Chapter 38 - Building a car fit for a king.
"Well, I think, since you're gonna mess this car around so much, that we look for one that's been stolen and recovered, or in an accident. We won't find one, I'm pretty sure, but why buy a new car then just void the warrantee and swap out half the parts? You're gonna put a custom interior in it anyway so if that's gone or wrecked it doesn't matter. Plus it keeps the money situation fairly quiet. I mean it'll still be expensive but it'll look more affordable." Torrie said. Dom groaned but the others all nodded.
"She's right Dawg. It makes more sense." Leon stated.
"Yeah, but I don't wanna have to wait that long." Dom frowned at Torrie.
"I fixed your charger in 6 weeks, with some help from Vince. I think that if all of us work on it we could get your car ready in about 2 weeks, if we overnight all the parts we need. And you deal with a less then perfect paint job cause we'll have to do that piece by piece." Torrie gave Dom her no arguments look.
"I'm with Dom on this one. Let's just go buy the damn thing. Looken' around for a salvage car takes time." Vince surprised everyone with this statement. "We can't go to races till Dom has something to drive."
"Dom has his charger and we have other capable racers on this team besides Dom you know." Torrie gave Vince a look that let him know she was clearly not pleased he went against her. "Hell, Letty and I could carry this team till Dom gets his car ready."
Letty smiled and nodded and the guys all booed. "She's right. About us being able to carry the team and about it making more sense to try to find a salvage car. I say look for a salvage car for a week then if it doesn't happen buy the new one. It just makes more sense. Then I vote we get that vacation you promised me all that time ago, we can go as a team." Letty got a round of applause for that opinion. Dom chuckled.
"OK, I'll look for one week for a salvage car. If it isn't in this garage by a week from today then I buy the new one. End of story. And a vacation sounds super." The team seemed to agree to that. "Ok, to celebrate getting that off my shoulders I say we all go get cleaned up and go to a nice restaurant and have a meal poor Mia doesn't have to cook and clean up after tonight."
"Dom, you are now officially forgiven for not telling me about the money. You are my favourite brother." Mia hugged her brother.
"I'm your only brother, but thanks." Dom kissed her forehead.
They got cleaned up and went to dinner. They were subjected to several nasty looks for being louder then the norm of that restaurant but they didn't notice. They just had a great time eating out as a team. They took in a movie after then headed home.
Dom and Torrie were getting ready for bed. The only sore spot in their relationship was Dom's continued nightmares. Torrie was really worried. Almost every night he woke up in a cold sweat. They'd seemed to stop for awhile bt now they were back. Sometimes he just woke up and other times she had to wake him and comfort him afterward. She was concerned as she had figured that once he confronted the fact he was just making a connection between his accident and how his father died he'd get over it but that wasn't happening.
"Dom, I wanna talk to you 'bout somethin'."
"This better not be goin' where I think it's goin' Torrie."
"Well maybe it is. I don't know. I wanna talk to you 'bout the fact that you still have nightmares."
"God Torrie, I told you so many times I don't want to talk 'bout it."
"Fine, then I'm gonna go sleep in the spare room cause I can't take it any more."
"You can't, Letty stays there now." Dom gave her a smug look, like hehe your plan backfired, you can't leave so we don't have to talk about it.
"Fine, I'll go stay with Vince. I bet he at least sleeps through the night. I can't go on with no sleep forever Dom and not talking about it and not doing anything about it isn't gonna fix the issue."
"There is no issue. I bet I don't have nightmares anymore."
"Well then, here's the deal. I'll stay here tonight and we can not talk about it for tonight, however, if you have a nightmare tonight then you go see someone about it."
"Whatoya mean go see someone?"
"Just that baby. That you go to a psychologist and find out what's goin' on in that thick skull o'yours that's causing you to have screaming in terror nightmares every night. At least mine stopped when you were with me and after I faced what was causing them. When I told you about my guilty conscious over not saving my mom they stopped. You won't talk about it so your gonna have these dreams till you face the issue and talk to someone about it."
"I'm not seein' a shrink." Dom took a belligerent stance.
"Well, one, I thought you were over them, you were so sure of it a second ago, and two, if I don't start to get full nights sleep then I'll be so tired I doubt very much I'll be able to find the strength to do much more then sleep when I go to bed. If you catch my drift." She gave Dom a fake smile.
