Chapter 7
seven
Georgia
Susanna presses her lips together and circles the giant carved mahogany dining table, assessing the room’s details—and not the ones that impressed Cash on Saturday.
No, instead, she focuses on the peeling forest-green paint, the hairline crack running from the ceiling to the floor, and the narrow hardwood floor planks with little chips missing.
Anxiety gnawing at my stomach, I wait for her to remark on the crown molding or the pocket-door handles. But there’s only the sound of her high-heeled boots click-clacking on the floor. Her French-manicured fingers clutch a thick folder of papers to her chest.
Aren’t real estate agents supposed to gush about how beautiful your home is? To skillfully spin its flaws into appealing language and promise they can get it sold in no time if only you’ll sign with them? Is Susanna not so good at her job, or do I have no idea what real estate agents actually do?
Her lap complete, she stops in front of me. “Well.” A small smile curves her glossy red lips. “I love it.”
Surprise makes me hesitate. “You do?”
“Absolutely. The house has fantastic bones, and there’s nothing else like it on the market. For the right buyer, it’s a dream home.”
My lips curve up to match hers, and for the first time, a little flush of pride rises in me at being the owner of this place.
“Do you have a contractor already?” She flips open her folder and yanks out a business card that she hands to me. “If not, here you go. They’re fab, I recommend them to all my clients.”
I peer down at the card like I’m expecting it to tell me what I’m supposed to say next. “Oh, for the little repairs?”
She laughs heartily but stifles it once she sees I’m not laughing. “Pardon?”
“The paint and wallpaper and little odds and ends?”
Susanna blinks a few times. “That, sure, but…” Her expression sharpens into concern.
“The house is a beauty, but it’s rather desperately showing its age.
Just about every room could do with some sort of work, whether it’s freshening up or a full-scale renovation.
I’m sorry, I thought you were already aware. ”
“No, I understand it’s pretty shabby. I guess I thought we had the option of pricing it low as a fixer-upper?”
“We could,” she says in the tone of voice a kind teacher would use for a child who just offered a ridiculous answer. “But trust me, I know the market, and the market wants a home that’s move-in ready.”
“Isn’t selling a house ‘as-is’ a thing? I don’t plan on being here long, and I’d hoped for a quick turnaround.”
“Sure,” she drawls. “That does happen. But if you can afford some renovations, I urge you to pursue them. They’ll make all the difference, especially for the type of homeowner who wants a house like this.”
Pursing my lips, I pick at the edges of the business card as despair overwhelms me again.
“Now, don’t worry.” Susanna reassures me with a hand on my arm.
“If you’re not up for a top-to-bottom renovation, we can compromise.
Fresh paint, new appliances, and we’ll be choosy about the rooms that really need the attention.
The point is, we want potential clients to walk in and notice the beauty first, not the flaws. Make sense?”
I nod, thinking about the first time I let myself into the house for a quick peek. About how surprised I’d been Aunt Julie had lived here until a few weeks ago because it was in such bad shape.
Susanna gives me a reassuring smile. “I’ve overwhelmed you.
I do that sometimes.” She gestures toward the doorway, inviting me to walk in step with her as we leave the dining room behind.
“All you have to do in the next few days is think about it. It’s your property and your choice.
I’m only here to give you my advice. Sound good? ”
After a promise to be in touch and a series of reminders that I can reach her by phone, text, or email, she’s out the door and click-clacking down the driveway to her sparkly silver convertible.
Clearly the woman is good at what she does—that expensive sports car pulling onto the street is evidence enough—but I have no intention of sinking time and money into this house.
Moving to Shafer has been enough of an interruption to my usual life, never mind a home renovation I’ll never get to enjoy.
I turn from the door and move down the long hallway that leads to the kitchen.
The framed photos in the hallway catch my attention, halting me in my tracks.
Most of them are faces I don’t know, but I recognize my Aunt Julie in many of them, her sharp bone structure giving her away no matter her age.
She’s the reason I’m here at all. Even before the house was mine, my intention was to care for her in her final days.
The sadness that’s been lurking within me ever since I found out I’d never get the chance wells up as a fierce ache.
Would she care what I did with her house?
