Page 38 of Soft
I grabbed my cap off the dresser. "Show me what you found."
He’d located a realtor through some combination of asking the front desk and striking up a conversation with a man outside the coffee shop the day before. It was exactly the kind of networking only my pops could manage last minute since he wantedsomeone with access to get into the homes he thought would fit us.
The realtor’s name was Deb. She met us outside the first address at nine in the morning with a big smile and even bigger hair. I was pretty confident she knew she was getting a sale today. Pops wouldn’t have picked anything to look at if he wasn’t interested enough.
The first two houses were your average everyday place. One of them had a yard that Pops walked around twice making approving sounds at. The other had a kitchen that I could tell he was mentally furnishing.
But they were both in neighborhoods that seemed to be teeming with nosy neighbors, and after spending the last couple of days walking around Bellport, I had a pretty good idea of the kind of quiet I wanted access to. I didn’t need people knocking on my door or watching me for their latest gossip fix if I could help it.
The third address was different from the moment we pulled up to the curb. I was ninety-nine percent sure this would be a home run for me and Pops.
It was smaller than the other two, set back from the street by a decent stretch of yard with old live oak trees lining the driveway. The exterior was painted a faded blue-gray that gave it a bit of character. A covered porch wrapped around the front with enough room for chairs and a small table, and there were flower boxes under two of the windows that were currently empty.
Pops looked at it without saying anything. I knew he was already falling for the place. It was only a matter of the inside matching the outside’s charm.
"It's not fancy," Deb said, tone still cheerful.
I smiled. “We don’t need fancy.”
She led us up the front walk, a knowing grin on her face. Deb knew a hole-in-one when she saw it.
The inside more than delivered on what the outside hinted at. Everything was a little worn in, with wood floors that had some scuffs and window frames that were painted shut in most of the rooms. The ceilings were high enough that I didn't have to think about them, a fact I always appreciated. There were three bedrooms, which was one more than we needed. Pops would fill it with knickknacks over time.
Speaking of my pops, he went out back to inspect the yard, leaving me and Deb to walk through the rest of it without him. The man loved a good project. I had no doubt he was planning something epic for the space.
"It came available two weeks ago," Deb said as we walked. "The previous tenants were here for six years, and the ones before them nearly thirty years."
"What's the street like?"
"Quiet. Mostly working families, a few older residents. There's a retired couple next door who I am told will bring you food the first week whether you want it or not. She makes a king cake that people have driven across the parish for. You’d be silly not to take it."
I hummed, as if to agree. "Close to the stadium?"
"Twelve minutes, less if you hit the lights right."
I went back through the main bedroom, which got the morning light and was large enough to feel like a room rather than aholding cell. Then I walked back out to the porch where Pops was standing in the middle of the yard looking up at the trees.
"There's a hummingbird feeder out here," he called to me, his voice as serious as ever.
"We're not buying the hummingbird feeder."
"You don't have to buy it. It's already here." He turned around. "This is it, son."
I grinned. “Knew you’d say that. For a minute, I thought you’d fight for that second one.”
"The kitchen was too small." He walked back up to the porch and stood beside me, looking out at the place we’d call home. "This one is right. It's the right size, it's close enough but not too close, and there are trees. A man needs trees."
“Then we need to put an offer in. No leasing. I want to buy it,” I told him.
Pops clapped me on the shoulder once, satisfied, and went inside to find Deb.
I stayed on the porch for a moment and pulled out my phone. Doyle had texted me approximately seven times since the night before, a conservative count for him. He had graduated from asking for an update to sending increasingly dramatic single-word messages, the most recent of which just saidPAXTONin all caps with no other context.
I called him instead of texting back, because I needed to hear his excitement.
He picked up before the first ring finished. "Finally! I was about to get on a plane."
"You were not," I said with a laugh.
