“I’ll book a flight,” Han says to Phantom.
“Wait, who was—”
Han hangs up before Phantom can get out the rest of that question.
Then with a wistful look toward the towel, he won’t be stripping off of the only woman he’s ever let sleep in his bed overnight, he says, “Change of plan. We’re flying back to the States.”
Part II
NOVEMBER RAIN
18
DAWN
“So, as you can see, there are two skylights in the main room. That means you’ll get plenty of light coming in no matter the weather,” Alana, the real estate agent, points out to Byron. “And of course, in Pittsburgh, you want all the light you can get. It can stay so overcast here.”
“Can’t it, though?” Byron agrees. “Now that the time has changed, sometimes it’s gray from morning to night, with rain on top!”
“It’s even worse in the winter,” Alana replies, her tone turning grave. “That’s why skylights are such a desirable option.”
“You got that right,” Byron says. “And I like all this space in the front of the house. This open plan design will be great for entertaining. And maybe I could replace those old fluorescent can lights with some high-CRI LED fixtures so that it won’t be so gloomy on rainy days.”
“Exactly!” Alana agrees with a nod. “I like how you think, Ron!”
From the way she’s batting her eyes at my brother, I suspect she likes Byron for a lot more reasons than his brighter lighting ideas.
And, of course, Byron flirts right on back. “Well, I like the way you pick houses, so it looks like we’ve got a mutual admiration club going on.”
Alana falls out laughing like Byron's made the funniest joke in the world.
Meanwhile, I roll my eyes and hope for Byron’s sake that he doesn’t lose his good looks as he gets older. Women have been laughing way too hard at his jokes for so long; I'm seriously concerned about how he'll take it if he ever discovers he's not that funny.
After the realtor is done with her belly laugh, she says, “Well, this is the end of the tour. Do you have any more questions for me, Ron?”
“No, you've answered everything on my list,” Byron replies. “But I guess we should ask Dawn what she thinks of the house. She's the one who will hopefully be buying it since it’s perfect. Right, Dawn?”
They both look at me after that leading question. The realtor in real life and Byron on FaceTime.
I jolt. I was so busy clocking their flirtatious back-and-forth, I forgot I’m the one who’s supposed to be touring the house.
“Oh, it's…nice.”
“Nice,” the realtor repeats. Her smile shrivels.
“Twenty-six houses! Twenty-six houses and all you could say to that lady was ‘oh, it's nice’?” Byron demands the next day as I’m driving toward New York. “I’m flirting as hard as I can, sis, but your real estate agent’s probably going to dump your indecisive ass.”
I know I’m being ridiculous. And I feel guilty about wasting so much of Alana’s time—not to mention Byron’s. But, “I don't think it's the realtor who dumps the person who's trying to buy a house. I know I'm new to this adulting stuff, but I'm pretty sure it's the other way around.”
“Whatever. The point is you need to go ahead and decide already. You've only got a few more months until the baby comes. And I need to know when you need me to take off time from work to come out there to help you move and get everything set up. Dad and mom are talking about coming out, too, and I know you don’t want to miss out on their We Forgive You for Being an Unwed Baby Mama tour. So we’ve got to coordinate.”
“I know, I know!” Byron is totally right. I’m lucky my parents took the news of my upcoming motherhood as well as they did. As it turns out, mom is just dying for a grandkid however she can get one. And Dad climbed fully aboard the future grandparent ship as soon as he learned Victor wouldn’t be involved. I’m grown now and not nearly as thirsty for their approval as I was when I was a kid. But I also don’t want to squander this opportunity to stay in their good graces.
“I'll make a decision soon about a house,” I promise Byron.
“Then what’s this Alana told me about us not going house shopping this weekend?”
Seriously? Byron’s been talking about me with my real estate agent behind my back? If I weren’t driving and using a headset, I’d be glaring at him over face time right now.
“It’s just I was working so many hours to finish up that Chrysanthemum project. And I’ve got this Cal-Mart pitch with Lucy in New York this afternoon. And Lena’s coming down from Boston tomorrow to spend the day in New York with me.”