“So it’s five bedrooms, open floor plan, as you can see. The kitchen is huge, maybe a little overdone for the rest of the house, but it’s beautiful. Antique white cabinets and fresh quartz counters.”
She spoke, and I listened as I walked, scanning the space and immediately picturing us living there. Everything reeked of Georgie, from the dark wood floors, to the serene blue-gray on the walls, and when the kitchen came into view, it hit me. She and me and little blue-eyed babies carefully perched on the edge of the counter. I could see spilled milk and lazy Sundays and more goddamn happiness than my chest could contain.
“The floor is—”
“This is it,” I cut in, knowing I’d spend some of the best years of my life here.
“Don’t you want to see the bedrooms? And the basement? And the backyard?” Helen asked rapid-fire.
“Sure,” I said, because I knew I shouldn’t buy a house I hadn’t even seen in its entirety, but this was it. I knew it on a cellular level.
This. This was the home my wife would love and had never once asked for. All the things I’d ever hoped to find in a woman lived in her. When she looked at me, she didn’t see anything other than love and her one true match—and maybe a big dick.
“Why don’t you go ahead and call the seller while we walk the rest?”
“But what if you see something you don’t like?” Helen asked.
With a gentle hand at her elbow, I tried to convey just how sure I was. “Helen, the only thing that’s gonna stop me from buying this house is a body in the basement. And even then, I might overlook it if they can give me a good reason.”
“Okay, Walt. You have to stay in the car for this one.”
A hiss and swipe of his claw.
“I get it. I know you know where we are. I’m not really sure how you know because you’re a cat, but I know you know.”
He let loose with a suspicious, mewling meow.
“After the way things went when we picked you up, they’ve forbidden you to come back in there. But I promise, everyone is going to be really happy when I come back out.” He seemed somewhat placated. “Well, probably everyone but me,” I added, which turned his kitty expression into satisfaction.
“Right,” I said to him and myself, and hoped that, one day, I’d either stop talking to my cat or stop feeling so ridiculous about it.
I shut the car door with a slam and walked up to the building, the bell over the door ringing as I stepped inside.
The receptionist looked up from her paperwork with a smile, ready to greet me, but when she saw who it was, the smile melted right off of her face.
“Walter’s in the car. With the windows rolled down,” I said, not wasting any time setting everyone’s mind at ease. The tension in her shoulders relaxed immediately, answering the question of whether she had a neck or not affirmatively. “I called and talked to Julie, and she said there’d been no one looking to claim Stan.”
Julie stepped through the door from the back. She smiled freely, but she’d had fair warning of my arrival—and the chance to remind me that Walter was strictly prohibited from entering the building.
“Hey, Mr. Brooks. Come on back. I’m pretty sure Stan is going to be happy to see you.”
With a nod to Receptionist Melanie, I stepped through the door as Julie held it open. Barking filled my ears, but it wasn’t Stan. The fucking enormous Great Dane puppy lay sleeping in the center of his cage, curled up into the tightest coil he could manage.
“All he’s really been doing since you guys left is sleeping,” Julie explained. “I think he’s been depressed.”
He did seem to frown in his sleep, and I was happy Georgie wasn’t seeing him like this.
“I can open the cage for you,” Julie offered, pulling my eyes to her. “He’s really big, but super gentle. Walter seemed to be the violent one of the two.”
That much I could believe.
I nodded my agreement, and she pulled up the latch and swung open the door.
“Hey, Stan,” I whispered to warn him I was there. He opened his big black eyes just as I reached out to touch him, leaned into my hand, and blew out a big doggie breath. “You ready to come home?”
Phoenix, Friday, May 12th, Very Late Night
Five days away from Kline had been five too many. Phone calls, text messages, video chats, emails, none of them lived up to the real thing. Which was why I was sitting on a red-eye flight from Phoenix to New York. My work travel had only just begun, but I could already tell it’d never be the highlight of my job.
When I’d told Wes I wasn’t flying home with the team, he had laughed at the hilarity of me missing my husband after only five days. Thankfully, he’d ended his laughter by being surprisingly supportive, even though he let me know how ridiculous he thought it was.