Chapter Text
Prologue:
“There you are! What took you so long?”
Fidgeting, Hero scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry, Kyle. I got caught at work.”
“Eh don’t worry about it,” Kyle insisted as he shrugged his shoulders with a lopsided grin. He patted Hero on the back as he ushered him into the house, then laughed as he took his jacket. “Nice scrubs.”
Hero sheepishly smoothed his hands across his shirt. These days, he spent most of his time in scrubs, so it was easy to forget he was wearing them. “Sorry,” he apologized again. “I didn’t have time to change.”
With a dismissive wave of his hand, Kyle laughed again. “You know I don’t care. I love scrubs—it’s like wearing pajamas to work every day, but what in the world happened to you? We got off at the exact same time—or at least we were supposed to.” Kyle tilted his head, and Hero shuffled his feet. It was easy to forget that Kyle knew all about his schedule now that they were working in the same orthopedic clinic. “I thought you took this outpatient job, so you’d have more time for yourself than you did in your residency. That’s not gonna work if you keep working after hours.”
Hero sighed heavily. “I know…but I got behind on some of my charting today and—”
“You work way too hard, Mama,” Kyle interrupted with a tut bringing up an old nickname that had somehow stuck around since their undergrad. “And you’re already like the busiest person I know. You need a break.”
“I’m fine. Please don’t worry.” Hero insisted, then chuckled lightly to himself. This conversation was all too familiar. He and Kyle must have had the exact same one at least a hundred times over the decade they had been roommates before Kyle had finally moved out and into this lovely house in the suburbs.
Kyle shrugged. “You know I don’t worry about anything, but you need a vacation. I think I’ll buy you one.”
“Oh you really don’t have to—”
Hero’s protests were promptly cut off by the frantic flurry of clip-clopping high heels, bouncing golden curls, a twirling sparkling tutu, high-pitched giggling, and an excited squeal of “Uncle Hero!”
He wasn’t really her uncle, only her godfather, but the title made him smile brightly as he scooped up Kyle’s daughter, Eloise, and she placed a tiara triumphantly into his unruly hair.
“Thank you, Ellie,” said Hero with a laugh as the tiara began to droop over his eyes. Eloise’s tiny brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to catch the crown, practically smacking Hero in the head with it as Kyle cackled in the background. Kyle only laughed harder as Hero reached up with his hand to try to affix the tiara to his head which, unfortunately, it seemed was much too big for a crown designed for toddlers. He looked at Eloise apologetically, but he couldn’t hold back his smile as he heard familiar laughter coming from a nearby doorway.
“You’ve finally got your crown, Mr. Prince.”
Hero stifled his laughter at another nickname it seemed he would never be able to outgrow, and Zoey leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms with a quirk of an eyebrow. Her voice was dry, but Hero knew her well enough after all these years to see the twitch of a smile in the corners of her mouth and that teasing sparkle in her green eyes as she added, “It suits you.”
Hero’s face grew warm. The fact he was blushing at Zoey’s recurring ‘prince’ joke after all this time was even more embarrassing than the joke itself. For a split second, he hoped she hadn’t noticed, but she knew him far too well for that. Hero was sure of it—even without her pointed flash of the engagement ring on her left hand as she raised it to her mouth to stifle her laughter.
Hero shrugged but smiled. Touché.
“I think it’s better for a princess,” he said as he gently nestled the tiara into Eloise’s blonde curls.
“I’m playing Cinderella,” Eloise explained. “You’ll be the prince for me—won’t you? Dad says you’re just like prince charming.”
Laughing, Kyle took his little girl from Hero and held her himself. “I said he was ‘basically prince charming,’” he corrected—clearly more for Hero’s benefit than for the understanding of his toddler. “Which he is.”
Before Hero could even begin to protest, a high-pitched voice laughed, “Oh he totally is!” followed by the excited footsteps of Lorraine sprinting through the doorway and practically jumping on him to squeeze him into a tight hug. It had always been her preferred method of greeting, but even after all of these years, it still surprised him, as did her unexpectedly tight grip for someone so dainty.
