Declan takes notice of the panic on my face and jumps in to respond.
“Actually, Blair is interested in exploring her options before making a decision.” His tone is kind but firm. It’s the same tone he uses when he’s delegating tasks to the employees at the coffee shop. And even through my panic, I find watching him take the reins of the situation without being domineering attractive. Definitely not what I’m supposed to be contemplating right now, I chastise myself.
“Oh, okay!” She stops texting. “Well, for a property like this, you could have a nice nest egg for yourself.” She looks me up and down. “Especially for someone so young.”
Funny. She didn’t look at Declan like he was so young.
“We’re looking at about six hundred seventy-eight square feet. Tiny, but walking distance to the ocean in this part of town…” She flips through something on her phone. “You’re probably looking at about one point two,” she finishes, looking up at Declan.
One point two? As in a hundred twenty thousand dollars? That would bemorethan a nice nest egg, that could be enough to—
“Million,” Declan clarifies, looking at me.
“MILLION?” I blurt, forgetting myself and the fact that Emily is staring at us.
“I’ll give you two some privacy.” She manages to look like someone rolling their eyes without actually doing the motion before walking to the kitchen to continue texting.
“M-million? Are you messing with me?” I clamp my hand over my mouth to stop the onslaught of nervous rambling I feel making its way up my chest.
Declan seems to be fighting a smile.
“Why are you laughing? Are you being serious?” I plead.
“I’m sorry. I’m not laughing.” He’s literally laughing. “It’s just, I thought you knew that.”
I stare at him, stupefied.
It feels like I’m living in one of those fantasy books where a sixteen-year-old girl is told she just became queen of an entire kingdom because her father died.
“Obviously I didn’t know that, Declan! I just graduated college, and my mother and I lived rent-free in Lottie’s house our entire lives. How was I supposed to know this tiny cottage was worth over a million dollars!?” I’m trying to whisper-yell so as to not further reveal how ignorant I am to Emily, who is hitting her phone screen so vehemently, I’m shocked her nails aren’t chipped.
My head spins with the possibilities of how that much money could change my life—not only mine but my mom’s, too. We could be taken care of for… life? How fast can two people go through a million dollars? Would I have to pay taxes on that? Also, why is Declan not shocked? Why does he know so much about real estate?
“Was your house a million dollars?” I step toward him conspiratorially, voice hushed so that Emily doesn’t overhear.
The question seemed too ludicrous to be answered seriously, but when Declan’s face doesn’t change, I realize that it’s not too ludicrous.
At his silence, it dawns on me. “Oh my gosh. It was.”
“We have a lot of catching up to do,” he says near my ear, looking over my shoulder to make sure Emily is still busy texting.
“Yeah!” I hiss. “Ya think?”
I could say yes to selling the house right now and move to New York City within the month. This would change everything. But at the same time, if I had that much money, why would I move to New York City? I look at Declan, notice the glisten on his bottom lip, and then remember. Oh yeah. That’s why.
But if Declan wasn’t in the picture, I had still spent the past four years ignoring myself in order to achieve what I believed would bring me and my mom independence.
Could I still attain that autonomy here? In a house I didn’t earn, across the street from a boy I spent my whole life loving, in a city where Lottie’s absence was apparent on every street corner? It seemed so… painful. But it was painful either way.
Grief swirled in my stomach. I didn’t want to flippantly rush my way through this, but the decision felt like aconfrontation. One that confirmed Lottie was really gone. I couldn’t just leave Seabrook knowing this house was here.
“How much do you think she could charge a month for rent here?” Declan asks Emily.
Without looking up from her phone, she says, “Oh, at least thirty-five hundred. And that’s on the low end.”
Declan looks at me to gauge my reaction. There’s concern pinching his eyebrows, and his bottom lip juts out slightly from the tension.
“And if she wanted to live here? Is it paid off? Property taxes?” He gestures with his hand like, “insert etcetera details.”
