Fast and furious. My version.

Chapter 5

I shook his hand. Again.

"We've met before. Honestly hurts me that you don't recognise me."  I said, looking into his eyes that wouldn't meet mine.

"Dom. It's Lexi." Mia said with excited eyes.

His eyes left my face to look at her, then me.

"Lexi. It's been a while. How's Tay?" He asked.

It was a greeting you would give a person you used to know, and even though I was, I wasn't just any person.

But the cold treatment was expected after how I left things.

"She passed away three years ago." I said softly.

"I'm sorry, that's sad to hear Tay was a good girl." He said.

"Yeah she was."

"So you've got better at racing I see." He said changing the subject.

"Yep. You're gonna have to hold onto that title because soon I'll be good enough to beat you." I said grinning.

He smiled at me and laughed.

"How long have you been in town?" He asked.

"About a month now." I answered.

"And you couldn't come and see us as soon as you came home?" He said coldly.

He then turned to Brian.

"Hey want to come in for a beer?"

"Sure." Brian answered.

Why was Dom avoiding me? Why was he so cold? I guess he didn't miss me after all. Remember what I said about hope.

I walked inside after Dom closely followed by Mia and Brian. Dom walked over to Vince and stole his beer. He then walked back over to us giving Brian, Vince's beer.

I wonder what was going on there.

"Dom?" I said.

He turned to me halfway through drinking his beer.

"Do you keep the alcohol in the same place?" I asked.

"This way." He said quickly leading me through the drunk crowd to the kitchen.

He put his bottle on the bench and opened the fridge.

"What do you want?" He asked not looking at me.

"Corona, the good stuff." I said.

He smiled slightly and took one out. He handed it to me and I ripped off the lid to take a sip.

"So Dom, did you miss me?" I said sarcastically, it was the only thing that could cut through the ice.  

"Of course I missed you." He said avoiding my eyes.

"Well you're not acting like it. You won't even look at me." I said searching his face.

He stayed silent.

I studied him as he looked at the floor. His muscles have become bigger over the years which was expected, I mean I knew him when we were a lot younger. 

I sighed then moved on after being silent for what seemed like forever.

"So Dom, how have you been all these years?" I asked.

"Fine, what about you?" He asked.

"I've been everywhere, done everything." I said.

"Well I'd like to hear about it sometime." He said going to walk out of the kitchen.

I made it there before him and put my hands on his chest to stop him from walking away.

"I don't care if you missed me or not. I'm just telling you now that, I missed you. All of you. Tay missed you too. She was so upset that you guys never called. She thought that you all forgot her, and me. I called, I left messages. When she got sick I called but, nothing. I had no-one. A couple days before she died she wrote a bucket list of the things that she wanted to do before she dies. She wrote about seeing you guys again, she even wrote you a letter." I said.

A tear ran down my face telling me I was acting stupid.

"I missed you." He started looking past me but I saw his expressions soften

"We all missed you. We called but everytime we did. Your parents would pick up the phone and tell us you weren't home and you'd call us back, but after the hundreds on unreturned phone calls we gave up. We thought that you didn't want anything more to do with us in your new life. We never received calls from you no contact in all that time and I missed you like crazy, I worried about you and your sister. I'm really sorry about your sister, I wish we knew about her getting sick." He said though it was still cold.

I dropped my arms. My parents knew that they called and didn't tell us.

"You just left Lex, just like that. We didn't get a goodbye. You just disappeared from our lives." He said.

"I had to, you didn't know what was happening, but I will tell you now. I'll tell you everything." I said shaking my head hoping I wouldn't burst out in tears.

He threw his arms around me and pulled me to him. I clung to him tightly breathing him in and squeezing my eyes tightly trying to get rid of the tears that already ran down my cheeks.

"I would like to hear all about where you've been. What you've done, everything. But tomorrow because tonight we celebrate your coming home." He said releasing me.

He looked me in the eyes to make sure I was fine before walking out of the kitchen.

"Go and see Vince, he missed you heaps" He said disappearing into the crowd.

"Home." I whispered looking around at the place I grew up in.