Teaser for Day Dreaming
Are we there yet?
H ands loosely on the wheel, Reed Whitney leaned with the turn and glanced in the rearview at his twelve-year-old. “You might want to put the book down before you get carsick.”
In the reflection, Aria met his look and held it long enough for him to appreciate the full power of her eye-rolling glower. Then she dropped the book and rolled down her window. Without a word, Reed lowered the rest of the windows, knowing she wouldn’t stoop so low as to admit to carsickness.
The forest thinned as they rounded the next corner, the sun welcoming them with its mighty brilliance. Reed flipped down the sun visor to reduce the radiance, his sunglasses not nearly adequate for the job.
At his side, Lucas mirrored and flipped his down, too. “Are we there yet?” Only half kidding in his whine, hopefully, the teenager on his right slumped in his seat.
Admittedly, Reed was thinking the same thing, but with very different feelings about it. He glanced over at his fifteen-year-old. “Almost. I’m not kidding this time.”
Lucas squinted ahead at the sign tucked into the dense evergreens. “Welcome to Foothills. Population 8,716. State champion football team, a few restaurants I’ve never heard of, oh, and one gas station. Damn, Dad, you really are hitting your midlife crisis.”
Subtly, Reed lifted his middle finger from the steering wheel.
As he’d hoped, his even-tempered eldest laughed, and he heard a snort of a laugh from the backseat.
“Thirty-one is not midlife,” he grouched, teasing, but knowing this may as well be exactly that.
“Mom said you guys went here on your honeymoon, and you’re making us spend the summer here out of nostalgia.”
Reed swallowed hard before he was too honest with his kids.
They’d endured enough of their parents throwing their dirty laundry at each other instead of airing it and walking away like they should have.
Any sense of nostalgia he felt for Foothills was blistered by the nightmare of a honeymoon.
His pregnant-with-their-second, eighteen-year-old wife had refused to leave the motel balcony.
His eighteen-year-old self had begrudgingly stayed by her side instead of hiking, rafting, fishing, shopping, dining…
anything in the town that was known for being the ultimate weekend getaway.
“The condos are a great investment. Nature is good for you. And, I can work from anywhere. Win, win, and win again.”
“Uncle Clay says it’s because Mom won the custody battle and you need a break, without losing any more days with us,” Lucas said, lifting one eyebrow and lowering his sunglasses at his father.
“No one won.” He shut his mouth and shook his head.
Thanks, Clay. But he wasn’t wrong, and Clay hadn’t sugarcoated it.
Neither should Reed. “Fine. She kicked my ass.”
Narrow driveways with kitsch mailboxes became closer together, until houses became visible through the trees.
Mid-century houses grew into a whiff of nineties suburbia, but quickly tapered into an eclectic mix of rustic alpine and updated northwest modern.
Small signs dotted the sides of the road, for shopping, politics, and even a handwritten notice of a knitting class.
Then the gas station. Bellevale residents would have an uprising over the discontinuity.
“I hate Bellevale,” he grumbled. “I’m going to make sure that your summer kicks ass. All the nature you could ever want.”
“And long car rides?” Aria’s wavering voice snorted from the back.
“You’re the idiot who read a book on a winding road,” Lucas said, turning around in his seat.
“Why do you always get the front?”
“My legs are longer.”
Reed puffed out his cheeks and released a long breath. “Aria, you’re not thirteen for another two weeks, and you have to be thirteen to ride up front. I made Lucas wait, too. After your birthday, you guys are alternating.”
“What? Dad, my legs are too long to squish in back,” Lucas started.
“If you don’t want to alternate, it’s up to you guys to think of a fair way to share. Race to the car and argue really loudly and push each other and see who makes it in first. You know, be your usual kind and generous selves.”
Lucas huffed a laugh and flicked his hair from his eyes to cast an epic mock, twinkling amusement in his ocean-blue eyes.
Instead of smiling over his dumb joke, Aria’s expression dropped. Reed glanced back, confirming that the slump had dragged down her entire body. “What’s up?”
“I’ll be with Mom on my birthday.”
“I know, cutie, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t call me cutie.”
“Sorry. Aria. I am so sorry I won’t get you for your birthday this year, but I will next year.
I got Lucas for his birthday this year, and Mom gets him next year.
