AN: This is the last chapter of the story. Its finished, finally. 3 years later! Better late than never they say. Response to the ending will dictate whether I press forward with part 2. Its started but not finished. This story has been fun. I'm sad to see it end even though I'm glad I finally finished it. Reviews gratefully accepted.
The Funeral of a Good Girl
By – TempestRaces
Chapter 70 – Tasting Pain and not Thinking of You Again
"How the hell do you know the traffic cop on a first name basis?" Harry called to her the second she crossed the threshold of the store.
"Long story," she hedged.
"I've got enough time for this."
She shrugged, a flippant motion of one shoulder. "He pulled me over."
"And?"
"He said if I went out to dinner with him, he'd let me off, and make sure I didn't get hassled again while I was here. I took him up on his offer."
"You dated a traffic cop, while staying at Dominic's, and lived to tell about it? How'd you manage that?"
"Dom didn't seem too bothered really. Only did it because I was pissed at Vince. But he's a nice guy, Jim. Not a traffic cop anymore either. He's SWAT now."
"Wait, what do you have to do with Vince?"
Tempest turned from flippant to embarrassed. "Um, well. We've had a bit of an on again off again thing since I been down here. When I got stopped by Jim we were off again, and I wasn't happy about how we came to be that way."
"So Vince has a thing for you, and a traffic cop has a thing for you. Which one do you have a thing for?"
"Neither!" she scowled. Harry gave her a knowing look. "Well, Vince, but I should be saying Jim, so I'm sticking with neither."
"Why should you be saying Jim?"
"Why do you think?" she asked sarcastically, before sighing. "Because he's normal. And nice. And older than me. Ready to be a man, not a boy in a fast car, living a fast life. He's got a house, and a dog, and a truck and a job. He's got a real life, and if I could be serious about him, he'd be serious about me and we could have a life together. Vince wants a pretty girl on his arm when he wants her there, and wants to be free to be single when it suits him." She shook her head with a depreciating laugh. "And it's been wild and crazy and so not how I am, but it isn't reality. It's just been a fantasy that has to end. What'm I gonna do? Move in with Vince and race cars and buy stolen auto parts for the rest of my life while he runs around behind my back when he gets bored? Harry, that's not a life, it's a bad movie! Dom and his team, Vince and Jesse included live a life that's more like a bad movie and one of these days the whole house of cards is going to come tumbling down and I'm sorry but while its been fun, I don't want to be there when the dust settles and I wish Jesse wasn't going to be either."
"Yeah, fair enough. But you couldn't be a street racer living with a cop either."
"Jim doesn't think it'd be a problem. And it doesn't matter because I'm not moving to L.A. Not to live with Vince, not to live with a cop. Just plain not."
Harry looked at her speculatively. "What if you did it not to live with a cop, or a rag tag bunch of street racers, but to be the head mechanic in the newest venture of the Racer's Edge? Maybe Dominic's been taking a huge section of business I could be having away from me. I should be fitting what I sell in house. Move here, work for me. I promise you the salary will make it worth your while."
"Harry, all you know about me is I've more balls than brains, and good taste in cars. You don't know that I'm good enough at what I do to run a shop for you."
"I know you're almost fully qualified at 19. That's pretty impressive. I know Jesse is some kinda prodigy. I know Dom hasn't banished you out of the DT bays yet. All of that tells me you're qualified to run a shop for me. So what'd you say?"
"I say no way. I can't do that to my family, to my work." It was clear there was no heart in her refusal.
Harry was pretty sure there was more to it. More along the lines of her not being willing to do it if Vince didn't ask it of her himself. She wouldn't come down and stay in his life out of coincidence. Too stubborn. "Leave him, come work for me, date the cop. Nice respectable day job for you."
"Maybe. Not likely. I'll think on it from home, let you know." She looked up at the clock on the wall. "Fuck, is that the right time?"
Harry confirmed it on his watch. "Yep."
"Damn it. I'm gonna be home after 6 at this rate, and have to listen to Dom whimper about it. Son of a bitch."
Harry laughed. "Like you care what Dom thinks about it."
"Not a good god damn, but I care about not listening to him bitch about it. And the third degree from Vince 'bout where I been. And god help us all if it comes out it's talking to Jim because Mia then starts calling him hot cop and that just sets Vince off worse."
"You sound like you fit in there pretty good already you know. You're dressed even less appropriately for shop work then the average Letty outfit, you have all of them pegged, and you're related to Jesse."
"Yeah, and how well you think it'll go over if I come down here and open up a shop in direct competition with Dominic?"
"I don't really care how well it goes over with Dominic. You race him once, you beat him, you'll become a princess in the scene. People will still pour in here, wanting everything you got, instead of everything he got."
