Chapter 35

When Levi texts me cryptic things like, Get your butt over here and an address, I find it hard to resist. Which is how I end up parked on a neighborhood street in Escondido, my AC blasting on high.

I sit in my car for a minute longer, because Gretchen’s on the phone. Her voice is filled with a level of excitement that would make me laugh if I didn’t feel so guilty. I haven’t told her about my dad yet, despite the fact that it’s been a week since Malibu, two weeks since I found out about the cancer. I still can’t open my mouth and force the words out. Every moment seems wrong because each time I imagine how our conversation would go, my heart twists painfully.

So I leave it in the dark. (I’ve never felt more like a coward.)

“Hey, Gretchen—” I hate to interrupt her hilarious rant about her coworkers, but I see Levi’s car. (I need to go before I tell her everything and break her heart.) “Can I call you back in a little bit? I’m here.”

“Hey, of course. Tell The Boy hello from his favorite person.” Gretchen snorts. “Ah, LAK, what a time to be alive.”

LAK stands for Life After Kissing. It’s the new B.C. and A.D., according to Gretchen.

“Thanks, Gretchen. I’ll tell him. And remind me to call you later if I forget.”

She laughs and hangs up. I slide my phone into my purse and turn off the car, bracing myself for the heat wave I know will flatten me as soon as I step outside. But when I close my door behind me, pocketing my keys, I see something that I don’t expect, and it distracts me from my grumbling.

Levi stands in front of one of the houses, legs spread, hands on his hips, looking up. It’s an old Victorian-style home, probably built in the seventies, with white siding and a cute, wrap-around porch. There’s a giant FOR SALE sign out front, complete with flyers. A picket fence lines the front and sides of the yard.

“Levi,” I say, a question in my voice. “What are we doing here?”

He doesn’t turn around. “I’m proposing to you and this is where we’re going to raise our twelve children.”

I wrap my arms around his waist and squeeze his middle. “Okay.”

He closes his arms over mine and brings my hands to his lips. I sigh happily against his back.

“You’re too easy,” he says. “But for real? I think…I might want to move TCP here.”

“Excuse me?” I stand next to him, one arm still around his waist. He tucks his thumb through the belt loop of my jeans.

“I told you about this,” he says.

“I know, but, like…”

Levi pecks my temple with a kiss. “I talked to Felix yesterday, and he seems to think we’ll like this house. I mean, I’m already inclined to think he’s right.”

“You like it enough to move everything here?” I’m not surprised, just wary. This could be just another massive project to overwhelm us. Or maybe that’s just my own stress level beeping at me as it overloads.

Levi rubs my arm as if he understands my worry. “He thought we could work out a deal: a fair price and a fair mortgage, an easy move-in date, some time to get things fixed up….”

Now, of course, I’m studying the house, imagining the whole thing: the sign along the second story beneath the windows, a new color for the front. Suzie could use her green thumb to freshen up the yard. The house is on the edge of a neighborhood, close to the main street, but still tucked away so it seems homey and warm. I’m suddenly as in love with the vision as Levi—and just as sold.

“I’m thinking about painting the front with stripes,” Levi says. “A new color every panel, all the way up.”

“Oh, my gosh,” I say. “Are you allowed to do that?”

“Don’t know. I’m going to find out, though.”

“At least you can paint the inside. But Levi—what about the lease on the other place?”

“It’s up in three months. Just enough time to place an offer and make the move. We could have a grand opening.” He faces me and takes my face in his hands, excitedly. I’m reminded, for a second, about that summer party at Keagan’s place, and the memory (of happier times) warms me. “Do you realize what this means? We’ll have more room, cheaper rent. Like, my dad can finally stop paying the rent and TCP will be completely mine. I won’t feel like I owe him anything. And Felix had an excellent idea, that I could start housing people who need it here in the bedrooms and pay them to help with TCP while they get back on their feet with a new job or new house. This means more help and bigger business, which in turn means helping more people.”

I smile at him, my hands wrapped around his wrists, and lift onto my tiptoes. “This is a perfect idea.”

His smile is radiant, of course, because his smiles always are. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” I say. “Now kiss me.”

He dips his head. I’m lost to the rest of the world as he kisses me tenderly, appropriate for the side of the road where everyone can see, but just enough to make my toes curl in my shoes.

When he lets go, he kisses my nose and wraps me in a hug. “How’s your dad?”

I sigh, relaxing. “He’s fine.” Papa was released from the hospital early, making us all happier and infinitely less scared. Somehow, him being under a doctor’s scrutiny twenty-four hours a day made everything worse. Ignorance really is bliss. If they’d found something else wrong with him, I’m not sure how I would have responded.

A car pulls up to the curb behind mine and a man steps out, wearing a suit and looking very official. Levi lets me go, our hands joining between us. “Aha, it’s Felix’s realtor. Want to see the inside with me?”

I kiss his cheek. “I’m already sold, but of course.”

There’s a certain musty quality to the house that makes me nostalgic—although for what, I have no idea. Grandmother’s house? (Thing You Should Know About Me #213: My parents aren’t close with either of their parents, who live in Florida, so I have a very distant idea of what grandma must be like.) All I know is that I want to see Suzie moving around the kitchen, baking cookies, and Elle writing out her to-do list at the dining room table, and Missy and Albert sharing the front desk (her shoes propped up and his glitter raining on her head). I want to see this front sitting room filled with applicants and I want to see Levi in the hallway, handing checks to clients.

I want to stand beside him.

It all feels very official, which freaks me out a little, but Levi’s excitement is contagious. At the end of the tour we shake hands with the realtor, and when he drives away, Levi and I stand against my car, looking up at the house.

“This is the one,” he says, and takes my hand.

“Have you seen the other houses?”

“No. But I don’t think I need to.”

“I agree.” I squeeze his fingers. “Celebratory dinner?”

He makes a disappointed humming noise at the back of his throat. “My mom’s making dinner tonight and I promised to be there. Annnnd…I would invite you over but she made an underhanded comment the other day about me ignoring her, so I feel like I should give her my full attention.” He smiles as he taps my nose with the pad of his finger. “You, my love, are distracting.”

I smile sweetly. “You’ll have to make it up to me, then.”

“I will. You bet I will.” He kisses me briefly and says, “Wait one minute, don’t leave …here—” Dialing a number into his phone, he puts it on speaker so I can hear as well.

“Hello?” Felix answers.

“Hey, man, it’s Levi.”

“Levi!” (I can practically hear his smile.) “I didn’t think I’d hear back so soon.”

“And I didn’t think I’d be calling you so soon. But—” Here Levi pauses, looks up at the house, and back at me, and smiles. “Felix, I found the one.”