Chapter Six
Six
Simon
“I thought you said the cost would be more than either of us should spend on a house that was falling down.” Hannah tossed my words back at me.
“Yeah, well, I crunched some numbers during my run this morning and I think I can make it work,” I said.
The truth was I’d have to cash out some investments and move around some savings, but it would be worth it if I could flip the house and make back the money—and then some—that I’d lose in buying out Hannah at half the market value.
Since Gramps had passed, my role changed from helping with the financial support to becoming the sole provider for my brother, Charlie.
It was a responsibility I didn’t take lightly.
When I had inherited the house from Gramps, I had known right away that I would sell it and bank the profit so that Charlie would always be financially secure.
Having my mother pass away when I was a teen had taught me that no one is guaranteed a long run and I needed to make certain that those who depended upon me were set for life should anything happen to me.
Hannah sipped her coffee, studying me over the rim. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking but with every sip, her blue eyes got brighter, as if the sleep was being forcibly removed from her brain by the caffeine. She sat up straighter and said, “I’m not interested.”
I frowned. “You haven’t even heard my offer.”
“I don’t need to.” She tipped her chin up. “Pops left me half of this house and I’m staying.”
“You’re not being at all reasonable.” I took a deep breath through my nose while I tried to manifest some patience.
“I might say the same about you. We haven’t even been here for twenty-four hours and you’re expecting me to agree to sell my inheritance when you know we have to live here for at least two months.
I haven’t even had a proper look at the place yet,” she said.
“I think this might be the same house that Pops and Nana rented when I was a little kid. We used to come to Cape Split for a week every summer, but then after the divorce, we stopped.”
She looked sad. Oh, this was not good. Hannah had vacationed here in this house as a child?
The sentimentality quotient was going to be hard to beat.
Maybe it wasn’t the same house. Either way I wasn’t ready to give up.
Like Dude with a bone, I was going to stay on mission.
“I feel like we got a pretty good look at it while running for our lives from the bat last night.”
“Maybe you did, but I was entirely too busy freaking out.” She glanced at me over the rim of her paper cup. “Have you been upstairs yet to check the rooms?”
“For the colony?” I clarified. “Um…no.”
She gave me a closed-lip, knowing smile, almost a smirk, to be honest, and I felt the need to defend myself.
“I am not afraid of bats,” I said, fully aware that I had shrieked like a little kid last night in the hallway.
“Whatever you say.” She sipped her coffee.
“I know what you’re doing and it isn’t going to work.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“What am I doing?” She blinked her wide baby blues at me and I could almost feel myself giving in. No. I was not falling for it.
“You’re trying to get me to prove that I’m not afraid by going upstairs and checking the rooms,” I said.
“But if you’re not afraid…”
“I’m not. I’m cautious, which is why we’ll go together,” I said. “Then you’ll see that this place is more of a fixer-upper than you want to deal with and you’ll agree to allow me to take it off your hands.”
Her mouth compressed into a straight line. “The house is not that bad.” She pointed to the ceiling. “Even the paint bubble from last night’s storm is gone.”
“Because I popped it this morning,” I said. “Next time it rains, we’ll likely have a flood in here.”
“If the house is so horrible, why do you want to buy it?” she countered.
“Because I want to sell it and you owning half of it is making that impossible,” I said. It was mostly true but she didn’t need to know that.
“Why not let me buy you out?” she asked.
“Don’t you live in your van?” I asked. “How do you think you’ll come up with that kind of money?”
She looked annoyed. “First of all, you have no idea how much money I have and second, I could always take out a loan.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“No?” Her eyes were wide.
“I won’t let you put yourself in debt to buy this place. It’s a money pit and my conscience can’t abide sticking you with it.”
“But you’re fine with me sticking you with it.” Her eyes narrowed. “Something doesn’t add up, O’Malley.”
She wasn’t kidding. For a second, a nanosecond really, I thought about telling her about my brother, but after years of keeping my private life private, I found I couldn’t talk about Charlie with a near stranger, even one as seemingly nice as she was.
“Listen, I’m just looking out for you.” I wasn’t. “Even if you could get a loan to buy the house from me, how would you manage to pay for all the repairs that are needed?”
