Chapter Eight

Dom finally loosened up a bit with me. Or maybe we were just too busy for him to spend so much time trying to avoid me. It still wasn’t quite the same as before, but it was enough, and my world slowly shifted back to normal. Except for those times when I’d pass Dom something and his hand would linger against mine just a few seconds longer than normal and I’d start analyzing his every single movement again. Did he mean to touch me for that long, did he feel anything in those few extra seconds before we would pull away from each other? Did he think to himself, if I brush my thumb across that spot on the inside of her wrist, her pulse will race and she won’t be able to think of anything but me? Or, did he just wonder why this idiot little girl kept staring at him all the time? Dom could throw me off-balance in half a second or less, and it pissed me off. He was the only thing in my life that I didn’t have any control over. So I decided to take some back by trying to get under his skin, shake him up a little bit.

I remember one day in particular, I was hanging out at the garage not really doing anything, just watching Dom work on this old El Camino that needed new brake pads. For some reason, I didn’t feel like doing much that day. Well, okay, for once it was better to just watch Dom instead of working on the cars myself.

It seemed like he’d forgotten I was even there, which was kind of nice. Because, you know, I could watch him without having to worry about him catching me at it. Normally I didn’t get the chance to really look at Dom, had to be happy with just quick glances here and there. I might’ve been lusting after him, and I was definitely trying to get his attention, but I sure as hell didn’t want him to think that. Not when he’d just stopped acting all weird with me and gone back to semi-normal. So I made sure all of my flirtation could be played off as just teasing, like it always had been. I was sure he’d go back to avoiding me if he knew how I really felt.

I could have just sat there and watched Dom forever. The way his body moved as he slid the hubcaps and tires off of the car, the tightening and flexing of his muscles…the warm caramel color of his skin… I remember thinking to myself how pathetic I was, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. Dom has always been able to make my body like…stop working, just by being in the same room with me. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always checked to see if he’s there the second I get someplace that he might be. If he is, I don’t want him to leave. And if he’s not, I can’t wait for him to show up. But somehow, in the two years Dom’d been gone, I’d almost forgotten what it was like being around him.

This is going to sound dumb, I know. Shit, I’ve been thinking about it half my life if not longer, and it still sounds dumb to me. But when Dom walks into a room, it’s like he just draws everything to him, the light and the air, even. He’s inescapable, you know? I’ve seen it a million times, over the years. Dom shows up somewhere, walks in with his swagger that just announces, “I own this place,” and no one ever even thinks to argue. Actually, they fall all over themselves trying to suck his dick or do whatever else they think will make him happy for even a second. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have that much control over other people.

Dom changed, though, after he got out of jail. He swaggered more, put on that fake smile that I could always see right through. He didn’t show as much of himself to the world. Maybe that’s a survival tactic left over from prison, maybe it’s just what happens as you get older, I don’t know. But there’s a wall there, just under the swagger, a limit to what he’s willing to show most people. They don’t even realize they’re not getting all of him. I don’t know if anyone besides me even sees the difference.

Sometimes I wonder why the hell I ever thought that maybe I could be Dom’s, he could be mine. Shit, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s ever wondered why we’re together. Seems like most of the bitches at the races wonder that every single day of their lives. I’m not quite sure what people see when they look at me. I’ve been called a little girl who grew up too fast, a dyke, a bitch, a slut, a whore, and once even a hussy; I’ve been looked at with pity, with anger, with jealousy… After a while I stopped paying attention, you know? Who the fuck cares what the world thinks about me. But sometimes I can’t help but care, can’t help but question what Dom could ever see in me. Sometimes I can’t help but think that maybe I’m really still back in the garage at almost-sixteen years old, watching Dom, and that all the rest of my life since then has just been a fantasy. And then Dom will look at me and I remember how we are, and I can’t help but wonder what the fuck is wrong with me for caring what anyone else thinks.

There are two things that make me feel special, like I’m worth something. The first is, I know cars. Anything that’s wrong with a car, I can fix it. Any way you want me to drive one, I can do it. The second thing is the way Dom looks at me, the way he’s looked at me ever since he got out of Lompoc. Even in the middle of a crowded street, filled with people waiting to race, when Dom looks at me I know exactly what’s going on inside his head. He knows how I’m feeling by just the tone of my voice. Sometimes I think we know each other better than we know ourselves. And when Dom looks at me, I see his swagger fall away, the walls come down, and suddenly I feel like the center of the universe, like if I weren’t there everything else in his life would just fall to pieces.

It’s taken me a lifetime to try to figure all of this shit out, and I’m still not even close. I don’t always know how to keep it all together, how to deal with Dom’s audience. I get jealous sometimes, I get frustrated and bitchy…I want to beat the shit out of any girl who even looks at him. Want to beat the shit out of Dom, too, when he doesn’t realize that he’s playing right into their little sex fantasies. When Dom flirts with girls, he’s just being nice…trying to make them feel important or special. He’s the kind of guy that, no matter how big of a crowd is around him, he’ll pay attention to everyone there, at least for a little bit. The problem is, most girls see that attention as an invitation to fuck him, think it means he’s trying to figure out how to get in their pants without me finding out. It used to bother me a lot, how all the skanks of the racing world crowd around Dom, practically throw themselves at his dick. Even now, sometimes one of them will piss me off to the point where I’ll kick her ass if she gives me any excuse to do it.

