Page 111 of Summer with the Single Dad

“You’re serious though?” That conflicted feeling wasn’t going away. Why did she want Bonn Remmen’s land? What did she have planned for it? What could she do to honor Bonn’s land? She didn’t even know the man.

“I just want to know more.”

“You realize if you submitted a proposal, you’d be reducing our chances of getting the land, right? You’d be going against us.”

“Unless I just turn around and give the land to you, and I actually increase the chances because you submit and I submit for the same purpose. So it doubles your chances?”

He didn’t blink. “I … I don’t know if that’s allowed. I also don’t know what to say.”

Her sweet, gentle smile just made him want to kiss her, carry her up to his bed, and peel off all her clothes. “Tell me more about your plan for the land. Have you started your proposal?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Show me. Let’s go over it together and figure out how to make it shine. Maybe if you guys get the land, I can rent a small portion of it from you and build a tiny house on it. Win-win for everyone. Let’s just explore our options.”

He reached for the tablet on the coffee table and brought up his proposal. It was still rough. He hadn’t even sent it to his brothers for their feedback, yet. But he was eager to hear what Justine thought of it.

The fact that she was offering to help them out like this was more than he ever expected. He was still wrapping his head around the fact that she spent so much money on kombucha just so his serious, anxious, risk-phobic daughter could deal with one of her fears.

She scanned the proposal while he sat there on pins and needles. He kept watching her, waiting for her expression to change. For a frown to curve her lips downward, or her brows to knit together in the center. But she just read it with a blank face.

After she reached the end of the five pages—god, she was a patient woman—she looked up at him and smiled. “I think it’s great. I can totally picture your vision in its entirety, and I’m truly rooting for you guys.”

“No feedback?”

“Oh, I have feedback.”

“Oh.”

“Can you send it to me via email and I’ll leave notes in Track Changes for you? Just ways you can tighten the language, different word and sentence choices. The concept and meat of the proposal are perfect. I just think there are ways you can strengthen your story with different verbs, adjectives, and metaphors.”

Nodding, and eager to get these tweaks and suggestions, he brought up his email; she rattled off her address, and he hit send. A second later, it pinged on her phone and computer.

“I’ll do this tonight or tomorrow,” she said.

“Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

“Just carve me out a little slice of this heaven when you get it so I can build my tiny house.”

He needed a moment to process what she was saying. He tipped the beer bottle to his lips and took a long pull, letting the cool, sour blend of berries and stone fruit sit on his tongue for a moment. Once his body temperature warmed it to just below monkey piss, he swallowed. “Are you serious about living here?”

She lifted a shoulder. “I mean, maybe. I own my condo in Seattle.” Then she made a cute little scrunched face. “Let me rephrase that. I am a homeowner in the sense that I have mortgage payments. Technically, the bank owns the house. But you know what I mean.”

He nodded.

“I’ve only been there two years. Thankfully, Tad only lived there six months with me and he moved out without giving me any issues. He and Homewrecking Hilda moved into her place or something.”

“I thought her name was Ashli?”

“You know what I mean.”

He did. He was just trying to lighten the mood. His confliction weighed heavily inside his chest and he needed to shed some of the weight.

“And with the housing market so in-demand in Seattle right now, I could easily sell it and turn a small profit. It still wouldn’t pay for anything here, not that there appears to be anything for sale right now, but it could pay for the construction of a tiny house.” She opened a new window on her laptop and typed in tiny house. Images of adorable, barely-there abodes popped up, most of them two or three stories high with actual square-footage footprints less than the square footage of his bedroom.

“What would you do for work?” he asked.

There she went again, shrugging like none of this was a big deal or a big decision. She didn’t strike him as the type of person to make rash, uncalculated decisions, and yet, that seemed to be exactly what she was doing.

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