I let myself into the bungalow an hour before the realtor turned up and knew I needed to try and make the place look a little better. I started in the kitchen because the damage was worse there. The linoleum by the fridge peeled up in strips, yellowed and curling. I got down on my knees and just pressed it flat, holding it with duct tape until I could buy glue. The inside of the fridge smelled like something had died, so I dragged out all the shelving and went at it with bleach. I wore Mom’s old gloves, yellow and stiff around my fingers, and tried not to think about her standing here humming along to the radio that didn’t even work anymore.
The ceiling above the stove had a water stain. I poked it, testing, but it was old, dry, just ugly instead of dangerous. People could fix ugly. You just needed to be willing to look past it.
I thought harder about that. Was that why I was on my own? Because no one was willing to see past my ugly?
I moved through the house like someone checking for ghosts. I didn’t want the realtor thinking I’d just let the place rot. This had been a home. Mom’s home. The sickness hadn’t just eaten her body, it had eaten all the happiness as well. And I’d had a lot of happy times here.
I swept the floors, wiped down every surface, and stacked the junk mail in neat towers by the phone. I found one of Mom’s old candles, cinnamon, in the back of a drawer. Lit it. Let it burn until the smell seeped into every corner of the living room.
It almost felt like someone could live here. I would have been ecstatic to live here if it hadn't needed so much money spent on it.
The realtor was exactly what I expected. Skinny, rushed. He walked through the house with his phone out, snapping pictures without waiting. He didn’t see the candle or the effort. He saw the water stain, the peeling everything. He barely looked at me.
“So, obviously you’d get offers from house flippers,” he said, not even trying to sound hopeful. “You don’t want to put money into the repairs? I’d recommend an as-is sale, for sure.”
I felt my face burn. “That’s fine. I just…need it gone.” Even if I didn't want it gone.
He nodded, already tapping away on his phone. “It’s a tough market, but there’s demand for these types of single-story homes. I’ll get you a quote. Don’t expect miracles.”
I didn’t. I just signed his paperwork and watched him leave.
It was quiet again.
I walked through the rooms, one by one, touching things I’d never take with me. The old couch, the ugly yellow chair, Mom’s mug by the sink. It all looked faded, even with the cinnamon candle burning.
Mom said it was the smell of Christmas.
Every November, she’d haul down the boxes from the attic—tinsel spilling out, half the ornaments tangled together in what she called “festive knots.” We’d put on the same scratched Bing Crosby CD, and I’d hand her the hooks while she fussed over the tree. It never matched. The lights were too bright on one side, too dark on the other, but she always stepped back with her hands on her hips and said, “Perfect.”
I believed her.
One year she made me cut out snowflakes from coffee filters. I must’ve been eight. They looked terrible—lopsided and soggy—but she strung them up in the window anyway and called them “designer snow.”
We laughed so hard when one fell into her mug of cocoa that I spilled mine all over the carpet. She just shrugged, ruffled my hair, and said, “Santa won’t mind a little mess, sweetheart. He’s used to it.”
Mom never got tired of Christmas, even when she got sick, and she died two days after Thanksgiving. I’d decorated the housethe week before just for her. She died to the sound of Bing Crosby.
I set about making the bedroom livable, just for tonight. I stripped the sheets, found the cleanest ones in the closet, and remade the bed. I set my phone on the nightstand and plugged it in, out of habit. I turned on the little lamp. The bulb was dim, but it made the space feel less empty.
It took longer than it should have to decide between the two cans of soup I could eat for my dinner. One was chicken and rice, the other some kind of garden vegetable, the label peeling at the edge. I stood in front of the open cupboard, the cold leaking in around my ankles, and I stared at those cans so long I forgot what I was doing. My hands shook. I didn’t want the food. Didn’t ever want to have to open another can of soup in my life. I just wanted—I don’t know. For none of this to be happening.
The whole place suddenly felt small, like the walls were curling in. I could smell the bleach I’d used in the fridge, the candle burning in the other room, and underneath all of it, the cold, stubborn, ugly scent of a house that had given up. The realtor hadn’t even looked at me. Just another as-is sale, something to strip and flip and forget. It shouldn’t have mattered. I wasn’t supposed to want more than that. But my chest hurt. I felt like I was letting Mom down.
I gripped the can opener tight. The urge to just throw it against the wall was so strong my stomach rolled. I was so tired. I’d been tired for a year, maybe longer. All this work, all this trying, and in the end, I was still standing in a freezing kitchen, choosing which soup would hurt my stomach least.
The front door rattled. My heart jammed under my ribs. I’d barely set the can down before Felix stalked into the kitchen, jaw so tight I thought he might break a tooth. I stared at him. He was angry. I’d finally made the most controlled Dom I’d ever seen lose his temper.
I didn’t think tonight could have gotten any worse, but it looked like I was wrong.
Chapter eleven
Felix
What the hell was I doing?
I took a slow breath and looked at Clayton, forcing my shoulders to loosen. He didn’t need commands—he needed care. Desperately. Losing his mom, that asshole Jason, and his job had stripped away every bit of joy and confidence he’d ever had.
He needed help. My help.
