Chapter 12 #2
His idea wasn’t bad, but I guessed it meant he wasn’t moving.
He came downstairs a minute later, looking like he’d been at it all day.
“Hi. Micah looks like he recovered well. Was it a bad attack?”
“Hey. No, one of the milder ones, I’d say.” I eyed him. Hating him. Loving him way too much. Missing him as much. “I see you have plans.”
He nodded and aimed for the fridge. “I have gone over my finances till I was ready to scream into a pillow, and there’s just no way I can afford to move.” He started pulling out stuff for the kids’ afternoon snack. “I wanna buy you out, though. You’re not walking away from all that money.”
I frowned. “I don’t see it that way. I want the father of my kids to have a decent home. Otherwise, I won’t be able to relax wherever I end up.”
“And that’s…” He sighed and grabbed two apples from our fruit bowl. “That’s very sweet of you, Ash, but you’re already talking about having your parents help you with a loan—”
“If I need substantial renovations,” I pointed out. I still had money. The down payment to wherever was covered. I just might need a loan to cover a potential kitchen remodel and so on. My future mortgage was a nonissue. I’d done the math. I knew my budget and what I could afford.
“Fine. We can talk about it later,” he said.
I knew what that meant. He was gonna push it till he got his way—just not right now. He probably had enough on his plate.
I shut my mouth, for now, and opened some more mail while Nate cut up apple wedges and put them on two plates with peanut butter, some baby carrots, and, the finishing touch, Juliana’s homemade crackers.
“Kids! Snack in the kitchen!” Nate hollered. “Micah, please bring your homework!”
I threw away the junk mail. “I’ll get started on the new couch,” I said. “By the way, where’s the old one?”
“I sold it. Two guys came by earlier and picked it up,” he replied. “And you don’t have to do that. I’ve looked at the instructions. I think I can do it.”
My mouth twitched, and I glanced over at him. “Wouldn’t it be nice to offload some things?”
He made a face. “Yes, but I already have to ask for your help to put up a wall upstairs.”
“I can do two things. I can even do three or four.”
He hesitated. “It’ll be a lot of work.”
Why? “The wall will take a couple of days. I think I’ll live.”
But one thing was for sure. I was sleeping at my office once I’d left the apartment. In no fucking way was I sharing a bed or pullout with Nathan. My initial plan had been to sleep on the couch while he was upstairs, but that was clearly not happening anymore.
A week later, I met up with James outside his house after work.
Yup, hello, Cape Cod.
At first glance, his neighbor’s house looked perfect.
Yeah, it needed some fixing up—the roof, for instance, and the garage’s exterior.
I didn’t know the last time they’d painted the house either, and white got dirty fast. But I saw the potential.
Hell, I saw Nathan’s dream home. He’d always wanted a big porch like that.
“My neighbor is keeping her fingers crossed,” James said, twirling a set of keys on his finger. “The house was just put on the market yesterday, but she’s hoping for a quick sale.”
“Then, here’s to hoping I can afford it.” I followed him toward the house. I liked that the garage had enough space for two cars. “What’s she askin’?”
“Five seventy-five.”
That was within my budget, but it begged the question. What else needed renovating? Most houses in this area went for over six hundred.
“You wouldn’t mind having your boss next door?” I joked.
James smirked to himself and shook his head. “No, sir.”
I couldn’t lie. I enjoyed the times he threw out a sir. It was the Southerner in him. He’d moved here from Nashville some fifteen years ago, when he and his sister had inherited a house from his grandparents. James’s sister had been happy to sell her part of it to buy a condo.
I liked James. Getting to know him this year had been a highlight. We didn’t spend much time outside work or anything, but he’d tagged along with Dylan and me for golf a couple of times, and we’d met up to shoot hoops with his nephew too.
“Where’s the old lady now?” I asked when James unlocked the door.
The porch needed some TLC too, I noticed. Some of the boards had to be replaced.
“Her daughter’s family is helping her get settled in Phoenix,” James answered. “I guess she wanted the new home taken care of before she tackled this project.”
Once he’d shut off the alarm, I walked in farther, and the place definitely smelled like old people.
I liked that the hallway wasn’t so narrow.
“Kitchen here to the left.”
Just like at home.
Not my home anymore.
