December 15th
Became my family.
Ainsley
“All right,” I say to Sammy, plopping the house plans down on our kitchen table, “I need your help.”
“I literally finished my last final of my life just”—he glances at his watch—“twenty minutes ago. Don’t I get a little time to breathe?”
“No, not really. They are going to start digging the basement, like, tomorrow. And I have to figure out if this house will work for us. Like, long term. Just look at these with me. Let me talk it through and tell me if I’m missing anything.”
“Hold, please,” he says, getting up and pulling a bottle of sparkling juice out of the fridge and plastic cups off the counter. Then he sits back down and hands me a cup.
“I know we’re ready to move on to bigger and better and jobs and loves and all that, but I think we need to pause for a moment and appreciate where we’ve been.
Three and a half years of college together.
Three years as roommates. Good times. Sad times.
Drunk times. Heartbreak. Healing. Possibilities.
Like, this place has seen it all. And tomorrow morning, we close the door on it and never come back. ”
I look around at the space, tears filling my eyes. “You’re right, Sammy.”
He puts his cup up to mine. “To us. For surviving college together and, for the most part, doing so fabulously. We’ve grown a lot. Mostly since this summer, to be honest. And I woke up this morning, truly excited about our futures.”
“I’m excited about the future too. I’m just a little stressed. I thought the stress would go away once I told Damon, but now there’s so much I have to do. Move, start a new job, set up two nurseries, shop for Christmas, and design a whole house.”
He takes a drink and then sets it down. I follow suit.
“You don’t have to design a whole house right now.
You just need to make sure the floor plan will function for you.
And then when you have free time, you can start making plans for the interior.
It’s going to be so fun. You’ll literally get to pick out every single thing—from paint to toilets and everything in between. ”
I blow out a breath of air.
“Oh shit, you’re right. It is a lot. I think for our last night here, we need to order hot wings and fries. And possibly pizza. Or our favorite enchiladas maybe? Oh, and dessert? How hungry are you?”
“Pretty hungry.”
“Okay, I think we do it all. Why not?”
He’s on his phone for quite a while, ordering everything. Then he sucks down the rest of his juice, sets it up on the counter, pushes up his sleeves, then rolls the plans out on the table.
“Oh, here,” I say, setting down more rudimentary floor plans. “Before we go too deep, keep in mind, Jadyn chose these for Damon, so you know all three are going to be good. I just need to figure out which one would be best for us.”
He studies each one, then lays them out in front of him, tilting his head. He stops, gets up, and grabs a pencil from his backpack, then sits back down.
“So, these two,” he says, pointing, “have a similar design upstairs. Four bedrooms for future kids and a flex space that would make a nice playroom or hangout space as well as a separate space for crafts or studying. One puts the primary bedroom up there as well, with the others being on the main level.”
“I don’t think I would like to be that far from the kids, do you? Like, if they cry, I’d have to run all the way upstairs.”
“True,” Sammy says, “but there is this back staircase that does go straight from the hall outside the primary bedroom to the upstairs. I kind of like this plan though. It has a split bedroom plan. The primary bedroom is on one side of the home, and the other bedrooms are on the other. All on the same floor.”
I study it some more. “I actually like that one the least now. I wouldn’t want the kids on the other side of the house. I’d like them upstairs. So, I think this one is my favorite from that standpoint.”
“Perfect,” Sammy says. “So, let’s just get rid of this plan, narrowing it down to two.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Both have kitchens in the back, overlooking the water. Large spaces for entertaining. Both a formal dining room and breakfast room. But look at the flow of both. What do you think?”
“I think I like this one the best. It has fewer upper cabinets and features so many windows, but then still has plenty of storage in the pantry. And I like how you walk right out to the covered porch.”
“Before we decide though, let’s go back to your bedroom. I love how this one has his and hers closets, and did you see this room back here? It’s called a flex room. I suppose you could use it as a nursery. An office. More closet space. What would you do with it?”
“I think we both know this house is too big for just me, Damon, and the baby. But at the same time, I know he wants it that way because he’s envisioning us there for, like, ever.
