Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
“Hey, Mini! That real estate lady wrote us back,” Bax called to Jason, who was sitting on the porch in a plastic kiddie pool, his feet up on a footstool Jack had made out of a wooden cable spool.
“Yeah? She find anything good?” Jason looked tan and happy, about as rednecky as he could be.
Bax opened the email on his tablet, scrolling through. His footstool was way more hairy…and drooly. Jack had a new dog, a bloodhound and Great Pyrenees mix. The silly mutt was named Emmit, and he loved Bax already.
Bax kinda liked him too.
“Two good possibles. Listen to this. This one has a guest house with a bitty kitchen and a hot tub.”
“Oh, that’s cool. Close to the water?”
“Yeah. It’s not right on the beach, but there’s a path. Kinda across the street.” Bax hummed. “The other place is right on the water.”
“Yeah? What’s it like?” Jason looked like the happiest cowboy on earth, and Bax snapped a picture to send to Aje and Gramps. They’d both get a kick out of this.
“It’s a little smaller. Has a mother-in-law suite instead of a guest house. Has a good little plot of land, though. Enough for some horses. No hot tub, but that we could put in. It’s a little more out of town.”
“Cool. I like out of town and on the water. And we need room for a couple horses and some dogs.”
“I think so, yeah. It needs more improvements, but it ain’t like we ain’t got the money.” He tapped out a quick email with his hunt and peck typing, telling Monica the real estate lady that one was a real possibility. Maybe they could go have a tour.
“Cool. Maybe we could go see it.” That was his Jase, following his brainwaves. “Well, you can see it, I’ll feel of it—and together we’ll figure it.”
“Sounds good. I wrote the agent.” Excitement curled in his belly. Whether Jason won or crashed and burned, they could do this, and it would be a sound investment.
It wasn’t fancy, and it would take work, but he liked to do that sort of thing, and God knew they had friends who did too.
Coke was a machine, and AJ loved to build shit.
He grinned, happy as all get out at the very thought.
“If there’s enough room to let someone stay the night, a place for a TV and a comfy couch and a bedroom for a—” Jason stopped and blinked, his expression dumbfounded.
“A bedroom for what, babe?” He held his breath, not sure what would make Jason look like that.
“We’ll get to buy us a bed, Bax. Like you and me. Together. One we pick.”
“We will. We’ll need something firm for my damn back.” Look at that smile. It lit up his whole world. He got it, though. They had places and beds and shit all over the damn country, but wasn’t none of it theirs.
This would be the first thing that was.
“We’ll go to one of them mattress places and lay on every damn bed in the store,” Jason teased, splashing his hands in the water.
“Lord yes. We could get one of them magic number beds.”
“Bah. I don’t think we ought to get a bed that can break, Bax.” Listen to that wicked man.
“I reckon not.” No one else was there to hear but the dog, and he wasn’t gonna tell. “We’ll give it a workout.”
“That’s it. Do you like a big headboard deal? One with drawers?”
“I can go there.” He didn’t care, really, but he would bet that could be handy to hide supplies in—and keep shit away from said dogs. Lord knew, Coke and Dillon’s bassets was always digging out weird nonsense from people’s houses.
“Cool. I like that idea too. Drawers are always good for stashing stuff.” Jason chuckled softly. “So, couches? Recliners?”
“I like a big couch. One of them that has recliners on either end but a big middle. So we can sit together. Room for dogs and all of AJ’s kids.”
Jason snorted. “That would take three couches.”
Hell, it might take five. “It’s Gramps and the clown that’ll be around the most.”
“Mmm.” Jason nodded. “We’ll get the guest bed with them in mind. One of them adjustable ones where the head and feet go up and down.”
“Yeah. Yeah, Dillon would love that for Gramps.” Jason was a good guy. A real good guy, no matter what they said about him down at the jail.
“Cool. You think I could learn to read braille?”
“Whut?” That took him a minute to transition. “Sure. You’re a smart dog.”
“I was hearing they make labels for food and shit in braille, so I could find the peanut butter.”
“Yeah. And if it’s our place, we’ll put shit where it goes, like in the little fridge in the trailer.” They had a system. It wasn’t fancy, but it worked.
“I’m a lot of work.” Jason looked smaller all of a sudden.
Bax scowled. “No, sir. No more than me and my bad knees and worse temper. You stop it.”
He wasn’t having that shit. Jason Scott had made more money this year than he had in five. Jason’s name was what was going to keep them afloat, not his.
And Jason was his North Star. That was that.
Mini grinned, stretching, looking like that happy man again. “Well, okay.”
So there. Bax rubbed that dog with his toes. This was the good life.
His phone beeped, the real estate agent answering him. “That house is still available. You want to run down day after tomorrow?”
“Yes, sir. I surely do.”
“I’ll tell her.” He might see if he could put in some kind of earnest money too, Bax had a feeling about the place. It had all the things they needed—space, beach, land.
Their place.
Bax took a deep breath, filling his lungs with new air, letting out the old. Sometimes a man just had to do that.
Let himself believe a little, that this—all of this—was going to be real.
Bax got up, scaring the hound half to death, and scooted his chair across the porch to where he could dangle his feet in the kiddie pool. “Oh, that’s good.”
“Right? We filled it with a couple-three bags of ice.”
“Smart man.” Bax sighed, leaning back and closing his eyes as he tugged his hat back.
This he could get used to.