Chapter 3: Demo Day and Dirty Work
The Victorian was a monster.
Not the kind of monster that hid under beds or lurked in closets, but the kind that swallowed you whole, one room at a time, until you forgot what daylight looked like. Two weeks in, and Ethan had already lost track of how many dumpsters they'd filled. The lathe and plaster came down in clouds of white dust that coated everything—their clothes, their hair, the insides of their lungs. Every wall they opened revealed something worse: knob-and-tube wiring that looked like it had been installed during the Civil War, pipes wrapped in asbestos, a family of raccoons living in the chimney.
Marcus had named them. Kevin, Sheila, and the twins.
"You can't just evict a family, Ethan," he'd said, swinging his sledgehammer at a load-bearing wall he absolutely should not have been swinging at. "They've got rights."
"Raccoons don't have rights."
"Tell that to Kevin. He looked at me funny."
The raccoons eventually left on their own, probably because Marcus kept trying to feed them ham sandwiches. The wall he'd demolished was still leaning dangerously, propped up by a two-by-four and a prayer. Priya had threatened to kill him if he touched another structural element without supervision.
"I'm serious," she said, stabbing her finger at his chest. "One more stunt like that, and I'm burying you in the foundation."
"You'd have to pour concrete first."
"I'll make Ethan do it. He owes me."
Ethan did owe her. Priya had taken one look at his original budget spreadsheet—the one he'd made before Jade got involved, the one that assumed they could fix everything for under fifteen thousand dollars—and laughed until she cried. Then she'd rebuilt the entire thing from scratch, adding columns for contingencies and unexpected discoveries and the inevitable costs of Marcus breaking things.
"So you're saying I was optimistic," Ethan said.
"I'm saying you were delusional. There's a difference."
She was right, of course. Priya was always right. It was the most annoying thing about her, and also the most useful. She'd negotiated the price down on the Victorian by eleven percent, found a contractor who would work weekends for cash, and somehow convinced the city to expedite their permits. When Ethan asked how she'd managed it, she just smiled and said, "I climbed a lot of trees as a kid. I learned how to get what I want."
---
The living room was the worst of it. The wallpaper had been applied sometime in the seventies—garish floral patterns in shades of brown and orange—and underneath it, the plaster was crumbling. They'd spent the last three days tearing it all out, exposing the bare wood beams and the rotting crown molding, and the room looked like something from a horror movie. A single bare bulb swung from the ceiling on a frayed wire, casting long shadows across the debris.
Marcus stood in the center of the chaos, sledgehammer resting on his shoulder like he was posing for a magazine cover.
"You know," he said, "when you told me you were buying another house, I thought you'd learned your lesson."
"I didn't learn anything."
"Clearly." He gestured around the room. "This place is haunted. I'm not saying that as a joke. I'm saying it as a fact. There's a ghost in the basement, and his name is Reginald, and he hates you."
"Reginald?"
"He told me. We're friends now."
Jade appeared in the doorway, covered in dust, her dark curls escaping from a bandana she'd tied around her head. She had a smear of white plaster across her cheek and a look in her eyes that said she'd just discovered something terrible.
"The bathroom," she said. "It's worse than we thought."
Ethan followed her down the hallway, stepping over piles of debris and around a stack of salvaged doors. The bathroom was a wreck—the toilet had been removed days ago, leaving a rusted flange sticking up from the floor, and the cast-iron tub was still in place, a massive claw-foot monster that weighed more than his first car.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"The subfloor is rotten. We're going to have to pull the tub."
"The tub that weighs three hundred pounds?"
"That tub." She kicked the side of it, and it didn't budge. "We're going to need Marcus."
"He's busy talking to Reginald."
"Then we're going to need to interrupt him."
---
Getting the tub out took four hours, three near-death experiences, and one trip to the hardware store for a pry bar. Marcus nearly dropped it on his foot twice, Priya coordinated the whole operation like a general commanding troops, and Ethan mostly just tried not to get crushed. By the time they wrestled it down the stairs and out to the front porch, all four of them were sweating, swearing, and seriously considering whether the house was worth saving.
"It's worth it," Jade said, reading his expression. "It's always worth it."
