Balancing Act

55

Celeste was just helping Jess back up the U-haul into the courtyard of their new house, having in the past few hours dropped Evie off with Liz for the day and been to the notary with Taylor.

Taylor had squirmed, still attempting to make them reconsider their interest in the property with some comment about the noise levels being through the roof on Park street, which Jess of course knew to be an outright lie, Luke's being positioned on that very same street corner. Thankfully right there, Taylor hadn't made a big number of the apology and list of offences Jess had handed over, perhaps he simply didn't want to get into it right there. But all Jess could do was hope that that was the end of it. Admitting to things from that long ago, hardly hurt his pride - he wasn't that person anymore.

There was still about a week until the new fire station officially opened but the operations had already been moved, leaving just a few firemen gathering up the last of their things from the backyard. After that the place was truly theirs.

Celeste gestured Jess to a halt, and he came out of the car nodding at the firemen friendlily.

"So what should we do first?" Celeste pondered, not knowing where to begin. There just seemed so much to be done - unload, store, make lists, shop - and that just to begin with. Truth be told, she'd never been so hands on as she was probably going to have to be in this one, in any one of her moves, and she was a little worried if she had it in her. Except for their last move which has just gone incredibly fast, usually she'd just just stay at a hotel somewhere and let the contractors and designers do their jobs.

This move was going to be different - their budget being stretched a little tighter than usual, with keeping the Brooklyn townhouse as a rental and knowing there were major expenses expected with getting the store going and Jess having given up his manager job and cut back on his hours a little. But Celeste had no objections - he needed to take care of himself too.

"Let's just take a look around, start making some lists and then we decide where to unload all this stuff," Jess explained his thoughts, referring to the U-haul. He knew they needed to figure out their primary housing, at least if they didn't want to crash at Luke's old apartment for long, making it their priority for this renovation.

They went in through the fire station's kitchen door, the linoleum floor slightly worn under their feet, but the stainless steel kitchen still stood intact. It had been an unexpected but a welcome surprise that it was staying - at least they had some place to cook. And in a way the stainless steel reminded Jess of his old place in Philly, to where he'd bought the kitchen from a restaurant foreclosure auction - a purchase of which he'd been rather proud of at that time.

"We should probably keep the laundry room where it is, right? It'd make the most sense," Celeste discussed as they looked over the room. It was functional, just worn out.

There were many aspects of which Jess worried about - he wanted to offer Celeste the standard of living she was accustomed to. And not just her, but Evie too. There were two of his girls to consider now. Thankfully Evie's wishes were not major at this age - safe, warm and possibly involving a bathtub. Jess himself could sleep anywhere - and he had, some places nasty enough he cared not to remember. Mentally he had made it his mission to make sure they had a nice place to stay, even if it was just a few rooms for now, and he wanted to make it happen fast.

"Yeah, but we have some freedom to decide what to do with the downstairs locker room," he added. "We could even try to sell the lockers, whoknows, maybe someone wants them," he suggested, making a list and snapping a picture of them to post on Marketplace later. He figured, trying to sell some stuff they didn't need couldn't hurt.

"We'll probably need to keep part of it as bathrooms though, if there are going to be events here," Celeste reminded him.

"Right, forgot about that," Jess admitted, making a note of it. "Still, that would leave some room...," he pondered, sizing up the place. The idea of becoming an entrepreneur had fallen into his lap, almost by accident, but it was definitely growing on him. But he had to admit, there were plenty of things he still needed to learn about. It was out of his comfort zone, but it was exciting at the same time.