Milo pauses and turns, the paint bush dangling from his fingers. “I don’t think this place is that bad. I’m with Ollie on the kitchen and bathrooms, but the rest of it seems okay. It feels a lot bigger now that all those people’s crap is gone.”
“Okay, so paint the upstairs, figure out the flooring, and then we can discuss the main floor and lower level. I’m not so sure that master on the main floor will work, but we can figure that out later.” Ares nods his head, looking around. “I’m going to round up Dante, we can get started on the other room. There are too many of us to work in here.”
Ollie pours more paint into my tray and grabs up the extra roller Ares brought in. Between the three of us, we have the walls completely painted within forty minutes. Milo suggested we wait until we know what kind of flooring we’re going to have before painting the molding.
Once we’re finished, Milo tosses the disposable tray liner into a larger black trash bag. I gather the rollers and the brush he used to take down downstairs so I can use the laundry tub to rinse them. Ollie joined Dante and Ares in the second upstairs bedroom to help, so I suspect it won’t be long before that one’s done too.
“Knock, knock,” Linda calls, opening the front door. Carolyn is right behind her.
“Hey.” I juggle the things in my hands, rushing over to pull the door all the way open. “The guys are upstairs, I’m heading down to clean these up.” I hold up the brush and two rollers.
“You guys are working fast, I love it. How can we help?” Linda rubs her hands together, examining the empty room.
“I think we’re going to tag team the kitchen next. If you want to help clean I, for one, would be very grateful.”
“You got it.” Carolyn sets her bag on the floor near the door. “Wow, it seems so much bigger.”
“I know it does, they had a lot of stuff crammed in here,” I agree. “I’ll be right back.”
I hustle through the kitchen to get to the stairs for the lower level. Realizing for the first time it’s not going to be fun lugging laundry up and down the stairs, but it’s still a hell of a lot easier than having to go to the laundry mat.
By late afternoon they’ve scoured the kitchen clean. Carolyn and Linda worked as a team and had the place sparkling quicker than I could have imagined. Even the shelves of the outdated refrigerator are gleaming.
We’re all dotted through the room, some standing, some perched on the counter, trying to decide on what actual renovations need to made. If you ask me, the place is fine exactly like it is, but Ares and Ollie have different ideas on how to make it more comfortable. “The kitchen isn’t big enough.” Ollie crosses his arms over his chest.
“I think the size is okay but the layout, the amount of cabinets, and the storage is where it’s lacking.” Linda looks around, her eyes critical.
“That’s what I meant,” Ollie adds, pointing toward her.
“Unless you guys are planning on making daily runs to the grocery store or using the lower level like a pantry, you need more cabinets.” I mull over Carolyn’s words. We do make a pretty large family with all five of us, and I sure don’t want to go grocery shopping a few days a week.
“I wouldn’t do anything major.” Linda scrunches up her nose. “Keep the sink and the stove where they are, so you don’t have to worry about moving any of the plumbing or wiring. You have enough space where you could even have a small island.” She walks over and traces out a small area with her hands indicating what she means.
“If you opened up the doorway, it would make it feel much more spacious,” Carolyn suggests, gesturing toward the living room area.
“It’s not that simple, we’d have to find out if that’s a load bearing wall, and possibly reinforce it before making any renovations like that,” Milo chimes in.
“I do like that idea though,” Ares comments, walking over to stand in the doorway and looking in both directions.
“Let’s draw it out.” Ollie hops down from the counter. “Anybody got anything to write with?”
“I’ll grab my bag,” Linda offers, heading toward the living room where she left it.
“How about something to write on?” Ollie adds, his voice raised so she can hear him.
“I have a receipt, but that’s it.” Linda holds up a long, narrow strip.
“We have the pizza boxes from last night.” Dante rises from the floor, his movements somehow graceful and feline.
“That would work, just the tops of the boxes,” Ares suggests. Dante jogs down the stairs, returning with two cardboard squares. The edges are jagged but it looks clean enough, not too many grease stains.
We gather around the end of the counter. Linda hands Dante a slim pen and he goes to work drawing out the shape of the room, noting where the windows and doors are.
“Sink’s about here, and the stove.” Dante stands back, letting everyone get a good look at his representation. It looks accurate to me.
Ollie places his chin on my shoulder as he considers the drawing. “I like the idea of putting in an island, especially if we can open up that wall, then we wouldn’t even really need a table, we hardly ever use one anyway.”
Dante makes a few X’s where the wall is, showing how much to open it up.
“If we extend the cabinets all the way along this wall, it would add a lot of storage.” Milo traces his finger along the cardboard.
“We’ll need to allow for a larger fridge and possibly stove too, these are ancient,” Ollie adds.
“That we can do when we decide on the actual cabinets, this is just a rough estimate.” Dante makes a few more adjustments, his head tilting left and right as he studies his work. “Island would be best here.” He makes a fairly large rectangle opposite the stove.
“Laura, anything you can think of you’d want to add?” Ares questions.
“Maybe a dishwasher, and a microwave?” I don’t even know how I’d get along without a microwave and I’ve already gotten used to the convenience of the washer.
