That New Car Smell: Part I

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That New Car Smell

Part I

An R.L. Mathewson Chronicle

“But I don’t need a new car,” Zoe said with a sad shake of her head while Trevor stood there, watching as the tow truck that he’d been forced to call slowly pulled her car up and-

“We can fix that, right?” Zoe asked, sounding hopeful as he stood there, watching the trail of sparks left behind as the engine was slowly dragged across the pavement.

Instead of arguing with his wife because he knew that it was pointless, Trevor reached over and grabbed a child, not really caring who it was, threw the kid over his shoulder and headed towards his truck.

“Ummm, what exactly are we doing?” Mikey asked, not really sounding all that concerned as he opened his truck door, tossed her inside and stepped aside so that Sebastian could climb in after her.

Once he was inside, Trevor turned around, grabbed Zoe’s hand and dragged her over to his truck and helped her inside, ignoring her long-suffering sighs. As he tried to figure out how he was going to survive this without losing his fucking mind, he gestured for the rest of his children to go across the street and stay with Kasey and Reese until they were back.

“I’m actually supposed to be cleaning my room right now,” Mikey pointed out as she reached over and opened his glove compartment so that she could grab the baseball that he kept in the truck for her and began rolling it between her hands.

“You’re helping me,” Trevor said as he handed his phone over to his son with an absently murmured, “Look for deals on SUVs.”

“But I don’t need-” his wife began to say only to close her mouth, wince and mumble, “It probably wouldn’t hurt to look,” when the poor bastard trying to figure out how to get her car towed away in one piece shouted, “Shit!” when the front axle joined the engine.

*-*-*-*

“Someone fucking shoot me,” Trevor said, rubbing his hands roughly down his face only to sigh when his wife said, “Oh, my god, I love this car!” and drop his hands away to find his wife hugging another fucking car.

“Didn’t she just say that she loved the black car?” Mikey asked as she popped a chip in her mouth.

“Yes, she did,” Trevor said only to feel another part of his soul slowly wither away when his wife suddenly turned around, gasped, and raced across the lot towards a minivan with a large red bow wrapped around it.

“I thought she didn’t want a new car,” Sebastian pointed out as he reached over and helped himself to one of Mikey’s chips.

“She didn’t,” Trevor said as he held his hand out.

Without a word, Mikey dumped some chips into his hand as they watched Zoe, who’d been mumbling, “I love you so much,” to the minivan, turned back around and headed back to the black SUV with a lovingly mumbled, “Did you miss mommy?”

“That car gets poor gas mileage,” Sebastian, who he’d brought with him to read the sales tags, said.

“Of course, it does,” Trevor said, sighing as he finished off the chips Mikey gave him and held his hand out for more.

“It’s also ten thousand dollars more expensive than the other cars,” Mikey said, handing over the small bag of chips.

“Of course, it is,” Trevor said, finishing off the bag of chips before tossing the empty bag in the trash can that they were hanging out near, grabbed a twenty dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to Mikey with a pointed look at the convenient store next door because there was no way in hell that he was going to survive this without food.

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