31. Teddy
TEDDY
NOVEMBER
“Come on,” I growl, frustrated now. “It’s bread. It’s not even bread from the trash.”
I wiggle the piece of white bread out in front of me, but no dice. The stupid little creature just stares at me with its big eyes, using its tiny hands—why does it have tiny hands?—to rub at its nose.
I think it’s taunting me now.
Little bastard.
I’ve been hearing scratching in the attic, and it’s been driving me insane because I’d hear it while I was downstairs sanding the walls or working on the wiring, but every time I charged upstairs, pushed to the brink of my sanity, I couldn’t find anything but droppings.
When I landed at the Atlantic City airport, the first thing I needed was a bed to sleep in after a full day of traveling. I found a hotel where I slept for about sixteen hours, woke up, ate, and then went on a mission for an apartment.
While Luke and Heath were shipping my car here, I rented one at the airport and drove through my new home of Cape May to get familiar with it. It’s beautiful, and it makes me ache that I almost didn’t get this.
While driving through town, I passed by the house we toured back in January. That old fixer-upper blue Victorian with the good bones, that huge porch, and stained glass windows.
And I saw the sign on the front—FOR SALE.
And if that didn’t feel like a sign.
The next thing I knew, I was on the phone with the realtor, Gina. Not the woman who showed the house; apparently, this property had been passed along to a few different realtors and couldn’t sell. Some people didn’t like a challenge, and I was in the mood to roll up my sleeves and work.
“This one has been tricky,” she said in her office, typing my information into her laptop. “Had a woman back out almost too late back in July. Poor thing was devastated by it. How did you hear about it, or did you drive by?”
“My… uh… girlfriend,” I stumbled over the word, because she was my girlfriend at the time, but not anymore. “Uh—we toured it back in January.”
Her fingers paused, and she blinked as if something just dawned on her. “Indie?”
I sat up straight in my chair, the answer Gina needed.
“Yeah, she put a down payment on the house, and we were under contract,” she said, looking intrigued, her brow raised. “In July, she called and said she had to back out. Said she had just broken up with her boyfriend.”
My body went still.
Indie had bought the house for us.
She was no doubt going to surprise me with it. But she didn’t tell me. Not that I gave her much confidence that I was coming with her. God, I could only imagine how much it broke her heart to have to back out of this house.
“Yeah,” I said, my throat tight.
Gina’s eyes narrowed. “So, you’re buying this house for her? To win her back?”
"To make it right," I corrected.
Just another thing I had ruined that I wanted to fix.
First, the vacation.
And now, this.
Gina snorted. “Well, that’s one way to do it. Let’s get this rolling.” She smiled, her fingers moving even faster. “I have another bidder on the house, but I think they want to demolish it and build fresh—”
“I’ll go fifty thousand over their offer,” I said instantly. “Cash.”
No way in hell am I losing out on this house.
Not again.
“Oh, the owner will like that a lot,” Gina said, her smile spreading across her face like the Grinch as she picked up her phone.
She only spoke for five minutes, but I heard a loud cheer down the line after she told him the cash offer.
Gina smiled and stuck out her hand for me to shake.
“Sold.”
So, I’ve been staying here while making the necessary repairs to the house.
And necessary repairs are needed desperately. The house has been unoccupied for five years, and Gina said a rumor circulated that it was cursed because the former owners had passed away there.
The thing was, they were a married couple for over sixty-five years who had passed together in their sleep. Indie had thought it was romantic when the first realtor told us. I had agreed, and from the old photos of the home Gina showed me, it was clear they had lived a life full of love there.
Some curses needed to be broken, so I signed my name happily on the paper.
I will give the house to Indie, transfer her name to the deed if she wants. Or if she wants to buy it from me, which I know she is going to—I will charge her a very fair price.
$1.
But to do that, I need to fix up the house, and I can’t do that with a squatter in the form of a fat raccoon. The inspector warned me I needed to get the attic sealed because of the wildlife, and it was on my to-do list, which had grown insanely long and overwhelming very fast.
The house needs everything gutted and updated, brand new. First things first, I’ve been working on the electrical—a slow-and-steady process for this 1890 house.
Tonight, I was trying to sleep, exhausted from a long day of work, when I heard the scratching again. This time, I found the culprit.
“I am this close to calling animal control,” I hiss, holding my thumb and forefinger close together. “Not the catch-and-release guys either. I’ll make sure they bring the sick stuff to send your ass to raccoon heaven.”
