We arrived back at the garage, and Dom started teaching me how to use someone’s own body weight against them, and how anything in the garage could become a weapon if it needed to. I had just succeeded in throwing Dom a little way across the room when I heard a car pull up in front of the garage. I knew we weren’t expecting anyone so I grabbed the pipe wrench from the hood of the car where Dom and I had left it. I continued to watch the door, but no one was coming through it. I walked over to where I could look through the window and saw the car idling in the drive. There was a woman sitting in it that looked vaguely familiar. I set the pipe wrench back down and walked out to the car. “How’d you find me?” I asked Jen as she got out of her car.

“If you didn’t want to be found you should have used a different name.” She said getting out of her car.

“Man Dom, she’s a cop magnet dude.” I heard Rome say from in the garage.

“And the doors are thin enough I can here you out here, so quit your whining.” I said before turning back to Jen. “Want to come in?” I asked, and then I realized she was staring at the bruises on my arms, legs, and stomach. I had changed into a sports bra and shorts to practice with Dom.

“Do you need my help?” She asked looking at me anxiously.

“No, just practicing.” I said grabbing her hand and pulling her into the garage. “Hey, Dom, Jen here thinks I’ve been letting you and Brian beat on me.”

Brian and Dom looked at each other then back at me. “We kind of have been.” Brian said looking over the bruises forming on my body.

Jen looked over Brian and Dom taking in the bruises on their faces and torso’s before turning to look at me, and she started to laugh at the sheepish look I gave her. “Looks like you’ll be just fine. Now, are you going to introduce me, or am I supposed to be your dirty little secret?” she asked crossing her arms to look at me.

“I still haven’t forgiven you for that move you pulled with the pickup, but I guess I can introduce you. That’s Vince, Leon, Jesse, Tej, Rome, and Letty, and my teachers over here are Brian and Dom. Guy’s this is my ex-girlfriend Jen.” I said and watched the shock cover their faces.

“Damn, Dom, I guess you really do have to worry about losing your girl to Letty.” Rome said looking from me to Jen to Letty.

“You didn’t think that show was all for you boys did you?” I said laughing at Rome, letting the ‘your girl’ comment go for the moment. I smiled over at Letty and she blushed.

“She’s always been an odd one.” Jen said watching the interactions between me and the guys. Seems you guys just make it worse.”

“Hey!” I yelled smacking her shoulder, causing everyone to laugh at me.

“It’s about time to go pick up Mia.” Dom said walking over to where I was standing and wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “Why don’t you come over to the house?”

I went to the back room to change back into my street clothes before climbing into Dom’s car. I was quiet for a while, as we drove to the café following Brian while the others headed to the house. “Is that really the way you and Brain feel about teaching me to defend myself?” I finally brought myself to ask as I watched Brian walk in to help Mia finish closing up.

“Yes.” He said tightening his hands on the steering wheel. “A man should never lay his hands on a woman in violence to matter the reason.”

“Is that why you kept trying to go so easy on me?” I asked and he nodded his head. “I’m sorry. I just really need to know how to protect myself.” I said looking down at my hands. “I don’t want to be weak anymore.”

“I know, that’s the only reason I agreed to this.” Dom said taking my hand in his and kissing the back of it.

“Hobbs agreed to help as well once you’ve both taught me what you can.” I said dropping the bomb on him about that.

“How about we use Hobbs as a test for your skills once we’ve taught you what we know. I’d love to see him get his ass handed to him by a girl.” Dom said smiling at the thought. I looked at where Hobbs was standing in the café, and smiled at the thought of knocking him on his ass.

“So what’s the story between you and Hobbs?” I asked Dom looking back at him.

“I was wondering how long it would take you to ask about that.” Dom said rubbing the back of his head. “After he got pegged in Rio for allegedly killing those FBI agents, our names ended up on Hobbs desk. Tracked my crew and I all over Rio before finding us. He pulled into the warehouse and smashed my damn car. We fought and then he ended up taking us in, but we hit an ambush and Vince got shot. Once we got back to the warehouse he agreed to help me take down Reyes, and then gave us a 24 hour head start. What no one noticed until it was too late was that we swapped the safes out, and my crew had the real safe back at the warehouse. We opened the safe and headed to Dubai. Hobbs showed up and wanted to hire my team. Give us a chance to clear our record, all we had to do was take down this team in London that was taking down military conveys and stealing from them. It only helped his case that they found out Letty was still alive and working for the team. After we retrieved a very important chip for the government they cleaned our records in return for the chip. So how’d you meet Hobbs?” Dom asked me as we pulled out of the lot following Brian and Mia, with Hobbs following behind us.

“He was the one who found me after my parents died. He was just starting out as a cop, and saw what no one else did. I’d probably be dead if he hadn’t showed up on the crime scene because the other officers were ready to say I was kidnapped by the people who killed my parents. After that he would stop in from time to time at my different foster homes to see how I was doing. He was actually the one the other girl told about our foster father rapping us. He even stopped by a few times when I was living with Jared, but he couldn’t do anything because I never told him what was happening, and Jared never hit me in front of him.”

We pulled up at the house and walked in. I was surprised to see Hobbs walk over to Jen and kiss her on the lips. “What. . . the . . . hell?” I said to no one in particular as I watched my ex-girlfriend kiss the man I thought of as a father figure.

“Amelia, this is the boyfriend I told you about just before you got out.” Jen said smiling over at me. “This is Luke.”