"I've already beaten Dominic. You get a big rusha business yet?"
"When'd you beat Dominic?"
She told him the story, before asking "And what'm I supposed to do with my illegal car if I come here?"
"I'll have it registered as a 240sx for you. I have some connections. It all makes sense T. As well paid as I'm sure you are, it's nothing compared to what I can offer you. Your own shop to run, a staff to oversee, sponsorship in the import scene, a salary any mechanic would kill for and I don't care if they're top dog at Porsche, you'll still be making better coin. And to top it all off, you'll be competing against Dominic's shop. And likely winning."
It was tempting, very very tempting. "Harry, I'll think about it. I'm still going home, but I'll seriously think about it, ok?"
"Yeah. You better jet."
"Yeah. See you around." She headed for the door with a wave, lost in thought. If she did what Harry was asking, she'd go from being a big fish in a very small pond to a big fish in a very big pond. He was giving her everything she wanted on one gilded platter. Run a tuner shop, not a hum drum tires, brakes and lubes shop. Run it, build a rep as a top tuner and racer. Take the wind out of Dominic's overgrown sails on every level. Get to be close to Jesse all the time, have a chance at a go of it with Vince. Or Jim, if she decided to acknowledge she had a brain. A way to make sure the car was legal. She decided, as she slid into her car, that she would see how the rest of her stay went and go from there.
She whipped her car out if the parking spot and tore off down the street the Racer's Edge was situated on, heading toward Dom's. She pulled up to the curb out front of the house 15 minutes later and sighed, wondering how much she was going to hear from Dom, or Vince, for making Dom pissed in the first place.
When she let herself in the open front door, she found everyone sitting around the dining table already.
"Where you been?" Jesse asked, curious.
"Shooting the shit with Harry, lost track of time. Any chow left?"
"I saved you a plate, otherwise the answer'd be no," Mia replied, moving to get up. "It'sf in the oven."
"No worries, I'll grab it myself." Tempest headed into the kitchen and used the dish towel to lift her plate out of the oven. She pulled off the foil.
"So what do you and Harry have to talk about for 2 hours?" Dom asked in a dangerous tone of voice.
"Stuff," she answered with a shrug, not willing to tell him she's been thinking up names for the shop she was going to open to compete with his on the way home in case she changed her mind and ended up getting Jesse's hopes up for no reason. "Cars, racing, modifications."
"How do you even know Harry well enough to decide to talk cars with him for two hours?" Dom proved unwilling to let the topic go.
"How well do I have to know anyone to talk to them about something they own a store full of like auto parts? Besides, I ran into some other people I know while I was there." Tempest sat in the chair Leon had vacated when he'd finished eating.
"Like who?" Now it was Vince's turn to ask questions in a suspicious tone. She didn't know that many people that weren't with them around the table.
"Jim," she answered with a shrug. "He's been investigating some sort of stolen auto parts ring. He wanted to know if Harry knew anything about it, and he was still at the Edge when I was down getting my tanks filled."
"And what'd Harry tell Jim?" Vince snarled.
"Nothing. Hard to tell him anything when he doesn't know nothin'."
"How do you know what Harry knows?"
Tempest turned to Dominic. "Fuck, when did any of this become your damn business dude? I went out, I came back when I was done. Now I'ma eat my dinner and go get ready because I assume after all the afternoon prep work we are going racing tonight?"
"So you mean you might actually try to look like a girl if you come with us?" Dom asked.
"Meow!" Letty interjected. "You two fight like you were brother and sister!"
"My genetic background never coulda produced such a Neanderthal."
"Hey!" Mia broke in, mock indignation on her face. "You better watch the insults involving genetics."
"Oops," Tempest replied with a huge grin.
Vince found himself grinning along with her, despite the fact he knew he had been pissed off about her talking to the hot cop a second ago. Having someone else around who didn't just take Dom's shit, and got along so well with everyone else was nice. He watched her for another moment before the panic started again. There he went again, imagining next week with her in it. But she wasn't going to be. He stood up abruptly. "I gotta get ready for tonight."
"Ok," Tempest answered, confusion evident at his abrupt tone. She got up shortly after and went to collect her clothes for the night while Vince was still in the shower. She elected to shower upstairs for the first time in her stay, and went into what she knew to be Mia's room to get ready rather than go back down stairs. She was mostly ready by the time Mia came into her room to finish doing her makeup, having gotten showered and dressed before dinner to spread out the load on the shower.
She turned up downstairs in a denim skirt, a red tank top and platform flip flop sandals only to find everyone else waiting on her.
'Thought you didn't do skirts?" Letty asked.
Tempest flipped the front of the skirt up. "Its shorts!"
"Classy," Letty laughed as she answered.
"Classier than flashin' my underoos."
