Page 22 of Love It or List It
Caught up in the song, one of his favourites, he kept playing all the way through to the end.
When the last notes faded, he opened his eyes and found Austin still standing to the right and staring somewhat wide-eyed.Looked like Joe had finally managed to surprise him.
“What do you think?Should I take my show on the road?”Joe batted his lashes.
Austin coughed and rolled his eyes.“You’ll need a better instrument if you plan on going professional.”
“Hey, she’s a fine instrument.”Joe swiped a hand across the open lid.
“I mean.It’s shockingly okay-sounding,” Austin agreed.“What’s the make?”He fished out his phone.
“Sherlock-Manning.”
“What, seriously?Okay.Hmm, looks like a Canadian company.They opened in 1902 and existed until the eighties.”
“So what you’re saying is that this thing is anywhere from forty to a hundred and twenty years old.”
“I guess so.”Austin looked at the piano again, as if he could guesstimate the age by the look alone.Joe had respect for Austin’s varied knowledge of antique and vintage items, but he doubted it stretched that far.
“I’ll buy you out of it,” Joe said quickly.
Austin looked up and blinked.“What?”
“Just….”Joe couldn’t explain it, the sudden panic he felt at the idea of Austin trying to determine the instrument’s value, offloading it on some Facebook Marketplace ad.“I want to keep this one.”
It wasn’t that weird, right?Austin had kept those bowls and a few of the dishes—nothing worth as much as a piano or anything, but—
“You don’t have to buy me out.”He put his phone back in his pocket and the thing in Joe’s chest that had tightened at the idea of the piano leaving him loosened again.“But you do have to get off your ass and help me clean out the rest of the house.”
Half an hour later, he was trying to move the filing cabinet in the office, but when he called out to Austin for help, no one answered.Annoyed, he squeezed his way around the various furniture toward the dining room.“Austin?”
“Joe?Thank fuck,” came the muffled voice—from behind him.Joe turned around.The noise had come from the closed bathroom door.“I’m stuck and don’t have my phone.”
“How exactly did you get stuck?”
A deep sigh.“The fucking door handle came off.”
Joe blinked.It was still attached on the outside.But when he reached out to open the door, his side came off in his hand.“Ah.”He knelt down to peek through the hole where the doorknob was supposed to go.He could see the light on the other side, as well as some kind of mechanism that obviously worked the lock and latch.“Okay, so… any idea how to open the door?”
“You could pop the hinges off, but that’s probably overkill.”
God, Joe hoped so.This door looked pretty heavy.It would be awkward as fuck to try to get it back on.“Yeah, let’s call that Plan C.”He registered movement on the other side, then made out the dark brown of Austin’s iris peering back through the hole.“Did you lock it?”
“Unfortunately.”
Shit.“Did youunlockit before the handle came off?”
“I fucking hope so.I really don’t want to spend the rest of my life in the john.”
“I don’t want that either.At some point I’m going to have to pee.”
“I guess I could go out the window.”
Despite much coaxing, that window had never opened more than four inches.“Plan Z,” Joe said.“I don’t want to buy a new window for Christmas.”He squinted at the various metal bits that made up the handle.“I’ll go get a screwdriver.”
The screwdriver, despite its many interchangeable tips, did not appear to be the correct tool.Whatever Joe managed to unscrew didn’t seem capable of unlatching the door.
“Maybe I can get it from this side,” Austin said impatiently.“Can you push it under the door?”
