Chapter 2: The Final Walkthrough
The keys were cold in his pocket. He kept touching them through the fabric of his jeans, a nervous habit he'd developed over the last three days, like a kid checking to make sure his lunch money was still there. The house was his. The paperwork was signed, the wire transfer had cleared, and the bank had sent him a confirmation email that he'd read seventeen times, each time expecting to find a mistake, a typo, some clerical error that would snatch it all away.
There was no mistake.
Ethan Caldwell, twenty-three years old, owner of a hundred-year-old disaster with a Florida-shaped water stain on the ceiling and a kitchen that smelled like something had crawled into the walls and died.
He'd spent the first two nights sleeping on an air mattress in the living room, listening to the house talk. The pipes groaned. The floorboards creaked. Something in the attic scratched and skittered, and Ethan had spent an hour researching whether squirrels could chew through electrical wiring before deciding he didn't actually want to know the answer.
On the third day, he woke up to a drip.
It wasn't the faucet—that had been dripping since he moved in, a steady metronome that he'd almost learned to ignore. No, this was new. A soft, rhythmic plink, plink, plink, coming from somewhere above his head. He looked up at the ceiling and watched a brown droplet form on the edge of the Florida stain, swell, and fall.
"Great," he muttered. "Fucking great."
He grabbed a bucket from the closet—the only thing the previous owners had left behind, along with a broken rake and a single gardening glove—and positioned it under the drip. The bucket was cracked, but it would hold for now. He'd add it to the list. The list that was already three pages long, single-spaced, with subcategories.
He was in the kitchen, standing in front of the open fridge and staring at the empty shelves, when he heard a knock at the front door.
Not a polite knock. Three sharp raps, quick and confident, followed by the creak of hinges as the door swung open without waiting for an answer.
"Yoohoo," Jade called out. "Anyone home?"
Ethan closed the fridge and stepped into the hallway just as she appeared in the kitchen doorway. And then he stopped walking, because his brain had momentarily short-circuited.
She was wearing a sundress. Yellow, with little white flowers, thin straps that barely clung to her shoulders. The fabric was soft and light, the kind of thing you wore on a lazy Sunday afternoon, and it ended just above her knees. Her hair was loose, tumbling around her shoulders in dark waves, and she was carrying a bottle of champagne in one hand and two plastic cups in the other.
"Knocking is a thing people do," Ethan said, and his voice came out stupid and breathless.
"I knocked." She set the bottle and cups on the counter, next to his half-empty coffee mug. "You just didn't answer fast enough."
"I was in the fridge."
"Looking for what?"
"Nothing. Everything. I don't know." He ran a hand through his hair, trying to remember how to be a person. "I haven't gone grocery shopping yet."
"I can see that." She turned in a slow circle, taking in the kitchen—the cracked tiles, the peeling linoleum, the faucet doing its little drip-drip-drip. "God, this place is a disaster. I love it."
"You're the one who sold it to me."
"I'm the one who sold you a dream, baby. There's a difference." She grabbed the champagne and twisted the wire cage off the cork. "You ready for this?"
"For champagne?"
"For celebrating. You bought a house. It's a big deal."
Ethan watched her pop the cork. It flew across the kitchen and hit the wall, and champagne fizzed over the top of the bottle, spilling onto her fingers. She laughed, licked them clean, and poured two generous cups.
"Here." She handed him one. "Drink. You look like you haven't slept in a week."
"I haven't slept in three days."
"Even better."
He took a sip. It was cheap champagne, too sweet and too cold, and it went straight to his head in a way that felt dangerous. Jade drank hers in three long swallows and poured another.
"So," she said, leaning back against the counter. "What's the verdict? Regret it yet?"
"No." He said it too fast, and she raised an eyebrow. "I mean, the roof is leaking, and there's something living in the attic, and I'm pretty sure the wiring is going to kill me in my sleep. But no. No regrets."
She smiled. Not the professional smile she'd used during the showings, but the real one. The one that crinkled the corners of her eyes and made her look younger, softer.
"You're going to be fine," she said. "This place has good bones. I told you that."
"You also told me the creaking was cosmetic."
"It is."
"The hallway floor sagged when I walked on it this morning."
"Cosmetic sag."
"That's not a thing."
"It's a thing." She took another sip of champagne. "Trust me."
He wanted to argue, but he was too tired, and the champagne was making his head fuzzy in a way that felt almost pleasant. He leaned against the counter beside her, close enough that their shoulders almost touched.