Mom gets you for the Fourth of July this year.
I get you Thanksgiving. She gets Christmas.
” His own shoulders slumped as he remembered divvying the big days, how eventually, after losing every damn argument, he said fuck-it, and accepted the losses he couldn’t win.
Expression paling, Aria leaned into the wind gushing in through her open window and closed her eyes.
Reed reached into the center console and pulled out the puke bag he’d snagged from the doctor’s office at her last well child check and, without a word, passed it back.
Aria opened her eyes long enough to grab the bag and held it in her lap.
“Hey guys, look. Foothills is gorgeous. You’re going to love it,” he said, pointing ahead as they drove into the postcard-esque downtown Foothills.
Not exactly downtown, as Foothills was perched above the river and looked out over the mountains beyond.
Small, but adorable, with colorful buildings and wide sidewalks bustling with foot traffic.
Beyond the straight shot through the main drag, the Cascades towered ahead, the never-ending view of green and white mountains standing proud.
Neither of his offspring responded, but he could tell they were at least interested.
Eyes wide, they absorbed everything. It had changed a lot in the thirteen years since his honeymoon.
They passed a fifties-style diner, a clothing store that wasn’t supposed to be retro but probably hadn’t been updated in just as long.
A sporting goods store, a photographer, a family pub. Microbrewery. Bakery.
“See guys? Foothills has a little of everything.” It hadn’t taken more than the first visit with the developer’s team for him to know this was more than a practical investment.
And he hoped to hell the kids would agree. Giving up the summer here would be fucking devastating.
At the end of the busy, populated Main, Park Avenue came up on the right, and he clicked on his blinker.
Across the street from the condo, a grassy park was a shady retreat for picnickers and families looking for a place to chill before dinner.
Toddlers with the four o’clocks screamed as their tired parents tried to entertain them through the late-day crash.
He remembered those days vividly. At his side, behind him, two teenagers stared out the windows with slackened cheeks and tense shoulders after a long day that had started with packing up the empty, divorced-dad apartment. Maybe the four o’clocks endured past early childhood.
On the left was a row of three-story buildings with numbered garages set in a narrow sort of parking area.
He pulled in behind the second building.
519A. “Day Dreaming,” the condo was titled, as displayed on the carved wooden sign under the number.
Home sweet vacation home. He flicked on the blinker.
Rotating the wheel under his palm, he clicked the garage door opener and turned into the single-car garage.
“This is it?” Lucas asked, looking up and around, his brow scrunched with confusion.
“This is it,” Reed answered, slowing and stopping once he was in the garage, and shifted out of gear.
He shut off the engine and looked at both kids.
“Well, for the summer. It’s a great investment property, and, like all the other rental properties we bought with grandma, we can block out dates and stay here whenever.
Maybe even Thanksgiving, and block out one of the other units for Grandma and Grandpa?
If we love it, we could even make this a summer tradition. ”
“An entire summer in a tourist town? And you think you’re not having a midlife crisis?
” Lucas smirked deviously, a look Reed knew he’d inherited from yours truly.
Practically his clone, Lucas had the same sandy brown hair that lightened with highlights in the sun, the former towhead no longer the platinum he’d been as a little guy.
As wiry as Reed had been, Lucas was a growth spurt and at least three years away from filling out.
“Do you see me driving a convertible?” Reed asked, sporting the same smirk.
“Only because you dragged us to the middle of the mountains,” Aria huffed from the backseat. “Yet you bought the most belled-and-whistled reliable SUV, so Mom can’t say it’s not safe enough. Does that sum it up?”
Too smart. He nodded honestly. “Pretty much.” Reed piled out of the car and shut the door. He skipped their bags for now and tossed the keys up and bobbled them before catching them. “Let’s check it out.”
The door had an electronic keypad above the lock, and he reread the code from his email and punched it in.
Inside, the scent of new struck him. Echoes and cleanliness, no prior tenants to have even made a dent in the walls.
He hooked the keys on the rack inside the door, kicked off his shoes and slid them under the narrow bench, then led the way up the extra-long flight of dark walnut wooden steps.
Fully furnished, designed and done, the place was a perfect summer bachelor pad.
Fuck. Bachelor. Not the status he envisioned spending his thirties in.