"True that," Leon broke in, grinning. "We goin' or what?"
"Well, I ain't in any hurry since I already proved I can give mosta ya'll a head start and still beat you there," Tempest stuck her tongue out at Leon.
"You ain't taken me on yet," Leon reminded.
Tempest only smirked in answer and Vince saw red. He couldn't help but take it as Tempest saying 'depends how you mean' to Leon and he didn't like it. "Let's get the fuck outta here."
"Yes sir prince surly," she retorted with a sneer. "Same place as last time?" she asked Letty.
"Yeah. Why?"
"See you there." She stalked over to the door.
"You know the way?" Jesse called.
"Yeah, I'll be ok."
She left the house and a second later they heard first the rumble of her engine before the deep bass of the latest Kidd Rock song started to vibrate the house. A split second later an ear splitting squeal faded off into the distance. With a look at each other, and then a pointed group look at Vince, the rest filtered out into their rides.
They found her parked up beside a couple randoms, no one they really knew. Or rather that was where they found her car. She was actually nowhere to be seen. Vince resolved not to go looking for her. It was his small act of distance and he convinced himself it was valid and helpful, would change something. He watched Jesse slither off through the crowd, no doubt looking after the safety of someone who could take far better care of herself than anyone in their crowd could ever hope to do. He turned to Dom, started talking shop, and started trying to forget to remember.
Jesse found his cousin with the tall blonde who'd already started so much trouble on their team. He walked up to her anyway, even though he was concerned that action could be taken as approval of the enemy. "Hey," he addressed his cousin.
"Hey. Sorry I took off before. Things are just," she paused before finishing with a shrug, "getting weird."
"What'd you mean, weird?" Jesse asked.
Tempest shrugged. "I dunno. Just, weird." She sighed. "Vince was being weird," she finally finished. "He's been acting strange all day."
"Well, you're going to leave us in like two days T. He really likes you and you're going to leave him. Of course he's feeling weird."
Tempest decided she didn't want to finish the conversation in front of Craig so she started to walk away, dragging Jesse with her, with a parting, pained smile at Craig. "Well, he's never indicated he'd want me to stay, so why would I decide I was going to over him? Of course I'm going to leave if he doesn't ask me to stay! I mean, I might leave even if he did, but he doesn't even want me to enough to take the risk anyway."
Jesse huffed out a breath. "Well, you could just do it because you want to and damn the rest. Don't you want to be able to see each other more often than once every 10 years? Don't you like racing against some real competition for once?"
"You know the answer is yes on both counts but Jesse, it's not like you're asking me to move down the street. You're asking me to move my entire life 3000 miles away into another country. You're asking me to give up a good job, a sure thing, over the possibility of a job with Dominic, a job he'll torture me with and a job he'll make sure is full of stupid tasks that will slowly make me forget my entire education." She felt bad for lying to her cousin, for not telling him that she could move and take the job with Harry, but she justified it to herself as a necessary evil.
"Can't you at least think about it?"
"Haven't I told you that I'll think about it, in another while, when I have my licence done?"
"Fine," Jesse answered petulantly. His childish tone and the look on his face made Tempest smile.
"You're such a brat. It doesn't seem possible that you're older than me."
"Yeah, yeah." Jesse said, rolling his eyes.
"Come on, let's go see who's going to get their race on," Tempest allowed herself to be lead back over to the team by Jesse, even though she was still not impressed with the way Vince was acting.
She didn't become any more ok with his behaviour over the course of the evening. This was mostly due to the fact he more or less ignored her in favour of acting too relaxed and happy in the company of Dominic as the latter stood surrounded by his troupe of admirers. The attitude of which made Tempest want to throw up as they fawned over some overgrown child who could simply drive very fast in a straight line.
She felt her nose turn up in a disgusted sneer, almost against her will, because god knew she didn't want to be thinking about Dominic, or Vince, if he was going to continue acting like a spoilt child, and sneering at them seemed to let on she was thinking about them, and she didn't want anyone to know she was. She looked away, toward her car, and fought a yawn. Races were a lot less exciting if you weren't racing.
The next thing she knew Letty was tapping her shoulder. "Where the hell you livin' girl? Somewhere else, cause I was tapping your shoulder for five minutes before you looked at me," Letty said on a laugh. "Hector wants to know if you want to race?" Letty made a dismissive hand gesture, "Some cousin of his and a couple other kids. Should be a cake walk for you."
"Why don't you want to do it?" Tempest asked. She was curious why Letty wouldn't jump at the chance to take some stupid little boy's money off them.
"They want to race the Skyline. Not so much concerned about the driver as they are the car. Likely think that it'll be easier to beat you than Leon."