"You said that about the last house too."
"And look how that turned out."
She had a point. The last house—the one with the Florida stain and the dead possum—had turned into something he actually loved. The Victorian could be the same. Probably.
Maybe.
---
By evening, they'd made more progress than Ethan expected. The bathroom was gutted, the rotten subfloor exposed, and the tub sat on the front porch like a trophy. Marcus had passed out on a drop cloth in the living room, a half-empty beer clutched to his chest. Priya had taken her beer to the porch, saying something about needing air and wanting to check the foundation.
Which left Ethan and Jade alone.
She was leaning against the doorway of the gutted bathroom, watching him with that look she got when she wanted something. He knew the look. He'd seen it on the first night, when she'd shown up at his house with champagne and no underwear, and he'd seen it a dozen times since.
The bathroom was empty now—just bare studs, exposed pipes, and a hole in the floor where the toilet used to be. The single bare bulb from the living room cast a weak light through the doorway, but the bathroom itself was mostly shadow.
"Come here," she said.
He went.
She grabbed his hand and pulled him inside, pressing him against the wall. The studs were rough against his back, and the smell of dust and mold was everywhere, but he didn't care. Her mouth was on his before he could think, her tongue sliding against his, her hands fumbling with the waistband of his jeans.
"Jade," he said, breathless. "Marcus is right there."
"Marcus is unconscious. He could sleep through a nuclear apocalypse."
"Priya's on the porch."
"Priya knows what we're doing. She's been waiting for it all day." Jade pulled back, grinning. "She told me to make good choices."
"And you're deciding to—"
"I'm deciding to get fucked over a tub rim. You got a problem with that?"
He didn't.
She turned around and bent over the cast-iron tub they'd just wrestled down the stairs, the cold enamel rim pressing against her stomach, and hiked up her shirt. Her jeans were already undone, shoved down to her knees, and he could see the curve of her ass, the backs of her thighs, the dark hair between her legs.
"Come on," she said. "I'm tired. You're tired. Let's just do this."
He stepped up behind her, his cock already hard and aching. The exhaustion in his body was bone-deep, a heavy weight that made every movement feel like swimming through mud, but none of it mattered. All he could think about was her, bent over that tub, waiting for him.
He grabbed her hips and pushed inside her.
She was wet—soaked, actually—and he slid in easily, filling her in one long thrust. She gasped, her fingers gripping the rim of the tub, and he started to move. Hard. Fast. No finesse.
"That's it," she breathed. "Just like that. Don't stop."
He didn't stop. He fucked her like they were running out of time, the sound of their bodies slapping together echoing off the bare walls. The tub creaked beneath them, rocking slightly with each thrust, and he had a brief, irrational fear that it would tip over and crush them both.
It didn't. It held.
She bit her own arm to keep from screaming, her teeth sinking into the flesh of her forearm, and the sight of it—the desperate, animal need in that gesture—pushed him closer to the edge. He grabbed her hair and pulled, not hard, just enough to let her know he was there, and she moaned into her own skin.
"Fuck," she whispered. "Fuck, fuck, fuck—"
He came before she did, spilling inside her with a grunt that he had to muffle against his own shoulder. She followed a few seconds later, her whole body shuddering, and he felt her clench around him as he rode out the last of his orgasm.
For a moment, they didn't move. Just stood there, both of them panting, sweaty, and completely spent.
Then Jade straightened up and pulled her jeans back on.
"We're disgusting," she said.
"I know."
"Someone's going to have to clean that tub before we reinstall it."
"Priya's going to make Marcus do it."
"She's going to make you do it."
She was probably right. Priya had a way of delegating tasks to whoever deserved them, and Ethan had been the one responsible for the tub removal. He'd be the one scrubbing it down.
They walked back to the living room, where Marcus was still passed out on the drop cloth, snoring loudly. Priya was coming in from the porch, her phone in one hand, a smirk on her face.
"Good workout?" she asked.
Jade flipped her off.
"I heard everything," Priya said. "The walls are thin. And you're not quiet."
"I was quiet!"
"Biting your arm doesn't count."
Jade's phone buzzed. She pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and laughed.
"What?" Ethan asked.
