Page 12 of Binding Their Hearts

“Mr. Webb? I’m Leslie; we spoke on the phone. Do come in.” The woman all but dragged him forward.

Alice followed, half an ear for the greetings and small talk as Jay closed the door behind them. She almost told him to leave it open. Four steps in, and the house stank of old lady perfume and wet dog—plus the scented candles burning on every flat surface to cover the stench.

“It’s quite a find.” The agent hooked her arm through Henry’s and led him deeper into the house, straight past the living room. “These established homes so rarely come on the market these days. The flooring is all original. Let me show you the kitchen. The Carrara marble is absolutely exquisite.”

Henry glanced over his shoulder at them as he disappeared through a swinging door.

Alice leaned into Jay, patting his chest and pitching her voice just loud enough for his ears. “Let me show you the commission I’m imagining. It’s absolutely exquisite!”

He snorted a laugh and turned in a slow circle, keeping hold of her arm. “This…” His nose wrinkled, and he sneezed away from her. “Is not the place.”

“Definitely not.” For one thing, they’d have to rip down whatever they called this wallpaper—funerary chic? The gold veins crawled up burgundy panels and kept her eyes from settling anywhere for too long. “I’ve never been house hunting before. I know we’re supposed to look at the bones and not the furnishings, but this is just awful.” Besides that, the living room space, between the far wall and the stairs lining one side—“And it’s way too narrow. Where would we put your bike?”

“Shed, maybe? If it has a yard? I’ve never house-hunted either.” Jay twisted this way and that, but the wall with the swinging door cut off any look at the back of the house. The turret shape in the front, with three tall windows beside the door, offered the only light. “It’s dark in here. Henry won’t like it. He loves the windows we have now that get the sun all day.”

“I’m sorry about before.” The words were out before she knew she meant to say them.

Jay, bless him, lowered his face to hers and pressed their foreheads together, noses aligned. “I was surprised, is all. I didn’t know you and Henry had talked more about moving.” As he breathed deep, his chest expanded against her, solid and warm, and he rested his hands on her hips, kneading like a cat. “I do really want this, Alice. I want something permanent.” He rolled his head against hers, a slight shake. “No, not just that—I want proof of something permanent. I want something I can point to and say ‘Here. That’s where I belong. That’s who I belong with.’ Belong to. I always thought…”

She slipped her hands between them and rubbed his chest as he sighed. “Home is home, right? You’re supposed to be able to go back anytime, and they’ll welcome you in, and Mom will cut you a slice of pie and pour you a glass of milk even though you’re an adult and you don’t drink milk anymore. Because no matter how old you are, or who you turned out to be, you still grew up there. You still belong.”

“Yeah.” Jay’s whisper carried his breath along her cheek. “Do you miss it? Even when you know it wouldn’t be like that anymore?”

She swallowed hard, the room no longer a real estate monstrosity but the wide front room with the picture window where the Christmas tree twinkled.

“I’ll always miss it. Letting go of a fantasy is hard, Jay. Especially when you build it on memories.” Her fingers tingled against the smooth wood of the round table where board game and pizza night happened every week, and she and Ollie never got any older, and Dad never lined up his pill bottles. “Sometimes it feels like it would be easier if you didn’t know all the stuff under the pretty picture. But you can’t un-bite the apple. You have to accept what is and move forward.”

Like she was one to talk. Her coping strategy had been going halfway across the country and basically not speaking to her parents more than a couple dozen times in the last decade. Jay’s therapist would probably tell him he had to stop listening to that Alice gal, because she didn’t have her own life figured out, let alone his.

“I want this to be my forward.” He squeezed her tight and let her go. “I mean, not this, obviously.” His exaggerated shudder and yuck face as he surveyed the room made her laugh, and he grinned. “But us. You and me and Henry.”

The kitchen door swung open, and Henry strode toward them without the real estate agent attached. “Not this one, my dears. The kitchen is far too small and closed off, and the yard has no dedicated parking.” He pulled the front door open and took a deep breath as he swept them in front of him. Voice lowered, he added, “Let’s be on our way before the scents seep into our clothing.”

She and Jay giggled and mocked their way to the next house, one block up and one street over, while Henry pretended to ignore their increasingly ridiculous assertions.

“Of course it has three stunning bathrooms”—she blinked innocently, walking backward up the slope ahead of Jay—“mind, they’re all in the basement, but the house is perfect, don’t you think?”

“Simply divine.” Henry, his arm out to halt her progress, winked at her. “We’ve arrived at our second stop.”

The outside didn’t look that different from the last house—old brick, middle of the block, fancy front window, one story taller. But that described pretty much everything in Beacon Hill. In this neighborhood, they’d still be close to a subway stop, and the public gardens and Boston Common would practically be their backyard.

A gal couldn’t live in Boston for ten years and not know that Beacon Hill was the domain of old money blue bloods and the nouveau riche. Hanging back as Henry and Jay explored, she snatched her phone from her pocket and ran a search for the address.

Four point three.

Million.

That’s how much the house she was tromping around in with her street shoes was selling for. The stinky one they’d abandoned had been a comparative steal at three nine. Phone tucked back in her purse, she wandered in a daze until they left. Bad layout, Henry judged. The topmost attic space was too cramped and dim for a studio, and the house had no roof deck—and historic building codes would make altering the structure to add one challenging if not impossible.

The three of them walked abreast to the next option, Alice in the middle, as she almost always was when they went out in public together.

Henry brushed her back in a consoling caress. “Not to worry, today is merely exploratory. At a bare minimum, I must give our current building owner a thirty-day window of exclusivity, should he wish to buy back the condo at market price. I expect he’ll take the full month, whether out of incompetence or a misplaced attempt to show dominance.”

Jay laughed. “Good luck with that.”

“Indeed.” Warm amusement floated in Henry’s voice, but he kept up his slow backrub as they walked, and he sought her gaze with the neutral-est of neutral-dom inquiry. Nope, not checking on her mood or questioning her silence, except for how he totally was. “Beyond that, our apartment will have to sell. It may be spring before we find the home that feels right for us. Two rejections are not a failure. We have more to see today, and others will come on the market in our price range.”

“About that.”

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