“It’s a good place, for a good price. Barring any unforeseen and unforeseeable catastrophes, which are always possible but unlikely since this house isn’t all that old, we could get it demo’d and reno’d in two months if we’re lucky, three if we’re not. It’s actually a decent market for flipping, and I know Mark would be down to split profits. He and I have talked about it before.”
“Should I be worried about Mark?”
I cackled. “Decidedly no.”
“Why do you laugh like that?”
“Because he’s married, for one thing.”
“Oh, okay.”
“And his husband’s name is Richard.”
“Oh.” A chuckle.
“They have three adopted kids, one from Ethiopia, one from South Korea, and one from here in LA. Mark is one of the best contractors I’ve ever met, and we’ve been buds for ten years. We throw each other work all the time, and like I said, we’ve knocked around the idea of flipping together. We just never bit the bullet.”
“If you’re in, I’m in. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at construction.”
I laughed, but he wasn’t laughing with me. “Oh, you’re serious.”
He gave a droll eye roll. “Yes, I’m serious.”
“Well, knock yourself out. If you help, it’ll go faster and we can move on to the next flip.”
“How does flipping work?”
I shrugged. “We buy a house like this, renovate it to be attractive, sell it for max profit. Take that profit, and use it to buy another fixer-upper. Rinse and repeat.”
“Oh. Well that’s pretty simple.”
“In theory it is. But you’re guaranteed to get a lemon now and then, of course. Rip up carpet because you checked in one corner and saw some sexy wood floors, but it turns out the rest of the floors are water-stained garbage and you have to rip them all out and put in new hardwood and that eats into your profit. And then suddenly there’s a wiring issue, and your tile supplier fucks up your order, and the plumber messes up a toilet install and there’s a leak underneath the subfloor, and bam, you’re over budget by fifteen grand and passed deadline by a month and comps are saying you’re only gonna net ten grand max, if there’s no other issues.” I laughed. “There’s that.”
He laughed. “There’s risk to everything. But good news is, I’ve got cash to burn. I don’t spend all that much, and with these pop-ups driving my streaming income, I’m sitting on more than you’d think, most of it cash or easily liquidated assets. So, you know. No worries.”
“So you want to get into flipping with me, is what you’re saying.”
“What I’m saying is, let’s go get my shit outta my rig, move it into your place, and then I’m gonna flip you.”
“Ooooh,” I purred. “I don’t know what that means, but I’m down.”
“It means I’m gonna take you home, strip you naked, and fuck you six ways to Sunday.”
“Why stop at six? I can think of a dozen ways I want you to fuck me off the top of my head.”
He laughed. “I love the way you think.”
It took all of two hours to pack up his stuff off his touring rig, which until today, had doubled as his full-time residence. He had about a dozen Rubbermaid bins full of random shit, half a dozen contractor bags full of clothes, and some music equipment he wanted to bring home with him, rather than leave it on the rig, guitars mainly, and some mobile recording and mixing gear, as well as a keyboard.
We put it all in the back of his truck and made the short trip from the parking lot where he parked his rig while in LA to my house in the suburbs. Another hour of unpacking, while I condensed my clothes in my main closet and the extra bedroom to make room for his stuff. Which, fortunately for me, really was minimal, and only took up a small corner of my extra closet/spare bedroom.
Some shower stuff, and his music equipment in a corner of the living room—which I actually really liked, since it gave my otherwise kind of spartan living room a more lived-in and eclectic appeal.
He filled my home with himself. His scent, his warmth, his laugh.
And that was just within the first couple hours.
Once his stuff was settled and organized, we plopped onto my deck chairs on the back porch, sharing a beer.
“Well, Laur,” he murmured, as he took a sip. “I now live with you. What next?”
I smirked, and decided to play dumb. “I think you need a key, and you need to make my address your official address.”
He swallowed hard. “You want me to? Make this my address?”
I frowned at him. “Not this again.”
“I just…I’ve never had an actual home address before.”
“Wait, you don’t have an address?”
“Nope. Any official mail, anything I need an address for, I use the PO Box associated with Troubadour Enterprises, my record label and various other business-related stuff.”
“So let me get this straight. You don’t have a phone, you don’t have an address…you’re, like, barely an official person.”
He snorted. “Pretty much.”
“Okay, well first, yes, we’re going to the DMV and putting my address on your license, then a phone, and then we’re going to a hardware store and getting you a key for my house.” I paused, smiled at him. “Our house, I mean.”
“Our house,” he repeated, and sounded more than a little wonderstruck. “I have a house. A home.”
“Yes, you do.”
He swallowed hard. “I belong somewhere. To someone.”
“You do.” I took his hand. “With me, and to me.”
I took a sip of the beer, and handed it to him. “Shit, why wait? Let’s go get that stuff done.”
He held up a finger. “Can I borrow your phone?”
“Sure,” I answered, and handed it to him.
He dialed a number from memory. “Jer, hey, it’s me. So, um. I moved in with Laurel.” A pause, a laugh. “Yes, for real, finally. I know. Amazing, is how it feels. Just happened, so I’m still sort of processing the whole thing. I just wanted you to know, so you know where to reach me, should anything come up.” A pause, as he listened. “Yeah, you can call her. If I’m not on the bus, I’m with her. Nah, she’s saying she’s gonna get me one, but I’m gonna try and talk her out of it, because shit, I’ve gone forty fuckin years without a phone, I don’t see the point of getting one now.”
I just rolled my eyes. He chatted a few more minutes, and then hung up, handing me my phone back.
“You really don’t want a phone?” I asked.
He shook his head, shrugging. “No point. If I’m not with you, I’m on the bus. Who the fuck would I need to call?”
“Um, me, while you’re on the road?”
“Oh. I can just borrow Jer’s.”
“He travels with you?”
“Sure he does. He’s my manager, basically. He sets up the venue and arranges for the social media posts notifying the fans when and where the show is.”
“Okay, well, program his number into my phone, then, so I can call him and get ahold of you. As long as I can reach you while you’re gone, I don’t care if you have a phone or not.”