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No harm ever came in doing that.
Right?
CHAPTERFIVE
“So,step one, gut the house and see what’s salvageable,” Dahlia said, ticking off her fingers.
Emil stared at her across the table as he ran a touch around the rim of his cappuccino mug. “Yep.”
“Step two, get it inspected.”
Emil shrugged and waved at her to go on.
“Step three…” She trailed off, then held up her hand with her thumb tucked against her palm. “Step four, profit.”
Emil snorted and rolled his eyes. “There’s nothing to profit off that place. It’s a hole, and the land is basically worthless. It was farmland once, but the previous owners ruined the soil with corn. And I’m stuck with the mess to clean up.”
“Peanuts,” Dahlia said.
Emil blinked at her. “Sorry?”
“Plant peanuts. I swear to God, I read somewhere that peanuts return nutrients to soil. But I might be talking out of my ass. I’m definitely not, like, a gardener or whatever.”
Emil hid his laugh in the last swallow of his drink, closing his eyes, and for a split second, he saw abs. And not just any abs but the chiseled, pale abs of his mother’s neighbor. Emil hadn’t seen anyone coming or going from the house, but he was assured people lived there.
Emil had been peeking from time to time, every chance he got when he found himself wandering around the gutted property now that it was safe to breathe the air inside. He didn’t know why he was curious, though part of him wanted to know if they’d ever spoken to his mother.
According to the information he’d gotten after her death, no one even realized she was in there until there was a smell. And animals.
That thought threatened to turn his stomach inside out, so he quickly shoved it to the back of his mind.
“Earth to Emil.”
He turned his gaze back to Dahlia. “I’ll sell the place to you for whatever you have in your pocket.”
Dahlia scoffed. “I’m wearing women’s clothing. I don’t have pockets.”
“Your shoes?”
“Louboutins. Worth way more than salted earth.”
Emil set his mug down and rubbed at his temples. “I wonder if the state would take it off my hands. The inspector said that even if I tore it down to nothing, no one would buy it.”
“And you don’t want it?”
Emil grimaced. He still didn’t have a home, and while he did have plenty of money to bulldoze any trace of where the house and his mother had once been and start something of his own, he didn’t want to live with her ghost.
“Maybe I can turn it into a neighborhood park.” He felt foolish saying that, considering he hadn’t seen a single child within twenty miles of that long stretch of road.
“Maybe donate it to charity,” she said. “Or see if the neighbor wants to build, like, a massive, fuck-off-sized pool and train for the Olympics in the summer.”
Emil rolled his eyes but smiled as he reached into his pocket for a few bills and left them under the sugar dish for the tip. He rose and offered his hand, and Dahlia took it with her right, pressing her left one to her sternum.
“Ohmy. I do declare…”
“Stop,” Emil growled, though he wasn’t annoyed with her at all. She was absolutely nothing like anyone he’d ever met, and he felt a sudden and profound fear she’d figure out that he was a worthless, sorry excuse for a man and ghost him.
She hadn’t pried about his past at all. She knew vague bits and pieces about his mom and his nonrelationship with his father, but nothing more. And he would have given anything to keep it that way.
