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“This is... nice,” JD said, and Veronica gave him a look. He didn't last a second before giving in. “Okay, it's a shithole. Who the hell picked this as a good place for you to live?”
The realtor looked at them, and Veronica decided that if she found a place, she'd include a generous closing cost for the woman, who looked just about at her wit's end after a day of showing apartments to them. She'd seen a few on her own yesterday, while JD saw to his own devices—she had a feeling he now had a Porsche stashed somewhere, but she didn't know where nor did she want to, considering everything that went along with that car.
This would have been a lot easier if Enid hadn't jumped on the first place they saw that was decent, claiming it for her own, and since she had the money from her mother's house, she was ready to close on it right then and there. Not, of course, that Veronica had felt that comfortable leasing it, as her income had gone from steady with the FBI to non-existent.
Enid had that house in trust to draw from as well as the ability to freelance as an internet hacker if the new business didn't do well. Oh, and she could get money from Bud's accounts if she asked her brother for it.
Veronica swore she'd been through just about anything in the price level she was comfortable with, and each one was more disappointing than the last. “Are there any others?”
“In this price range?” the realtor shook her head, almost losing her glasses as she did. “I'm afraid not. There's just not much available. If you could afford a few hundred more, there's some I could show you, but I only have places in worse conditions or neighborhoods than this one if we go lower.”
“Great,” Veronica muttered, only to see JD looking at her. “What?”
“You have to ask?” He walked over to the realtor. “What's the nicest place you've got?”
“Oh, I don't think—”
“Just show us,” he said, gesturing to her tablet. Veronica didn't know what he was up to, but she decided to humor him a little. “In fact... what have you got in whole buildings? Not houses. I'm thinking... commercial space below, living area above. What've you got like that?”
“Here. This a three bedroom, two bathroom penthouse apartment in a three story building with office space available on the first and second floors. Probably the best place on the market if that's what you're really looking for.”
He looked at it. “What do you think, Ronnie? That would make a decent office for the business you want, right?”
She looked over the pictures of the office space, twisting her lip as she did. It looked perfect, actually, since there were two offices on the main floor, a large reception area, and while they wouldn't really need the second floor, it might be nice to have storage there or a conference room for larger meetings. She thought even Heather Duke with her exacting standards would approve.
“It's nice, but...”
“This is the living area,” the woman said, shifting the pictures so Veronica could see the upper level, with its hardwood floors that seemed to go on forever and the vaulted ceiling with great lighting, making the whole space look wide and open and frankly huge.
“I think it's more space than we need and I know we can't afford—”
“Shh,” JD said, tapping his finger against her lips. “That part is easily covered.”
She frowned, trying to shake her head because it wasn't, not at all. Even if he had the money—and she thought he did, since he'd said more than once that Bud's money was just in the bank earning interest—how were they supposed to explain that?
“Trust me,” he said, and she grimaced, not sure why she would, but she did, and that was just one of the many reasons this thing between them was fucked up.
She wanted to say JD was crazy, but she mulled over his idea as they drove across town, and she actually liked it. Living above the office, at least. She thought he probably could have done that with his last office if the other floors were structurally sound, which she doubted.
This one, though, looked more than sound. The outside of it was appealing, simple brick but tasteful and not in disrepair.
The office space was, as she'd thought before, perfect. She'd have an office, JD could have his own, and the reception area could be Enid's. They could gather out there to talk things over or use the conference room upstairs, since there was one room that looked like it was meant to be that, and the last owners had even left the oversized table sitting there. No chairs, but they could deal with that.
She almost wished Enid was there to see it, and yet at the same time, she didn't.
She was not sure she wanted to know what Enid would say when she saw the penthouse.
Veronica was a little worried about what she'd think when she saw the penthouse. She didn't want to take JD's money, since it would unbalance whatever the hell it was they had, and that thing was so damned delicate she wasn't sure they dared rock that boat.
“Here we are,” the realtor said as the elevator opened on the top floor. “This is the living area. Ahead we have the kitchen. All stainless steel appliances, recently remodeled. Down that hall are the two of the three bedrooms and one of the baths. The others are at that end, with this common area here for your recreational space.”