“How did I not see this one coming?” I asked myself before looking between Jen and Hobbs. They both seemed happy so I guess it couldn’t be too bad. I walked over to stand in front of Hobbs and Jen and studies them a bit closer. When I could tell they were starting to get weirded out I turned and smacked Hobbs in the back of my head. “How dare you date my ex-girlfriend? That is totally against the friendship code.” I yelled before walking back over to Dom and burying my head in his chest. I was trying so hard not to laugh by this point it looked like I was crying from the way I was standing.

“I swear I didn’t know.” They both exclaimed at the same time. I felt Dom put his hand on my chin to make me look at him, when he seen I was laughing he just shook his head at me, but kept a serious expression on his face and played along.

“Now see what you’ve done, you’ve gone and upset her after the day she has had. You should both no better.” By this time the rest of the team had caught on because Dom normally never said things like that. I felt Jen’s small hand on my shoulder as she started trying to defend herself.

“I didn’t think it would affect her this much, we were never that serious.” She tried to explain.

“Never that serious?” I shouted into Dom’s chest. “I was in love with you.” I said and started to laugh harder. She went to pull me into a hug and when she saw my face she caught on.

“That was just mean Amelia, just plain mean.” She said and I started to really laugh. I took one look and Hobbs face and was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. Jen was standing over there trying to be all mad at me but she thought it was just as funny as I did once she thought about it. It looked like Hobbs was the only one not enjoying the joke.

“Lighten up Hobbs.” I said before walking into the kitchen still chuckling to myself. I heard the kitchen door swing open, and shut again while I was in the fridge getting myself a beer, I grabbed two and handed one to Hobbs when I turned around.

“So you and Jen huh?” he questioned opening his beer, and taking a drink.

“Yup.” I said popping my p.

“You’re not really mad about us are you?”

“Of course not. I am, however, mad about you inviting a cop into my life without telling me. I’m kind of supposed to tell the Colorado court where I am, and I haven’t yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know if I’m staying here or not. This may just be another stop in the road. I don’t really belong here. I’m too broken.” I said to Hobbs before walking out onto the back porch.

He followed me out. “Why don’t you just settle in and see how things go?”

“Do you really have to ask that question Hobbs? Every time I settle in somewhere everything goes to shit. Look around Hobbs it’s already started. The guys in there think their abusing me because I want them to train me, my psycho ex-boyfriend is sitting about a quarter mile down the road with his engine idling, and all I can think is he really should fix that damn miss in his engine before the damn motor blows. Then after that thought passes I realize that I’d rather see the whole damn car blow up with him in it. My brain is so fucked up I can’t take anything seriously. I just want my life back, I want to wake up and find that this entire mess was just one bad dream. I want to wake up to find that I’m six years old, and still in my purple bedroom with the unicorns painted on the wall.” I didn’t realize that I had started to cry until Hobbs pulled me into his arms. “What’s wrong with me? Why is my life so fucked up?” I asked as he held me.

“I don’t know sweetheart. What I do know is that you have people in this house that really care about you. Their willing to help you out when you’re at your worst. I also know that man in there has feelings for you, or he wouldn’t have let you this far into his family so quickly. He only just got his record clean, but he’s ready to stain it with blood if anyone hurts you. I’ve seen the way you look at him to. I know deep inside you feel things for him to. Take a chance. Toretto, for all his faults, would never hurt you physically.”

“I’m not ready for all that. I can’t be until Jared is gone.”

“Then let’s practice once and see how well those boys are training you.” Hobbs said setting his beer down on the table and walking down into the backyard. I smiled thinking about what Dom had told me about fighting guys bigger than me. ‘Let them think they have the advantage, then dodge ‘em till they get pissed, once they’re pissed they’ll mess up, and that’s when you make your move.’

“Fine, don’t go easy on me though, just think of me as a way to release all your pent up anger, and I’ll take your ass down just like the guys told me to.” I took one last drink of my beer before walking down into the backyard to join Hobbs.

Hobbs and I circled each other for a minute before he made the first move, his fist struck out hitting me in the shoulder. I let the hit knock me backwards and rolled into a ball until my feet hit the ground and I stood back up. “Good to know you’re actually not going to go easy on me.” I said rubbing my shoulder, as I started to circle Hobbs again. “Dom thinks I don’t know, but even after yelling at him until he’s completely pissed, he still goes easy on me. I’m never going to learn anything that way.” I said dodging the next two punches Hobbs threw my way. I kicked out at him and hit him in the thigh, but it didn’t even seem to faze him. We continued to trade punches with me dodging him and my hit landing because I was smaller and faster than he was. By now everyone was on the back porch watching us trade blows though no one said anything. Jen had actually been the one to find us, and had hurried inside to get everyone else thinking we were actually mad at each other. I heard a few bets go around about who would win, and then silence as they watched us intently.

“You’re getting a bit slow there Hobbs.” I said taunting him as I landed another hit, and dodged his follow up. I could tell he was starting to get pissed, more at the guys who were laughing at him, then at me but it worked out just the same for me. His swings started to get wilder as they lost the precision the police force had taught him to hold onto, and then he made his mistake. I had danced a few feet away from him after the last hit, and then he fell right into my plan. He came charging at me and I sidestepped him before landing a blow on his back sending him sprawling onto the ground face first. I jumped onto his back and grabbed his arm pulling his wrist up and into the center of his back. “Give up yet?” I asked pulling his arm further up his back knowing that it hurt like hell.

“Damn it women, I give.” He yelled when I pulled his arm higher.

I released his arm before standing up, and bowing for the audience on the porch, then I offered my hand to Hobbs to help him up.