His shoulders jump in surprise. “What?”
“Ha!” I say again, my finger pointed at him. “J’accuse!”
“What?” He’s looking at me like I’ve lost all my marbles, but I’ve never felt more alert.
“You hate all the white paint on the house too. Admit it!”
His confusion melts away, and something else takes its place. Surprise and…maybe embarrassment?
“I do,” he finally says.
“So, why do it?” I ask. “Why paint all the brick white? It looks so wrong. It looks so…so…” I grasp for words, but the only one that comes to mind is not a word at all: Un-Nikhil. The whole thing is so Un-Nikhil. Because Nikhil is old school. He’s warm red brick that’sstood for ages. He’s midcentury furniture made by hand. He’s a house that somehow survives the winds and rains and floods of a hurricane. He’s not shiplap and white paint slapped on top, covering up what was there before. He’s steady and stable and firm and…
“Resale value,” Nikhil says.
I jump. “What?”
“I painted it for the resale value. My realtor suggested it. She said the fresh coat of paint has really helped some of her older homes sell.”
“Your realtor,” I repeat blandly. “You’re…you’re selling the house?”
He rubs a hand against the back of his neck. “I’m just looking at options.”
“Options for selling. For selling the house.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He swallows, the muscles in his throat flexing. “I’m doing some work on another property. Some repairs. And I could use the funds.”
Nikhil needs money. The thought lances through me, accompanied by a sharp pinprick of guilt. I hate that my mind turned in this direction first. Coldly analyzing his words, finding the weak point. Finding the one thing I’ve been searching for all along: leverage.
I don’t want to be this way. I don’t want to see everything through the lens of negotiation. Not with him.
“What kind of property?”
He’s quiet a moment. “An older building. Really old. It needs a lot of work.”
I nod, an idea growing. “I’m only asking because there are certain kinds of loans out there. The normal building and construction ones, sure, but if there’s any chance the property’s old enough to be considered historic, there are special grants you could apply for.Some of them are true grants. You don’t even have to pay them back.”
He clears his throat. “Elizabeth mentioned something like that, but she’s so busy, and I didn’t want to take up more of her time or ask—” He stops, but I know what he means. He didn’t want to ask her for help.
“This is the project she mentioned, right? The one you’re working on?”
“Yeah. It is.”
“I could help you with it,” I say. “I’d be happy to do the research and put the grant proposal together. I’m sure someone I know has ties to the local preservation board or committee. I’m sure Elizabeth does. We could start there.” My wheels are really turning now. “There might even be some community development grants available. If it has some kind of commercial purpose, we could argue it benefits the community in some way. I’ve got a friend at HUD who could walk us through a lot of this. I could set up a call for the three of us, or even just do it myself and get the information first. But what’s the project exactly?”
“It’s an inn,” he says. “Or it will be once the repairs are done. That’s the hope anyway.”
“An inn,” I repeat. He was serious before, then.
“Yeah. You know I’ve…I’ve always loved design and for a while now I’ve been wanting to design a place from the ground up, and when I saw this place…” He fidgets. “That’s actually where I was earlier, before the storm. I had to board it up, and it took more prep than I thought. I’d stripped some of the roof a couple weeks ago, so it’s pretty exposed.” His forehead creases, worry creeping into his eyes. “I don’t know if I did enough. It’s closer to the coast than we are, so it probably got more of a storm surge. It may not even have made it, so maybe it doesn’t even matter anymore, but—”
“It’ll be fine,” I say. “Even if there’s damage, you’ll be able to fix it. I’m sure of it.”
He looks at me now, a carefully neutral expression on his face. “If you wouldn’t mind sharing more about, you know, any grants or loans the property could be eligible for, I’d…I’d appreciate that. I could use the help.” He swallows, his hands growing tight around the broom handle, his knuckles turning pale. “Ineedyour help.”