Veronica looked around, taking a deep breath. “It's still more than I think we—”
“You, workaholic. Enid, workaholic who will go days without sleeping if she's deep into a hack. Me... insomniac who generally doesn't sleep,” he said. “You really think we can get by without three bedrooms to crash in? Or are you really interested in sharing?”
“Oh, I would say something about sharing with your sister only I know how twisted that would get and—no. Just, no.”
“I think other people would find that a turn on, but personally I don't care for it,” he said. “One, she's my sister. Two... I don't like sharing you.”
Veronica licked her lips. “You want us to live together.”
“More or less. I don't think it would be wise for all three of us to spend all of our time here, but I think it would be wise to have the space for said reasons already mentioned. You and Enid don't know when to quit.”
“And you do?”
He grinned at her. “Nope.”
“And how are we going to explain how we—”
“You are so cute when you're worried,” he said, tapping her nose and turning to the realtor. “We'll take it.”
“I can draw up the papers for the lease—”
“Oh, no,” he said. “We're not renting it. We're buying it.”
The realtor stared at him in disbelief, and he just smiled back at her.
“You were kidding about the slumber party, right?”
He smiled, and Veronica reached over to hit him. He rubbed at his arm, feigning hurt. “You know Enid's not. She's off to get her quaggans and silliest pajamas to have a sleep out over on the floor. Me? Never really seen the appeal of it.”
Veronica sighed. “I get the feeling I don't want to know again.”
“Probably not,” he agreed, eying the floor dubiously. “Years of moving, always a new place, sometimes the furniture didn't get there before us... sleeping on hard floors after he'd knocked me around... No, never saw the appeal of sleeping bags and hard floors.”
“Me, either, though I suppose I liked other sleepovers.”
He tilted his head toward her. “Like ours?”
She felt her face heat up, though there was no denying that night after croquet had felt perfect. She'd loved every second of that, and it had seemed like she had everything she wanted, even with Heather's threat looming over her. If only the rest of it hadn't happened...
“Yes,” she heard herself whisper, which apparently was invitation enough, and he kissed her.
Damn, he really was too good at that, and she wanted to hate him for it. She didn't want to be attracted to him anymore, wanted that to be some part of her teenage idiocy that she was well past and forgotten, but he wasn't the past, and what they'd done couldn't be forgotten.
He pulled back and let his head rest against hers. “I think this might be trouble.”
“We said that before.”
He nodded. “We did.”
“And yet we're still here,” she said, thinking maybe one of them should pull out of this living arrangement, even if they would have separate bedrooms and Enid would probably spend plenty of her time here and make things very awkward for everyone in that way of hers.
“We are.”
She reached up to touch his cheek. “I think I might go back to the hotel for the night.”
“If either of us is leaving, it's me because sleepovers are a girl thing,” he said, and she rolled her eyes. He rose anyway, and she sighed, frustrated. This was not about that at all. She forced herself up and followed him to where he'd left his coat.
He pulled it on, and she caught his arm.
“I didn't say any of that to make you leave. We have to figure out how to navigate this, remember? There is still... that aspect to consider. It's not going to disappear. We have... attraction to each other. We've been physically intimate in the past. We've kissed since we were reunited, and so what we have is not really platonic, much as we might want it to be.”
He gave her a thin smile. “You might. I don't think my feelings for you will ever be platonic.”
She almost winced, but there was a part of her that wanted it, wanted his love, as messed up as that was. She shook her head, still confused by this whole situation.
“Speaking of... I know it's stupid, but I'm sick of the comments about not doing this, so... fuck it,” he said, lifting up her hand and sliding a ring onto it.
She looked down at the diamond and then at him. “JD—”
“It's not real, it's not going to be real, and I know that, but they still don't, and I don't want to hear another 'where's the ring?' You don't have to keep it, but I got it and—”
She cut him off with a kiss, not sure what the hell else to do because she was so twisted that she wanted this ring—and at the same time, wanted to throw it as far from her as possible and run in the other direction from him—even as the rest of her wanted to have that same kind of x-rated sleepover here and now.