So, it needs to be able to function with kids of different ages and us in different seasons of life.
And I think that’s why it’s so overwhelming. ”
Sammy nods in agreement. “I can see that. I’m getting a little stressed myself.”
His phone dings. “Oh, food’s here. Well, some of it anyway.”
He answers the door while I start to clear the plans off the table.
“Just leave them,” he says, taking the bags and setting them on the coffee table in the living room. “I think there’s, like, some random bowl game on tonight. Let’s watch that and eat. Absorb everything, then come back to the plans.”
“Okay,” I tell him, just as his phone dings again.
After four deliveries, we now have all our favorite takeout foods spread out in front of us.
“It’s fitting, really, that we’re sitting here, eating all this, on our last night.”
“It’s sad, isn’t it?” Sammy says. “It became home. You became my family.”
I lean over and give Sammy a hug. “And now that family is moving into a different place together.”
He whistles. “My new space is gorgeous. I’m going to feel totally pampered and sophisticated all the time.
And I’m so excited to start my new job. Did I tell you they invited me to come in next week?
I’m just supposed to spend an afternoon wandering around the store.
Soaking it all in. They’re going to give me some materials to study, but other than that, I’m officially off for the holidays.
I don’t start until after the new year.”
Once we’re done eating, we go back to the plans.
“Let’s make this easy. They have this plan marked as number one, and this is marked as number two,” he points. “We’re going to peruse them one more time, then close our eyes and hold up either one finger or two. See if we agree.”
After about twenty minutes of me studying every aspect again, he goes, “Okay, enough. Time to vote.”
I close my eyes and hold up one finger.
“All right, now open.”
I look at Sammy’s hand. He likes number one the best too.
“Yay!” I say, tossing my arms around him. “We did it!”
“Yes, we did!”
“Okay, I’m going to call Damon. I’ll see you in the morning!”
I go in my room and text Damon.
A moment later, he calls me. “Hey, Champ.”
“I decided on a floor plan. Sammy and I spent most of the evening going through them. We also ordered in food from our four favorite restaurants here and gorged. It’s hard to believe that tonight is my last night here.”
“And tomorrow morning, you and Sammy are going to your mom’s to get unpacked and settled, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So?”
“So, what?”
“Which plan did you pick? I need to let the builder know.”
“Did you look at them? Do you have a favorite?”
“My favorite is your favorite,” he says sweetly.
“Damon! I want you to like the house too.”
“I am clueless when it comes to the plan. I can envision a play that’s nothing more than X’s and O’s on a page, but the house, I just can’t see it. Well, that’s not completely true. I did look at the builder’s photos online. It all looked nice. And I maybe got some advice from my dad and Phillip.”
“Let me guess—happy wife, happy life?”
“Well, you’d have to be my wife for that to work. Wanna get married?”
“I do want to marry you. Someday. Back to the advice.”
“They said I should have a say on the entertainment space in the basement, and then they spoke a word that I had never heard.”
“What was that?”
“Barndominium.”
“Oh boy,” I say with a laugh.
“I take it you know what I’m talking about?” he asks seriously. And it’s cute.
“I do. There is a trend in high-end homes, often for athletes, but also for families who just want all the kids to hang out at their house. A separate structure for all the toys, so to speak. I saw photos of one owned by a pro baseball player. There was a full gym, a batting cage, and everything you need for healing muscles, like a sauna, whirlpool, and cold plunge. It also had an area for entertaining and opened up to the pool area.”
“That sounds sweet.”
“I also saw one that was two stories with offices and guest spaces upstairs. It was more like a pool house with huge spaces for parties and catering. Is that something you want to plan for? Like, in the future? Because if you do, we need to consider where something like that would go.”
“The main thing is you’ve picked out the plan. Which one is it?”
“Number one.”
He smiles. “Perfect. I miss you. Text me when you get to your mom’s tomorrow, okay?”
“I will. Night, Damon. I love you.”
“I love you too, Champ.”