Chapter 12: Closing calls

POV: Zac

Word Count: 31 53

April 6, 2009

For a Monday, I woke up way early but what woke me up was vivid dream about Gabriella and those pole dances. Usually she didn’t mind when I woke her up before dawn, she really didn’t seem to mind this morning either, long as my hands were inside the black panties she’d worn to bed and not anywhere else. Venturing up to the breast got my hands pushed away. If she wanted to forego that then I was fine. She was content to be close to me and she loved that face to face contact position.

Morning sex was always good and I rather liked waking up to a naked wife a few hours later. Yet, when I woke back up around 8, she wasn’t in the bed.

“Baby?”

She came from the bathroom in just a robe. “Morning.”

“You got up, so mean.”

She crawled back into the bed and laid back down. “Bathroom, do I have to get up?”

I moved over beside her and went for her neck. “Not until about ten, but we have to be at the real estate office at eleven.”

I went to slide my hand under the robe, intended for the breast again and she stopped me, again. Didn’t even give my hand time to get that far up really.

“Baby, why do you keep stopping me? Is something wrong? You’re not mad at me are you?”

“No…I had sex with you a few hours ago, if I was mad I wouldn’t have.”

“Gabriella.”

“I’ve been wearing sports bra to the house and I think I bought them too tight. They’ve been causing pain and tenderness, it’s totally not that I don’t want you too, just kind of hurts. Toss in the headache and you’re lucky I even moved at all.”

“You’re head hurts again?”

This was becoming a frequent occurrence with her, they were often very bad and since she was on a deadline with the Brooks, she was working through them instead of trying to rest. She and I both had worked there all weekend because we knew we had to have today off. The realtors had set up closing today and I’d taken the day and the others did too.

“It’s not bad, yet. I think a break from the paint will help, they really didn’t start getting bad until I started that big mural, it might have been too much and too ambitious for a first attempt. I will also wear a normal bra today and see if that helps.”

I pulled her to me, feeling the soft robe against my chest and kissed her. “You could wear no bra.”

“I could, but no. I need some kind of support.”

I didn’t pull her as close as I wanted, but she did drift back off laying here and I just laid here until I had to get her up so we could shower and get ready. After a shower she went to get dressed but after watching her sling three bras back into the drawer I sat down amused and watched. She would get one, put it on, adjust, and then take it back off and get another one.

“Are you having problems there baby?”

She looked at me and I could tell she was getting ill. “I can’t find one that is comfortable.”

“Define comfortable because none of them look comfortable to me.”

She held up a white bra. “I wore this on our honeymoon, it fit fine. It doesn’t fit now.”

“The band too tight?”

“No. The cups too small I guess I dried it and it shrunk. I guess I did all of them, shit.”

I got up and sat her down, dug through her side of the closet and found a sleeved shirt that had a built in bra.

“It’s not great support but maybe the tightness caused some swelling too. Comfortable, loose bra and maybe it’ll help.”

She laid her head forward against my abdomen and I moved my hands to her temples, light little massages. She loved that. But I eventually had to get her motivated to get ready. The shirt fit good but it became noticeable that it wasn’t just a little swelling. She found a button up to put over it and afterwards we headed to the bank where we were meeting everyone else.

There would be a lot of people there today besides us, there was the sellers who were retiring and moving to Florida, the ultimate reason for their move. Both the sellers and us would have an attorney present, both our real estate agents would be present, a bank representative for us since we were taking out the loan and a closing agent.

I was glad that my parents had been able to help us gather and maintain our records, the inspection was done and showed no problems, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. We greeted everyone when we arrived, sat down and the first part was just going over everything, Gabby looked quite glassy eyed though as she listened. We then got down to signing papers and the process of transferring the house from their names to ours.

“I kind of feel like I’m signing my life away.”

Mr. Green, the seller, laughed. “Exact same way we felt when we purchased our Florida home.”

Gabby signed quickly and with accuracy until the major paper was laid in front of her. The last document the one that made it very real, I saw her hand just hover above the page.

“Ma’am?” The agent asked.

I laid my hand on her thigh and gave it a slight squeeze, her attention diverted to me. “It’s okay.”

She laid the pen down though, was she getting cold feet?!

“Gabby?” I asked.

“Is there a problem?” The agent asked.

“No, just very dizzy right now. Literally, three lines in front of me and I don’t know which one is the right one.”

“Are you alright?” Mrs. Green asked.

“She’s been having some major headaches, been painting at a clients house. Dizzy is new though.”

I went ahead and signed the paper and the lawyer got her water. I wondered if this was just her way of avoiding things because she was afraid I was going to leave, but she drank some of the water before long she was able to sign. After a deep breath she signed the paper and slid it to the lawyer. There was several final things to handle before the keys to the house were placed in our hands.

