The Funeral of a Good Girl
By – TempestRaces
Chapter Forty-Nine – Of Stupidity and Free Falling
Tempest looked at the door from where she sat on the edge of the tub. There was no way she was opening the door so he could see her all red ringed and blotchy. Crying because his actions had had the power to hurt her, after everything else. She'd thought herself prepared. When she'd allowed what had happened in the storeroom to happen she had thought herself ready to deal with the aftermath. She had convinced herself that this time she would go in with eyes wide open and he wouldn't have the power to hurt her. How wrong she had been. Thanks for the fuck now let's get out of here, she mouthed out loud to herself in a sarcastic, unflattering way. You know you're only good for one thing Temp, she continued. Now that I got what I wanted, it's time to get out of here before you expect more than I'm willing to give. Another hot tear rolled down her red cheek. Nope, not ready to open the door and make nice by a long shot. "I don't care how sorry you are. Go away."
"I'm not going anywhere. This is getting stupid. Open the damn door."
"No." She felt stupid, constantly yelling no at the closed door. But the other option, the one where she opened it, was worse. The one where he knew beyond a doubt that she'd been crying over what he'd done to her was a million times worse. Hope sprung eternal that since he'd already had what he wanted from her, he'd decide that breaking down the door was too much effort to expend and just leave as she'd asked him to. Surely Bryce would be willing to come pick him up in the Maxima.
"Fine. I'll break it down. Have it your way."
"Just leave me alone and leave the fucking door alone too." She sighed. He wasn't going to go away. And he likely would break the door down too. He was such a stubborn bastard. She glared at the door evilly. "I hope you hurt yourself getting in here, you fuckin' prick."
Before jamming his shoulder into the door and hoping to break the jam, Vince happened to look at the knob. He realized that it was of the variety where a wire of some fashion could be used to push the safety and thus unlock the door, all without any sort of wood being broken. He retrieved a coat hanger from the closet and sprung the lock, pushing the door open before she could get up to relock the set. "Ok, this has gone on long enough. What is your problem?" He wished he hadn't said anything at all, let alone something so mean, once he saw her. She was sitting balanced on the edge of the tub, her heels hooked on the ledge so that her chin could rest on her knees. He was sure if she hadn't had her arms locked around her legs that she would have fallen off her perch, unable to keep her balance. Once he made his way into the room she buried her face against her legs to better hide from him.
"Go away," she groaned. It came out garbled against the cotton which was now covering her thighs.
He cocked a hip against the vanity and leaned there looking at her. "I know I was short with you, but was I really this mean?" He sighed. "I mean, I've been short with you before. Aren't you getting use to it?"
"Yes. Now will you leave me alone? Fuck, take the god damn Skyline yourself and I'll walk." Anything to make him go away and leave to her feel stupid and miserable alone.
"What exactly did I do to piss you off so bad this time?"
It was the final breaking point for her nerves. "What did you do?" she forced herself to meet his eyes. "What didn't you do? One second everything's great. But in the next one it's like it dawns on you. She said she didn't want this, she said she wanted to leave, but I talked her into it and got what I wanted out of her, so now it's time to go before she goes getting ideas. What did you do?" she muttered to herself incredulously.
He sighed. "It wasn't like that. I just realized how late it's getting. I don't have my car back yet, Dom's gonna be pissed I blew him off again from the garage and I'll have to deal with that, not to mention how pissed Leon and Jesse are gonna be with me. So I just wanted to get it all over with. It had nothing to do with being ready to get rid of you because we'd finished," he trailed off. He figured she knew what they'd finished as well as he did. "I mean, I stayed here with you last night even though technically we'd already done it in the club. If all I was after was sex, wouldn't I have just left you here alone last night and went home? Why would I stay?"
"You weren't going to. Remember? I asked if you were coming to bed and you asked if I was sure I wanted you to. You were looking for an out last night and like an idiot, I didn't give you one."
