AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She laughed, Abby nudging her shoulder. “Yep, Dad,” Abby said, “Liz is telling me all the chores she is going to make me do if I move in.”
Her father snorted. “Nothing and no one could make you do your chores.”
Her father left the room. “Guess he told you,” Liz said.
“Whatever,” Abby said. “Let me know how it goes tomorrow. All the details.”
“Maybe,” she said. It was pretty sad this was the first date she’d been on in almost six years.
Her last date was Tanner. Six months dating, then a year engagement. Married over four years, separated and divorced a year.
Liz was so out of the loop that she didn’t even know if tonight was a date or not.
6
Daring Him
Christian opened the door Saturday at five. “Hey,” he said to Liz. “You found it okay.”
“Not that hard,” she said. “Even though it’s not in Colonie.”
His latest flip was in Latham, but he was off Route 9, close to Shaker High School, and easy to find, as she said.
“Come in,” he said. “This place isn’t nearly as big as yours.”
“But it’s beautiful,” she said.
This house was only about fifteen hundred square feet. He’d replaced all the flooring, put a new kitchen in, redid the full bath in the hallway upstairs where the three bedrooms were. Put a half bath downstairs after taking some room from the dining room that he’d opened up into the kitchen. He finished the basement and added a three-piece bath down there too.
“Thanks,” he said. “It’s not my style.”
“Then why do it?” she asked.
“Money,” he said. “This is a business for me. I do what is selling, not what I want to live in.”
“Why not build your own house?” she asked. “Then you wouldn’t have to move all the time.”
“It’s been asked a lot,” he said, smiling. “Let me show you around while I tell you.”
When people asked him, he never really had an explanation. That he needed to feel something for the place he was going to make his home permanently. Building something new, it wasn’t like he could walk in and feel it until he was done. Then he’d feel stuck.
The new just never appealed to him for some reason and maybe it was for that very reason. He wanted feelings for a place and you didn’t get that during construction.
They moved to the kitchen and open dining room now. The living room could be seen from the kitchen, but it wasn’t a completely open concept.
“You had to have taken walls down here. This house is too old to have had this layout. I looked at one similar.”
He laughed. “I did. And I find it funny you were looking at smaller houses like this and ended up with one that is close to four thousand square feet.”
“You’re not the only one that is surprised over it. But my father finished my half bath today and Abby and I painted all the rooms downstairs. Not bad for less than a week living there.”
“Do you have pictures?” he asked.
“I do,” she said, pulling her phone out. “I can show them to you. But you can come and look at it yourself too.” She pulled her phone back when he went to reach for it. “As long as you don’t judge it next to all the work you did here.”
“Never,” he said, his hand reaching for her phone. Their fingers touched, there was a burn and he was sure she felt it with him. He also thought she’d done it on purpose. A test of sorts. He was fine with it if that was the case.
She pulled the photos up and scrolled through them. “It’s not a lot of work, but at least it feels more put together. Nothing like here.”
