old is he?” Charlie asked.
“Eight,” Jack said.
It was hard to believe that Jack had a eight-year-old son, or that he’d been married nearly ten years. He and Jack had been friends since their freshman year at UC. Charlie had left Boulder after graduation, but Jack had stuck around to get his masters and then a doctorate. Now he taught mathematics at the university. “Could you stand another beer?” Charlie asked. “I don’t have to leave yet.”
He pushed to his feet and walked into the house. The interior of the three-bedroom bungalow brought back a flood of memories from his childhood. The last time he was in Boulder, he’d come to help his widowed mom get packed up to make her move to San Diego, to a condo near his sister’s place. He’d decided to buy the house from her and she’d given him an outrageously low price, considering the real-estate market in Boulder.
He’d intended to fix up the house and sell it, but he’d never gotten around to calling an agent. He’d met Evie and spent an entire month in bed with her. Had he known, somewhere deep inside, that he’d be back someday? That he’d want and need a place to call home?
Most of his belongings were scattered around the country, some in the attic here in Boulder, some in Chicago with his brother, and the rest in his mother’s storage locker at her condo. He lived out of a backpack and didn’t possess a single item larger than the rear cargo area of his ten-year-old Jeep.
This was the only place that felt like home. After his father had died when he was ten, his mother had been forced to sell the big house they’d lived in and rented the ramshackle bungalow on Tenth Street. Without any source of income, she’d gone back to school and got a teaching degree, while Charlie and his two younger siblings were left to fend for themselves. She’d scraped together enough to buy the home from their generous landlord and lived there until the last of her children had graduated from UC.
His sister worked at a large advertising agency in San Diego and his brother was a trader in downtown Chicago. Charlie’s profession, on the other hand, was best described as an adventurer-slash-writer. An after-school program in rock climbing had led to his interest in outdoor adventure and living in Boulder gave him plenty of opportunities to hone his skills as a climber.
Charlie snagged a few beers from the fridge, then grabbed a bag of chips he’d bought on a quick trip to the grocery store. Though the house had been shut up since the renters left six months ago, the cool breeze blowing through the open windows had carried away the last traces of musty air.
When he got back to the porch, he handed Jack a beer, then sat down on the plastic chair, kicking his feet back up on the porch railing. “Thanks for taking care of the house.”
“I thought you were planning to sell it.”
“I was. But it never seemed like the right time.”
“It’s kind of silly to keep it,” Jack said. “You’re never here. And it’s probably worth close to a million if you’d fix it up a little bit.”
Charlie shrugged. “I’m thinking of staying for a while. I’ll get a little work done around here, relax and—”
“Who is she?” Jack interrupted. “And what has she done to the Charlie Templeton I’ve always known.”
“It’s not like that. I’ve just been … reevaluating.” He took a sip of his beer, wondering how much he wanted to reveal. Hell, he wasn’t sure how he felt, but Charlie knew something had changed inside him. The circuit in his brain that had caused him to wander the world, searching for the next big thrill, had been switched off. “I was standing on top of Everest and I couldn’t believe it.”
“Man, that must have felt incredible.”
That was the problem, Charlie mused. It hadn’t felt incredible. But kissing Evie had. Just pulling her into his arms and feeling her warm, soft body against his had been … thrilling. Through all his adventures, he’d never felt that. Satisfaction, yes. Pride, of course. But nothing had matched that first kiss in the restaurant refrigerator.
“It didn’t,” Charlie said. “I’d achieved everything I’d ever wanted and it didn’t make me happy.”
“What are you, freakin’ crazy? You get paid to do stuff I can only dream about. You have no responsibilities. You decide you want to go surfing in Australia and you’re there the next day. Jenny and I have been planning to go to Banff for nearly a year and we still haven’t picked a date. Taking a family of four on a vacation is like planning a military invasion.”
“But you like it, right? The wife, the family. It’s all good?”
“Sure,” Jack replied. “I’m not saying it’s easy, or that every day is a disaster. Or that I don’t envy you on those nights when the kids are sick or when Jenny is mad about something. But I don’t know what I’d do if they weren’t in my life.”
“That’s the thing,” Charlie said, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees. “You’ve got someone, someone who cares that you walk in the door at night.”
“You have family,” he said.
Charlie shook his head. “It’s not the same. Family is required to love you. They don’t have a choice. Besides, they consider me the black sheep in the family. The sibling who never quite grew up. I want someone who needs me.”
“Jenny says men chase immortality. That’s why we look at younger women, why we’re afraid of commitment, why we get drunk and howl at the moon. She heard it in a movie and now, whenever I do something stupid, she says it’s because I fear getting old.”
Charlie frowned. “I don’t think about getting old.”
“Your dad died when he was thirty-six. You don’t ever think of that? I mean, you’re going to be thirty next year, right?”
“Shit, you’re right,” he muttered. “And no, I really didn’t think much about it until now.”
“Maybe that’s why you chase adventure,” Jack said.
“What are you, my shrink?”
“No, but I watch a lot of Dr. Phil when the kids are home sick.”
Charlie set his beer down and got to his feet. “I have to go.”
“What time is it?” Jack asked. “I told Jenny I’d be home by ten.”
“It’s close to eleven.”
Jack jumped up, wagging a finger at Charlie. “See, this is what I love about your life. I’m required to be in by ten and you’re just going out at eleven. You know, hooking up with a girl this late at night looks suspiciously like a booty call.”
Charlie frowned. “You think? I don’t want to give her the wrong idea. I’m not expecting a hook-up. Maybe I should call first.”
“That would make it worse,” Jack said. “Just tell her you were out for a walk. That would play much better if you had a dog. You can come over and borrow our dog.”
“You have a dog?”
“And two