"I thought you'd want me to leave for taking advantage of you in the club after everything else, ok? It had nothing to do with not wanting to stay here with you. I wanted to stay here and know you were safe." His anger made him say things he normally wouldn't have. "I wanted to take you home to my bed so I'd know you were safe. So I'd know you weren't doing something else stupid to potentially risk your life and your neck. But you took that option away. So no, I wasn't looking to leave you here alone. I was looking to be close to you. But I didn't want to force you to have me around because you don't even like me anymore. Listen, I know it's possible to want sex with someone and not like that someone ok? And I know that's how you feel about me. So I didn't want you to have to keep me around when I figured you wouldn't want to. But when you said you didn't mind I wasn't put out, I was glad."
Even hearing he'd truly wanted to stay wasn't enough to make her sure about what he really wanted from her. "You sure were in a rush to leave after you got what you wanted this morning."
Fucking perceptive woman. "I really was just in a rush to get the awkwardness of the rest of the day out of the way. The longer we stay here the longer they think we're still out somewhere doing," he cleared his throat, "things. And the angrier they're going to get." When she looked up to meet his eyes again he knew he hadn't fooled her. He stood up straight, walked over in front of her and grabbed her upper arms gently, picking her up onto her feet. She sputtered, trying to get words for her anger to form. Before she could manage, he pressed his lips to hers. He hated her tears. He wanted to give her anything that would make her stop crying. And he hated that desire just as much. Because he had himself convinced that guys who cared were guys who were whipped by the females they were with, and he'd long ago sworn to never be that guy. But yet here he was, kissing her gently anyway. He felt her try to resist him. She did ok for about thirty seconds, give or take, before she gave in and kissed him back. This time, there was no desire to smile smugly. Just happiness she was done crying.
"What I really want is to take you back into the other room, lay you on the bed, and spend all day and most of the night there with you. But I really don't think either of us want to listen to the shit we'd have to listen to if we did that. If we didn't show up all day and missed races tonight. So get dressed and we'll go get my car. And after races tonight, I'll show you just how not ready I am to be separated from you yet. In my own bed though. Ok?" he murmured softly against her temple.
She literally hated the way he could make her capitulate to his way so easily. It wasn't fair for him to be able to make her forget she was trying to hate him with so little effort. Yet, instead of fighting with him further, or at least telling him there was no way she wanted shit all else to do with him, least of all to spend another night with him, she found herself nodding against his chest tiredly. Try though she might, she couldn't give him up. Not even when the universe laughed at her. Pointed out someone so much better for her that she could have totally for herself. But he wasn't enough. Only Vince was enough, and she couldn't have him. Not unless she was willing to share him. And it was shattering her just a little more inside again. And god help her, she figured she might just like it that way. God knew she couldn't walk away. Not even to save her soul. And she figured it might come down to that. To her losing her soul over him. One last tear rolled down her cheek. Why couldn't he just love her back?
With a startled gasp, she realized what she had just admitted to herself. She was in love with him. Not could be someday or maybe a little or 'kinda sorta'. In love. With Vince. And he couldn't or wouldn't love her back. She finally found it in herself to fight to get out of his arms. "Ok, we gotta go." Oh boy do we ever. She rushed the door. She had to run. She had to get away. It wasn't possible. How had she let herself actually fall in love with him? Not just muse it could happen, or think about what would happen if it did happen, but actually let it happen? She started to zip up her bags.
"Where's the fire?" Vince asked from a position leaning in the doorway of the bathroom, watching her scramble frantically.
"Not twenty minute ago you were in a frantic rush to get out of here. Now I wanna get outta here and you don't wanna go. What's the problem?" She didn't let him answer. "Are you ready yet?"
