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“You’re serious about this whole transformation thing?”
“Serious, serious,” she sings, shimmying her shoulders. “I love you too much to let you spend the rest of your life as a frump.” She hops up and brings her empty mug to the sink. “If I’d known you’d gotten this bad, I’d have visited sooner.”
Chapter 2
Breckin
“That’s the last box.” I set the heavy package down on the kitchen counter and wipe the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. “You find the bathroom stuff yet? I need a shower in the worst way, and then some real food. No more of this fast food crap you’ve been insisting on this whole move.”
My stomach has been growling for the last two hours. But no way was I taking a break just to come back and finish this.
“It’s over there,” Brendan points his thumb to a few open boxes in the living room, “but I call dibs on the shower first. My balls are so fucking sweaty I could fill that pool out back.”
“Whatever.” I wave my brother off as he trudges past me and starts grabbing stuff from the boxes marked‘bathroom shit.’ If there’s one thing living with the man for thirty-one years has taught me, it’s not to mess with him when he's in a mood. “You wanna order food or go out to eat?”
He slings a towel over his shoulder and smiles at me from the other room. “That your way of saying you’re not cooking for me, honey?”
“Damn straight. I’m exhausted. And I’m not sorting through this mess, then going grocery shopping tonight.” I wave my hands at all the boxes marked,‘kitchen shit.’
Sorting through the entirely unorganized boxes of everything my gourmet kitchen in Seattle had, cleaning it all, buying groceries, then cooking it. No thank you. That’s way too much work for as hungry as I am. Not to mention it’d probably take me two hours just to find a skillet.
That’s what I get for letting Brendan box up and label everything while I finished my proposal for the new bridge I’m designing. But, now I have the next week off to unpack. And at least he semi-labeled the boxes so I know what room they belong in.
I shrug, grabbing my phone off the counter to check out what restaurants Seaside has to offer. All the eating out after we packed everything up, plus breakfast and lunch on the road were enough junk for my stomach for the rest of the year.
“Let’s eat out. I’m not sitting my ass on the floor to eat,” Brendan finally replies. He grabs a few more items out of the box, then stands up. “See if you can find a good pizza place.”
Pizza. I almost veto his choice, but I lost the last two rounds of rock, paper, scissors. Besides, I’m sure I can find a restaurant that actually makes real pizza, not that microwaved, frozen cardboard box shit he likes. Besides, he’s right about the seating.
“We’ll have to get a table tomorrow. Maybe some matching stools for the island.”
“It doesn’t all have to match,” he grumbles, heading to the bathroom. “It’s a damn chair. Once your ass is on it, you can’t even see what it looks like.”
“Eat a Snickers while you’re in there. You’re getting hangry,” I call after him.
He flips me the bird before slamming the door, but I just wave him off and chuckle. Turning back to my phone, I browse a few restaurants online, but end up digging my drafting tablet out of my office stuff. After a few quick measurements of our new home sweet home, I sketch an idea for renovating.
We need two master suites, with two full bathrooms. There’s no way I’m sharing a shitter with Brendan, brother or not. I’ve seen what he does in there. I would have preferred a house that already had two full bathrooms, but neither of us could pass up the location of this one. A spacious cottage right on the beach, with a heated pool out back, it’s both our dream. Besides, this way we’ll get to make it ours. Exactly how we want.
I’ll design it. Brendan will remodel it.
“Thought you were onvacation this whole week?” Brendan asks before taking a sip of his beer, then stuffing almost half a slice of mushroom and sausage pizza in his mouth.
“Vacation?” I raise an eyebrow at him. “Besides, this isn’t work.” I slide my tablet across the table to him, then lean back in my chair.
