thought perhaps telling him about it was one way she could hurt him back in some small measure. Her personality had a streak of mean a mile wide when she was hurting, and revenge for wrongs done to her was high on her list of priorities most times.
"I know I did. But I never meant to, and I'd never hurt you."
"You did," she reminded. He wasn't getting off that easy either. He had hurt both her feelings and her skin, and he wasn't to be allowed to pretend otherwise, not even simply between him and her.
"I know. I know," he repeated on an angry growl directed at himself. "I was angry and I grabbed you and I never shoulda put my hands on you when I was that pissed off. The heights of angry you push me to never stop surprising me so I shoulda known better than to ever touch you in that mood. But I'd never haul off and hit you, and I swear it. I don't know if you'll believe me or not, but when I told you way back when that I don't hold with hitting girls, I meant it. You always knew I had a big mouth, Trouble. But when it comes down to it, that's all it is when it comes to doing anything physical against you or any other woman. I might talk a good game to scare you, but I wouldn't ever really do it. I promise you that. We might yell at each other until we wake the house up, or scream ourselves hoarse, but I'll never, ever hit you or put my hands on you in anger again. I swear. You couldn't be any more angry with me over what I did than I am with myself."
She sniffled and her crying started to calm. He had sounded honest. But you're loaded, she reminded herself. He was still trying to make her feel better, wrapped around her so she could get warm, telling her things she knew he wouldn't ever want to say out loud, let alone to her. In some small way, he had bared his soul to her, and it wasn't something he did often, if his lack of grace with doing so now was any indication. After the fight they'd had on the beach he could have left her to be miserable alone on the couch, but he hadn't. He'd chosen to finally make a sincere apology instead, saying things that he would hate to say out loud to anyone. Maybe a girl did have to give a man like him a bit more slack than other guys. If she wanted him to figure out what he was missing while living his life in half measures waiting for the real thing to begin, she had to hang around him to show him what he could have. That certainly didn't mean he was forgiven. She had some thinking to do about it. Some sober thinking. Thus, she had some thinking to do after she stopped wanting to die when she woke up in the morning. Or afternoon, at the rate she was going.
"I'll think on it tomorrow. After I'm done being sick."
He chuckled softly. Her watery, yet still distinctly annoyed answer amused him. She was far from ok with him, but she was already thinking, and with her, an appeal to her analytical mind was the best course to take. "Ok, good enough. I'll be right here, ok. If you need anything and I'm asleep, wake me. I mean it."
She didn't answer, she just allowed herself to pass out again. She did feel better being held against his strength than she had suffering in the noisy, cold living room on the scratchy couch. She knew she'd analyze everything more when she woke up sober, but for now she was just going to let him hold her against his heartbeat and sleep, feeling safe even though she knew she shouldn't. Even though with him was the last place she should ever feel safe again. It was just too bad her tired mind didn't totally see it that way anymore.
He felt her go slack in his arms and heard her breathing even out as she fell into sleep. He relaxed with a sigh himself before kissing her bare shoulder again. Someday soon he might have to look closer at why he cared. Why he didn't just allow it to stand with them not liking each other for the rest of her stay. But he couldn't and wouldn't do that. He hoped, when she saw the surprise he'd been planning for her while her and the boys had been building her engine she'd know he never could have planned to treat her the way he had. He fell asleep.
He woke up around four thirty, woke Tempest up against her will and made her drink three more glasses of water. She fought him tooth and nail over it too, but he won in the end. He was hoping to get as much into her as he could while she was still going to be able to go back to sleep and let it work into her system. He knew it would help her not be as miserable the next day. He took up his position behind her with one arm under her neck and the other draped over her hip after she finished her water and fell back asleep with her. When he woke up the next day he was all alone in his bed. He rolled onto his back with a groan and tried to remember why that was a bad thing.
Tempest!
Where was she? She should have been sleeping, or very pissed off and miserable to be awake. He looked over at the clock. It was just after eleven. Then he heard feminine laughter. He got up out of bed, trying to puzzle out the laughter. There was no way that there should be any female in the house in a good enough mood to laugh. He paused in the open door of his room.
Tempest and Leon had been playing PlayStation. She was still wearing her little cami and short terry shorts she'd slept in. Leon was sporting a pair of boxers with the Nissan logo on them all over and not much else. The laughter was due to the fact that when she had kicked his ass at Gran Turismo 2, Leon had decided to tickle her to get revenge.
