Page 23 of Melbourne
“I’m just not in a great mood.Why did he wait so long in finding a house?They’ve been together for a month now.As it stands right now, we have to get everything off the truck tonight so that they’re not sleeping at the bed and breakfast in town.Who plans things that way?”Fowler popped him in the back of the head once.“What was that for?If you don’t agree with me that’s fine but you don’t have to try and take my head off.”
“First of all, take it down a notch.I didn’t hit you nearly as hard as I could have.Secondly, they’ve been dealing with their work schedule.Unlike the other wives, Sammy isn’t going to give up her job just because she married into money.She likes what she does and is, from what I hear really good at running the restaurant.This was the only two days that she could get off in a row.”Sidney said that they were still cutting it close.“Close to what?They have all the time in the world to get things set up.And if you didn’t want to help then you should have stayed home.”
“I don’t mind working to help them out.But don’t you think that this is a little rushed right now?I would have had my house filled out before I bought it.”Fowler told him it didn’t always work out that way.“I guess not.But I’m not one to leave things until the last minute.I plan to be living in my house when my mate comes along.”
“Good for you.And what if she has a house of her own, like Amy did?Or one like Emma had?Then what would you do?”Sidney said that they’d end up selling one of them.“I think what Melbourne and Sammy are doing is great.One more thing that they can cross off their list.And from what I’ve heard, they had a list that they worked on together and purchased everything together as a couple.I like it that way.”
They were asked to bring in the table and chairs for the dining room.It was a room that he decided that he liked more than the others that his brothers had.This one had a large table and twelve chairs that would fit around a round table that fit in the room well.There were also extra leaves to put into it so that they could enlarge it to fit as many as eighteen people, and it would not seem all that crowded.The round table would make for better conversations around the thing, he thought.
“How about you try to be nice instead of thinking that you’d do so much better?Look at the two of them, do they look like they’re mad because they waited too long in buying a house.And according to Melbourne, they’re helping out Mrs.Barnes who owns the B&B by stimulating the economy a bit.She told me that it surely did help her to have the place used when she would normally not have anyone staying.”He said he’d not thought of that.“Well, they could have rented another condo that was bigger than where they’re staying but they like being pampered a bit too.Mrs.Barnes runs a nice place and I’d hate for her to go out of business just because she doesn’t have enough visitors coming around.”
They not only got the table put together but also most of the chairs unboxed as well.When they were finished with the room, Sammy brought in the pretty sun catchers that she’d gotten to hang in the windows that were a perfect match to the place mats that she’d picked up too.Sidney thought thathe’d like place mats over a table cloth more anyway.
The living room was about finished when they were done with the dining room.The three overstuffed couches looked great in the room, and he had to try out one of them to see if they were as comfy as they looked.Sure enough, they were more so, and he could see himself sitting here watching a game on the television while hanging out with his brothers.
“The television will be delivered in an hour.They said that they could even hang it for us if we wanted.We did spend a great deal in their store so I’m betting that isn’t a service that they just offer to anyone.”Melbourne thanked him for coming to help out.“I know you had a lot to do today but this is so much more fun than I thought it would be.We’ve even ordered food to pig out on while we break in the living room.”
“I love your couches.”He said that Sammy had picked them out and suggested that they get three of them.“She has great tastes.And the lamps go perfectly with them too.Like they were made for each other.”
“They’re from two different stores, believe it or not.The first store didn’t have anything that we both liked—I love the fact that we were able to pick out our first houseful of furniture together.It made it seem more for us and not something that one of us would have picked out alone.I wouldn’t have gotten this.It seemed to fluffy.But once I sat in them, I knew she was right.”
“There’s a lot to be said for doing something like this together, I guess.”He told him that they’d picked out everything together, and it seemed more special for them.Sidney was beginning to see that his brother had done things up right, and he might well be doing the same thing.But he was going to get himself a bigger condo so that when he did find her, they’d have a place to stay before they got a house.“I heard that your father-in-law is staying at your condo.Is that all right with him?”
“Not only is he very happy that he isn’t living in an abandoned house but he likes having more than four walls to look at too.He’s going to stay there after he gets better too and his leg is healed.It makes it so much easier for his daughters to visit him as well.”Sidney was helping Melbourne break down boxes when the food arrived.
They still had quite a bit to put in rooms but since the dining and living rooms were set up, they at least had a place to eat and to hang out.And he couldn’t get over how much he loved the two rooms now that they were finished.
The food was a big hit and he was told that if they were still working at dinner time they’d be ordering out again.He could see that they were going to need to order out, as they not only had the kitchen items to unbox, but there were the library and bedrooms that needed to be put together, too.By the time he was finished with the first bedroom, just taking cardboard off the furniture, he was ready for his second round of food.And he’d also realized that the two of them had set up their home just the way he’d hope to do his own someday.But they’d done it together.He thought that was the point that Fowler was trying to make when he popped him in the head.
After the second bedroom was finished up, it didn’t take nearly as long to unbox the things in the second bedroom as it did the first one, he was ready for a nap.There had been good food at the table when they’d all eaten and he needed to lie down.As soon as he got into the kitchen to help out there, Sammy came to find him.