“We are so incredibly dysfunctional,” she said, and he laughed, wrapping his arms around her and just holding her, which felt right and perfect and she didn't want to stop, ever.
“I hate it,” JD proclaimed, and next to him, Veronica laughed, leaning against him in amusement because they both knew he'd have that reaction as soon as he saw the place. She knew it showed too much of Heather Duke's taste, since she of the varied companies had decided interior decorating was her purview and would not hear of anyone else decorating their new office. “This place is awful. I hate it. I can't work here.”
“It's only the lobby,” she told him, and he turned to glare at her. She smirked, knowing Enid was doing the same from her desk, a perfect receptionist's area with enough machines for three other secretaries but were all hers, with a quaggan sitting next to each monitor.
“This is not funny.”
“Relax. I didn't let her decorate your office. You get to do that yourself,” Veronica assured him with a smile. He just looked at her, and she reached up to pat his cheek. “This is not the same as your last job, remember? This is my business, too, and I like the idea of being... if not respectable, then at least clean.”
“The other office was clean,” JD said, offended. “It may have been a little run down, but it wasn't dirty. Enid made sure of that. And this is not respectable. It's pretentious.”
Veronica could see where he'd see that, too, since everything had clean lines and aesthetics, new and modern, with carefully chosen pieces that created an ensemble effect, but none of it was outright objectionable. It looked nice.
“Technically, this is what it should be,” she reminded him. “We want to look legitimate. We want to look classy. And since the women here outnumber you two to one—more if I count the others who will all agree this is how the office should look—”
“Bullshit. McNamara would say it needs more color, and Martha would tell you it's too angled and sharp, too crisp, and Betty... well, she'd take a look at it, think of her own empty house and start weeping—which reminds me, when are we planning to lock her and that idiot husband of hers in the same room to fix things again?”
“Next week when he comes back from his trip,” Enid answered from the desk before taking a sip of her slushie. She set the cup back down. “And McNamara already agreed to take on her kids for the time it takes them to get their act together, so we're good.”
Veronica shook her head at them. She hadn't wanted to get in the middle of Betty's marital problems, but that wasn't how anyone else besides Heather Duke seemed to work. Enid had started with subtle electronic reminders for both parties of how they used to love each other, and when that didn't work, she happily latched onto her brother's annoyed suggestion that they lock them in the same room until they worked it out because it was ridiculous that they were having this much of a problem over a move when they all still loved each other. McNamara had agreed, and Martha said she'd take care of the food.
This was insane, but then again, what in their lives wasn't?
“I am seriously reconsidering this,” JD said, taking her hand and playing with the ring on it as he spoke. She knew that wasn't an idle threat, the idiot still held onto those notions of leaving them to protect them, and she knew that part of why he'd stayed around this time was how complicated things had ended up in Vegas, with too many parties aware of his existence if not his survival.
“We agreed,” Veronica said, “and I'm supposed to be the one who has the doubts about this.”
“Just because you're in denial doesn't mean I don't get doubts,” he disagreed, still twisting the band as he spoke. “I don't think I can do the respectable thing. And they all have these... expectations... and there's still talk of a trial as long as he's mentally fit... and no. I should have left when I had the chance.”
Veronica sighed. “Do we have to have this conversation every time?”
“Probably.”
“I think you could probably end the conversations if you stopped the denial,” Enid offered from her desk. “I mean, think about it... do you really think he could say no to that? He's a mess of PTSD and warped affection, so... no.”
“Thanks a lot, baby sis.”
“You know you love me,” she said with a smirk.
Veronica refused to be blackmailed into saying anything, even if it might mean JD staying. He shouldn't need her words to do it, and even if he did, that didn't make it right. Their relationship was messed up, and they both knew it, but they'd already agreed to go on together, such as it was, and he'd given her a ring, for fuck's sake. She knew he didn't really want to leave, and he knew she didn't want him to, but it wasn't simple and it wasn't easy.
It never would be.
All things considered, though, it's a good start.