The following Wednesday, James was driving home from work after a night shift in his old, rotting car, when he heard mechanical clicking, clacking, and then what sounded like an explosion happening under the hood; as the temperature gauge rocketed up to red. "No, no, no," he cried out, pulling over onto the side of the road, and shutting the little Taurus off; and it made a sound akin to how he'd imagine a car to physically die. Popping the hood and jumping out, and smoke began billowing out from underneath the hood when he opened it. James waved his arm to try and clear the smoke but immediately recognised that he had absolutely no clue what he was looking for or how to make any vehicular diagnostics. Getting back in the car, he dialled Greg who just said that he could diagnose people with mysterious ailments, not cars, but that if James called roadside assistance, left the keys in the car, took any valuables or sensitive property (such as patient files) out of the car and left the roadside assistance with instructions to take the car to their home address; then Greg would come pick him up.
Greg came round in the SUV to pick James up; "I think the car is dead," he sighed, climbing into the front seat, to which Greg simply just nodded, pulling back onto the road.
"What are we going to do? I mean, the thing is, I need a car to get to and from work, so does Rob, and you need a car as well… I guess we have to go car shopping; and probably have to go today…" James sighed, rubbing his temples, "I'm so tired,"
"We can leave it until the weekend," Greg shrugged, "head to a dealership on Saturday morning?"
"No, we can't do that," James sighed, "because with our luck, that's going to be one of the days you'll be home with the kids and there will be some kind of emergency- plus I'm working a night shift on Friday anyway, so I'm going to be just as exhausted on Saturday morning as I am now,"
"Maybe I could drop you at home and then go and have a look?" Greg suggested, and James just shook his head; pointing out that they'll need finance to help purchase a new or near new car, and an oncologist with a high credit rating is going to get a much better deal than a stay at home dad who was still working to get his credit rating above 'poor'; despite his previously high paying job, to which Greg reluctantly agreed.
"Besides," James muttered, "I let you go to the dealership by yourself, and you'll be returning with a two-door top of the line Camero or Challenger, which while it'd be fun, is not a good choice with two young kids. We need another big car; to fit both the car seats in, and be a safe choice for wintertime,"
The two of them pulled up in front of a superstore sized car dealership and began walking around. "Hey look! A Barbie pink Jeep Wrangler! What about that?" Greg joked.
"Because fucking another man doesn't make us gay enough, we have to publish it to the world by driving a Barbie car," James rolled his eyes and was actively resisting the growing urge to snap, "Greg, I'm really, really exhausted, and I've just gotten off a night shift, you know what that's like. Can you just turn the House-ness side of you down to like a two for today?"
"Okay, fine," Greg rolled his eyes, "so truck or SUV then?"
"Truck," James shrugged, as they headed over to the truck section of the dealership.
"Oooh, look at that Mustang!" Greg stopped to admire a brand new, top of the line, V8 Mustang.
"Exactly the reason why I didn't suggest you come here by yourself," James growled, "come on, I'm already tired and pissed enough that my car blew up on the side of a busy road during peak hour traffic," James grabbed Greg by the arm, "hurry up," James hissed, "the salesmen are watching you with hungry, predatory gazes and starting to head over. I want to find the right car before interacting with any of them; let's move it, Greg!" as he dragged Greg through the maze of cars trying to lose them.
"We could just give it a test drive," Greg grumbled, but James shot him a look that Greg knew all too well meant shut up and allowed himself to continue being dragged across the dealership until they reached the truck section.
"Finally," James growled, releasing Greg's arm as he rubbed where James had had his vice like grip around his arm and rubbed it painfully, frowning at James, who was already walking away. "Here, this is more what I was looking for," he mumbled, approaching some trucks; "I was thinking that Rob already has a Ford; and as comfortable as Lisa's Ram was; it was kind of ugly; what about a Chevy?" James grabbed Greg by the arm again and dragged him further towards the Chevys. "I want to steer clear of white; keep it from getting dirty,"
"What about that one?" Greg pointed at a Silverado 2500 in a dark, almost black, green, "it says it's on 'clearance' so maybe they'd be willing to budge on price a little bit. It is an automatic though,"
"They're all automatics," James growled, "no one can drive anymore," as he approached the dark green truck, and opened the driver's door, "see how you can get in and out," he looked at Greg, who easily managed the task. James climbed in next to him and grabbed the information sheet, "it's 10 000 dollars off," James' eyebrows shot up, "good find… it's a 6.6 litre V8, and most of the rest of it I don't understand anyway. This one looks good,"
"It's still 50 000 dollars James, are you sure you don't want to sleep on it?" Greg frowned, concerned about James' near manic seeming energy, "I'll drive you to and from work tomorrow, and for however long you need; it's a lot of money for an impulse buy, James, I don't want you to get buyer's regret,"
"Not going to happen," James shook his head, "I want this one," and then laid the heel of his hand into the horn, which blasted out loudly, "that'll get someone over here,"
"I don't think that's the right way to do it… but here someone comes anyway," Greg shrugged as he got out of the car.
