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Chapter Four
Eighteen monthslater
“So,your retirement plan is to flip houses?” Carter Lowell sat behind the desk their father had always sat at. At twenty-three, he shouldn’t look as comfortable behind the desk as he did. But then again, he had been there for a few years now. Chris’s brother had grown up while he had been away, and he was now more of an adult than Chris himself was.
“Yes, I just want to do something with my hands,” Chris tried to explain his plans for the future, plans he hadn’t thought he would have to worry about for decades. But a knee injury had changed that in an instant.
“Writing up insurance policies is using your hands.” Carter shot him a grin and lifted his hands from his desk. His younger brother was close to fifty pounds lighter and half a foot shorter than himself. Carter had never been athletic like Chris. What they did share was blond hair and a last name.
“Not what I was thinking. You’re doing great here; I would just mess it up.” His brother had taken over the insurance firm after their father’s sudden death three years before. Chris knew he should help his brother, but he had never wanted an office job. He never wanted to do what his father had done.
“I could always use help,” Carter admitted, though Chris couldn’t see himself trapped behind a desk.
“Maybe after I do this house. It’s amazing. Just wait until you see how great it will look once it is done.” Chris couldn’t hide his excitement. Though he had never actually done any construction, he knew it was going to be easy and fun. That and hopefully it would take his mind off the fact that he was done with the sport he loved.
“Are you sure you’re not getting in over year head?” Carter asked in concern.
Chris ran his hands through his blond, wavy hair, trying to sound more confident than he felt. “No, I can handle it.” No way was he going to admit he didn’t know what he was doing to his younger brother.
“Can your body?” Carter asked the question Chris wasn’t sure of himself.
“The new knee shouldn’t be an issue.” Chris tapped the thing that had caused him so much pain over the last year. During the first game after being traded, he had torn his knee so bad he would never play again. It was supposed to be the season he proved himself, and one game in it was over. So much hard work for so little reward. Without football, he had no idea who he was.
Carter leaned back in his chair. “I don’t think that is how it works, but I won’t stop you, not that I could.” It was the truth.
“Thanks. I never wanted to be what Dad was,” Chris admitted. But to be honest, it wasn’t selling insurance that he didn’t want to do; it was the fear of turning into the same all-around dick that his father had been. They stopped getting along years before the man died. In fact, they never spoke after his parent’s divorce when he was eighteen. Not that his dad hadn’t reveled in Chris’s football career, taking credit for his son’s ability whenever possible.
“When do you start?” Carter wanted to know.
“I’m heading over there right now to take another look and figure out what I need.”
“Well, have fun, and come help me if you get bored.” Carter chuckled. They had never been the same type of person. Despite that, they always got along.
Walking out of his father’s insurance firm, Chris headed toward the pickup he had bought just so that he could work on the house. And every other house after it, because this was going to be his future. He wasn’t concerned that the house was old and would need a lot of work because he had time and money to spare. Between his one year in the NFL and everything his father had left him, he was doing okay.
The house renovation was mostly to take his mind off how his life was not going how he had ever wanted it to go. It was a five-bedroom, three-bathroom distraction.
It was only a short drive to the Allering neighborhood where the old, big houses were. Since he was young, he wanted to be a part of something that would last for centuries. Now he was going to live that dream, for a month or so at least. Then he would move on to another.
After a slow walk-through with his pen and paper in hand, he left his beautiful old house and walked right into an old lady standing on his porch. She was nothing less than eighty years old in her jogging suit and was happy to see him. Her gray hair was curly, and he wondered if she had cookies somewhere.
“Hello, I’m Nelly, and I live next door,” she said and pointed to the white house next to him.
“I’m Chris, and I just brought this old lady.” He pointed behind him and winced since the lady on his porch was old.
She either didn’t notice the slip-up or was letting him slide because her smile didn’t falter as she went on. “I know. We’re all excited to see Hilda’s house go to a young person. We’re getting more and more young people lately.”
“Do you know all the neighbors?” He, too, looked up and down the street and saw nobody outside.
“Of course.” She turned around. “Patty and Mike live there, Russ and Sonia live there, then it’s the Cramer’s—they’re odd—then it’s just Agatha in the next house—all the others are gone now. Last is the Mortin’s.”
“Well, it sounds like a fun neighborhood,” he said with a grin.
“It is. When do you move in?”
“I don’t know. I have some things I have to get fixed first.”
“Okay, I’ll keep my eye out for you moving in then.” She turned and walked away.
Chris looked at the house across the street and tried to remember if it belonged to the odd Cramers or Agatha. Either way, he didn’t care. If he met people, he met people. He had friends and didn’t need a neighborhood full of them.
With as friendly as Nelly was, he was excited to be in the neighborhood. This was his first step in his new life.