“Damn.” I loved the kitchen. I mean, the space. Big and open. Some things could actually be saved too. No need to buy new cupboards; I’d just sand these down and repaint them. The kitchen island needed a new top. The lady—or someone—had managed to put an actual crack in the marble.
Nate would’ve loved this too.
Hideous walls, though. The floor had to go.
Enough space for a kitchen table that seated six. That was great. Windows that faced the street.
We moved on, and the more I saw, the easier it was to picture myself living here. I was keeping the old wooden floors. They only needed some love and oil. Big living room, with sliding doors opening up to the patio—fuck me, there was actually a pool.
“Before you get excited, that pool needs relining.”
Yeah, whatever. It was there. It existed.
Nathan would’ve wanted the house based on the front porch and the fireplace in the corner alone.
And sure enough, a home office that could be turned into my bedroom.
“How many bathrooms?” I asked.
“Three,” he answered. “One down here, two upstairs.”
Good, good.
“There’s a half-bath in the garage too,” he added. “The husband built a studio there before he died, so he had a toilet and sink installed.”
I hummed and followed him up the stairs. Great, another banister to replace.
As luck would have it, the upstairs had four bedrooms, not three. They were all on the small side, except for the main bedroom. Which could pose an issue when the kids picked their rooms. Mikey wouldn’t want the large one. Big spaces unsettled him if he was alone.
I rubbed a hand over my mouth. I’d want all the kids here. The garage could eventually become a guest studio, maybe. And whoever took the big room would have to share the bathroom, which meant having a sibling coming and going as they pleased.
The upstairs didn’t need any major renovations, thankfully. New wallpaper or paint, sure. The floors would look good after being re-treated. The bathrooms were in decent shape. We’d see what an inspector said. Maybe I could give Reid a call, even though he only worked on commercial buildings.
“I’ll tell you right now,” I said, squeezing James’s shoulder, “I want this place.”
I also wanted Nate to see it. Because what if?
I wasn’t na?ve enough to believe a house could change the status quo, but perhaps it could remind him of our old plans.
We’d talked about wanting a house with more greenery, a place the kids could run around, maybe out of the city…
This wasn’t out of the city per se, but it had way more space. This was a forever kind of home.
James smiled. He had a charming fucking smile, that one. He was kinda like me, or what I’d heard all my life, that I was rough around the edges. So was he. But he might be the kindest guy I’d met.
“I’ll get you the Realtor’s information so you can see all the specs,” he said.
“Sounds good.”
From what I could see, I’d need maybe twenty or thirty thousand bucks to complete renovations, with the kitchen being the biggest money suck. The time it would take was the problem. Doing all this on my own, while working full time and spending as much time as possible with the kids… Yeah.
This was before even checking for concealed problems. I needed professional eyes on the plumbing and the electrics. I wanted to check the insulation in the roof too, the state of the crawlspace under the house, because I wasn’t moving in to Mold Haven.
“All right, let’s keep our fingers crossed,” I said.
What felt like an eternity was more like three weeks, but the house was finally mine, and I’d get the keys in another two weeks.
Since Nate and I were still technically married, I’d had to involve him early on, and he hadn’t reacted at all in the way I’d wanted. He was happy for me. No jealousy, no discomfort, no lingering looks of wistfulness.
Fucking asshole.
Even so, I had the decency of wanting to tell him in private when all was settled, so I drove over to his office in DC one cold Wednesday when I could be enjoying a lunch burger with James. Instead, I was bracing myself for anything. When the topic was the kids, it could go either way.
Nate worked in an old building where a whole bunch of shrinks and small business owners rented office space. I walked past a dentist in the lobby, then took the elevator up to the third and top floor. Life coach, psychologist, couples counseling, children’s psychologist, psychiatrist… There.
Nathan Riley
Trauma care
Do not knock on the door.
All the others had fancy abbreviations on their door signs, but not him.
He’d spent years and years in school, even when working.
He had a bachelor’s, a master’s, and a PsyD.
Actually, the life coach down the hall didn’t have any fancy titles either, ’cause it was an Instagram profession.
The dude had attended YouTube University.
I knocked on the door.
But I knew he didn’t have a session, so…
He opened the door a few seconds later, and he was holding his lunch box. “Oh. It’s you.”
Gee, thanks.
I frowned.
“Not like that,” he chuckled and opened the door wider. “I was just getting ready to tear someone a new one for knocking. It happens too often.”
Ah. Okay, then.