Chapter Two

Team Toretto Sponsored by Corona Beer

Allie was sitting on her bed at the Daytona Beach Resort the team was staying during race week. She was babysitting watching CNN while she waited for Letty, Dom, and Mia to get back with their supper. She had qualifying the next morning and need to get some sleep. She had not been sleeping all that good lately.

"Allie, me 'ant a watch 'Pongebob," two-year-old Jessica Brianna announced. She was lying across Allie's legs watching TV.

"Too bad," Allie replied. "I'm watching the news. My name is Aunt Allie, by the way. Ain't that right?" She questioned the baby she was holding in her arms.

Six-month-old Anthony Dominic Toretto turned his head and looked up at her with his midnight black eyes then held out his drooled on pacifier as a response.

"Un'le Dom says you not 'pose a watch dis," Bria answered. "I telling."

"I can't believe I said you were cute," Allie rolled her eyes. "You are turning into regular snot."

"I NOT SNOT! I JE'CA B'ANNA TORETTO!" Bria replied. She jumped up and hopped over to the other bed where she sat with her arms folded across her chest with her back to Allie. "MEAN ALLIE! MEAN ALLIE! MEAN ALLIE! MEAN…"

Vince and Leon walking into the room interrupted her.

"What'd you do to her?" Vince asked.

"I won't let her watch Spongebob right this second." Allie answered.

"Is that all?" Leon asked. "Get her little video thing." He got something out of her little backpack and picked Bria up, and set down, with her in his lap. "There. Watch Spongebob to your little heart's content."

"Girl," Vince said. "Your car's ready for tomorrow. We got it running like silk."

"It ain't the same without Jesse, though," Lean spoke up. "Ain't near as easy without that little Egghead."

"Hush!" Allie commanded, turning up the TV as soldiers filled the screen and the reporter spoke of a bombing in Iraq. "I'm trying to hear this."

Vince sat down beside her and laid his arm across her shoulder. "When did you last hear from him?"

"Before we left L.A.," she answered, twisting a set of rings around on her finger.

Vince kissed her forehead. "Don't worry about it, Allie-cat. You know there is lot's of reasons he ain't calling. He is aight and he doesn't want you worrying about him when you got a big race coming up. If it was him, you'd know it."

"Maybe," she replied. "But we ain't at home for them to call."

Vince picked up the remote and turned the channel. "He's okay. He'll call."

She looked at him and started to protest, but just smiled weakly and laid her head against his shoulder.

"Momma!" Bria jumped up and flung herself at Mia as she walked through the door. "Allie watched the news."

"Aunt Allie," Mia corrected.

"Uh-huh, her," Brianna agreed. "And her called me snot. I not snot!"

"Allie, dear, please don't call my child snot," Mia stated.

"I called her a snot. Not snot."

"Oh., in that case, don't call my child a snot."

"I won't if she won't act like one."

"Move, will you?" Letty moaned from the door. "This stuff is heavy. Not that you'd know, since you aren't carrying any of it."

"Oops." Mia moved to let Letty and Dom through the door.

Tony cooed and clapped his pudgy hands. "Mama, Mama!"

Dom sat down his packages of hamburgers and reached for the baby, swinging him up in his arms. "I'm not Mama. I'm Papi."

Letty laughed, "He knows. He who he's calling." She took the baby from Dom. "He's wet," she said to Allie.

"Hey, don't look at me," Allie replied. "He wasn't when I had him." She was looking in the bags for her hamburger. "Papi, we have a meeting to go to as soon as we eat."

"Then hurry."

No sooner than the words we out of Dom's mouth than the phone rang.

Leon answered it. "Okay." He hung up. "Miss Toretto, someone is downstairs to see you."

"Man!" She threw her food down and stood up, running her fingers through her hair. "They're already here. Come on, Papi."

She and Dom left. As they stepped into the lobby of the hotel, she saw him, standing at the front desk. "Oh, no, its Brian."

One look at Dom confirmed he saw him too. And he wasn't happy.

Brian turned and saw them. "Hey, Rome?"

Rome had shown up about two minutes after Brian, knowing he was going to face trouble when he got there. "Yeah?"

"Whatever is fixing to happen, stay out of it?"

"If you say so," Rome replied. "But, just my opinion, I don't think he's too happy to see you."

Dom swept Allie behind him as he made his way over to Brian.

"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded. "We looked everywhere for you!"

"I had to leave, Dominic, I was going to get locked up for twenty years if I stuck around," he replied. "When I gave you my keys, I became guilty of obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting armed robbery and murder of Johnny Tran. Just to name a few of the things they were trying to pin on me.

"You should have stuck around." Dom replied. "You had responsibilities."

"If I had kept my responsibilities, you would have went back to jail. You ran, too."

"For a week, Brian, then I came back."

"I couldn't come back, Dom. I shouldn't even be here with you right now," Brian stated.

"Then leave," Dom replied. "No one wants you here anyway."

"I saved your life, and I saved Vince's life, don't that count for anything?"

"No."

"Dominic!" Allie scolded.

He stopped and looked at her. She hadn't called him by his name since she was 15.

"Of course it means something, Brian," she spoke up. "Means more than you know."

"Stay out of this Allie," Dom warned.

"No, you can't tell me that," she shot back. "I'm not a kid anymore, and you're being a jerk."

"I want to see Mia," Brian said. "Or rather, Mia's child."

"Mia don't want to see you," Dom growled. "And her child don't need to see you. Mia hunted you for two years. She finally moved on, and I think you should too."

"The hell I will," Brian exclaimed. "That's my child, isn't it?"