Though it was afternoon, I was craving a little bit of coffee. As much as I wanted to work around the house and get everything unpacked and ready, I knew it’d be a good idea to take the rest of the day to relax and make Maddie’s first night in her new home as special as it could be.
“Here!” Maddie called down from the second floor. “This is the one I want!”
I started the Keurig before heading up to find her. The second floor was the opposite of the open floor plan of the first, the spaces neatly sectioned off into little rooms for privacy and coziness. I headed up the stairs and down the main hall, poking my head into the various bedrooms until I found Maddie. Sure enough, she’d found the master and was in the middle of the room with her arms outstretched, spinning around.
“This is so big!”
“It’s also mine,” I said with a smile as I came over to where she stood, mussing her black, bobbed hair. “I get the master, remember?”
“But I want it,” she pouted.
I laughed. “Here’s the deal—you want this room, we can switch off. I get it one day, you get it the next. Butyou’regoing to be the one to move all the furniture back and forth. Deal?”
Her eyes flashed. “Umm, I can’t do that!” she giggled.
I grinned. “Then pick out a different room. I want the one that looks out over the backyard as my office—good for working.”
“OK.” With that, she marched out of the room and down the hall.
When she was gone, I took a moment to appreciate my new bedroom. I couldn’t get over how big it was—between the bathroom and the walk-in closet it was just about as big as my old apartment. I walked through it, beyond thankful that I had all the space it offered. When I walked into the closet and saw the boxes of my clothes stuffed all the way in back waiting to be unpacked, I could already see it filled with the shoes, purses, and outfits that I’d had to keep in storage for the last couple of years.
After finishing up in there, I went down the hall to one of the westward-facing bedrooms. The second would be perfect for my new office, the view overlooking the massive backyard. I had my apprehensions about working at home but being able to be home with Maddie and not have to send her to an afterschool day care made it more than worth it.
“Here!” Maddie called out again. I left my new office and headed over to one of the other bedrooms across the hall. Maddie was inside, already looking out the window onto the front yard. “This is the one I want!”
I stepped over to her side, putting my hand on her shoulder.
“What is it about this one that you like so much, Mads?” I asked.
“Look!” she pointed out the window.
At first, I couldn’t tell what she was pointing at. But with a little squinting, I could see through the spaces between the houses across the street—the view looked out all the way onto the dog park that we’d passed on the way. You had to strain a bit to see the pups running back and forth, but you could definitely spot them.
I couldn’t help but grin. “Alright, the room’s all yours. But don’t get any big ideas about dogs right now. We’ve got way,waytoo much going on to be thinking about that.”
“Fine,” she muttered, dejected.
Before the conversation could go on, the doorbell rang through the house.
“It’s Auntie Britt!” Maddie shouted, breaking away from the window and hurrying down to the first floor.
“Don’t run down the stairs!” I shouted. As soon as I said the words, I realized how good it felt to say them. After living in a cramped, tiny apartment, it was really cool to have to make rules about stairs.
I hurried out of the room, going down the stairs just in time to hear a shriek of happiness from Maddie as she greeted my best friend Britt Hutchins-Martinez.
“There’s the munchkin!” Britt shouted, dropping down to scoop up my little girl and bring her into a huge bear hug.
Britt was tall and willowy and blonde, with big blue eyes and a bright white smile. She and I had been friends in college, but she moved to New Haven, Connecticut after school to start a job as an accountant at a tech company in New York. However, during a trip to visit me a couple of years ago, she reconnected with Sean Martinez, another friend of ours from college. They’d hit it off romantically in a huge way, and after a brief long-distance relationship, they were set to marry. Didn’t take long at all after that for them to have their first kid—an adorable now one-year-old boy named Noah.
Lucky for us, Sean lived in Denver, not too far from where Maddie and I now lived. It’d been so amazing having my bestie back in the same city. Even better, we’d gone into business together.
“And there she is!” Britt said, a huge smile on her pretty face, Maddie sitting on her hip.
I let out a squeal and hurried down the rest of the stairs, pulling her and Maddie into a big hug. It’d only been a few days since I’d seen Britt, but I was still excited to see her all the same.
The hug lasted for several moments, Britt only breaking it to step away and look around.
“Holy sh—” her eyes flicked to Maddie, then flashed. “I mean, holy smokes, this place isamazing! I know you showed me the pictures on Zillow but it’s entirely something else in person!”
