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“I’m going to take you to my place,” he said, and I swear my belly did a little flip-flop.
“Oh, lovely!” my mom declared and I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes at her.
“Hey, Sunshine,” he said, giving her a warm smile. “I was going to make your daughter dinner, but you’re welcome to come too,” he said.
Anyone else who hadn’t been around him as much as I had likely wouldn’t see anything off in his face. He was all open cordiality. But there was a slight tension around the smile that I thought meant that he was only inviting her to be kind, but maybe, I don’t know, wanted to have me alone.
“Oh, no! You kids have fun. I have a full moon yoga session on the beach tonight,” she declared, and it was the first I was hearing about it. “Eat extra for me,” she said, going back into the back room, but I didn’t miss the knowing smile on her face before she turned.
“You’re going to make me dinner?” I asked, hearing the surprised edge to my voice. Because, well, no man had ever cooked for me before.
“I am,” he said, nodding, giving me the eye-crinkly smile I was growing to like so much. “If you want,” he added.
“I want. I mean, of course I do. Who turns down the opportunity to have a meal cooked for them?” I asked, already turning to get my purse and keys. “And to see their awesome Queen Anne Victorian that they’ve been curious about since they first heard about it?”
“Try not to get your hopes too high,” he said, placing a hand to the small of my back as I walked through the door. “It is still under construction,” he reminded me.
“Even better. I get to use my imagination to picture how it’s going to turn out.”
I wasn’t sure the last time I’d been as excited as I was when we rode in his car down the street toward his house.
Then he was turning in the driveway to his house, and I saw the big, old Weeping Willow with its precious little tire swing, and I had all sorts of images in my head of Nino pushing a little boy that looked just like him as the kid begged him to gohigher! higher!as I stood on the porch, a toddler on the hip, maybe another in my belly, watching, smiling, just soaking in the scene.
I had to force that thought away, knowing it was probably not a great thing to be focusing on right then, and made myself look at just the house itself.
It was beautiful.
I mean, of course it was. I didn’t expect anything less. Queen Anne’s were almost always breathtaking with all their ornate details that newer construction never had. Then there was the sweet wraparound porch and the nicely-sized lot for this area of the state. And, of course, all the nice, old trees.
It needed some love to the garden beds that it looked like Nino had simply pulled the old stuff out of.
And the house itself was begging for a brilliant coat of paint.
But it was so close to being absolutely perfect.
“Iloveit,” I declared. Because, well, it was true.
The smile that I got was huge.
“Thanks,” he said. “It’s taken a lot of work. I had to redo the entire front porch that was rotting away. The inside has needed a ton of work too. But it’s getting there,” he said before climbing out, then opening my door, and leading me up the front path.
“But the work is what makes it so personal,” I said. “All the love you put into it.”
“Exactly,” he agreed, unlocking the door, then letting me in.
The inside was exactly what I expected. The wide-plank, original flooring, though it had clearly been sanded down and refinished. The wood detailing on the walls, trim, and the staircase.
The furnishing was somewhat limited, and I figure that was because he was still working on the bones of the place, and would build up the meat of it sometime later.
The dining room itself was partially taped off for painting. It seemed as though Nino was having a hard time deciding between colors, judging by the many swatches tacked to the wall.
“Yeah, maybe you can help with that,” he suggested, catching where my gaze was focused. “I’ve been stuck for weeks,” he admitted. “It’s attached at the side to the kitchen,” he added, leading me down the hall and into the kitchen at the back of the house. “And this is the color in here,” he told me.
“Oh, I love that you didn’t modernize it too much,” I declared as I looked around.
The lower cabinets were all a light sage green, as was the trim around the windows. There was a giant storage cabinet—vintage, I felt—that was painted a slightly darker green color. There were no cupboards, and I figured everything that would normally be in those was in the cabinet. The range was one of those big, industrial ones that somehow did mesh well with everything else. The island was actually an old dining room table in a deep wood stain with charming dents and dings all in it. To the side, nestled against the windows, was a small rectangular kitchen table with four chairs. The surface was littered with bags. Like he hadn’t gotten a chance to put them away yet.
“You could bring this into the dining room,” I said, touching the darker green cabinet. “Then it all kinds of meshes.”
