CHAPTER FOUR
falling feels like flying 'til the bone crush
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𝐁rian flipped on Josephine Toretto's police file that night she took him home. His lawful duties haunting him like the ghosts of his past. There was an uncomfortable lump in his throat as his wavering eyes glossed over the words on the paper. Words that didn't mean anything. At least not anymore. Not after tonight. Because Josephine was anything but the words on this paper that other people━strangers, the law━wrote. Nothing at all.
Her police file wasn't like Dominic's, but she had a few on them that got her on the local police's watchlist. Like that one time when she was thirteen and boosted a man's brand new Ferrari only to crash it into a brick wall where she had said in her statement in exact words: An arrogant rich prick who has a really shit taste in cars.
Then there was also that time she rammed into her former teacher's sedan with a stolen 1973 Buick Centurion at fourteen. Teenage Josephine Toretto was a handful. Brian wondered how Dominic had handled her. Then again, it seemed like the girl knew how to handle herself just fine.
Other than the illegal street racing, there were a few other petty crimes on her file that he didn't bother to read again. He already did. A few times. Yet not a single one of them seemed to change his mind about her.
His eyes drifted to the underlined words at the bottom of her file. Josephine was a witness to Kenny Linder's assault. She had been there when her older brother attacked him and watched as Dominic bashed the man repeatedly with a wrench in a fit of uncontrolled rage. Josephine had been too young to stop them or protect Dominic from the man's taunting words before her brother brought it upon himself to avenge their dead father.
Brian clenched his jaw, fighting between his morals and the thought of Dominic doing just what he thought was right. His hands quickly shut the file close before his thoughts escalated. He shouldn't let his feelings get the best of him. He knew it will bite him back in the ass later, but Brian was too stubborn to ignore Josephine Toretto's existence whenever she stands there looking like the devil in disguise with that mischievous look in her hazel eyes and that angelic smile.
Josephine was having the time of her life under the hood of her car when she heard somebody pull up in front of the garage. Other than Mia's voice complaining about what she was going to do with the parts and service to Dominic━the sound of machines whirring and electrical saws went off in the decent four-cornered auto shop they liked to call home.
She slid out from under the car, a wrench in her hand, and squinted her eyes at the doorway. There was a silver truck parked on the driveway with what looked like a trash of a car. She could barely call it a car from how burned and beat-up it looked. The only recognizable thing about was the chipping and darkening red paint on the body and it was barely even sticking to the vehicle.
"What the hell is that?" Josephine scoffed as she stood up from the floor. She followed everybody closer to the truck just as Brian appeared next to it. Her brows raised. "Of course, it's you."
Brian flashed her a boyish grin. "Hey, Jo."
"All right, what the hell is this?" Dominic muttered, leaning against the wall as he judged the car. "What do you got there?"
Brian gestured proudly at the junk on the back of the truck. "This is your car."
"My car?" Dominic looked both amused and incredulous but that didn't seem to wipe the grin off the blond's face. "I said a ten-second car, not a ten-minute car."
Jesse knocked the car with his gloved fist. "You could push this across the finish line, or tow it."
The girls laughed, Josephine shaking her head as she looked at Brian. "You couldn't even tow that across the finish line, Jess."
His face fell for a second. Brian shook his head. "No faith."
"Oh, I have faith in you, but this isn't a junkyard," Dominic told him. "This is a garage."
Brian sent an eager nod at Jesse, gesturing at the front of the car. "Hey, pop the hood."
"Pop the hood?"
"Pop the hood."
So they did. I supposed they did underestimate him a little. Jesse looked surprised when he completely took the hood off. "2JZ engine. No shit."
"And what did I tell you?" Brian said smugly. His arms crossed in front of his chest.
Dominic smirked. "I retract my previous statement."
"You know what?" Jesse began. His intricate ideas forming live in front of them. "This will decimate all after you put about fifteen grand in it. Or more, if we have to overnight parts of Japan."
"We'll put it on my tab at Harry's."
"Yes!"
"I gotta get you racing again so I can make some money off your ass." Dominic tapped Brian with the crowbar he held, which made the blond smirk. "There's a show down in the desert called Race Wars. And that's where you'll do it."
From where Josephine worked on a car, her back against them as she buried her face in the hood, she rolled her eyes. Mia stood next to her, watching the scene unfold as Dominic just practically made Brian Spilner his property. Golden boy didn't seem to know it, which made an amused smile appear on Mia's face at the obliviousness of her older sister's very own getaway car.
"I'll tell you what, when you're not working at Harry's, you're working here," Dominic told Brian before he could leave them to their own. "If you can't find the right tool in this garage, Mr. Arizona... you don't belong near a car."
Josephine chuckled at Dominic's words. She backed up from the engine and took off her gloves before slamming the hood close. Mia watched with a little smirk as Josephine trudged toward Brian, the blond not noticing her until she leaned beside his shoulder and whispered: "He owns you now."
