Not So Easy (The NOT Series Book 4)

Chapter 2

Stopping in the small foyer,I whipped out my phone and switched on the light. Like some handyman magician, Calvin pulled a flashlight out of who knew where and lit up the entire space.

Again, he seemed a little too prepared for this impromptu meeting.

“So you have a notebook and a flashlight?”

“You never walk through a flip without a flashlight,” he said.

“But you didn’t know you were going to walk through a flip.” This was feeling more and more like a setup by the second.

As if he could read my mind, Calvin shook his head. “I don’t remember you being so suspicious. I get calls about houses all the time. Being prepared is part of the job.”

A likely excuse, but I let it slide. For now.

“The stairway will need to be fully restored, obviously,” I said, shining my meager phone light at the partially paint covered banister. Who would paint over that gorgeous wood?

“You want it back to the original stain?”

“Yes.” Leading the way into the living room, I pointed my light at the floors. “New floors throughout. Hardwood or I’m okay with a luxury vinyl, both upstairs and downstairs. No carpets.”

“Not even in the bedrooms?” he asked.

“Nope.” I braced for an argue, but he kept his thoughts to himself. “New paint, of course. And what about those?” I asked, shining my light on the cracks above the fireplace.

“Not sure. I’d have to get up there and take a closer look. Didn’t the fireplace used to be brick from floor to ceiling?”

“That’s how it was when I was a kid, yeah. And the mantel had been a full surround. Not just a beam like it is now.”

I had adored Bammy’s fireplace. We never had one in our apartment, which left nowhere to hang the stockings. Bammy made sure every grandchild had one here, each adorned with our names. Where they were now I had no idea, but the memory tightened my chest.

Fixing up this house wouldn’t bring Bammy back, but it would restore her legacy, and regain a piece of the past that we never should have lost.

“You want it back the way it was?”

“I’m still debating.” Concerned, I asked, “If I do, is that possible?”

Calvin flashed his perfectly straight pearly-whites. “Anything is possible.”

My chest tightened again, but not from nostalgia. Clearing my throat, I continued the tour.

When we reached the next room, I sighed. “I don’t remember the kitchen being this small. I need to extend the house out into the the backyard or there’s no way to have a functional kitchen.”

“Plenty of rentals have kitchenettes. We could make that work in here.”

I bristled. “This isn’t going to be a rental. I plan to live here, and I’m going to need a real kitchen.”

Dark eyes widened. “You’re going to live here?”

Why did he think I bought the place? Bammy’s house wasn’t meant to be a source of income. It was meant to be a home. My home.

“Yes. You have a problem with that?” Too bad if he did.

“Like I said, you don’t come around much.”

Annoyed, I decided to clear this issue up once and for all. “If you recall, I never lived here. I came to visit Bammy, and once she was gone, I didn’t have much reason to be here.”

“You have three cousins living within a couple blocks of here, and you had friends. Or at least we thought you did.”

We? Did he think we were friends? My phone wasn’t blowing up with invitations over the last ten years. Not from him or anyone else.

“Not that I need to defend myself, but I’ve attended multiple wedding showers, baby showers, birthday parties, and cookouts at my cousins’ homes. If anyone else wanted to invite me to an event, they would have had no problem finding me.”

Calvin matched my tone. “So you need an invitation to hit the neighborhood? There has to be an event?”

What the hell? “Yes, Calvin. We’re grown-ups now. I’m not going to stroll the street knocking on doors asking if my friends can come out to play.”

“You always saw yourself as better than the rest of us.”

That one came out of nowhere. “What are you talking about? When I was here, I was as much a part of the neighborhood group as you were. Not that you didn’t do your best to keep me out.”

Calvin dropped his arms, casting the space into darkness. “I never tried to keep you out.”

“Then you and I have very different versions of the past.” Marching back to the foyer, I mumbled, “This is a waste of time.”

“Do you know why I stopped bidding on this house?” he asked, following close behind me.

“I assume because the work required is above your skill level.” Slamming through the creaky screen door, I stepped onto the porch.

Sadly, he caught the door before it hit him in the face. “I quit because I found out you were the other bidder.” He paused as if to let that news sink in. “I work hard to make sure these houses don’t go to developers who only see them as a means to an end. People who don’t care if the work is done right. All they want is to get tenants in and start making money.”

“From what you said inside, you think that’s what I planned to do.”

Calvin ran a hand over his cropped hair. “Yes, I thought you were going to rent it out, but I knew you’d make sure the renovations were done right, and that you’d rent to quality people. No shoddy work and then becoming an absentee landlord, doing nothing to maintain the place.”

In his world, I assumed this was a compliment.

“But I would never live in it myself. Seeing as I think I’m better than the other people in this neighborhood.”

Without hesitation or remorse, he nodded. “That was the assumption, yeah.”

Did others on the block feel the same? Was that why I never heard from anyone other than family? I’d worked day and night after college to build my business. Any job that came my way, I took. There hadn’t been time for a social life. So no, I hadn’t sought out old friends in those days. That didn’t mean I looked down on them. I was busy.

“You assumed wrong, and there’s no need to waste any more of our time. The one thing you got correct is that I will make sure the work is done right. By someone other than you.”

Opening his mouth as if to argue, Calvin paused, and then closed it. “I’m here if you have any questions.”

“I won’t.”

A lie, most likely, but there were plenty of other sources I could turn to in this process. Like the whole freaking internet.

Lips pursed, Calvin glanced around the porch. “I look forward to seeing it when it’s done.” I almost replied fat chance but bit the words back. On his way off the porch, he said, “Adding on in the back is a good idea. It’ll be a lot of work, but don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be done.”

