Chapter Eleven
Eleven
Hannah
Simon’s expression was not impressed. In fact, he looked disturbed.
I knew I was being oversensitive, but the discomfort on Simon’s face reminded me of every judgmental person I’d had to deal with since leaving print journalism.
Online content had been an adjustment for me, too, but it was always people in traditional careers who struggled the most to grasp that online media was actually a valid way to disseminate information and make a living.
“How did you fall into that?” Simon asked. Both Roland and Zach leaned in, obviously wanting to know as well.
“Well, I started by doing cute little dances and then I did makeup tutorials, one thing led to another, and here I am.” I did another enormous overly exaggerated hair toss, which should have clued them in to the fact that I was slinging enough horseshit to clean a stable, but all three of them missed it.
“You’re not planning on filming anything at the house, are you?” Simon’s voice was strained as if he was trying to sound objective but failing miserably.
I stared at him. I could see the panic on his face at the mere idea of having his life posted online for all the world to see.
I understood that. I curated my content very carefully.
Other than Dude, I shared nothing personal online.
In fact, I posted about locations only after I left them because I didn’t want to be intercepted by any overzealous followers.
It was my way of maintaining some healthy boundaries.
It hadn’t occurred to me to share anything about Pops, the house, or my personal reasons for being in OBX, but where was the fun in admitting that to my new housemate, who was clearly freaking out?
“Well, of course I am,” I said. “I have to let my fans know every single thing I eat or wear, think or feel, don’t I?”
I might have gone too far with that one. Simon’s brows lowered and his eyes narrowed. “You’re messing with me.”
I held my thumb and index finger about an inch apart. “A bit.”
Zach laughed and Roland let out a relieved wheeze. “On that note, we’ll hook up your generator.” The two men returned to their project. Simon watched them go and then faced me.
“I suppose I deserved that,” he said. “Having watched a few of my friends suffer the consequences of oversharing on the socials, I try to avoid social media like it’s an aggressive venereal disease.”
That shocked a laugh out of me. “The metaphor is not entirely inaccurate.”
“How did you actually end up being an influ…a creator?” he asked.
“I was a journalist whose newspaper went under,” I said.
“One minute I was covering the movers and shakers in DC and the next I was unemployed and the only thing I owned in the world was Buttercup.” I didn’t mention my divorce or the staggering medical bills I’d been left with from the unsuccessful fertility treatments as the reason I had ended up with just a van.
There’s only so much humiliation I was willing to share until I knew him better.
“Buttercup?”
“My van.” I tipped my head in the direction of the driveway.
“Aptly named.” Simon leaned against the side of the house.
“I tried to survive working freelance while looking for a full-time position, but there just wasn’t anything available.
Before I got evicted, I packed what I needed, put the rest of my things in storage, and hit the open road.
I impulsively decided to live off my savings while I toured all of the national parks,” I said.
“Shockingly, when I started posting about my travels, I gained a following, which gave me an income, and I’ve been at it ever since. ”
He cupped his chin with his hand and studied me. “Is that why you don’t want to sell? Because now you’ll have a roof over your head?”
I frowned. “The van has a roof. I wasn’t homeless. I was addressless, which is not the same thing.”
He held up his hands in surrender and I realized I sounded a teeny bit defensive.
“But, yes, it would be nice to stay in one spot for longer than a couple of weeks,” I conceded.
“If you sell to me, you can use the money to buy a place of your own,” he said.
“Or I can not sell my half and have a place that’s already paid for and has sentimental value.” I studied him. “Aren’t you the least bit curious about Billy and Bobby? Our grandfathers were a couple, Simon, how can you not want to know more about that?”
“Because it’s none of my business,” he said. “As I said before, Gramps would have told me if he’d wanted me to know.”
“I already told you I disagree. And I have to ask—Why are you so hot to sell? Is it because you’re desperate to get back to that ‘career’ you love so much?”
His mouth tightened and I knew I’d struck a nerve.
Me, being me, I had to push. “What is it that you do?”
“I work in insurance.”
“Oh.” I had not expected that.
“Yeah, it’s a real soul suck of a job but it pays the bills,” he said. “I’m lucky that most of my work can be done remotely, otherwise I’d never be able to live in the cottage for the stipulated two months.”
It was easy to see Simon wasn’t happy. It was the sort of misery that came with the Sunday scaries of having to spend his weeks doing work that he didn’t find fulfilling. I tucked that information into the file labeled Hot Housemate, er, Simon O’Malley in my brain.
“As I mentioned, I have my reasons for wanting to sell,” he said. “And I’d rather do it sooner than later.”