The creature doesn’t look scared by my hissed words, and I sigh, pulling my phone out of my pajama pants. When I worked as an electrician, we usually just called an exterminator to handle this. But I don’t want them to come and kill it.
My body moves without my permission, or maybe my mind is controlling my body, because the next thing I know, Indie’s sleepy voice is in my ear.
“Teddy?”
I freeze, before coughing and clearing my throat, “Hey, Indie…”
“Hey,” Indie says, and I hear some rustling like she’s sitting up in bed. “Are you okay?”
Goosebumps break out across my body. I’m not completely sure if it’s from the huskiness of her voice or the temperature in this attic. It’s not that cold yet, not like how it is in November around this time.
I’ve been getting away with staying warm by the fireplace since the HVAC guys are coming later this week.
I needed to get the electrical set up for central heating and air.
Not that I’m short on money thanks to Nana, but I wasn’t going to hire an electrician because, despite not having a passion for it, I could do this in my sleep by now.
And it’s something to do for Indie, which makes it all worth it.
“Yeah, I’m just… hey, do you remember when you had that squirrel climb into your window? It chewed a hole in your wall while you were at work and got stuck.”
She snorts. “Oh, yeah. That was fun.”
I chuckle, remembering her calling me in the middle of the night, saying she thought someone was trying to break in. She kept hearing scratching noises from somewhere in the apartment.
I had stumbled out of bed, rushed to my truck, and showed up at her house in my boxers and T-shirt. I charged through the door, looking for an intruder, only to find the hole and the adorable culprit.
“Who did you call to get them to remove it?” I ask, before a fond smile stretches across my face, adoration hitting my chest. “Not the exterminator, I remember you cried when you talked to him, and he passionately described his barbaric techniques.”
“I was on my period,” she mutters, making me smile. “And I took a Hippocratic oath.”
“I think that only applies to humans,” I tease.
“Do no harm doesn’t discriminate.”
“Says the girl who loves steak.”
“I’m sorry, did you call for my help or not?” she growls, though she can’t smother her laughter. The sound of it is so damn soothing that I close my eyes and let it wash over me. “Teddy, you there?”
“Yes! Yeah, I’m here, uh, sorry. Who did you call for them to remove the adorable little guy?”
“It’s a wildlife control place. They’ll live-trap animals and bring them to a rehab to see if they can help.”
“You think they have one out here?”
“Why? Is there a squirrel stuck in this mysterious place you’ve been living in that you refuse to tell me?”
“Kinda,” I say, glaring at the raccoon, who seems to glare right back. “A little bigger.”
“Ah, an R.O.U.S,” she snickers, and I smile, my mind immediately going to a movie Indie showed me on one of our movie nights.
“I don’t think they exist,” I say, and with perfect timing, the raccoon makes a skittering sound that makes me jump. Little shit. “But very close.”
“Here, I’m sending you one I just found,” she says, and I feel the buzzing of an incoming text message. I smile as Indie accompanies it with a picture of an R.O.U.S., making me laugh. “I think they’re twenty-four-hour, so you could call them now.”
“Thank you, Indie.”
“You’re welcome. And Teddy?” she says, sounding amused now. “I know I am a beacon of knowledge, but there is this helpful tool called Google. You can look up local wildlife control.”
I wince, and it looks like the raccoon is smiling at me now—laughing at me.
Why am I still trying to keep this thing alive?
“I know,” I say, my face heating. “I just—”
“Wanted to talk to me?” she gently cuts me off.
“Uh… yeah. I’m sorry—”
“You don’t need an excuse to call me,” she says, and I smile when I can hear the smile in her voice. “You can just call. Or text. I’m okay with it.”
My hand clenches into a fist, and I pump it, pulling the phone away from my ear so that I can silently celebrate. The raccoon looks at me like I’m insane, and I flip it off. I am not letting this little attic invader ruin my good mood.
“You sure?”
“Yes. We’re friends. I said glacial, but… friends still talk to each other. Even at quarter to midnight.”
That’s when I pull back my phone to see the time, and I wince. Indie runs a strict sleep program, liking to be in bed by eight on the days she’s working.
“Shit, did I wake you? I’m sorry—”
“You didn’t wake me, I…” she trails off, and I hear her sigh. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”
Concern shoots through me. “Are you okay?”
“I… don’t know. I think I’m just adjusting to the new apartment. New bed. New… everything. You know I usually like routine. It’s just taking me a little bit to fall into a new one here. I’m okay.”