Chapter 4
(Still don't own anything :-( )
The rest of the day was spent differently by the group. Dom spent the time looking over the Audi with Tej while Brian did paperwork in his office. Suki was helping Cody with his work and Vince and Leon had taken Dom's car to go scouting.
Tej looked at his digital watch. His mechanics had already left for the day. Outside the open garage doors, the sun was disappearing behind the various buildings across the street.
"Getting late. Better start closing up. Yo Rome! Go tell Brian I'm closing up!" Tej told his friend.
As Roman left the spacious area, the headlights of Dom's car lit up the back wall.
"This town has a lot of dead ends." Vince said, tossing the keys back to Dom.
"You gotta be careful of the dead end punks you meet though. There's some nasty ones out there." Rome mentioned. He grabbed his leather black jacket and shrugged it on. No one had even seen him return to the front room from where the sounds of Brian locking the front doors and turning off the lights came from. He came back to the garage with three jackets and two sets of keys.
"You guys have somewhere to stay?" he asked as he helped Cody shrug into his jacket.
"We got three rooms at that one motel off highway 74." Vince told him, crossing his arms over his chest.
Suki cracked up.
"Brian, you've got guest rooms. You KNOW those seedy motels are just full of chalk outlines and blood drenched sheets." she urged.
Tej tried not to smile.
"Girl, you've gotta cut back on the crime shows." he said, wrapping his arm around his girlfriend's shoulder.
Brian considered it.
"She's right. We've got plenty of room at the house." he said.
Vince's posture tensed. He looked sharply at Dom as if he were about to protest but Leon quickly punched him in the shoulder to shut him up.
"Vince and Leon's cars are at the motel." Dom supplemented.
"I gotta drop Suki off at her condo. You could follow me or they can ride with me then follow me to the house." Tej volunteered.
Dom motioned for his friends to come to the side.
"You guys wanna ride with them or me?" he asked.
"Dom, I don't know why you haven't kicked his-" Vince was cut off.
"I have my reasons. I don't see why it's your business to know right now. If you don't like it, you can get in our car and leave." Dom told him sharply.
Vince's eyes went ice cold and his eyes bore holes into Dom's flesh. But the Toretto didn't back down. Vince shook his head.
"Suddenly I think riding with the mechanic is the best option." he said, backing up, turning, and exiting out the side door by the overheads.
Cody took a step to follow his new found friend but Brian stopped him with two hands on his shoulders. Leon sighed and patted Dom's shoulder.
"I'll go with him. I'm not sure what to tell you right now but don't feel too bad." he said.
Dom sighed and watched Tej and Suki follow Leon out of the shop.
"I've got to set the alarm." Brian told Dom, leading Cody to the door.
The other two followed him to the door and waited as he punched in the alarm code.
Cody immediately went to the driver side door of the Porsche and got in the back patiently. Brian noticed the confused look on Dom's face.
"Ever since the accident, he's refused to sit in the front seat." he explained.
"Understandable. Have you tried getting him in he front?" Dom asked.
Brian nodded.
"He wouldn't talk to me for a week and spent the whole time with Alex at the firehouse."
Rome interrupted them all with a rev of his purple Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder GTS. Brian rolled his eyes. Rome was just showing off. Earlier in the day, Roman and he had had a slight argument. Rome didn't know why Brian would just trust Dominic so easily when the man had obviously come to pick a fight for past mistakes. Brian tried reasoning with him that he himself was still on guard even if Dom was acting calm.
The friend had cautiously and hesitantly complied with Brian's request to stay out of it and let the blonde handle it but Brian knew that Rome wouldn't completely be letting it go.
Watching the Eclipse peel out, he turned to Dom and looked in the direction of the Italian's Dodge Charger R/T.
"Just follow me back to the house." he told the Dodge owner.
Dom nodded.
Down the streets they weaved (possibly speeding but Brian had it in his blood. It was almost second nature). Brian's mind began to wander. His thoughts went to his other brother Alex.
Things between the two eldest siblings hadn't always been as strained as they were now. Before Cody's accident, Alex was just as much in the racing scene as his older brother. He had in fact been in trouble with his superiors at the Chicago Fire Department and even friends/authorities at the CPD. Brian hadn't even moved to Chicago yet.
They had raced together, Alex schooling others on cars ad sharing some of the garage workload with Cody. They had all spent a lot of time together, the three of them.
But then Cody had his accident. Alex had been in an ambulance with his paramedic partner, Peter Mills, trying to save the life of a car accident victim when they had heard over the scanner of a car matching the description of Cody's Subaru Impreza WRX Sti, a car that Brian had gotten the youngest child for when he got his license, had flipped and hit a tree. Thankfully their ambulance passenger had been stable as the blood in Alex's veins had froze and he felt like he couldn't move.
As soon as they had gotten to the hospital, Mills had taken care of their patient while Alex had gone to locate his family.
The teams of Truck and Squad had shown up to support their friend and the young teenager that held a special place int heir hearts. Things had been quiet the first hour or so, Mills coming back for the wait. Brian was pretty sure that was when cars had become sort of a fear for his younger brother. It had been a few more hours of silence before Alex began to question Brian as to what had happened. They hadn't gotten far into their conversation when an argument broke out between the two of them that ended with Lieutenant Kelly Severide having to grab his young friend around the waist to keep him from coming to blows with the oldest O'Connor.
Cody was the only reason Alex hadn't moved out of the family's home. There wasn't much family harmony. Alex had stopped racing, was never really around the garage, and was never around the group much.
There were many arguments between the two elder brothers. Alex was adamant that Brian never take Cody to the races. Brian didn't go racing every night and could usually find someone to hang out with the impaired boy.
Thankfully for tonight, Alex was working an overnight shift and wasn't home. Brian looked in the rear view mirror and smiled softly at the drooping eyes of his main responsibility. Car rides at night always made Cody sleepy. But the minute they made it home, the boy would be wide awake and wanting to be in the middle of everything.
He could see Rome's headlights in front of him, slowing down every so often to make sure they were still behind him.
After a few more minutes, their home loomed in the distance.
TBC
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