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“I…flirting, no. I don’t even know how to do that.”
She waved her arm toward Trisha’s retreating car. “That. You guys smiling at each other like that and the quiet voices you used to say goodbye. She put her hand on your arm.”
“Oh.” His brow rose as he thought about that. “Well then, yes. I guess we were flirting.” He let out a quiet, pensive hum and started off to the front door. “I think we should celebrate. Where’d you put that bottle of wine you found in the basement?”
“In the cabinet above the stove,” she said, meaning to follow her father, but her mother’s little gray sedan pulled up in the driveway. She’d taken Gavin shopping for everything he’d need for school. The back seat was filled with bags.
“Hey,” Carol said, getting out from behind the wheel with a wave. “It’s really happening, huh?”
Phil reversed course and headed over to her. “Hey, Carol. Didn’t expect to see you.”
“When Sam told me the Realtor was coming over today, I thought I’d say my goodbyes.” She tipped her chin in the direction of the house as Gavin came around the hood of the car to stand with them. She looped her arm around his shoulders then waved Sam over to hold her hand. “Feels…big, you know?”
Phil nodded, and Sam’s eyes stung with tears.
“We were going to go in to have a glass of wine,” he said to Carol. “Would you like to join us?”
Sam’s parents weren’t often in the same room together, so it shocked her when her mother smiled. “Sure. Why not?”
“Can I have some?” Gavin asked, trying on a guileless puppy-dog face, and Sam let out a dubious huff. They’d never in a million years.
Yet, in another surprising turn of events, her parents looked at each other, exchanging some silent conversation, before her father gestured to the house.
“Yeah. A little.”
Sam sputtered a watery laugh as her parents and brother walked into the house through the garage door, while she stayed back, staring at the For Sale sign, the bright-red background and white letters impossible to miss. The house she grew up in would no longer be the place she called home. Her brother was off to college in a few weeks, and she would be living the farthest away from her family that’d she’d ever been. Although she had never been afraid to leave the nest and chase her dreams, this all did feel very…big.
The For Sale sign made everything different.
With a deep breath, Sam pushed her hair back from her face and made her way into the house, settling in the kitchen, where her parents and brother were already seated, an open bottle of red wine between them.
Gavin had a sip and cringed, and everyone laughed, including Sam as she slipped into the last open chair at the round table that had been there since she was a kid. Then she poured herself a healthy glass, laughed some more at Gavin, held her mom’s hand, and listened to her parents reminisce. Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was that this was a kind of ending, but for over two hours, they were a happy family once again, around their little table for the last time.
By the time Carol backed out of the driveway with a few honks of her horn, Sam was feeling threadbare enough to text Mike.Can we talk?
It took a few minutes for him to message back, although when he did, it was with more than she expected.Do you want to go for a walk?
Meet you out front.
She tucked her phone away in her back pocket and called Eddie. He’d gotten used to his daily walks with Sam, but lately, she hadn’t paid much attention, and now that she was jingling the leash in front of him again, he pranced on his hind legs. Long time, no see.
“Come on, you big lug,” she said, leading him out the front door.
“You talking to me?”
Sam lifted her attention from the dog to Mike, where he stood a few feet away. And it was one more thing to make her chest ache, seeing him there with his baseball cap on, his head tilted slightly at an angle, his gaze taking in every inch of her as if to make sure she was all right.
“Hi,” she said, having trouble regulating her emotions. She must have drunk more than she thought.
“You all right?”
She didn’t get to answer because Eddie ran out ahead, jerking her forward so that Mike had to steady her when she fell off the step.
“You good?” he asked with his hand gripping her upper arm. She nodded, but as he started to move away, she shook her head.
“Please,” she said, her voice catching.
He stepped close enough that the heat from his body and the smell of his soap comforted her. “Peaches,” he said, so low even that made her want to cry. “What’s wrong?”
