Even though Chad’s house is absolutely stunning and filled with the best money can buy, he surprisingly doesn’t have a claw-footed tub, and I miss my own bath. It’s funny how that crappy little place has grown on me. But I also think that some of it has to do with how uncomfortable I feel here.
Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful that Chad showed up when he did, and very thankful that he has taken me in when I had nowhere else to go. But he acts so uncomfortable and awkward around me here, as if he doesn’treallywant me here at all. Lilly is delightful, and definitely hasn’t inherited her father’s intermittent callous demeanor. But I am worried over what I am going to do now.
I definitely don’t have the money to sink into the house outside of the renovations that I had already been saving up for. I have absolutely no idea how I am going to afford to fix things now, but I know that I can’t stay here at Chad’s house for long. I don’t even know what kind of dynamic to have with him here now. Like, is he my helpful neighbor, my boss, the wealthy, widowed town billionaire, or just the guy that I find intimidatingly hot? I feel like even being here in his bathtub crosses some sort of line, but I have no idea which one.
It would be easier if he was better at expressing himself instead of walking around like a bottled-up volcano waiting to burst.
When I finish my bath, I put on the clothes that he gave me and feel a strange sense of comfort. They are oversized, cozy, and warm. And since I was soaked right down to my underwear, I don’t wear anything underneath the clothes Chad gave me, and it makes me feel more excited than I should. I have to splash cold water on my face at the sink to get myself to stop thinking about it.
I tuck the front of the shirt into the top of the sweatpants to keep myself from swimming around in it too much, and then walk back to the guest bedroom. My feet feel warm and good in the thick socks, and I am glad to be out of my drenched clothes, which I hang on the back of a chair to dry.
The guest bedroom is decorated to look like something that would be found inside a room in a modern hotel in the city. It’s all dark wood with modern gray curtains and some bright yellow abstract painting above the platform bed. It clashes glaringly with the rustic exterior of this house. I didn’t really look at the place when I first came in because I was too shellshocked over what I’d just been through and was paying too much attention to meeting Lilly. All that I saw upon first glance, was the giant stone fireplace in the living room, which I had already pictured in my head before even seeing the inside of this house, and a passing glimpse of a high-tech kitchen. Of course, everything in this house would be top-tier—heisa billionaire after all.
The house kind of reminds me of one of those conch shells on the beach that I found when we went on vacation to Florida. The outside of the shells was all crusty and plain, but inside some of them, there was a stripe of beautiful color—lavender, peach, or even once I had found a sort of golden one. This house is the same, plain on the outside but a hidden gem once you get past the front door—the kind of gem that only a serious lot of money could outfit.
Since I can’t sleep and will wind up just lying in bed fretting all night, I decide to walk around the house a little and take a peek at the rest of it. I don’t mean to be nosy; I simply am curious to see how Chad lives and to see what other wealthy marvels might be inside this house. It will do me good to keep my mind off the reality that I will inevitably need to deal with once the storm passes. Besides, I am sure that both he and Lilly are asleep by now, and I will be very quiet so that they won’t even know that I am prowling around peeking at things. No harm done.
I walk down the hall silently in my socks and stop to peek into the first open door that I come upon.
It’s Lilly’s bedroom.
I stand in the doorway for a moment, beholding the beauty of her room. It is filled with quite literally every fanciful thing that money could by—all pink, and glittery, and with a built-in dance space at one end of it.
There is a picture on the wall just above the ballet barre, and I can tell instantly that the woman in the picture is Lilly’s mother. They look alike, both beautiful and both smiling as they hug each other. My heart absolutely pours out for the girl to have suffered such a loss,andfor her mother who will never get to see her daughter grow up and lean into her dreams.
I glance over at Lilly, asleep in her bed, and can see her ballet shoes hanging over a side of the chair at her desk. Her crutches are leaning up against the wall and the brace on her ankle is visible on her one leg that is sticking out from beneath her blankets. How terrible it must be to not be able to do the one thing that you want to do above all others.
This is exactly why I don’t place such a high value on money. Sure, I wish I had more of it, and I wish that I didn’t worry so much over how I was going to afford to repair my broken cottage. But this beautifully tragic scene in Lilly’s bedroom is the perfect example of why moneydoesn’tmatter. It can’t bring back a mother, or make an ankle heal any faster, and it can’t mend a shattered heart. All it can do is decorate a space with lovely things and hope to distract from all the suffering.
Just as I am about to turn and leave, something catches my eye.
Right on top of the nightstand beside Lilly’s bed, stands the tiny ballerina painting that I made for her. I am thrilled and filled with warmth to see that she liked it enough to place it close enough to be the first thing that she sees when she opens her eyes.
I imagine that all of the things filling this room are Chad’s noble and goodhearted attempts to overcompensate for the loss of her mother. But sometimes,simple understandingis worth more. Sometimes we don’t want someone to “fix things” for us. We just want someone to sit there with us while we cry. I may not know Lilly very well, but I think that I can see she might be feeling that way too. I never had anyone that I felt actuallysawme and what I was feeling when I was her age. And as much as Chad is trying, he might not reallyseeher either.
I turn and leave, not wanting to linger there any longer because all of this is really none of my business. I’m glad that Lilly likes the tiny painting and that is all—I shouldn’t get any more involved than that.
As I continue walking around the house, I find myself in the living room standing in front of the massive hearth. There is a small fire burning inside of it still, warming the room and wafting the scent and sounds of a crackling fire throughout the room. I can feel myself getting tired now, as my body and mind start to calm down and the exhaustion of tonight sets in. For a moment, I stand there looking at the flames and feeling the warmth of the fire on my cheeks. Then, sufficiently lulled into a state of sleepiness, and feeling almosttoowarmed up now in these thick sweatpants and socks, I decide to go get a glass of water from the kitchen. Since everyone is asleep, and since I am now feeling overheated, I slide Chad’s sweatpants off, along with the thick socks, and drape them over my arm, wearing nothing but his shirt as I walk toward the kitchen. No one is awake, and the shirt is long enough to cover all the naughty bits anyways. But still, it is an incredibly awkward shock when I walk into the kitchen and see Chad sitting at the table with a cup of tea.
I jump a little and have an instantaneous moment of indecision, unsure whether to keep walking into the kitchen for my glass of water, or to turn around and run back to the guest room out of sheer embarrassment for wandering around my boss’s house in only a shirt. A shirt that belongs tohim, no less.
Since running away would look ridiculous, I opt to stay and step inside the kitchen where Chad is staring at me with his steaming cup in one hand.
“Sorry,” I say, stumbling over the single word as if it’s difficult to say. “I was just thirsty and—”
This isnotcoming out the way that I want it to.
“And that is why you took off your pants?” he asks with a raised brow. I can tell that he is strangely amused by my squirming in this situation.
“No,” I answer as I muster a laugh. “I was coming to get some water because I was thirsty and couldn’t sleep, but then I got sidetracked by the beautiful fireplace, and then I got hot, and I—”
“That’s quite a lengthy explanation,” he chuckles. His laugh also sounds more nervous than entertained. What is it about the two of us in the same room that always seems to raise the temperature?
“What are you doing up?” I ask in order to change the focus back onto him.
“I couldn’t sleep either.”
“Guess it’s a good thing that it’s the weekend,” I say, realizing that this is the equivalent of small talk and Ihatesmall talk. “At least we’ll be able to catch up on sleep before heading back to work on Monday.”