THE ROAD IS LONG
Well, here is chapter 21. Sorry about the wait. It looks like I won't be getting anymore chapters out for the next three weeks or so as I'm coming to the end of my time at uni and I have just three weeks to finish off a five minute animation of which I have only completed about 20 seconds…yep, I'm gonna be pulling a few all nighters. Sucks to be me at this moment… Okay, enough of me moaning. I like the Dom/Letty parts of this chapter, but the end…i'm not too keen on it, but it has taken me so long to pen it, I wanted to get something out at least. Hope it's not too disappointing. Righteo! Happy Reading! Gem xxx Chapter 21: The New Game Plan. Tino sighed deeply, stretching out the tired and aching muscles of his back as he climbed the veranda steps, his work boots clunking out a rhythm on the sun-bleached wood. The day's hot air was beginning to cool and Tino, for one, was grateful for a respite from the blazing heat under which he had slaved all day. Slowly, wearily, he turned the key in the lock and was met by unfamiliar, blaring laughter. Two men sat side-by-side on his sofa, sipping at his beers and focused entirely upon his small television set in the corner of the room, cheering and laughing at what sounded like a football match. One looked like he had been run over repeatedly, covered from head to toe in bruises and lacerations, and the other, who was belching rather charmingly at that particular moment, looked like he had spent the majority of his life living on a park bench. "Who the fuck are you?" Tino bellowed, swinging the door open and causing the two men to practically leap a foot off the sofa in fright. "Jesus Christ, Dawg! Chill!" Vince growled, holding a hand to his heart as if to stop it from popping out of his chest and landing on the floor in front of them. "Who the hell are you, anyway?" Tino's face looked like thunder, his nostrils wide and flaring. "This is my fucking house!" he roared, balling his work stained fists at his sides as if he was about to lash out at Vince who regarded him warily. "I fucking live here!" -00000- Dom lay on his front, head pillowed on one arm while the other moved so that his fingers could tease a light trail up and down Letty's spine. Sleep had claimed her from him for the moment, turning her breathing slow, steady and deliberate, though not into the colossal snores that he was used to every night of the week. She only snored when she was sleeping lightly, however, and that was generally just after she had fallen into blissful unconsciousness or right before she was drawn back into the land of the living from her own little dream world. Many times he had lain beside her, watching her as she slept, wondering what it was that she dreamt of. She used to tell him her dreams when they had been younger, before he had been sent to prison, before they had even got together. She would crawl out from underneath the car that she and her father were working on and slip down beside him as he sat with his back against the door of his latest job, drawing her knees up to her then flat chest, chin resting perfectly between her kneecaps. Most of the time her dreams were of the cars that she wanted to own if she ever got a hold of the money. She had always dreamed of owning a proper 'double-oh-seven', James Bond style, Austin Martin Vanquish imported from Britain, and with the top speed of 195 miles per hour without NOS, he couldn't blame her. She had expensive taste for the scrawny little tomboy who spent her younger days knocking around the rougher areas of the neighbourhood. But if she had begged him for it, hell, even if she had given the slightest little hint that she had wanted it, Dom would have gone hell-for-leather to get her that Vanquish in a heartbeat. Other times she spoke of opening her own garage with her Papi, a father-daughter enterprise and Dom's father had joked that he would have to give the pair of them a pay-rise soon if he didn't want to lose his two best mechanics and turn them into the competition. Then her parents had been killed in a car crash and Little Letty the Blabbermouth, who no one could shut up for love nor money, became Letty the Silent. Letty the Introvert. Letty the Desolate. And it didn't just stop there. Barely two months later Dom's own father had died in a racing accident and he had been sent to Lompoc prison for beating the man who had caused the fatal crash, almost to death. They'd not spoken about their dreams or desires since before that God awful year, the year that almost tore the Team apart. Her smooth tanned expanse of back was partially facing him as she lay on her front also, her head turned away from him and the fiery glare of dieing sunlight from the wide, open window that allowed a warm breeze to slink in and cover their slowly calming bodies in a cooling embrace. He wanted it to change so desperately, wanted to make Letty happy again, to keep her laughing as much as she had been over the past two days. Even after such a short time out of the city of Los Angeles, she was beginning to let herself go a bit more. She wasn't constantly on her guard for women on the prowl after him, she didn't snap at everyone as if she had constant PMT. Instead she was concerned about how he was coping, how he was feeling and she talked to him. Most meaningful conversations between them had stopped after barely a year of going out together…after the incident with Mei Tran, Johnny Tran's sister and not a day went by that Dom didn't want to kick himself in the ass for allowing himself to fall into that situation. It had been all too easy for Mei to slip a few choice 'pills' into his glass of beer when he hadn't been paying attention, she had admitted as much to Letty when she'd unwittingly stumbled in on them together in the throes of a