Login with:

Facebook

Twitter

Tumblr

Google

Yahoo

Aol.

Mibba

Your info will not be visible on the site. After logging in for the first time you'll be able to choose your display name.

Through All the Dust

Chapter Forty-Five: Before You Go

“Look!” I insisted at Brian, demanding that he watch as I kick and twirl my leg around.
He nodded sarcastically at me, “Very nice.”
“It’s never going to get old,” I beamed happily, admiring the shape of my knee.
It had been two weeks since I’d had my cast removed and the allure had not worn away. Something about being completely mobile and independent again was nothing short of an aphrodisiac. I still hadn’t worked up the courage to drive again, but the time was coming to go out and invest in a new vehicle. Brian had convinced me to let the Camaro go—despite my serious objections.
“Speaking of getting old,” Brian grinned. “Someone has a birthday coming up.”
I shifted my gaze away from my beautiful leg and up toward Brian, shaking my head defiantly, “Who?”
“You,” he groaned.
“Do not,” I argued like a child.
He rolled his brown eyes at me, “Are we not celebrating this year?”
“Do we celebrate any year?” I asked seriously.
“I think we should,” he told me. “It’ll be the last chance to all be together before everyone hits the road.”
He wasn’t wrong. It would be the longest I’d been away from the guys since their last tour, which felt like an eternity ago. Granted, my tour was only four months long and in the grand scheme of things, that was mildly irrelevant to my life. But—
Wait.
“Everyone?” I finally caught confusedly.
He smiled faintly, “Yeah…We talked it over and—”
“You’re going out?” I gasped loudly, with far more excitement than was acceptable.
He breathed a yes.
I leapt from the couch and into Brian’s lap, wrapping my arms around his shaking head and excitedly cheering about what a good choice he was making. And it was. There was nothing more relieving than to hear your future husband decide to continue living his life.
“When do you go?” I asked, pulling away just enough to look at him.
“October.”
“October what?” I asked curiously, pulling up my own mental tour calendar.
He shrugged, “Not sure yet. It’s a tentative date—not sure where we’ll be opening the tour from either.”
“Okay,” I sighed. “Well…When you know, let me know.”
“You’ll be there, right?” he asked.
“Of course,” I assured him, pulling his head into my chest once more. “I’m so happy for you!”
“You’ll be a quarter of a century soon,” Brian grumbled from within my tee.
“Don’t remind me,” I scoffed bitterly.
I was a typical woman—the idea of aging made my skin crawl. Probably with wrinkles and crow’s feet. Every year I would brush my birthday under the rug and hope that no one would notice. Most years, they didn’t. They’d make the realization after my birthday had already passed, at which point it would be too late to acknowledge it without risking my jaded wrath. It was the perfect system.
But this year, Brian didn’t feign forgetfulness. Our birthdays were exactly ten days apart, my birthday sitting almost perfectly center to his and Matt’s. We were the July babies but their birthdays, thankfully, always overshadowed my own.
“It’s worth celebrating,” Brian insisted with a smile.
I grunted, “Tell you what. I’ll agree to a party, but only if it’s a triple birthday. It has to be a joint party or I will not attend.”
“You won’t attend?” Brian asked flatly.
“That’s right.”
“Fine,” he laughed. “I’ll run it by Matt.”
“I would assume it’ll be here,” I questioned but it came out more like a statement. “You know, since we all apparently live together now.”
Matt’s presence startled me. He tossed his car keys into the glass bowl and headed straight for us.
“I heard that,” he grinned down at me.
“Good,” I retorted cheekily.
“I’ll have you know, I’m going to check out some houses today,” he told me matter-of-factly. “The annulment was granted this morning. I am officially free to move on with my life!”
Matt had been reluctant to sell or purchase any real estate, for fear that he’d be forced to divorce Victoria and ultimately split his assets with her. She’d signed a prenuptial agreement but it wasn’t exactly worded in Matt’s favor. But since the annulment was granted, Matt officially owed her nothing.
Still, though, he had made it clear that he could never live in the home they’d shared—even if it had been his house long before she’d moved in.
