THE ROAD IS LONG
Chap 28. I like this chap. I've kinda been neglecting Frankie and jesse for a while now so I thought they needed another chapter. The vince section will continue in the next chapter. I was going to put it at the end of this one but I'm getting tired now (it is like 01:18am over here in the uk) and I'm baking hot. Freakishly hot british weather is never good because we're all so used to the rain, lol! I spent all day in work complaining with the customers. Happy Reading! Gem xxx Chapter 28: And They Called it Puppy Love. Donni had made Vince swear upon the 'life' of his car to stay awake until Letty ventured downstairs the next morning. She usually needed a bathroom and water break at about half six, seven o'clock and stayed to have breakfast and chat with Frankie, Jesse, Tino and Mia before returning to the depths of the room belonging to her and Dom, not to be seen again until Mia or Donni began preparing lunch. And so awake he remained. On his creaking camp bed, quite literally lying in wait, ready to pounce on Letty before she could spout her "fat mouth2, as Donni had so politely put it, off to anyone and cause trouble. Leon's nasal sounding snores ricocheted about the wide lower story of the house, emanating from the sofa that had become his home. It hadn't taken him long to heal up enough to move around by himself and following weeks of constant fussing and babying from Mia and Donni the younger man was completely back to his former self. He had received no sympathy whatsoever from Letty, though, who had simply snorted at the complaining, injured man, telling him to 'suck it up, soldier and stop being a pansy!'. And he had…eventually. Movement from above drew Vince's contemplations away from the recovery of his friend and to the cracked ceiling. It was Frankie. She was always the first to surface in the mornings, scrambling about her room frantically if it was a school day. That day, however, was a Saturday and though she didn't have school to worry about, she was still up at the crack of dawn to take her turn at cleaning out the horses. She crept down the stairs as quietly as she could, footsteps soft and padding, until she reached the bottom and tripped over her father's steel toe capped work boots, muttering an Italian curse and making Vince sit up from where he had been trying to rest without giving in to the need for slumber. "Sorry, Vince." she hissed in a whisper apologetically. "My stupido Padre left his boots on the bottom stair again." "S'alright, Girlie." Vince grunted out a chuckle, waving a hand dismissively at her concern. "I was awake anyway." Frankie smiled widely and tugged her dark brown waves of hair into a messy ponytail before retrieving her ankle-length riding boots and helmet from beneath the stairs. "Goin' for a trot on your little pony again, huh, Kiddo?" Vince queried pulling yesterday's shirt on over his head and standing with a stretch and a yawn. "Horse, Vincent." she replied cheekily and Vince fixed her with a less than amused glare. "I'm going to exercise my horse." "Vincent?" he scoffed, very nearly with disgust. "Kid, you better get out that back door before I take you over my knee!" he joked and Frankie stuck her tongue out at him in a childish retort. "Yeah, you do that, Vincent, and my dad will beat you up…again!" her grin was wide and teasing as she spoke, skipping from the house and out into the back yard leaving Vince glowering after her retreating form. "Cheeky brat!" he hollered after her, shaking his head as he moved to the kitchen counter intent on a high caffeine intake that would help him to stay awake. Moments later, like clockwork as he usually was after hearing Frankie up and about, Jesse staggered down the stairs also stumbling over Tino's size ten boots and hissing the same Italian curse that Frankie had before him. She was definitely rubbing off on him and Vince smiled at that. Jesse had never been so taken with a girl before…ever! He was clearly smitten, even if he didn't realise it himself, following her around, stuttering and stumbling over his words more so than usual. And when the girl wasn't there or was at school, every other sentence was about her, cutting down the computer and car jargon that he usually spouted. "You're up early, Einstein." Vince called with a barely controlled laugh from the kitchen area and Jesse started with surprise. "Shit, V. You scared the crap outta me!" he gabbled breathlessly only making Vince chuckle harder. "You got it bad-style, Boy, if you didn't see me or hear me moving round this kitchen." Jesse looked slightly confused but the pink tinge to his cheeks told Vince that the younger man knew exactly what he was talking about. Still, Jesse had decided to play dumb. "Dunno what you mean, V." Jesse shrugged, moving to get himself a glass of water in an attempt to cool his raging blush. "You know what I mean." Vince replied, teasingly, his grin only widening with the more uncomfortable Jesse looked. He leaned his weight back onto the kitchen counter and studied his younger companion until Jesse growled and slammed his glass down with a loud crack. "Fuck off, Vince! I know what you're trying to do!" he snarled, storming for the doorway. Vince only laughed harder at the teenager's strop