"That's dirty. Ok, if I have a nightmare tonight, you and I will talk about it. If that doesn't work then I might consider talking to someone else." Dom refused to say the word psychologist. He did just have this gut feeling that the nightmares were gone for good. He couldn't explain it but he didn't think he'd be worring too much about that shrink after all.
"Ok, deal." Torrie smiled. She'd really gotten more of a concession out of Dom then she'd even hoped. Maybe he was right and the nightmares were over. She hoped.
"So, you think you have some extra energy tonight? You know if you wear yourself out you'll sleep better." Dom leered at her.
"Oh I don't know. I'm pretty tired." She yawned for effect.
Dom started to nibble down her neck. "You sure you're too tired for a little massage?"
"I'm never too tired for a massage." She giggled and she was tired out by the time Dom actually let her go to sleep.
Torrie yawned and sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. 'Wait a second,' she thought, 'I slept the night through. And Dom is still asleep. He didn't wake up, or sweat, or tangle all the blankets around himself.'
"Dom, baby, wake up."
"Ug, what time is it?"
"8:30."
"Oh man, time to get up." Dom sat up, rubbing his bare chest. Torrie tore her gaze off that broad expanse and looked Dom in the eyes.
"Yeah, it is, and guess what? It's the first time we're getting up today. You did sleep through the night." She smiled.
"I told you I would." Dom smiled back.
"Gee I wonder why all of a sudden you're fine." Torrie mused to herself almost.
"Well, it's because of the guilt I was feeling over never telling the team 'bout the money. When I realized I'd need to buy a new car I realized I'd need to spend money and that ment telling the team and the guilt made me have nightmares. And the fact that I almost died the same way as my dad no doubt had something to do with it."
"You're smarter then you act most of the time Dominic Torreto, but it's time to get up and get goin'."
They got up and got dressed and found the team already eating breakfast. Mia served them breakfast and gave Torrie a look. Torrie gave her a thumbs up signal while Dom couldn't see her. Mia gave Torrie a big sunny smile. She got what Torrie was telling her.
The team ate and then headed to the garage. Torrie started to use her connections in the car world to try to find Dom his car. She thought she had one. She was telling Vince about it over sandwiches.
".So I think you and I should go look at it and then if it looks promising we can tell Dom and take him to look at it. We need to have arguments for it before he sees it so he can't just reject it in favour of a new one."
Vince nodded. He thought Dom should have a used one too because of how he was gonna use it and what he was gonna do to it. He saw the sense it made when he thought about it. Torrie told Dom that she and Vince had an errand to run and they headed out to see this car.
They arrived on the salvage car lot and saw it right away. It had been stolen and recovered. From the outside it looked new. The body was in perfect condition. It was silver, which they knew Dom would want to change. As they got closer they saw the damage, the wheels were not the rims the car would have come with but cheep steel rims that the car had been fitted with so it could be moved easly. The two front seats had been removed. The stereo and steering wheel were gone. Other then that the car was intact. Dom would want to put custom rims, racing seats, racing steering wheel, and a custom stereo in it anyway.
"Whatoya think?" Torrie asked Vince.
"I think it's perfect. I mean everything that's missing is stuff he'd just swap out anyway." Vince stated.
"That's what I thought." Torrie was glad that Vince had come around to her way of thinking. It would make it easier to convince Dom. The lot owner was on his way over.
Torrie negotiated a deal and put a deposit down on the car so no one else would snap it up. The owner had just gotten it in that morning. Torrie and Vince left and went home to get Dom.
"Yo Dom. We found your car." Vince called out. Torrie sighed. That was not how to tell Dom anything.
"How'd you do that without me?" Dom did not look amused.
"He means we found a car, that matches what you wanted. It was a theft recovery not an accident write off, so the amount of work it needs is minimal. I put a deposit on it to hold it till you see it." Torrie tried to calm him down.
"Ok, let's go see this car then." Dom said with a sigh, he'd hoped to get a new car for once but what the team said about a used one made sense. They headed off to see the car.
Dom liked it. It only needed parts he'd have been replacing anyway, and it was easily tuned, just like his RX-7 had been. Jesse pronounced the engine in great shape, ready to work on now, it didn't need to be rebuilt first. Dom was sold. It was a lot cheaper then new too, and even though he knew they had lots of money his upbringing had taught him to save when he could. They had it towed to DT and started ordering parts.
