MGM owns SGA, not me. 595 words. Set during 'Miller's Crossing'.
"This is really the car you want?" Rodney asked loudly enough so that anyone near them would know he was buying the car for them and not for himself.
Jeannie gave Rodney a blatantly annoyed look that morphed into a wide smile as she turned back to the Sandy Beach Metallic Prius she'd fallen in love with the moment she'd seen it. She had actually been kidding- more or less- when she'd told her brother he owed her a car, so she was more than a little surprised this morning when Mer told her they were going shopping for a new car.
"It's perfect, Uncle Mer," said Madison, voicing her mother's thought to the proverbial tee. Jeannie had to remember to get her little girl a treat later.
Rodney sighed and glanced at Kaleb. He liked it too. Figured the tofu lover would take their side. Still, it was the car they'd be driving, not him. Not ever. Not even getting in the damn thing. Not a chance.
Rodney just managed to keep his head from banging into the passenger side window of the Miller's new Prius.
Again.
"Damn it, Jeannie!" cried Rodney as his sister pulled up obscenely close to the rear end of a tractor trailer before unceremoniously- and recklessly Rodney believed- swerving to the left and speeding past the big rig before veering back to the right to settle in front of it.
Jeannie had insisted that he accompany her on the vehicle's maiden voyage, with Kaleb and Madison following in their old car. Rodney had refused rather adamantly, but then Jeannie had resorted to pouting and it was all a blur from there until Jeannie cursed on a particularly sweet looking little old lady who happened to be straddling the white line separating the lanes.
"Relax, Mer," said Jeannie as though all was right with the world. She looked at him and rolled her eyes as he quickly pointed to the road ahead of them to tell her to look that way. She turned her attention back to the road and asked, "So what's been going on with you lately?"
Rodney's right hand nearly tore the padded hand rest from the door as Jeannie performed more of her evasive maneuvers. "Well I managed to…"
"And I don't mean work, Mer," interrupted Jeannie as she continued to weave through the traffic. "I mean with Kathy."
"Katie," Rodney quietly corrected.
"Something wrong?" asked Jeannie with a quick look to Rodney.
"No," Rodney quickly replied.
"But?"
"Nothing."
"Mer."
"Jeannie."
Jeannie shook her head in disbelief. "What does it take to get you to talk to me?"
Rodney tensed as his Mario Andretti wannabe sister narrowly avoided sideswiping another car. "Not getting me killed would be a good start."
Jeannie slowed the car down and sighed. "Mer… tell me."
Rodney looked out the window to the passing cars and signs. "I bought her a ring."
Jeannie hid her surprise well. "Okay." She glanced at him again. "So what's the trouble?"
Rodney shrugged.
"Is it that doctor?" asked Jeannie, and she couldn't help but smile when Rodney turned to her so fast she was certain his head would twist off.
"Why would… what do…how…"
"I'm your sister, Mer," Jeannie replied as thought it explained everything. She gave her brother a sympathetic smile. "And I read every e-mail you send very carefully."
Rodney quickly ran over the e-mails he'd sent over the last few weeks and grimaced at the realization that he'd mentioned Jennifer in several of them. "Oh."
Jeannie laughed and nodded as she said, "Yeah… oh."
A/N: "What Does it Take" was written by Derry Grehan and released by the group Honeymoon Suite on their 1986 album The Big Prize.