Thank goodness Julie knew where the fire extinguishers were, because her face nearly burst into flames.

“Nice, Chester, real smooth,” Danny teased. “Couldn’t have pulled me aside for that little chat?”

Shaking his head, Chester chuckled. “That’s not how we roll, boy, and you know it. Be happy I didn’t leave a Post-It note on your damn door.”

“Oh my God,” Julie gasped.

The three laughed and hugged before turning in for the night.

Chapter Nineteen

Moving Not Dying

PACKING TAPE SCREECHED as it unrolled to seal the flaps of the cardboard moving box.

“Last damn one,” Danny grumbled, hefting the carton to his shoulder. “Chris, you mind getting the door for me?”

The men had spent the past few days loading up the U-Haul in preparation for Danny and Julie’s move to Pennsylvania.

“I still can’t believe how fast you guys pulled this together,” Chris said when Danny reentered the house. Chris grabbed the last two beers from the otherwise empty refrigerator, popped them open, and handed one to Danny. “Christ, you guys go out of town a few days for Christmas, and less than five weeks later, you’re packing up and moving to some bumble-fuck town? Thank God you didn’t take a two-week cruise—hell, you’d’ve come back telling us you were moving to Ireland or some shit.” There was no animosity in his friend’s statement. Chris and Sheila, while sad to see their closest friends uprooting, were excited for them to experience new opportunities.

“I know, crazy how fast it all happened,” Danny admitted. His gaze roamed the empty house. “But every time she steps foot in this place, every time she thinks ‘bout this fucking place, it’s like the light dims in her eyes. Don’t know if Sheila told you, but we stopped sleeping here two weeks ago.”

Chris’s brows furrowed, indicating he’d had no idea.

“Thought just knowing we were leaving would make being here easier, but it didn’t. Listened to Julie toss and turn each night until she’d get up and drift around from room to room,” Danny said.

The memory of confronting her was etched into his brain. After night three of watching her slither out of their bed and not return until dawn, concern and curiosity had finally made him search for her. He watched her go from their daughter’s room to their would-be son’s, then down the stairs to the main room. He saw the tremble of her shoulders, even in a house lit only by the garden lights that filtered through the windows. Her cries were noiseless, but her pain was deafening as she faced the window and the softly lit flowers.

“Jules,” he whispered as he approached, “what’s going on, honey?”

“Oh.” Her breath hitched. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Babe, when you’re not next to me, I’m awake. Now talk to me.”

A sigh left her body, one so large he felt the relief in his own frame. “It’s just…I remember when we bought this house. Our dreams were big, so filled with hope…and after all these years, we’re moving, and I’m having trouble recalling memories that don’t suck.”

When her eyes met his, he understood exactly what she was saying. They had had many years of love and happiness under that roof, but they had lived through so much pain and heartbreak and were leaving on the tail end of devastation.

He placed his front to her back and swept her long hair over her left shoulder before pressing his lips to her right. “Baby, can give you more memories that don’t suck.” He couldn’t hide the smile in his voice. “Well, there will be sucking, but I promise, when you think of this night…” He felt goose bumps cover her skin as his tongue slid up her neck to her ear. “This will be the final night we spend in this house, this memory the last you’ll have here. Let me make it amazing.”

Her moan was the only confirmation he needed before he swept her into his arms and walked to the sofa. He spread her beneath him before he took his time and made sweet love to her until the birds chirped and the newspaper thumped when it landed on their doorstep.

As promised, they never spent another night under that roof. His wife had slept peacefully tucked into his side ever since.

“Shit,” Chris interrupted Danny’s memory. “I had no idea it was that bad, man. I’m sorry.”

“It was,” Danny admitted before raising his beer to his friend. “Now it isn’t.”

Once finished, the men disposed of the beer bottles, slid the retractable door of the U-Haul down, and locked it before doing a final walk-through of the house and the property.

“You sure you have a pad waiting for you in Charistown?” Chris asked, even though he’d heard the plan Danny and Julie had discussed several times during the past few weeks.

Grinning, Danny allowed his buddy to worry the way he would have if the tables were reversed. “Yeah, man. We have a small apartment rented on a month-to-month basis until we can get the lay of the land. When we went up there a couple of weeks ago, we realized it’d be a mistake to buy a place without living in the area first. So we’re gonna throw our shit into storage until we find the right home. There’s no rush. Not running from anything, Chris, just starting over.”

From the moment Danny had laid eyes on Charistown, he knew exactly what Chester had meant when he referred to it as a “gem of a town.” Julie had felt it too. Tranquility floated through his veins as they drove down Main Street, and he knew without a doubt, starting over in that town couldn’t be more right.

“Have you decided on a name for the bar yet?”

The earnest concern in Chris’s question made Danny grin as he pulled the front door of the house closed for the final time. After yanking the key from the lock, dropping it into an envelope, and handing it to Chris, who would pass it off to the realtor in the morning, Danny answered the question.

“No. Haven’t come up with a name…yet.” The two men climbed into the U-Haul and buckled up before Danny continued. “Know this might not make a lick of sense to you, but Jules and I are at a point where we may be grateful for our blessings, but we sure as shit don’t count ‘em before we got ‘em.”

Chris’s stare told Danny that his friend almost understood but hadn’t quite caught it, so Danny went deeper. “We named two babies that we never held, brother. That shit ain’t right. So we’re just gonna wait and see which of the properties we end up with. Chester’s guy was still on the fence when we were up there, so we looked at a couple other locations. Once our name is on the deed, the transaction complete…we’ll name that bitch with pride and scream it out loud. Till then…we’ll stay unattached to anything but each other.”

“Understood.” Chris nodded. And Danny knew his friend did.

When discussing whether or not moving to another state was really the right thing for them, Danny and Julie had discussed their current jobs as well as their dreams of owning a bar. That had always felt like a long-term goal, something to achieve after children and college tuition, but when the structure of their family changed, so did their goals. One evening, over too many cocktails and not enough carbs, their motto became “Go Big or Stay in Baltimore.” With plenty of money in their savings account and years of business and bar experience between the two of them, they decided to follow their passion…they were going big.

They realized, during their visit to Charistown, that more important than finding the perfect place to lay their heads was finding the best place to pour their beers. From that minute forward, the search shifted and the real fun began. Of course, Chester had some choice words when Danny called from Pennsylvania to tell him that his friend was waffling on the property, but when Julie got on the phone and calmly explained that other places were equally as appealing, the older man calmed down. Danny still smiled every time he thought of the call Julie had received the following Monday from the realtor, claiming Chester’s friend was not only ready to sell but his asking price had dropped. However, they hadn’t been lying when they’d said they were interested in other places.