“My pleasure,” he says, his eyes surveying the inside of my car. “Nice ride.”
“Thanks. Where to?” He pulls up the first location on his phone and shows it to me. “I know where that is.”
“It was so great to run into you the other night,” Pete says.
“It really was. It’s been a long time. Are you married?”
“Divorced,” he replies with a shrug.
“Kids?”
“Three,” he confirms and flips through his phone, then turns it so I can see a photo. “Mike is six, Emma is eight and Dina is ten.”
“Wow. That’s a handful. Congratulations.” Pete, the boy who couldn’t keep his mouth off of me just fifteen years ago, has three kids.
Crazy!
“How about you? Kids?”
“No.” I shake my head and pull up in front of the first house we’ll see today, already thinking it’s a no. That entire roof needs to be replaced, and on a house this size, that’s a large chunk of a reno budget. But it doesn’t hurt to look.
“Ever married?” he asks as he joins me on the porch.
“Nope.” I flash him a smile. “Too busy with work and other things to get there.”
He simply nods and unlocks the door, pushes it open, and gestures for me to go first.
“It’s empty,” I say as I enter a small foyer and look left into a formal dining room.
“It’s been empty for about three years,” he says, consulting the information on the papers he printed out on the property.
“Not good,” I murmur and continue through. There’s obvious water damage along the ceiling in the living room, and the brick fireplace is crumbling.
But there is a gorgeous staircase with a solid oak banister that, with some wax and elbow grease, would be magnificent.
The kitchen is small and sorely outdated, as are the two small bathrooms upstairs. The bedrooms just need new flooring and paint.
“What do you think?” Pete asks as he locks the door on our way out.
“I think this is a no,” I reply, inspecting the porch, and not happy to see evidence of termites. “This place is going to have to be gutted, and I think that’s outside my budget.”
“I understand. I have one more to show you today.”
This house is only a few streets over from the first one.
“This is better,” I say. “The roof is in better shape.” The house is larger, too, and definitely needs work.
“This is empty too, but only for about a month, so there shouldn’t be extensive damage inside.”
“Let’s have a look.”
He unlocks the door and when I walk in, I stop in my tracks and cover my mouth and nose with my hand. “I think you were wrong, Pete.”
“Holy shit,” he mutters. “This just went on the market yesterday, and it’s obviously not been cleaned.”
“They’ll have to tear it down,” I reply, stupefied by the sight before me. There is a hole—a hole—in the ceiling, all the way through to the second floor, and a bed, the object that obviously caused the hole, is in the middle of the living room. There is garbage everywhere, and it smells like a sewer.
“Do you want to see the rest?” he asks.
“Is it safe?” I turn wide eyes to him and then shrug. “Meh, I’m always up for an adventure, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
We move carefully through the living room, stepping over garbage and God knows what, to the kitchen, where I have to will myself not to throw up.
The fridge is standing wide open, and no one bothered to empty the contents, so rotten food permeates the room.
“They tore off all of the cabinet doors,” I say in surprise. “And how in the bloody hell did they manage to crack this granite?”
“I have no idea,” he says, obviously as taken aback as I am. “I’ll call the other realtor as soon as we leave and tell him that he needs to take care of this before he shows it again.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I reply in awe and open the French doors leading out to a back yard with a pool. “Pete?”
“Yeah?” he says from inside.
“You’ll want to see this.”
He comes out behind me and gasps. “Callie, there’s a car in the pool.”