Page 11 of Love It or List It
Two could play at this game.
“Fair enough.”Austin kept sorting through his cupboard.Before either of them could say anything else, a loud gurgling noise came from the sink.
Joe froze and turned toward the source of the sound.
“Is that—” Joe started.
“Can’t be good,” Austin said.
The sink gurgled again, and Joe and Austin looked at each other.For a moment they were locked in a staring contest, playing chicken to see who would approach first.
“I do plants.You’re the mechanic.”
“Cars generally don’t come with sinks,” Austin pointed out, but he stepped across the room and peered down into the sink.“Well, fuck.”
Joe closed his eyes.“What is it?”
“Uh, looks like the sink might back up in the rain.”
Fuck indeed.Joe braced himself and took the three steps across the kitchen to peer over Austin’s shoulder.
The basin was slowly filling with murky water, bubbling up from the drain.At least it wasn’t as gross as Joe had feared.But it wasn’t exactly an appetizing sight for the kitchen.
“Fuck,” Joe repeated out loud, fighting the urge to groan.“That looks like a job for a professional.”
Chapter Three
AUSTIN COLLAPSEDback into his bed and rubbed a hand over his tired eyes.For the past week, he and Joe had met up at the house every chance they could to work through DeeDee’s hoard.
Thanks to Joe’s kids, they’d managed to empty the kitchen and living room of most of the garbage and donatable items.Yesterday they set several bags out by the curb for weekly garbage collection, but Austin wondered if they shouldn’t just rent a dumpster for the next month.At the very least, the local waste collectors would thank them.
Two days ago, after they’d finished boxing up all the nonperishable unopened food, Joe piled it all into his truck and promised—hand on his heart—to bring it all to the local food bank.“I called them yesterday, and they said they’d take it and sort through it.They were excited.”
Of course, there were still boxes of items to sort through in both the living room and kitchen, but at least neither room currently felt like a death trap.Which hardly felt like a victory, considering how many rooms remained untouched.
Not to mention that they hadn’t been up to the second floor.Austin was all set to explore it on day two when Joe vetoed the idea.“I’ve called one of my mom’s contacts—a house inspector—to get her out to the place.I’d like to know we won’t be falling through any floorboards before we head up there.”
Austin’s first instinct had been to deny such a claim as ridiculous, but he couldn’t do that with any sort of confidence.
So while they waited, they continued working through the contents of the main floor.
They had a usable main bathroom now, which hadn’t even been terrifying on first approach since DeeDee had, thank God, kept it clean.Well, it was usable as long as it wasn’t raining, at least—which it had, frequently, over the past week, and every time it did, the kitchen sink gurgled.
At least the toilet didn’t back up when Joe flushed it during Friday night’s downpour.Austin’s shout to just put the lid down had come too late.He heard Joe swear on the other side of the door, and then it opened—Joe was using a Wet Wipe on his hands, evidently trying not to tax the plumbing further—and they met eyes for a moment before turning to the john in expectant horror.
When it became clear the toilet was not going to disgorge itself on the floor, Joe’s shoulders slumped.“We really need to call a plumber.”He paused and then said, “Well, once the home inspector’s been through.Unless she says it’s not worth it, I guess.”
Austin twitched in spite of himself.“What do you mean, not worth it?”
Joe gestured around.“I mean, you read the appraisal.Most of the value in the place is in the land.Anyone who buys it is probably going to tear it down anyway.”
Austin’s stomach flopped.Joe would know, what with his mother’s connections in the real estate world.Lots this large didn’t come up often, already serviced and close enough to Essex not to be tremendously inconvenient.He could just picture someone coming along and snapping it up, then razing the place and replacing it with some horrible soulless monstrosity.
“We could fix it,” Austin said.
“Maybe,” Joe allowed skeptically as they trudged back to the breezeway off the kitchen to finish disposing of the forest of dead potted plants.“But how long would it take, and how much money?”
He crossed his arms.“I put in a kitchen and bathroom for a couple grand.”
