"Do we have to do this now, genius?" Tim asked, bitching as he made his way down the dark staircase.
"Yeah, we do," J.T. answered from a few steps behind him.
Tim reached the foot of the stairs and felt around in the dark for a light switch. He found one, and the basement of J.T.'s parents' house flickered to life. Sure, the Lancasters owned a mansion - three, actually, but this was their home base, the one they spent the most time in. But if all you saw was the basement, you'd never guess their son was the heir to an aviation fortune.
"Wow," Julia said, following Tim off the steps. "Apparently the rich aren't exempt from unfinished basements, either."
"I'm not even sure my mom knows we have a basement," J.T. said, joining them in the mostly plywood room.
"And if she does, she's certainly never, ever been down here," Sheila added, the last to come down the stairs.
"Seriously, man," Tim said, picking up his earlier theme. "We can't do this another day?"
"My dad is bringing someone in to have the basement finished early next week," J.T. said.
"Why?" Julia asked. "The hotel upstairs isn't enough room for them?"
Tim and Sheila snickered. J.T. ignored it.
"So, I promised my dad I'd have everything out of here by the end of the weekend," J.T. continued. "It's Saturday afternoon now. If not today, that just leaves tomorrow. You think any of us will feel like doing this tomorrow?"
"No," Tim agreed. "For the same reason I don't want to do it now. Now, I have a big 'ol party to get ready for. Tomorrow, I'll have a big 'ol party to recover from, and at noon, I have a plane to catch. You can't tell me you didn't know this was coming for a while, man."
"No, I told my parents back in October I would have this stuff out of here by the weekend after Christmas," J.T. said.
"And Christmas was yesterday," Tim replied. "I get that. What I don't get is how Christmas fucking snuck up on you, jackass."
"I got busy," J.T. said. "The point is, you're my friends, and you're here to help me, and I appreciate it."
"They are your friends," Sheila said, pointing to Tim and Julia. "I'm your fiancée. I'm not here to help. I'm only going to help so I can find some of your goofy shit to display prominently at my house."
"Our house," J.T. corrected.
"Whatever," Sheila answered.
"The stack isn't that big," J.T. said, pointing at two stacks with about six boxes each. "The sooner we dive in, the sooner we can get done, and the sooner we can all get ready for this thing."
"Fuck," Tim said, and pulled the first box off the stack. He reached into his pocket for the box cutters he'd brought with him. "I know I owe you for something. I just have no idea what that could be."
It was December 26th, and in just a few hours, the entire North Carolina State football team, coaching staff, family of the players and coaches and whoever else would be attending a large party on the court at RBC Center. The party was to celebrate the accomplishments of the football team, which would be playing Ohio State in five days in the Orange Bowl in Miami. The team had dropped its final regular season game, but won its division by a tiebreaker and beat Virginia Tech in the ACC Championship game. Two losses were too many to play for the National Championship, but after missing the bowl season altogether the past three seasons, the Wolfpack was more than happy with an 11-2 record and an Orange Bowl berth. As the team shrink, Tim was invited to the party. Coach Taylor had personally invited J.T., who flew in either the left or right seat for most of the team's trips.
That was tonight, Tim thought. For now, he had to help his scatterbrained best friend get all his crap out of his parents' house and into Sheila's townhouse. Sheila didn't know it, but in about five months they'd be doing all this again, moving all of their stuff out of the townhouse and into the new house J.T. was building as a wedding present.
Regardless of how easy J.T. thought this process would be, the quartet had only plowed through half the boxes after the first hour. There were old clothes, trophies, boxes of baseball cards, model airplanes, yearbooks, certificates from the Marine Corps days, and a bunch of other stuff the average bachelor packs into boxes and stashes in the basement.
About an hour in, Julia turned around from working through a box of pictures, spanning from before J.T. was born to just a couple years ago. She wiped the sweat off her brow - it was 45 degrees outside, but they were in this old, musty basement sweating like pigs - and sighed.
"I need water," she said. "Anyone else thirsty?"
Three voices simultaneously agreed. "It's just one floor up, but it's a ways down the hall," J.T. said.
"I'll find it," she replied. "Need to use the restroom, too. I'll be back."
It was quiet again for a few seconds as the remaining three worked on their boxes. Sheila, who was helping Julia with the pictures, pulled one out and held it up to the dim light.
"Hey, Tim," she asked. "Who's this?"
"Ask your fiancée," Tim replied.
"I would, but you're both in it, and the girl is clinging to you."
Tim and J.T. both walked over to Sheila. Tim took one look at the picture and turned away. J.T. looked a little longer, a slightly wistful expression playing on his face.
"I can give you three guesses, but just looking at Tim's face should knock out two."
"Wow," Sheila replied. "Is this her?"
"Yep," Tim answered, looking back at the picture. "That's her."
The picture was taken their second summer together at Myrtle Beach, just a few months before she'd decided the grass was greener somewhere else. Tim was still working on his ratings back then, so he'd had to fly right seat as J.T. took Tim, Leira and another girl - whoever J.T. was pretending to date at the time - to the Carolina coast for a few days of much-needed R&R. J.T.'s friend wasn't in the photo - presumably because she was taking it - but the other three were. J.T. was on the far right, wearing a muscle T-shirt and doing his best Most Muscular mock pose. Leira was in the middle in a bright yellow two-piece bikini, with her hands wrapped around Tim's arm. He was standing on the far left as Leira rested her head on his left shoulder.
The picture hadn't faded at all, but even a worn photograph couldn't have hidden Leira's beauty. Her natural blonde hair - streaked to dirty blonde back then - was blowing behind her in the wind. Her breasts filled out that skimpy yellow bikini top the way few women could and even in the basement three and a half years later, Tim thought she still exuded raw sexuality.
"Wow," Sheila said. "She's beautiful." Both J.T. and Tim shot twin glares at her, and she quickly stammered. "I'm sorry. Doesn't mean she wasn't a bitch."
She studied the picture for a moment, looking closer.
"She looks very familiar to me, though," Sheila said.
"Yep," Tim answered. "Blue-eyed blondes. Don't see them everywhere you go in this town during the summer."
Sheila sensed it was a sore subject, so she stopped talking about it. Still, she couldn't resist swiping look after look at the photo, trying to place the familiarity.
A few moments later, Julia started coming down the stairs. Sheila didn't see the point in letting Julia see the photo - she'd ask the same questions, and it would undoubtedly be a different conversation this time. So, Sheila dropped the photo back into the box and closed it up. Just as her best friend reappeared with four bottles of water in tow, she turned to J.T.
"So, guessing this goes in the house pile, and not the Salvation Army pile?" She knew the answer, and started walking to the pile of boxes they would load up and drive over to the townhouse.
