5. Greg
CHAPTER 5
GREG
“It’s too bad you don’t live closer to Bent Oak,” I told Jon, one of the Wonders I was connected to. “I would’ve just had you come work at the pet resort. I know what a dedicated employee you are.” I’d give a lot to have someone as reliable as Jon on our payroll.
He sighed. “That would’ve been nice. But I’m excited to learn to be an administrative assistant. I don’t know anything about construction management, but it’s probably a better career path than the garden store anyway.” He paused. “You really think he’ll be okay with me leaving my desk and going outside every couple of hours? I’ve never had a completely indoor job before.”
“Like I said, Ruben is a Wonder too, so you can be up front with him about your needs. He’ll treat it like a medical accommodation for a human employee.”
I idly straightened my laptop so its sides were parallel with the edges of the desk.
“Thank you so much, Greg. I didn’t know what I was going to do when the garden store closed down. ”
“This is what I’m here for. Keep me posted on how you like the job, okay?”
“Will do. Thanks again, Greg.”
After hanging up with Jon, I worked on the pet resort’s financial reports for the previous month. I enjoyed dealing with the numbers side of the business. Spreadsheets were so structured and informative.
Craig was in the lobby covering the front desk team’s lunch breaks, so our office was quiet. I’d made good progress when my cell phone rang. I hoped it wasn’t Lloyd. He was supposed to be taking Silvia on a lunch date. He’d texted me four times this morning trying to decide what to wear and where to take her.
Thankfully it was someone else.
“Taylor, how are you? It’s been a while since we’ve spoken.”
Taylor’s parents had settled in the Austin area over thirty years ago, way before I’d taken over the District. They all had stable jobs and owned their homes, so I rarely interacted with the family outside the quarterly socials I held.
“Hello, sir. How’s it going?”
I sighed. “Taylor, I’ve told you not to call me sir. It’s weird. I’m not your boss, and I’m not even older than you.”
“You’re the DM,” he said stubbornly. “That deserves respect. You’re our sheriff-slash-social worker-slash-guidance counselor. But it’d be weird to call you ‘Sheriff’, and ‘District Monitor’ doesn’t roll off the tongue. So you get to be called ‘sir’. Sir.”
I blew out a breath and decided it wasn’t worth the argument.
“What can I help you with today, Taylor? ”
“Um, I saw on Discord about the new Cassandra?”
“Yes?”
“And Delphia said his name was Cal, right?” Taylor didn’t sound like he was really asking.
“Right.”
“Yeah, I ran into him this morning.”
I stood up, my desk chair sailing toward the wall behind me. “ What? ”
“I was at Pour Some Sugar on Me, you know, the coffee shop and bakery over on Oakworth?”
I made a grunt of acknowledgement.
“It was strange. My bear was looking around, kind of sniffing, which is weird for him. He usually just naps unless we’re outdoors. Anyway, he was real interested in this guy ahead of me in line, but I couldn’t get a good look at him until after he ordered. He went over to wait for his drink, and when he turned around, I could tell he saw my bear.”
“Holy shit.” My mother saw people’s second selves, but she’d told me when she’d spoken to Cal last night he’d only talked about his visions. Good for him for holding something back. He was either suspicious or smart or both.
“Hah, that’s exactly what Cal said, sir. My bear really liked him, by the way. But based on Cal’s reaction, I’m pretty sure I was the first Wonder he’d ever seen in person.”
“Oh, crap.” I ran my fingers through my hair and gripped it.
“Yeah, I felt kinda bad for him. But he didn’t scream or pass out, so that’s something. Oh, and I had to run off this douchebag who seemed to know Cal from when they were kids or whatever. Kept calling him an insulting nickname and tried to gay-shame him.”
“ What? ” Rage filled me, and I tensed. I half-crouched to lower my center of gravity, jerking my free hand out of my hair and making a fist in front of my chest like I was getting ready to punch someone. “ Who was he? ” I bit out.
Taylor chuckled. “I guess your mom’s right about you nesting, sir. But don’t worry. Cal wasn’t paying any attention to the guy, and I scared him off. He had some bougie name and had made the barista write ‘the fourth’ after it on his cup.”
I stalked around my desk and paced between Craig’s desk and mine. I forced my fingers to unclench. My breath was coming in huge puffs. I wasn’t quite in combat mode, but it was close.
“Sir, I tell you what,” Taylor said with a suspiciously indulgent tone in his voice. “How about I go by Pour Some Sugar on Me every morning for the next week to see if either of them shows up. Will that help?”
It did, in fact, help. My heart rate slowed, and my muscles relaxed. “I’d appreciate it, Taylor. Thank you.” I could also warn Ellis and Shane, since they were coming to town this weekend to see if they resonated with Cal.
