One of the girls shrieking woke me up out of the deepest sleep I'd gotten in a while. It took me a few seconds to recover, realize I wasn't waking up back in my cell at Lompoc. It probably should've been more obvious, what with Letty laying there naked next to me and all. But I still had nightmares about that place all the time, maybe a couple times a week – not necessarily about things that had happened to me, but shit I witnessed.
I thought about just ignoring the noise, letting one of the guys handle it, but shit. It was my house and I knew I wouldn't have been able to go back to sleep anyway. Plus, as I looked at the clock I realized it was way too early to wake Letty up without having to deal with her attitude the rest of the day. I slid out of bed carefully, doing my best to stay quiet. Christ, don't even know why I bothered. She slept like the dead; like I used to be able to before I got sent away.
I grabbed a pair of boxers, pulling them on before going out into the hallway. It wasn't really a surprise to find Leon in the hallway, on his way to check shit out.
"What's up, man?" I asked him, groaning a little as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.
I didn't know what I expected him to say, probably that one of the girls found a mouse in the bathroom or something. I definitely didn't expect him to point towards the bathroom and whisper that somebody was in there. Shit, by then people knew not to overstay their welcome at the parties. Letty'd gone postal on a couple of chicks who tried to sneak up into our bedroom a couple months after all the shit with Julie settled, pretty much took care of anybody trying to overstay their welcome. Plus, whichever one of us was the last to crash was supposed to do a check of the house, make sure everyone had cleared out. Apparently that hadn't worked so well last night.
"What?" I asked, shaking my head as I glanced at the bathroom door. "Oh, fuck this," I muttered, pushing past Leon and barging into the room.
I couldn't really see the guy at first, but I couldn't help grimacing when I saw him laying there. He was hunched over the toilet, facing the wall, and I knew he must've been completely shitfaced to manage to pass out like that and stay out all night.
"Time to get up and out, man," I growled, lightly kicking his foot.
He didn't even move. I shook my head, starting to get pissed. Shit, I was supposed to be in bed next to Letty, either sleeping or thinking up ways to wake her up and start our morning off right, not in here trying to get this motherfucker out of my house.
"What?" the guy finally mumbled, looking back and forth between me and Leon.
"Look, kid," I growled at him, even though most of the anger had already started to clear out of me. Shit, he really was just a kid, probably not too much older than Letty and Mia and looking like some kind of starved mutt. "If you want to party here after the races, that's fine. But let's get one thing straight, this ain't no hotel."
"Sorry," he mumbled, shaking his head.
I nodded, satisfied that it wouldn't take him too long to get lost, and headed back into the hall. "You've got three minutes," I called over my shoulder.
"You're Dom, right?" he asked, and I stopped in my tracks, eyebrows raised as I turned back to stare him down. "Dominic Toretto, I mean," he quickly corrected himself.
"Depends on who's asking," I growled. Shit, maybe I'd written this scrawny ass kid off too fast. He could've been in with Johnny's crew, or anybody else who'd decided it was their time to challenge me.
"I heard about you," the kid stammered, looking like he was about to piss his pants or something. "You're a good racer. I thought... well hoped I could meet you; maybe help you out with any problems you might be having with your cars."
That right there got me relaxed, shaking my head as I looked over at Leon. I couldn't help laughing, half because I couldn't believe this kid had the balls to try to sell me and half because I couldn't wait to hear Leon's version of it all later with all the commentary I was sure he had running through his head.
"Already got a mechanic," I finally said, jerking my thumb towards Leon. "And he's pretty good."
"Yeah," he started again, looking over at Leon like he wasn't sure whether or not we were about to lay a beating on him. "But…."
"Two minutes," I interrupted, folding my arms across my chest. I had to admit, though, I was a little interested in hearing what he had to say. Otherwise he would've already been out on his ass on the front lawn.
"I've seen you guys working. You're a good team," he said, hesitating before he continued. "I just might be able to help you out a little more. I know about cars and -"
"And what is that exactly?" Leon asked, interrupting him.
"What?" the kid stammered, looking like he was about to piss his pants again.
"What do you know about cars?" Leon asked again, leaning against the door frame.
"One minute," I said. Shit, I was starting to get tired of this. If we just hired everybody who thought they knew shit about cars we'd have the whole fucking neighborhood on our payroll.
"I, uh... I know a way to increase the performance on your girlfriend's car," he said, hesitating again when he looked at me. He went a little pale, like he might have been feeling the hangover I was sure he must have had. But eventually he took a deep breath and continued. "For free."
"Bullshit," Leon snorted. "Nothing's free."
"Small fixes... until you get money to put actual mods in the car. She—she's good, but she's going to wear out the engine if she keeps racing it like that."
I couldn't help nodding a little. He was right, but I sure as shit wasn't going to tell him that. The little bit of profit we took home from the shop was just barely enough to pay the bills and even the cash from the races wasn't enough to keep all of our cars in peak condition.
"And what do you propose we do?" I asked quietly, even though I was sure he was just going to spout out some bullshit answer, make suggestions that would cost way more than we had available.
"Well, for starters, you could, uh... do a two and a half to three inch exhaust and not bother wasting any money on headers. You'll be able to save the money for turbo parts that way. If you want to pick up more speed, you can cut the ac fan and that will help. You can take the distribution block off, that will increase the feel to the clutch pedal and make it easier to bleed…."
I looked over at Leon as the kid kept rattling off suggestions. I could tell he was just as impressed as I was. Maybe this kid had possibilities.
"And there's always weight reduction," he continued, drawing our attention back to him again.
"Are you implying something?" Leon growled, and I had to fight off a laugh. Shit, he was always protective of the girls, and especially of Letty.
"No," the kid said, quickly shaking his head. "No... I meant... I meant any interior not used, er... um, the catalytic converter even. That will add some horse power..."
"So where'd you learn all this?" I asked, still not totally convinced he hadn't been sent in here as some kind of spy or something.
"My dad," the kid answered. "But, you know, he got locked up last month and I've been trying to keep busy ever since. I mean, cars are all I've ever known. I'm not cut out for a nine-to-five job."
"Okay," I nodded, slowly circling the kid. "I like your ideas, but I want to test them out. If they work out like you think, then I'm willing to add you to the team. I mean, as long as you're not some rapist serial killer, right?"
"No," the kid said, wincing.
"Gimme your wallet," I growled, grabbing it from the kid when he held it out to me. "Take that to Vince. He'll know what to do with it," I told Leon, blindly tossing the wallet to him. "If it checks out, then we'll take it from there... what the fuck is your name anyway?"
"Jesse." the kid responded quietly. "My name's Jesse."
"Make yourself at home, Jesse," I said, reaching out my hand, laughing as he shook it. "You've got to be able to find someplace in here more comfortable than the john."
And with that, I headed back toward my room and Letty. Shit, I was going to have to do some convincing to make her go along with having this kid try out all his ideas on her ride. Luckily I had some ideas of how to go about it.