“My future brother, the prince,” she teased with a beaming smile, ruffling a hand through his hair before she turned to Eloise. “He’d be the perfect prince for your game, but he’s here to do some grown-up stuff, so he can’t play today.”
With a disappointed hum, Eloise pouted, “But Uncle Hero…” She blinked at him with big eyes and a pleading expression which reminded him a lot of her father’s. If Hero had to guess, she’d be just as persuasive as him someday—a troublemaker who somehow always managed to be earnest and look innocent, and just as Hero had always struggled saying no to Kyle, he struggled to say no to Eloise too. He almost wanted to say that he would play with her for a little while, but he had kept his friends waiting for so long already, so instead he sighed with a half-smile and said, “I promise we’ll play next time, okay?”
Eloise frowned—clearly not too pleased with the idea, but her face lit up into a bright smile when her dad said, “Hey, you wanna watch Cinderella on the big tv?” and led her off practically skipping up the stairs her plastic dress-up high-heels loudly clip-clopping all the way.
“Gotta keep an eye on our goddaughter,” quipped Zoey. “She’s dangerous. Before we know it, she’ll be roping her friends into who knows what—have them camping out in the middle of nowhere in an RV that had broken down on the side of the highway.”
Hero stifled a laugh. He hadn’t thought about that in years. Looking back, it was kind of amazing to think of the kinds of shenanigans he and his friends had gotten into back in college—all mostly thanks to Kyle and his hairbrained ideas. Truthfully, it was a little unbelievable seeing as they were all such responsible adults now: a teacher, a doctor, a speech therapist, two lawyers, an engineer, and a physical therapist. Nearly all of them married—some, like Kyle, with children who, in Eloise’s case, at least, for better or worse, seemed to be just like her dad.
“Ooh that reminds me,” interjected Lorraine. “I got out all my photo albums out for you to look at. Basil called me about pictures for some collage or wedding video or something, and you’re welcome to borrow any you want.” She clapped her hands with a smile. “I have an album from that trip, you know?”
“I still don’t know why you wanted to document that…” Shaking her head, Zoey sighed but shrugged. “Just don’t show Brandi, okay? I’m pretty sure she still calls it ‘the Road Trip from hell.’”
“Aww but it was the first time we all ever went on vacation together. It was so much fun!” Lorraine beamed, but her sister just shrugged. She quickly turned to Hero. “You want to see the pictures, don’t you, Hero?”
He could barely mumble a polite, “Um…sure, Lorraine” before she had dragged him through the doorway towards the dining room and kitchen where the rest of their friends were hard at work seemingly getting ready for dinner. C.J. and Tamra turned towards him with smiles and friendly greetings, but Brandi just huffed and crossed her arms.
“Well look who finally decided to show up.” She bristled, but Hero liked to think she happy to see him. Maybe… It was often difficult to tell with her.
“Finally,” C.J. repeated, though he sounded relieved rather than disgruntled. “We were about to cut our losses and order takeout. You know none of us can cook.”
“Hey,” huffed Brandi, but C.J. just smiled.
“You know I love you, but it was your idea to order takeout.”
Brandi frowned. “I didn’t mean me.”
“Well, I’m flattered,” Kyle interjected with a bright, smarmy smile as he walked in through another entrance. “But honestly, I think I could still burn a Pop-Tart.”
Brandi rolled her eyes, but paused glancing around, Hero could only assume, for Eloise, not wanting to insult Kyle in front of his kid. Even though the little girl was upstairs now, Brandi still just muttered a tame, “moron” under her breath and otherwise she pretended she hadn’t heard him and continued, “Lorraine is a pretty good cook, and Tamra’s still working on that lasagna.”
“Yeah…I think we should probably give up on the lasagna.” With a weary sigh, a particularly bedraggled Tamra chuckled somewhat sheepishly and wiped her floury hands on a stained apron. “We should not have tried to substitute the eggs when we ran out.” She shook her head but smiled at Hero with a shrug her shoulders, “I don’t think even you can rescue this one, Hero.”
