While GK was home on leave in May, we had a serious talk about my revisions to my estate plan. I didn't have a shit-ton of IP when I had the original plan drafted shortly before GK was born.
Of course, the discussion woke up the Muse Hamster and she started running furiously, playing connect the dots. At one point over the last couple of years, we faced the prospect of Grandpuppy staying with us if GK was assigned to an overseas post. What happened if I outlived both DH and GK? What if I ended up with both dogs? What the hell would I do with both DH and GK's car collections? Would I stay in our current house?
So I'm going to let y'all see the first chapter of the Unnamed Project. I'd really like to know if you want more.
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Grief filled Robin Holloway as she shoved the cashier’s check into her shorts pocket. The heat on her concrete driveway seeped through the soles of her canvas slip-ons even though the sun touched the roof on the house at the end of the block. She stood and stared as the new owner of her son’s Mustang drove down the street. He revved the engine in the quiet suburban Ohio neighborhood. She could feel Jo wince when the new owner ground the gears at the stop sign, but he managed to turn right without stalling the little blue sports car. All she had left was turning the keys over to her realtor first thing tomorrow morning.
“Would you please consider getting a room at the hotel for tonight?” Jo ran a hand over his buzzcut. “I don’t like you staying here by yourself.”
She looked up at her old law school buddy. Jo looked nearly the same as he did when he wrestled in college though he was starting to develop at little pudge around the middle, but then, she couldn’t point fingers. All the running, not to mention walking the dogs, hadn’t stopped the cottage cheese on ass and thighs. Ah, the joys of hitting the half-century mark.
He’d been gracious enough to leave his bar in the care of his partner Wesley and fly out from Oregon for the last two months to assist her with the garage sale and the other miscellaneous details of Ross and Austin’s deaths. And he had been a huge help. There were days the anguish had wrapped itself in a cocoon so tight she couldn’t breathe, much less think.
“It’s the last night in my home. I’m staying here with my family,” Robin said.
“Are you punishing yourself by sleeping on that ratty old air mattress?” he retorted.
Another pang rattled her. Austin had been six when she and Ross bought the air mattress. He desperately wanted a sleepover with Dominic, the new boy who had moved in across the street. That had been two states and twenty-five years ago. Dominic had been one of the officers who knocked on her front door with the news about Austin.
“Why are you nagging me?” she asked.
“Because I don’t want to come over in the morning and find you—” Jo cut himself off and glared at the two-story house across the street from her brick ranch.
At least, it was hers for another eighteen hours.
“What did you think I was going to use?” she snapped. “I sold all Ross and Austin’s guns.”
“There’s the leashes,” he shot back.
Robin threw back her head and laugh. Mainly because the idea she’d commit suicide was so ridiculous. She and Austin hadn’t adopted Freya and Thor for them to end up back in a shelter.
“Would you abandon Happy that way?” She raised her right eyebrow.
“Okay. Fine.” He threw his hands in the air at the mention of his precious Persian cat. “I’ll stop. Can I please drive you to the bank to deposit the cashier’s check and then to a restaurant for some dinner?”
“You just want to drive the Challenger one more time,” she teased.
“Oh, no, honey,” Jo said. “I get to drive it to the airport tomorrow after the closing, too.”
“If you want to drive it that bad, why didn’t you buy it?”
“Because it’s purple!”
“Plum Crazy is a color Dodge has been using since the seventies,” she protested.
“Okay, I told you to keep it because you need to learn how to have fun.” He grinned and elbowed her in the bicep. “You used to know how. I mean, how many nights did we close Rick’s Place while we were in school?”
“Drinking is not conducive to driving a muscle car,” she said dryly.
“Go get your purse. I’m starving.” He pointed at the door between the garage and the rest of the house.
She marched into the garage, but Freya’s high-pitched yips made her jog the rest of the way to the door and yank it open. Freya abruptly stopped barking at the sight of Robin. Her Morkie had been chasing Austin’s German Shepard and Staffordshire terrier again. And with no other furniture, Freya treed the wussy giant dog on top of the kitchen’s granite breakfast bar.
Robin groaned and rubbed her forehead while Jo snickered behind her. “Thor, get off the counter.”
The huge black dog flicked his ears before he glanced nervously at Freya.
Robin snapped her fingers and pointed at the hardwood floor. “Get down.”
At her raised voice, Thor lost control of his bladder. Jo laughed so hard he had to hang onto the refrigerator to stay upright. Freya danced backward as urine poured off the granite and onto the hardwood. Thor jumped down, pee trailing after him as he raced past the humans and out the open door.
“Thor!”
“I’ll get him.” Jo still chuckled as he grabbed Thor’s leash.
Robin glared at Freya. “Why do you torture him?”
The Morkie sneezed before she trotted over to her little pink and white bed in the family room and flopped in it.
“Or is it me you like to torture?” Robin crossed to the cleaning supply closet, yanked open the door, and grabbed a roll of paper towels. Thank goodness, she always left paper towels, a bottle of hand soap, and toilet paper for the new residents of the apartment or house she was leaving. Finding things you needed in the middle of a move was a pain in the ass.
She cleaned up Thor’s mess while Jo played ball with the dog in the back yard to wear him out. Maybe Jo was right. Maybe she was crazy for roadtripping across the country with two dogs and the ashes of her son and husband in a muscle car. But there was nothing left for her here.
Yeah, one last family vacation felt like the right thing to do. Then she could decide what came next.
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