He nails the few curves before he hits the straightaway as sweat gathers on every surface of my body.
“This isn’t funny!”
He cranks up the music as we pass a small gas station.
“Dominic, please. Please!”
I’m truly terrified, and he glances my way before he crosses the yellow lines and slows considerably.
“Thanks for reducing speed, but we are not in Europe, Dominic!” I shriek, white-knuckling every available surface before he pulls the emergency brake and turns, banking us on a shoulder doing a complete one-eighty. I’m fairly sure I just pissed a little as we race in the opposite direction.
“Forgot something,” is his excuse as he slides to a halt perfectly between a minivan and pickup at the beat-up station.
I’m in a full-blown panic attack at this point as he turns to me. “Need anything?”
“You motherfucker!”
“Not in the mood for foreplay at the moment, but how about a Mountain Dew?”
I’m a millisecond from launching myself at him when he graces me with his bored expression. “I’ll take that as a no.”
He walks toward the store, and I’ve never seen a more perfect depiction of full swagger as I do in Dominic’s gait. I glance around the sketchy looking store and fight my bladder. The drive to wherever we’re going will
no doubt take twenty minutes. It always does here. I decide to go for it and get out of the car. Dominic is in the cooler section when I walk up to the counter that sits next to an oversized LIVE BAIT sign and ask the attendant for a key. Next to me, a few older men sit perched in outdated black plastic chairs while continually pressing buttons on old lottery machines like their lives depend on it. Taking the key, I exit the building and walk around the corner to the battered door before suffering through thirty of the most disgusting seconds of my life. I wash my hands with syrupy looking soap and exit the bathroom with the oversized key in hand. I’m halfway to the door to return it when a guy blocks my path. He nods over his shoulder to Dominic’s Camaro.
“Nice ride.”
“Thanks.”
“Yours?”
The man has to be in his late forties, his pot belly on full display due to his T-shirt riding up and riddled with something resembling ketchup. He reeks of liquor. I side-step him and he blocks me, his eyes rolling down me in a disgusting and predatorial way. Booze has obviously given him way too much false confidence.
“No, the car isn’t mine, excuse me.”
“I used to race back in the day. Just wanted to—”
He doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence because olive fingers wrap around the side of his neck, and the arm attached to it launches him into the side of the building. I grimace at the sick smack of flesh to concrete as the man’s eyes go wide and he stumbles, his legs twisting awkwardly before he falls flat on his ass. Dominic doesn’t so much as glance his way as he snatches the key from me.
“Get in the car.” An order that leaves absolutely no room for argument.
Eyes bulging, I haul ass to his Camaro and lock myself inside. I look to see the man still struggling to get up as Dominic joins me and takes off without so much as acknowledging what just happened.
I crane my neck, relieved to see the man stumbling back into the store. “Was that really necessary?”
“Yes. They have to have the key back to let someone else piss on the seat.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re unbelievable.”
We take an unfamiliar route as the sun starts to set and my driver remains mute. After a series of turns, I’m completely lost as Dominic slows on a crowded street full of young thugs and scantily dressed girls huddled on the corners. Government housing lines either side of us as we creep through and every head turns our way before their eyes dip down.
“Why are we here?”
“Errands.”
“Look, to each their own, but I want no part of drugs, or whatever business brings you here, you can take me home and come back.”
His jaw clenches as a guy in a ball cap salutes him, stepping off the curb. Dominic rolls down his window and lifts his chin.