Tempest laughed out loud before she could stop herself. She looked at Letty with a smirk. "If they think Dom is so great, and watched me beat him with a one second handicap, why on earth would they think they can take me?"
Letty shrugged. "Dunno. Boys are stupid," she said with a grin.
Tempest shot a glance at Vince. "Boy do you have that right."
"Boys that live in the Toretto house take stupid to a whole new level," Letty agreed, without actually stating what she was agreeing with.
"That's plain to see," Tempest responded, but she did it with a laugh. She figured she could either laugh or cry, and due to the public nature of her position, she had to chose to laugh.
"So, you in?" Letty queried, trying to break the mood.
"Yeah, why the fuck not," Tempest replied. She watched Letty go off with the thousand dollars she passed over, heading for her car after she watched Hector take the money.
Tempest lined her car up when told to do so. She sat on the line waiting for things to get under way, and found that she just didn't care about the outcome of the race. She briefly toyed with the idea of throwing the race just to make Dominic look bad. Like if she could beat him, but these boys could beat her, clearly it meant he wasn't that great.
Then she decided she couldn't lose on purpose, not even to make Dom look stupid. She was too competitive.
When the start was called she ran her car up through its paces like a robot, doing everything right, but without much enthusiasm. Her mood was strange, and melancholy and just didn't lend well to excitement. Not even that generated by racing the Skyline down a public street in the dead of night at speeds topping 140 miles an hour.
She noted she'd won the race with a detached air, and took her winnings from Hector with a distracted smile and a brief thanks, before heading back over to her car and sliding onto the driver's seat. She couldn't bring herself to be in a group of happy, excited people. She didn't share their mood and felt like she would only bring down the tone with her own subdued air.
She didn't know why it had suddenly occurred to her that in one day's time she would be leaving. She'd known that from the moment she rolled into town. She'd never thought of her visit as anything less than a vacation. A moment out of time. She simply hadn't expected to meet so many people she would miss. She hadn't expected to fit in so well, to find her vacation starting to feel like home.
She hadn't expected to like Harry so much. He'd become a friend in such a short time. Someone she could so easily see as her boss in name, while she bossed him around his own store daily and ran his new shop.
She hadn't expected to meet Jim, and find herself wishing she could fall for him and make a life for herself with him. Hadn't expected to find herself on a date with a man who looked like him, and talked like him, and treated her like he had treated her, and turn him down for someone with half the integrity, half the class.
She hadn't expected to meet Bryce, and immediately be able to see herself hanging out with him in some trashy bar several nights a week for the foreseeable future.
She hadn't expected to genuinely like Mia, Letty, and Leon so much that she could easily imagine living with them like a family. She enjoyed her apartment at home. Enjoyed not sharing the space, not answering to anyone else for where her socks were left, when she washed her dishes. But she enjoyed being in the middle of the mess of the Toretto house almost as much. When she and Dom weren't at each other's throats that is.
Mostly, she hadn't expected to meet anyone like Vince. To find herself imagining what it would be like to be with him, in a tangible, real sense. Not in this way they were playing at, seeming to be acting like things were permanent and would carry on long after the sun set tomorrow evening. Even though they both knew that unless one of them did something drastic, this was not the case.
It was clear from how he'd treated her all day that he had realized unless he said something to her about wanting her to stick around she wasn't going to. It was equally clear to her from how he'd been acting that he didn't intend to do so. And because she didn't intend to make the first step in this situation, because of how many wrong steps Vince had already made, she knew that her interlude was going to come to a screaming halt come Monday morning.
And she didn't want to look at how that made her feel for fear she couldn't keep functioning until she left if she did. Getting to see Jesse again had been wonderful, and they were just as close as they'd been as children. She wished she could spend every day within driving distance of him again, like they'd been when they were growing up. But she just didn't know how she was going to go on without Vince in her life. And being around him longer while he wasn't really in her life wasn't an option. He had to put himself there, before she wanted to be around him full time.
And that was why she couldn't bring herself to swallow her pride and ask him what he wanted from the future, if he saw her there when he asked himself what the future held. It was too much like begging him to ask her to stay out of pity, or out of settling for second best. For what he could have easily instead of what he had to exert effort for. And she wasn't willing to lower herself and her self worth low enough to be around to be treated like the consolation prize.
Ultimately she knew the reason why she couldn't stay without his asking was simple. Because he'd treated her like he didn't care one way or the other the whole time they had been together and if he'd changed his mind, and he did care after all, he had to make that clear. She was willing to take a chance and make the effort, but she was a prideful person with her fair share of self respect herself and while she could humble herself to overlook everything he'd done to date, he had to meet her in the middle.
