Two Punks In Love

Home Sweet Home

Trace, Two Days Later

I'm still finding my mood rather variable, when it comes to Kat, but as she stands in front of the hundred year old two bedroom dwelling that is our new home, her hands on hips, her foot gingerly testing the bottom front porch step with a hole in it, trying to master the disbelief on her face because when I told her the place was a bit run-down, she didn't realize I meant rotting, I have to laugh at her.

I laugh so hard, I lay across the hood of Officer Malone's squad car, tears streaming.

"You're laughing now," he drawls quietly from where he leans beside me against the front fender, resetting my home confinement parameters. He glances at Kat, and squashes the smile of the smugly married. "But you won't think it's funny in a day or two when she's had it up to here with this dump. Still can't believe you bought this place... for the price you paid..."

"I bought it for that," I sling a hand at the brand new barn, that is easily ten times as large as the house.

He squints at Kat. "She don't look like the type to live in a shack while you play rockstar in a half-million dollar barn..."

"She'll be fine. She's spent months with me living in a tour bus. That's... not much more room than this house." I bite my lip. "But the bus did have air-conditioning..."

Shit. I should have already done something about that. I mean, it's July and sweltering. I have one window unit in the bedroom, but it doesn't cool the whole house. I haven't been inside the house much at all, except for sleeping. Adam, when he's been here, has bitched and moaned about the heat to the point that's he's taken to sleeping on an air mattress on the floor of my bedroom. Which might sound weird, since we are grown men sharing a bedroom, but we were college roommates, and we do sleep on planes and tour busses in close proximity, so it's really not.

Now Malone laughs. "You are so screwed, Gallant. You aren't going to be able to get anybody to put central air in a shack like this. Hell, it will cost more than the place is worth, even if you could get someone to take on the job, which you won't, because they won't be able to do it to code."

I chew on my lip. He's right, but fortunately I know a few boys that might do a job on the low and look the other way on the code issues, considering I'm a personal friend of their boss and they all used to be gang-bangers for a living. As soon as Malone leaves, my first call is to Bodie, CEO of Sixmob Heating & Air. That's not the real name of Bodie's business, but we give him shit and call all his banger-rehab businesses that. Leed and Mac make up funny slogans.

Sixmob Exterminating. Just bugs, though, 'cause we went straight.

Sixmob Home Improvements. Free estimates on drive-by repairs. Plus, we swear it wasn't us.

Sixmob Heating & Air. No, really. We know what we are doing. It ain't no drug front.

I'm mentally cursing myself, because I was just at Bodie's place, saying my goodbyes to everyone and visiting the baby while Kat was packing a few clothes from the band house—she dumped the Colin-tainted stuff in a clothing donation drop off, designer leather satchels and all—and I should have had the foresight to mention my A/C needs to him.

Kat is four months pregnant and it's ninety-five degrees. Even I know pregnancy and heat don't mix.

She's made it up the spongy front steps to the porch, and now I curse myself again. Why haven't I done something about those steps, too? They've held so far, but I can't risk Kat stepping through a rotten board and falling.

The main reason why I have only torn stuff down and not fixed stuff up is because it fit my mood. But now, it's time for repairs, of all kinds.

"Kitty, I'm gonna fix that," I call to her. "Let's use the back door until I do, okay?" The elevation slopes slightly up and therefore the back door has a concrete two-step stoop with a handrail. She nods, peering in the windows.