“I think we should just order takeout,” huffed Brandi. “I’m starving.”
“And cranky,” quipped Kyle in a playful scold.
“You’re the one who invited people over for a dinner with no food.”
Kyle shrugged. “I thought Hero would cook for us—like the old days, but he was late.”
“I’m sorry, everyone.” Hero had lost track of how many times he had apologized, but he felt another apology was warranted. “I can whip something up right away.”
A gentle hand on his shoulder stopped him. “No,” said Zoey. “I’ll order some takeout. Don’t worry about it.”
“Kyle will order some takeout,” Brandi corrected. “Since this is his fault.”
Laughing, Kyle held up his hands in a sort of helpless surrender. “Okay. Okay.” He pulled a menu for a local Chinese restaurant off of his refrigerator. From it’s prominent placement amongst family photos and Eloise’s artwork, Hero could only assume that Kyle was a frequent customer. As Kyle began to pass the menu around to his friends, Lorraine placed a stack of photo albums on the table.
“We should look through some pictures while we wait for the food!” She smiled brightly handing an album with “Our First Road Trip” emblazoned on the cover to Hero. “Here’s the one we were talking about.”
“Oh no. Not that one,” complained Brandi, peering over Hero’s shoulder. “I had almost blocked that road trip from hell out of my memory.”
“Told you,” quipped Zoey with a chuckle, but Hero doubted she was heard by too many of their companions over Kyle’s very loud and very dramatic gasp of offense.
“Why would you want to do that? It was the best trip ever!”
From the looks that were being exchanged, Hero could tell that while none of them would likely go so far as Brandi to call their vacation the “road trip from hell,” no one agreed that it was anywhere near the “best trip ever.” The way Hero remembered it, everything that possibly could have gone wrong did. Starting from the first moment Kyle had pulled up the driveway of their fraternity house in a weathered, broken-down RV equipped with a gross carpet interior and peeling paint. His mouth twitched in the corners as he released that his truly unforgettable recreational vehicle had been immortalized forever as the first photo in Lorraine’s album.
Though Lorraine hadn’t gotten a photo of it, Hero could vividly picture the bright beaming smile on Kyle’s face as he had proudly declared he had had “the best idea ever” to use their plane ticket money in order to rent that hunk of junk RV on the somewhat fantastical notion that a road trip would permanently bond them, make them all “best friends forever” like in one of those coming-of-age sitcoms Kyle loved so much. Hero could distinctly remember Brandi huffing, “This isn’t ‘Saved By the Bell,’ Kyle” as if friendships that close were just a fantasy—something only found on TV.
Hero supposed that in a way, at that time, it was a sort of fantasy to him too—a distant dream that almost didn’t feel real. He had had friends like that once, but, back then, back when Kyle was masterminding that road trip, he couldn’t imagine ever having friends like that again.
It was strange thinking back to that time, now, after everything that had happened. In a way, he felt almost like a different person—like the young man who had driven that dilapidated RV all the way to Kyle’s family lake house wasn’t even him at all. That Hero could have never imagined that their ragtag group would still be in touch with each other after all this time, let alone such close friends. He could have never imagined that at the end of the road they’d someday all be gathering around the table to look through Lorraine’s photo album of that fateful road trip to find pictures for his wedding of all things.
Hero covered his mouth with his hand and laughed in spite of himself. It was truly unbelievable. Impossible. Even now, having reached this destination it almost didn’t feel real, but as Kyle had once said, some of the best journeys in life wind up at places you could never expect—that’s part of the fun!
In that way, Hero supposed it was impossible to ever really know what was waiting at the end of the road. After so many twists and turns in the winding dark, there was a future surrounded by friendship and love that he hadn’t believed he could ever have after losing Mari, that he hadn’t believed he deserved anymore.
But he had had no way of knowing that, had no way of knowing he could ever be happy again, just like he had no way of knowing that his Fall break vacation to Kyle’s family lake house would turn into a cross-country road trip he and his friends would never forget.