After about five full minutes of beating the crap out of the car, I’d wrecked it beyond repair from a physical standpoint.
I just kept staring at it, and realized that this finally gave me an excuse to do something I’d wanted to for a while: buy Gia a new and reliable mode of transportation. The best part was she really couldn’t refuse it. It wasn’t like I was doing her a favor. I’d destroyed her freaking car, for Christ’s sake. She had no choice but to accept a new one as a token of my apology.
Sweaty as all hell and feeling beat from my outburst, I walked the rest of the way to Gia’s house.
When she opened the door, she said, “You look like you’ve been through hell and back.”
I laughed, moving past her. “I was just in a fight.”
“A fight?” She shut the door and clutched her chest in a panic. “With Elliott?”
“No…uh…” I chuckled. “With your car.”
“My car?”
“I sort of trashed it. Went apeshit on it.”
“What? I thought you said you were fixing it?”
“Well, I was. And I did. But then the damn thing broke down again and started smoking on the way home, and I lost it. Kicked the shit out of it, and now it’s gone.”
Her eyes were wide. “Gone? I don’t have a car anymore?”
“Correct. It needs to be junked.”
Gia’s mouth was hanging open. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
“We’ll go tomorrow and get you a new car.”
“What? Just like that? You say it so casually like that’s not a big deal. I can’t afford to buy a new car.”
I sat down at her kitchen table and kicked my feet up on a chair. “Gia…I trashed your vehicle. It’s my responsibility to replace it.”
“Well, you don’t replace a used car with a new one.”
“I don’t want you driving the baby around in something unreliable.”
She crossed her arms and blew air up to her forehead, looking frustrated.
Then I said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll handle the down payment to make up for destroying your car. You can cover the monthly payments.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
After twenty more minutes of arguing, she finally agreed.
I suddenly got up and smacked my hands together. “Good. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.”Gia was shocked that I’d taken her to the Mercedes dealership. I wasn’t going to buy her anything I didn’t consider to be the safest possible option, and I’d done my research over the past twenty-four hours.
She kept saying she could never afford the monthly payments on a Benz. I reminded her that I was handling the down payment. That didn’t mean it couldn’t be a large amount of money—a small detail I neglected to discuss with her. I assured Gia she’d be left with a reasonable monthly bill. Very reasonable. Like almost nothing.
She was wearing one of her new maternity outfits, and this particular one hid her stomach and accentuated her tits. The car dealer likely didn’t even know she was pregnant. That gave him free rein to flirt like hell with her. I was ready to snap his neck because he wouldn’t stop staring at her knockers. Not to mention, when he asked if we were married, her answer was, “No, he’s my boss.” Little shit. Then she winked at me after, and I wanted to just take her right on the goddamn showroom floor. I would’ve loved to do so much damage on the hood of one of these cars that I’d have no choice but to purchase it. She was teasing about the boss thing—sure—but that just egged Dealer Dimwit to flirt with her more.
“What can I show you next?” he asked her tits.
“Give us a minute,” I snapped, placing my arm possessively around her.
We’d just come in from test driving the SUV, when I told her, “You wanna test drive the E-Class?”
Gia was mostly considering “practical” vehicles. I couldn’t blame her because I had always rented those for her in the past whenever her car would shit the bed. But I couldn’t help noticing how she lit up when we’d passed the E-Class convertible.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Why bother?”
“Because you seem to love it.”
“I can’t get a convertible with a baby.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not practical.”
“In what way?”
“Well…there’s no…space.”
“You planning on having more than one kid anytime soon?”
She laughed. “No. But what about things like the stroller?”
I went in search of Dealer Dimwit. “Hey, can you pop the trunk of the E-Class open?”
After he did it, I peeked my head in and smirked as I looked back at her. “Looks like plenty of space for a stroller.”
Her eyeballs were flitting back and forth. She still looked like she was searching for reasons why she didn’t deserve to have the car she actually wanted.
“Let me ask you this…” I said. “Do you plan on chopping off your hair and wearing Mom jeans after the baby is born just because those things are practical?”