Page 17 of Challenging Jayce

Jayce huffed. "A place to rest my head at night in a good neighborhood. Otherwise, I really don't care."

Well, alrighty then. That was the most unhelpful answer she’d ever received.

"How about price range?"

She had clicked on a few of the links, but the prices were all over the map. If Jayce gave the realtor a direction to go, he or she apparently didn't care.

"I'm not worried about price."

This man sure knew how to frustrate a person. If these were the kinds of responses he gave the realtor, it was no wonder the houses were all over the place.

"How many bedrooms? Bathrooms? Does it need to have a finished basement? How about a man cave? A certain number of rooms? A garage? You've got to give me something here."

There had to be something he cared about in a house.

"A garage. It needs to have a garage. I don't care about any of that other stuff."

She blew out a breath. Well, that was something. Not really helpful in narrowing things down though since all of these listings had a garage. It was probably the only requirement he gave the realtor as well.

Now that she knew this wasn't going to be a quick fix, she kicked her shoes off, climbed up on the bed and had a seat. With her back against the headboard, she crossed her legs and got comfortable clicking on the links.

Wanting to make her life easier and to narrow it down a bit, she copied all the links into the notes app. It was easy enough to eliminate a few just from one glance. Too gaudy was an automatic no.

"How about a fixer-upper?" She glanced up mid listing when an idea came to mind.

Jayce merely shrugged. "Sure. I can do the work but I don't know the first thing about matching shit, so I would need a designer or someone for input."

She was a visual person and right now the house she was looking at had potential. Real potential, with the right love.

"Okay, hear me out." She patted the bed next to her until he joined her. Then she put the phone between them and started flipping through the pictures. "I'm no interior designer but I've got one hell of an imagination and this house has so much potential to be great."

He wasn't saying no and he looked genuinely interested in the pictures she was showing him. She took that as a good sign. When he didn't say anything after looking at the pictures the first time, she flipped through them again, letting him take over the swiping of the photos.

"You really think you could make this into a livable place?"

"I do." She nodded eagerly. "I know it doesn't help your current situation but I'm sure Shaun would be willing to let you guys spend time together at his place."

She could see the walls going back up in his eyes. He had opened up in the little time she was here, but now that guarded man she first met was back.

"Yeah, Shaun," he spat.

He grabbed his phone back without another word and typed out a message quickly. It wasn't until he was done and the phone was back on the bed that he spoke again.

"I messaged the realtor back and said I would take that one. I asked that she make a cash offer. I'm willing to pay over the asking price to get it done sooner, so we'll see what the owner has to say. In the meantime, if you could use the pictures to come up with some kind of preliminary design, that would be great."

"Wait, that’s it? Don't you want to see it? Have an inspector go over and look at it? I've never purchased a house but isn't that what people usually do?"

Jayce barely shrugged. It was like the situation didn't deserve that much effort. But it should. He was buying a house for goodness’ sake. A place he was going to live. That should warrant a hell of a lot more than a barely there shrug.

"I messaged one of my friends. He’ll have his inspector check it out and I don't need to see it. I already told you to pick one."

Just like that. This man was unbelievable.

"I wish I had a tenth of your nonchalant attitude when it came to life-changing decisions."

She could hardly make a decision without agonizing over it and weighing every option. The only reason she made the decision on the house was because she knew stripping it down to the studs meant a clean slate, something fresh to work with.

"It's just ahouse. A place you sleep and occasionally eat."

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