"So why are you here?" he asked. "Really. It's been three days. I figured you'd be on to the next client."
"Is that what you figured?"
"I don't know what I figured."
She set her cup down and turned to face him. The kitchen was dim, just that single flickering bulb overhead, but he could still see the way her eyes had gone darker, the way her lips had parted slightly. The same look she'd had in the master bedroom, right before she pushed him onto the mattress.
"I'm here," she said, "for the final walkthrough."
"We already did the final walkthrough. Before the closing."
"This is a different kind of walkthrough." She stepped closer. "The kind where I make sure you're properly settled in."
His heart was pounding again. That stupid, traitorous organ, beating against his ribs like it was trying to escape. He could smell her now—that same vanilla scent from before, mixed with champagne and something else, something warm and musky that made his mouth go dry.
"The bucket," he said, for no reason at all. "There's a bucket on the floor upstairs. The roof is leaking."
"I know." She reached up and touched his face, her fingers cool against his cheek. "I'll help you fix it."
"Jade—"
"Shut up."
She kissed him.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't tentative. It was the kind of kiss that demanded surrender, her tongue sliding against his, her teeth catching his lower lip and tugging just hard enough to sting. He made a sound—something between a gasp and a groan—and she swallowed it, pressing herself against him until he could feel every curve of her body through that thin cotton dress.
His hands found her waist, then her hips, then the hem of the dress. She grabbed his wrist and pushed his hand higher, under the fabric, until his fingers brushed against the damp heat between her legs.
No panties. Nothing underneath. Just her, wet and ready and so fucking warm.
"Feel that?" she murmured against his mouth. "That's what you do to me. That's what you did to me in that bedroom, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since."
He couldn't speak. His brain had shut down. All he could do was stand there, fingers pressed against her cunt, feeling her slickness coat his skin.
"I want you to fuck me," she said. "Right here. Against this counter."
The kitchen. The sagging, water-stained kitchen with the peeling linoleum and the smell of dead things in the walls. The counter where he'd been standing not five minutes ago, staring into an empty fridge like a lost child.
"Here?" he managed.
"Here." She turned around, bracing her hands on the edge of the counter, and bent over. The dress rode up, exposing the smooth curve of her ass, the backs of her thighs. "Come on, Ethan. Show me you're not scared."
He wasn't scared. That was the thing. He should have been—he was in way over his head, with the house and the woman and everything else—but standing there, looking at her bent over his cracked kitchen counter, all he felt was hungry.
He fumbled with his jeans, shoved them down just enough, and stepped up behind her. She reached back and grabbed his cock, guiding him to her entrance, and then he was inside her, sliding into that tight, wet heat in one slow thrust.
She gasped, her fingers curling against the counter. "Fuck. Yes. Just like that."
He started moving. Slow at first, trying to find a rhythm, but she pushed back against him, taking him deeper, and something broke loose inside him. He grabbed her hips and fucked her hard, the way she'd fucked him on that mattress, the sound of their bodies slapping together filling the kitchen.
The faucet dripped. The fridge hummed. Somewhere upstairs, the leak continued its steady plink-plink-plink into the cracked bucket. None of it mattered. All that mattered was the feel of her, the smell of her, the way she moaned his name like it was a prayer.
"Harder," she said. "Don't you dare go easy on me."
He didn't.
He fucked her until his legs shook, until sweat dripped down his back, until the counter creaked under their combined weight like it might give way. She came first, her whole body tensing, a long, low groan escaping her lips. Then he followed, burying himself to the hilt and spilling inside her, his vision going white at the edges.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Just stood there, panting, connected.
Then Jade laughed.
"Now it's officially christened," she said.
He pulled out slowly, his legs still trembling, and leaned against the counter beside her. She straightened her dress, ran her fingers through her hair, and grabbed the champagne bottle.
"To new beginnings," she said, and took a long swig.
Ethan watched her, still trying to catch his breath. "What are you doing here, Jade? Really?"
She lowered the bottle and looked at him. The teasing glint was gone from her eyes, replaced by something steadier. Something almost serious.
"I'm not your agent anymore," she said. "You bought the house. My job is done."
"Okay."
"But I'm not done with you." She set the bottle down and stepped closer, close enough that he could smell himself on her skin. "I want to help you fix this place up. Not as a professional. As a friend."
"A friend."