“You should meet him. He has my bear’s stamp of approval. We’d all like to see you with someone, settled down and happy.”
“I’m not nesting, but thanks.”
“Um... well, just in case, I put in a good word about you with Cal. So hopefully he’ll pick you anyway.”
I clapped my palm to my forehead. Fuck my life.
After messaging Ellis and Shane to be on the lookout for Cal’s harasser, I texted Lloyd to call me when he’d finished his lunch with Silvia. Since he was already in town, Mom had asked him to track Cal down and see what his Wonder senses could tell him regarding Cal’s magic. But Taylor had already done that, and seeing another Wonder might freak Cal out even more.
While I was stressing over the reactions of a man I’d never met, Craig walked into the office.
“Come on,” he said. “All of today’s arrivals are here, and Kat and Melanie have everything under control.”
“Where are we going?”
He flashed me a grin. “To look at a house for you.”
I groaned. “Craig....”
He tugged on my arm. “It’s just the one, and it’s right down the street from Foster’s and my place. You owe it to me to look at it. And when we’re done, we can have drinks at my house while we wait for Lloyd to leave Silvia’s.”
I shuddered. “I do not want to know how long he stays over there, thank you very much.”
But I let Craig pull me to my feet and drag me out of the office.
The house... needed a lot of work. Like, a lot . It had been foreclosed on and sitting empty for a couple of years. From the outside I could see the roof was missing some shingles, the ugly green paint was faded, and a couple of the shutters had fallen off. Just looking at it made me itch to start repairs .
“I don’t know if I’m ready for a fixer-upper,” I said as we walked up the cracked and stained driveway. We’d parked at Craig’s, which meant we’d had to walk past Lloyd’s car sitting in front of Silvia’s house. Don’t think about it .
“Give it a chance,” he chided. “We’re here so we might as well look.”
I frowned doubtfully at the weed-filled lawn. I didn’t have OCD, but I did have significant issues with needing my personal spaces to be peaceful, which to me meant neat and tidy. I wouldn’t be able to move in somewhere like this until it had been practically torn down and rebuilt.
A bright red BMW sedan pulled up to the curb.
“This’ll be the realtor.”
She was tall and blonde, and she eyeballed us like a greyhound getting ready to chase a rabbit.
“Which one of you is Greg?”
“Fuck you, Craig,” I muttered under my breath. “Uh, that’s me.”
“Great! I’m Barbara. Let’s look at this house!”
The inside was slightly more promising than the outside, even if the mismatched colors and caked-on dust made all the muscles in my neck go tense. But as long as I squinted past the dreadful flowered wallpaper in the kitchen and the orange-brown carpet in the living room, I could tell it would be livable. The rooms were good-sized, and big windows overlooked the fenced—and even more weed-filled—backyard.
A sudden longing hit me. I’d put off having pets of my own, even cats. I’d told myself I’d have pets when I moved into a house. It was easy to imagine a dog running through this backyard, once the weeds had been removed and new grass put down, of course.
The main bedroom was on the ground floor, and upstairs there were two average-sized guest bedrooms. All three of those could be easily fixed up with some paint and new flooring. The main bedroom’s bath and the guest bathroom on the second floor would need remodeling.
The rest of the upper floor, covering half the house, was the only thing that had been updated in the last few decades. It was one huge open room with beautiful hardwood floors. The interior wall sported three doors, which I assumed were closets. The outer walls were lined with windows.
“What was this, a ballroom or something?”
Barbara shrugged. “The listing says it’s a game room, but you could do whatever you wanted with it.”
“Oooh,” Craig said, slowly spinning around to take in the room. “If you added a wet bar in the corner, this would be a fantastic space to host game nights in.”
I scoffed. “We could have game nights for thirty people in here.”
Craig nodded. “Half the space could have tables for board games, and you’d still have room for a seating area and a big TV for gaming consoles.”
I glanced at Barbara. “This is a lot of house for one person. And it needs a ton of work.”
She turned her lips up in a slightly shark-like smile. “There’s one more room we haven’t seen yet.” She referred to her phone then walked over to one of the closet doors. But it wasn’t a closet. It was another staircase .
The attic had been converted to a large finished room with the same hardwood as the game room below.
“You could make this an office or a bedroom or even a crafting room,” Barbara said.
There were only two tiny windows up here. I was relieved to see an air vent though. This room would get hot in the summer otherwise. But if I worked from home, which I didn’t, this would make a really nice office.
I didn’t need a home office. I didn’t need a giant game room. I didn’t need a house this large. I didn’t need the stress and cost of the renovations this place would need.
I wasn’t nesting.
But when Barbara told me the bank was looking to sell quickly, and the asking price was well within my budget, even factoring in the remodeling, I found myself signing the paperwork to make an offer right then and there.