Life After Love: The Finale

MARLEY

The thunder roared above me as I stepped outside of the courthouse to listen to Serena's voicemail, the wind claiming the ground first as the first storm of the season officially began. The rain wouldn't be too far behind now. The boys and I needed to head home soon and hibernate until it passed.

"Hey, beautiful." Freddy's voice stopped me from pressing play on that voicemail and I turned to face him as the others huddled close by in deep conversation.

"Hey, yourself." I smiled at him and although my cheeks still burned from blushing around him, I kept a friendly distance away and wondered how I was going bring up that I no longer needed time to decide who I needed to be with, that Michael's grand gesture had helped me see Freddy wasn't the only man in the world for me to love, and who loved me in return anymore.

"Good turn out today, huh?" he mentioned as he made his way around me until he took a seat on the staircase and stared up at me with his smoldering hazel gaze until I joined him.

"I wanted to talk to you about the beach house and—"

"Michael came to me this morning. He told me what happened and how he'd prefer it if I stopped looking at you the way I do from now on," Freddy explained, smirking smugly as he rubbed the scruff on his chin. Chuckling softly, I turned to look at my personal troublemaker and nodded.

"Sounds like him."

"I'd hate to admit it, but the kid has game," he jested and I rolled my eyes at him.

"I'm not a toy, Freddy."

"I know. I just want you to be happy, even if it's not necessarily with me," he finished as he stood up and took my hand to help me up when the thunder roared again. His eyes were telling me something completely different. I've seen that defeated look before, and I hated that I had caused that silent agony in his gaze again.

"We're lying to each other now?" I countered, and he stepped away when the rest of the group joined us, Michael's hand taking mine as I looked away from Freddy's broken gaze.

"We should head home before this storm breaks," Michael announced as the drizzle hit us next and we all headed for the parking lot. When I noticed Danny wasn't with us, I stopped walking and spotted him a few feet away as someone handed him a note and quickly jogged away. His face fell as he read the note and his hand immediately reached into his pocket to bring out his phone.

"Danny? What's wrong?" I asked, a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach surfacing as the rest of the group surrounded us.

"She's not answering. Why isn't she fucking answering?" he began to yell as he kept dialing Serena's number and holding the phone against his ear.

"Whoa, what's going on?" Michael chimed in and took the note away from Danny, stepping in next to me as he read it. When he rubbed his chin, and his face grew stern, I knew it was bad.

"What is it?" I panicked and snatched the note away from him, quickly skimming through Serena's bad handwriting as the rain began to fall on us. My hands balled into fists as I crumbled up the piece of paper and handed it over to Freddy, hoping he knew he was the only one physically capable of stopping Danny from doing something stupid right now.

"Maybe it's a joke. She does have a twisted sense of humor," Michael began to defend Serena's note, as if what she wrote hadn't just broken his best friend into two. The nasty words she had written were meant to hurt Danny purposely and I couldn't even begin to understand why she would do this right before they were supposed to renew their vows.

"Do you think she took the twins with her?" Freddy asked me, his voice barely a whisper, and I glared at him as Danny's ears perked up at the mention of his boys and he hurried over to his truck. "Shit, I got him." He hurried and jumped into the passenger's seat of Danny's truck before he took off, while Michael and I headed to my car.

We sped after them, and I noticed Danny was heading to his old farmhouse, where the nanny had been in charge of tending to the kids until their parents had finished at the courthouse. While Michael drove, I picked up my phone and listened to the voicemail Serena had left for me. As soon as it was done, I threw my phone back into my purse and cursed out loud.

"What is it?"

"She left a bogus voicemail, saying she was going out of town on business. And not to worry. As if her disappearing and practically abandoning her mess of a husband wouldn't cause me to worry. I'm going to kill that woman," I declared heatedly and Michael cleared his throat, leaving the conversation at that.

As we pulled into Danny's driveway 20 minutes later, we saw him hit the brakes and kill the engine to his truck before jumping out and running into his house. Freddy joined him while Michael and I caught up with them after we parked. The place was as neat as Danny always kept it, but there was no sign of Serena and the twins anywhere. I could hear Danny upstairs yelling, followed by his voice cracking, and finally the sobbing came. My heart broke as I heard Freddy trying to soothe him and I took a seat on their sofa before I looked for something to punch.

"Should we call the police? Taking the kids without his permission is technically kidnapping," Michael mentioned and I shook my head, rubbing my tired face with my hands as I tried to keep my own emotions in check.

"We'll wait until Danny is thinking clearly, and figure it out then," I answered, and he took my hand, placing a soft kiss on my skin to comfort me. It didn't work but I gave him a short smile in return for the effort. I couldn't even fathom how Serena could do this to Danny after everything he'd done to get her back. One thing was for sure, she had no one on her side anymore after this. Ripping Danny away from his kids was unforgivable and I was pretty sure the rest of group felt the same way.

Looking up, I glanced at the storm coming to life beyond the windows of the old farmhouse, pouring its wrath onto the earth, mirroring the pain Danny was feeling and would always feel until Serena came back to fix what she started breaking ten years ago.