He shook his head. Something was up with her. First not wanting to go back to the garage, and now not wanting to stay alone with him. "Yeah, let's go." He knew he wasn't getting an answer out of her. Not while her eyes still had that wild look to them. That look like a wolf caught in a steel leg trap. Frantic to get away to the point where it'd rip its own leg to shreds to do it. That, or gnaw it off and leave it behind. So what had happened to make her see staying with him in the same light as a wolf would see being caught against its will? Rather than worry any more about it just then, he grabbed her bags before she could and shouldered them. She gave him a glare, but followed him to the car without a word. She got into the driver's seat before he could and proceeded to fix her seat to suit her.
"Where's Bryce live?"
Jealousy grabbed him so quickly he never saw it coming. "Why do you need to know where Bryce lives?"
"Because he has your car and a very short time ago you were in a huge rush to get it back."
He'd forgotten about his car. "He lives a few streets away from the bar."
She put the car in reverse and left her parking spot. Once the car was underway she turned the stereo on and cranked the volume. It made conversation impossible, which he figured was her intent in the first place. He thought about reaching over to turn it down a few times, but ended up sitting still each time. What was the point? Anything he could say would just be a platitude. She knew why he wanted to leave, even if he'd tried to hide it from her, and on some levels he figured he knew why she'd been in such a rush herself. Things between them were simply good at being bad. When she got to the bar, he started to tell her where to turn from there until they pulled up to a house with both his Maxima and a midnight blue Harley Davidson in the driveway.
"This is it," he said. He knew it was obvious, but he had to say something. She didn't answer him, only nodded affirmative to his statement. "So, I'll see you later? Either at the shop or at home before races?"
"Sure. I guess so. Yeah, sometime," she babbled back. Her thoughts were still all chasing each other around at what felt like a million miles an hour in her head.
"Temp, you ok?" he asked, the door to the car half open but currently forgotten as his hand rested on the handle.
"Fine. Why wouldn't I be fine?"
"I don't know. But you're not acting fine. You're acting really strange."
"I'm fine. Really. Listen, I'll see you later, right? And for right now I wanna find Jess before he sends a search party and freaks about where I am."
"Ok, I'll catch up with you at the garage in a few then."
"Yeah, sure."
With one last look at her, he closed his door and walked up the cement walkway leading to Bryce's front door, still shaking his head. What had he said to drive her buck fucking insane? Not like he'd ever know, because she'd never tell him in a million years. But he couldn't figure it out. When he thought back to the second before she'd gone off the deep end, he couldn't see what he'd said or done to set her off. He'd told her that he would spend the night showing her he wasn't just looking for a quick roll in the sack with her and she'd flipped out. He couldn't win. Wasn't that what she wanted to hear? He shook his head. He'd never figure her out. Not in a million years of trying. He did what he thought she wanted and it was wrong. He did what he thought was wrong and it was wrong. He just could not win. He knew he'd have to try and get the real reason she'd flipped out out of her later, but he doubted she'd crack.
Tempest pulled away from the curb at Bryce's and fought the need to rip off down the road at light speed. She had to get away. How had she allowed herself to be so stupid? How had she allowed herself to fall in love with him? She had always known from the start that he wasn't hers. That when she set him free he would not come back. Yet somehow she had allowed herself to fall in love with him. Because she was clearly stupid, and delusional. She told herself for the millionth time that if she was waiting for him to break down and ask her to stick around, she'd be waiting into perpetuity. He was never going to.
He was still convinced he was in love with Mia. And she wasn't able to just up and do it without his say so. What if he got mad at her for daring? She'd never recover. Better to just go away in a few days and try to start forgetting him. Move on with her real life. He didn't want to be part of it and she knew it. But she still felt like a total moron, whether he was aware of what she'd done or not. She pulled up to the garage a short time later and parked the car. She took a deep breath to brace herself before she exited her vehicle and locked the doors. She wasn't looking forward to what Leon would have to say to her at all. And moreover, he was entitled to be pissed off, so she couldn't even be uppity with him.