“I was wondering if you could set up the computer as a surprise for Melbourne.It’ll be nice to have them both set up but I know that he’s missing some important investments that he’d be on top of but for the move.”He told her that it would be his pleasure.“Thanks.I love that we both have our own offices so that we can work from home.When I was working from my home before moving here, I was using a board across two chairs to use for a desk.That’s about all I had room for.But I can see myself spreading out in my office and not having to be at work so much.I love what I do but I do spend too much time there, I’m beginning to realize.”
Sidney was glad to be doing something like this for his brother.And with all the help they were getting things squared away quickly.As soon as the television arrived, he noticed that his brothers were spending time in living room rather than in the rooms they were set to be working in.He had tolaugh every time someone said that the furniture was almost too comfy to sit on, and they were hard-pressed not to take a nap.
Once the room was set up in his brothers office, he was jealous at the desk that had been delivered, he set to working on setting up the computer system.It was a new one too and again he was slightly envious of the fact that they’d gotten such a good computer when they moved in.After having it all set up, including the fax machine—something that he was going to keep in mind when he needed to fax something, he went into Sammy’s office to set her up as well.Her desk was just as beautiful as his brothers had been but in a more feminine way.She had suncatchers in her office windows as well.He was just finishing up when someone mentioned food was going to be ordered and he’d not realized that he’d spend six hours just setting up the computers for his family.He was also starving again.
Instead of being pizzas and subs for them all there was massive amount of Chinese food delivered.Even though he didn’t care for soup when he had his food, there were at least two gallons of hot sour as well as egg drop to enjoy.There were dozens of egg rolls to eat, and his favorite, fried dumplings.Since there were multiples of each thing, he didn’t worry about them running out of food before everyone got their fill.
Everything was finished at about eight-thirty.Even the cardboard had been cut down into manageable strips that were going to be tossed in the recycling bins in town.Nothing was missing, he’d been told, but one of the couches had a broken leg that was going to be replaced by the store in the morning.The house for just being moved into looked like they’d been living in it for the past several years instead of less than twenty-four hours.
It was the finishing touches that made him realize that there were touches of both his brother and his mate in the house.There were little things that had been bought in mind of their first home together.In addition to the sun catchers in the dining room and her office, they’d managed to get comfy looking lap blankets for the back of couches as well as framed artwork that went with the rooms that they’d been bought for.There were decisions that the two of them made together that made the house look like a home and that was what they had intended.
By the time he was at his own home that night, he found himself looking around his place and being slightly ashamed of it.There was nothing personal in any of the rooms but for a picture of his parents together.He didn’t have any lap blankets on the back of his one couch that had seen better days.The kitchen looked like a single person lived there with his one plate, fork and spoon.He didn’t even have a good set of knives to use when he did get around to cooking, which wasn’t all that often anymore.His bathroom was more drab than any of the other rooms.There wasn’t any kind of a mess waiting for him but he really should have cleaned his sink off when he’d been in there this morning and now he had white toothpaste stains on the counter that looked out of place even for him.He wasn’t a slob but if there wasn’t someone coming in once a week to clean up after him, he didn’t want to think about how badly the place would look.He thought of his brother hiring a cook and staff, and wanted the same thing as he did.But with his mate helping him level things out in a house that they picked out together.
Now all he had to do was meet her so that he could pick things out with her together.So they’d be as happy as his brothers were.It occurred to him that he was the last of them to find their mate, and he was sort of happy about that.But mostly he was afraid.He wasn’t going to mess up like his brothers had, but be like Melbourne and go into it with an open mind and an equally open heart.His life’s work was to make his mate happy and he was going to start that right now by being a better man than he’d been before.He wanted to be someone that she came to easily and happily.However he had a feeling that it was going to be nothing like his brothers were when they were mated and he was going to be left standing when she kicked his ass about something.Secretly he was happy about that too.
~*~
Belinda was to go before the judge in the morning to see when she could get out of the jail.She’d been as nice as she could be, much like she’d been in the prison when she was around the cops.They could make or break you when it came to having you in trouble with the judge and she wanted to be out tobe free of all the curtailments that were driving her crazy by being locked up again.
She’d sworn when she got out of prison that she was never going to go back.She supposed that everyone said that.But she didn’t like being in jail either.The very nerve of Allen pressing charges against her had her spitting mad.All she’d done was make a point about him giving her shit and knocked him down a few stairs.Now she couldn’t find the slimy bastard.
When she’d stepped over him to leave the building, she had at least made sure he was breathing.She, of course, had to kick him a few times to get him out of her way, but that in no way made her a terrible person.She might well have fallen too if she’d tried to step around him he’d been laying at an awkward angle.People just didn’t understand the relationship that they had between them.She thought that she was smart in only knocking him down the stairs and not really hurting him while he was down.
“Stupid people.Where do they get off putting me in jail like this?”She watched as the officer from this morning came down the hall.Usually, they made rounds about four times a day, more of them, she supposed, when she was sleeping.When he stopped in front of her cell, she was told that she had a visitor.It was her daughter, Sammy.
“Sammy?I thought that she was too busy with her new house.”The officers here were very good at keeping her informed about the goings on with her family.None of them knew anything much about her as she didn’t socialize much but they knew all there was to know about her soon to be husband.He was rich as they came and they’d just bought them a house.A big one too she found out.But she couldn’t get anything about her Allen.Where he was nor how he was doing.He’d better be just fine or she was going to give him something to whine about, damn it.
