Page 83 of Hell Bent (Portland Devils #5)

“A weenie?” That was my dad, who, as usual, hadn’t said much. “On consideration—yes, I believe you’ve nailed it. A man needs some strength of character to marry into the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg dynasty. Not to mention those Saxons. ”

“Strong women,” Sebastian said.

“As you say,” my dad said. “Also, princesses. Congratulations.” He shook Sebastian’s hand. “I’m guessing I’ll like you better than the last candidate.”

My mother said, “Wait. This is actually happening?”

“Yes,” Sebastian said. “It is.”

“Well,” she said, “I suppose I’d better kiss you.” And did. Sebastian grinned at me, and I said, “Baby steps.”

“Wait, though,” Ben said. “That isn’t a joke? Are you actually a princess, Alix? Like, for real? How come I didn’t know that?”

My mother sniffed a little and muttered, not softly enough, “Possibly her presentation.”

“Yes,” I said. “I am. Which is semi-ridiculous. I’ll explain later.”

“Radical honesty,” Sebastian said. “Always best.”

“Radical acceptance,” I said.

“I’ve decided to expand my philosophical views,” he said. “And I like the idea of radical honesty. So, radically speaking—this house?”

“It’s not homey,” I said.

“You think?” Ben said.

“And,” I said, “it doesn’t have enough yard.

How are you going to perfect your lawn-mowing technique with that tiny bit of grass?

Also, I’m sorry, but this doesn’t feel like a neighborhood to me.

I can just see Ben inviting his friends over, too.

‘Hi! Come troop through my extremely fancy house, which actually has the word ‘Mansion’ in the name, until we get to the game room, which is about two thousand feet from the kitchen! Good news—we can smoke weed, too, because you can’t even smell it all the way up there! ’”

My mother said, “Anastasia.”

Ben said, “I’m not going to smoke weed. I’m not even in high school yet. ”

“Excellent point,” Sebastian said. He headed out through the great room-slash-kitchen, which I swear was about the size of his whole apartment, and came back with the realtor. “We don’t like this one, either,” he told her. “Alix is going to tell you what we want. Take it away, Alix.”

I said, “Flat. Grass. Homey. Pretty. Nice. Neighborhood. Not a mansion.”

“Near Grant High School, maybe,” Ben said.

“I went over there last week and checked it out. The kids look pretty cool. Like, regular. And it has good classes. They have an Audio Engineering club and a Robotics class, plus Electrical Circuits and Engineering Drafting, and they have Strength and Conditioning and CrossFit for PE. There’s an English class called ‘Words of Warfare,’ too.

See, that seems like stuff you’d actually want to read.

Not Romeo and Juliet. Or Hamlet, which is what I’m doing with my tutor now.

I swear, it’s even worse. At least Romeo and Juliet had that funny guy, Mercutio, and some fights.

Hamlet just walks around whining all the time, and everybody dies. Again.”

“People die in war novels, too,” I said. “That’s kind of the point of war novels.”

“I know,” Ben said. “But it’s cooler.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Sebastian said. Then he looked at the agent. “What do you have to show us near Grant High School? Because that’s where we want to live.”

“Seriously?” Ben asked. “It’s not as expensive as around here, though, and you make five million a year now. It probably won’t have a home theater.”

Sebastian said, “Oddly enough, a home theater isn’t high on my list. Let’s go look at some houses. Ones with room to throw a ball for a Golden Retriever, and kitchens with some color in them. Or wood. Wood works. Also a real garage. We’re going to need that.”

Sebastian

We looked at two houses where the people had moved out and we could get in easily.

They both seemed fine to me, but Alix’s mother said that she was sure the first one had dry rot, and in the second one, she said that renovating the kitchen would be “a major project. And you know best, of course, Sebastian, but really—two bathrooms? And this street is quite busy. Will you be riding your bicycle to school, Ben?”

He looked past her. “I don’t have a bike.”

“Wait,” I said. “OK, I should have noticed that. Why not?”

“You couldn’t really ride where we were,” he said. “And—” He stopped.

Alix said, “Ben. Do you know how to ride a bike?”

He turned red.

I said, “Your mom didn’t have time to teach you.”

“She was busy, OK?” The words burst out of him. “And I told you, I didn’t need one!”

“Fine,” I said. “Here’s what I think. We’re going to live somewhere that you can ride a bike, and I’m going to teach you to do it.”

Ben said, “What—” and stopped.

I didn’t worry about Alix’s parents. I didn’t worry about the realtor. I steered Ben into the next room and said, “Whatever it is, tell me. Nobody’s had a perfect life. Everybody has something.”

