“Yeah?” I say, super curious about whatever it is he’s planning. Because he’s definitely planning something.
“And we’re going to go across town…”
“Okay…”
He wiggles his eyebrows, glancing at Harper who is totally enthralled in whatever he’s going to say. “And get a chocolate cake shake.”
“Yay!” Harper says, pumping her fists in the air.
I snort out a laugh and roll my eyes. “We can’t live in a chocolate cake shake.”
“No, but we’ll be able to think better with a dose of sugar. We’ll have the energy to plan out our next move.”
“If you say so.”
He grins, satisfied with himself as we leave the RV dealership. They built a Portillo’s restaurant in town about a year ago and while their food is good, we fell in love with the chocolate cake shake. It’s exactly what it sounds like. They take an entire slice of chocolate cake and mix it into the chocolate shake. It’s divine. Every so often you’ll get a chunk of chocolate frosting in the straw and it’s delicious.
It’s totally not going to solve our housing problem, but it’ll be nice for about twenty minutes while I’m eating it.
Half an hour later, we’re parked in the back of the Portillo’s parking lot, quiet except the sounds of milkshake slurping up our straws. “This is really good,” I say.
“Delicious!” Harper says. Somehow her face is covered in chocolate.
“You’re welcome,” Jett says, “for my fabulous idea.”
“Thank you, Daddy!” she shouts.
I’m on my phone, searching for rental houses. “I guess the only other option is to expand the search area into neighboring towns.”
We look through everything in the next town over but any house that looks decent is too far away.
“I get to work at five in the morning most days,” Jett says. “I don’t really want to live an hour away.”
“Yeah, it’s too much. Plus Harper would have to go to kindergarten in another town, so if she got sick at school we’d have to drive an hour back to go pick her up.”
Harper gasps. “I don’t want Mommy and Daddy to be far away from me!”
I smile and touch her cheek. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to live that far away. We’ll find somewhere closer.”
“It might just be easier to suck it up and live with my parents,” Jett says. He drinks the last bit of his milkshake and sets the cup back in the cupholder.
“Wait,” I say, scrolling through my phone. I sit up straighter. “This house listing is updated. It used to be for sale, but now it says for sale or lease.” I turn the phone toward him. It’s a three bedroom single story home with an attached garage and a fenced in backyard.
“It’s not too far from here,” I say. “Can we drive by it?”
“Yeah, but we should be quick because I don’t want to leave Arko with my parents for too long. It’s almost his dinner time.”
We haven’t heard from this parents since we left, so hopefully Arko is doing well and not breaking anything else or getting mud everywhere. I set the GPS to the location of this house and we head that way. It’s in a part of town I’ve never visited before. It’s older, mostly neighborhoods, and I think the Lawson Junior High is out here, too.
Jett slows to a crawl as we pass the house. There’s a car in the driveway and the grass needs to be mowed, but overall it’s not too bad looking from the outside. The neighborhood looks okay too.
“I don’t like it,” Harper says, curling her upper lip as we drive past it.
“Why not?” I ask. “We haven’t even seen the inside yet.”
She shrugs. “It’s not my blue house.”
“Even if it’s not the perfect house, it might still be a good house,” I tell her. “It’s just temporary, remember? Plus, we need a nice back yard for Arko.”
