Some old Volkwagen*Fast and Furious*

Chapter 7 - The Touch, Part 2

When they arrived at their beach towels, Vince and Dom were there as well, eyeing Tanner up as he was approaching with Nelly. Mia was talking to them. Dom turned around to face Tanner when he arrived. After what felt like ages, he finally stuck out his hand for Tanner to shake it. "Name's Dom, and this is Vince," he said, pointing at his friend. - "I'm Tanner. Nelly and I are working together." - Dom nodded and when after a few minutes the suspicious look had vanished from his face, the atmosphere relaxed noticeably. It was still getting hotter - it being not even 2pm - and after a while Nelly took the bauble from her hair and lay down on her back with closed eyes. "How're you doing, Tanner?" she asked politely, hoping he wouldn't pour his broken heart all over her - as much as she liked to help friends, today was just too hot to be dealing with problems. - "I'm fine, really. Takes some getting used to, but it's okay, actually." He grinned. "What a coincidence we should meet here today." - Nelly smiled and shook her head. "Not that I told you we were going here, yesterday. - But Long Beach is big, I suppose." - "Well, I couldn't be sure you'd actually be here. You had this headache yesterday after all, hadn't you?" - "True. But after I'd gotten home and taken a pill it quickly got better. I was painting Dom's car and by the time I'd finished it had gone." - When hearing his name, Dom looked up from the conversation he was having with Vince and Mia. By now the sun had dried up all the water beads from his tanned chest. It was slightly less brown than his arms, but not much. Nelly wondered when he'd been outside bare-chested. Somehow he had a sneaky way of doing things: up to today she'd only ever seen him wearing a tank-top.

Nelly caught Dom's glance. "I was just telling Tanner how car-painting cured me from my migraine," she said with a smile. Dom grinned. "Cars are good for more than driving." His eyes moved on to Tanner. "Whatsha driving?" - "Usually, a John Deere 6M," Tanner answered with that smug grin of his. "But when I'm on the road a Smart Fortwo is about enough." Tanner was barely able to hide his pride, Nelly knew he'd been saving for months to be able to afford it. She looked at Dom, who exchanged a glance with Vince. A Smart probably didn't even count as car in their eyes. - "A Smart?" Dom dug deeper, his expression unreadable. Tanner nodded. "Yeah, a Smart Fortwo, that's the new model. It's really stylish." - "Is that right," Dom said in that special way of his, suppressing a grin. Tanner didn't seem to notice. "It's pretty cool - I'm sorry, Nelly, as much as I believe in your artistic talents: you won't get to paint it." - They laughed and Nelly smacked him on the arm. "Well, then you should have it painted professionally. I've been telling you - every other car is silver. It needs colour." - "To be honest, I've started thinking you might be right." - Vince put on his sunglasses. "I know someone who's got a garage. 'George Saturn's' it's called. You might wanna go there." - "Never heard of the place, but thanks. I'll trust you on that, I suppose you know more about cars than me," he added with a weak laugh.

Mia - who had of course realised as well that Dom and Vince were making fun of Tanner - sat up with a yawn. "Does anyone want to go fetch some ice-creams?" - Nelly instantly volunteered, supposing that Tanner would join her, she being the only one of the group he knew. She'd use the opportunity to try and make him understand he should avoid the car-topic and any mention of his Smart with Dom and Vince. To her surprise, though, Tanner was lying on his back, eyes closed and pretending not to have heard. Nelly was about to say she wouldn't be able to carry five ice-creams with two hands, when Dom stood up too. The others told them what flavour they wanted and Dom and Nelly went to find the next ice cream parlour. The first few minutes they walked in silence, then Nelly shook her head, quietly chuckling. Dom looked at her. "What's so funny?" - "A Smart car was the worst possible brand for him to have, wasn't it?" - Dom grinned. "Look at them. They're tiny. You can't even properly sit up in them." - Nelly could just prevent herself from remarking that normal sized people indeed didn't have any problems sitting straight in them, and instead she said: "Tanner is really proud of it, he saved for ages." - Dom shook his head. "You pay a ridiculous amount of money and what you get is - a small car. It's like... it doesn't matter how expensive your car is in the first place. It's what you make of it." - Nelly shrugged. "Yeah... but not everyone's a car-genius like you." - Dom just chuckled. "But still... a Smart." - Nelly couldn't help but laugh, too. She threw a side-glance at Dom: he was looking at the sea while he was walking, still grinning; his posture was straight as a candle and Nelly had the strange urge to take his hand, as if she wanted to belong to him.

