Chapter Ten

“You gonna stick by me?”

“Maybe…”

**

I can’t believe how many times Letty has scared me to death over the years, thinking something terrible had happened to her. First, there was the whole thing with Sly. Which, yeah, we both act like that was no big deal, but he could have really hurt her that day, if I hadn’t been there. She always tells me that she’s a big girl, she can take care of herself. But I still worry. Ever since we lost touch when I was in jail, I’ve been worrying about Letty.

So when she called the garage from school, looking for Leon, I immediately knew something was wrong. She acted like it was no big deal, but they don’t just send you home from school for nothing. And she said she hurt her knee? How the hell do you hurt your knee at school? Unless someone did something to her…

I had to go get her. Forget about closing the garage, that wasn’t important. What mattered was making sure Letty was okay. Even if Leon or Mia had been around, I would have gone myself. Letty had somehow become the most important thing in my life, and she didn’t even know. She didn’t even think of asking me to come pick her up; I could tell how surprised she was when I offered. I tried to play it off, but it hurt that she didn’t even think to ask me for help. I wanted her to trust me. I wanted her to depend on me, so I wouldn’t have to worry about her leaving me.

“Yeah, you’re a real big fucking man, Toretto,” I muttered to myself as I ran out of the garage, stopping only to put on a clean shirt. “Can’t even tell a girl you love her, can’t even admit it to yourself.”

I stopped dead in my tracks at that thought. Love? Did I just say I loved Letty? What the hell was I thinking?

“Fifteen, Dom…she’s only fifteen,” I muttered over and over to myself on the drive to the school. “Only fifteen, and her life’s already been fucked up enough. She deserves something better than ending up with an ex-con who’s never going to be able to do anything with his life other than race cars on the street and work in some rinky-dink garage as a mechanic. She deserves to find some nice kid her own age, fall in love, go to football games and prom, all that normal shit. So just…get over her. Protect her, but stay the hell away from her. All you’d ever do is hurt her, and you know it. You’ve already managed to fuck up your own life, and you are not going to drag her down with you.”

I’d almost managed to calm myself down by the time I got to the high school, but then I recognized one of the cars in the parking lot. A yellow Wrangler. Two guys had just brought it in to the garage to get the shocks changed about a month ago, right after Letty started back to school. She’d just left the garage to walk to school when they got there, actually. Leon had gone to pick up some parts from our supplier, and Mia was off doing some orientation thing for college, so I was alone in the garage. I’d been underneath a car when they walked in, and neither one saw me at first. They were the type of guys I never liked, looked like they’d never worked on a car a day in their lives. I just didn’t trust guys like that, still don’t. In my experience, the pretty boys always have some scam they’re trying to run. I was about to get up and go see what they needed when I heard them talking about Letty. I decided to stay put for a while and listen to them.

“Hey, doesn’t that girl go to our school?” the first asked. From under the car, all I could see of him was his shoes, some expensive hiking boots that looked like they were brand new. His friend was wearing combat boots. They looked brand new too. Fucking rich kids. Just what I needed to start the day out with.

“Yeah,” the second one laughed. “I think she lives here or something. Fucks the owner for room and board, I heard.”

“Hey, sounds like a pretty good deal for him if it’s true. I wouldn’t mind getting a piece of that ass myself,” hiking boots replied, laughing as well.

“Yeah, she looks pretty tough, but I bet she’s all show. She’d probably do anything you wanted her to. Or she would soon enough. Girls like that just need a man to smack them around a bit, get them into line.”

“Probably do anything to get away from this place. I can’t believe anyone actually lives in this neighborhood. I’m sure she’d suck and fuck the first guy who showed any interest and looked like he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life in this hellhole.”

Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to hurt them. Badly.

