“Yeah, they did,” I agreed, watching as she fiddled with the ends of the foil on the lasagne even though they were all already crimped down perfectly. Nervous energy. “Were you thinking of stocking up there, and storing them in my spare room, so you don’t have to keep lugging a ton of shit back and forth?”
“I mean, I was thinking that… until I can get a place… it would really…”
“Duchess, relax,” I cut her off, smiling at her obvious discomfort. “I think that’s a good idea. We won’t have time to drop by tonight, but we can hit it after breakfast tomorrow if you want. I’ll show you around the town some more.”
“That’d be great. It would be nice to know my way around in case you ever got called away.”
We’d had that talk on the drive back across the country. About my job. About what it entailed, how unpredictable it could be, how it could take me away for weeks at a time sometimes.
She’d taken it better than most would.
I’ve been on my own since I was barely more than a teenager, Gunner. I will be fine for a few weeks here and there.
She would too.
She wasn’t just saying that.
She would occupy her time with work or with her drawing.
And she wouldn’t be resentful for it.
It was a freeing thing to realize that.
It made life easier.
It made building a relationship easier.
Since that was what we were clearly doing.
“Alright. I think I’m ready,” she said, lifting the cookie sheet with the garlic bread sitting on top of the lasagne.
So I grabbed her shit, and we hit the road.
Sloane – 2 hours later
I had no idea what to expect of Gunner’s place.
I knew ahead of time that he owned a house, not an apartment, because he thought it was ridiculous to pay another man’s mortgage. And he liked having a yard.
Why?
I wasn’t sure.
He didn’t have a dog or kids to use it.
But when I had pressed, he had just shrugged and said he was used to the work, having grown up on a farm.
From the outside, there wasn’t much to differentiate it from many of the other houses in the neighborhoods – all what one might call a ‘starter house,’ or maybe even an ’empty nest house’ since they were all low ranches with two or three bedrooms, two baths, and smallish living and dining areas. They all had large picture windows out front, one-car garages, and about a quarter of an acre each.
His was an off-white color with brick halfway up, a gray roof, and black shutters.
And, well, the inside was very similar.
Meaning bland.
Impersonal.
The front door led straight into the living and dining combo. To the left, the living. There was a black TV cabinet with a flatscreen on top, a scuffed coffee table, and a well-loved brown leather couch.
The dining space had a table that I would bet my brand on came straight out of a box store, too perfect to have been made on anything other than an assembly line.
The kitchen joined off the side of the dining room, butting up to the living space, but completely cut off.
In there, the tile on the floor was broken off in pieces, the countertops looked straight out of the nineties, and there wasn’t a single thing out of place. Not even a rogue coffee pod from his Keurig on the counter.
I guess maybe that was a military thing – the cleaning. It was likely drilled into him early on. And then was a habit he never thought about breaking. Had he any personal touches lying around, it might not even have jumped out at me.
“And down here is the bedroom,” he told me, going on through the dining room again to the hall at the right of the house, leading me past a hall bathroom, a small, empty bedroom, then the master.
Much like the rest of the house, it was bare. A dresser. Another TV. Two nightstands. A king-sized bed with plain blue sheets and comforter.
To the side, a door was open to a typical bathroom from the fifties when this house was likely built, a shower/tub combo, cabinet sink, and toilet. The towels were white. The shower curtain was white.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked, looking around as he placed my luggage on the floor near the closet.
“Couple years.”
“So… you’re just a fan of aged-white walls then?” I asked, smiling when he looked at his walls like he had never seen them before.
“Never thought about it really. Kinda what I’m used to.”
“Well, you could maybe get used to, and I know this is an extreme idea… but colors.”
“Alright, smartass. We can paint.”
We.
That certainly didn’t escape me.
It wasn’t the first time he had used it either.
There was no fear there for him.
Meanwhile, I had this tendency to do verbal gymnastics to avoid using the w-word. Just because things were so new. Because I was quite aware of the fact that I wasn’t great with knowing what to say and when. Because neither Gunner nor I were on familiar ground.