Chapter 11 #2
I braced myself for some bachelor pad with barely any furniture and an empty fridge, promising myself that I wouldn’t react badly no matter what we found.
He hadn’t been planning for a wife. It wasn’t as if he would’ve had time to spruce the place up for me.
When we pulled down the driveway, though, I was pleasantly surprised.
He lived in a farmhouse out in the woods. The property was clean, the paint looked new, and there were bushes planted outside on each side of the front steps.
“Home sweet home,” he said, glancing at me as he put the car in park.
“It’s beautiful,” I replied, looking out the windshield. The porch out front was wide and deep, and I could imagine a porch swing out there someday, with a couple of pillows and a few potted plants.
I didn’t wait for Otto to get my door, even though he’d been opening it for me all morning, but I was too busy admiring his house to pay attention to his scowl.
The garage was a separate building painted to match the house, and the gravel that crunched under our feet was thick, like it hadn’t been there long enough to spread out.
“I don’t wear shoes in the house,” he explained, opening the front door. He was carrying our bag of food in one hand but held up the other to stop me before I’d stepped inside. “Wait here.”
I froze just outside, thankful for the roof of the porch that kept me from getting soaked by the rain. A few seconds later, he was back, his hands empty and his shoes off.
“Tradition,” he explained, reaching for me. I let out a startled woop and struggled to keep our drinks level as he picked me up off my feet and carried me inside.
“I thought that was after you got married,” I said as he set me back down inside.
“I’ll do it again, then,” he replied easily, taking the drinks so I could slide my boots off.
His house wasn’t anything like I’d imagined.
There weren’t any tchotchkes or extra décor, but the place felt warm and inviting anyway.
The couch was soft brown leather and a dark-green worn but clean recliner sat perpendicular to it, both facing a television that was mounted on the wall above what looked like a working fireplace.
“Livin’ room,” Otto said, opening his arms out wide. He walked backward, his eyes on mine as I followed him. “Kitchen.”
I looked around the room. The appliances weren’t new, nothing in the kitchen was—but the bare countertops were immaculately clean.
The front of the fridge had a couple of photos held up by magnets, one that I recognized of Rhett—but before I could move closer, Otto was setting down our drinks on an old dining room table and throwing open a door.
“Basement,” he announced. He shook his head when I stepped forward. “You don’t wanna go down there. It’s empty except for the furnace and some shelves built in. I think that’s where they stored most of their canned food—there’s no pantry up here.”
“I’m good at canning,” I said, looking briefly over his shoulder into the darkness.
“I haven’t ever bought enough that it didn’t fit in the cupboards up here,” he said, jerking his head toward the rest of the kitchen. “But if you wanna fill the basement, have at it. I’ll make sure the shelves are sound first.”
“Sounds good.” I smiled and looked at the photos on the wall. They were a mixture of different people, candid shots mostly, and I recognized Otto in a couple of them.
I walked slowly around the kitchen, running my hand over the counter, looking at the big white sink, glancing out the window at the trees behind the house.
It was better than I had imagined. I would’ve lived anywhere with him.
That’s what I was signing up for, after all.
A trailer in a park, an apartment, a room in his parents’ house—any place.
But I could actually picture myself in that kitchen, making dinner as Otto got home from work, frying eggs for breakfast while little legs swung back and forth from one of the dining room chairs, canning jam on a summer afternoon while the sun came through the window, lighting the entire room.
“You’re quiet,” Otto said, coming up behind me. His hand slid around my waist and settled on my belly.
“I love your house,” I replied honestly.
“Yeah?”
“It’s like—” I shook my head and laughed. “A painting,” I finished dumbly. I wasn’t sure how to describe what I saw around us.
“My gram said it’s a place to raise a family in,” he mused, leaning down to kiss the side of my neck.
I shivered.
“Come on,” he said, leaning back up. “Let me show you the rest of the house, and then I’ll feed you.”
“There’s more?” I joked happily, making him smile.
“Bedrooms,” he replied with mock excitement. “Three of them.”
“Holy cow!” I followed him, playing into the joke. “Three whole bedrooms?”
“And two bathrooms,” he said, tugging me up the stairs. “One down there—” He pointed to a door that was literally under the stairs, and I briefly wondered how he didn’t hit his head when he used it. “And another one up here.”
