Page 23 of A Little Christmas 4: Teller
The home was built in 1958 and had been completely gutted in the eighties. The current owners had done another remodel and finished the basement in 2019, just before the pandemic. The pictures used for the listing showed it was beautiful inside.
“The current owners are retiring to Sedona, Arizona. The fluctuating midwestern weather has them heading for the sun and warmth of the desert.”
The vinyl fencing was low maintenance, and the barn had recently been updated with new siding and wood and iron stalls. It was a horse-lover’s dream.
I turned to Teller. “Should we go inside?” I was ready to write the check, but I wanted him to like it too.
“I bet the bus doesn’t come out here,” he said with a grin.
“Put that into the con column.” I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and kissed his temple. “Let’s go in.” We followed Sabrina inside the house, and the pictures I’d seen hadn’t done it justice.
“These are actually the original floors that were removed and replaced with each remodel. The house has new wiring, plumbing, and insulation. The windows were all replaced in 2015, and a new well was dug at the time. I’ll just be outside making calls. Take your time looking around.” She went out the front door and left us in the foyer.
“What do they call this?” Teller asked as he pointed at the dark wainscoting. It was a deep mahogany with a pale-sage paint on the wall above. There was a large circular table in the center with a huge floral arrangement on top.
“Wainscoting. It’s a colonial-style home that’s popular in the mid-Atlantic. The house I leased in DC looked very much like this one. I hated to leave it.”
We strolled around the first floor, checking out all of the rooms—the black-and-white kitchen, the butler’s pantry off the kitchen, the conservatory with a huge rock fireplace, the formal dining room that would be perfect for an office.
We went downstairs to find a theater room and a large bar along one wall. A pool table in the middle of the room made it feel like a game room, but it would make a fantastic playroom if Teller stayed with me—moved in with me. That was the only thought circling my mind.
We went upstairs to tour the bedrooms, and the second primary would be perfect for a studio for Teller to do his design work. It was on the tip of my tongue to mention it, but instead, I stayed silent.
We walked down the back stairs—didn’t know there was another set of stairs—and we stopped in the kitchen. “So, what do you think?” I asked him.
Teller turned to me and shrugged. “It’s beautiful. There’s a lot of space. Do you want that much space?”
I sighed. “Yes. I can convert the dining room into a home office. That way, Madeline won’t quit. I’m a pain in the ass ona good day. It’s big enough that we wouldn’t get on each other’s nerves. We can have movie marathons in the theater room, and if we get rid of the pool table, that would be a fantastic playroom.”
Teller’s wandering gaze shot to me. “Playroom?”
“You know, for when you’re here. We’ll get a table set up so you can put a racetrack in there. Would you like that?”
“How would I—”
“I’m buying you a car over the weekend. I need to know what kind of car you’d like. I said maybe you’d consent to giving Maizie a ride to and from Bloomfield’s. Or, you know, any other errands she needs. Barrett’s going to teach her to drive after she finishes her degree, but I said maybe I’d get you a company car and you could help him out by giving her rides when he can’t be there because I’ve dispatched him to Hong Kong,” I said.
Teller smirked. “To pick up your new shirts?”
I pulled him into my arms and decided I needed to take the leap. “I want you to move in with me. Not just for the time it takes to remodel your building or all ten buildings, but for as long as you can stand to be with me. I want us to really try, Teller. I think we have a good chance of making it.”
He pulled away and stared at me.
I had a bad feeling.
Chapter Eleven
Teller
Stopping on the sidewalk, I stared at my building…the same building Briggs wanted me to leave so I could move in with him. As if it were as simple as packing a bag, skipping down the street to Briggs, and ignoring the rest of my life.
I’d begged off of Thanksgiving dinner with Briggs’s family, telling him I was feeling ill. He dropped me off at home, where I went to bed and pulled the covers over my head.
The alarm had woken me at five so I could get the bus to Bloomfield’s to work my shift, and then I’d taken a rideshare from the store to O’Malley’s Pub for my other shift. It’d been lively, packed with people meeting friends to bitch about their fucked-up Thanksgiving dinners.
I took a seat on the step that led to the front door of my building, fighting the exhaustion that threatened to keep me from walking up the steps to my second-floor apartment. Barrett had picked up Maizie and taken her to his house because she was planning a marathon study session over the weekend for finals in two weeks. She was very smart. Why she needed to study for two days was a mystery to me.
“You’re not going inside?”
