A quaint craftsman-style house with a big porch with a wide overhang, a partial second level, with white bricks on the lower level and warm wooden shakes on the upper.
The man even had rocking chairs and hanging plants. They were looking pretty sad, given him being away for a while and the weather taking a turn for the cool, but hehadthem.
“I like it,” I decided out loud, making Brock shoot me a soft smile.
“Me too,” he said before climbing out and making his way around the hood toward my door.
I found myself almost nervous about his house, knowing that I was going to judge him based on it, and wanting to like it more than I should have.
All my worries flew out the door, though, when he unlocked the door and ushered me into a space that I immediately felt comfortable in.
It wasn’t flashy or showy in anyway. That wouldn’t have fit with the architectural style, which wanted you to feel homey.
The walls were white with a sage green accent on the bookshelves on either side of the brick fireplace. That green carried through to paint the walls of the kitchen that was dominated by a large island and warm wood tones to the cabinets.
It was masculine in the way that it felt a little old-fashioned, a bit rustic, but not in the way that it felt cold and uninviting.
Oddly, it just seemed to suit him.
I could picture him building a fire in the fireplace, standing in that kitchen making coffee, even reading one of the books in the cases.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Brock said, nodding. “It needs a dog.”
“Oh, is that what I’m thinking?”
“Unless you don’t like dogs. In which case, I think there must be something wrong with you.”
“I love dogs. I just… work too much.”
“That’s my hold up too. But, hey, you’re the boss. Get yourself a purse dog and bring it to the office with you.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it,” I admitted. “So, do I get a tour?” I asked.
CHAPTER NINE
Brock
I never had women in my house.
Save for my coworkers’ wives and Marg or friends, I didn’t invite women into my space.
Not because I didn’t want them to see it, but because it felt like a kind of sacred space to me, a place where I finally started to put my life back together, where I hoped to have a future one day.
It felt wrong to invite temporary people into that space.
Which had to be the only reason I was so uncharacteristically nervous about Miranda being there.
One could rationalize that it was nerve-racking because Miranda was someone with the kind of wealth that meant her apartment in the city was larger than my house in the suburbs.
I didn’t have priceless sculptures or vases. My art was bought off the wall at various coffee shops I’d been to across the country that featured pieces from local artists.
I didn’t have an interior decorator to show me what colors would work best, or what kind of furniture went with the house style.
In fact, I spent years learning how to renovate the place myself. If you looked closely, ninety percent of the books on the shelves flanking my fireplace were books on refinishing floors, building cabinets, doing your own brickwork.
Having that kind of project to focus on had made the transition for hiding in the woods, drinking too much, disassociating in front of the TV, just trying to do whatever it took to keep my mind from going to dark places.
It had been therapeutic. Like some part of me was working on myself as I worked on the house.