She knew it was her secret hope that he'd surprise her and come out with a shocking pledge of devotion tomorrow, and beg her to stay with him, not to leave. She also knew, like most outlandish fantasies, it was never likely to happen. She tried to shake the mood off with a sigh. She knew if she didn't want everyone hovering over her and asking her what was wrong she was going to need to go participate in the group, and act like she wanted to enjoy her last Saturday night party with the group.
Not hide in her car like a recluse. She knew that clearly said to everyone looking that she was already getting ready to hide and lick her wounds in private and she didn't want to let on to anyone she had any wounds. So with a burst of effort she didn't want to give she pushed the car door open and got out, scanning the crowd for Jesse or Leon. She was already figuring she needed to put some distance between her and Vince.
So she plastered a smile on her face, and she talked shop with the people who came and went from around where she stood. She laughed when she was expected to laugh, and cracked the odd sarcastic one liner. She tried to paste a normal facade over her actions, figured she did a good job of looking like a happy race winner. At the very least, no one called her on it.
And when the night was over she flew through the crowd of fast cars toward the fort, trying not to dwell on the fact it could likely be the last time she ever 'came home' to Dominic's place. Ever 'came home' to Vince. Like they had any right to act like they were anything to each other that involved coming home to each other.
And when she parked up her car and came into the house and made a drink, she pretended she was ok with the fact she was hanging out with Mia and Letty, that Vince was no where around. She pretended that she hadn't expected—anticipated—that this would be the last night that they would be them, and would put on the same dysfunctional couple act they'd done at every party at Dom's since her arrival. She looked around for him and again he was nowhere to be found. So she had another drink and faked another smile.
She fought the panic building inside. She was going home the day after tomorrow. She had decided to push her departure back to Monday only because it gave her a day to be hung over and lazy tomorrow. It gave her a day to recover from enjoying this last night with him. And he was nowhere to be found. And it hurt, worse than she ever could have imagined, that he didn't want something she wanted so much, something she had assumed he would want as well.
But still, she smiled, and she drank, and she danced, and she chatted. It hurt so much that no one could know. It was stupid that it hurt so much, and so no one could know. But damn it, she'd wanted it to end on a good note. And perhaps that was wishful thinking. But she wanted it to end on an ended note.Not to just avoid each other until she was gone. Until they were each just faded, like exhaust fumes on a cold morning.
Much as she fought the urge, she constantly found her eyes wandering the crowd, scanning for him. He wasn't in any of his normal haunts. She eventually found herself making excuses to the girls so she could wander off, on the pretence of needing another drink and the bathroom. She used the bathroom excuse as her reason to go upstairs and scan the rooms. There was no sign of him, so she waited her turn for the bathroom and used it while she was up there. Then she made her way into the kitchen for another drink, and never saw any sign of him.
Fresh drink in hand she wandered into the clear night air of the backyard. She found Dominic sat alone and promptly turned around to re-enter the house before he could see her. She could only guess she wasn't quick enough when he gruffly called her name. She turned around reluctantly at his call. "Yeah?" She watched his shoulders slump as if in defeat.
Dom sighed. "He wants you to stay you know?"
"That's not how it looks from where I stand." She took a few steps closer toward the picnic table where Dom sat.
Dom shook his head. "He doesn't know how to admit it. He doesn't know what it would say about him if you said no. He doesn't know how he could accept it, what it would do to him if you said no, so he won't ask. But he wants you to stay."
Tempest sneered at the thought. "He's gone out of his way to make sure I know he doesn't really give half a fuck. Why on earth would I believe you about this?"
Dom couldn't fight the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Do you really think I'd make up anything that could see you decide to stick around longer than tomorrow?"
Taking his words in the spirit of light teasing they were meant, and surprising herself in the process, Tempest smiled back despite herself. "No, I guess not." She wandered closer to where Dominic was sat. "But this is not how you tell a girl you want a shot, you know?"
"I know." Dom sighed, deeper than before. "But Vee," he shook his head, "he didn't have too much of a shot of learning things about girls growing up."
"What do you mean?" Tempest asked, puzzled.
"Not my story to tell," Dom answered, his tone deep and gravelly with some emotion she couldn't put her finger on. "Let's just leave it at my mom died too young for Vince to have learned how to be a couple from my mom and dad, and there wasn't any sort of role model for anything but violence and tears at Vince's house."
Tempest had known as much about Vince's childhood by the small hints Bryce had allowed to drop into conversation, about Vince never being the kind of man who would hit a woman. But hearing Dom put it so blankly shook her a little. "I'd gathered a little from Bryce."
"There's depths to Vince I don't even know about," Dom replied. He was unsure why he was having such a normal conversation with the strange woman now sat on the table beside him. He could only figure he'd been hurt by the fact that Vince clearly was close to Bryce, but had never deemed the team worthy of an introduction, even though Tempest had merited one and he'd only known the girl a few days. "I don't even know who Bryce is, but clearly Vince knows him so well, and he's introduced him to you, but never us."
