Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“Well?”
“Yeah, that one’s a no-go, boss.”
I stared daggers at my husband. “Tell me you are not having Ian look at potential apartments for your son.”
“It was on his way home,” Sam assured me.
“Hello, Mr. Harcourt,” Ian greeted me.
“How are you, Ian?”
“Well, once I get home and take a shower and get rat and pigeon shit off me, I’ll be great.”
“Oh God,” I groaned. “That bad?”
“Loft apartment my ass,” he said snidely. “They should have described it as open roof with communal living space for a variety of insects, including black widow spiders and, again, rats.”
“So many rats,” someone else chimed in, not Miro.
I shivered.
“Don’t get me wrong, rats don’t bother me unless I’m outnumbered twenty to one.”
“And this was a listing for an actual apartment?”
“Yeah. That one and—where did we go?”
“Hyde Park,” the new voice answered Ian. “Hey, boss.”
“Redeker,” Sam replied. “How was Pazzi today?”
“Good. I think he’s gonna be all right.”
“Well, I appreciate you and Callahan splitting up to babysit him and Yamane. I need to know that they’re both doing things by the book.”
Ian scoffed.
“You know what I meant,” Sam growled.
“Yessir,” Ian said, chuckling.
“But yeah, it’s a no-go on the one in Hyde Park too, sir,” Redeker told Sam. “I don’t think any part of the steps leading up to the place are to code, and that fire escape—I wouldn’t trust that with a cat’s weight, let alone mine. It’s just too rusted.”
“This is harder than I thought it was going to be,” I told Sam.
“My place before I moved in with Miro was, like, all concrete, but livable. I’ll call my old landlord and see what’s up.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, smiling into the phone.
“We’re out,” Ian announced and hung up.
I looked up at Sam. “That is a misuse of manpower, sir.”
He grunted. “Says you.”
“Says everyone,” I told him, laughing.
He rolled his eyes like I was ridiculous.
The good news was that Memorial Day was wonderful. Everyone came and had a great time, and all the food was consumed. Sam didn’t even mind the frou-frou peach cobbler served in tiny dishes that were garnished with powdered sugar and mint. I think he had eight.
The following day, the material for the roof was delivered much earlier than they told us, so Sam couldn’t get out of the driveway. That was another call, because it had to be moved. Sam pulled his car out, then I pulled out mine, and all was well until the next morning when the guy on-site explained to us that half of our shingles were delivered to another house. That wasn’t so bad for us, but was bad for them. They had a half Maple Cherry and half Beach Cottage Gray roof. Because no one checked, they just slapped that on. In their defense, it was an A-frame house, so you really couldn’t see the other side, but still. And who named those colors?
“We can do this,” Ted Ballard, the business development manager, the guy who was working on the roof process with us, explained to me. “We can do the roof for half the price in Maple Cherry, Deep Sea Blue, or English Countryside Green, or we can wait for more Beach Cottage Gray to come in next week and do it then.”
I didn’t even have to think. Green, blue, or reddish brown? No, thank you. “We’ll wait,” I said. “And in the meantime, I need all the roofing stuff out of my driveway. Today.”
He didn’t believe me, or more so, he’d met me and Sam at the same time and assumed, from appearances, that Sam made the decisions in our family. But that wasn’t true. We made all the kids, house, family, and friend decisions together. I made food ones alone, he made lawn mower, beer, and bourbon ones. He made choices about the kind of mace I carried; I made decisions about the lighting in our bedroom. Big-ticket items like cars, fences, new pavement for the driveway, and roofs—those were made as one.
Ted went to his very large pickup and called Sam. He was back, ringing the doorbell ten minutes later. When I opened the door, I just waited.
“He, uhm, he wants to go with the Beach Cottage Gray as well.”
Our house was pale gray now—it had been painted two years ago—with white trim. Of course we’d picked the gray. Black would soak up too much heat in the summer, and honestly, the gray had some pattern to it, not just one color. I liked that. So did Sam.
“Good,” was all I said.
“We’ll get the material moved today.”
“Thank you.”
This happened to other friends of mine all the time. If Aja wanted something done in her home, if there were issues, people would lie to her face about the work. But when Dane was there, everything could suddenly be taken care of immediately. It was the same for Dylan and the other women I knew. Apparently, because Sam was bigger and stronger than me, I became the “little woman.” It was such shit. I hated being talked down to, ever, and completely sympathized with my friends who had to deal with that kind of crap on a daily basis.