She was struggling underneath him, eyes screwed closed and laughing frantically as she tried to get away. "Stop being a sore loser!" she gasped out around her laughter.
"You cheated!" Leon accused, lifting up her cami and blowing a raspberry against her stomach. Vince felt his gut tighten and he fought to remember Leon looked at her like a relative. He didn't need to be jealous over Leon having his hands and mouth on her. Not that he was sure he had the right to be jealous anyway.
She laughed even harder until she was gasping for breath. "Get off me Leo! You lost fair and square and I don't want to have to hurt you!"
"That I'd like to see," Leon said and blew another raspberry just under her navel. "Cheaters deserve to be punished."
"I didn't cheat. I'm just better'n you. Let me up."
"You must have the Devil's own luck. Twice in a row you shoulda been curled up in a corner wishin' to die," Vince broke into their play. "And I find you doin' just fine instead."
They both looked up at him in two different levels of nervousness. Leon looking mildly uncomfortable at being caught putting his lips on Tempest, and Tempest looking very uncomfortable as she looked up from her prone position. Leon spoke first. "I fed her my hangover remedy at ten when she got up."
"It's the nastiest thing I've ever fuckin' seen too."
"It worked, didn't it?"
"Yeah. Still tasted like ass."
Leon started tickling her again. "Don't insult the reason why you aren't tied to the porcelain god!"
"I'm sorry to the bucket of green slop you made me drink!" she managed to get out around her giggling.
"I let you put some of that protein shit in it so you wouldn't have to eat breakfast, didn't I?"
"Thank you Leon," she chirped and kissed him smack on the lips with more noise and enthusiasm than was required. She laughed happily as he turned bright red. "You're like the loud, obnoxious cousin I never had and never wanted."
"Aw thanks gorgeous," he drawled out in a typical Leon growl. "You're like the annoying little cousin I always wanted. I never had anyone to throw worms at, or put frogs down the dress of."
"I used to dig up worms at my grandmother's house and make worm houses for them in ice-cream containers with Jess. I also never minded frogs or snakes."
"Is there a way to offend you?"
"Yeah, I can't stand a guy who thinks he looks better'n me in a dress."
"You got no cause for worry around here. I guarantee none of us are gonna put a dress on, let alone think we look better'n you in one. But seriously, have you ever worn a dress?"
"I went to prom. I didn't have a lot of choice. I also wore one to graduation. And a few times at Halloween. And I have one of those little black dresses every woman is required to own. I don't get a lot of reasons to wear it though."
"You bring it with you?" Vince watched as she tipped her head back to look at him upside down.
"I think so. I packed a lot into those two bags. Surprised myself."
He nodded. "Well, if you're all up, we should get ready and head to the garage."
"The garage?"
"Yeah, it's a work day," Vince reminded.
Leon groaned.
"It ain't gonna be a work day for me until two weeks from now when I'm due back at work."
"You wanna finish your car and try it, don't you?" Vince questioned.
"Oh yeah, the Skyline." Tempest hopped up off the floor. "How much is left to do, Leo?"
"I dunno. Jesse left to go finish it at like nine, so could be done by now."
"Jess isn't in his room sleeping?" Tempest asked, incredulous her cousin got up early after a night of drinking.
"Nope. Come on green eyes, let's get down there," Leon said to Tempest, pushing her toward where Vince was standing.
"Why're you pushin' me farther into the house if you wanna leave now?"
"Cause you can't wear your jammies to the shop and all your shit is in there," Leon retorted, pointing into Vince's room.
"Oh yeah, I guess it is," she admitted. Leon didn't stop pushing her toward the bedroom. "Shit, I'll get dressed already. Gimme a minute." She left Leon and Vince standing together in their boxers in the living room when she closed Vince's own door in his face.
"Guess there's still trouble in paradise, huh dawg?" Leon teased. He realized he likely shouldn't be teasing on the subject when Vince's expression turned grim.
"I was pretty shitty to her after I picked her up in the alley last night. Dunno if she's going to get over it or not." But he did know that he wasn't ever going into the details with his friends. If she told them, there was nothing he could do about it. It was her story to tell too, after all. But he was never volunteering the information.
"She stayed in your room last night," Leon probed.
