Page 8 of Coming Clean

“Okay. Text mehis number. OnceI get unpacked, I’ll call him for an estimate.”

David groaned. “I forgotabout the unpacking.”

“I should’ve made you workbefore giving you chicken. Hell, I should have made myself workbefore ordering the chicken.”

****

After dinner, Jeremy madecoffee while David cleared off space on the kitchen bar so theycould eat dessert there. The coffee pot was one of the few thingshe’d made sure to pack where he could find it. It was a trueessential and his aunt’s had been taken, along with most everythingelse in the kitchen, when his cousins cleared the place out. He andDavid each drank a cup with their beloved Cheerwine cake, one ofSparky’s specialties.

“Should we start in here?”David asked.

Jeremy looked around thekitchen at the piles of unlabeled boxes and sighed. “We might aswell, but just unpack the basics. Hopefully I won’t be here toolong.”

David frowned. “I hate tomention it, but have you looked into how easy it will be to sell ahouse this size?”

Jeremy had. The statisticsdepressed him. “Can I just keep my head in the sand about that fora bit longer?”

“I suppose, but you’regoing to need to unpack more than a few plates.”

“I know I’m not going to beable to sell it right away but…” He sighed. “Fine, unpack most ofthe kitchen stuff. But I hope getting rid of the house won’t takeages.”

“Or…” David’s voice trailedoff.

“Or what?”

“You could stayhere.”

Jeremy had no intention ofletting David know he’d been thinking the same thing. “What thehell would I do with a house this big?”

David shrugged. “Throwawesome parties?”

“Right, us poetry scholarsare known for our wild evenings. I might even hire nubile youngstudents to read Byron aloud. That would stir up thecrowd.”

David grinned. “It would benice having you close.”

“Yeah, I get that but, thishouse…”

“Is gorgeous. And youalways loved it, even though you hated how you were treated here.It’s been in your family for a long time. Your grandparents livedhere and—”

“My great grandparentsbefore them. Yeah, I know.” David was right. He loved the house.When he was very young, it had belonged to his grandmother. The fewmemories he had of that time were happy ones. His aunt and uncleonly moved in after she’d died. “But I don’t want thehouse.”

“Are you sure?” Davidasked.

Jeremy looked up at thehigh ceiling and then out the window across the back lawn. No, hewasn’t sure. He’d always loved the backyard, and the neighborhoodwas awesome. But he didn’t want to be surrounded by the memories ofhis life here, and he didn’t need all this space.

****

Connor’s phone rang ashe headed out the door early Monday morning. He wanted to ignore itbut it could be a client. He glanced at the screen. He didn’trecognize the number but it was being forwarded from hisbusiness line. Did he answer it and risk being late for the clienthe already had, or ignore it and risk losing a newclient?

“This is Connor with SpitShine Clean, how may I help you?”

“Hi, my name is JeremyParks. I got your number from Rita Harkland.”

A potential client. Connorwas glad he’d answered. “Great. Were you interested in having yourhouse cleaned?”

“Yes, I… Actually, it’s ahouse I inherited,” the man said.

“Okay, so is this aone-time clean. Will you be selling it? We can make it lookbeautiful for prospective buyers.”