"Nothing." She held up the phone so he could see.
The text was from Priya: The tub was a nice touch.
"Get out of my house," Jade said.
"Our house," Priya corrected. "I'm on the paperwork too."
---
The next morning, Ethan woke up on the floor of the living room with a kink in his neck and the taste of dust in his mouth. Marcus was still asleep a few feet away, curled up on the drop cloth like a giant, bearded fetus. Priya was already gone—she'd left a note on the coffee table saying she had a client meeting and would be back by noon.
Jade was sitting on the front porch, a mug of coffee in her hands, watching the sunrise over the overgrown front yard.
"Good morning," he said, stepping out and sitting beside her.
"Morning."
"Did you sleep?"
"Not much." She took a sip of coffee. "I was thinking."
"About?"
She was quiet for a moment. Then she reached over and took his hand.
"I want to stay here," she said. "Not just for the renovation. I want to move in. For real."
He looked at her, surprised. "You already moved in. Your stuff is at the other house."
"The other house is done. This is the one we're working on." She squeezed his hand. "I want to be here for all of it. The demolition, the rebuilding, the fixing. I want us to do it together."
"You're the one who found this place."
"And you're the one who agreed to buy it with me." She turned to look at him. "I've never done this before. Not with anyone. I've always been the one who leaves. But you make me want to stay."
He didn't know what to say. So he just leaned over and kissed her, soft and slow, and she smiled against his lips.
"Okay," he said. "Let's stay."
"Okay."
Behind them, inside the house, Marcus finally woke up and started yelling about the raccoons coming back. The bare bulb flickered. The timbers creaked. And somewhere in the distance, Priya was climbing a rock wall, already planning the next phase of the renovation.
They had work to do.
They had time.
They had time.
Three weeks later, Ethan wasn't so sure.
The Victorian had turned into a war of attrition. Every wall they opened revealed another problem—a nest of termites in the east wing, a foundation crack that ran the entire length of the north side, a chimney that was being held together by moss and stubbornness. Priya had started calling it "the money pit" with a straight face, and Ethan had stopped correcting her because she wasn't wrong.
Marcus had moved in temporarily. His lease was up, and he claimed the acoustics in the gutted living room were perfect for recording his new album. In reality, Ethan suspected he just wanted to be close to the chaos.
"You can't leave me alone with Reginald," Marcus said, hauling a sheet of drywall up the stairs. "He gets lonely."
"Reginald isn't real."
"Tell that to the cold spot in the basement."
The cold spot in the basement was real. Ethan had felt it himself—a patch of air near the old coal chute that was always ten degrees colder than the rest of the house, no matter the season. Priya had suggested they call an HVAC specialist. Marcus had suggested they call a priest.
Jade had just rolled her eyes and kept working.
---
The kitchen was the last room to be gutted. They'd saved it for the end because it was the most complicated—old plumbing, old wiring, old everything. The cabinets were original, probably from the 1920s, and they'd been painted so many times that the layers of lead paint had formed their own geological strata.
"We should keep them," Jade said, running her hand along the warped wood. "They're beautiful."
"They're a health hazard."
"Everything in this house is a health hazard. That's what makes it fun."
Ethan didn't argue. He'd learned that arguing with Jade about design choices was like arguing with the tide—pointless and exhausting. She had a vision for this house, and he trusted her. Mostly.
"Fine," he said. "We keep the cabinets. But I'm not the one who's going to strip them."
"I'll do it. I've got a respirator."
"You've got a respirator because you bought one online at three in the morning."
"Best purchase I ever made."
---
Marcus and Priya were officially on the crew now. Marcus provided muscle and comic relief, swinging his sledgehammer with more enthusiasm than accuracy. Priya provided the budget, the schedule, and the cold, hard reality that they were running out of money faster than expected.
"We need to cut costs," she announced one evening, spreading a spreadsheet across the coffee table. "The electrical alone is going to eat forty percent of our remaining budget."
"Can we do it ourselves?" Ethan asked.
"Not unless you want to burn the house down."
"I've gotten better."
"You set the last house on fire."
"That was a grease fire. It doesn't count."
Priya stared at him. "It absolutely counts."
