✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

Epilogue: Another New Place (1/3)

This chapter is dedicated to James. Thank you for supporting me!

"I can do it myself!" Tess yelled, pouting as Gabby took a box out of her hands. "I'm not a baby, you know."

"You said that before," Gabby reminded her. "Look what happened then. It's hard to believe it's been..." her voice trailed off as Tess ran past her, back to the elevator. She stuck out a hand between the doors, which shifted just a fraction of an inch before fully opening again.

"Anyway," Gabby added a second later, walking inside the little mirrored compartment and setting the box on top of the stack. "It's more efficient to split the work. If you're walking all the way to the car and back, I'm standing here for ten minutes at a time just holding the elevator. If I meet you at the door, I've still got time to get back here before it closes, and we save a minute or two on every trip."

"I guess," Tess shrugged. "I guess you've got experience, you've done all this before. When I moved in with you the car was in the garage, so there wasn't a long walk. And every time I've moved before there's been porters or a moving company. Like, we'd get a hire car to the airport and just take hand luggage, Dad's new PA will meet us off the plane with the keys to a new car and house, and everything's already unpacked and put away before we arrive."

"Sounds like the easy way to do it."

"I guess you're used to this... it's like a rite of passage. A car full of clothes, books, and everything else. Living on your own for the first time."

"Yeah, well. My experience wasn't typical. No parents to help out, for one thing. I had a battered old truck that barely made the journey, and nobody to hold the elevator or whatever. No safe stopping point to leave my stuff, so I had to carry every bag from the truck to my room one by one, waiting for the elevator twenty times. Once I tried taking the stairs, but by the tenth floor I realised I'd never have the stamina."

"I'm glad I've got you to help," Tess said with a smile, then turned as she felt a hand on her shoulder. "And you."

"I'm an and-you now?" Spike chuckled. "Not even the first one you think of?" He'd just put another bag down on the floor beside them, the fourth in a small cluster of gloss-black instrument cases that were just irregular enough to stop anything else being placed on top of them. Tess pulled him closer and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Well, they're helping you too. I should stop letting myself get distracted and get another box, or this is going to take hours."

"Don't worry, I think we got most of it. Many hands make light work and all that. Ffrances is getting the last of the stuff off the truck and locking up, it should only take two of us to bring everything back. Then we can see what this room is actually like."

"There's still a load of those frilly dresses," Tess said, looking across all the haphazard stack of boxes. Most of them had cutesy stickers on, to let her know which box was which. "The ones on hangers. And a double case of diapers too." At that Spike averted his gaze, blushing furiously. Even a year after he had finally learned Tess's secret, he still couldn't bring himself to talk about diapers in any context other than regression. He had more than a little experience of teasing, and had experimented with some variety of hypnotic suggestions, but still found himself uncomfortable even thinking about getting them delivered, and he couldn't stop blushing as he carried the cases across the park that separated this residence block from where Gabby had parked her new van.

Outside, the closest parking area was full of families, all carrying load after load of boxes and bags up to unfamiliar rooms for their offspring's first day at university. But the number bringing a bulk supply of diapers with them was probably minimal. Worse, Gabby had decided that the most convenient way to transport the large shipment was in the box they had been delivered in, with the manufacturer's logo displayed proudly on the side. Somehow, plans to put a label over the embarrassing decal had always ended in distraction.