Page 98 of Just Forever

I put the fork down and send him a sour look. “Why? I was just starting to block that out after weeks of it circling around in my head.”

“I don’t know. You’re just such an easy target when it comes to grossing somebody out.”

I throw a piece of garlic bread at him. He catches it and stuffs it in his mouth with a wide grin.

He takes mercy on me after that though, and for the rest of dinner mentions of dead bodies are kept to a minimum.

We’re just cleaning up when my phone chimes. I pick it up and read the email.

“Huh,” I say once I’m done.

“What?” Lake asks.

I look up from my phone. “Mom and Dad bought a townhouse in Brooklyn ages ago. It’s been empty for years, waiting for somebody to get their shit together and deal with the hassle of renovating it. They both own half of it and neither wants to sell to the other for whatever reason. Or at least they haven’t so far. Guess they’ve decided to just sell the whole thing now. They want me to get the key to the realtor.”

“Good for them, I guess,” Lake says.

“I have no idea where those keys are,” I say. “I know I have them, but where the fuck did I put them? No idea.”

“Have you looked in the key box?”

“We have a key box?”

“I’m pretty sure every self-respecting household has a key box,” he says. “It’s where you toss everything you want to get rid of but aren’t quite sure if you should throw away.”

“So, a junk drawer.”

“In classy households we refer to it as the key box,” he says primly.

His lips twitch when his gaze meets mine.

“I’ll go and check,” he says.

He starts to walk past me, but I grab his forearm and pull him against me.

“There’s no hurry,” I say right before I kiss him again.

No hurry at all.

I haven’t beento the townhouse since my parents bought it, and seeing as that happened when I was about fourteen, I barely even remember what the place used to look like. Turns out the townhouse is a two-story, redbrick building on a quiet, tree-lined street in Brooklyn Heights.

I’m here early—way before the realtor I’m supposed to meet, at least—and since it’s cold as fuck outside, I abandon my original plan to wait outside and get this over with quickly in favor of going inside and not freezing my balls off.

The outside of the house isn’t in bad shape, but the inside looks kind of depressing. Somebody started fixing this place upsometime long ago and then stopped, so now it looks like a poorly maintained construction site.

I walk through the rooms while I wait, my footsteps echoing on the floors. Wallpaper is peeling and flakes of paint cover the linoleum floors. Yeah, depressing is definitely the right word.

Even so, the more I look around—the realtor is late, so I have plenty of time—the more I start to think this place might have potential.

I absently wonder how much my parents are asking for this place. Probably a lot, even in its current state. It’s a good neighborhood.

The real estate agent arrives twenty minutes later, all apologies. I hand over the keys and head out. On the corner of the street, I take a look back.

For whatever reason.

LAKE

I glanceat my watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. Ryk and I are supposed to go to the movies, but he’s running late.

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