Chapter Seventy

**

“You gonna stick by me?”

“Maybe….”

**

“Where the hell are we going now?” Letty asked as I pulled onto the freeway, still headed the opposite direction from home.

She was still annoyed with me…obviously. Couldn’t really blame her - I knew she’d been wanting to get revenge on Julie for a long time, and I’d just taken all of that away from her. Still, though, I didn’t regret the truce with Johnny. If we didn’t put a stop to everything right then, I knew it would just keep escalating… I knew the Tran family wouldn’t hesitate to press charges against us…and the last thing I needed was Letty in jail. I don’t think I could handle that.

“You’ll see,” I said softly, looking over at her.

“Fine,” she huffed, pulling away from me slightly.

I had to keep myself from laughing. Letty was so upset that she wouldn’t be able to go after Julie, she hadn’t even realized what it all really meant.

Eventually, she fell asleep again.

I didn’t wake her up right when we got to the pier, just sat there watching her sleep until she stretched, turned towards me and opened her eyes.

“Hey,” I said lowly, “you okay? You’ve been sleeping a lot lately…”

“Yeah,” Letty answered, running her hands through her hair as she sat up. “I’m fine. Just tired, you know?”

I nodded. I’d been tired too - hell, all of us were. We needed a break…something to get away from it all and just chill for a while. I was thinking of taking the team down to Mexico as soon as Letty was done with school…Cozumel or Cancun or Puerto Vallarta…some crazy resort town. Or maybe even some sleepy little village no one’d ever heard of. But that would have to wait…

“Where are…” Letty started before interrupting herself. “Dom!” she went on after a minute, “this is Santa Monica!”

“Yeah,” I said, grinning at her, “it is.”

“What are we doing in Santa Monica?” she asked, a shocked look still on her face.

“Well,” I said, laughing a little, “I remembered how you always used to beg to come here, so… Thought we could use some fun time.”

Letty grinned at me, and quickly leaned over to kiss me before jumping out of the car. “I am so going to kick your ass at skee ball!” she shouted over her shoulder as she headed towards the pier.

By the time I caught up with Letty, she was feeding money into one of the change machines in the arcade.

“Hey,” she said, still focusing on the machine, “you got any dollar bills? I only had a few…”

“Yeah,” I said, reaching into my wallet, “I’m pretty sure I do…or a five, at least…”

Smiling to myself, I stepped behind Letty and reached around her to put the money into the machine, stopping to kiss her neck first. She leaned back into me for half a second, and then stiffened up.

“Dom!” she hissed, “What do you think you’re doing? I mean…I know we’re in Santa Monica and all, and it’s not very likely that anyone Johnny knows would see us out here, but…”

“Let,” I shushed her, bending down a little to pick the quarters up out of the machine and dump them into her front pockets, “it’s okay…”

“Okay?” she said, turning around to look at me.

“Letty,” I laughed, “you still don’t get it, do you? It’s over…we don’t have to worry about Johnny any more. The paternity test came back, and there’s no way in hell I could be the father of that kid…”

“Well, I knew that!” Letty protested.

“I know,” I said, still laughing. “But now we have proof. Proof that’s good enough for the courts, proof that’ll stand up against anything else Julie tries to pull… Johnny’s not gonna be trying to come after us anymore, I don’t have to worry about him trying to hurt you or anyone else I love….”

Letty just looked at me blankly, like she was still trying to process everything I’d told her.

“We don’t have to hide anymore, baby,” I said, leaning down to kiss her neck again. “We don’t have to pretend we’re not together,” I continued, whispering into her ear as she shivered beneath me. “I can kiss you,” I said, pausing to do just that, “without having to worry about who’s watching…”

“We… We don’t have to stay home all the time? We can go out and actually do things together? I don’t have to just sit there and watch while all the sluts at the races throw themselves at you?” Letty asked, breaking into a smile.

“Yep,” I nodded, grinning back at her.

“Dom!” she squealed, jumping into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist and kissing me.

“C’mon,” I laughed, when she finally broke the kiss, “we don’t want to get thrown out of here this quick, do we?”

“Nah,” Letty said, leaning against me, “after all, I still have to beat you at skee ball…”