A salesman with a big, overtly white smile approached James, "good morning sir! How are you today? How can I help you? What are you looking for?"
"Good morning, I want to buy this truck please. What is your best price?" James started negotiating with the salesman, and managed to get about 2 000 dollars off, before he followed him inside to sort out the paperwork, "I need to take the truck home today, can you organise that?" James insisted, "if you can't, tell me now so we can take our business elsewhere,"
The salesman laughed awkwardly at the pushy customer standing in front of him, holding the door open for the two men to walk inside, "so long as everything checks out, you'll be able to take the truck home today, what do you do for work? And what's your name so I can check it for finance?"
"My name is James Evan Wilson, and I work as an oncologist…" James started talking about financial matters, and Greg got up to get a cup of coffee from the machine, and to sit in front of the television and shoo away anyone that came up to him, wanting to sell him a car. Honestly, Greg was quite disappointed in how reckless James was being; yes, it was practically a new car with less than 5 000 miles on it, but he still thought that James should at least take it for a test drive before putting down so much money on it. Exhausted from what had been a very long night up with Charlie all night then coming here, then being woken up after only 30 minutes of sleep; Greg was just as physically and mentally exhausted as James was, and knew he'd be straight back on duty as soon as he got home looking after Charlie and taking Tyson to school; and felt himself falling asleep on the couch in the lobby. "Greg, wake up," James shook his shoulder, "time to go!" he dangled the keys in Greg's face who wiped his eyes sleepily and asked if James had really gone through with purchasing this truck, which he frowned and told him of course he had; and that the salesmen were currently bringing it around the front.
"I'll drive it back," Greg grumbled, "you take back that SUV; they'll be going to park the truck straight out the front, it'll be less distance for me to walk," as he stood up unsteadily and limped out the front, squinting at the bright sunlight hitting his eyes. Greg climbed up into the driver's seat, and took off, stopping only at a drive through coffee shop to buy the largest coffee he could find, and an extra large can of Red Bull.
"What the fuck!" Rob roared when he heard and then saw the giant, dark ('forest green', apparently) green Chevy Silverado 2500 pull up in the driveway, "I thought you were going to go get James! And instead, you pull up in a giant, brand new truck! God, Greg, if you traded in Josie's car to buy this, I'm going to fucking kill you,"
"I didn't sell it; this is James' new car. He is bringing Josie's car back here now. He insisted that he wanted to buy a new car. A truck. And that we had to buy it, today. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at him!" Greg shrugged, climbing down.
"Oh my God! Awesome!" Tyson screamed, running out and jumping up onto the side steps of the truck, opening the door and crawling in, "granddad! It has leather seats!"
Rob's face darkened, and James turned into the driveway to see Greg failing to dodge being bonked on the head and face by a rolled up newspaper, still in the plastic packaging while Rob screamed a variety of obscenities at him, James considered for a second to just put the car in reverse and drive away, but instead slowly pulled into the driveway and tooted the horn to distract Rob, "thank God you didn't sell or damage Josie's car, Greg!" Rob snapped.
"I'm kind of terrified to drive it ever again now," Greg muttered. James climbed down from Josie's car and Rob turned his attention onto James, yelling at him about how he could possibly be so irresponsible and stupid, while simultaneously smacking James with the newspaper as well. Rob then yelled out to Tyson to hurry up and grab his school bag, as he got in the driver's seat of Josie's car and waited, scowling at Greg and James through the windshield. "He'll calm down by tonight," Greg mumbled, "I hope. That really hurt though," as he rubbed the top of his head where he'd been repeatedly smacked with the newspaper.
"You financially irresponsible idiots! You go out to pick him up and then the next thing I know you're out buying a brand-new truck for yourselves! You couldn't have waited or searched for the best deal, or bought one privately, you have to go and buy a brand-new truck!" Rob yelled, and put his hand on the horn, "Tyson! Hurry up!"
Tyson came bolting out the front door and James scooped up Charlie who was trying to follow her older brother. Tyson jumped in the front seat of the SUV that began immediately backing out of the driveway with Rob holding his middle finger up at the two lunatics in his driveway, , "although, I have to say, this is probably top 3 times I've seen Rob be this angry," Greg mumbled, "this is another reason why I thought it'd be a good idea to wait a couple of days and talk it over. But what's done is done," as they turned tail, with Greg picking up his can of Red Bull, and headed inside.