"With benefits." She grinned. "Obviously."
He should have said no. He should have pointed out that he barely knew her, that this was moving too fast, that he couldn't afford her help and he definitely couldn't afford the complications. But he looked around the kitchen—at the cracked tiles, the dripping faucet, the champagne cork on the floor—and he thought about how quiet the house had been the last three nights.
He didn't want to be alone in it anymore.
"Okay," he said.
She raised an eyebrow. "Okay?"
"Okay. You can help."
Jade's smile widened. "Good answer." She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the hallway. "Come on. You're going to show me everything that's wrong with this place, and then we're going to make a plan."
"It's a long list."
"I've got time."
She led him out of the kitchen and into the living room, where the Florida-shaped stain watched them from above like a judgmental god. Ethan looked up at it and sighed.
"We're going to have to fix that first," he said.
"We'll get to it." She squeezed his hand. "One thing at a time."
The champagne was still on the counter, half-empty and going flat. The bucket upstairs was still catching drips. The house creaked and groaned around them, settling into the evening, and for the first time since he'd walked through the front door, Ethan felt something other than fear.
He felt like he might actually belong here.
The words hung in the air between them, and Ethan waited for the panic to set in. It didn't. Jade was still holding his hand, her thumb tracing small circles on his knuckles, and the house creaked around them like it was settling into a new arrangement.
"Okay," she said, and let go. "First things first. We need to deal with that ceiling."
They spent the next hour walking through every room, Jade pointing out things he'd missed. The window frames in the back bedroom were rotted through. The upstairs bathroom had a leak behind the wall that was feeding a patch of black mold the size of a dinner plate. The electrical panel was a fire hazard, the foundation had a hairline crack running along the north side, and the attic insulation was probably older than Ethan's parents.
"None of it's fatal," Jade said, crouching in front of the electrical panel with a flashlight. "It's just going to take time and money and a lot of swear words."
"I don't have a lot of money."
"You have enough. We'll prioritize."
She stood up and dusted off her hands, and Ethan noticed for the first time how comfortable she looked in his house. Like she'd been there a hundred times. Like she belonged.
"We start tomorrow," she said. "I'll bring my truck. You bring your credit card."
"For what?"
"For supplies. We're going to patch that roof before the next rain, or you're going to have a swimming pool in your living room."
---
The next morning, Jade showed up at seven with a pickup truck loaded with tools. Not the kind of tools you bought at a big-box store—real tools, scarred and heavy, with handles worn smooth from years of use.
"These were my dad's," she said, hauling a ladder out of the bed. "He flipped houses for thirty years. Taught me everything I know."
Ethan took the ladder from her, surprised by the weight. "Where is he now?"
"Retired. Florida. He sends me photos of his pool and tells me I work too hard." She grabbed a bucket of roofing tar and a caulk gun. "He's not wrong."
They spent the morning on the roof. Jade moved across the shingles like she'd been born up there, her sneakers finding purchase on slopes that made Ethan's stomach drop. He followed her carefully, one hand always gripping the ladder, and tried not to look down.
"You're doing great," she called over her shoulder. "Most first-timers freeze up and have to be rescued by the fire department."
"That's not funny."
"It's a little funny."
She showed him where the flashing had pulled away from the chimney, creating a gap that let water pour straight into the attic. They patched it together, Ethan holding the tar bucket while Jade worked the caulk gun, and by noon the leak was sealed.
"That'll hold until we can get a roofer out here to do it properly," she said, wiping sweat from her forehead. "Now come on. I'm starving."
They ate sandwiches on the kitchen floor, sitting cross-legged on the peeling linoleum, and Ethan watched her demolish a turkey club with the kind of focus she usually reserved for structural damage.
"So," he said, "why are you really doing this?"
She chewed, swallowed, took a drink of water. "I told you. I want to help."
"People don't just show up and fix someone's roof for free."
"I'm not fixing it for free. I'm fixing it for experience." She set her sandwich down and looked at him. "I told you my dad flipped houses. What I didn't tell you is that I've been saving for years to buy my own place. Something I can design from scratch. But I've never actually done a full renovation myself. I've just watched."
"So I'm your guinea pig."
"You're my practice run." She grinned. "But also, I like you. And I like this house. It's got personality."
"It's got mold."
"Personality and mold. They're not mutually exclusive."
---
The days turned into weeks. Jade came over every morning, and every morning Ethan learned something new. How to patch drywall. How to replace a faucet. How to tell the difference between a load-bearing wall and one that was just there for decoration.