I can put up with a lot of shit from the skanks, I know there’s a lot of shit talking that goes on behind my back. Story of my life, right? But I will not stand for people disrespecting me right in front of my face. You want to flirt with Dom? Fine, go right ahead. But you’d better not do it anyplace where I can see you. Any of those bitches give Dom a “fuck me now” look while I’m standing right there, I figure they deserve whatever they get. Most of the time, now, they just back down when I call them on their shit, walk away leaving Dom standing there looking at me like he’s wondering what the hell just happened and why I look like I just might beat his ass if he’s not careful. You’d think he’d figure it out by now, but he hasn’t. Or maybe he just likes the idea of me trying to kick his ass…

I kind of miss the old days, actually. A little scrapping every once in a while is good for your spirit, you know? Especially when you’re the one who walks away from it without even a broken nail. But mostly I just feel sorry for those girls. They’re fucking pathetic, and they don’t even realize it. They’re so busy trying to hit on Dom, and none of them even notice that he isn’t really quite paying attention to them. None of them seem to notice that he never looks them straight in the eye, his gaze always lands a little high and to the right. Or maybe they just don’t care, maybe they think even a tiny bit of his attention is enough.

Okay, so maybe I was like that too, when I was younger. But, not exactly. The racer skanks want to be with Dom just because of his image, because he has a cool car, wins races, is popular, has an incredible body... They want him for the things they think he can do for them. I wanted to be with Dom just because he was Dom, because I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it. That day in the garage, watching him work, I realized how lucky I was to be able to see the real him. And I decided that I didn’t really need to be with Dom romantically, as long as I always got to see behind that wall of his. Of course I still wanted to be with him…

I remember thinking of things I wanted Dom to do with me as I watched him work on that El Camino, wondering if all those sex tips Angel and the rest of her girls had talked about worked half as well as they said they did. And then Dom stopped, lifted up his tank top to wipe the sweat off of his face, revealing his bare chest, and I couldn’t think at all. Almost forgot how to breathe. I must have sighed or something, though, because he suddenly looked up like he’d heard something and whirled around till he was looking right at me.

“Damn, girl,” he laughed. “You trying to give me a heart attack? How long you been here, anyway?”

“Oh, a while,” I replied, stretching my legs a bit.

“Oh really, huh? You think I’m putting on a show or something? Now, why don’t get off your ass and come help me bleed these brakes?”

“Well,” I sighed. “I guess I could.”

“Yeah,” he laughed, “not like you’ve been doing much of anything else today. I mean, really, Letty…you think you can just lay around here and watch me sweat while you do nothing? You should know better than that. You have to pay to play.”

“Oh, do I?” I asked as I finally stood up, stretching more. I wasn’t even trying to do anything to get Dom’s attention, but he must’ve seen something he liked, ‘cause he nearly dropped the lug wrench on his foot. “You haven’t even finished clipping the brake pads on yet. Come on, Dom…I thought you were the big strong man around here, able to do anything. You don’t really need a helpless little girl to show you how to do this job right, do you?” I teased.

“Letty,” he growled in warning, “you most definitely are not a helpless little girl. Never have been. Now come on, stop fucking around with me and just come help.”

“Fucking around with you? Is that what I’m doing? ‘Cause, you know, somehow I always thought it was supposed to feel better… Or maybe I just need more practice at it, huh? What do you think, Dom? You willing to teach me? Or maybe you’re the one who needs practice…”

He just stood there staring at me.

“Got ya,” I teased as I walked over to the car.

The rest of the summer was filled with days like that one in the garage, me seeing how far I could push Dom, how much he’d let me get away with. Have to say, I left him speechless on more than one occasion. Just enough times for me to think that maybe he really did see me as more than just a kid sister and I wasn’t just imagining things. Dom still had the advantage, though. He could leave me speechless just by looking at me. And if he actually touched me…forget about it, any rational thought was just gone.

Like, I remember one day towards the end of August, Dom was underneath a car fixing an oil leak, put down the socket wrench he was using and then couldn’t find it again. He asked me to look for it, and when I went to hand it to him, his hand brushed against my leg. Completely unintentional, accidental, innocent touch. But I just stood there, imagining what it would be like if his hand kept traveling up my calf until his hand was caressing the back of my thigh. Dom had to ask me twice if I’d found the wrench yet. And then he ended up having to actually come out from underneath the car and get it himself. I was so caught up in my fantasy world I hadn’t even heard him. And when he asked me what the hell was wrong with me, all I could do was stammer out, “Uhhh…headache?” like I didn’t even know what was going on. See? Pathetic. Dom looked at me like I was crazy, but he didn’t say anything else. I can’t even tell you how many times I did shit like that… Dom never called me on it, though, never pushed me to tell him exactly what I was thinking about when I flaked out. Unfortunately.