"I didn't give her a choice. I told her it was either stay where I could watch her or go get checked out for alcohol poisoning. She allowed me to decide for her and I picked just putting her to bed. I don't know that it means she's over anything. She was too drunk—stupidly drunk—to have too much to say about it."
"She'll come around."
"We'll see." Vince shrugged.
"Wait 'til she sees what you did to the Skyline."
"Well, that could go one of two ways. Either she'll love it, or she'll be pissed I just up and did it without asking her first or giving her any input."
"I think it's pretty clear how her tastes run. What you told me about sounds just like something she'd pick on her own. Besides, who's gonna argue with a Stitch—"
Tempest leaving Vince's room dressed in a clean tank and a pair of jeans cut Leon off. "Ok guys, get ready already. I'm ready to hear my car with three inch pipes."
"I'm ready to hear you dump boost on that new blow off valve," Leon said, grinning. "But if your car takes mine I'm never gonna live it down."
"You gonna try and race me Leon?"
"We'll see. I dunno if my male pride could take the hit if you beat me."
"You've got enough ego for ten guys, so I'm sure you'd be ok. Come to think of it, with the exception of Jesse, most of the guys around here have overgrown egos."
"Guilty," Leon admitted, not looking too chagrined over it at all. "I'll go chuck some gear on."
"Me too," Vince nodded with a look between Tempest and Leon.
Vince and Leon left her to her own devices in the living room while they changed. They arrived out of their rooms at almost the same time.
"You guys co-ordinate that shit, or did it just work out that way?"
"Just a co-incidence," Leon answered and ran up the stairs.
Vince followed him, leaving Tempest to bring up the rear. By the time they made it out of the house Leon was zipping off down the street. Vince suppressed his groan. Now she was going to think he'd put his friend up to taking off so she'd have no choice but ride with him. He decided to try and head off the situation before it could become one. "I didn't tell him to take off. I'm sorry you're stuck with me."
"It's just a ride to the shop Vince. Don't get your panties in a twist over it."
"You wanna drive her?" Vince surprised himself by asking, pointing at the gleaming blue sedan that was his pride. He thought that if she was in control of the car, she might feel in control over the whole situation and it would give her confidence to be in his presence alone. He was guessing his car didn't have a lot of happy memories for her.
"You sure?" she asked, her head cocked to the side. Every time he looked at his car, or touched it, or drove it, she could see how much love he had for it. It was obviously his most treasured possession in his life, his guitar a distant second.
"Yeah. I've seen you with the Skyline. I think you can be trusted with this." He tossed her the keys. Maybe she could be trusted with it. Maybe she was a very competent driver. Well, for a female. But it was still going to be hard for him to get in the passenger seat of his own car. No one had driven it but him since he bought it. Well, Jesse one time, but only because he had to in order to tune it.
She caught the keys and opened the driver's side door, sliding into the driver's seat and adjusting it to allow her shorter legs to find the pedals. She laughed at his wince. "It'll take you all day to get it back the way it should be, won't it?"
"Yeah," he sighed.
She laughed louder. "Good." She glanced at Vince after backing down the drive. He looked awfully serious all of a sudden.
"T?"
"Yeah?" she asked, sliding the gearshift from first to second with her eyes on the road.
"Are we anything near cool?"
"Yeah. Near cool. But we ain't there yet."
He chuckled. "So fuckin' up all my carefully arranged interior isn't revenge enough?"
"Not quite, no. I'll think of some more things I can do that'll help make me feel vindicated though."
"I hate the sound of that."
"You should. I might be feeling like having a slave for a day tomorrow. Where could I find one?"
"What kind of slave?" Vince asked, his eyes narrowed in question.
"Not the kind you wish," she answered with a smirk.
"Whether you want me to be that kind of slave to you or not, I am. If you didn't want me to be you never shoulda let me find out how good we were together." He watched as she blushed. Her slight discomfort with the topic took some of the sting out of admitting what he had to her.
She didn't miss his use of were instead of are. He didn't talk about how good they were together in bed in the present tense, but past. It seemed he was convinced that he'd messed up with her bad enough that their sexual relationship was over. She wasn't sure if he was right or not, yet. She decided not to fill him in about that revelation though. He could find out she wanted him again if she decided she did some time. It wasn't like he was likely to turn her down. She didn't know what possessed her, but she was going to ask him anyway, because she wanted to know. "Were we that good together? Be honest, was the sex we had any better than sex with any other girl for you?"