“Oh yeah,” I said, startling them as I slid out from underneath my car. “Girls like that are a great fuck. You’d think they were all over the place around here, wouldn’t you? The problem, though, is that most of those girls already have very protective men in their lives by the time you all come across them. ‘Cause, you know, the ones that are worth anything, the men in the neighborhood notice. Take me, for instance. There’s this one girl, I’ve had my eye on her for a long time now. She comes across pretty tough; her life’s been pretty fucked up. She probably would’ve done just about anything to get a different life, to get away from here. I tried to protect her as best as I could, but then I got sent up for assault. Not much you can do from prison. And you know, when I got out, I came home to find some guy harassing her. I didn’t like that too much. Then, he tried to convince me that she’d been the one making the moves, coming on to him. I liked that even less, ‘cause I absolutely cannot stand a liar. And I know there’s no way in hell that my girl ever would have wanted him. Nothing in this world has ever turned her on but me, and a Nissan 240 SX going at least 120 miles an hour. Nothing else ever even came close. So, of course, I had to demonstrate to this guy what a mistake in judgment he’d made, picking my girl to go after. You know, they say he’ll never talk again. I probably should have killed him altogether, but I don’t really like spilling blood in front of my girl. It bothers her. Hopefully just maiming the guy will be enough of a message to the rest of the world. ‘Cause I still have to worry about her, you know? She’s beautiful; any guy would want her. Some are stupid enough to just try and take her. Most of them, she can handle herself, but there are some real determined fuckers out there, you know? Just can’t take the hint that a girl’s not interested, have to keep pushing her. And with her being so young and all, I’ve still got a while before I can really let the world know she’s mine, unless I want to get sent up again by some well-intentioned mother fucker of a social worker. So I’ve got to make sure no one tries to mess with her without paying a huge price. Say, you guys probably know her, you look about the right age. She’s a sophomore, over at the high school. Her name’s Letty. Well, only to the people that matter. You’d prolly know her as Leticia. Hell, you might even have seen her walking to school when you drove up, she left just a few minutes before you got here. She’s an amazing girl…sexy as hell, and I never have seen another chick get so turned on by cars. Kind of strange, that she likes the Nissan so much, isn’t it? I keep trying to tell her that there are better cars out there, but she just won’t listen. Oh well, what can you do, right, but give your woman what she wants. You know how it is, I’m sure. Well, actually, maybe you don’t...”

“So, now,” I continued after a minute, thinking to myself that the expressions on their faces as they realized exactly who I was talking about would provide me with entertainment for months to come, “what was it you needed done to this Wrangler, again?”

They just stared at me for a few minutes, before combat boots guy managed to stammer out, “Just need to have the shocks checked, man.”

“Sure,” I replied, smiling. “It’ll be done by Friday.”

I must have sat there in the school parking lot for a good five minutes, thinking about those guys. I wondered if they’d gotten the hint, or if they’d been stupid enough to try to approach Letty. If anyone had hurt her…I was going to have to kill them, jail or not.

I found my way to the office easily enough. After all, I’d gone to that fucking school four years myself. The second I walked in, I started looking for Letty. I finally saw her through a doorway. They had her in the nurse’s office, resting. She still had her gym clothes on, shorts and a little t-shirt thing, and they had her knee wrapped up in an ice pack or something. She looked like she was okay, so I finally relaxed a little bit. Enough to talk to the secretary and get everything taken care of so I could get out of there, at least. Played the concerned friend of the family role off to the hilt. I swear, they should give me an Emmy or something. ‘Cause when I saw that Letty couldn’t even walk…I wanted to tear the place apart. What kind of fucking place lets a girl sit there with just minor medical attention until she gets to the point where she can’t even walk? They should have called an ambulance in first thing, taken her to the hospital, to see a real doctor.

I wanted to take her to the clinic to get checked out, but she kept arguing with me, saying it would take too long. Finally, I gave in. I knew that look in her eyes, the one that meant she wasn’t going to back down. I figured I could talk some sense into her once I got her home, take her to the doctor later that afternoon. So I just grabbed her up in my arms and got her the hell out of that place. Well, after a minor detour to her locker. She must have been hurting more than she was willing to tell me, ‘cause after a while she just kind of tucked her head into my shoulder.

Carrying her around that school was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Not because she was heavy, far from it. Maybe if she’d been wearing something besides those shorts I would have been all right. But, how I was holding her, my hand was right where the shorts ended and her bare leg started, and as I walked her body kept shifting so that I was basically rubbing her ass. And the fabric kept moving around so that every few steps I would get a handful of her bare skin. Plus, when she turned her face into my shoulder, she also pressed her tits right into my chest. Made it pretty hard to pay attention to just getting her out to the car, when what I really wanted to do was just take her into an empty classroom and rip all of her clothes off.

When we finally did get out to the car, I noticed one of the guys who belonged to the yellow Wrangler watching us, like he was trying to figure out if I’d been telling the truth that day in the garage or just bullshitting him. It was hiking boots, I think. Couldn’t be sure, though, ‘cause he was wearing different shoes. I nodded to him, after I got Letty all settled in the car, gave him a little smirk. He just looked away, but I was sure that by the time Letty got back to school, everyone would think she was mine, if they didn’t all ready. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to worry about her so much. Yeah, right.