drug induced passion. He had almost lost her then. Nearly lost the most important person in his entire messed up life. But they'd scraped through it somehow. He wasn't even sure what had possessed her to stay with him after that little stunt, but he wasn't about to complain. In fact he quite frequently counted his blessings. Following 'The Incident' Dom had stuck to drinking Corona's from the bottle with his thumb pressed firmly over the mouth of it when he was not knocking it back. He was never careless when it came to alcohol after that. He didn't need to give Letty another excuse to leave his sorry ass. She sighed in her sleep, her breathing changing again into her familiar, rumbling snores that made a smile tug at the corners of Dom's lips as she was drawn out of her slumber. As much as her snoring kept him awake at night and woke him early in the morning, he loved to listen to it. The sound that was so completely her, and amusing to say the least. His fingertips chased their way down to the small of her back and then back up again to the nape of her neck, brushing her dark, chaotic waves of hair from the way and revealing her father's dog-tags that had twisted their way over her shoulder about her neck and lay flush against the warm skin of her back. She squirmed slightly beneath his feather light touch, still too under the vestiges of sleep to realise that it was him who was disturbing her from her dreams. She muttered into her pillow, her words contorted with sleep and sounding vaguely along the lines of something offensive and aimed at him for disturbing her and his smile widened. His fingers stopped their teasing and she settled back down, another snore shaking her slender, bronzed shoulders. Carefully, and with a roguish grin, he leaned down, substituting his work calloused fingers for gentle kisses following the same path up and down her spine. Letty's entire body shuddered. "Dom, stop touching me or I'll effin' bite you!" she snapped, her voice thick and irate and Dom laughed out loud, causing her to push her upper body up off the mattress and flip over to fix him with a bleary eyed, squinting glare. "That's not very nice…you promise?" he teased, returning his hand to smoothing up and down her back, retrieving her dog-tags from where they lay and twisting them around so that they resumed their rightful position between her breasts. She breathed in deeply through her nose, brow furrowed, sitting back onto her heels and scrubbing at her tired eyes. "Just coz you can't sleep doesn't mean that you can disturb me." she retorted. Her hands ran back through her bedraggled hair and she yawned wide, making her eyes water involuntarily. "Sorry." Dom replied simply, propping himself up onto one elbow to watch her as she woke up properly. "Yeah, yeah, yeah…" she mumbled through a second yawn, wiping at her smarting eyes before blinking at Dom again. "What time is it anyway? I'm hungry again." Dom had barely opened his mouth to reply when yelling from downstairs interrupted him, pulling both of their gazes away from each other and to the direction of the door. They held their breath, listening intently until a loud crash filled the hot evening air and made Dom spring into action, pulling his clothes on. "Holy shit!" he hissed. "I bet you any money that that fucking noise is from Vince and Tino!" -00000- They all sat in silence, staring at the plates of spaghetti as Donni served it out, the only noises that broke the quiet being a small, muttered and rather half-hearted 'thank you' every now and again. Finally, she placed the massive serving dish down into the centre of the table and took her place beside Mia and Frankie and opposite a battered and bruised looking Vince who caught her eye by trying to wink at her covertly, wincing as the purplish skin around his eye stretched painfully. She smirked at him, stifling it when she heard her brother's disapproving cough and turned instead to her dish. Tino hadn't fared much better during their egotistical little scrap, coming away with a bloody nose and a split lip. It had taken Dom to hold back Vince and Donni, Letty, Frankie and Jesse to gain control of Tino though both men had struggled relentlessly against their captors, desperate to be free and at each other's throats again over the most trivial of issues. They were like two stags butting their horns together to see who was the best. Men. "Don't you have something to say, Vince?" Dom asked pointedly after a long, mute awkwardness, glaring at his friend who had been content to simply shovel his dinner into his mouth, oblivious to the uncomfortable situation around the table. He looked up, spaghetti trailing from the corner of his mouth and he stilled, eyes widening as he realised what Dom was talking about. He swallowed swiftly and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, turning towards Tino who regarded him coolly. "Look, Dawg. I'm sorry for, you know, beatin' on ya." Vince coughed out in a gruff voice that was meant to disguise his apology. He shrugged his shoulders and rubbed at the back of his neck nervously. Tino stayed unmoving and silent for a long time before he took in Donni's look of pleading. She didn't want anymore trouble that evening and Tino was more than happy to oblige her. Vince packed a hell of a punch and he had just worked a full day at the local building site. He was too tired for a second round. "S'all right, man." he countered finally, in a similar tone. "Sorry for going off on one. S'just, the last time I saw a man I didn't know in my house, he was banging my wife." "Dad! I'm trying to eat!" Frankie complained, shoving her food away, disgustedly and Tino gave her an apologetic pat on her head, which she shirked angrily. He and Vince glanced at each other over the tabletop for several