Page 16 of Love It or List It
“That’s a problem for future Joe and—”
The truck, and his train of thought, screeched to a halt simultaneously.
Starling said, “Dude, is someone squatting in your driveway?”
Joe blinked at the geriatric trailer parked between the two garages.A cheerful yellow light gleamed inside it, or maybe it wasn’t yellow but was just picking up on the general yellow vibe of the whole patchwork metal Frankenstein thing.The trailer might have been cream once.It was tiny—so small it might’ve fit in the one-car garage if the garage weren’t full of three lawn mowers, two rain barrels, a wheelbarrow with a flat tire, and fifteen bags of fertilizer.There were a pair of boots next to the stairs, which seemed stupid because it was fucking November; who wanted to put on freezing-cold boots?
A moment later the whole scene got even more surreal when a little whitish-yellow shape darted through his headlights, skittered under the trailer, and then disappeared around the side of the pole barn.
Starling said, “Did you get adog?”
“Is that what that was?”Joe parked the truck.“Can you just—I’m going to go find out what’s going on.”
Starling’s delighted laugh chased him out of the cab.“Wait for me.”
The door slammed behind him as he strode up to the trailer and raised his hand.Rap-rap-rap.“Austin!Are you—”
The door opened.Sure enough, Austin stood on the other side of it, hair pulled back under a bandana, beat-up jeans hanging off his hips, yogurt cup in one hand, spoon dangling from his lips.He reached up his free hand to take it out.“Hey, be gentle on this old lady, Joe.Think it’s in worse shape than the house.”Those coal-dark eyes flicked from Joe to Starling.“Oh.Didn’t know you had company tonight.”
Joe could practically feel Starling’s unfettered delight behind him as Austin waved the spoon.This was absolutely not a two-wet-cats-in-a-bag scenario.Fuck.“That’s Starling.She’s my friend.Also an electrician.And also not the point—did you bring a dog here?”
Austin’s brow furrowed.“Why would I bring a dog here?”He gestured to encompass the property.“Like, the house is barely safe enough for your four pseudo-adult children.I’m not gonna put a dog in it.”
“I saw a dog,” Joe said.He sounded insane.Hefeltinsane.Also, the dog was not the point either.“What’s with the trailer?”
“Oh, this?”Austin patted the doorframe.It rattled.“Got tired of losing so much time driving home at night.By the time I get back to Windsor, I’ve got a second wind, you know?Then I sleep like shit.Or else I don’t get a second wind and I’m in danger of driving into a ditch.Not great.”
“We have a house,” Joe pointed out.
“Yeah, and I had this thing rotting in the parking lot.Besides, every mattress in that place has mouse droppings on it.”
Well, when he put it like that—“Fair point.But, like, an air mattress would’ve been less work.”
“An air mattress doesn’t have a fridge attached.”
Why did Joe feel like he was getting shade for forbidding anyone to open the Schrödinger’s nightmare that was DeeDee’s refrigerator?“Whatever,” he said.“Anyway, I guess there’s a stray, so just… watch out it doesn’t run off with your boots or whatever.”
Austin transferred the yogurt cup to the spoon hand and held the other one up, palm facing outward.“I will protect the boots.”Then he paused.“Did you ask Linda about the dog?”
Joe blinked again.“Linda?”
“Yeah.”Austin gestured toward their only neighbor, a stone’s throw down the road.The light on the back porch illuminated the wide stretch of recently mown lawn between the two houses.“Linda.She mentioned the septic problem to me?I guess she and DeeDee had a standing dinner date on Wednesdays.”
DeeDee had had a more active social life in the past twelve months than Joe had, and she’d been dead for four of them.That was depressing.
“Right.Linda,” Joe said.He wondered if she and Austin were going to continue the Wednesday dinner date.
“I’ll call her.”Austin stepped back into the trailer.When he returned to the door with his phone, he arrived without a yogurt and wearing a hoodie.
Joe and Starling shamelessly eavesdropped as Austin asked Linda if she had a dog.
“Uh, I don’t know.”Austin pulled the phone away from his mouth.“What did it look like?”
“A yellow-cream blur.We saw it sprinting away,” Joe explained.
Austin relayed the information, then went pale and yelped, “What?!”
Joe and Starling leaned in.“What is it?”Joe asked, worried.