Tempest shrugged, not picking up on Dom's hurt. "Part of what scares Vince about me is how he thinks I blur the lines between his two lives, and I really don't think he knows how to blend the two well enough yet for him to truly want me around Dom, no matter what you and Bryce and Mia and Letty and Jess all think about it. He thinks he wants me here in one second, and then gets fearful and resentful of what me here would mean the next. He wants Mia not only because he likes her, and has known her for years and doesn't know how to not have a crush on her, but also because he can leave her here with you when it suits him, when he's living his Bryce life, and she's just safely still here only fitting in with his life with you when he's done."
"He could learn to blend the two, if you were willing to show him how." Dom stated.
She could see he was only trying to help his friend, to do what he thought would be best, maybe even best for her as well, best for everyone, but he just didn't understand. "I'm only 19 years old. The drama of the last two weeks has been almost more than I could take on about a thousand occasions. I don't have it in me to teach him. I don't have it in me to bend far enough before I break. I don't know how to cope while he learns. I don't know how to deal with you in ways that won't have us about to go at each other daily. I don't fit in here as well as everyone is pretending."
Dom nodded sombrely once, to show he understood. "I still don't like you that much."
Tempest laughed out loud softly. "The feeling's mutual baldy."
Dom chuckled, stood up. "I should go find Letty."
"I should go find Jess." Tempest drained her drink and stood up to follow Dominic back into the house. She spend another hour just chatting with the team, feeling more relaxed after her talk with Dom, even if she was more resigned to the inevitable after putting it so black and white to another person.
Around three am she decided that enough was enough. Stupid or not, need to start putting distance between them or not, tomorrow was going to be all about saying goodbye to Jesse. Tonight needed to be about them saying goodbye to each other. It was the last chance they were going to have. She set off to finish her search for Vince. She tried the last place she had left that she hadn't already checked. The basement. She didn't figure he would have gone to bed so early, but you just never knew when he was in a mood with the world. She headed down the dark stairs into the cellar, not bothering with a light. She knew where everything was well enough now to function without one.
She headed down the stairs, stopping by some instinct she didn't care to name at the bottom of the stairs. There was a couple in the den, being illuminated softly by the faint blue light from the TV someone had left on, but which due to the lateness of the hour was only showing the plain blue channel the stations put on after broadcasting finished for the day.
As she stood on the bottom stair trying to figure out how to sneak past them without interrupting them on her way to Vince's room, she studied them against her will. She didn't want to stare, and knew she wouldn't want someone staring at her during a heavy make out session, but it was a bit like a train wreck, hard to look away from.
She didn't know if she would blame intoxication, or disbelief for how long it took her to figure it out. Maybe she always knew and just couldn't let herself admit it. But there came a second in time when it was too obvious to deny. While the woman was just a bottle blonde racer chaser, interchangeable with any number of her kind, the man with his tongue down her throat and her hand down his undone pants was Vince.
She could pinpoint the exact second she felt her heart break in half. The moment he leaned toward her to bite the side of her neck, she realized he was actually doing what she obviously actually knew he was doing, deny it to herself or not, and when she couldn't deny it anymore, her heart snapped in two. With some measure of dignity and decorum she didn't know how she could still posses, she turned silently and crept up the stairs. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of a catty scene.
She wouldn't make herself no better than that whore with her hands all over someone else's man. She wouldn't allow him to think, to know, that he meant enough to her that this betray was actual. That it cut her to the bone. That he had chosen to do this, and allow her to see this, on tonight of all nights. So she crept slowly up the stairs, and kept the tears in her eyes from running over as she dashed across the kitchen and lounge, past the few remaining stragglers. She thanked God that her things were still in Mia's room. That she could quietly pack and escape.
She was too destroyed to question her fitness to drive, to question the sanity of taking off in the middle of the night, while intoxicated. She only knew she was leaving this place, this house, this time, and this feeling, now. She wasn't going to talk about it. She wasn't going to admit she was hurt. She wasn't going to give him the effort of pretending she wasn't. She was just going to leave it all behind, and run like hell, because it was all she could see to do.
She tossed her things haphazardly into her bags, not really caring if she missed items, or how the things got placed into the bags. Flight was the only thing on her mind. She couldn't even bring herself to admit to anyone she was leaving. Telling them she was leaving meant admitting why. No one would just accept she'd decided she had to go home in the middle of Saturday night after a party when she'd told them all she was staying to Monday. And they were just not talking about it.