“What if I can’t learn how?” he asked. “People learn when they’re kids. And OK, I tried once on Kyle’s bike, and I kept falling off. What if we get a bike, and I’m not coordinated enough?”

“You’re plenty coordinated enough,” I said.

“How coordinated are six-year-old kids? It’s going to be fine.

We’ll practice in an anonymous parking lot until you get the hang of it, and then we’ll all get bikes and do some riding, now that it’s not pouring every day.

You know Alix will be all about that. I’d say ‘mountain biking,’ but she’d just want to do it with us, and?—”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “If she fell off, she could get really messed up, and she probably wouldn’t want to do just the easy stuff.”

“You’ve got it. We’ll save the mountain biking for when it’s just you and me.” I put a hand on his shoulder for a moment, then said, “Now let’s see if this lady can scare us up a real house.”

When we got back into the not-big-enough kitchen, she had.

Well, kind of. She said, “There’s a house that hasn’t come onto the market yet, but I got wind of it.

I haven’t seen it myself, so I can’t promise, but it’s being offered by a realtor I know, and she’s said good things.

It’s walking distance to both the Hollywood and Beaumont Village neighborhoods, which sounds like what you want.

Let me see if there’s any way we can take a look. ”

That was why, an hour and a somewhat grumpy café stop later—Ben was flagging, and as for Alix, she was not the most patient woman in the world—we were pulling up outside our seventh house of the day.

We’d driven through the Rose City Golf Course on the way, too.

Alix had studiously looked away and drummed her fingers on the armrest, and I’d thought, As omens go, I like this one.

The house looked like the setting for a family sitcom. Exactly like that. A second realtor, presumably representing the sellers, got out of her car and said, “You’re getting the very first viewing. We haven’t staged it yet or done photos, but it’s such a charming house. ”

Alix and I looked at each other. From what I’d learned about real estate so far, “charming” seemed to mean “dark and with tiny rooms” and “needs work.” But the front porch …

Ben said, “Wow. See, this looks like a house. Look at the porch!”

It was wide, it was covered, it had hanging baskets full of flowers, and it even had a sort of swinging gate at the front that you could latch if, for example, you were out there with your dog. There were two rocking chairs. There was a porch swing. It was the Golden Ideal of porches.

“OK,” I said, “but that’s just the porch.”

When we went inside, though, Ben’s mouth fell open. What came out of it was, “Wow.”

“Classic Craftsman,” the new realtor said brightly. “With the original woodwork and built-ins. Look at the shape it’s in. I do think this house has one of the best layouts I’ve seen, too. You can really take it in with it unfurnished like this.”

Our realtor said, “Of course, it’s only forty-three hundred square feet, with just three bedrooms.”

“But with so many bonus rooms,” the new realtor said.

“What do you think, Alix?” I asked. “Could we squeeze into forty-three hundred square feet?”

It was, in fact, a perfect house. The kitchen had wood cabinets with glass fronts, French doors, and a deck.

The yard had a huge old tree and a firepit.

The house had a sun porch. It had a study.

The bedrooms were huge, the floors were hardwood, and the windows in the master looked out on that big tree. And in the basement …

“Space for a game room here,” the realtor said. “They did a family room, but there’s so much space upstairs already, isn’t there? And through here …”

It was a workshop, I guessed. With a metal sink, stamped concrete floors, an enormous workbench, and about an acre of space. And with double doors out to the driveway.

“Full bathroom off that game room,” the realtor said, “if you wanted to use part of it as a gym. I understand you play football.”

“Yes,” I said. “Hey, Ben?”

“Yeah?” Ben asked. “If you’re going to ask if I like this one— yes. Yes! This is the house.”

I said, “It’s your birthday next week. Fifteen.”

He stood stock-still. He turned red again. He stared at me like this might be something good, and he couldn’t quite believe it.

“I know I just said the bike,” I said. “And you definitely need a bike. But I had another birthday present planned. What do you think about fixing up a car with me, this next year? Say, a classic one?”

“A Mustang?” He barely breathed it.

“You bet. Great choice. That first generation? Plenty of parts for it, and plenty of YouTube videos. That was going to be one of my suggestions. And if we get this house, we’ve got the space to do it right here.”

“But do you know how?” he asked.

I laughed. “I actually do know some things, and Harlan knows more. He said he’d like to give us a hand with it. I was thinking, do it at his place, but?—”

“But we could do it here,” Ben said. “At home. Oh, boy.”

“Alix might be willing to help with the wiring and all that, too,” I said.