They compromised. Priya found a retired electrician who would work for cash and beer. Marcus agreed to stop buying takeout and eat the sandwiches Jade made every morning. Ethan agreed to sell his old car, the one he'd been keeping in the garage of the first house, because he wasn't using it anyway.
"What about me?" Jade asked.
"You're paying for the materials," Priya said. "That's already more than your share."
"I can do more."
"You can keep designing. That's your job." Priya's voice softened. "You're good at it. Let me handle the money."
Jade didn't argue. But she looked at Ethan, and he saw something in her eyes—a flicker of guilt, maybe, or fear. He reached under the table and squeezed her hand.
"Hey," he said. "We're in this together."
She nodded. But she didn't look convinced.
---
The night they finished the living room, they celebrated.
Priya brought over a bottle of vodka she'd been saving for a special occasion. Marcus contributed a six-pack of cheap beer and a bag of chips. Jade made margaritas in a plastic pitcher because they didn't have real glasses yet, and Ethan ordered pizza from the place down the street.
They ate sitting on the newly refinished hardwood floor, surrounded by the smell of fresh paint and sawdust. The walls were still bare, the windows still uncurtained, but for the first time, the house felt like a home.
"To the Victorian," Marcus said, raising his beer. "May she not kill us in our sleep."
"Speak for yourself," Priya said. "I'm sleeping in my car tonight. I don't trust the ceiling."
"The ceiling is fine."
"The ceiling is held up by hope and a two-by-four."
"That's two-by-fours, plural. And they're load-bearing."
Priya laughed. She was looser than usual—the vodka, probably—and she'd stopped checking her phone every five minutes. Her climbing partner had texted her earlier, asking if she wanted to do a route that weekend, and she'd told him she was busy.
"You're not busy," Jade said. "You're avoiding him."
"I'm not avoiding him. I'm prioritizing."
"You're avoiding him."
Priya flipped her off. But she was smiling.
---
By midnight, Marcus was passed out on the drop cloth again. Priya had taken her vodka and gone to the porch, claiming she needed air and a break from the testosterone. Which left Ethan and Jade alone in the living room, surrounded by empty pizza boxes and the soft hum of the space heater.
Jade was sitting on the floor, her back against the wall, her legs stretched out in front of her. She'd taken off her socks and her feet were bare, and she was watching him with that look again.
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing."
"You're looking at me."
"I'm allowed to look at you."
She set her margarita on the floor and crawled toward him. Her movements were careful, deliberate, and he felt his heart start to pound.
"I've been thinking," she said, straddling his lap, "about the bathroom."
"The one we gutted?"
"Mmhmm." She leaned down and kissed his neck. "Specifically, the new bathroom. The one we're going to build."
"What about it?"
"I want a cast-iron tub. A big one. Big enough for two."
"We already have a tub. It's on the porch."
"That tub has mold and rust and raccoon shit. I want a new one." She kissed him again. "And I want to christen it. With you."
He put his hands on her hips. "We can't christen a tub we haven't bought yet."
"Then let's practice."
She reached down and undid the button on his jeans, her fingers quick and practiced. He lifted his hips, helping her push them down, and she wrapped her hand around his cock.
"You're already hard," she said.
"You're already naked."
She was. She'd pulled her shirt off while he was distracted, and her breasts were right there, inches from his face. He reached up and cupped one, running his thumb over her nipple, and she shivered.
"Fuck," she whispered. "I love it when you touch me."
"I know."
He pulled her closer and took her nipple in his mouth, sucking hard. She gasped, her hips grinding against him, and he could feel how wet she was through her jeans. He slid his hand between her legs and pressed, and she moaned.
"Stand up," he said.
She did. He yanked her jeans down, then her underwear, and she stepped out of them. She was completely naked now, standing in the middle of the gutted living room, and he took a moment to look at her.
"You're beautiful," he said.
"I know." She knelt in front of him and pushed him back. "Now shut up and let me fuck you."
She climbed on top of him, straddling his hips, and lowered herself onto his cock. He slid inside her slowly, inch by inch, and she bit her lip to keep from screaming. When he was fully inside her, she paused, her hands braced on his chest.
"God," she breathed. "You feel so good."
