Page 9 of Brad

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Brad had to laugh at everything he thought of Couch trying to get away from what he had thought was gallons of blood. There had been nothing there, not even the two men that he’d summoned to his office. It was just Launder having a lot of fun messing with the man’s mind. Thinking about how he’d tossed his cell phone at the wall had him laughing all over again. It wasn’t until Toby came into the room that he thought he might have some control over his humor.

“You looked weird.” That’s all it took to set him off again. Leaning on the table so that he’d not fall over, he tried his best to explain what had gone down to Toby while he’d been taking his tests. “No, I’m pretty sure that you’re weird on top of being weirded out. Why did he think that there was blood all over him?”

“A trick of the mind.” He nodded, but Brad was almost as positive as he’d ever been that the young kid was humoring him. Finally able to stand up without breaking down again, it was Hamish who explained what had happened. While he wasn’t laughing as hard as he’d been, Toby finally understood.

“So you messed with his mind into thinking that’s what he was seeing. I can do that. I don’t get to practice much, but I can make people do what I want them to do sometimes. Mom thinks it’s not fair to do that to anyone, but we did use it when someone was getting frisky with her.” That sobered him right up. Asking Toby if he knew the names of the men who’d gotten frisky with his mom had him shaking his head. “I don’t think so. I know a few shifters, and there aren’t any of them that wouldn’t use that name and kill the other man. I understand that everyone is possessive, so no, nope, no way am I going to tell you so that I feel responsible for the harm that might come to them.” Brad told him that he’d only mess them up a little bit.

Toby snorted. Something that he noticed a lot of them did in this kiss. Even the dog, Joey, was a snorter. Thinking that he could wear Toby down more later, he let it go, at least until his mom returned. He’d figure it out.

As they were going over some of the amenities that were in the three houses that they were going to look at this evening, Toby was telling his mom on his new cell phone how the testing had gone. Toby felt all right about them, he told her.

Toby had been taking his tests yesterday to finish up his high school classes when it was suggested by the leap leader for him to take some tests on life skills that might get him out of a few freshman classes. He had already taken a few of the classes while waiting for his tests to be given to him. He was told that it wouldn’t be any trouble for them to test him on his Pre-college courses while he was there. After calling Becka and getting her permission to do it, Brad had dropped the young man off this morning to finish up. Now, they were making plans to go house hunting again, and this time with Becka. They were using the camera on both the phones to look at the houses that were on their list for tonight.

She was holed up at a hotel, waiting to be called from the company that she was picking up one of the orders that she was bringing back for his stores. It was the perfect time, he thought, to see what sort of places that she’d like so she’d be able to look and not take her eyes off the road for any length of time.

The white picket fence and the pool were something that she really wanted, and it seemed that the house they were looking for ticked off a few of the items that she thought needed to be in her home. Oh, and a fenced-in backyard. There wasn’t much else he could get out of her, but that she also wanted stability under her feet.

Toby didn’t care for the first house. Brad wasn’t sure that he did either. It was…for lack of a better term, it was blocky. Like someone had taken discarded blocks of all sizes and stacked them up like they were playing at building a house. The windows even looked like they had been discarded from another house and put in this one to fill in where the blocks wouldn’t fit. It was marked off before they even walked inside. The second one didn’t fair much better. But when they got to the third home, Brad was thinking that they’d found the perfect home.

While he and Toby toured the house with the realtor, Becka was asking questions that were answered by the other woman. Finding the pool out back, with a slide and rock garden by the pool, he knew that Toby loved it, and so did Becka. There was even a little boat house at the back of the land where they could put his boat in the water and cruise up and down the river. He had a thought that he wanted to get a pontoon boat now instead of something that would be fast. Taking an easy stroll down the river had an appeal that it didn’t have for him before. While Toby, much to the amusement of the realtor, swam in the pool to cool off, he walked into the back of the house that was the kitchen.

“The kitchen has been updated in the last year. Both of the previous owners loved to entertain, and doing so in the kitchen was something that they favored. If you’ll notice, that kitchen can open up and spill right into the deck with the pool. There is plenty of room in the dining room as well if the weather doesn’t cooperate.”

While the realtor talked about the tile on the floor as well as the floor-to-ceiling sliding doors, he looked at the craftmanship of the oak cabinets as well as the stone flooring that seemed to him had been dug right out of the earth and smoothed out to make the floor just about as beautiful as he’d ever seen. They were looking at the bedrooms on the second floor when Toby joined him. The kid looked like he’d found his forever home in this place, too.

“I was wondering at the price. It says here that the home has been empty since a year ago. If you’re saying that it’s priced to sell, why haven’t you sold it yet?” He thought that Becka made a good point, but he was willing to pay what they wanted for the house right now. The realtor told them both that it ended in a nasty divorce, and both sides didn’t want to give up their part of the home until the judge ordered it. “So we should expect trouble then. I thought things were just too good to be true about this place.”

He listened with Becka on what the court ordered sale of the house meant for the two of them as their realtor laid out the particulars. The house had to be sold and there wasn’t a reserve on the place. Meaning that if the judge wanted to and someone offered ten cents for the home, and he took it, the money would be divided in half for each of the previous owners. He liked the sound of that.

“What was the last bid on the house?” He wasn’t sure that the woman was going to answer Toby when he’d asked. When she finally did, he could have kissed the kid on his mouth. “What do you mean, people just expect it to be expensive. I think a lot of things are expensive that some people don’t. Can you just tell me what they want, and we can tell you yes or no? You’re not being very helpful that—or is that your plan? Not to sell the house to us?”

