Pomp And Circumstance [COMPLETE]

Chapter Ten

Darcy barely noticed the sigh of relief that slipped through her lips as the streets of Meriton flew past her. She watched through half-opened lids as the small rural Massachusetts town faded in the rearview of her family's SUV.

There was a hush over all five of them in the car that morning as most were barely awake. The only reason Henry could successfully merge onto the highway and direct the car east towards the city was due to the large cup of coffee sitting half-full in the center consul between himself and Lois.

The party the night before had ended promptly at eleven o'clock, per the agreement Charlie and Carson had made with Lois. However, despite Darcy's best efforts to clean up while she avoided mingling with the guests or getting sucked into another conversation with Eli that would once again expose a deeply insecure part of her personality, the clean-up process kept the whole household up until midnight.

It was Charlie's fault that Darcy was up until one. Darcy's fault too, in a way, since she couldn't stand the sight of her dear friend stressing over what to pack.

Charlie had been so overwhelmed with the party and her current standing with Jamie, with championships added on top of all of that, that packing had fallen to the bottom of the priority list until the night before they were due to leave for the city.

Darcy had a sneaking suspicion that Charlie had alerted Jamie to the fact that she would not only be absent from Meriton for the entire week of spring break but that she would also be going radio silent as she needed to focus on her competition and spending time with her family, all of that via text message at one in the morning.

The sleepy cloud slowly but surely dispersed with each mile that brought them closer to the city. By the time Henry reached the tunnels diving them underneath the city, all of them were up, alert, and peering out through the windows for the first sight of those towering buildings, reflecting the warmth from the early spring sunlight.

It was all hands on deck unloading the car outside Darcy's father's apartment building. Their car stood idle with its hazard lights on pull off to the side of a narrow one-way straight as every Bingley, Darcy and the doorman unloaded five people's worth of stuff needed to spend the week in the city.

Henry, Lois, and Charlie had five minutes total to dump their stuff off in the living room and head out for a breakfast banquet for all the teams competing at the scholastic decathlon, leaving Darcy and Carson to get things settled in.

The first thing Darcy did was open every window possible to let in the fresh air, even if it was the harsh wind of spring the raced past the twentieth story.

It was easy to tell that no one lived there, that no one had, in a very long time. The fridge was empty and turned off. The cabinets had spice jars that had expired the year before. And there was not a single token of family memorabilia to distinguish this apartment from any other staged for real estate showings.

Which made sense, as Darcy's father had put this apartment for sale just as he was preparing to leave the country indefinitely. It was Lois who had stepped in and told him to hold off, to remind him that his children might like to see where they were supposed to grow up one day. Now the apartment stood empty except for the rare occasions one of the Bingley family needed a place to stay in the city.

If Darcy's father was in town, he stayed with the Bingleys. He was never in town very long and so spent every second he was able to with Darcy and George. It was the very least he could do.

Darcy's phone pinged just as she was finished unloading the last of the groceries they had carted in with them. She nearly dove onto the couch to check her phone, her face breaking out into a wide smile at the alert that met her eyes.