Page 49 of Love Redesigned
“I don’t really know where else I’d go. I mean, Mom and Dad’s house is obviously out, and I don’t have the money to find a place on my own.”
“You couldn’t have stayed in New York? With a friend?”
In truth, I’d worked hard to convince myself leaving was my only option. But I hadn’t tried very hard to stay in New York. I couldn’t have stayed with Paige. All those reasons why we had to give up our apartment were perfectly valid. But I reallycouldhave slept on Chase and Darius’s couch for a few weeks until I found another job and earned enough of a paycheck to find a new place, and a new roommate. But staying had felt impossible. I hated that it did, that I wasn’t stronger. But my ego felt irreparably bruised, battered to the point that I couldn’t even imagine walking into another fashion house and asking for a job. Especially since there was no way in hell I would ever ask Sasha for an actual recommendation.
“I couldn’t stay in New York,” I said. My voice broke on the last word and I pressed my lips together, willing myself not to cry.
“Couldn’t? Or wouldn’t?” Isaac folded his arms across his chest.
“Please, Isaac? I needed to get away for a little while.”
“Why not ask Mom and Dad for some money? You know they’d help you.”
“I don’t want their money,” I said, an edge to my voice I hadn’t expected. “I can fix this. I just need a little bit of time to get back on my feet.”
He seemed to study my face for what felt like an eternity before his features softened and he leaned on the counter. “I wish I could help, Dani, but I don’t even have a spare room,” Isaac said. “There’s a couch in the living room, but there are six dudes in this house, awake at all hours of the night. The living room is almost never empty.”
He turned and stalked into the dining room, or what I thought was supposed to be the dining room. He’d turned his into a music room. A huge stereo system and large shelves covered the wall, filled entirely with row after row of vinyl—a record collection Isaac had started when we were thirteen after he’d found his first vintage Beatles album at old Ms. Landry’s yard sale at the end of the cul-de-sac. “Where else am I supposed to go?” I asked him. “I literally have nowhere else to turn.”
Isaac sifted through a stack of records, pulled one out, then dropped it back onto the pile. He turned to face me. “I genuinely wish I could say yes, Dandi. I just don’t think it would be comfortable for anybody. You wouldn’t have any privacy.”
“Please don’t call me Dandi. And I don’t care if I don’t have privacy. It’s temporary. You won’t even know I’m here. Truly, it’ll just be for a month or so. Enough time for me to save some money and figure out what I’m going to do next.”
“I’ll put you up in a hotel for a couple of weeks. Long enough for you to figure stuff out.”
I sniffed. Ahotel? “I can’t let you do that. I could never pay you back.”
“What about the bedroom above the studio?”
Isaac and I turned to see Alex standing in the doorway. “Sorry. I couldn’t help but overhear. I don’t want to make it my business, but there is an empty bedroom above the studio.”
“The studio?” I looked to Isaac for clarification.
“The kitchen house out back,” he said. “We converted it into a recording studio a few months ago. It’s where we do all of our filming.”
“I don’t mind sleeping above the studio,” I said, hope blossoming in my chest.
“It’s just an empty room,” Isaac said.
“It isn’t empty. The old red couch that used to be on set, the one you just replaced?” Alex said. “Tyler and Vinnie moved it up there.” He looked at me. “The room even has its own bathroom.”
“That sounds amazing. A couch and a bathroom are legitimately all I need.”
Isaac stood quietly for what felt like an interminable amount of time. With his arms folded across his chest, his chin resting on his hand, he looked just like my dad. Watching him stand there brought on a wave of homesickness so strong, it nearly bowled me over. People had always said it—how much Isaac favored Dad. I knew them both too well to really see it. But I saw it then. And nearly cried for how it made me feel.
All I’d ever done growing up was dream of leaving Charleston. Leaving my family. Making my way in the vast world on my own. It wasn’t that I didn’t love them. That they weren’t supportive. They were. The world they lived in had just been too small for my dreams.
But now, I wanted back in. Ineededto be around the people in the world who gave me a sense of permanence. I would have preferred my parents, but Isaac was the next best thing. Even if he didn’t want to be.
A few seconds more and Isaac nodded his head as if he’d come to some sort of decision. “Okay. Here’s the deal. Take it or leave it,” he said. “You can have the room above the studio, but instead of rent, you’ll provide dinner three or four times a week for all of us. Everyone that lives here. Something you actually cook. No fast food. We eat too much of that already. I’ll pay for the groceries, but you have to do all the planning and shopping. All of it. In exchange, I let you live here for free.”
I frowned but willed the discouragement away. It could be worse. At least he hadn’t asked me to do all the cleaning, too.
Plus, I’d secured myself a place to sleep rent-free, and a place to pee in private. As far as I’d fallen, that felt like something to celebrate. “Okay, deal,” I said. “But I’m not taking requests. You have to eat whatever I feel like making.”
“Fine. But nothing vegetarian,” Isaac said. “We eat meat.”
I rolled my eyes. “Want to bang your fist against your chest and grunt a few times, too?”
