Page 85 of Agony of Our Regret

“Plus, we’re selling this and the condo. We’ll have more than enough for a large down payment.” Luca turned to Noah. “We can figure those things out when the time comes.”

“Are you sure you want to sell this place?” Sky asked. “You don’t have to.”

I nodded, “For so long this house represented the only connection I had to my mother and her family. Now I was creating my own and it felt right to move on.”

Gavin held my gaze, “We can wait.”

“No, it’s time for this house to be a home for another family. It’s too beautiful to sit vacant any longer.”

It felt right. I wanted a clean slate, a future built around us rather than the past. For years, I thought of this place as a safe space. A house to run to when the rest of the world was too scary, but I was done running away. It was time to let go and move on.

“There was one,” Vince hedged. “At first, I dismissed it because it’s only four bedrooms and didn’t check all our boxes, but something about it keeps pulling at me.”

He pulled out his phone, but Noah grabbed a laptop from the kitchen and handed it to him. “If you’re going to show us pictures, use this.”

“Thanks.” Vince took it and sat it on the coffee table, so we could all see the screen.

“It’s like I said, the space is there. It’s nearly eight thousand square feet.”

“Damn,” Sky whistled.

“Yeah, you’d think that would be plenty, but it's one of the worst layouts I’ve ever seen. It’s so poorly planned that most of the house is wasted space. Like two formal dining rooms, but no eat-in kitchen. A room that could be host balls if we lived a few centuries ago, but only one half-bathroom downstairs.”

He went through the images once to show what was already there, before starting again to explain what he thought it could be.

The listing even had the general blueprints of the house, and Vince had already gone through to make his changes. “We can replace most of the walls after we move them. I’m not tryingto create an entirely open floor plan, so I think it's possible structurally.”

Luca leaned closer and asked a few questions while Gavin studied his proposed plan.

“That’s a hell of a pantry.” Sky rubbed his stomach. “More than enough room for all my snacks.”

I laughed. “Okay, we all get to ask for one thing. That has to be yours.”

He nodded.

“I thought I had all the requirements.” Vince’s face flashed with panic.

“Those are the minimums.” I smiled sweetly. “But if we’re going to be renovating our dream home, our forever home––”

“Yeah, moving sucks. Let’s only do it once,” Noah agreed.

I nodded. “So, let's get this one perfect.

Vince groaned. “Fine. What do you guys want?”

“That pantry is definitely big enough, but some built-ins would be great.” Sky dropped his head back. “And some of the appliances being in there would be sweet. Like a pebble ice machine, or coffee machine, or…” He snapped straight. “A kegerator!”

Noah shook his head with a smirk. “Classy.”

Sky wagged his brows. “Vince can make sure it is.”

“I’m making sure there’s a fully equipped home gym,” he said.

We all exchanged looks before I laughed. “I thought that was a given.”

“Twist my arm,” Luca teased. “I guess we can have that.”

“With a bathroom attached,” I added. “All the stinky can be isolated.”

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