He rubbed the back of his neck in discomfort. He didn't want to answer honestly, but he was going to have to. He owed her that much, much as he hated to think on it. "Yeah, it was. For me anyway. There was an element of me giving a fuck about you that changed it, I think. You?"
"Well, in all honesty I didn't have that much to compare it to, but I thought so to."
"Come again. You don't have a lot to compare it to?"
It was her turn to be uncomfortable. "Yeah," she mumbled.
"How so?"
"Well, I told you, I ain't no slut. I'm only nineteen. How young do you think I got started, twelve?"
He seemed a bit chagrined to be reminded of how young she was, and that she grew up in an environment a lot more sheltered than the one in L.A. "I guess not. How many boyfriends you had?"
"In general, or that I slept with?"
"Either or. Both."
"I've dated a bunch of guys. None of them all that seriously and only, um," she started to try and decide what the magic number of guys she'd had sex with should be. She wasn't sure she wanted him to know the truth. Sometimes it was already hard not to feel like the country bumpkin to their sophisticated Los Angeles attitudes. She didn't want to say anything to paint herself in an even more back country light. But it was a touchy area. Too few and she looked like an innocent child. Too many and she looked like the easy sort he was used to. It was a very complicated lie to formulate. In the end he took the chance away from her.
"It's hard not to know you're about to lie to me when it takes you this long to decide on an answer. Especially since you've already admitted there ain't that many to add up."
"Ok, shit. It's like the fuckin' Spanish inquisition. I only ever slept with two of them."
"Two?" he asked, his voice sounding shocked.
She looked at him askance. Was him implying two was a lot? He, who took a different girl home after every time his best friend raced a car and won.
"That's it?" he questioned.
So he was shocked the number was small, not shocked that the number seemed large. She decided part of punishing him could be rubbing it in. "Yeah. Really I was only dating one of 'em. The other one was just a guy I knew, ran into when we were both drunk, and allowed myself to be taken home by from the bar one night." She glanced at Vince. He looked very uncomfortable. "So while we're on this subject, what about you?"
"What about me, what?"
"Well, how many girls have you dated and or slept with?"
"Well," he paused.
She looked over at him. He looked very embarrassed for some reason.
How on earth was he supposed to admit he could tell her how many girls he'd dated, because the number was so small, but that he had no idea how many he'd just slept with?
As she watched him flounder for an answer to give her, and slowly get more and more uncomfortable and upset looking, she took pity on him. Well, not right away. She let him sweat it out a bit first. It served him right, really. "Just tell me how many you've actually dated V. I know you've been a bit too indiscriminate to count up all the others."
"How do you know that?"
His shocked expression went a long way to soothing some of her remaining need to hurt him back. "Jesse has a big mouth."
Vince frowned tightly. "I see. Well, girls I've actually dated huh?"
"Yeah." She refused to let him off the hook, despite getting the feeling that was exactly what he was fishing for.
"Am I allowed to count you?"
"I guess so." She'd let him count the day he took her out to lunch and the fair, just to be nice, she figured.
"Two."
"Two? Two including me?" she asked incredulously.
"Yeah. There was Donna Moore in high school and then there was you."
"So how soon after the back of Donna Moore did you decide you were in love with Mia?"
He really looked at her in shock when that left her mouth. "Excuse me?" he questioned. He answered his own question in a growl. "Jesse, I shoulda known."
"Nope, not Jesse. You gave yourself away there. The way you talk to her, look at her. And the way she's clearly good at, and use to, ignoring your advances 'cause she doesn't feel the same way."
"If you figured that out already, why are you still talking to me?"
She shrugged. "Why not? You ain't with Mia. You just wish you were. Wishin' doesn't always mean something's gonna happen. If it did, Jesse wouldn't live here anymore. He'd live with me where he belongs, up where he was born. And if wishing was all it took, I'd live down here with him. He says I'm the only thing missing from his life down here to make it totally perfect. I mean, I wasn't looking at the whole thing all that differently than you were. We'd have some fun while I was here and when I left, it'd be on good terms, that we could stay friends. I just thought you'd have the good sense to wait until I was gone to start up your old habits again." She didn't give him a chance to say anything, rushing headlong into the rest of her explanation. "But I mean, did it ever occur to you that it's not the best way to go about impressing Mia? To sleep with anything female that'll have you, right there in front of her, in the same house as she lives in?"