I wondered if selling would give him enough of a financial cushion to leave his job. But there was no way to verify this without being incredibly rude. I decided to wait and see what I learned about him over the next two months.
“Pops died a month ago,” I said. “I’ve barely had time to process the loss and I haven’t had much time to look around.
I want to understand this place from Pops’s perspective.
I want to get to know this section of the Outer Banks and fill in the gaps in my knowledge of Pops’s life here, one of which is his relationship with your Gramps. ”
He frowned. “Why?”
“Because it’s important to me.”
“Why?” he persisted. “Your grandfather is gone, Hannah, and learning about his secret life here isn’t going to bring him back.”
I blinked in surprise. Something was clearly eating at Simon. This was not the time to press him for more. I decided to focus on my own mission.
“I’m not leaving until I have a better understanding of Billy and Bobby,” I declared, making my voice as firm as the Rocky Mountains I had spent a summer hiking. “I want to know everything about them. How they met, how they fell in love, all of it.”
“What if you discover things you don’t want to know?” Simon protested.
“Like what? That they were into bondage or something?” I said it just to make him flinch, which he did. I pressed my lips together, keeping my laughter in check. I failed and my laugh came out my nose in a bodacious snort.
“That’s not funny.” He wagged a finger at me but a tiny smile curved his mouth up on one side, giving him away.
“And now I can’t get the picture of Gramps in a leather face mask out of my head.
” He shook himself from head to toe like Dude when he came out of the rain, then he looked at me and said, “You’re evil. ”
“I’m not the one picturing my grandfather in a dom getup.”
He ran his hand over his face. “You’re only proving my point, you know. We might find out things that we’re better off not knowing.”
“We’ve only been here for a few days,” I said. “We don’t know anything yet.”
Simon walked around the house to the front.
As he had pointed out before, the paint was chipped and some of the boards looked rotten and in need of replacing.
The entire porch was worn and definitely ready to be retired.
I studied it with a critical eye. There were certain realities to staying here that I had not yet confronted.
“You know, if I do sell—” I began, and his head snapped in my direction. I held up one hand. “That’s a big if. This place needs to be inspected, which I don’t think would go well. The entire cottage is woefully out of date. I’m not a Realtor but I feel like we’d be taking a hit to sell it as is.”
Simon glanced around the cottage. “No, it’s prime real estate. It’s got a dock, the marsh, water access from the channel to the ocean—”
“Windows and a roof that must be replaced, a yard that needs to be landscaped, new paint all over, and that’s just the outside. The inside is like a time capsule of the ’90s.”
“It doesn’t matter, Hannah. Anyone who buys this place is probably going to flatten it and build a colossal McMansion,” Simon said. I gasped.
“And you’re okay with that?” I was outraged. “This cottage was so special to your Gramps that he kept it a secret for twenty years—how can you just let that happen without understanding why he loved it so much?”
Simon glanced away. I studied his profile and noticed that his jaw was tight and a muscle flexed in his cheek. When he turned back to me, his face was set and expressionless. Whatever he was feeling, he was not in a sharing mood.
“I don’t need to know why. Gramps is dead and nothing will bring him back. It’s time to move on. My original plan was to spend a month here, clean out his things, put the place on the market, and then be done,” he said.
“You sound like you’re determined to leave it all behind.
” I studied him but his face betrayed nothing.
The man was on serious emotional lockdown.
I reminded myself that this was not my problem.
“Listen, we have to live in the cottage for two months, how about I stop badgering you about wanting to know more about our grandfathers’ life here and you quit lobbying me to sell the house. ”
Simon heaved a sigh and tipped his head back to stare at the sky. “Fine. No pestering you to sell for two months but no more tape on the floor. I can’t live like that.”
He was offering me an olive branch, which of course I was going to take. Why would I refuse and make things weird between us? Still, I had to be honest so there weren’t any nasty surprises for him at the end of the two months.
“That sounds reasonable, O’Malley,” I said. “But I’m not making any promises that I’ll agree to sell at the end of two months. In that time, I might decide I want chickens.”
“Chickens?” His eyebrows shot up.
“Or maybe baby goats.” I made my face as innocent as possible and he blew out an exasperated breath.
“We can debate it in two months.” Simon held out his hand and I clasped it with mine.
Immediately, I was aware of everything about him from the calluses on his palm to the warmth of his hand around mine.
I noticed the way his brown eyes lingered on my mouth before he jerked his gaze back up to meet mine, and I smiled.
The spark of awareness between us was undeniable and was definitely going to make the summer more interesting.
I was relieved to note from the intensity of his gaze that Simon O’Malley clearly felt it, too.