Junie is playing on a brand-new playmat on the floor of the bedroom we’ve been sharing in the hotel while I flip between images of houses on my phone and the local community college catalogue.
Ever since the fire, Vito Bianchi has been texting me every day he’s not working to check in on me and Juniper. It’s sweet and very chill.
I never get the sense that he’s flirting, not that I’d mind if he did. I never really thanked him for being so kind to me the night of the fire. It was all such a shock. I didn’t realize he was a firefighter, so I had the hardest time in the moment recognizing who he was.
But since that night, I have to be honest, I think about handsome Vito Bianchi—and I think about him a lot. Too much.
And ever since I moved to Star Falls, I’ve been thinking about what comes next. I have ten years of guaranteed income and some money set aside for Junie’s education, but the reality is, time is going to pass, and I’m going to need a career.
I can’t imagine spending ten years out of the workforce to raise my daughter as a single mom is going to make for a really impressive future résumé.
“What should we do today, Junebug?” While my daughter chews on a plastic spatula, I hold up one finger on my right hand. “Junie,” I say, trying to get her to follow the numbers. “One means we go to college and check out the campus.” Then I hold up two fingers on my left hand. “And two means we go shopping for a new house.”
I smile at her and hold up both hands. “One or two, Junie? One or two?” I hold up the corresponding fingers to help reinforce the numbers while I let my sweet girl pick our plan for the day.
Junie climbs up onto her bare feet and reaches one hand toward my right hand and the other toward my left. “One, two,” she laughs.
I pick her up and cuddle her close. She smells sweet and fresh, her soft brown curls silky against my cheeks. I smooch her and blow ticklish raspberries against her neck.
“You want it all, huh? One and two.”
She laughs hard and kicks her feet, so I put her down and she drops to the playmat to grab a toy.
I check the time. It’s only half past nine in the morning. We have no insurance calls to make, no clothes or furniture to replace. We have the whole day ahead of us, and I am hell-bent on making my future in Star Falls a lot better than the first couple of weeks have been.
“So, it’s settled,” I say. “Let’s do both.”
I call a local real estate agent and inquire about a few properties. Once I get through to someone and share the properties I saw online, a nice woman named Taylor agrees to call me back as soon as she can set up viewings.
“I might not be able to set them all up today,” she warns. “But I believe at least two of the properties have lockboxes, so with some notice, we should be able to get inside.”
Taylor takes some information from me, including my name, current address, and my driver’s license number. I’m a little hesitant to give that out over the phone, but then she explains it’s a safety precaution they put in place for the agent’s sake.
“We’d like you to take a picture of your license and text that to this number,” she tells me. “Along with the names and ages of all the people who will be attending the walk-through.”
“Oh,” I say. “Okay. How soon do I need to get you that information?”
“An hour before the first showing, I’ll check the system and make sure we have everything we need. So, the sooner you can get that over, the better. But at the latest, one hour before we actually plan to meet. Of course, we don’t have firm plans now, so if you can get things to me this morning, we should be good to go as soon as I have time slots confirmed.”
“I can do that,” I tell her. “The only thing I’m not sure about is the age of one of the people in my party.” A slow smile spreads over my face. “I mean, I need to confirm that he’s even available. I am new to town, and I only have a few local friends.”
“How sweet, Eden. Where did you move here from?”
I give her the standard song and dance. Moved from LA, single mama, one-year-old baby.
She asks me the usual questions—did I ever see anyone famous, is LA traffic as bad as they say, do I miss the weather?
I did, in fact, see many famous people—it was part of my job. But since those so-called celebrities were also my undoing, I give my standard answer to that question too. “I once sat in a booth at a diner behind Keanu Reeves.”
That’s actually true. I did, so I don’t have to embellish too much for that story.
After I answer all Taylor’s questions—yes, in person, he looks exactly like he does in movies, and no, I didn’t speak to him. Yes, he seemed really, really nice. I confirm that yes, LA traffic is the worst, and yes, I do miss the weather a little.
“But I really love the seasons,” I explain. “I’m enjoying having a real fall here in the Midwest.”
After we’ve exhausted her questions, she reminds me to send over my license and the names, and she promises to send over a time as soon as she’s set up some showings.
Before I send over my driver’s license, I grab my phone and hover a finger over the text messages. I pull up one hunky firefighter’s number, and before I can talk myself out of it, I send off a text.
