Domestic Do-over Read online

  Robert raised an eyebrow. “Are you?”

  “Is she hot?” asked Luke.

  Brandon put his fork down, slamming it harder than he meant to. Both of his brothers stared at him. “No. I mean yes, he’s hot, but I’m seeing a man, not a woman. In case you guys forgot, which you conveniently seem to do every time I leave town for longer than five minutes, I’m gay. I respected Dad’s wishes not to come out publicly while he was still alive, but jeez, guys. It’s not like that changes. I’m dating a man, okay? I’m keeping it quiet while I’m filming the show because I don’t want any trouble from the network, but you guys are supposed to be my family.”

  Brandon knew full well that neither Robert nor Luke wanted Brandon’s homosexuality to have any effect on the family business—and Brandon had no idea how that could happen, but he understood the way his brothers thought—so he knew they’d both be quiet. But he felt frustrated that they didn’t seem to know him at all, didn’t acknowledge what his life really was.

  Robert looked chastened, at least. Then he ruined it by saying, “You’d better not bring him to lunch with my kids.”

  Brandon stood. “I’m leaving. I’m done.”

  Robert stood too. “No, sit. I’m sorry.”

  They stared each other down for a minute; then Brandon sat.

  Something clicked for him then. All he’d wanted to do for most of his life was please his father. Failure is not an option was basically the Chase family motto, and Brandon had internalized it. Robert had always been the heir apparent, so Brandon had made a decision when he was a teenager that he’d go off on his own. Brandon and Kayla had started as Realtors and built up enough money in commission to fund their first house flip, so Brandon had never relied on family money. And Brandon had always reasoned that if he was earning money on his own, then he was not beholden to his family.

  Except he always had been.

  He’d never been able to get out from under his family’s shadow. John Chase was not a household name outside of New York and people who studied real estate, so Brandon could be Brandon on TV, not John Chase’s son. But John Chase was always around him, in his ear, on his shoulders.

  Just as John Chase loomed over both of his brothers.

  Robert internalized the family motto and used it to keep the business going. Recently, he’d expanded to invest in residential properties in Brooklyn. He worked long hours and didn’t see his kids much.

  Luke worked for Robert sometimes. He periodically left to get other jobs, but then he’d get fired and come back. And he dealt with the family motto by drinking to forget it.

  And Brandon had tried to get out, but he’d never been able to escape.

  His brothers were his blood relations, but they weren’t close. He still considered Kayla family, but they hadn’t had a true marriage. And he’d grown up in this ridiculous hotel suite. He’d never had a family. He’d never had a home. And he’d spent his whole damn life finding and making homes for other people.

  He ate a bite of potato and rubbed his forehead.

  “Now that you’re based in Brooklyn,” said Robert, “I’ve got some vacancies in the new building on Schermerhorn. I’d give you a good family discount.”

  The last thing Brandon wanted was to be beholden to Robert. “No, I’m good. I like the place I’ve got now.”

  “You’re renting,” said Robert, as if that was something only the plebes did.

  “For now. I’m not quite ready to buy a place yet. Let’s see if the show is successful first.”

  “You don’t think it will fail, do you?”

  Brandon sighed. How had he never quite seen this before? His family exhausted him now. “No. It’s going well so far. There are just a lot of things I can’t predict. Ratings, whether the show gets a second season, whether something goes horribly on a house…. I think it’ll be fine, but I don’t want to count my chickens yet.”

  “Your name is on this project. The Chase name is on this project.”

  And now Brandon was really done. “Did you ask me to dinner just to make sure I wouldn’t embarrass you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Because it’s actually not the Chase name. It’s the Brandon Chase name. Do you think housewives in Iowa know who John Chase was? Do you really think your next deal hinges on whether or not I lose money renovating a mansion in a neighborhood in Brooklyn I’m guessing you’ve never set foot in? Do you think the fact that I’m dating a man right now will have any effect on your business? Dad didn’t approve of my being gay, but I thought both of you were better than that.”

  “You were married,” said Robert.

  “I was. And I love Kayla. But being married to her didn’t cure me. The secret’s safe for now, but it’s time for you to prepare yourselves for the possibility that one of these days, I’m going to quit TV and live my life.” Brandon stood. “I have spent my entire life trying to live up to John Chase’s expectations. And now here I am, thirty-five years old, lonely, and tired. I’ve never been in a real relationship because I’ve been too busy building a public image acceptable to those housewives in Iowa. And John Chase is dead. What have I been living this shell of a life for? I’m done.”

  Luke stood and followed Brandon around the table. “Brandon, come on. Finish dinner.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Robert remained at the table, staring at his plate.