"Well yeah, it occurred to me. But what'm I supposed to do? She won't gimme the time of day most of the time. I'm just supposed to forget that other girls exist and hope she realizes I do one day?"
"You really wanna know what I think about what you should do about the whole situation?"
"Yeah, I asked didn't I?" He didn't really want to know at all, because some instinct told him he really wasn't going to like the answer. But he couldn't put his curiosity out of his mind about what she'd say either. What exactly did she think she knew about it?
"Just remember you asked me to tell you this." Knowing Vince's volatile nature and inability to deal with information he didn't want to hear, a little voice in her head told her it was foolhardy to tell him her real opinion. She quashed the little voice. She wanted to tell him and she had every intention of doing so. After everything he had done and said yesterday night, he could put up or shut up, and that was the only way she had it in her to feel on the subject. "I think you should forget her and make a point to move on. Just knowing women in general—since you know, I am one—and knowing Mia, she's never gonna change her mind about you, Vince. She don't like you that way and she never, ever, will."
"Never ever is a long time," he ground out through clenched teeth. He'd known he wasn't going to like her answer.
"Yep, and if you keep on waiting for Mia to fall for you, it's gonna be a very lonely, long time for you. 'Sides, you'n Mia wouldn't even be good together."
"How do you think you know that?" That portion of her opinion was something he really did think she should have kept to herself. He didn't ask her to speculate on whether he and Mia would make a good couple. He asked her for her opinion on what he should do about his feelings for Mia. And he hadn't even really wanted to do that.
"'Cause I know you better than you think I do, and I know her a bit too. She'd bore you after awhile and you'd slowly crush her under your thumb. She's not the kind of girl to stand up to your shit day after day. There's just not enough steel in her backbone to allow her to deal with you and there's not enough challenge in Mia Toretto to keep you interested in her for the long haul. You have nothing in common with her, not even in the most base of ways. You think she wants it rough, all teeth and nails, push and pull? You want me to believe that you'd give up fast, hard and wild sex just to be with Mia?"
"Why would I have to?" His anger got the better of him and he kept pushing on, even when he knew that the best course of action was to let the topic drop, and now, before he really lost his cool.
"Because Mia wants candles and rose petals. Mia wants tender and slow, and I doubt very much she leans toward bruises and biting. And if you ever fucked around on her and Dominic found out, he'd kill you."
He wouldn't deny she was right about Mia, and the kind of girl she was. But if he had Mia, he'd be different. He'd be able to give Mia whatever she wanted, what she needed to be happy. At least, he'd told himself so a million times. And he wasn't a cheater. That was why he was single. He knew he wasn't going to make a commitment to any girl but Mia, so he just didn't. "Maybe with her, it wouldn't matter."
"Maybe." She shrugged. "Or maybe not. I still think you only think you want her now because she's the ever elusive challenge that you haven't conquered yet. I think once you caught her, you'd toy with her awhile before you got bored. And just like a jungle cat who caught a mouse, once you toyed all the fight out of her, you'd get tired of her. And you would slowly wear her down, Vince. You'd wear the fight and life right out of her, just trying to keep up with you and deal with your moods and attitudes, put up with the fire and ice. That's not the kind of man that Mia Toretto is looking for and not the kind that could ever make her happy in the long run.
"She wants a man who'll bring flowers and little gifts home without being asked, remembers birthdays and anniversaries, makes a big deal outta that stuff. Wants to be pampered and spoiled. She wants romance, and simple compliments just aren't ever going to cut it. She wants to know what she's dealing with on a daily basis. She wants a steady, caring, but ultimately boring kind of guy. She doesn't want to have to wonder what day will be the day that her man is fun and playful and what days will be the days they'll fight, cuss and roar the house down. I just don't think you have it in you to treat her like she wants to be treated—needs to be treated—long term. Maybe at first, maybe while finally having her was novel for you. But not for months and years into the future. Not unless you'd change who you are just to be with her. You'd either cut her loose and watch her run off, or she'd be too tired to run, and you'd just end up snapping her in two—breaking her."
He couldn't help the snarl that echoed around the car's interior when she took his most cherished dream and shot it full of holes with a few carefully chosen words. "I don't see it that way," he finally got his temper under control enough to bite out through his clenched teeth.
"Sorry I offended you."