and cleared his throat to croon a rather off key rendition of Donny Ormond's 'Puppy Love', earning him the finger and the backdoor slammed at him. "Didn't think my singing was that bad." he mumbled to himself, shrugging and resuming his quest for caffeine. -00000- Jesse scuffed the toes of his battered old trainers in the dusty dirt, kicking up smoggy red clouds as he stormed away from the house and Vince's jibes. His hand fumbled desperately about in his deep jeans pockets, searching out his cigarettes and lighter. He almost sighed with relief as his hands closed around the cool metal of his cigarette rolling tin and he pulled it out as he perched himself atop the paddock fence as he had taken to doing most mornings. Clamping one of the small, white sticks gently in between his teeth, Jesse thumbed on his lighter, touching the dancing flame to the end and bringing it to burningly with an ashy kiss and a puff of bluish smoke. Oh, he'd needed that! Nicotine surged through his veins, curing his incessant craving if only for a little while. He wasn't really a heavy smoker. A normal twenty pack would last him a good four days with him smoking five a day. One first thing, a wake up call. One after coffee and breakfast. One after lunch. One after dinner. And the final one just before he turned in and surrendered to sleep. As the smoke curled from his lips in dancing ribbons, dirty grey against the fiery, rising morning sun, he settled a little more comfortably into his seat, allowing his anger at Vince and embarrassment filter from him entirely as he considered the vast horizon before him. Mountains rose up commandingly to his left, reaching out and up for the gentle blue of the sky that was seeping down, in turn, to meet them as the fierce glare of day break receded slowly. To his right lay the wide city of San Felipe, hugging tightly to the azure sea of the crescent moon shaped coastline. It's deep blue depths glittered as if a million diamonds floated upon the waves, capturing the last few brilliant orange moments of sunrise. He'd never seen anything like it before in all his eighteen years. He'd lived his entire life deep in the heart of Los Angeles, amid the chaos and mayhem and exhaust fumes. Never once had he been out of state, let alone out of country and so he savoured moments of beauty like that breaking morning, storing each second in his memory forever so that when the bad times hit, as they always did and would continue to do, he would have something to draw peace from, peace and hope even if it was only from a memory. "Whatcha thinkin' 'bout?" Frankie's voice came out of the blue, startling Jesse from his thoughts and making him wobble precariously upon the fence. She laughed at him, softly, tugging on her riding helmet and fastening it securely beneath her chin. Piccolino pranced excitedly within her stable, the little pinto mare anxious to be out in the fresh morning air and running. "Sorry, Jess." Frankie apologised, though she continued to chuckle at his expense, moving to release Picco from her confines and grasping the reins tightly with one hand. She spoke in low, lulling tones, her free hand smoothing lovingly and soothingly down the brown and white of the mare's warm neck. Jesse, finally finding his voice, grunted in response, taking another deep inhalation on his cigarette while watching as Frankie swund the paddock gate open, led Piccolino through and then closed it again firmly. "Just thinking about stuff." he replied with a shrug after a long minute and Frankie smiled up from where she was tightening Picco's girth strap quite intently. "About new stuff or L.A stuff?" she pondered out loud, standing up, flushed from her efforts and leaning her back against her horse's belly as she blew a stray wisp of hair from her face. "About how nice it is down here, instead of being in L.A." he smiled back in return. "So a bit of both really." Blowing again at her unruly hair, Frankie grinned. "Converted you, have I?" she teased. "Turned you away from all of those stinky cars and endless roads, to the peace and quite of the wilderness." "Not likely!" he snorted a retort out, puffing himself up indignantly and causing Frankie's grin to evolve into a chuckle. "Cars are my life! I can't wait for Dom to open the new garage." The young girl before him gave an absentminded nod of reply, having lost interest in their conversation at the mere mention of cars, most of her attention diverted to lengthening the stirrups on Piccolino's saddle. Eventually she pulled herself up to sit astride the pinto mustang with a well practiced ease, slipping her toes into the metal footholds of the stirrups and pressing her heels down. She murmured to the horse in Italian, calming words as she patted her shoulder and combed fingers through her mane. Jesse recognised her lack of interest immediately, for he was so often in the same situation. His attention was hard won by anything that did not involve cars or computers and he quite frequently earned the ire off all his team mates when he either paid little attention to their words and walked away from them while they were speaking to him or he ignored them completely, too enthralled in something that sparked his interest. Jesse sniggered to himself, taking another