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And since my street was a common one for people to cut through to get to opposite parts of the city, I decided to shrug it off and catch up to the man that’d started talking to me while I’d fallen behind.
Catching up, I heard him say ‘mold.’
“What kind of mold?” I asked.
“Black mold,” he said. “You have black mold in your walls…but there’s no way for me to tell how bad it is without removing the drywall.” He paused. “The carpet’s gonna have to go, too.”
The carpet wasn’t a concern to me. That was always going to go.
The drywall, though? That was supposed to stay.
Fuck, that was going to be expensive.
And I didn’t have the money right now to fix it.
“Do you have insurance?” Tony asked.
I breathed a quick sigh of relief.
“I do,” I confirmed.
“I also have rental insurance,” Saylor said. “They told me that it would cover almost anything…even the house taking off after a tornado. Can you do double the coverage?”
Tony’s eyes left mine and stopped on Saylor, his entire demeanor softening.
“Yeah,” he paused. “Probably.”
“I can’t know exactly what’s wrong with it until I do a full examination of what’s behind the walls,” he said. “But for now, everything about a foot down at least is going to have to come out because it’s rotted from the continuous rain it gets. I can give you a better idea of the rest once I can get a look behind. For now, I can file it on your insurance and we can go from there.” He looked at me. “I don’t recommend anyone live here until it’s fixed.”
I quickly agreed with him that he should do what needed to be done, promising to give my insurance a call tomorrow, and he left.
Saylor and I were left standing there staring at the hole he’d cut out of the wall to get a look behind it.
“Black mold is bad, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve heard it is.”
“I’m going to have to move out.” Her shoulders slumped.
I felt my belly tighten.
“Only about fifteen feet,” I told her, making a rash decision. “You can stay with me.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but I shut her up with a quick kiss to the lips.
“No arguments,” I ordered.
She narrowed her eyes.
“But, Lock…”
“No buts,” I said. “I don’t want you to go.”
“But we’ve literally known each other for like two days.”
“A week,” I said. “Officially, anyway. And I know what I want.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And what’s that?”