more minutes before they each puffed up their chests in an attempt to appear manly and reached out to shake hands firmly. Donni rolled her eyes at Letty and Mia, mouthing silently the word "men!" and causing Letty to chuckle through a mouthful and quickly take a drink of her water when her food caught at the back of her throat. Mia however offered merely a weak smile and turned back to toy with her food, absentmindedly. Something was bothering the youngest of her cousins. Something that had happened within the space of the past day and Donni was at a loss as to what it was. She had told Vince earlier that it was Mia's hormones and he had believed her. Perhaps it was all to do with her impending pregnancy, Donni really wasn't sure, but whatever it was had changed Mia's attitude towards her dramatically. Mia noticed Donni's concerned stare and cleared her throat, looking at Dom as he chewed at his meal and conversed quietly with Letty every so often, for a distraction. "So, Dom. What did you want to speak to us all about?" Mia queried, placing her cutlery down and pushing her barely touched food away from her. Dom glanced up at her words, allowing his gaze to flow from his sister and around each person sat at the table. His family. Some family by blood. Others by friendship. He took a deep breath and calmed himself. Now was as good a time as any to drop the bomb, right? He cleared his throat and placed his fork down almost reverently. "I wanted to discuss our future." he stated, flashing a glance at Letty, silently telling her that he had taken her words earlier that day to heart. "Letty thinks that I'm trying to carry everyone's burdens for them and she's right-" "I'm always right." she muttered under her breath with a cocky smirk and Dom fixed her with a glare, pointing a finger at her warningly. "We're all okay for the time being. We can cope. Tino has offered to let us live here, with him and we have the money from selling the house and our cars. But that's all the money that we have. None of us are working, the garage and shop are long gone and I ain't gonna risk going back to L.A to claim insurance. I'd rather take the loss and move on." he paused to take a sip of water in order to relieve his parched throat and Letty nodded her accordance, lacing her fingers through his and giving his had a reassuring squeeze that spurred him on. "So we cut our losses?" Mia asked unsure. "That's a lot of money we're losing, Dom. Plus it was Dad's garage." Vince leaned across the table and covered Mia's slender hand with a squeeze much as Letty had with Dom. His large, rough thumb smoothed across her knuckles and made her glance up at him. It was the first sign of affection that he had shown towards since he had arrived and suddenly the breath caught painfully in her chest, her heart stilling as his touch send unexpected shock waves through her entire body. "The garage ain't more than a burnt out shell now, Mi." he murmured softly and Mia cast her eyes down to the table, more to stop her recent emotions from being read than anything else. "Besides," he continued, his tone turning brisk and cheerful. "Your Pa loved that garage, yes, but he wouldn'ta wanted Dom to risk his freedom and his life for some lousy insurance money. It is only material possessions after all. Shit like money and the businesses can always be replaced. But a brother and a friend? Nah. Them's hard to come by." Mia swallowed as she continued to stare at the table and nodded, allowing his words to float around her head. He was so truthful. So adamant in what he believed in and she admired him for that. A hush fell over the table again and Dom took the opportunity to resume his speech with a deep inhalation. He flashed a final glance at Letty before opening his mouth to speak again. "I want to run an idea past you guys." he admitted, cupping his shaven head with his free hand and rubbing it as if his head were aching. "I want you to tell me what you really think." Leon raised his split eyebrows at Jesse who responded with a shrug. "Shoot, Dawg." he said, a little confused as to what was troubling Dom. "We're all ears. Y'know you can tell us anything, man." The silence panned out around them for what seemed an eternity as the powerful man worked up the nerve to actually voice what was going through his mind. He opened his mouth to begin a few times but the words stuck in his throat. "Just say it, Dom." Mia sighed impatiently, breaking the quite and Dom nodded. "I want to use the money from the house to start up a new garage." he stated and cheers went up from Jesse, Leon and Vince. "But that's not all." he continued and they stifled their joy to listen to him again. "I love you three guys like brothers, you know that right? Shit, you are my brothers!" Vince's navy blue gaze turned suspicious. "Yeah…" he replied warily and Dom smiled. "You know that I share everything with you. What's mine is yours, yeah?" "Yeah…" Vince responded again, Leon and Jesse simply falling silent in order to hear what Dom was getting at. Dom chuckled to himself, rubbing at his forehead again. "But, some day you're all gonna want to get married, settle down, have kids and move out and shit like that. And that's what I want for you all." he swivelled in his seat suddenly, without warning, facing Letty who was looking between Dom and Vince in perplexity. She obviously hadn't figured out what Dom was about to say, and he was immensely grateful for that fact. "Letty, however, is always gonna be with me, I know that for sure and that is why I hope you three won't be too mad at me when I say that I want Letty to be a partner in the new garage." -00000- Please gimme a review…or two…tralala! Yes, the excessive work load has addled my brain…
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