Did she give it to me so I’d have some money?
Or was it a precious gift whose meaning I’ve completely ignored?
Cash surfaces in my mind. The admiration as he walked from room to room, and then that moment when sadness overwhelmed me in the little bedroom. The way I turned to him expecting to feel embarrassed and instead felt comforted. And, of course, his question: Would I regret it?
I didn’t come to Shafer to make friends, put down roots, or sharpen my blurry memories of the summer that changed my life.
However, it’s impossible to deny how it felt to walk into the little bedroom where I slept as a ten-year-old and be jolted back to childhood.
And to have Cash witness it was powerful on its own because, even if I didn’t cry, I know he saw the raw emotion it stirred up inside me.
I can’t remember what he said to me, but I still feel his comfort.
The prospect of taking on a project full of emotional landmines—and doing it next to a man I feel connected and hopelessly attracted to—feels like the sort of danger that would unequivocally get an immediate no out of me.
It also feels like the one thing that could make my semester here in Shafer anything other than a waste of time.
Twenty minutes later, I book it across campus to make my Data Analytics class. The lecture has just begun when someone taps on my shoulder.
I turn to find a blond girl in the row behind me holding out a folded piece of notebook paper. She eyes me with open curiosity as I take it.
“What’s this?” I whisper.
She shrugs. “Not from me.”
I twist to get a better look at her. “Who’s it from?”
“Your boyfriend,” she says like it’s obvious, then glances over her shoulder.
I follow her gaze a few rows back and to the right—and find Cash watching me with a smirk that says he’s pleased with himself. The back of my neck prickles and my face burns hot.
Boyfriend?
The blond girl looks back at me, and now I understand her curiosity.
To be Cash Hartnell’s girlfriend is to be an object of curiosity, and maybe to have a bit of his brilliant shine rub off on you.
I turn and face front again, a little flustered, a little pleased, and mostly feeling something I can’t name.
After a quick glance at my professor, I stealthily unfold the paper to find Cash’s words scrawled in black ink:
Do you like me? Check one:
Yes
No
Maybe
I slide a hand over my mouth to cover my smile.
This man is adorable. Glancing back at him, I find him still watching me, his expression and the way he sits back, chin lifted, the picture of confidence, and heat spreads up the back of my neck.
Before he can see how turned on I am by the simple sight of him, I swivel back around.
With his note clutched in my fist, the stress that’s been bearing down on me for months floats far away.
The remainder of class passes without the professor ever once catching my attention.
Do you like me? A simple question with a simple answer, yet a world of complicated, tangled feelings in between.
Yes, I like you. So much that “like” is inadequate.
So much that I wonder if the reason I’m willing to endure manual labor and immerse myself in painful memories is because it means working shoulder to shoulder with you for months, even though I can never, ever touch you.
So much that I have a big, big problem on my hands, and my only friend is the one person I can’t talk to about it.
It’s the sort of problem a girl should sleep on—especially one who’s never made an impulsive decision in her life.
But just before class wraps up, I smooth the note out on the desk and click my pen into action.
Bypassing the checkboxes, I scribble “other:” at the bottom, then ask him the question I hope I don’t regret.
“I have a ton of ideas for this place, Georgia,” Maisy boasts as I unlock the front door to my aunt’s house and we step inside.
“I don’t understand how someone can look around a room and—poof!—they have a design in mind. My brain doesn’t work like that.”
“I bet it would if you let it. You’re amazing with makeup, which means you have an eye for color and design. Just let your brain go there.”
Turns out, I didn’t need to tell Maisy about Cash’s offer to help me with the house because he took care of that.
And when I got home from class today, Maisy insisted we walk through and make a list of potential projects and weigh the decision before committing.
I watch her tip her head back and take in the foyer, inhaling the distinctive scent.
It’s something like a library—old wood and paper—with a layer of furniture polish buried underneath.
“So…Cash is still coming by, right?” Guilt and a hint of naughtiness mingle inside me.
“Yes, at six, which is why we need to go through every room and decide ahead of time what direction we might want to take it. Well, what direction you might want to take it—it’s your house. But Cash is an annoying combination of bossy and persuasive, so don’t let him push you around.”