There is a total of four fountains sprinkled throughout the main floor. By the looks of it, someone had feng shui-ed the crap out of the place. It’s nice, but it has more of a busy, jangled vibe than a peaceful one.
I consider what it might look like without all the water features. I can almost see a comfy couch and a big TV. I imagine Chase sitting on it watching soccer and shouting at it. In my daydream, I’m sitting there next to him, trying to figure out the game. And we’re both happy.
What is wrong with me? I’m not actually moving in with Chase. Why did my head go there? I do my best to shrug it off and take a few pics.
“Great idea,” Chase says when he sees me taking pictures. “Otherwise it’ll be harder to remember which property is which. After a while they all start to blend together.”
“Um, sure,” I decide not to tell him that isn’t really what I’m doing. He’s like a kid in a candy store. Already, he’s talking about walking the property line and checking the bones of the structure, whatever the hell that means. I’m just going to go with it.
I figure if I’m taking pictures to remember them for later, I should probably go outside and take a pic of the number on the front of the house. If I do that first, we’ll know which ones are which.
I wander back the way we came and then back outside into the heat. I back up and hold my phone in the general direction of the house number. Then I take the pic. Click. And just like that I have fully joined into the day’s activity. It feels good to help.
Then I head back into the house, weaving past furniture toward the glass doors so I can get a look at the back yard.
Sliding the doors open, I walk out onto a beautiful patio with three-hundred-sixty-degree views of the ocean. The breeze hits me and it feels like home.
I marvel as I look over the pristine, unspoiled, uncrowded beach. If the inside of the house makes me feel unnerved, and it does, the outside takes my breath away.
I find Chase inspecting some fencing out by the beach.
I take a pic of him bending over from behind. Because I’m a smartass. And because his ass, believe it or not, is ridiculously photogenic. “Wow,” I say as I sneak up on him, “this place is amazing.”
He sighs and stands up. “You’re right, it’s pretty great. It has some issues, though. But they all do. And the markup with the ocean,” he whistles and shakes his head like he’s about to negotiate with me.
“Don’t look at me. I’m clueless at evaluating real estate.” I get a funny feeling about Chase’s way-too-loud voice and turn around. Sure enough, there’s the real estate agent, lurking. He’s probably listening to every word. So Chase is negotiating with him without even talking to him. I have to admit, that’s pretty clever.
Chase crosses to the back gate that leads to the beach and opens it for me. I take my shoes off and leave them by the front gate. Then we are strolling down the nearly deserted private beach while surveying the house. I watch Chase as the wind plays with his hair. He looks happy. I reach out and take his hand and he smiles at me.
After a few minutes, he stops walking and turns to me. “It’s only a matter of time before the paparazzi catch up with us. Then we’ll act surprised and whoosh off to the next house. Speaking of, hold on.”
He winks at me and then turns to the pretending not to lurk but totally is real estate agent. “Hey, Fred. Would you grab Kaylee’s hat for us? It’s in the car.”
Fred runs off to grab the hat. “Oh my gosh,” I say having spotted him a minute ago and then lost him again. “How’d you even know he was there? The man is like human camouflage.”
“You know how real estate agents are, you can feel them lurking, can’t you? Or is it just me?” he asks.
“I didn’t before today, but I see what you mean.”
Fred comes back a few minutes later with my hat and a panicked look on his face. Uh-oh, the quiet moment Chase and I are currently having is over.
“Um,” Fred says sheepishly. “A bunch of cars just showed up. I think they’re photographers.”
“Okay,” Chase says to me, whispering so Fred is out of earshot, “we probably won’t lose them again for the rest of the morning. But it’s just the kind of publicity we need.”
“Alrighty,” I say, steeling myself for round two with the paparazzi. I check my watch and realize that it’s barely ten in the morning. “How many more houses do we have?”
“Six, I think.” Chase says as he turns back to Fred. “Six more?”
“Six more,” Fred confirms.
We weave our way back through the house and out the front door, into the chaos. Dozens of photographers, out of their own vehicles, crowd near the limo. Luckily, the driver is holding them all back. I’m grateful, but I wonder how he managed to hold that entire frantic mob back all by himself.
I squint into the sun at the scene to see that one, he is an excessively big dude. Much bigger than he looks seated and driving. He has to be at least six-foot-six and he isn’t skinny either. And two, it’s clear from his body language and the leery stares of the photographers that he is packing. As I jump back into the limo, I figure that’s at least one mystery solved.
The driver gets in and swivels around to check that we’re okay before turning back around to face forward. Then he hits the gas. He barely even gives the paparazzi a chance to get out of the way. The
