“All right, we can check them out, and after have dinner with my sister Melanie.”
Wait, what?
“Dinner with your sister?” I stop to look at him, and he leans his hip against the counter.
“She called when I was at the store. Her schedule is normally pretty crazy between work and school, but she has time to meet up tonight.”
“I doubt she wants me intruding on her time with her brother.”
“She’s the one who told me to invite you.”
“Oh.” I lick my lips, feeling caught off guard and somewhat confused about what is happening between us. I’ve never been in a situation like this one, and honestly I don’t know what to do.
“You good with that?”
“Sure.” I place a few more cut flowers in the cup, wondering how fucking cliché it would be to ask him what the heck is happening here.
“All right.” He grabs the tray of eggs he unpacked and turns to the stove. “You want scrambled eggs?”
“That sounds good.” I finish putting together my flowers, then I take a seat at the counter and call Harris while Maxim makes us breakfast. After getting our schedule set up for the day, I hang up, eat breakfast, then head out to see some houses with the man who has completely invaded my life.
_______________
WITH MAXIM DRIVING, I go through my emails, deleting the ones from Cohen’s fans, then forward the ones from potential clients to Harris. He can send out a copy-and-paste generic email to them, asking things like when they plan on moving, if they’ve been preapproved, and what they are looking for. With so many people moving to Tennessee from all over the US, it’s always easier to weed out those who are just curious before putting in the work of making contact and looking for homes.
“This is nice,” Maxim says, and I lift my head and look out the windshield as we turn down a paved tree-lined driveway toward a large two-story stucco home with huge black paned windows.
“It is, and it’s very LA.” I drop my phone to my lap and pick up the information sheet. “There were no pictures of the inside on the listing, but the description sounded intriguing.”
“Intriguing?” He looks over at me with a small smile tipping up his lips.
“Apparently, the owner is some big-time architect. The realtor describes this house as a modern piece of art. It’s also on three acres with a pool and guesthouse; plus, the comps in the area are fantastic.”
“I love it when you talk realtor to me,” he says, and I laugh as he pulls around the circular driveway to park. When the doors open, we get out, and he comes around to meet me. I lead the way to the front door and open the coded box attached to the door handle to retrieve the key, letting us inside and pushing away the unease that’s left over from yesterday.
“This is beautiful.” I close the door behind us and turn on the lights for the entryway—not that I need to, with all the natural light coming in from the windows.
“It is,” he agrees as I follow him over to a sitting room off the entry that has a white plush rug covering part of the dark floor under the couch, built-in shelves lining one wall, and a black stone fireplace taking up another. Across the entryway is a spacious home office, and down a short hall is the kitchen done in all white, with bright pops of color here and there. “My mom would love this kitchen.”
“Does your mom like to cook?” I ask, walking around the gigantic island, opening and closing drawers and cabinets.
“She loves baking. She usually makes Dad cook.”
“Do they live in Vegas near you?”
“Part time. They go back and forth between Vegas and Hawaii, depending on what Dad has going on for work.”
“How do they feel about you moving here?” We walk down a hallway and into the master bedroom, which is absolutely spectacular, especially with the view of trees out of the floor-to-ceiling windows taking up one wall.
“They’re good. My guess is they will end up getting a place out here, since this is where Melanie and I will be living.”
“That will be nice.” I gasp when I enter the walk-in closet that is unlike any I’ve ever seen in my life. “The architect of this house must be a woman, because this is heaven.” I walk along the rows and rows of shoes and bags and the glass-fronted closed cabinets with clothes neatly hung or folded on shelves, listening to him laugh.
By the time we’re finished walking the entire property, including the back yard and pool house, I’m positive this is the house for him. It’s masculine and unique with more than enough privacy. Really, if I had a few million dollars, it would be the house I would buy for myself.
“If we don’t find something better than this today, I think I’ll have you write up an offer,” he says as I lock up the front door, and I turn to him and smile.
“The closet won you over, didn’t it?”
“No, the man cave did.”
“That’s supposed to be the guesthouse,” I point out, and he shrugs.
“It has a bar, a pool table, and leather furniture. It’s a man cave.” He opens the doors to his car, and I get in and buckle up. “Where to next?”
I pull up the information for our next appointment and scan the listing. “It’s just down the street. The realtor who has this house has that one as well, and again there are no photos besides one of the outside. It also sits on three acres, has a pool, no guesthouse though, but it is seven hundred thousand less.”
Less than five minutes later, we pull up to the house, this one very similar to the previous listing, so much so that I wonder if the same person designed it. Like last time, I let us inside and instantly know why there are no photos of this place.
“Well, this is—” I pause, trying to figure out the right word for the multicolor-painted walls and artisan-tiled monstrosity that is the entryway. “—fun?”
“Fun is one way to describe this.” He looks around, seeming fully disgusted.
“On the plus side, paint isn’t that expensive.”
“It would need a lot of paint.” He bypasses the front room and heads right to the kitchen that is nice—minus the excessive amount of beach-life-themed signs, containers, and knickknacks.
“This is beautiful.” I step out the backdoor and look over the yard and the pool that was built to look like a sandy beach.
“Do you think they like the ocean?” He comes to stand next to me, and I smile up at him.
“Noticing a theme, huh?”
“It’s a little hard not to.”
“Remember, it’s seven hundred thousand less than the other house,” I remind him as we head back inside.
“It should be much less than that,” he grouches, not even taking the time to check out the extra bedrooms before going to the master. As soon as we enter, I come to a dead stop. The coral-pink king-sized bed in the middle of the room looks like an open clam shell, and someone took the time to paint an entire underwater ocean scene around the room, including a mermaid couple in an embrace, swimming up toward the ceiling, which is painted like the sky.
“Jesus, what the fuck is this?”
“A masterpiece,” I say, and he looks over at me as I press my lips together to keep from laughing. “How long do you think it took them to paint all this?”