“It’s nothin’ special,” he said as he opened the bathroom door.
The inside was worn, just like the kitchen, but it was also spotless.
A couple of mismatched towels were folded and hung neatly on the rack.
A pale-blue shower curtain was pushed aside and the olive-green tub was visible.
Muttering something under his breath, Otto swung it closed.
“The showerhead is new and the pressure’s great,” he said, almost apologetically. “It’s just ugly.”
“Does a shower have to be pretty?” I asked, smiling at him.
“Well, if you want to soak in the tub or somethin’.” He waved at the room. “It’s not fancy.”
“I don’t need fancy.”
“Sink and toilet work,” he said quickly, shutting the door to the bathroom. “And these are the bedrooms.”
The first room had various boxes and miscellaneous junk in it, which surprised me after seeing the rest of the clean house. I must’ve made some kind of face because Otto laughed a little under his breath.
“I need to go through it,” he said, waving his hand at the room before closing the door again.
I silently chastised myself and focused on hiding my reactions. His house was beautiful and I didn’t want him to think I was disappointed with anything.
The second bedroom was smaller and completely empty. I walked into it, my tights sliding slightly on the hardwood floors.
“The hall and the stairs have a runner already,” Otto said, walking in behind me. “Micky said somethin’ about puttin’ carpet in here, but I was thinkin’ a huge wool rug would look cooler.”
I turned to face him and he had an expression on his face that I couldn’t interpret.
“I know babies are wobbly as fuck,” he continued, his words coming out kind of fast. “But we could put a thick pad under the rug so it’ll pretty much bounce if it falls.
I know carpet would probably be better, but I really like these hardwood floors.
I’m pretty sure they’re the original floors and—”
“This’ll be the baby’s room?” I asked quietly, cutting him off.
“It’s closest to the master,” he replied. “I know the other room is bigger, but this one’s closer. They don’t need a lot of room anyway, right? Just a crib and a dresser? Maybe a rocking chair? Rocking chairs work way better on hardwood, just sayin’.”
“It’s perfect,” I breathed, spinning in a slow circle.
Otto was right, it was a small room, but there were two tall windows that faced the front of the house making the room seem airy and bright.
There was no closet, and the ceiling fan and light fixture had seen better days, but I could easily envision it as a finished nursery.
“You like it,” he said in relief. “Alright.”
“The floors are gorgeous,” I said, sliding over to him. “No carpet.”
“Thank fuck,” he muttered. “I mean, I woulda done what you wanted, but I really didn’t want to fuck up my floors.”
“I could even make a rug,” I said, glancing back as he towed me out of the room. I’d do it in a rainbow of colors. I could already picture it.
“Or we can buy one,” he said doubtfully.
I shrugged.
“This is our room,” he announced, opening the door to the last room. He pulled me inside and backed up a little so I could look around.
The bed was made—no surprise there. What was surprising was the massive and clearly hand-sewn quilt that covered it.
It was a mixture of colors done in a wedding ring pattern—I ignored the irony of that—and it fit perfectly with the rest of the house.
The king-size bed was brass and gorgeous and the long dark wood dresser along the wall had matching knobs.
The walls were a pale yellow, almost white, a few shades lighter than the paint on the outside of the house.
“I think your favorite color is yellow,” I said, half-jokingly as I turned to Otto.
He was watching me intently, waiting for a reaction, and I realized belatedly that he was nervous I wouldn’t like it. The whole house would belong to our family, and he wanted me to like it—but this room would be purely ours. It was more important.
“It’s not my favorite,” he said after a moment, looking around the room. “It just seemed like it fit the house.”
“It does,” I confirmed, walking forward to run my hand along the quilt. It must’ve taken months to stitch it together.
“My great-great-gram made that,” Otto said quietly.
“Really?”
“Or maybe my great-great-aunt. My parents got a few of them passed down and they gave it to me as a housewarming gift.”
“What a sweet gift,” I murmured.
“Most of the quilts I’ve seen—everybody has at least one—are smaller. Queen and twin sizes mostly—but there were only a couple of king-size made.”
“And you got one of them,” I said, looking up at him. “Lucky.”
Otto smiled. “Feelin’ luckier by the minute.”
I raised my eyebrows as he moved toward me. I wasn’t surprised when he reached behind me and tugged at my hair, making it fall like a rope down my back.