Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 82715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“You bought my house?” I hissed incredulously.
“No.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “My dad bought this house from the nice little family that bought it from yours. They realized during their first Oregon winter that maybe they shouldn’t have left California. I bought it from him.”
“This is my house,” I repeated stubbornly, pointing at the cement under our feet. “I lived here my whole life and you bought it? Why would you do that?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” he replied flatly. “You comin’ in or what? It’s gonna rain in about thirty seconds.”
He started for the door while I stood there sputtering in disbelief. What in the hell was going on? Why would he buy my childhood home? I shut off the car just as the rain started sprinkling and by the time I got Rhett out of his seat, I had to throw his blanket over him to keep him from getting wet. Michael watched us from the front porch.
“Do you have somewhere I could lay him down?” I asked as I climbed the stairs.
The third one didn’t creak like it should’ve. I grit my teeth.
“Yeah, come on in,” he said, swinging the front door open. “I’ve got a couch in the office you can put him on.”
“The office?” I looked around in confusion as we stepped inside.
Everything was different. The kitchen wall had been knocked out so that it flowed right into the family room, and the formal living room had been completely walled off. Michael walked that direction and opened the door.
“I’ll get him a pillow,” he said, leaving me standing there, gaping like a fish.
If I hadn’t seen the outside, I would’ve had no idea that it was the same house I’d spent so many years in. The walls were painted a light gray and at the far end of the dining room an entire wall had been converted into a massive floor to ceiling bookshelf. The only familiar thing was the staircase, right in the center of it all, but the banister was completely new.
“You gonna lay him down?” Michael asked as he came back.
“What did you do?” I asked as I laid Rhett on the couch. He didn’t stir.
“What? With the house?” Michael asked easily, walking back out of the room. “Demolished most of it.”
“I can see that,” I replied, following him. “You took out a wall.”
“Took out more than one. You want a beer?”
“No, I don’t want a beer.”
“You don’t drink beer?”
“Yes, I drink it. No, I don’t want one.”
“Alright.”
I followed him into the kitchen and looked around wide-eyed. All new appliances. New countertops. Updated cabinets. A fucking window where there hadn’t been before. I was reeling.
“You must make a lot of money,” I stuttered, turning in a circle.
“I do okay,” Michael replied. “My pop helped with most of it. He’s been flippin’ houses since before I was born.”
“You’re going to flip it?” I asked, pausing to look at him.
“Nope.”
“But why?” It didn’t make sense. Out of all the houses to choose from, why had he bought ours? It wasn’t because he’d loved it, he’d gutted the entire thing.
“Wanted it,” he said with a shrug.
“This is so weird,” I murmured under my breath.
Michael laughed, the sound anything but joyful. “I guess so.”
“You’re living in my house.” I ran my hand over the new concrete countertop.
“Rhett’s sleepin’.” He took a sip of his beer. “Start talkin’.”
“What?” I snatched my hand back from the counter.
“Where you been?”
“I—well, everywhere, really.”
“Cut the shit, Emilia,” he barked. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Arizona,” I replied quickly. “We went to Arizona.”
“Huh,” he murmured thoughtfully.
“I got in to Arizona State, remember?” I said, swallowing hard at the memory.
“Yeah, I remember.”
I struggled to find something to say. I’d planned everything out on the long trip to Oregon, but suddenly none of it seemed right, not when he was standing there, fully grown, with a beer in his hand.
I knew how to talk to the boy I knew before, I didn’t know how to talk to this man.
“Well?” he snapped. “Say what you wanna say. Explain this shit to me.”
I decided to start at the beginning.
“I found out I was pregnant the morning after we got home from the river,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “And my mom found out about an hour later because she was nosy and she always knew everything.”
“Not everythin’,” he muttered.
I conceded that with a nod. “They freaked out.” I glanced around the kitchen again, this time thankful that it didn’t look like anything from my memories. “Long story short, they said they wouldn’t pay for college unless I put the baby up for adoption and cut off all communication with you.”
“Bullshit,” he argued, setting his beer down.
“I swear to God.”
“You had a full fuckin’ ride at U of O.”