“Definitely,” Dante mutters and makes a square above the stove to have one built in like the one they have at Rosa’s house. “Where should the dishwasher go?”
“Close to the sink,” Linda informs him.
“Here, or here?” Dante points to either side of where the sink is.
“I would say there, but it’s your kitchen.” Carolyn then points to the rectangular shape for the island. “You could even put it here.”
“Any preference?” Ares steps in a little closer to me, Ollie is still looming over my shoulder.
“Not really, as long as we have one,” I answer honestly.
“What about adding something over here? If we don’t have a table, won’t it will feel off balance if it’s too empty over here?” Dante uses the end of the pen to point at the area near the stairs to the lower level. “We could do lower cabinets for more storage, and it would balance it out more.”
“Looks good, now what kind of flooring are we thinking for down here?” Ares turns and glances around. The living room floor is covered in a dark burgundy carpet, and you can see patterns of heavy wear. A silver bar connects to the kitchen flooring as it changes over to some kind of light tile, and much like the carpet, it looks worn. The grout lines are darker in some areas and lighter in others.
“I say hardwood on this whole floor, even the master. We can always add rugs and stuff if it gets chilly, but our bed will take up most of that room as it is,” Ollie answers, removing his chin from my shoulder. He was getting heavy anyway.
“Agreed,” Milo chimes in.
I have a second where I’m embarrassed about them talking about our bed with their moms here, but it doesn’t last long. It’s not like it’s a secret.
“Probably have to use the upstairs bedrooms like closets.” Ares’s eyes narrow in thought. “Unless we do something downstairs, we could make the laundry room like a big closet. That way we aren’t losing the extra bedrooms if someone needs a break.” Ares’s eyes land on mine, and heat rises
in my cheeks then.
“Speaking of that, I don’t like how you can come from the garage and right into the house. I think we should close off the area at the bottom of the stairs. Make a real entrance, maybe a mudroom. We would lose some of the garage, but we don’t really need it anyway,” Milo suggests and settles back against the counter. He is the last one I would expect to want to change the basement. I know he likes the area down there for a gym.
“Seems like a simple enough fix,” Ollie agrees, and clapping his hands together he adds, “Now that we have a game plan, we’ll need to find a contractor that can get started right away.”
“I know someone, I’ve worked with him before. He’s from our community so that won’t be an issue. I’ll also have some of my team here to install a security system.” Ares folds his arms over his chest, his eyes scanning the room like he’s already planning.
“Well sounds like you guys have a good handle on things.” Carolyn picks up her bag from the counter. “We’ll get out of here. We’ll still see you tomorrow for dinner, right?”
“Yeah, Mom said to be there at two,” Dante replies. I almost forgot tomorrow is Thanksgiving. We’ve had so much going on lately between the house and the party Saturday to announce our Infinity. A storm of butterflies fills my stomach when I think about how fast it’s approaching.
Carolyn and Linda say their goodbyes, quick kisses and hugs all round, before leaving out the front door.
“I’m hungry, are we going out to eat, or just picking something up to bring back here?” Not surprisingly it’s Dante asking, he’s always hungry.
“Let’s get out of here for a little while. I want to sit down and eat.” Ollie looks around the empty kitchen.
I glance down at my oversized t-shirt and jeans. I hope they aren’t going some place nice. “We can check out the downtown area, see if anything looks good. We’ll need to find some new places,” Milo adds, leaning against the wall.
“Sounds good, ready?” Ares looks at me.
“Should I change?” Not that I have much to change into, but at least it wouldn’t be paint splattered and sweaty.
“No, you’re fine,” Ares assures me. I look him over, noting that he has a few speckles of paint dotted on his shirt too.
Milo locks the front door and we all head downstairs to the garage. We load into Ares’s SUV, with me in the back between Dante and Ollie, and Milo and Ares up front. The drive to the closest town takes us in the opposite direction from Canton. In less than ten minutes we come to a small downtown area. Several stores line either side of the street. There are a few restaurants and antique stores, along with a coffee shop and bakery. Ares continues down the road where a few older homes line the street. Going a little farther, I see the more modern part of the town—fast-food restaurants, chain stores, and a couple of gas stations.
“What do you think, anything look good?” Ares asks.
“There was a Mexican place back there.” Dante leans forward to look out the front window.
“That pizza place looks okay too.” Milo points at an unfamiliar sign promising the best pizza in town.
I’m just relieved they aren’t picking a place where we’ll stand out like a sore thumb because we look like art school rejects.
“I’m fine with either,” Ollie adds, not helping.
“Let’s make another pass and we can park, then decide.” Ares pulls into the gas station and makes a loop, exiting to drive back in the same direction we just came from.
“Oh look, Chinese. I hope they have good takeout.” I turn to look quickly at the shopping mall pushed back from the main road that Ollie was looking at.
“There’s a spot.” Milo points up ahead to an available spot in the historic part of town along the road. I wince, thinking I wouldn’t even attempt to parallel park this truck.
Ares glides past the spot and reverses in like it’s the simplest thing on the planet. No one but me reacts. “You will definitely have to teach me that. I’ve never even tried to parallel park.” Not that it was an option in the motor home anyway.