“What repairs?” Her gaze flitted from the ceiling to the front door.
“For starters, a new roof, which is estimated at fifteen thousand. You’ll need a tree-removal service, there’s a monster live oak on the north side that’s just waiting to come down in a storm, probably taking a chunk of the house with it.
That can be another couple thousand. And the wraparound deck has rotted-out planks and supports that need to be removed and replaced, costing another thousand or so, assuming you get a good deal.
That’s just the exterior. Should I continue? ”
She looked pale and I felt like a heel for dumping on her, but she needed a reality check and if that caused her to consider selling to me then I could live with it.
“Why are you willing to take all of this on?” she asked. “You have to know that an inspector will tell any prospective buyer about the issues and you’ll be lucky to sell it for any profit, especially if you buy me out first.”
I sipped my coffee. I didn’t want to lie to her but if I told her my plan was to flip the property, she might balk or she might want to go in on it with me, which was not a part of my long-term financial plans for Charlie.
“You’re going to sell it to a developer, aren’t you?” Her eyes flashed with accusation.
My plan was to sell it to a potential resident but if a developer wanted to buy it for a small fortune, was I really in a position to refuse the sale? No, I was not. I decided to avoid answering.
“If you sell your half to me, it really doesn’t matter what I do with it, does it?” I asked. My voice came out harsher than I intended, no doubt because I was smarting under the accusation in her gaze.
“You’re right,” she said. “It wouldn’t be my business.
” She rose from her seat and started riffling through the kitchen drawers until she came up with a roll of masking tape.
“But since I will never ever ever sell my half to you, it seems that the only logical step is to divide the house in half. How about you just stay on your side and I’ll stay on mine? ”
Shit. This was the last thing I’d intended. Clearly, I’d struck a nerve. Big-time.
“Listen, Spencer, it doesn’t have to be like this.” I tried to sound cajoling but judging by the heated glance she sent my way, it had come out as condescending. “I didn’t mean to offend you by pointing out there’s a lot of work to be done.”
“I wasn’t offended by that.” She ripped a huge strip of tape off the roll and started to mark off the kitchen. She pointed to one side. “Your half, O’Malley.”
“I clearly pissed you off,” I countered, ignoring the tape. “Listen, whatever I said, I apologize.”
“Oh, that seems sincere,” she scoffed. She continued taping into the living room and the dining room and even around the counter where I sat. “Neutral areas are the appliances and the doors since I can’t really deny you access to those things.”
“What about upstairs?” I asked.
She held up the roll, which was much smaller than when she had started. “I need more tape but I’ll get to it.”
“Spencer, you can’t be serious about this,” I said. “What did I say that was so bad?”
“Oh, I can assure you, I am very serious.” With that, she used the last of the tape to mark off the path to the front door.
She stood and put her hands on her hips, staring me down with a look that at any other moment would have been smokin’ hot.
“And just so you know, I have spent the past five years visiting national parks, raising the public’s awareness of them.
You want to know who the enemy of our national parks is?
” Her upper lip curled ever so slightly. “Developers.”
Ah, now it was coming into focus. I had unwittingly aligned myself with her personal enemy. Well, hell. Without another word, she stomped into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
I figured she’d get tired of the tape divider by the end of the morning. She did not.
In fact, she packed up Dude and disappeared for the day.
The house seemed ridiculously empty without her and Dude, mostly Dude, underfoot. I wondered as I spent the day fishing off the dock if she’d gone to see our attorney, Vincent Cosmo, to see if she could get rid of me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Not good, I decided.
When she arrived back in the evening, she didn’t greet me with a smile. Just a terse comment thrown over her shoulder: “I’ll go pick up some dinner to make up for breakfast this morning and dinner last night.”
“You don’t have to do that.” I felt weirdly resistant to the idea of her leaving again when she’d been gone all day. She waved me off so I tried to stall her departure. “Just so you know, I checked the upstairs and we are bat-free.”
She paused and turned to face me. “Thank you, O’Malley.” She sent me an indifferent glance. Ouch.
I turned my attention to the Great Dane, finding I’d missed him, too, today. “Hey, Dude.”