Chance Of A Lifetime

In One Ear, And Out The Other

JULY 2022:

      "Whoa, where do you think you're going?" Ashley called out as he shifted the box he was carrying to a one-handed grip, and reached down to make a swipe between his ankles with the other. "Crap, somebody catch her before she gets out!"

      "No worries, I've got her," Aidan replied, tucking Sparrow into one arm as she trailed him from the foyer into the living room, a travel carrier in her other hand. "I don't think she was really trying to make a run for it, I think she's just trying to check out her new roomie."

      "You're probably right, but let's put 'em in the laundry room until we finish unloading the trailer, just to be safe," Ashley replied. "Cuz I'm pretty sure you don't want Charlie to decide he wants to go adventuring and wind up getting lost in unfamiliar territory."

      Nodding in agreement, she handed Sparrow to Ashley and followed him to the laundry room, placing the carrier on the floor next to the dryer. She flipped the latch and swung the door open, allowing Charlie to creep into the room, looking around curiously. He paused as he spotted Sparrow, so Ashley crouched down and scratched behind his ears, lowering Sparrow to the floor as he did. 

      Charlie gazed at the smaller cat, but didn't move as she inched closer, allowing her to sniff at his face, then doing the same to her before turning around and re-entering his crate, lying down with his chin resting on the lip of the door. Sparrow let out a faint "Meow", then jumped to the top of the crate and curled into a ball.

      "Well, at least neither of them seems interested in fighting the other, which is good," Ashley remarked. "So hopefully they'll manage to nap or something until we get everything inside."

     "Hey, where is everybody?" Aerin's voice called out from the front of the house. "The rest of the moving crew has arrived!"

      "Come on in, we'll be right there!" Ashley called back. He turned back toward the front of the house, while Aidan stopped in the kitchen to get some food for the cats. Placing the dishes next to the crate and closing the door, she returned to the living room to see that not only were Aerin and Bobby there, but that they had also brought Zak and Zoe along, each of them bearing a baby carrier containing one of their newborn siblings.

       "Hey there, chickie!" Aerin shrieked, flinging her arms around Aidan. "Nice to finally get this thing going, since y'all had to put it off for so damn long."

      This statement referred to Aerin's frustration over the circumstances that had delayed Aidan's move to Nashville for a full two months after she and Ashley had given their friends the news of both that and Aidan's pregnancy, the first of which they had encountered the day after she had revealed it to Ashley. They had gone back to Missouri to share the news with their families, and the first snag came from a text he received.

      This had been from Bret, letting him know that a couple of the dates for the summer tour he had committed to had been rearranged, and both he and Aidan's mother had immediately freaked out at the idea of her living alone in an unfamiliar city while he was hundreds, if not thousands of miles away. So, after a bit of discussion, they had come up with an alternative plan where Aidan had taken a transfer to a light-duty area at her workplace instead of immediately putting in her notice. This gave her the chance to save up some extra money, as well as more time to sort through her things and decide what to take along, and what to sell or give away. It had also become necessary to find other tenants to take over the lease on the duplex, rather than follow the original plan of Danny taking over Aidan's part, when Kyra had been offered a promotion at work that made it necessary for her to relocate to Springfield. 

      But things had finally been settled, and Ashley had chartered a plane a couple of days previously to take him to the small airport just a few miles from Aidan's so he could help her nephews with loading the U-Haul trailer, and so she didn't have to make the eight-hour drive from Missouri to Tennessee alone while trying to pull the unaccustomed load behind her car. He had called Aerin as they reached the outskirts of Hendersonville, where the house was actually located, so the Dall's had arrived only minutes after Aidan and Ashley, ready to help with the unloading, and bearing Papa Murphy's pizzas to stash in the refrigerator until everything had been put in its place.