Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell #1)(70)

The plethora of choice I suddenly found myself confronted with as to which life path I wanted to explore was too much.

I was supposed to be sorting all this out on vacation but instead I was spending all my time cavorting with a hot guy and using all my headspace thinking about said hot guy.

Shit.

“I need to think about this,” I told Paula but I didn’t need to think about it.

I’d never bought a house. Cooter and his parents dealt with everything when we bought our house.

But of the things I’d learned about Sam, I knew he had bought several.

I didn’t need to think about it, I needed to ask someone with experience what I should do.

Paula cut into my thoughts.

“Right, think. You need to process, call. You want to counter or back out, text. But whatever you do, don’t do any of it for three hours. I gotta crash. This Heartmeadow real estate heat up is draining me dry. I haven’t had a commission in three months, now I got so much going on, I can’t keep it all straight. I need sleep and I need to give my man a break from this shit. When that text came in, swear, babe, I thought he was going to throw my cell out the window. You know how Rudy likes his beauty rest.”

Rudy didn’t like his beauty rest, Rudy totally crashed after giving Paula the business, something Paula referred to as Rudy needing his “beauty rest”. She’d shared this with us (repeatedly). She thought it was adorable. Then again, Rudy, Paula also shared (repeatedly) was energetic so after a session he’d have to crash and, the way she described it, anyone would.

Apparently, but not unusually, Paula had got herself some that night.

Though, this reminder highlighted that Sam was even more energetic than the most energetic encounters Paula had described, he was five years older than Rudy and he was always up before me or he fell asleep after me.

Interesting.

“Yo, babe? Are you in a Crete coma or are you with me?” Paula called and my head twitched as I came back to the conversation.

“Sorry, honey, I’m here and can do, three hours, no sooner, you’ll hear from me,” I told her.

“Okay, babe, and while you think, remember you’ll be home soon. The Dorchester isn’t the only place. Who knows what’ll open up? We can go to viewings; you can stay with Rudy and me or your Mom and Dad if you don’t find a place before you close on your house.”

Hmm.

No.

Or, more accurately, hell no.

That was not going to happen.

I loved Paula and Rudy and they had a kickass guest room but they were semi-newlyweds that acted like newly-newlyweds. It was cute, in small doses. Being a bedroom over, probably not so much.

And I loved my Mom and Dad but if I was under my mother’s roof, she would insist on feeding me. I’d been a married woman with my own house for seven years and I had not once provided Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners for my family. This was Mom’s domain. She taught me how to cook but she was not only a taskmaster and drill sergeant, she usually ended up shoving you out of the way and taking over, especially if you did something she thought was crazy, like, say, drain the grease from browned hamburger before dumping in the spaghetti sauce. She went ballistic when I did that, shouting, “That’s where all the flavor is!” I had a hot guy who was way into my body the way it was, I didn’t need to gain seventy-five pounds and lose him.

Obviously, I didn’t tell Paula this.

Instead I said, “Thanks, sweetie. Sleep well and we’ll talk later.”

“Gotcha,” Paula replied then, “Can’t wait for you to be home, babe. Hear all your stories. Look at your pictures. And just have you home.”

I totally loved my girl Paula.

And she was totally going to freak when she heard my stories and saw my pictures because, the last few days on Crete, more than once I’d asked a passerby to take one of Sam and me. I had at least a dozen.

And all of them were awesome.

We said our good-byes and rung off, I looked at the time on the display of my cell and calculated it.

Sam was either taking a shower or going to arrive back at the room imminently to do so. Therefore, instead of talking to him about something as important as my future home while kids were squealing doing cannonballs in the pool or bunches of people were squealing while doing water sports in the Mediterranean, the cool, quiet confines of our room was a better place to have the conversation.

I got up, tied my sarong around my bikini bottoms, gathered my stuff then hoofed it up to our room.

The hotel was built into the side of a steep hill. It was also exclusive. This was partly because it wasn’t so much rooms as pretty, white-walled, terracotta tile-roofed, little bungalows dotting the hill with meandering paths between. There were some which had two rooms in the unit. But Sam and mine didn’t. When we checked in, he upgraded my reservation so our room wasn’t a room with bathroom and balcony attached to someone else’s room with bathroom and balcony. It was a room with a lounge, bedroom, bathroom and veranda that was all ours.

It was also awesome.

But it was close to the top, private and a heck of a climb.

Sam ran it on the days he ran.

I did not. Ever.

I made it to the top, pleased with myself that I was only breathing kind of heavy rather than wheezing (like the first time I took the trek). In the cool, shadowed, covered entryway, I shoved my sunglasses back on my head and was putting my key in the lock when the door was flung open.