First he insulted me and now he wanted to be helpful? Pick a lane.

When I didn’t respond, he took the hint and marched his denim-clad butt off my property. He’d see. Once I found a contractor, the result would be better than anything Calvin Hopkins could have come up with. All I had to do was find the right person for the job.

“I’m never goingto find a contractor for this job,” I lamented to my four best friends as we gathered for Sunday morning breakfast at our favorite Mexican restaurant. We were a bit addicted to their Huevos Rancheros.

“You’ll find the right one,” Becca assured me. “Just be patient.”

At eight months pregnant, Becca Kim could barely get close enough to the table to reach her water glass. She’d taken forever to develop the slightest baby bump, but once the little one had really started to grow Becca had been waddling in no time.

“I agree,” said Megan. “Someone will come along soon.”

Becca and Megan Knox had much in common. Both were tiny. Both were madly in love. And both were endearingly optimistic. While the other three members of our group—Josie Danvers, Lindsey Pavolski, and myself—were more rooted in reality. Falling in love had added a tad more sunshine to Josie’s world view, but she could still be counted on for the occasional bout of cynicism.

“I’ve contacted six contractors so far. Two never called me back, and two turned down the job outright, claiming their schedules are booked for the rest of the year.” Which seemed odd considering it was only April. “Another gave me an estimate well above what I paid for the house, and the last one wanted to tear the whole thing down and start over.”

“All men, I assume,” Lindsey said. “You need to hire a woman.”

I loaded a bite of egg onto my fork. “I tried. She’s one of the ones with a full schedule.”

“Miles says he doesn’t know anyone,” Josie offered. “When I suggested we lend out Evan he got all grumpy. He can build anything, but Miles needs him at the company.”

The company was a children’s party planning business that Miles Porter built out of nothing to become the premier source for kid celebrations in Pittsburgh. Thankfully, Becca’s employer—also an events company—didn’t handle kid events so the two weren’t direct competitors. Miles had been Josie’s first client when she started her bookkeeping business last year.

I admired anyone who built a thriving business out of nothing, having done the same myself. Connecting with Becca had been a turning point in Bradford Photography. She’d been a work associate first, directing the majority of her wedding-planning clients my way, before we progressed into a ride or die friendship.

A few months later she introduced me to the other ladies at the table. Josie and Megan were Becca’s college friends, while she and Lindsey had been close since grade school. The rest was history.

“What about you, Lindsey? Could you ask your dad? After forty years as a plumber, surely he knows someone.”

Linds was a high school English teacher and the most down to earth person I knew. She was a realist, a bit of a pessimist, and unwaveringly loyal to her friends. Stuffing a bite of fried tortilla into her mouth, she took the time to chew before answering.

“I did,” she said once the food was down. “He says all his old cronies are retired like he is. Between playing pickleball and watching every televised sporting event known to man, he hasn’t kept up with the new guys in the industry.”

Reality set in. I was going to be left with only one option. The one I’d rather die than go crawling back to, especially after our last encounter. In hindsight, I had to admit I hadn’t been the best version of myself that day.

Maybe it was the rejection from fifteen years ago. Not that I’d ever told him how I felt, but I had made myself available. I showed up in places when I knew he’d be there. Made sure he knew when I got my first cell phone, hoping he’d ask for my number. When the spring formal came around, I turned down three different guys, sure that Calvin would ask me instead.

He never did.

The notebook doodling had stopped after that, and I made the most of the rest of my high school years with casual boyfriends, parties, and the typical harmless trouble that teenagers stumbled into. Maybe it was true what they said about first loves. Even when it’s only puppy love, we never forget how they made us feel.

Tossing a piece of chorizo into my mouth, I embraced the positive statements from earlier. “The right one is out there. Tomorrow I’ll start calling around again.”

Calling everyone but Calvin Hopkins.

“Will the house have a space for your business?” Becca asked.

Currently, I rented a large loft that was big enough for both my home and my office. With the high ceilings and loads of natural light, it was the perfect space for a photography studio. Retaining the apartment for the business alone wasn’t financially feasible.

“It will, yeah. I’m putting on an addition that will give me a new kitchen with a studio above it. Parking might be an issue, but hopefully clients won’t mind that so much.”

My current building offered a parking lot, which made it convenient for visiting clients, but Bammy’s house came with street parking only. There was a small parking area in the back, but that would be greatly reduced with the addition to the house.

Lindsey voiced the reality I’d been trying to ignore. “This is going to be a big change.”

The negatives hung in the air. Less space. Less convenience. Both of which meant potentially less income. Was I putting nostalgia over common sense? Insisting on making this house work at the expense of what I’d spent a decade building?

“Change isn’t a bad thing,” I said, almost believing my own words. “This is nothing more than a relocation, and the new studio will be even better than the one I have now.” Not a lie if I was able to put in the window package I wanted. “The house is less than two miles from my apartment so no one can complain about having to drive too far.”

My friends exchanged glances and I knew what they weren’t saying. The move might be only two miles, but into a less desirable neighborhood. My loft was in the heart of an already rejuvenated part of Southside. Though the building was nearly a century old, great care had been taken to make it look as contemporary as possible while maintaining much of the original charm.

And when I was done with Bammy’s house, it would be just as inviting. I could put a business entrance in the back, and hopefully retain a parking space next to the detached garage. The alley behind the house wasn’t too narrow. And the house wasn’t hard to find with GPS.

So the move wasn’t ideal. I could make it work. I had to. This house was as much my dream as my business had been a decade ago. If having both required a little compromise, then so be it.