Adrenaline

Toretto liked the way the American leather steering weather felt beneath his callused palm, the way the seat was just big enough for his enormous body to fit in. He liked the music Blair had chosen, and what she had said while flipping through her iPod.

“If the music slows down, I slow down. The only way to sabotage me during a race would be to change the music on my iPod.” Then she laughed, set the coordinates of the Compound into the big DVD GPS and relaxed into the seat, watching Toretto as he drove. She could tell he treated cars as he treated his women - like Goddesses. The thought made her laugh.

“What’s your problem?” Toretto asked, looking to the Brit - who’s laughing face was illuminated by the distant sunset. She shook her red-haired head, disinclined to answer such a stupid question - and then laughed again at the thought. The bald man beside her gave her a second glance, wondering if he just received a car from a crazy woman. But it wasn’t a surprising or shocking revelation.

The unlikely companions were on their way back from the city - Blair had taken Toretto drinking and then convinced him to get tattoo following some liquid encouragement. It had started as a memorial to Letty, and moved on to be a much bigger monster - race flags, spark plugs, grinning skulls, the works. Blair had been proud of the spider web the artist had begun on his elbow; the girl could sweet-talk her way into anything, a trait of which she was extremely proud. The downside with negotiation was that one had to give a little to get a little.

“My elbow hurts,” Toretto complained as he turned into the Compound, stretching the plastic covering the tattoo artist had taped over his elbow. Blair flashed her ID from inside the Mustang, and they drove onward, toward the house.

“Yeah, well I feel cliché, so don’t complain.” The Brit sighed, wondering why she had let herself drink so much as to allow Toretto to talk her into things. The muscled man shook his head, wondering why Blair drank so much, period. But he couldn’t fault her - it wasn’t as if she had it truly easy or anything, living as the street queen and all - and she did have wonderful taste in vehicles, come to think of it. She hadn’t mentioned racing yet, and the thought of Toretto’s one true love weighed heavily on his mind as they pulled into the long drive, parking where Blair’s Range Rover (the one she left unceremoniously parked on one of the lifts in her garage) had been, beside her beloved M5.

Toretto had noticed that Blair was quite knowledgeable about her cars, a trait he enjoyed in women. She was growing on him, he realized as he watched her stalk up the stairs in her high heels, looking regal even with a piece of black garbage bag strapped to her elbow. She turned at the top stair, looking down at him.

“Well come on then, we need to talk racing.” She winked, and continued onward to the bar as Toretto raced up the stairs behind her, nearly knocking into her back as she asked the man who stood behind the bar (he was no bar tender) for two Coronas with Lime. Toretto couldn’t help the pang of jealousy he felt, watching her flirt with the other man. Blair reveled in the smile Toretto gave her as she instructed him, bossy as always. “I’m all out up in my apartments, so maybe you could carry up a case?” Toretto grunted a reply and retrieved the heavy cases from behind the bar, carrying one in each hand.

“Only because I need my Corona,” He commented, once again following Blair as she carried his beer - it was like a carrot to him, he worked for the Corona. Not only that, but Toretto wanted to race, especially after Blair had presented him with the Saleen Mustang. The car was an aphrodisiac for him, he wanted to race like most men wanted pussy.

This led him to thinking of his sister and the Buster. Where had they been? Blair seemed to know everything about them - she had hinted that they had found their own circle while he had not, and she had also alleged that she had given them vehicles before Toretto. But he couldn’t hold that against Ms. Hundley, after all, a Saleen S302 was more than enough to pardon her for whatever wrongs she had done him in the past; the enormous stack of money was even more incentive to do just that.

“Paging Dr. Dominic, please report back to Blair,” Her low voice shattered Toretto’s train of thought - she held the door open with a spiky heel, clutching two beers by their necks and a brace of limes in the other. He turned sideways to fit through the door, feeling like a pack mule. She directed him to the fridge, showed him where to set the enormous cases and then handed him his beer, patting him on the back before setting to work; she opened one case and dispersed it through her fridge, setting the lemons on the top shelf of the enormous stainless-steel apparatus.

“What are you thinking about there, darling?” Blair finally perched on the ottoman opposite Dominic’s customary place on the couch - she skimmed the top of his head with her hand as she made her way there.

“What? Oh.” Blair shook her head at his reaction, sipping delicately out of her bottle. Truthfully, Toretto had been fantasizing about the race; the best ten seconds of his life - well, cumulatively all of his races had been hours, but less than ten seconds for a ¼ mile was the norm. “I thought we were going to talk racing.”

