The Church Boys ➸ Peterick/Brentrick

10: Our Car is a Boat

"Hey, Chelsea? You want Dad's truck?"

His sister paused, glancing out the window to look at it, then nodded. "Hell yeah, I do."

"Great, you can help me convince him to buy me a car that's a helluva lot cheaper than whatever you would want."

"Uh, how about no?"

"Then you can't have the truck." Patrick cocked an eyebrow as he waited for an answer from her, to which she groaned but nodded.

"Yeah, okay, sure. I'll help." Pause. "What even are you getting instead?"

The one thing Patrick was glad for was that his sister actually would help. She'd sell her soul to the devil if it meant getting her way. Besides, she'd wanted the truck for awhile, just never mentioned it recently.

"Something that has four wheel drive. Don't worry about it, it's fifteen hundred and I can fix anything that's broken... I did autoshop in middle school and two years at my old school." He chuckled, shaking his head even if she didn't seem impressed. Still, it was just adding to a good argument. 

They made small talk for a while longer before Chelsea went back to her room to do her own thing until dinner. It was decided that was when they'd bring it up, and then even if they didn't win, Patrick had to let Chelsea have the car after school for two weeks. It was a fair enough trade, at least, assuming she actually tried to help him get the car. 

It was a 1995 Jeep Wrangler, already jacked up a bit. Patrick was actually excited for it, mostly because he knew that it wouldn't be hard to fix up if it needed it and Jeeps were great for tight turns. Pulling out one of the vinyls he had, he put it on and busted out an essay for his history class quickly before he went down for dinner. He managed to get down last again, but picked up a piece of bread before he sat down. 

He and his sister waited until about halfway through, and surprisingly she brought it up first. "So, dad, Patrick and I were talking about maybe getting him a new car so I can have the truck."

Aaron's facial expression consisted mostly of "holy shit, you two actually spoke to each other". 

Still, Patrick nodded to help back it up. "Yeah, I found this really cool '95 Jeep Wrangler for sale for only fifteen hundred. It's green paint, which isn't my favorite, but it has a black covering over it so I don't have to worry about rain and the interior is immaculate." 

There was a long pause from their father, while their mother just simply looked between the two sharing the same expression as Aaron. 

"Look, Patrick, it's almost too good of a deal. What if the car doesn't work?"

"But he took, like, four years of autoshop. Remember when he fixed up the '78 Mustang?" Chelsea reminded him, straightening out. "Besides, with the amount of money saved on getting that car over something new, it would easily cover any spare parts that he needed."

Patrick was glad he got his sister into this.

Their father shared a look with their mother before he sighed and nodded. "Oh, alright. I can cash in my paycheck tomorrow and we'll go get it."

The two siblings shared a smile and actually high fived each other (which nearly sent their mother into tears and Aaron onto the floor) before returning to eating dinner. It was so shocking mostly because the entire family (including aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents) thought they hated each other and would never make up unless Patrick either became famous or got a lot of money.

If Chelsea did either of those things it wouldn't change anything, but Patrick was the one that would be nice enough to let her in again.

But in all reality, something with four wheel drive meant he could go offroading. Maybe it wouldn't be the first thing he did, but it would no doubt get done within the first month.