Coming home and Simone don’t sit well in the same sentence.

“That’s not for a while, Charlie.”

“Right. But Amelie wants it to be perfect.”

The last thing I need today is more confusion. I grab the house keys and start for the door. “Fine, Pack Mule. Let’s go. I’m loading up on Sea Belt and red sour ales.”

Charlie flexes his arms, showing off guns. His t-shirt’s torn and he’s wearing Celtics green basketball shorts. He looks like he hasn’t showered in days. “Great. Bring it on.”

“And it’s your turn to buy.”

“No prob.”

We’re halfway down the block when I reluctantly ask. “What do you mean, ‘no prob’? You wouldn’t be couch surfing at my place if money were ‘no prob.’”

“Bitcoin investment paid off. Some guy—”

“Oh, god, Charlie.” If I let him, the next five blocks to the liquor store will be dominated by talks about cryptocurrency and undervalued Second Life Linden dollars, along with some other currency called Ether.

“What? I made a few grand.”

“Regained what you lost?”

“Yep. Broke even.”

“Congrats. When are you getting a job? A real one.”

“I have one!”

“One that involves actual income. Not a business that lives in your MacAir.”

“Hey—this is how I want to live. I don’t have kids tying me down. Don’t care about stuff. Why does it bother you so much, Nick?”

Good question.

“You choose to be the corporate slave,” he adds.

Here we go. Same old conversation. Charlie the free spirit vs. Nick the drone.

“My kids’ college tuition is my form of indentured servitude.”

“But that ends soon. You won’t need all the board meetings and the endless talk about logos and the secretary who dominates the coffee machine and the asshole above you who specializes in Six Sigma like it’s a cult. You can sell everything and live a tetherless life.”

“My kids are my tether, Charlie.”

“But things don’t have to be.”

“Is this the point in the conversation where I start sounding like Dad? I can never remember my lines. Got a script?” We’re at the liquor store now, the pneumatic door opening before I can bash it with my tense arms, and as we walk down the warehouse-like aisles, Charlie is on my heels.

“Look, Nick, I’ve watched you sacrifice everything for the kids. And you’re a good father. The best damn dad I’ve ever seen. Even better than ours.”

I stop short. That’s high praise.

“And he’d have been proud of you.”

Damn it. The bridge of my nose tingles. I pinch it, blinking. Haven’t changed my contacts since I got up at 5 a.m. Eyes are dry and scratchy. My throat starts to close. Dusk settles in outside. My day has been filled with nothing but tension and conflict, indecision and complaints.

And that’s just work.

And then I sigh.

“Where’s the Red Poppy Ale?” I am not having an emotional landmine-filled conversation with my shiftless little brother in the lager aisle at the local liquor store.

“Why do you want that crap? Get Jack’s Abbey instead.”

Now we’re on even more familiar territory.

“I like Flemish red sour ales, Charlie.”

“You have the taste buds of an eighty-year-old nun, Nick.”

“Glad you’re buying and that you’re the pack mule.” I hand him four four-packs. He grins.

And then I pick out two six-packs of Jack’s Abbey.

The grin falters.

“Nick, you’re not—”

“Pack mules don’t argue, Charlie, they just figure out how to carry the burden.”

“That’s you, man.”

That’s been me. True. For fifteen years, I’ve adjusted to whatever life’s thrown my way, as long as it didn’t involve emotional involvement.

Chloe’s now about as emotionally involved as anyone can be.

Do I want to reset the clock? They’re a package deal. Chloe and the baby. I know that.

Oh, how I know that.

Charlie buys my beer without comment and struggles under the weight of the huge cardboard box filled with beer. I enjoy my freedom, stretching as we walk.

“You’re right, Charlie.” I take mercy and grab two six-packs from the box. He squares his shoulders with relief.

“How’m I right?”

“Freedom. It has a different feel.”

“Different good, or different bad?”

That’s the question.

Which is it?

Five minutes later, we’re back home, beers open, Charlie cutting the tape on the Never Liked It Anyway box.

He pulls out a blue strap-on.

“Aw, man. Nick, you have a First Aid kit somewhere, right? I need latex gloves to touch this.”

I take the box out of his hands and reach in.

“Jesus!” I shout. “That dildo has to be twelve inches long!”

“Chloe always was uninhibited in bed.”

I throw it at his face. Years of pitching baseball in high school pay off as the end of the wiggly rubber dildo slaps Charlie flat against his nose, like a musketeer’s loose glove being used to challenge a man to a duel.

“Nick!” he screams.

“Don’t you talk about sex with Chloe.”

He looks at the strap on resting at a crooked angle on the ground, then at me, mouth gaping. Charlie points down. “You just threw the strap on she used on her ex-lover at my face. That’s the epitome of talking about sex with Chloe. Plus you almost broke my nose!”

“Charlie.” I’m being irrational. I know it.

I don’t care.

A vision of her using it on—

No.

Nope.

Not going there.

“Technically,” I declare, “the auction never said she used it on him.”

Charlie just laughs.

I stand abruptly, knocking over the rest of the items in the box, which include a Coldplay t-shirt, some Cashmere sweaters in a size too small for me, the Dave Brubaker vinyl album (which I might keep), the Rush album (which Charlie claims dibs on), a nice Rolex my son could enjoy, and Montblanc pens that are better suited for James McCormick than anyone else in the world.