“Is that all you ever think about? Never ‘Hey, let me tell you about California,’ or ‘I miss my sister,’” Blair mocked him so often and so easily it must have become her most favorite pastime. “Hell, even a ‘you look nice today Blair’ would suffice,” Her thick British accent had the capability of sounding refined and high-class, or cockney and rude. It was the latter as she spoke, tearing into Toretto with words. Hey, he was acting strange, so she was allowed to be cruel and unusual.

“You look nice today, Blair. Now talk to me about racing.” Blair felt disinclined to answer the second demand and stood, rummaging for a candle in one of the kitchen drawers. The place smelled a little funky - like skunky beer, and there was no question as to why. The candle she lit smelled of honeydew and melon, and compared to the rest of the room it immediately began to overpower Toretto’s nose.

“What could I possible tell you about racing, weren’t you the king of streets in Cali or something?” She finally spoke after cutting another lime - if there was one thing about Blair that bothered Toretto it was how she could either filibuster her way around answering a question or just flat out ignore it altogether.

“My God Blair, are you being serious?” Toretto was on his feet and hadn’t even realized it in his anger. Before Blair could even think of moving, Toretto had closed the distance between them, and a burly arm on either side of the dainty redhead cut off her escape. Somehow she remained looking innocent, even a little bit intimidated - but never frightened.

“I thought you were happy with your car,” She shrugged, trying to duck out from under his arms; but Toretto instead grasped her by the shoulders. “What the fuck are you doing, Toretto?” She asked, her voice harsh and low. “Let me go.”

“Let me race.” His deep, gravelly voice was frightening at best, and the way he used it was vicious and cutting.

“No, Toretto, you’re still too high profile. People on the streets will know who you are, even if you don’t.” The words hurt the muscle man.

“You’re afraid,” Toretto let her go, crossing the room again to lean against the opposite wall. Blair followed him, her heels clicking lightly.

“Afraid? What do I have to be afraid of from you?” She asked, hot on his heels. Suddenly, she paused. “Oh, I see. You think you’re better than I am. Is that it? You have to prove yourself to be able to fit in, is that it, Dominic?” Her voice never raised above a normal conversational tone, even as Toretto shouted back.

“Yes! That’s it, Blair, I have to prove myself to you! You’ve hit the nail on the head there!” He smashed his beer bottle on the dark-wood of the dresser beside him; it shattered and sent glass and sticky liquid flying everywhere.

“What have you done!” Blair cried out, watching as one of her favorite pieces was ruined. Without hesitation, she cocked her arm back and threw her own bottle at his head; he ducked and it shattered against the white wall. Toretto rushed to her, pinning her arms to her side before the candle could join the beer bottle.

“What the fuck are you doing Blair! Are you insane?” She sunk down to her knees on the floor, and then sat, her head leaning against the island of the kitchen. Toretto sunk with her, making a grab for the candle - which had gone out and was shedding its green wax all over Blair’s hard wood floors - but she let it fall out of her hands - it rolled to the fridge, and there it stopped with a clunk.

“Why would you be afraid?” His voice had softened as he held Blair’s face in both hands, wondering why the hell she would be crying over something as stupid as letting him start racing again. The Ice Queen of the Scene had tears welling in her mismatched eyes. Toretto wiped them away with his big thumbs, waiting for an answer. Her delicate hands reached to grasp his calloused ones, her fingers hooking between his thumb and forefinger as she spoke.

“Because if you get caught, we all go down, and there’s not a chance in hell that I’m going back to fucking prison,” Toretto’s glance flickered downward to the trio of blueish dots on her hand, remembering that she had done time and served to do much more.

“Now that’s a sentiment I can understand.” Toretto sat and pulled Blair’s small frame into his lap. “But what makes you think I would get caught? Why so definite?” Blair closed her eyes and nestled her face in the space between Dominic’s collarbone and chin.

“Because it’s my gut feeling.” She shook her head lightly; Toretto reveled in the clean scent of her hair. “Whenever I go against it, bad things happen.” Blair put both hands on the counter top and pulled herself out of his lap.

“So it’s not going to happen yet, Toretto.” She poured herself a glass of water - in a plastic cup - and downed it, refilled it, and did it again before Toretto rose to stand behind her. Blair dropped the cup as he breathed in her hair - tremendously startled.

“What if I promise not to misbehave?” His gravelly voice was quiet in her ear, how he had gotten so close to him she couldn’t even guess.

“Toretto. I know you can’t help it.” His black eye had gone down, but she knew he remembered it. She felt his lips meet her cheek, and she slammed her cup down on the counter top - hard.

“Flattery isn’t going to work, Dominic! I’m not letting you race and that’s the end of it! Now leave. Me. In. Peace!” She faced forward, not daring to meet his chocolate eyes, and only turned around when she heard the door slam.

Rough fucking night.