Since Abigail was back from Denver, she and Emily promised to hold the fort with the kids, but it still made Del feel a bit guilty when on the Saturday morning they’d decided to leave, Wyatt hung to his neck like a lifeline.
“It’s gonna be okay, bud, we’ll be back before you know it.”
Harper, who was hugging the life out of Justin, asked for the third time, “When will you be back?”
“Next weekend. It’ll take time to get there and organize everything. Remember we promised to video call you just so you can see your rooms,” Justin reminded patiently, hugging her back and smiling at Del.
“We’ll be fine here! So many things to do next week. We can start on the pumpkin carving and surprise Del and Justin when they get back!” Emily enthused, making Wyatt’s wobbly little smile turn into a more genuine one.
“Yes! And I’m going to help you look for costumes,” Abigail promised.
Wyatt looked puzzled, which made Harper flush and look away from everyone. “We never went trick or treatin’ before,” she explained. “He doesn’t know why we’d dress up.”
Abigail blinked rapidly, then announced in a rough voice, “This is going to be your first year then. And next year, it’ll be in your new house, and it’s going to be even better!”
Del needed to get them on the road before they could get a conversation going.
“Okay, we’ll go now. You guys have fun with Abigail and Emily. Be good and make awesome jack-o’-lanterns.”
He kissed all the kids on the forehead and gave them hugs, and retreated to the car before he could start crying. It hit him that he hadn’t been apart from the kids for this long since he’d met them, and it was obvious in the way Emily looked at him that she knew where his mind had just gone.
“We’ll be great! Let’s go inside, it’s starting to rain!” she announced and herded the little ones into the house.
Justin hopped into the passenger’s seat and Del started the engine.
“Okay, ready?”
“Yeah, let’s do this,” Justin replied, patting the bag on the seat next to them where his medications and snacks for the first leg of the trip were.
They’d decided to drive to Reno on the first day, stay overnight in a motel, and then drive to the new house the next day. It split the drive to around eight or nine hours in each stretch, and seemed reasonable as far as experiments went.
The fact that they both had driver’s licenses and Justin’s fingers were fine with driving Del’s automatic transmission car, meant they could share the burden of the actual driving.
When they’d made the plans for the trip one night in bed, they’d pondered on going through Las Vegas instead. Sure, it was only a week from their conversation in Del’s study, but he’d still joked that maybe they’d drive back through Vegas and get hitched.
Justin had laughed at him and said something about being married by Elvis wasn’t his idea of romance and then Del had proceeded to show him romance. Twice.
* * * *
Sitting in the car for nine hours with some breaks in between emphasized just how much there was still to learn about one another. Sure, since the Steve incident, they’d been in the house together almost non-stop, but it wasn’t the same with other people around.
They went back and forth, asking each other random questions like favorite childhood cartoon and if you only had to eat one thing for the rest of your life what it would be. Then Justin looked up some relationship compatibility quiz online and they did about an hour of different variations, including some really scary one that had a reputation for breaking people up.
Del found it amazing how compatible they seemed to be. It was funny and weird to believe such quizzes, but they really did agree on the important questions about relationships and how to raise the kids together.
Unsurprisingly, it was Del’s taste in music that made Justin laugh the most.
“I’m nineteen, Del, and we have the same exact taste in music!” he hiccupped between bouts of laughter.
“I’m young at heart, what can I say,” Del sniffed, and made Justin crack up even more.
Justin cackled and wiped tears of laughter from his cheeks. “That’s one way to put it!”
Right then, he was the most beautiful thing Del had ever seen. 21
Moving week was hectic as hell. It wasn’t just a simple matter of bundling the kids into the car and driving to California. Del had a bunch of furniture for starters, stuff he wanted to take to the new house, and it was a little too much for a U-Haul so they’d hired movers. Even with the movers, there was still so much stuff to pack that Justin hadn’t even thought about before: linen and cutlery and everything from the bathrooms, and he also had to be careful not to pack anything they might need immediately at hand—he’d learned that lesson when Wyatt, being helpful, had packed all of Scarlet’s diapers.