drag on his cigarette and Frankie's gaze snapped back to him briefly. "What's so funny?" she demanded and Jesse simply shrugged. "You." he responded and laughed again when her olive green eyes darkened into a frown at him. "You really don't like cars, do you?" it was more of a statement than a question and Frankie just stared at him in irritated confusion, raising her dark eyebrows. "So?" she queried, scowling again as his laugh resurfaced. He scratched at his messy hair, still tousled from sleep. "I've just never met anyone, who I've gotten on with, who doesn't like cars at all." he mused and Frankie loosed a rather un-lady-like grunt. "You must've led a really boring life then." she replied, calming Picco again with smooth hands. "Everyone is different. That's what makes it fun meeting new people. I'd be so bored if I could only speak to people who like horses and art and stuff. It'd be dull if we were all the same." she ended with a shrug, entwining her fingers into the reins. Jesse turned his face to stare at the dusty grass of the paddock, stubbing his cigarette butt out on the fence post beside him. "I hate meeting new people." he said, his voice low in his throat. "They always look at me like I'm stupid or a freak. You never know when they're genuine, or when they're gonna shop you to the cops or send you up shit creak with no paddle!" Frankie remained silent for several minutes after he had finished ranting until finally Jesse raised his head to gauge her reaction to his words. "Are you done?" she sniffed, her eyes suddenly not as bright and cheerful as they had been before. Jesse nodded in confirmation that he had. "I guess if you hate meeting new people so much, you must've really hated meeting me! I mean, it's not like we have anything in common, so I don't know why you hang around with me so much." her tone was clipped and curt, an exact replica of how her father sounded when he was angry. When Jesse didn't respond immediately, Frankie gave an impatient sigh and rolled her eyes, allowing Piccolino to take off at a slow trot at first that quickly became a canter. And he watched her go, mulling over her words and comments. He had never done so much intense thinking about anything other than cars, computers and his dad's prison sentence, in his entire life before he had met Frankie. With her, his mind seemed to settle from it's usual breakneck speed, holding onto one thought for longer than he'd ever imagined possible. Frankie and Piccolino had made two circuits of the paddock by that time and were coming around for a third when Jesse leapt off the fence and dashed out into the horse's path. The mustang mare shied, tossing her head nervously and prancing sideways and away from him, eyes rolling white as she glared at him, nostrils flaring with his scent. Frankie ranted at him in Italian, calling him every name under the sun as he reached out and grabbed Picco's reins making the mare toss her head again and release a panicked whinny. "Do you have a death wish? Jesus Christ Almighty!" Frankie gasped, trying to tug the reins from his hands and manoeuvre around him, but to no avail. "Let go, Jesse!" "I didn't mean you, Frank. You know that, right?" he queried and she hissed more Italian curses at him that would make her father's face pale if he heard her utter them. "Come on." "No, no. I know how it is. No one gets to be in your little 'Team' unless they spend all day sucking diesel from exhaust pipes and unless you've known them since, like…forever!" she spat, eyes narrowed and wildly livid beneath her helmet. Jesse sighed in defeat. She had no idea why the entire team was wary of strangers, Dom and Tino had deigned not to let her in on that one. But Jesse was faced by the choice of having Frankie hate him and Tino hate him even more, or the choice of telling her, a little bit at least, about what had happened back in L.A. "If I tell you about why we're unsure of new people, about what happened in L.A, then will you believe me and not hate me?" he asked with a wince and Frankie stilled in her furious cursing and tugging to stare at him. "Really?" she asked dubiously. "I thought dad and Uncle Don said I wasn't allowed to know." Jesse shrugged. "I won't tell them if you won't." Frankie squealed, leaping down from Picco's back and throwing her arms about Jesse's neck, hugging herself to him tightly and forgetting entirely about that fact that she was supposed to be mad at him. "You're really gonna tell me? Really?" "Yeah, it's the only way to get you to stop cursing at me in Italian." Jesse laughed back as she squealed again and he placed his arms around her, hugging her back awkwardly. If Tino saw him at that moment in time, he would be dead meat… "Okay, but I've got to finish exercising Picco first, then you can tell me everything!" she pulled away and turned to remount but paused, her foot halfway up to the stirrup. She glanced over her shoulder at Jesse who stood stroking the mare's face gently. "Hey, Jess?" she questioned and he looked up at her. "How would you like to learn how to ride a real mustang?" -00000- The end of chapter 28. Oooh getting' near to 30! Woohoo! Please read and review, I love it and love getting your ideas!
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