“I just finished a piece in honor of passing the NCLEX.”
He held open the door for her. “And your point is?”
She laughed. “You’re as bad as Kurt wanting second dessert.”
“My dear girl, life is far too short not to celebrate all the great moments with pie. This is another of those moments.”
Corinne slid her hand in his, not caring about the pie but just that she got to celebrate this with him. “Point taken.”
Epilogue
2 Months Later
“Speakeasy is jumping tonight, so they said the pizza will be ready in about an hour,” Corinne said.
They weren’t actually that busy, but Tucker had enlisted Natalie Mercer, the manager, to give him the necessary lead time to execute his plan.
“Well that’s fine. I’ve got something in mind to kill some time before we go pick it up. You up for a little adventure, Kurt?”
“Always!” He leapt up and Tucker watched him like a hawk.
Maybe it wasn’t a hundred percent smart to loop the five-year-old in on things. Tucker didn’t have complete confidence the kid wouldn’t blow the surprise in his excitement. But so far, he’d managed to sit on the piece he knew without saying a word.
“What did you have in mind?” Corinne asked.
“I know you’re still looking for a place. A guy I know has one for rent that I think might be perfect. I thought we could take a field trip to go see it.”
“Getting kind of dark out for peeking in the windows,” she observed.
“I borrowed the keys. He said we could take all the time we wanted to look around.”
She gave him a little bit of side eye but didn’t argue. So they loaded up in the car and drove the couple of miles from his office to the two-story brick house on Barnard Street. The sun had already sunk behind the big trees shading the yard.
“Are you insane? There’s no way this is in my price range. And there’s not even a for rent sign.”
“He just put it on the market. And before you say no, let’s at least look. Gotta kill some time before we get the pizza.”
Again with the side eye, but she got out of the car. Kurt scrambled up the walk ahead of them. It was a little weedy and the flowerbeds needed some TLC, but some fresh plantings and mulch would go a long way. The front door and shutters had a fresh coat of dark brown paint that set off the cream painted brick.
“It’s a bit of a fixer upper, he told me.” Tucker unlocked the door and stepped inside, flipping on lights as he went. “Three bedroom, two-and-a-half bath, with a sort of office space. It’s a couple of decades old, but solidly built. Original hardwoods throughout. Kinda scuffed, but they’d refinish easy. And the walls are all pale neutral, so you’d have the option to paint whatever colors you wanted without needing to prime.”
“Since when do landlor
ds allow tenants to do that kind of home improvement?”
“Well, he ran out of get up and go to do more himself, so I think he’d love it if somebody’d fix up the place some more. Pending his approval, of course.”
Tucker led her into the kitchen. “It’s dated, but paint and new hardware would go a long way toward helping that. And the appliances are new in the last five years.”
Kurt wandered over to peer out the big picture window overlooking the backyard. “There’s a fort!”
He was already racing for the back door when Corinne called, “Slow down, don’t run, and stay in the yard!”
“Okay!” In a flash, he was out the door.
“The people who lived here before had kids. Left the playset behind when they moved.”
“This is the kiss of death, Tucker. He’s going to be crushed when I tell him we aren’t moving here.” Her expression of exasperation and longing almost made him smile, but he managed to keep a straight face.