"Your turn to move."
She did. She rode him hard, her hips slamming against his, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. He grabbed her ass with both hands and pulled her down, meeting every thrust with one of his own.
"Fuck me," she said. "Fuck me harder."
He flipped her over. She landed on her back with a grunt, and he was on top of her before she could catch her breath. He pushed inside her again, hard and fast, and she wrapped her legs around his waist.
"Like that?" he asked.
"Yes. Don't stop."
He didn't stop. He fucked her until his arms shook, until sweat dripped from his forehead onto her chest, until she came with a scream that she buried in his shoulder. Then he let himself go, burying himself deep and spilling inside her with a groan that came from somewhere deep in his chest.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Then Jade laughed.
"We're going to have to stop doing this on the floor," she said.
"Why?"
"Because I'm too old for hardwood."
"You're twenty-five."
"Exactly. I'm not a teenager anymore."
He rolled off her and onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. The bare bulb was still swinging, casting shadows across the fresh drywall. And somewhere in the distance, Priya's voice floated through the open window.
"I heard that too," she called. "You're still not quiet."
Jade groaned and pulled her shirt over her head.
"I hate her," she said.
"No, you don't."
"No. I don't."
---
The next morning, Ethan woke up on the floor with a blanket draped over him and the smell of coffee in the air. Jade was already dressed, sitting at the coffee table with her laptop open. Priya was on the porch again, and Marcus was still unconscious.
"Morning," Jade said, not looking up.
"Morning." He sat up, stretching. "What are you working on?"
"The bathroom design. I've got a vision."
"What kind of vision?"
She turned the laptop around to show him. The rendering was rough, but he could see it—white tile, black fixtures, a claw-foot tub under a window. It was simple. Elegant. Perfect.
"That's beautiful," he said.
"I want to start on it today. Priority one."
"What about the kitchen?"
"Kitchen can wait. I need this." She closed the laptop and looked at him. "I need something to look forward to."
He didn't ask what she meant. He just nodded and reached for the coffee.
"Okay," he said. "Priority one."
---
They started on the bathroom that afternoon. Priya had found a salvage yard that sold architectural antiques—claw-foot tubs, pedestal sinks, vintage light fixtures—and Jade had spent two hours on the phone with the owner, negotiating a bulk discount. By the time they arrived at the yard, the owner knew her by name and had pulled the best pieces aside.
"This one," Jade said, running her hand along a cast-iron tub. "It's perfect."
It was. The porcelain was chipped, and the exterior needed repainting, but it was solid. Heavy. Real.
"We can restore it," she said. "New paint, new hardware. It'll look brand new."
"How much?" Ethan asked.
The owner quoted a number that made his eyes water. Jade didn't blink.
"We'll take it," she said.
They loaded it into the truck—it took all four of them, plus the owner and his son—and drove it back to the house. Marcus complained the whole way. Priya calculated the cost of restoration on her phone. Jade just smiled.
That night, Ethan found her sitting on the porch, staring at the tub.
"You're obsessed," he said, sitting beside her.
"I know." She didn't look at him. "I've always wanted one. A claw-foot tub. My grandmother had one. I used to take baths in it when I was a kid."
"You never told me that."
"There's a lot I haven't told you."
He waited. She was quiet for a long time.
"My dad flipped houses," she said finally. "But he never stayed in any of them. We moved every six months. I never had a real home. Just a series of houses that belonged to other people."
"That's why you're so good at this."
"That's why I'm so good at selling them. I learned how to make people fall in love with something I couldn't keep."
She turned to look at him. Her eyes were wet, but she wasn't crying.
"This one is different," she said. "I want to keep this one."
"You will."
"You don't know that."
"I know you." He reached over and took her hand. "You don't give up on things you love."
She kissed him then, hard and fierce, and he kissed her back. When they pulled apart, she was smiling.
"Tomorrow," she said. "We start on the bathroom."
"Tomorrow."
The tub sat on the porch, waiting. The house creaked around them, settling into its new bones. And somewhere in the basement, Reginald the ghost—if he existed, if Marcus was to be believed—kept his cold spot cold.
They had time.
They had each other.
For now, that was enough.