That made his grin falter as he looked at her figure walking away from him again. His blue eyes flickered to the other girl in the garage who shared a few similar features with Josephine. Their eyes were different though. Josephine had lighter eyes with flecks of gold and brown in them. Brian frowned at Mia when the younger girl fueled her sister's words for him with a large grin on her face.
"Oh, you're in for a ride, Buster," Mia drawled as she followed after her sister out of the garage.
As soon as they gathered all the brand new and some imported car parts from Harry's, the group in their respective cars convoyed Brian's red pickup truck from work with all their things attached to the back as he drove in the middle. This time, Josephine was in the passenger seat with Brian. She could see the glistening midnight blue of her Honda S2000 behind them where Mia drove it.
"So how do you all get these?" Brian asked out of the blue as he drove.
Josephine glanced at him, twirling an unlit cigarette around her fingers that she picked on the dashboard of his truck. "You smoke?"
"I quit," Brian said plainly.
She decided to believe him. So she cleared her throat, putting the cigarette down. "How do we get what?"
"These..." Brian briefly let go of the steering wheel, gesturing around her like she'd get what he was talking about. He chuckled, a little uneasy she didn't seem to catch on to it. "I can't even afford half of these things."
"Eh." Josephine shrugged. Lying always came easy to her. But there had always been something blurring the lines of a liar and an imposter. She was not an imposter. "Between all the illegal racing and actually legal works we do, we manage."
"Yeah..." Brian pursed his lips, forcing his eyes back on the road.
It was early in the morning when Brian came into the garage and found Jesse and Josephine lounging around the unfinished exterior of a car. The smell of brand-new car parts and engines never failed to tickle the right side of her brain as she sorted them out on a table behind her. Then Jesse went to grab a disk that he had been focusing on, which left the Toretto girl and Brian to their own devices.
Brian stepped forward, standing beside her as she picked up what looked like a part of a carburetor. "You're up early."
"So are you." Josephine lowered her sunglasses to look at him, raising her brows ever so slightly.
He ended up staying around longer which wasn't a problem for the duo who enjoyed his presence. This time, they were under shade inside the garage. Josephine sat next to Jesse as he put a disk inside the computer and a schematic of a car flashed on the screen. With one knee pulled up to her chest, she leaned over to watch the magic━Jesse's magic━on the computer happen.
"Tell me what you think about this. Koni adjustable." Jesse began. In front of the computer sat Brian on a high stool, focused on the images that showed a blank canvas of a bright orange Toyota Supra. "Gonna save us about two pounds. And they're gonna give us better traction for the hole shot. All right?"
Josephine glanced at Brian, noticing how dumbfounded he looked as he stared at Jesse. He must've thought Jesse was just this car enthusiast freak. He was so wrong. Jesse had been Jo's classmate in grade school, and back then, the two were the smartest people in all their classes. Except for math━any subject with numbers. Josephine was average at math, which Jesse was quite good at.
"This is your basic layout of the car," Jesse told him, holding a burning cigarette between his fingers. "And that's pretty much what it could look like when it's finished. Red, green."
Brian furrowed his brows in disbelief. "Man, you should be going to MIT or something."
"Yeah, right," Jesse said dryly. He shook his head, sharing a dry smile with Josephine. "I'm not, she is."
"You are?" Brian blinked at the younger girl.
"I know, right?" Josephine grimaced. Her mind flashed back to that day Dominic accompanied her to pass her requirements at MIT in Pasadena. "I'm not even that good with numbers."
"I got that... Ah, what's it called?" Jesse looked at Josephine for help who was already thinking about it. "That attention disorder━"
Brian frowned. "What? ADD?"
"Yes, that shit. Yeah. You know, I was good in algebra and like math and shit. Everything else I failed. Dropped out of school." Jesse nodded, waving his hand around that the smoke from his cigarette traveled. He sounded a little spiteful at himself for having that disorder. "He sighed heavily. "I don't know. It's just something about engines... that calms me down, you know."
The blond listened intently. He understood him, which was enough as Josephine gave her old classmate a reassuring smile. Being the same age as the boy made them bond easier than the others. Jesse might as well be her best friend. He was the only one who understood her crazily smart mind and indulged her even more crazy ideas. Jesse was like a little brother she never had.
"And nothing's wrong with that," Josephine told him, a gentle smile playing on her lips that just made Brian fall deeper and deeper into her. She looked at him, making the man gulp slightly as he snapped out of his thoughts. "Right, Brian?"
"Nothing wrong at all," Brian nodded. He gave the boy an amazed grin that seemed to light up Jesse's face as the lanky boy laughed, blowing out cigarette smoke in the air. "You're a genius, man. That shit don't matter when you're this good."
Maybe Jesse didn't quite believe them all there. But they had pure intentions, and for a while, he let their words work through his restless mind. He did notice the tension between his close friend and Brian, which made him extra giddier as he explained further about his ideas. Jesse just had to see Josephine finally slither out of her tough shell after long years of hiding in them.
Jesse so badly wanted to be there for it when she did because he would never stop teasing her about it.