The ice cream parlour was crammed; instead of extending the queue to the outside, the waiting people had it curling back and forth in the small inside of the place. They entered and Nelly wanted to turn around and get out immediately afterwards. Too many people in too small a space. But then, what price wouldn't one pay for ice-cream? Dom squeezed in behind her, but he had to stand in the doorway. He put one hand at the small of Nelly's back and pushed her slightly forward to give him a little more room. The touch came so unexpected that Nelly wriggled her way through the crowd towards the end of the queue with more force than she normally would've done. The warm hand on her back only vanished when they'd found the end and were lining up, but it felt as if he was still touching her. She felt where he was standing behind her without having to look, his presence was burning into the back of her head and it was then that Nelly knew she'd be having a hard time telling herself his touch had been necessary and didn't mean anything. Because to her, it did.

When they returned, Tanner was chatting contently with Mia and Vince, obviously trying to bring the odds back into his favour while Dom was gone. Dom was carrying three ice-creams and Nelly two, but it was hard enough to concentrate on holding them upright and walking straight with the feeling of his hand still on her back - burning as if he were indeed touching her still. Dom handed Tanner his strawberry-yoghurt ice-cream and Tanner smacked his lips. "Because of my girlfriend, all we ever have at home is chocolate ice-cream. So I decided to try something else for a change." - Vince nodded. "Smart of you," he said with an almost evil grin. Mia choked on her ice-cream and was looking away to hide her mirth. Poor Tanner, though - Nelly suspected the "Smart"-jokes would be going on forever. At least he didn't seem to notice.

The afternoon passed on and by and by, even the word smart was dropped only now and then by Vince and Dom. It was obvious, though, that they couldn't take Nelly's colleague serious - but well, not anyone could be like them. The last half hour before their set time of departure, Vince and Tanner were both keeping up conversation with Nelly's pretty friend, which left her and Dom to talk - Nelly didn't mind that at all, she just had to remember to ask Mia whether she was allowed to give Tanner her number, should he ask for it. Nelly sensed that Dom didn't like Tanner paying too much attention to his sister, so she chattered about unimportant things to get his mind off it. Firstly, because to her mind, Tanner at least deserved a chance with Mia, he was Nelly's friend after all and Mia had said she thought him handsome; and secondly Nelly quite liked it when Dom's attention was all on herself. Yes, she knew he'd been so happily in love with that Letty-woman and the split-up wasn't too long ago, but... still. She'd worry about that later. For now, she just knew she'd moved to the bath towel next to him to leave the other three to their conversation and was sitting next to him. A cool breeze had set in, but for some reason it didn't really feel cold to Nelly.

Suddenly, Vince slapped his hands on his thighs and exclaimed: "Mia, you've never been in my new car, have you? - It's a Nissan Maxima," he said with emphasis and a look at Tanner, who again never noticed. - "No, actually, I have not." She seemed too happy even to being annoyed at him. - "How about I drive you home then and Dom goes with Nelly?" It seemed Vince was rather talking to Dom than to Mia. - Dom threw Mia a scrutinising look. "Sure, if you're alright with this, Mia." He hesitated and then added: "And of course if it's alright with you as well, Nelly." - "Sure, I don't mind," she said casually while in her head, a crazy version of herself was bouncing up and down, clapping her hands in excitement and crying: nothing I would like more!

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