She was patient with him, mostly. When he accidentally put a hammer through the bathroom wall—the wrong wall, the one they weren't supposed to touch—she just sighed and handed him a patch kit.
"You're lucky you're cute," she said.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Be useful. Go get the vacuum."
He went. He was useful. He learned to measure twice and cut once, to turn off the water before unscrewing a pipe, to wear safety glasses when using a nail gun. He learned that renovation was mostly problem-solving, mostly patience, mostly showing up every day even when nothing seemed to change.
And he learned Jade.
She hummed while she worked, old songs he didn't recognize. She drank her coffee black and her water at room temperature. She had a scar on her left knee from a fall off a roof when she was twelve, and she never wore shoes inside because the sound of her own footsteps bothered her. She talked about her father with a mix of love and frustration, and she never once mentioned a mother.
She also never spent the night.
Every evening, when the light started to fade, she'd pack up her tools and head for the door. She'd kiss him—sometimes quick, sometimes slow—and then she'd leave. And Ethan would stand in the doorway, watching her truck disappear down the street, and wonder what he was supposed to do with the empty hours until morning.
---
Three weeks after the champagne, Ethan was standing in the master bedroom, staring at the windows. The same windows Jade had shown him on that first day, framing the same city skyline. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the bare floor, and he realized he hadn't thought about the Florida-shaped stain in days.
They'd fixed it. Three layers of primer and a fresh coat of white, and the ceiling looked brand new. The whole house did, almost. The floors were sanded and refinished. The kitchen had new tile. The bathroom no longer smelled like something had died in the walls, because they'd found the dead thing—a possum, desiccated and horrible—and removed it.
It was starting to feel like home.
"It looks good, doesn't it?"
He turned. Jade was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching him. She was covered in dust, her hair pulled back in a messy bun, and there was a smudge of paint on her cheek that she hadn't noticed.
"Yeah," he said. "It does."
"I told you. Good bones."
"You told me a lot of things."
"I'm usually right."
He walked toward her, and she didn't move, just watched him with those dark eyes that always seemed to see more than he wanted to show. He stopped a few inches away, close enough to feel the heat of her.
"You're staying tonight," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Is that an invitation?"
"It's a statement of fact. You've been here for three weeks. You've fixed my house. You've taught me how to use a nail gun without shooting myself in the foot." He reached up and wiped the paint smudge from her cheek. "You're staying."
She tilted her head, studying him. "What makes you so sure?"
"Because I want you to. And I think you want to stay."
She was quiet for a long moment. Then she reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him closer.
"Bedroom's still empty," she said.
"Just the mattress."
"That'll do."
They didn't make it to the mattress. He had her against the wall before they were halfway across the room, her legs wrapped around his waist, her hands tangled in his hair. He kissed her hard, hungry, and she bit his lower lip and moaned into his mouth.
"Fuck," she breathed. "I've been thinking about this all day."
"Me too."
"I know. I saw you staring at my ass when I was on the ladder."
"Everyone stares at your ass."
"Only you get to touch it."
He carried her the rest of the way and dropped her onto the bare mattress. She landed with a laugh, already pulling her shirt over her head, and he took a second to just look at her. Dust-streaked, flushed, hair falling out of its bun. The most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
"You going to stand there all night?" she asked.
"Maybe."
"Ethan."
"Yeah?"
"Get your clothes off and fuck me."
He did. He stripped out of his jeans and shirt, and she watched him with an expression that made his skin prickle. When he climbed onto the mattress, she reached for him, pulling him down on top of her.
They didn't rush. Not at first. He kissed her slowly, exploring her mouth like he had all the time in the world. She arched beneath him, her nails raking down his back, and he groaned into her neck.
"Please," she whispered. "I need you inside me."
He reached down and found her wet, so fucking wet, coating his fingers as he slid them through her folds. She gasped, her hips bucking up, and he pushed one finger inside her. Then two.
"Not that," she said. "I want your cock."
He pulled his fingers out and positioned himself between her legs. She was looking up at him, cheeks flushed, lips parted, and he wanted to remember this moment. The way the last of the daylight caught her eyes. The way she breathed his name like it was the only word that mattered.
He pushed inside her.
She was tight, hot, and she clenched around him as he sank deeper, pulling a moan from deep in his chest. He braced himself on his hands and started to move, slow at first, watching her face for every flicker of pleasure.