Glad Mia was still downstairs chasing people out of the house and tidying up as they left, Tempest turned on the light in Mia's room, found a notepad and pen, and hastily started to pen Jesse a note. It was hard to know what to put, because after what she'd seen, she refused to be sorry for leaving, not even to Jesse. There was no way she could face Vince tomorrow, in any capacity, after how callously he'd tossed away their last night together and thus everything which had come before.
Leaving the finished note on Mia's bed, not willing to go downstairs to Jesse's room and risk a repeat performance, Tempest snuck down the stairs and out the front door silently.
She didn't think she'd ever found herself wishing the Skyline had a more silent exhaust on it before, but she heartily wished for it now. All she could pray was that everyone would assume it was a late staying guest finally going home. That no one would expect it to be her, so no one would question it or come looking for her 'til morning. They would all assume she was with Vince anyway.
This thought brought a hiccupping sob to her lips. Vince was with some vapid Barbie doll and she was all alone, two days early. Another sob shook her frame and she knew she had to get off the road before either her emotional state or her intoxicated state got her pulled over, and the latter got her tossed in jail. She stopped at the first motel she came across with out of sight parking and paid cash for a room. When daylight came, she was out of L.A.
Seconds after Tempest turned to go back up the stairs, Vince broke away from the woman in his arms. He didn't know he'd been caught out, though it has been his plan all along. He wanted to drive Tempest away from him.
He told himself going in he had the noblest of intentions. That she could do better than him and this would surely make her see that clearly. But he couldn't deny he felt like the biggest fraud when he had no more interest in this idiot he was making out with than he did selling his car or giving up drinking.
His mind knew, even if he wouldn't let it admit it, even to itself that he had done what he had done only because he was scared of what would happen if she didn't leave. She had to go, and he refused to directly drive her away. So he did what he could think of to make her decide to go on her own, with no chance she'd decide to stick around.
'You're an idiot' he told himself as he pushed the blonde away.
"What's wrong?" she questioned in a voice he found like nails on a chalkboard. She was just all wrong!
"Everything!" he snarled in reply. "Just fuck off and leave me alone!" He knew that he had to go find her, before it was too late.
Suddenly he knew they both needed the last night. Hell, he needed it to not be the last night. He needed to tell her he wanted her to stay with him, not to leave. He needed her to choose him. He needed someone to choose him for once. And for her to choose him he had to give her the choice to make. He couldn't ignore that he'd had no interest in the woman he'd been kissing. She'd been a shallow, inadequate replacement for the real thing, and despite her best efforts she hadn't been able to get any sort of response out of him. That had to say something.
He had to find Tempest before it was too late. She hadn't seen what he'd done, his horrid mistake. If she had she'd have kicked off a scene, tried to kill the blonde, tried to kill him. So if she hadn't seen and none of the team had killed him either, that meant no one knew. There was still time to make it all go away. He just had to find Tempest, and grovel at her boot clad feet for making her wait so long for him to come after her. "Get your shit together and get out," he growled at the woman in front of him. He was ashamed to realize he didn't even know her name.
Without waiting to see if she listened to his ordered growl, he turned around and bounded up the stairs. It felt like a weight had been lifted off him. He'd ask her to stay, since it was what she was waiting for—and only what she deserved, he reminded himself—she'd agree to stay with him and he could stop wondering what he was going to do with himself on Monday when she wasn't around. There was no reason he couldn't take a few weeks off. He'd go back with her, help her finalize her plans, pack her stuff. They could drive back together, take the time to find out how it felt to just be them with no one else around to nag or glare or ponder their fate.
Only the team was still in the house when he reached the living room. It seemed as though Mia had just kicked the last straggler out. He hoped the blonde used whatever little brain she had and let herself out the back, but it was a fleeting thought. Finding Tempest was his primary focus.
As if she'd just picked up on his single status, Mia did a double take. "Where's Tempest?" she enquired with a puzzled frown on her face.
"What'd you mean where is she?" Vince asked in return. "I figured she was still with you guys."
"We figured she was with you," Jesse answered.
"Maybe she laid down upstairs and fell asleep," Mia offered. She then headed to the stairs to go check the rooms on the second floor. She returned a second later with a sheet of paper and a glare for Vince. "Her stuff's all gone and this is addressed to Jesse."
Jesse looked up at Mia in confusion. "She's gone?"
"Looks like it, but maybe the answer is in the note."
Jesse unfolded the paper and started to read. He looked up with a furious glare at Vince a moment later. "She saw something unimaginable and decided there was no way she could ever look at you again, and decided she had to leave before you woke up today. What the fuck did you do?"