“Congratulations, you’ve purchased a house.”

We said our byes to those we didn’t need to talk too and then before leaving ensured that we could now move forward with the renovations we wanted.

“The house and property are legally yours, you can make any changes you want. I would advise that you have that start next week, just to make sure that all of this goes through.”

“We will, we need the contractor to come in and I know he’ll need some time to have us figure out what changes. So, we probably won’t start anything for a few weeks. I just wanted to be sure.”

He smiled and we separated. The first stop was right here to deposit the overage for our loan, it would cover the renovations on the house. I also used the copy room and made copies of all of the papers we had and since we were present I put the original documents in the safety deposit box.

“You done this before?” Gabby asked.

“When we started the company we were advised. So, here I am.”

Once that was done I contacted our contractor, Marello. He was Andrew and Jack’s uncle, he owned and operated a construction company and had for as long as I remembered. He agreed to meet us at 3 so that gave us some time. The first step was grabbing lunch and then we went…home.

We both unlocked the front door but I didn’t give her time to walk inside, instead I picked her up.

“Wow, little sudden there honey.”

“I didn’t get to carry you through the apartment door, I am here.”

I didn’t even set her down until we were standing in the living room. In our living room. But her hands felt really tight around my arms.

“You okay?”

“Slightly dizzy, not bad.”

I pulled her to me gently, mindful of her earlier comments and held her. “We’re home.”

“Doesn’t quite feel like home yet.”

I kissed her forehead. “It will once we have things here.”

Yet, my hands remained in safe places, hers did not and if the hands on my butt wasn’t enough of a hint, them undoing the belt was. Thankfully, Marello called to get directions to the house because I hadn’t even closed the front door!

“That was…random from you.”

She slipped her shoes back on. “What, you don’t want to break this place in?”

“Touché.”

Marello arrived at 15 minutes until 3 and he got to meet her, but he knew me already.

“Never thought you’d settle down after that girl. Glad you did. So, why am I here? This place looks nice.”

“It’s minor things really, I have locks in the car, can you change those today?”

“I can. That’s a good idea really. So, bare rooms. What do you want done?”

“Honestly, there isn’t much.” I said.

“Anything outside?”

“The roof was redone last year, inspection didn’t reveal any problems. Basically, outside we’d like to wash it really well and that’s it. Maybe some landscaping around the house it’s pretty bare right now.”

“I can do that, I see a patio the deck okay?”

“There was some issues with the deck, they recommended a patch.”

We went out back and he inspected it himself. “I would recommend covering some of it, open deck is nice but you want some shade, maybe a pergola?”

“I like covered, it would be a good outdoor space and right off the dining room.” Gabby said.

He was writing down on a yellow note pad what we wanted. We went to the guest room downstairs.

“Anything in here?”

“Paint, it’s the bathroom I’d like to freshen up here.”

He checked and looked around. “The tile is pretty dirty but good structure. We can reglaze them, freshen them up.”

The main living area was our main concern. He checked cabinets, counters, and the floor.

“What do you two see here?”

“I like hardwood floors, there easy to clean and maintain. I think even the guest suit could use it.” She said.

“This is vinyl actually.”

“It is?” She asked.

“Yeah.”

She looked at me. “I don’t particularly like the kitchen cabinets or counters or tile. But, I think hardwood floor is what we want in here.”

He laughed. “We find the changes.”

“Gabby, do you like the kitchen?”

“Not really. I like the layout, but not the counters and the cabinets are too dark.”

“The cabinets are in good condition, I don’t recommend changing them but there real wood and not manufactured so we can sand them and re stain. The floor I agree on. The counter whatever you want this is like cheap counters.”

We continued through the entire house, the bathrooms up-stairs we wanted redone because the tile was cold and we just didn’t like any of them. The bedrooms were fine and in the master bedroom it was the carpet in the bathroom that was a problem along with the tile. Since we were definitely ripping the carpet up in here he cut a place near the shower and pulled it back.

“What is that?” Gabby asked.

“Mold. It’s not uncommon with carpet. Gets wet, gets down to the padding and never dries.”

“Could that be an extensive problem?”

“Probably not. We’ll check the door area and see if it spread, probably not.”

Over all what we wanted wasn’t extensive, so he gave us a four to six week timeline, and since that was close we asked if the bedroom could be first, we could handle construction downstairs and paint as long as we had a bedroom. He said he would and then he changed the locks and checked a few other things. We would hit the utility places this week also so he’d have water and power here next Monday.

We left and headed to the studio, she needed a reference print that Taylor had brought in with him, he said it was on my desk. I ran inside but found another box with her name on it, this was getting ridiculous. But, I brought everything back out and laid it in her lap.

“Another one?”

“It was on the desk with the print.”

She looked at the print. “Gotta love Taylor.”