He forced himself to shrug, despite the fact he was seriously pissed, and she really didn't sound sorry at all. In fact, she sounded almost gleeful to impart what she had. Her apology had been offered in a flip tone that showed she wasn't truly sorry at all, and he knew it. But he couldn't say much to her, not after how he'd treated her and after promising to make his conduct up to her. He was quickly learning that—like himself—if you burned her, she burned back. "I asked."
"You did. But the truth hurts and I know what I told you stung. I didn't try to tone it back, maybe because I thought you needed to hear it, and maybe because somewhere inside I'm still just a bit pissed at you for yesterday night. And because I didn't soften up what I said, now you're mad at me. But you'll get over it. You'll just convince yourself I don't have a clue what I'm talkin' about."
"I'm pretty sure that in most things you bother to offer an opinion on, you know exactly what you're talkin' about."
"Yeah, but you still didn't really want to hear it."
"No I didn't. But now I have. I'll cope."
She parked the car at DT. "Sure hope so. I just hope that coping doesn't turn into waiting the rest of your life for something you'll never have that would never live up to what you've built it up to be in the first place."
"How does someone who's ever only dated one guy long term become such an authority on relationships, huh?"
She could hear the barely checked anger in his tone. He didn't appreciate her breaking it down for him. She didn't care. She did think he had to hear it, and might start to believe it if he got it from someone who hadn't been saying it to him for years. She also acknowledged the part of herself that simply wanted to slash him with her words and watch him bleed, like he'd cut her the night before at races. He brought that side of her to the surface, brought that intentionally cruel facet of her personality out to the forefront. That instinctual, animalistic side, the woman who indulged in her desires to hunt and prey, stalk and maim, claw and bite. He brought the wild out of her routine existence. It didn't always seem to be a good thing, but it was sure exciting compared to how she normally lived. She finally decided to answer his question. "I'm a scary judge of character, V."
She looked across the interior of the Maxima at him, serious as a heart attack as she delivered her assurance. "I don't know how you can claim that when you let yourself get involved with me."
"There's nothin' really wrong with your character V. Well, nothin' a little housebreakin' wouldn't fix," she amended, smirking.
"That so?" her statement forced a ghost of a smile out of him with his answer. She was just so full of herself, and she played by the same sort of 'me first' rules he did. She was hard to take, but then again, so was he.
"Yeah, that's so. Every once'n a while I see this glimmer of something more in you Vincent. This little shadow of something good, something more'n you really want me'n the rest of the world to see. Don't let me catch it too often or you'll ruin that tough, arrogant asshole front you've got goin' on."
She got out of the car and bounded toward the shop before he could have anything to say about her revelation, a barrel of energy when she should be at home in a dark room wishing she were dead. He got out of the car more slowly, lost in his own thoughts. She'd given him a lot of things to think on. Things he didn't really want to think on. But once she'd put ideas into his head his mind wouldn't let them be. He kept picking at it, over and over again.
He had always known that Mia, the girlie girl, would look for romance, poetry and flowers. He had always just convinced himself that because she was the woman for him, he'd be that way with her. That just because he had no innate desire to treat any girl that way didn't mean he couldn't, just that he had never found a girl he wanted to treat like that before. Surely if he had Mia, he would want to do those things for her because he would want her to be happy. Wouldn't he?
It was another interesting point that Tempest had raised about the whole rough and wild nights that he did seem to enjoy, considering what it had done for him and to him when she'd practically taken a chunk out of his neck. Mia would never do anything like that. It would never enter her ladylike head to take her desire and passion out on a guy with her teeth and nails. It wasn't in her personality to even think like that. She wasn't a jungle predator, she was a pretty butterfly. Where Tempest was as elemental as her name, Mia was as gentle and sweet as her much sainted and long dead mother. Where one was often a force of nature, intent only on her own path and getting what she needed even if it meant destroying some of the things in her path along the way, the other was nature itself, with all the caring, mothering instincts it was possible to find in one human. As different as the two were, why was it he was finding it harder and harder to see which one he'd ultimately rather have?
If he could just remember why it was he started liking Mia in the first place, he'd be a lot more settled. He knew that someplace back in time he'd had a good reason for it. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He wanted to know if the Skyline was back from where he'd sent it last night, and get his unsettling questions out of his head. The sooner he put a smile on Tempest's face, the sooner he could get back to being content with his life instead of mad at himself for being a jerk and confused by the choices he was making. He caught up with her just inside the shop door.