"Well, I think, since you're gonna mess this car around so much, that we look for one that's been stolen and recovered, or in an accident. We won't find one, I'm pretty sure, but why buy a new car then just void the warrantee and swap out half the parts? You're gonna put a custom interior in it anyway so if that's gone or wrecked it doesn't matter. Plus it keeps the money situation fairly quiet. I mean it'll still be expensive but it'll look more affordable." Torrie said. Dom groaned but the others all nodded.
"She's right Dawg. It makes more sense." Leon stated.
"Yeah, but I don't wanna have to wait that long." Dom frowned at Torrie.
"I fixed your charger in 6 weeks, with some help from Vince. I think that if all of us work on it we could get your car ready in about 2 weeks, if we overnight all the parts we need. And you deal with a less then perfect paint job cause we'll have to do that piece by piece." Torrie gave Dom her no arguments look.
"I'm with Dom on this one. Let's just go buy the damn thing. Looken' around for a salvage car takes time." Vince surprised everyone with this statement. "We can't go to races till Dom has something to drive."
"Dom has his charger and we have other capable racers on this team besides Dom you know." Torrie gave Vince a look that let him know she was clearly not pleased he went against her. "Hell, Letty and I could carry this team till Dom gets his car ready."
Letty smiled and nodded and the guys all booed. "She's right. About us being able to carry the team and about it making more sense to try to find a salvage car. I say look for a salvage car for a week then if it doesn't happen buy the new one. It just makes more sense. Then I vote we get that vacation you promised me all that time ago, we can go as a team." Letty got a round of applause for that opinion. Dom chuckled.
"OK, I'll look for one week for a salvage car. If it isn't in this garage by a week from today then I buy the new one. End of story. And a vacation sounds super." The team seemed to agree to that. "Ok, to celebrate getting that off my shoulders I say we all go get cleaned up and go to a nice restaurant and have a meal poor Mia doesn't have to cook and clean up after tonight."
"Dom, you are now officially forgiven for not telling me about the money. You are my favourite brother." Mia hugged her brother.
"I'm your only brother, but thanks." Dom kissed her forehead.
They got cleaned up and went to dinner. They were subjected to several nasty looks for being louder then the norm of that restaurant but they didn't notice. They just had a great time eating out as a team. They took in a movie after then headed home.
Dom and Torrie were getting ready for bed. The only sore spot in their relationship was Dom's continued nightmares. Torrie was really worried. Almost every night he woke up in a cold sweat. They'd seemed to stop for awhile bt now they were back. Sometimes he just woke up and other times she had to wake him and comfort him afterward. She was concerned as she had figured that once he confronted the fact he was just making a connection between his accident and how his father died he'd get over it but that wasn't happening.
"Dom, I wanna talk to you 'bout somethin'."
"This better not be goin' where I think it's goin' Torrie."
"Well maybe it is. I don't know. I wanna talk to you 'bout the fact that you still have nightmares."
"God Torrie, I told you so many times I don't want to talk 'bout it."
"Fine, then I'm gonna go sleep in the spare room cause I can't take it any more."
"You can't, Letty stays there now." Dom gave her a smug look, like hehe your plan backfired, you can't leave so we don't have to talk about it.
"Fine, I'll go stay with Vince. I bet he at least sleeps through the night. I can't go on with no sleep forever Dom and not talking about it and not doing anything about it isn't gonna fix the issue."
"There is no issue. I bet I don't have nightmares anymore."
"Well then, here's the deal. I'll stay here tonight and we can not talk about it for tonight, however, if you have a nightmare tonight then you go see someone about it."
"Whatoya mean go see someone?"
"Just that baby. That you go to a psychologist and find out what's goin' on in that thick skull o'yours that's causing you to have screaming in terror nightmares every night. At least mine stopped when you were with me and after I faced what was causing them. When I told you about my guilty conscious over not saving my mom they stopped. You won't talk about it so your gonna have these dreams till you face the issue and talk to someone about it."
"I'm not seein' a shrink." Dom took a belligerent stance.
"Well, one, I thought you were over them, you were so sure of it a second ago, and two, if I don't start to get full nights sleep then I'll be so tired I doubt very much I'll be able to find the strength to do much more then sleep when I go to bed. If you catch my drift." She gave Dom a fake smile.
