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CHAPTER21
***MILA***
Leo was acting strangely that afternoon at Baby Bungalow. Somehow distant and quieter than usual. The masculine confidence that usually permeated every ounce of his being was in short supply. I chalked it up to him maybe having slept poorly and ignored it. However, rather than making him tag along with me to dinner with my sister, Sloane, I told him it would probably be best for him to stay home with Bagel and order in food for himself. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to join us anyway.
Normally, I might consider canceling the dinner with Sloane. After all, we were both tired and I was tempted to stay in with him and cuddle around the tablet, watching something that wouldn’t require too much attention, but I had an ulterior motive for seeing my sister.
Both she and her husband worked in real estate and, frankly, with what I was earning from work, it didn’t pay to be renting any more in Southern California. I’d been meaning to buy a house — and my sister had been encouraging me to do so for forever — but now, I had added incentive. I wanted to ensure my baby had the most stable upbringing possible. And that included a nice, big house to stretch around in along with a good-sized backyard to get their energy out.
We met at Canter’s Deli on Fairfax, where the food was greasy and the parking was practically non-existent, but the menu contained virtually everything anyone could possibly come up with and they were open 24 hours a day.
I filled Sloane in on the updates in relation to Leo and she was shocked, to put it mildly.
“Wow,” she said. “It just seems so… sudden.”
“When you know, you know,” I said. It would have been better if Sloane could have met him first and felt his good vibes. In abstract, it might have felt like I was making a mistake. Hell, even with the details, there was a very high risk of this being a mistake, but it would have made at least a little more sense if Sloane could put a face to the name and not have to go off of my love-struck description of him.
“Hmm,” she said, offering nothing more. Look, she was in no place to judge. Her husband was her boss, and they hooked up in a drunken fit during a thunderstorm at a house they were showing. Or at least that’s how I pieced the story together. Sloane was a bit reluctant on some of the finer details, and I had to get her a little drunk to tell me as much as she had, but sometimes it takes a couple of glasses of wine to get someone to spill the tea.
“So he’s the father, then?” Sloane asked me.
I bit my lip.
“He’s not even the father?!” Her words came out louder than expected. Canter’s was the kind of place where people were expected to be a little louder than usual, but it was still alarming and she lowered her voice immediately, repeating her question. “He’s not the father?”
“He might be?” I told her. “I mean, he is. I’ve got a feeling deep in my gut that he is, but we don’t know for sure, yet.”
“Girl,” Sloane told me. “You’re going to want some major commitment before you do the DNA test. Men have a tendency to be a lot less reliable when they find out that it’s not actually theirs.”
“You’ve been watching too much daytime tv,” I said. “The baby certainly accelerated things, but Leo wants me in his life. And he wants to be a father, regardless of whether or not he is the father. Well, at least that’s what he says, and I believe it.”
Sloane wasn’t buying it, and I wished that Leo was there to speak for himself rather than have me tell her what he thought. It sounded so much more genuine coming out of his mouth than mine.
“You said you had something to show me?” I asked, desperately trying to change the subject.
“Right.” Sloane pulled out her phone and scrolled around until she found what she was looking for. “Take a look at this.”
She handed me her phone, and I saw a beautiful house in West Hollywood that was maybe only two or three exits from Leo’s office.
“It’s lovely,” I said, “but what’s it going to cost me?”
“That’s the thing,” Sloane said. “I’m working with the seller. If I sell the house to you, I’d get the commission on both ends, so I can knock… let’s say, four percent off the selling price. On top of that, this was a rental property for someone who currently lives off in New York. They don’t want to come out here to deal with it; they just want the sale to go through as quickly as possible. If we send them an offer, I can probably get them to knock another percent or two off the asking price.”
“Dollars,” I said. “How many dollars is this going to cost me?”
“One point two million.”
“Jesus.”
“Listen to me, Mila, I’m not steering you wrong,” Sloane said, waving her arms for emphasis. “This house is going to balloon in value, and you’re practically stealing it at that price.”
She wasn’t blowing smoke up my ass. Sloane wouldn’t be making much money on the sale, and it was clear that she thought this was a genuinely good deal. And, skimming through the pictures, I could already picture the nursery and where everything would go. I had to keep a healthy level of caution, though. There was no use in getting worked up over a house that I couldn’t have.
“What kind of down payment would we be looking at here?”
“Well,” Sloane said, “how’s your credit?”
I looked at her. As if I’d have anything less than perfect credit.
