Page 25 of Delay of Game
“You sure I can’t talk you into something else?”
She shook her head with a smile. “Nope.”
Great.
NINE
GRACIE
Two daysaway from the first day of school, the building teemed with activity. Outside my classroom, teachers buzzed up and down the hall, holding pictures and books and containers filled with art supplies. Music floated out of every classroom, ranging from classical in the art rooms to heavily censored rap in the science lab.
Despite the week to ready our classroom, the tables sat bare, and Lily took off in search of glue sticks, leaving me to unpack our classroom’s extensive library. Favorites likeThe Creepy CrayonandCan I Give You a Squish?slotted into place, I took a break from unpacking to check my phone.
Well, not my phone. My texts.
One text.
ROB
What time should I come over to check the place out?
I read the text for the millionth time since I’d woken up to it that morning. How the hell was I supposed to respond to that?
While we lived in the same neighborhood, Rob couldn’t possibly be interested in my aunt’s property. The rental market so far outside the city center sucked, and none of his property came close to her land. The man had money, but I doubted he was buying pity property. Especially from someone he barely knew.
Still, my parents wouldn’t fly in for weeks yet. And even then, they would only stay long enough to sign any paperwork and help with final touches on a house I hadn’t even cleaned out yet. All of Aunt Mercy’s money was tied up in providing her round-the-clock care, and the house sale would ensure that our family wouldn’t have to pay out of pocket for future care. We needed to sell the house for as much as possible.
But the housing market at our end of Norwalk wasn’t exactly on fire. While the downtown homes and buildings went for millions in bidding wars, the people buying north of the city wanted acreage, not the rundown, turn of the century, two story single-family homes.
But Aunt Mercy’s home wasn’t another cookie-cutter farmhouse. The sweeping staircase and old pine paneling gave it some architectural charm impossible to find in the surrounding homes. If only I could get someone to look past the wear and tear.
I just couldn’t understand why Rob was interested.
I don’t have a realtor…
I sent the text, unsure what hours football players kept. Was he in a locker room? Home? The field? According to Mila, he spent most of his free time there, and I doubted he brought his phone.
I went to pocket my phone when it buzzed in my hand.
ROB
Do you need one?
I frowned at the phone. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe fancy football players just purchased entire houses outright on sight.
I guess not. Tonight?
Six?
ROB
Great.
Did he even have my address? Probably from his mom. Avoiding the urge to overthink and over-analyze the text exchange, I slipped my phone face down onto my desk before returning to the library.
“Holy shit.” Lily burst into the room lugging a weighed-down fabric bag behind her. “It is crazy out there. No one did their back-to-school shopping early this year.”
I eyed the strip of fabric hanging out of the bag that looked suspiciously like a bikini, something we had definitely not put on the list of last-minute supplies Lily had gone to buy. “What happened to just picking up a thing or two?”
