Page 60 of In the Shadows

“Together? Like as in…” Joey trailed off.

“Ugh,” I threw my head back against the couch. “Fuck, you’re so frustrating.”

“Yes, but you love me.”

I looked up at him. “Yes, I do. Okay. Joseph Thomas Hayes, would you like to go look at houses in the hopes of finding one we could live in – together. As a couple?” Great, now I was babbling.

Diamond stood nearby, watching the exchange between the two of us.

Joey laughed, jumping onto my lap. “Richard Joshua Branson, since we’re using full names, I thought you’d never ask.” He took my face in his hands, kissing me with the passion I’d been missing since our accident.

“Fuck, dudes, your room is right upstairs so no fucking in the common area,” Diamond bitched, using his boner breaking voice.

“Okay,” I smacked Joey’s ass through his jeans and he hopped up, “let’s check out the areas we’re interested in before we contact an agent. Where were you guys thinking?”

“Waterfront view of the Sound, staying north of Seattle,” Joey immediately said. Maybe I hadn’t been the only one thinking about this. He seemed really excited.

“Yes, that would be great. Somewhere gated, private,” I added.

“Sounds good to me,” was all Diamond said. I had a feeling he didn’t want to live alone, but that was something to address at another time.

We started in Everett, since we were already there and drove down hitting Mukilteo, and Edmonds and landed in Woodway. We toyed with the idea of Whidbey Island, but didn’t want to deal with ferry rides to and fro. Woodway had a great waterfront, gated community so we decided to place our focus there and Edmonds. Not wanting to deal with the traffic surrounding the Seattle area kept us from going any further south.

Diamond must have been texting with Mickey because my phone rang and when I answered it via the Bluetooth system in the rental he answered with, “I’m in!”

“Looks like the four of us will be living within reach of each other,” I laughed.

“Yeah, at the age of twenty-eight, I think it’s high time we cut the parental umbilical cord,” Mickey said.

“Let’s meet up at Joey’s house and talk about what each of us wants in our potential. I’ll ask Brett for an agent referral. I know he has several since he does a bunch of residential remodels.” Everyone agreed, and we ended the call. When we pulled up in front of Joey’s house, Mickey was waiting on the front porch.

“I cleaned up the fan shrines in the yards,” he told us.

“Shit, I didn’t even think about that. Thanks man,” I told him before we went inside.

I grabbed a notepad and pen before joining the guys in the living room. Everyone but Diamond shouted out what they were looking for, when I turned to him, he had a shy look on his face. “Diamond, what do you want?”

“Well, at the risk of sounding like a total pussy – I’d like to not live alone,” Diamond shocked the shit out of all of us with his declaration.

I found myself at a loss for words, a rarity for me. Luckily, Mickey wasn’t of the same frame of mind. “Dude, you can totally bunk with me. We’re the token single guys so as long as you aren’t bothered by randos coming and going then we’re good to go.”

Diamond smiled. “You know I’m good with that man. Let’s do it!”

Wow, I guess I’d always just assumed Diamond was the strong man of the bunch based upon hisdevil may care attitude. Now, I felt like a dick for thinking that way. But my brothers drew me from my self-deprecating moment when they started spouting out likes and dislikes again for their properties.

“I have a feeling we will be looking at rehab project homes. Woodway is uber expensive and I don’t know about you guys, but our budget isn’t there yet. Plus, I don’t want to over buy with this being our first house.” I looked at Joey, making sure he was on the same page with me.

“Agreed, but I don’t want to live in it while shit gets fixed,” he said.

“No problem, when we find a house with good bones that we like we’ll take Brett through it and see what he thinks.”

“Think we could get him to do the same?” Mickey asked.

“Dudes, Brett would totally do anything for us. As long as we don’t take advantage of his good nature I think he’d be more than happy do our remodel jobs.” To reaffirm what I’d spoken before confirming with the man himself, I shot off a quick text to Brett letting him know what we were doing. As expected, he instantly replied withI’m in. “He’s in guys.” I held up my phone as though they could read the texts from across the room.

A collectivesweetwas murmured by everyone.

Joey and I had pretty much the same ideas, nice kitchen. Killer master suite, soundproof recording studio, game room, weight room and we even toyed with an indoor heated pool idea that could open up to the outside in the summer months. That was more of a wish list item than an actual need, but we kept it on the list anyways.

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