Not Expecting to Collide (COMPLETE) - ABP Fanfiction

Chapter 9 - Bold

Filming had wrapped. The film crews had packed their equipment and left. The family was back in Browntown where it was quiet and they could just concentrate on being a family and preparing for the sunless days of winter.

Bam waited at the dock in the wheelhouse of the integrity while his family ran errands in town. With filming done and October gone, he felt he was at loose ends, not knowing where his life was headed to next.

Thanksgiving was coming up and his mom always did it up big. If he could contact Myra, perhaps she might be able to give him October's contact information, or at least forward his to her. If she didn't contact him after that then he would have his answer. His thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of his brothers returning to the boat.

"Bam!" Noah's voice called up from the dock.

"Yeah." He replied. He turned as Noah entered the wheelhouse and set a plain white envelope on the table in front of him. Bam's heart began to hammer as he noticed the return address label. He only knew one person from that particular city and she had been constantly on his mind.

"Are you going to sit there at stare at it or are you going to open it?" Noah inquired with a wide grin.

Bam looked up to where Noah stood. "Maybe I want to open it alone." He muttered as he turned the letter over in his hands.

"I knew it!" Matt yelled. "It's naked pictures. Lemme see!" He reached across the table and snatched the letter out of his grasp. "Haha!" Matt shrieked as he held the letter up to the bare lightbulb.  Bam tried to reach for it as Gabe blocked him all the while giggling like a schoolgirl.

Bear bounded through the door. "Who's naked?"

"October. She sent pictures to Bam."

"All right!  Does her tattoo show?" Bear looked at Matt expectantly.

Matt shook his head. "Damn, the girl's got skills!  She used a security envelope. Can't see through it."  He shook his head disappointed as Bam grabbed the envelope out if his hand.

He stuffed the envelope into the back of his jeans and whacked Bear and Matt both on the back of the head. "What are you guys? twelve?"

Bear shrugged. "And a half."

Too curious about the envelope's contents to be angry, Bam walked around the side of the boat away from his sniggering brothers. He tore the end off the envelope. Two prices of paper fell out; an invitation to photography exhibition at an art gallery and an airplane ticket from Juneau to Calgary. There was a small yellow sticky note stuck to the card with a few words scrawled across it.

This is me being bold. XX O.

Bam flipped it over. That was it. No letter. No phone number.

~*~

October switched off her computer and sighed. She was supposed to be selecting the last three photos for the art show the next month but try as she might, she couldn't concentrate. All she could think about was that the letter she sent to Bam would have arrived by now. She second guessed herself for the thousandth time since dropping it in the mailbox the previous week. Maybe she should have written him a longer note but she was no good with words, that's why she was a photographer not a poet. Maybe she should have included her phone number. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

She could drive herself crazy with the maybes but she shook her head and remembered why she had done it in that way. If she showed up at the airport to meet Bam off the plane and he wasn't there, then she would have her answer.

~*~

Bam sat across the table across from his mother in their Browntown cabin.

"What do you think I should do?" He asked quietly.

Ami looked across to her second-born and smiled. "Bam, why are you asking me?  You knew what you were going to do the minute you opened that letter. You've had a spark in your eye ever since you got back from town and you barely said a word at dinner."

Bam ducked his head and smiled to himself. She was right. He'd smiled more in the last three hours than he had in the last three weeks.

"I know how important it is to you for everyone to be together at Thanksgiving." 

Ami reached across the table and covered Bam's hands with her own. "Go. You know you want to. Next Thanksgiving the two of you can spend here with the entire family."

Bam raised an eyebrow. "Getting ahead of yourself, Mom?"

Ami stood up and kissed Bam on the top of his head. "Someone has to. Otherwise I'll never see grand babies."

Bam chuckled and turned in his chair to watch Ami don her boots and jacket. "Is that all you think about, woman?"

Ami paused with her hand on the doorknob. "To loosely quote Mrs. Bennet, when you have five sons, Bam, tell me what else will occupy your thoughts."

Bam grinned. "I never thought Jane Austen would pertain to my life."

Ami turned back to him. "The classics are always pertinent, dear."