“Good heavens, no. I didn’t mean to… no, I just didn’t want you to walk away from this deal of a lifetime.” It was then that Brad realized that Toby had learned how to dicker with pricing from his mom. He just stood there with his hands over his chest like he’d seen Becka do a thousand times in the last couple of weeks. “What I meant to say was. The house isn’t cheaply made, nor is it—”

“So you’re thinking that because of the way…what? How we’re dressed? That my mom is a trucker that we can’t afford a home like this one? You’ve already written us off as buyers? Tell us why you’re acting like this if that’s not what’s going on.” The compulsion was there. The only other person that he knew of who could use it that well was Hamish. Brad watched the woman struggle with the words she didn’t want to say. Adding his own compulsion, he finally was able to break her down and start talking.

“The primary realtor, my boss, told me not to sell it to anyone that came in. He was waiting for his daughter to decide if she wanted the house or not before he allows anyone to see this place.” She looked defeated before continuing. “If anyone else buys this house, even if it’s his daughter, I don’t get any commission because he’s only allowing me to show the house to keep people off his back. Meaning the previous owners and the courthouse. If I were you, I’d call them directly and talk to them about buying it. There is no court order for them, as I was told to tell you, and frankly, they’re getting pissy because it’s been on the market for over a year, and they want to get on with their lives. I don’t blame them, and Shaw is blaming it on the market. Mr. Shaw, Caroll Shaw of Shaw and Shaw Realtor, is holding out for his child. Which isn’t a nice thing to do. Here is their number.”

Toby was talking to the realtor while he called the Webster couple. They weren’t getting a divorce, nor as he was told, were they ordered to sell the place, as he’d only just found out. After telling them what was going on, Becka told them about how the young woman who had been showing them the house wasn’t going to be making any money off the sale either. That, he thought, was the worst way to treat an employee of all.

“I tell you what. I’m going to hire you to work real estate deals for my company. I won’t shortchange you either. You help me out, and I’ll help you. But I want honesty from now on. Not half-truths that will get us both into trouble.” He explained how he was forever getting behind in his work because he had to go out and about trying to put businesses in the right building.

Brad told her how he liked to use existing buildings when he could. It saved both time and money for everyone. Benefiting a great many people, too. When Becka said that she was finished with the call to the Webster couple, it was Toby who was smiling. The kid, Christ, he loved this kid already.

“All right. This is the plan. You’re going to sell us the house because we called the Websters as they’re good friends of ours. By the way, they’re pissed off that Mr. Shaw is doing them dirty. They know that it’s in no way your fault, and they wanted to thank you, Rosemary, for telling her when you did. You tell the little fucker that you couldn’t very well tell us that lie because we would just check with the owners.” Rosemary smiled and asked how much they were going to offer on the house. “Oh, that’s been settled, and you will get a commission check on the full amount. For helping them out, the Websters are selling us the home at a great discount because she is planning to get the rest from Mr. Shaw. I have a feeling he’s not going to know what hit him. They’re pissed off something terrible.”

Everyone was in a good mood when Rosemary turned the keys over to them. After making sure that she had her story right about what to tell Shaw, she left them to walk around their new home. Shaw was either going to fire her, which she believed that he might, and she’d welcome it, or keep her commission check. Or try to anyway. That was part of the plan that the Websters were going to care for. Making sure that Rosemary got what she had coming to her.

Vicki Webster told him there was a boat in the boat house that he could keep because they’d purchased them a much larger one to go deep sea fishing. There wasn’t much of that around here, Vicki told him. After inviting them to come and see them when they were in town again, Brad made arrangements to have the things that he had in storage brought to their new home. Their home. He thought that had a perfect ring to it.

“I don’t have anything for my room. Not unless you’re planning for me to live in the rig from now on.” He’d not thought of that when Brad suggested that they stay in the house tonight. Toby had basically grown up in a rig and wouldn’t even have a desk that he would be able to use in the house. “I don’t even have an air mattress or a good pillow. I never, well, I had hopes of being in a house, but not this soon. Do you think we can hit a couple of shops so that I can sleep in my room?”

“All right. It’s shopping time. I own a few furniture stores so we’ll hit them up to see what we can get delivered for you tonight. It doesn’t have to be anything that you want to keep forever. Whatever we end up getting can go into one of the spare bedrooms. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Brad rubbed his hands together. “Then tomorrow we’ll do some shopping to get the things that we’re going to need forever. Towels, linens, and the like. Even a couple of televisions now that we can have them hooked up. Do you like sports, Toby?”

For the first time in a very long time, he was excited to have enough money to spend on his new family. Not just a few thousand bucks that he couldn’t live without but billions and billions of dollars that were earning him more every day while it sat in his investments. Thinking about all the things that they needed, he decided that he didn’t want the things at his home here in his new place with his family; he wanted everything new so that he could make their memories while breaking things in. Mentally rubbing his hands together again, the first thing that he was going to get was an engagement ring for his wife. He wanted to get something for his son, too, to make sure that he knew that he would love him as his own, just like Becka did towards him.

Yes, Brad thought. He was as excited as he’d ever been in starting a new life. From this day on, it was about making his little family happy and safe. And that, in turn, would make him happy. Happier than he’d been in forever.

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