Ollie climbs out of the driver’s side and closes the door after him, while Dante reaches back in for my hand after he exits the passenger side. I step out to the bricked sidewalk in front of a tax preparation company.
In the distance I hear the hum of music playing. Without any real direction, we walk toward the center of town. There’s a large white gazebo stationed on a triangle of property, making up a park like setting with benches and trees all around.
“Well, this is cute as hell, am I right?” Ollie jumps up on a short retaining wall and balances, walking foot in front of foot, his arms splayed wide.
“The Mayberry vibe is a little strong,” Milo comments, looking around. There are a few people exiting a candle shop across the street, each with small handled bags. A few people look in our direction but leave us to explore.
“There’s the place I was talking about.” Dante points to a colorful restaurant across the street. Through the large windows I can see several people sitting at big round tables.
“I could go for some tacos, let’s give it a try,” Ollie concedes, forgoing the pizza.
Milo leads our group to the sidewalk and he touches the pole so the crosswalk will alert us when we can cross.
We wait through the lights. The traffic flows in four directions, but there’s a special light for the left turn, so it takes longer than usual. I feel like everyone that passes watches our group, it’s probably just in my head, but I step a little closer to Milo’s back so I’m not as easily visible.
Eventually a beep sounds, and the light indicates we should cross. The restaurant is on the corner of the building, and there are two wide doors between the large windows painted in a turquoise patina. Dante reaches the door first, holding it open for all of us as we pass through.
There’s no real hostess area, so we step right into the dining space. Our group is large enough that we have to stand close to one another to fit between the tables when Dante enters, and the door closes behind him.
“Cozy,” Ollie mutters under his breath.
“We have seating upstairs. You guys are welcome to head up, someone will be right with you,” a boy around our age, with sun-kissed skin and dark hair, calls from the back of the restaurant. Ares winds us through the tables until we reach a wide set of steep stairs over on the left. The wall is made of exposed brick, and there are a few pictures on the wall, nothing really notable as we make our way up.
The upper floor is setup more like a bar with booths lining the walls, a pool table in the middle, and a dartboard near the bar that runs along the back wall. We find a larger round table empty near the pool table and take a seat.
The boy from downstairs follows us up moments after we sit, with several tall menus in his hands. “Hey, I’m Nico.” He gives us each a menu. “Can I start you with something to drink, an appetizer?”
“Chips and queso,” Dante tells him before even looking at the menu.
“Got it, did you want salsa too?” Nico asks.
“Yes, mild and hot if you have it,” Milo replies.
“Drinks?” The waiter looks at me first.
“Water for me.” I respond, and he goes around the rest of the table collecting the guys’ drink orders.
“Okay, those chips and drinks will be right up.” Nico goes to the bar at the back and leans over the counter. The woman behind it nods her head a few times. Then he disappears down another set of stairs in the back.
“What ya getting, Muenster?”
I glance down at the laminated sheet for the first time. “I don’t know yet, you?”
“Tacos,” Ollie tells me, wrapping his arm around the back of my chair to look at my menu.
“I think I want nachos.” I purse my lips, still looking just in case something else jumps out at me.
“Nachos sound good,” Dante rumbles across the table.
The waiter returns, holding a tray with two baskets of chips and several
smaller black bowls. The woman behind the bar grabs a tray with our drinks and follows him over.
He places our appetizers in the center of the table. The woman holds up my drink saying, “Water,” then looking around. I raise my hand. She does the same with the other drinks until her tray is empty.
“Do you need more time or are we ready to order?”
“I’m ready,” I answer.
“What’s good?” Milo looks at the guy.
Nico makes a face and sucks in through his teeth. “I like the fajitas, the steak and shrimp are amazing. But the combo plate is good if you’re extra hungry.”
“I’ll go with the fajitas,” Milo tells him, placing his menu on the table.
“I’ll have super nachos, and the combo plate,” Dante chimes in.
“Nachos for me too.” I raise my hand like a kid at school waiting to be called on.
“And you?” The waiter looks at Ollie.
“Tacos, chicken.”
“Steak fajitas for me,” Ares answers last.
The waiter picks up the menus I’ve stacked and gives us a small smile. “Won’t be too long.”
Dante reaches for the chips before the waiter even turns to leave. The guys don’t waste anytime digging right in. I have a chip or two, but since I’m having nachos, I don’t have too many.
“Do you know if anyone else besides our families are coming tomorrow?” Ollie leans his head back and drops a chip in his mouth.
“Knowing Mom, half the community will be there.” Ares delves through the basket looking for a chip.
“Ugh, I hope not. Not to be an asshole, but we have to play hosts this weekend,” Ollie continues.
Our food arrives fairly quickly, and the conversations fall as we all dig in. I’ll admit mine was delicious.
Chapter 21
“Aren’t we supposed to bring something?” We’re just about to enter from the side door like usual.
“No,” Dante replies. “Even if we weren’t in the middle of moving, we wouldn’t need to bring anything.”
Infinity Chronicles Book Three Page 21