Chapter 3 #3
“I could as well. Paying the rent on this place is getting out of hand. I should have purchased it when I divorced Debra. That way, I could have someplace that I own and not have to live with mom.” He pointed out that Mom loved having him there.
“I think we’re good for each other. It’s been a few years, and we’re starting to get into a good rhythm.
We don’t get into each other’s way either. ”
“That’s good. I think it would drive me insane to move back home. Especially if I had to live in my old room. If I remember correctly, it had a leak in the ceiling as well.” He shook his head.
The house was falling down around them. As his brother was getting ready to leave, they made arrangements to go see the houses with their mom.
She was excited to be able to find something, and that made him think she was sick of the house as well.
There weren’t any views around the house where you could get a break in sitting outdoors, either.
He wanted something with a few acres just so he’d not have any neighbors.
He’d like living in a cave somewhere, he told himself.
Just so people wouldn’t bother him. For some reason, that brought up the girl again. Trinity Layton.
He didn’t know why he didn’t care for the girl.
She’d been rude to him when he’d first met her, and that could have been it.
But then people were rude to him anyway because he was an attorney.
Most people thought that if he were an attorney, he had thick skin and could put up with anything.
But the old jokes were just that. Old, and he was sick of being called names, too.
Bastain was a good attorney. He won a lot of his cases, and the few that he lost didn’t make him feel bad. He had a good office that he worked from—he’d worked from his home when he’d been married, and that hadn’t really been a walk in the park. That made him think of Debra.
Debra had been a shrew. She only wanted him to spend time with her and neglect his work.
He didn’t know how she figured money would come in if he was partying all the time, but she wanted him at her side and nowhere else.
They got into so many arguments those last few months together that he started staying at his mom’s even before the divorce had been settled.
Debra took exception to that as well. Calling him a mama’s boy. Well, he was, and he loved his momma.
It took him an extra hour to get finished for the day.
He’d been working on time, but with his brother coming to visit him and then talking to his mom for about half an hour, he was behind again.
But instead of making them wait on him, he put away all his files and locked up his office.
The work would be there tomorrow, and he’d get it done then.
There was always work to be done, and he knew that he was good at getting caught up when he had the time.
Going home to change, he was glad to see his mom was excited about going house hunting.
He was as well, and her excitement made him even more so.
Dayton was picking them up, so he didn’t have to drive.
He didn’t mind driving, but if someone else would rather, he was all for it.
It wasn’t that he was lazy; he just wanted to look around rather than to be looking at the road all the time.
The first house was all right, but it didn’t have any yard.
And the neighbors were kind of nosy. When they pulled up in front of the house, they came out on their porch and watched them.
That would drive him crazy. Even his mom, who was very social, didn’t much care for that.
They were onto the second house before they even looked around that much.
The second house had potential. There were about ten acres of land, and it had a garden already established in the backyard.
The only thing that he didn’t care for was that there were no trees in the yard.
Not a single one, but a bush that was so small he nearly tripped over it when he was going up to the house, for some reason that bothered him a great deal.
“I don’t like trees.” He didn’t ask the man about it, but he seemed like he needed to explain it to him. “They drop their branches all over the place, and I got no one to pick them up. You can’t get kids to do a darned thing nowadays.”
“Don’t you miss the leaves falling down in the fall?” He said that he didn’t like raking them up either. Trees were a pain in the ass all the way around. “Okay then. I guess we’ll keep looking.”
“There is one more house that I was saving for last. It’s in a really nice neighborhood where the houses are far apart.
” He asked about the crime in the area. “I didn’t think to ask about that, but they have a locked-in gate that keeps people from just roaming around.
” He asked if it was a gated community. “Yes, that’s what it’s called. Do you have something against that?”
“They usually have rules that everyone has to follow. What do you know about it?” He said nothing much other than the security drives around all the time. “I bet there are dues too. Just the kind of place that Debra would have loved.”
“Now don’t go there, son. We’ll have a look around and see what they have to offer.
I’m betting you’re right, however. They’ll have rules about having myself a little garden, and I’d really like one.
” He said they’d look but to not hold out too much hope.
“I won’t. I agree with you in this kind of community.
I don’t want to be caught up in rules all the time when I might just want to sunbathe in my back yard. ”
They were still laughing when they got to the security gates.
Since Dayton had all the information for them to get in, he let him do the talking.
As soon as they were allowed past the gates, he knew that this was the perfect place his ex-wife had wanted to live.
That soured him on everything else about the place.
He kept his mouth shut as they were being shown around the house and lawns.
There were rules about the lawns that the woman showing them around told them about.
There were also rules about what color cars they could have in their garage.
They didn’t want things to clash too much, so they wanted everyone to have blue or black cars. His was beige, and he loved his car.