She pushed the shop door open with a sigh. The Lotus was sitting off to the side of the shop. The driver's side door was open and the skin was pulled off the inside. Leon sat on the concrete floor beside the open door, a look of frustration on his face. She walked right over to the Elan without stopping or looking at anything else, crawled over Leon to get into the driver's seat, and settled there, her knees drawn up to her chest as she faced the open door and the man on the floor beside it. She looked neither right nor left, but instead straight ahead at the concrete wall of the shop. It didn't stop her from feeling the eyes of Dominic burn into her face. He was still livid with her. She wondered what he would do about it this time at the same time as she figured she was too tired and broken to care just now. "You'll never find the problem like that."
"What makes you say that?" Leon asked. His tone was short and he didn't look at her.
"Because the issue isn't in the motor."
"Really?"
"Yeah, it's in the wiring, but not the connectors."
"There's no broken wires. I checked."
"They're not obviously broken. But they are broken."
"How can they be broken but not obviously?" he asked in exasperation.
"Oh trust me, they can be. The plastic around them is a tough shell. It hides the damage inside nicely. Just not well enough to make the windows work in spite of it."
Leon finally looked up at her. The look on her face proved her point. She too was broken, though not obviously. To most she would just look tired. "So, where are they broken?"
"Inside." She shook her head and turned her gaze to her lap instead of the wall before elaborating. "Under the plastic up by the duct where it runs through the doorjamb into the engine compartment."
"You sure about that?"
"Sure enough that I bet you a thousand bucks that if you replace the wires from the motor to the fuse panel the window will work."
Leon nodded and started to strip the wires bare. He was looking for the break, curious if she was right. He hadn't been treated to Jesse's story of her telling Harry she could fix the issue in her sleep. It also gave him some thing to do with his hands to keep him calm for his next question. "Why?"
She ignored the fact that she knew very well what he was getting at. "Because water got inside the coating at some point and corroded the wires. The hole in the plastic that let the water in is just so small that you can't tell where it is now."
"That isn't what I meant, and you know it," he growled. "After everything else, why'd you go and give him another chance to do this to you T? You had to know it was coming."
"Yeah, I guess I did." With a sigh, she leaned to the side, into the seat back, still hugging her legs to her chest. "I was also drunk when he found me and he was fuckin' furious and it's never a good combination for us. I did something for Harry last night. Something illegal and potentially dangerous. And the person on the other side of that thing happened to be Vince, Leon. A fact I didn't find out until after I was there, and he was there, and by then it was too late to go back. And once he saw me doing what I was doing he wanted to wring my neck. So I tried to get away and I hid in the last place I thought he'd ever find me, but he still found me. And once he did, and we fought, there really wasn't any way to get out of it. Not for either of us."
"You really believe that, don't you?" Leon's strident tone conveyed the fact that he did not buy it for a second.
"Yeah. Why? You don't believe that things could be that volatile between us?"
"I just find it hard to believe anyone as strong and self reliant as you can't say no to sex with a guy if they don't really want it."
"Well, knowing something is very bad for me, and really not wanting it are two very different things. I mean, a smoker knows that cigarettes aren't good for him. But he still wants the next one. Knowing it's not good for him doesn't mean he just doesn't want it. Maybe he wants in it spite of how bad it is for him. He tried to give me an out, he tried to make me put an end to it last night, but I couldn't. I tried but I couldn't say no."
"So you're trying to tell me you're addicted to him?"
"In a manner of speaking I guess I am. Neither of us intended for anything to go farther than teaching the other a lesson but things just didn't work out that way. What can I say? You can't be any madder at me than I am at myself right now."
"I'm not mad at you gorgeous. Just upset that you're setting yourself up to fall again."
"Too late. Fell hard already once today. And the day is young. Why can't I just be as smart as you seem to think I am?"
"Aw shit," Leon said as he looked into her face. Her chin was resting on top of her bent knees and her eyes were closed, lashes creating crescent shaped shadows like bruises on her pale cheeks. "You've realized it, haven't you?"
"Realized what?"
"That you've fallen for him already." It was all the answer he needed when she leaned into the seatback and rested her head against it with a sigh. Ah shit.