I couldn’t suppress a giggle. “Well, what do we do?”
He gave the door a good once-over. “The hinges look to be on the inside, so we can’t pop them…”
“Locksmith?”
“You’re not in a hurry, right?” he asked, and I shook my head. “Then let’s try a skeleton key.”
“You have a skeleton key?”
“No, but most of these old houses have locks that can be opened with one of just a few keys. That’s how they did it back then. You can order them online.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I’ll order them.”
I shook my head. “This is my project. I’ll order them.”
“My treat. Look, you never know when I’ll need them for a house refurb.”
“Yeah, while you’re building your Tuscan-tropical McMansions.”
Landon put a hand to his heart. “That hurt.” And actually, he did look sort of hurt.
“I — oh. I’m sorry.” I blinked away his hypnotic gaze. “OK. You can order the keys if you want. Now I’m dying to know what’s in there.”
“You’ll find out soon enough. The next question is, what are you going to do with this place?”
“The whole house, you mean?” I took a few steps into the room, sighed and shrugged. “Oh, hell. I have no idea. I mean, look at it. It’s a mess.”
He glanced around. “It’s a treasure.”
“The kitchen and bathrooms alone are going to cost a fortune.”
“You can go retro. Get some deals.”
“And then what? Live here? I mean, no offense, but I can barely afford to live with you, and I only did that because I couldn’t afford my own place and my mom’s house is way too small.”
“Youownthis place. Plus, you didn’t want to live with your mom,” Landon said.
“True.” My smile was thin. “Not after being a grown-up in the real world.” And after my introduction to the real world completely sucked.
“And you like me.”
I laughed, pushing down the memory of my disaster in Orlando. After today, I liked him a lot better than I used to. “This is highly impractical.”
“Not if you turned it into something. Bohemia would probably welcome this becoming a tourist attraction or a bed and breakfast.”
I shook my head. “Bed and breakfast? Cook and do laundry all day long? Not for me.”
“You could hire someone to do that stuff, maybe. Or how about an event venue? You do wedding videos, right?”
“Yeah, but—” I didn’t want to do wedding videos for a living. But to make a little cash while I made films or had a great video marketing job… “I don’t know if I want to run an event venue.”
“You hire someone for the details. It’s a business. You borrow a little, make it work. This place is right on the edge of the riverside residential area and close to downtown. I’m sure the zoning board would approve the plan.”
“But this … this place … I can’t possibly borrow enough to fix up this place. I mean, what would this cost to fix up?”
His eyes narrowed, and I could almost see the numbers flashing in his mental calculator. He shrugged. “Not sure. Half a mill?”