“That’s awesome! Congratulations!” Brian and I cheered in unison.
“Thanks,” Matt smiled. “It’s a fucking relief.”
“I bet,” Brian smirked, pushing me out of his lap and climbing to his feet. “Thank god that bitch is gone.”
Matt nodded, “No shit.”
Brian disappeared through the kitchen, assumedly to go out back and smoke.
“When you finally decide to date again,” I said to my friend, “can you please date her for more than a year before you marry her?”
He laughed, “Good tip, B.”
“When are you going to look at houses?” I asked curiously, briefly checking my phone for a new text from Lauren.
It wasn’t anything particularly important or exciting.
“I just came home to change,” he told me casually.
“Can I come?” I asked pleasantly.
I loved house hunting—mostly when it wasn’t for myself. Something about real estate was wildly exciting to me, I think in another life I could have been a real estate agent. That sounded, to me, like the world’s coolest job.
Way cooler than my job.
“Sure,” Matt shrugged. “Can you be ready to go in five?”
“I can!” I nodded. “I’m just going to go have a quick smoke and tell Bri I’m leaving.”
Matt smiled at me, “Meet you back here in five.”
I walked out to the back, admiring my steps as they maintained themselves without aid. It seriously hadn’t grown old. Brian was just finishing his smoke when I came traipsing through the back door. I snatched his pack from the patio table and stole his lighter from his shirt pocket.
“Come out here with nothing but a habit?” he teased.
“Smokes taste better when they’re someone else’s,” I told him. “Everyone knows that.”
“Is that right?” he laughed lightly.
I sat myself in the chair next to him, watching the pool as it rippled in the breeze. It was the little things like that that I would miss most of all while I was gone.
“I’m going to go house hunting with Matt,” I told Brian as I lit my cigarette.
“Why do you love real estate so much?” Brian chuckled quietly.
I shrugged.
“Should we move?” Brian asked curiously. “Then at least you’d be invested in the purchase.”
“Why would we move?” I retorted. “I love our house.”
“I guess we wouldn’t.”
“I was thinking though,” I thought aloud. “While we’re on the subject of purchasing houses…”
I paused, unsure of how to pitch my plan to Brian without flipping him out. He sized me up, both curiously and impatiently. I took a long, long haul of my cigarette.
“Well,” I finally sighed. “I’m thinking of flying to Massachusetts next week.”
He nodded slowly, “Okay…”
“And I think it’s time,” I told him vaguely.
“Time for what?”
“To retire the Brody’s,” I said as coolly as I possibly could.
He narrowed his eyes at me.
“I have a plan,” I continued. “I’m going to tell them that I’m looking to buy a second place back home for when I come to visit—”
“But you hardly visit,” Brian noted.
I shrugged, “Semantics, Bri. Semantics.”
“Uh huh.”
“Anyway, if I sneak around under that guise, then Marge will help me pick a house that she loves…and I’ll buy it…for her.”
“Is now really the best time for that?” Brian asked cautiously.
“Yes,” I said firmly. “I have the money, Bri. Especially for a house in Lenox, where real estate is dirt cheap.”
“I know you have the money,” he sighed. “It isn’t really about that. I just meant that we’re about to get married, and then we’re both leaving…Are you sure it’s a good time to start piling on extra stress?”
“Yes,” I said again. “I want to know that they’re taken care of. Flying back and forth for all this wedding shit must be costing them a fortune…And you know they’ll never ask for help. This is my way of helping. No more mortgage, no more debt.”
“Okay,” he smiled. “You do what you need to do, Blair.”
“I will,” I sneered cockily.
Matt tapped at the glass behind us, gesturing to his invisible watch once I’d turned to look at him. I laughed, nodding at him and then spinning around to take one last big drag of my smoke before smashing it into the ash tray.
“Good talk as always, Haner,” I told Brian formally.
He laughed, “You’re so fucking weird.”
“Love your dumb face,” I smiled, kissing him quickly on the cheek before dashing into the house.
Matt was just grabbing his things, plunking aviators over his hazel eyes. I grabbed my own sunglasses, which I’d inherited from Jimmy and were wildly too large for my face but I loved anyway, and followed Matt out the front door. We climbed into his car and sped off toward his future.