We went home and once there she opened the box. Inside was another figurine, this time a cute little owl.

“Is there a note?”

“Yeah.”

“What does it say?”

“Love is like a lost object, if you search too hard, you don’t find it. But if you just forget about it momentarily, it will show up in the most unexpected way.”

That was an awfully strange messages from a fan or anyone really.

“Anything else in the box?”

She nodded and pulled out a pair of lace thongs, brand new with the tag on it. They were black and there wasn’t any coverage on them.

“You and them still want to tell me this is some fan thanking me?”

“Not with those, I’d say there more likely Simon.”

She laid them down on the counter and put the picture with the keys, began dinner. When the doorbell rang I was confused but found Lucas at the door.

“Hey, didn’t expect you.”

“I spoke to Taylor earlier today, said you guys had to do something. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, uh..we closed on a property today.”

“You what?”

“We bought a house, signed the papers today.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

I let him inside and he said hello to Gabby who did the same, she was heating up leftover chicken and dumplings from last night.

“Are you staying for dinner? I was just going to heat up left over’s, we have plenty.”

“Sure, I can if you don’t mind.”

“Hey, it means I won’t have to eat these for three days.”

He sat down at the counter and his attention came to the things she’d laid down, and before I could stop him he’d picked them up.

“This is cute, where did you get it?”

“It was mailed, it’s like the fourth one. I have the others at the studio.”

“Um, little bit of a strange item to leave on the counter.”

I saw his eyes travel to her, not really staring at her face, she reached over and took them rather roughly.

“Yeah, well, they’re nothing. I won’t ever wear them.”

“They are new, why not?”

“Because someone mailed them to me, who the hell knows what they did to them. Odds are it was Simon and he liked to use my thongs when he jacked off. Besides, even if it wasn’t Simon that mailed them to me I’m not ever going to wear them.”

She proceeded to drop them in the trash can in the kitchen.

“They looked expensive.”

“It doesn’t matter how expensive they are, I didn’t buy them and Zac didn’t. They are not even the right size.”

“They’re not?”

“No. Enough about them, what did you do today?”

“Worked, the normal.”

“What do you even do? I know where Andrew and Jack work, what about you?”

“Computer networking, it’s what I went to school for anyway. I’d rather do something more manual but it pays the bills. So, can you guys afford a new house?”

“Oh yeah, we set a budget and she refused to let me go over it. We found a nice house on West Apache it’s close to the studio.”

“Nice, I thought you’d just stay here.”

“Yeah, eventually we’ll outgrow here.” I said.

Once dinner was heated we sat at the table, she chose the center position wasn’t as awkward but she wasn’t eating as fast.

“Do you feel okay?”

“The headache seems to be going away, told you it was the paint. But, I feel slightly dizzy.”

“Again?”

“I think that the next time I accept a large scale project I’m going to allow a lot longer to paint.”

“Didn’t you help her this weekend?” Lucas asked.

“Yeah, but the people are so cold natured we both about died in there, she had to close the vents because the paint was drying so fast we couldn’t blend colors, because it would be dry. But, closed up the paint fumes are horrible, so we both about froze with the windows open.”

“I’m not usually around latex paint, it’s usually acrylic and it’s not bad. But, wow. I’m glad it’s almost done.”

“How much do you charge for a painting?”

“Depends on the size and complexity but about 250 and up.”

He blinked. “Damn, I was expecting less.”

She paused and looked at him for a moment before taking another bite. He got rather quiet too, although I caught his eyes and followed, the top couple of buttons on her shirt had come undone and the cleavage was all over the place.

“Lucas.” I said.

He looked at me. “Yes?”

“I’d appreciate it if you stop looking where you were.”

She looked confused but he smiled some. “Sorry.”

“I’m going to put this up and lay down, I just don’t feel good.”

“Go lay down and I’ll take care of the bowl.”

She got up and went to the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

“Is she feeling okay?”

I laid the fork down. “She’ll be fine I’ll check on her in a few minutes. But in the future keep your eyes on her face and not her breast, that’s very rude especially when I’m sitting right here. I get it she’s hot, but she’s also very taken.”

“Kind of hard to miss them Zac, but I won’t.”

We finished dinner and I basically booted him out, Andrew was always more respectful and didn’t stare at her, hell even my skirt chasing cousin hadn’t been that blatant! I cleaned up the kitchen and then went to the bedroom, she’d changed into a gown and laid down but she was still awake.

“Dizziness go away?”

She nodded. “I was waiting on you.”

“I cleaned up the kitchen, is your headache still present?”

“It is but I think one of your massages may help.”

She sat up so I could sit down behind her.

“I guess you saw him staring too?”

“I did.”

I started with her shoulders, moved inward and she was teetering long before I reached the base of her head, but that seemed to really help her. When we did lay down, she was asleep within minutes.