Once we were inside the guest room, Charlie put his bag on the floor and embraced me. It was sudden and almost knocked me over. He kissed my cheek and under my ear and tried burrowing his face into any corner of my neck he could find, his body getting heavier and heavier, until I was holding him up with my shoulder. I heard him start to cry. "Woah," I said. "What's this?"

"I had no idea where you were," he said again, holding onto me as if I was fading.

"I'm right here." I lifted his face with my hands and wiped his tears.

Although we had briefly discussed my disappearance over wine in the kitchen, we couldn't talk freely with Darren there. Instead, we filled Charlie in on everything that had happened and Charlie, in turn, answered all of Darren's million questions––how did you meet, what do you do, when was your last home renovation? We must have been down there for hours.

"I think I had too much to drink," Charlie said. He was unsteady in the bedroom and his eyes searched for mine, swaying to an imaginary song.

"Let's get you into the bed."

I walked Charlie over and helped him lie down. Once he was on his back, I removed his shoes and pants. I sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his hair. His eyes were closed, his mouth open. He was fighting sleep.

"I'm sorry," I said. I couldn't say it enough. I must have said it a hundred times in the kitchen. I was going to have to say it to everyone.

I took off my own clothes and got in bed next to Charlie. I turned the light off and unlocked my phone. I scrolled through each How are you? and Is everything ok? text. I made sure to respond to every message. Sorry, my phone has been off. Everything is ok here in PA. We buried my brother today. Talk soon.

I didn't include the fact that I had missed the burial, my two-year-old nephew was recovering from a fever, and my boyfriend, who I hadn't spoken to in almost a week, drove five hours to find out if I was dead too.

Then there was a knock at the door. I was halfway through my tenth text when I saw Darren peeking through the crack. The light from the hallway sliced through the darkness of the bedroom. I looked up from my phone, my face illuminated by the blue of the small screen in my palm.

"Is everything ok in there?" Darren whispered.

I got out of bed as quietly as I could and shooed Darren into the hall. "Charlie's sleeping," I said. "What's up?"

"I just wanted to check on you guys." We had said goodnight maybe twenty minutes before. It had been a struggle to get Charlie upstairs. And then, "Why didn't you mention him?"

I realized I was in my underwear and tried to subtly pull my shirt down a little. "I honestly don't know. I was preoccupied and overwhelmed. I wasn't myself. It's been a long week."

Darren stepped forward. The house was quiet with everyone else asleep. "I thought..." He trailed off. He looked below my eyes and then at the wall.

"What?" I asked.

He was swaying to the same imaginary song as Charlie. "Am I the only one who can hold their liquor?" I asked, turning Darren around and guiding him to the end of the hall.

"I don't drink," he said. He burped. And then he tripped over his burp.

"Be quiet," I said. "Noah and Charlie are sleeping."

Darren, very loudly, said, "Shhhhhhhhhhh."

I opened the bedroom door at the other end of the hall and guided Darren inside. We were about halfway to the bed when he stopped in his tracks. I almost fell from the sudden change in momentum.

"This is their room," Darren said.

I was so determined to get him into the first available bed, I didn't even realize where we were headed. We both looked around at the room. The shades were still open, the moon shining in. We could see everything clearly. The hamper was overflowing in the corner, makeup was scattered across the top of the dresser, and Phil's wedding ring was on his nightstand, the silver band catching the light coming in through the window.

I went to the nightstand and held up the ring, inspected it. "I didn't even realize he wasn't wearing it today. I mean, the body. I mean... Why did he take it off?" I looked at Darren, who always had all the answers. I wondered if it was more of a burden to be the one who knows everything or the one who doesn't.

He sat down on the bed, and then quickly rose when he realized he was on their bed. "He probably took it off for work and forgot," Darren said. "Theresa was always on him about it. He broke a few on the job."

With Darren about to topple over, it was a problem for another day. I put the ring back on the nightstand. "Get back in the bed," I said to Darren, but he refused. It was like having three toddlers in the house. One appeared when the other disappeared like the bop-a-mole of parenting. Noah would probably be up any second after sleeping all day. "Where are you going to sleep? You can't make it home."

"It's two minutes away." He pointed in a random direction like a human spaghetti compass. Then there was a brief moment where the real Darren reappeared. "I can't sleep here, Ryan," he pleaded.

"Well I'm not letting you walk home by yourself."

I grabbed a pair of shorts from the hamper and put his arm around my shoulder. We went down the stairs, one very slow step at a time, and I placed Darren against the wall. "Stay," I urged him. Then I went into the living room to check on Noah. He was still asleep, tucked under a blanket, and his forehead no longer felt like the inside of an oven. I whispered that I would be right back.

Outside, no longer worried about waking the entire house, I let Darren walk on his own. He wandered into the street, slowly zigzagging, and I tried to catch him, but it was better to let him find his way. So I joined him in the street, ready to catch him at any second. We walked towards his house, guided by the street lights and the moon.

The summer night was warm and there was a light breeze in the trees on either side of the street. The creek could be heard behind the houses and the bugs called to each other in the grass. Every so often, a lightning bug flashed and then disappeared. There were a few lights on in the houses, yellow or blue from TVs, but mostly it was dark and we were alone.

"I don't like your boyfriend," Darren said.

I laughed. Darren couldn't dislike the devil. "That's not true."

"No, it's not. But I want to not like him."

"Why?"

Darren didn't respond. Instead, he increased the speed of his zigzags.

"Wait," I said. "Which one is yours?"

Darren stopped and looked around. And then he pointed at the white-brick house we had just passed. We turned around. I shook my head and pulled him out of the street. I should have known it was his house, it had the Baker Brothers sign with Phil's face on the lawn. Darren tripped over nothing and I stabilized him by draping his arm over my shoulder again.

We walked up the path to the front door. "Do you have the key?" I asked. He slapped his thighs as if feeling for the keys and then shrugged. I rolled my eyes and searched myself. I dug my hand in each of his pockets, first the right and then the left, feeling the bulging muscle of his thighs as I patted him down. But they were empty. "Shit."

Just as I was about to head back, Darren bent down and found the spare key underneath a rock in the mulch. He unlocked the door and opened it. I hadn't been inside his house since I had arrived, but now was not the time for tours.

"Here we are. Are you ok on your own from here?" I asked.

He nodded, but didn't budge. We were standing at the doorway, frame-width apart. He looked at me like he had in the hallway outside of the guest bedroom just moments before. I waited for him to say something, but he kept staring like he hadn't seen me every day for the past week. It made me nervous.

"I'm sorry for getting you drunk tonight. I'm a bad influence," I said to fill the silence. I didn't know how long he had been sober, but I didn't want to be the reason he compromised his beliefs. We got caught up in the mishaps and the excitement and missing my brother.

And then suddenly, but in slow motion, but as fast as it was inevitable, but slower than slow motion, but all at once, with red wine on his lips, the moon and the stars and the streetlights swirling around us, more surprising than all of the surprise parties in the world, Darren, the object of my high school fantasies, unreachable, beloved, savior in my times of need, familiar, kind, Darren, kissed me. 

Author's Note: I'm freaking out. Are you freaking out?! To celebrate getting this far,  I created a word doodle from the words in the first ten chapters. No surprise Darren is the most popular. Check it out below. And keep the votes and comments coming!

What do you think Rayn is going to do?!