“Hey, Matty?” I sang.
He looked over at me, “What’s up?”
“If we have some time later,” I fidgeted with my hands, “could we go check out a car?”
“A car?” he asked confusedly.
I hesitated, “Yeah…Someone’s selling a car and I want to go check it out. Unfortunately, I don’t know the first thing about cars.”
“Why didn’t you ask Bri to take you?” he quizzed.
“Because…”
“Blair,” Matt pried with a laugh.
“Every time I mention driving he gets super edgy,” I explained with a groan. “So, I can only imagine what he’d say if I told him I was looking at buying a new car.”
Matt smiled sympathetically, “I mean…You did almost die in a car crash, Blair.”
“Really? I almost forgot,” I joked callously.
“Where’s the car?” he asked curiously, taking a sharp left.
“Newport.”
He nodded to himself, “Yeah, sounds good.”
“Thanks,” I smiled at my hunky friend.
“Thanks for giving me a home for the last…long time,” he laughed.
“You’re a nice sub-in for Jimmy,” I told him affectionately. “I’ll miss you when you move out.”
He looked back to me for a second and smiled, “I’ll miss you too…But I’ll come visit. Your pool is too good to give up.”
“It is a good pool,” I agreed happily, turning my attention to the window.
“We’re headed to the PCH,” Matt told me. “What do you think of condos?”
“Who are you, James Sullivan?” I teased.
He nodded, “I’m the sub-in.”
“No condo for you,” I said seriously. “You need a house—and a neighbourhood.”
“The PCH is a neighborhood.”
“No,” I argued lightly. “The PCH is a highway, Matthew.”
“Fair,” he relented with a satisfied laugh. “Let’s check it out anyway.”
I agreed, mostly because it wasn’t my life. But Jimmy was the only one that had moved that far south—not that it was exactly far. We all lived within ten minutes of each other by car. Zack was a five minute walk from us.
“Besides,” I added thoughtfully. “The PCH is too far from our house. You need to move next door.”
He grinned, “That’s maybe a little too close.”
“Maybe,” I laughed.
“But there is one across from the high school,” he told me happily. “We’re checking it out next.”
The high school was just down the street from Brian and I. I adored our neighborhood and never wanted to leave it.
“Main?” I asked curiously, mapping out landmarks in my mind.
He nodded, “Two houses down from Barb and Joe.”
“Jesus,” I snickered quietly. “That is close.”
I didn’t even need to see it. I knew that the condo would be a no go…and I was pretty certain he’d end up on Main. I could deal with Main. It wasn’t down the hall, but it was just down the street—and in the warm California air, it was a nice walk.
The reality, though, was that I didn’t really want Matt to leave. I teased him relentlessly about how long he’d been with us and how he’d overstayed his welcome, but it was all a ruse. He was the world’s best roommate, and we’d grown incomparably close since he’d moved his bags into my guest room. He really was like a sub-in, but just not quite up to snuff. He was a close second though.
I attributed my reluctance to his leaving to another weird complex that I’d developed from all of the loss in my life. I’d started gripping onto the people I loved and was constantly anxious about something happening to sever us. Matt was no exception. But, I think Brian felt it too. Brian was happy to have Matt around, even at the cost of our privacy. We’d lost one too many friends as a collective and had essentially formed a metaphoric protective circle around one another.
So, naturally, I needed Matt to continue to reside inside that circle.
We pulled into an elaborate set of buildings set up directly along the Pacific Coast Highway. When the engine was silenced and we could still hear the buzzing of traffic, we gave each other a knowing look.
“That’s a nope,” Matt declared with a laugh, starting the car up again.
Back up to the circle we went.


Notes

Aw, Shair.

xx

Comments

Fyction's profile is currently offline due to sign-in issues on the website.
You can find her updates at:
www.A7Xfanfic.com

RamonaFoREVer RamonaFoREVer
6/18/19

@Jenny117
T-Minus one hour!! The wait is almost over!! :)

fyction fyction
5/6/19

Scared yes but still extremely excited

Jenny117 Jenny117
5/6/19

I am so ready for the next one!!!!!!!!!!

Jenny117 Jenny117
5/6/19

@Buggaloo
Me too!! Nervous excited .. but excited!!

fyction fyction
5/6/19