I flipped it open and greeted, “Hey, honey.”
“Problem,” she announced, sounding frustrated.
Oh man.
“What?”
“Well, the other person bidding on that unit at The Dorchester upped their offer by ten K. Ten freaking K! Again! The text just came in. Just now. You made your last bid two days ago and they’re texting me at the five o’clock in the freakin’ morning!”
I closed my eyes.
I had been on the phone quite a bit since our last full day in Lake Como. These conversations included chatting with Celeste who was making it clear our relationship was not going to die after I left Lake Como (for which I was thankful). They also included chatting and texting with Luci, who was making it clear she was intent on building her relationship with me right along with Sam even if she and I were in different countries (again with the thankful part). And they also included talking to and texting Paula about The Dorchester unit.
I’d made five thousand dollars more than asking price on my house in the end, which was awesome. I had my deposit. Paula was sorting all the mumbo jumbo. I was ready to roll.
But even though the housing market had been stagnant (or worse) for over a year, not only did I do well on the sale of my house, now I was in the bidding war to end all bidding wars to get that unit.
A unit I hadn’t even seen.
I’d finally offered asking price, thinking that would end it. They’d countered with ten K more. At Paula’s suggestion, I’d countered with five thousand more. Now they were countering with ten thousand more.
That meant The Dorchester unit would go, currently, for twenty-five thousand more than the list price.
That was insane.
But I wanted it, my house was sold, once Paula sorted the mumbo jumbo we would close then I’d have no home, not to mention I had the money.
I had no clue what to do.
I opened my eyes and informed Paula of this fact in those exact same words.
“It’s all about how much you want it,” Paula replied. “There’s nothing like The Dorchester anywhere around. The only other condo unit is totally not as cool or well-kept as The Dorchester and it’s all the way out on Six which is, like, at least a fifteen minute drive from Kroger and that’s not during rush hour. But it’s way cheaper and I know they have several units on the market. You could go for a house but you said you don’t want to deal with a yard. You could move out of Heartmeadow but then I’d have to kill you. So, really, how much do you want it?”
It wasn’t just that.
Sure, I had bunches of money but if I kept throwing it around, I wouldn’t have any at all. And I’d quit my job before going on vacation, not because I didn’t like who I worked with, just that I never liked what I was doing, as in, at all. It bored me stiff and I had a new chance at life, so I decided I’d go for it, whole hog. I had thoughts of going home from my vacation and going to school, getting a degree or learning a vocation. I just had no idea what degree I’d get or what vocation I’d learn. I’d quit dreaming years ago, I never imagined I’d have this opportunity and not only that, but the sky being the limit. Heck, I could even go for a master’s degree, become a lawyer (not that I wanted to do that), pretty much anything.
The plethora of choice I suddenly found myself confronted with as to which life path I wanted to explore was too much.
I was supposed to be sorting all this out on vacation but instead I was spending all my time cavorting with a hot guy and using all my headspace thinking about said hot guy.
Shit.
“I need to think about this,” I told Paula but I didn’t need to think about it.
I’d never bought a house. Cooter and his parents dealt with everything when we bought our house.
But of the things I’d learned about Sam, I knew he had bought several.
I didn’t need to think about it, I needed to ask someone with experience what I should do.
Paula cut into my thoughts.
“Right, think. You need to process, call. You want to counter or back out, text. But whatever you do, don’t do any of it for three hours. I gotta crash. This Heartmeadow real estate heat up is draining me dry. I haven’t had a commission in three months, now I got so much going on, I can’t keep it all straight. I need sleep and I need to give my man a break from this shit. When that text came in, swear, babe, I thought he was going to throw my cell out the window. You know how Rudy likes his beauty rest.”
Rudy didn’t like his beauty rest, Rudy totally crashed after giving Paula the business, something Paula referred to as Rudy needing his “beauty rest”. She’d shared this with us (repeatedly). She thought it was adorable. Then again, Rudy, Paula also shared (repeatedly) was energetic so after a session he’d have to crash and, the way she described it, anyone would.
Apparently, but not unusually, Paula had got herself some that night.
Though, this reminder highlighted that Sam was even more energetic than the most energetic encounters Paula had described, he was five years older than Rudy and he was always up before me or he fell asleep after me.
Interesting.
“Yo, babe? Are you in a Crete coma or are you with me?” Paula called and my head twitched as I came back to the conversation.
“Sorry, honey, I’m here and can do, three hours, no sooner, you’ll hear from me,” I told her.
“Okay, babe, and while you think, remember you’ll be home soon. The Dorchester isn’t the only place. Who knows what’ll open up? We can go to viewings; you can stay with Rudy and me or your Mom and Dad if you don’t find a place before you close on your house.”
Hmm.
No.
Or, more accurately, hell no.
That was not going to happen.
I loved Paula and Rudy and they had a kickass guest room but they were semi-newlyweds that acted like newly-newlyweds. It was cute, in small doses. Being a bedroom over, probably not so much.
And I loved my Mom and Dad but if I was under my mother’s roof, she would insist on feeding me. I’d been a married woman with my own house for seven years and I had not once provided Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners for my family. This was Mom’s domain. She taught me how to cook but she was not only a taskmaster and drill sergeant, she usually ended up shoving you out of the way and taking over, especially if you did something she thought was crazy, like, say, drain the grease from browned hamburger before dumping in the spaghetti sauce. She went ballistic when I did that, shouting, “That’s where all the flavor is!” I had a hot guy who was way into my body the way it was, I didn’t need to gain seventy-five pounds and lose him.