"Harder," she said. "Come on, Ethan. Don't be gentle."
He wasn't.
He fucked her hard, the mattress springs creaking beneath them, the headboard slamming against the wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him deeper, meeting every thrust with one of her own.
"God, yes," she gasped. "Fuck me, Ethan. Fuck me like you mean it."
He meant it. He drove into her again and again, the sound of their bodies slapping together filling the empty room. She reached up and grabbed his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin, and he knew he'd have marks tomorrow. He didn't care.
"I'm close," she said. "Don't stop."
He didn't stop. He fucked her through her orgasm, watching as her eyes rolled back and her body arched off the mattress. She screamed—actually screamed—and he felt her clench around him, tight and wet and perfect.
Then he was coming too, burying himself deep and spilling inside her, his whole body shaking with the force of it. He collapsed on top of her, both of them panting, sweaty and spent.
For a long time, neither of them moved.
Then Jade laughed.
"Now the bedroom's christened too," she said.
Ethan rolled off her, landing on his back beside her on the mattress. His heart was still pounding, and he couldn't stop smiling.
"You know," he said, "we still have the guest rooms."
She turned her head to look at him. "Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"
"We need to be thorough."
She was quiet for a second. Then she laughed again, and it was the best sound he'd ever heard.
"Okay," she said. "But I need to drink some water first."
---
They finished the guest rooms by the end of the following week. The kitchen had been christened in the first week. The bathroom took two weeks, and Ethan never looked at the tile the same way again.
And Jade never left.
Her stuff started appearing in pieces. A toothbrush. A spare set of clothes. A book she was reading that she left on the nightstand. Within a month, she was there more than she wasn't, and Ethan stopped counting the days she stayed over because it was every day.
"We should talk about this," she said one night, lying in bed beside him. The mattress was new now, a real bed frame and everything. They'd picked it out together.
"About what?"
"About what we're doing."
"I thought we were renovating."
"We finished the renovation, Ethan. Three days ago."
He hadn't thought about that. The house was done. The last of the tools were in the garage. There was nothing left to fix.
"So what now?" he asked.
She turned on her side to face him. In the dark, he could barely make out her expression.
"I don't know," she said. "I've never done this before."
"Done what?"
"Stayed."
He reached for her hand and found it. Her fingers were cold, like always. He laced them with his own and squeezed.
"Stay," he said. "That's all I want. Just stay."
She was quiet for a long time. Then she shifted closer and buried her face in his shoulder.
"Okay," she said. "Okay."
---
The next morning, Jade was gone when he woke up.
He panicked. Checked his phone. No messages. Checked the driveway. No truck.
He was standing in the kitchen, staring at the coffee maker like it might have answers, when the front door opened and she walked in carrying two cups of coffee and a paper bag.
"You're here," he said.
"I went to get breakfast." She set the coffee on the counter and looked at him. "You thought I left."
"No."
"Yes, you did. You have that look."
"What look?"
"The I-panic-when-people-leave look." She handed him a coffee. "I'm not going anywhere. I told you that."
"You also said you've never stayed."
"First time for everything."
He took the coffee and drank, watching her over the rim of the cup. She was wearing one of his shirts, her hair a mess, no makeup. She looked like she lived here.
She did live here.
"So what's the plan?" he asked.
She pulled a magazine out of the paper bag and flipped it open to a page she'd dog-eared. A photo of a house—old, Victorian, with a wrap-around porch and a turret.
"I found this online," she said. "It's a foreclosure. Been on the market for six months. Nobody wants it because it needs a complete gut job."
"It's beautiful."
"It's a disaster." She smiled. "It's a character piece."
He looked at the photo, then at her. "You want to buy it."
"I want to buy it with you."
The words hung between them. Ethan set down his coffee and took the magazine from her hands, studying the house. He could see it now—the bones, the potential, the same battle he'd fought two years ago when he first saw the Florida stain.
"Why me?" he asked.
"Because you're good at this. Because you don't give up." She stepped closer. "Because I want to design it and you want to build it, and together we might actually make something beautiful."
He looked at her. At the woman who'd pushed him onto a bare mattress and changed his life, then stayed to help him put the pieces back together.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay?"
"Let's do it."
She kissed him, and the coffee went cold, and the magazine fell onto the counter where the champagne had been, and somewhere upstairs the house creaked like it was laughing.
They had work to do.