"That's dirty. Ok, if I have a nightmare tonight, you and I will talk about it. If that doesn't work then I might consider talking to someone else." Dom refused to say the word psychologist. He did just have this gut feeling that the nightmares were gone for good. He couldn't explain it but he didn't think he'd be worring too much about that shrink after all.
"Ok, deal." Torrie smiled. She'd really gotten more of a concession out of Dom then she'd even hoped. Maybe he was right and the nightmares were over. She hoped.
"So, you think you have some extra energy tonight? You know if you wear yourself out you'll sleep better." Dom leered at her.
"Oh I don't know. I'm pretty tired." She yawned for effect.
Dom started to nibble down her neck. "You sure you're too tired for a little massage?"
"I'm never too tired for a massage." She giggled and she was tired out by the time Dom actually let her go to sleep.
Torrie yawned and sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. 'Wait a second,' she thought, 'I slept the night through. And Dom is still asleep. He didn't wake up, or sweat, or tangle all the blankets around himself.'
"Dom, baby, wake up."
"Ug, what time is it?"
"8:30."
"Oh man, time to get up." Dom sat up, rubbing his bare chest. Torrie tore her gaze off that broad expanse and looked Dom in the eyes.
"Yeah, it is, and guess what? It's the first time we're getting up today. You did sleep through the night." She smiled.
"I told you I would." Dom smiled back.
"Gee I wonder why all of a sudden you're fine." Torrie mused to herself almost.
"Well, it's because of the guilt I was feeling over never telling the team 'bout the money. When I realized I'd need to buy a new car I realized I'd need to spend money and that ment telling the team and the guilt made me have nightmares. And the fact that I almost died the same way as my dad no doubt had something to do with it."
"You're smarter then you act most of the time Dominic Torreto, but it's time to get up and get goin'."
They got up and got dressed and found the team already eating breakfast. Mia served them breakfast and gave Torrie a look. Torrie gave her a thumbs up signal while Dom couldn't see her. Mia gave Torrie a big sunny smile. She got what Torrie was telling her.
The team ate and then headed to the garage. Torrie started to use her connections in the car world to try to find Dom his car. She thought she had one. She was telling Vince about it over sandwiches.
".So I think you and I should go look at it and then if it looks promising we can tell Dom and take him to look at it. We need to have arguments for it before he sees it so he can't just reject it in favour of a new one."
Vince nodded. He thought Dom should have a used one too because of how he was gonna use it and what he was gonna do to it. He saw the sense it made when he thought about it. Torrie told Dom that she and Vince had an errand to run and they headed out to see this car.
They arrived on the salvage car lot and saw it right away. It had been stolen and recovered. From the outside it looked new. The body was in perfect condition. It was silver, which they knew Dom would want to change. As they got closer they saw the damage, the wheels were not the rims the car would have come with but cheep steel rims that the car had been fitted with so it could be moved easly. The two front seats had been removed. The stereo and steering wheel were gone. Other then that the car was intact. Dom would want to put custom rims, racing seats, racing steering wheel, and a custom stereo in it anyway.
"Whatoya think?" Torrie asked Vince.
"I think it's perfect. I mean everything that's missing is stuff he'd just swap out anyway." Vince stated.
"That's what I thought." Torrie was glad that Vince had come around to her way of thinking. It would make it easier to convince Dom. The lot owner was on his way over.
Torrie negotiated a deal and put a deposit down on the car so no one else would snap it up. The owner had just gotten it in that morning. Torrie and Vince left and went home to get Dom.
"Yo Dom. We found your car." Vince called out. Torrie sighed. That was not how to tell Dom anything.
"How'd you do that without me?" Dom did not look amused.
"He means we found a car, that matches what you wanted. It was a theft recovery not an accident write off, so the amount of work it needs is minimal. I put a deposit on it to hold it till you see it." Torrie tried to calm him down.
"Ok, let's go see this car then." Dom said with a sigh, he'd hoped to get a new car for once but what the team said about a used one made sense. They headed off to see the car.
Dom liked it. It only needed parts he'd have been replacing anyway, and it was easily tuned, just like his RX-7 had been. Jesse pronounced the engine in great shape, ready to work on now, it didn't need to be rebuilt first. Dom was sold. It was a lot cheaper then new too, and even though he knew they had lots of money his upbringing had taught him to save when he could. They had it towed to DT and started ordering parts.