Vince literally felt the blood drain from his face as he felt all his tender new plans for the future he was going to build with her come crashing down around him, broken on the floor. "Something incredibly stupid." He wouldn't go into any more details. He couldn't. He felt like the world's worse human being that she's seen everything. He couldn't live with himself another day if he had to tell Jesse, Leon, Letty and Dominic what his clever plan to drive a permanent wedge between him and Tempest had been. If he had to explain to them it had been 'for her own good'. As it clearly hadn't been. She was alone in L.A in the middle of the night, having likely driven drunk to where ever she was.
The team yelled and screamed and at one point he thought both Jesse and Dominic were going to deck him but he sat stoically refusing to say a word. Little did they all know, it was the only way he kept the single tear threatening to fall from running down his cheek.
To the team he just looked indifferent, like it didn't matter and around 5am Dom banished him to his room. When he went without a word of protest for being treated like a child, they all shared a look. That single act on Vince's part made it clear there was more to the situation than met the eye. But what could they do? She was gone, and finding one woman in the City of Angels gave new meaning to finding a needle in a haystack.
And then time went on, and Vince went back to being mean, and difficult, and everyone else got on with their routines. If occasionally the phone rang, and Vince answered, and the other party just disconnected, he didn't question it. He just let it ring the next time until someone else answered it and pretended what was left of what was worth anything in his miserable life wasn't on the other end of the call.
And when Dominic bugged him one last time about how he could earn the kind of money Vince could earn, he didn't look too hard at why he was suddenly willing to play along. Why he was willing to put himself so far into harm's way to keep the rest of the team out of it.
As soon as daylight broke, she was out of the motel. She didn't sleep much she knew, but she was at least sober. She knew she could stop for the night somewhere else and actually get some sleep, more confident he couldn't find her in some middle of nowhere town 12 hours outside L.A.
She travelled like a zombie across the USA. She didn't question the route change on the map in her car. She was stopping in Toronto on the way home and there was no questions allowed. She'd told her boss, her mother and that was it. She was taking an extra week away and she didn't even tell them where she was taking it, let alone why.
She turned up on Angelo's driveway after being buzzed through his gates, fell into his arms and sobbed out the whole story.
It took him the whole extra week to put her back together just half way. He took her to Italy, and fed her good food, good wine. Let his mother make a fuss of her. Took her walking on white sand beaches, took her to see the sites tourists never thought to go see. He made her feel like she belonged, which he knew was what she needed more than anything anyway.
On their last night there, he couldn't find her, but had some idea where to look. He walked out onto the balcony off his room in his mother's house, looked off over the beach the house backed onto, and found her walking along the waves alone in the sun set.
She cried at night when she thought no one would ever know. But he knew, and he didn't know what else there was to do for her but let nature take its course. As it had had to for him, when his Arabella had been killed. She would live, she would survive and carry on with her life. What filled him with sadness for her was the question he had in his heart. If this Vincent idiot had really been the one for her, and was as good as dead to her now, would she ever truly love again?
She'd been home for a week when she found herself back on another beach, this one a lot closer to home. It was grey and ominous, as only late August could be. Another year older and none the wiser, she was afraid. She stopped walking and just stood looking out over the water, contemplating as little as she could force herself.
Two weeks away was all it took to make her into someone else totally. She'd walked away, and there were no plans to see him again. She knew she had to get on with her life, to move on. They'd never said goodbye but there were no goodbyes to say. Perhaps he'd said his the best way he could do. Had certainly made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her. Rain started to pepper her face.
She started out into the water, wandered out til the water was up to her chest before allowing herself to float on the surface, waves rocking her softly. The wind picked up and the waves got bigger, tossing her higher and higher before dropping her lower and lower.
She licked her lips, tasted salt and didn't know if it was from the ocean water or her own tears. Either way it tasted like pain. She told herself over and over she wasn't thinking of him again. The waves swelled, ebbed and flowed with greater and greater violence as the storm build. She floated around, watched a huge wave looming darkly on the horizon and coming straight at her, but she didn't do anything to move toward the shore.
She found herself wondering if she'd be better off letting it take her under. Floating alone in the ocean on an abandoned beach in the dead of night, she'd never felt so alone. Then the violent wave did slam into her, took her under. She found herself fighting the pull of an undertow as waves getting ever bigger and bigger tried to take her under.
When she finally reached shore, she had to admit it was the most alive she'd felt in days. She knew that because she fought the waves and undertow, had fought to reach the shore, she wanted to go on.
So now she just had to figure out how to do that without him. And without thinking of him, or speaking to him, or mentioning him, or preferably without even remembering he was alive. Which was going to be hard when he lived with her cousin. And everything about her prize possession reminded her of him. Memories of him rode shotgun in the Skyline every time she turned it on, and there was nothing she could do about it.
With a sigh she picked up her clothes and shoes and headed for her car. Life would go on, it had a funny way of doing so.
Like it or not.
To be continued?