  Brandon let out a breath. “Maybe you never noticed. John Chase might have been a successful man, but he was not a good man, and all three of us are miserable as a result. Maybe you guys want to spend the rest of your lives trying to please a ghost, but I’m completely, totally, 100 percent done. Call me when you can have a conversation with me without talking to me as if I’m a leper.”

  Brandon stormed out of the suite without waiting for a response. As he rode the elevator, he reflected that this was not the most mature thing he’d ever done, but it felt good at the same time. Sure, it would probably be a while before either of his brothers contacted him, but he was okay with that.

  He’d only ever lived for other people. It was time to live for himself. Past time. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to do that, especially not with the show, but he had to find a way. A life and a home and a real love story—that was what he wanted. And he would not become like Robert or Luke, both shadows of men now, in different ways. No matter what their last name was.

  Chapter Sixteen

  TRAVIS HAD taken the B35 bus across town—taking cabs all over Brooklyn was an expense he didn’t need—and so he was dismayed to see it raining before he even got to the house. He hopped off the bus near Argyle Road and dropped into a dollar store to grab a cheap umbrella.

  So by the time he got to the house, he was damp, disgruntled, and late.

  Ismael was standing in the foyer looking grim when Travis arrived.

  “What is it?”

  Ismael frowned. “We have an issue.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Travis was irritated that Ismael was dragging this out, but then he realized Ismael was stalling to wait for the camera to get closer. Travis made himself look at Ismael and not the camera, and waited expectantly.

  “So you know how it hasn’t really rained at all since we started construction here?”

  Travis nodded, sensing what Ismael was about to say. It really hadn’t rained, at least not with any force. There’d been a few drizzly days, but no real storms. “There’s water in the house.”

  “You better come with me.”

  Travis followed Ismael up to the master bedroom, where indeed there was so much rain that the new paint on the ceiling was bubbling. Travis almost dropped an F-bomb, but conscious of the camera, he said, “Oh crap.”

  “Do you want to see for yourself?”

  “Yeah.”

  Travis followed Ismael over to the closet. The ladder that led to the attic had already been pulled down, and Ismael had left a couple of flashlights on, so Travis could see reasonably well. He d
idn’t even need to go all the way into the attic to realize the issue. The roof had completely given way above the master bedroom, and water was starting to pool on the floor, where it was leaking right through the ceiling.

  Travis climbed back down the ladder. “Is this the only room affected?”

  “Yes, but you can see how much water damage there is to the attic ceiling. The documentation we had said the roof had been patched a couple of years ago, so we thought the water damage was old. Turns out….” Ismael gestured toward the attic.

  Well, fuck. “Was the roof patched?”

  Ismael rocked on his heels. “It was. Patches didn’t hold.”

  “So we need a whole new roof.”

  “We need a whole new roof.”

  Well, that would certainly thrill Brandon.

  “Cut,” said Erik. “Brandon’s downstairs. Let’s tell him.” There was nervous glee in his voice.

  Travis rolled his eyes, but rather than making everyone traipse up and down the stairs again, he called out, “Brandon!”

  “Two minutes!” Brandon hollered back.

  “Can we get some tarps or drop cloths or something up here to stop more damage?” Travis asked.

  “Not until Brandon sees it,” said Erik.

  “I’ve got a tarp downstairs,” said Ismael, far more practical than the director. “I’ll go grab it. I think there are some empty buckets down there too.”

  As if he had an internal timer, Brandon appeared in the master bedroom doorway exactly two minutes later, just as Ismael arrived back carrying a couple of empty buckets and a big blue tarp folded up and tucked under his arm.

  Brandon waited for Erik to cue the camera again before he said, “What’s up?”

  “Fun story,” said Travis. “The roof is leaking.” He pointed to the bubbling paint on the ceiling.

  Brandon went pale. He put a hand over his mouth and then moved it away slowly. “What does this mean?”

  “The roof is old. When we did the initial inspection, we saw that the roof had been patched, so we thought the water damage in the attic was old. We were just going to repair it. But the patches aren’t getting the job done anymore. We need a new roof.”

  “You can’t just patch it again?”

  “I mean, you could,” said Ismael. “But this roof is so patchy that you’re better off just replacing it. That’s better for the buyer anyway, isn’t it? You can warrantee a roof for ten years.”

  “What’ll it cost?” Brandon asked.

  Travis assumed Brandon had worked on enough houses to know exactly what roofs cost, but he played along and said, “House this size? Eight thousand, probably. Maybe eighty-five hundred.”

  Brandon frowned. “I mean, we have to do it.” He looked up at the bubbling paint on the ceiling. “Can we put some buckets in the attic or something to keep this from getting worse?”

  “On it!” said Ismael, moving toward the ladder.

  Brandon stood in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips. “Can we not tell the difference between new and old water damage?”

  Ismael was up in the attic, and there were a few other guys standing around looking a little terrified, so Travis supposed it was his role to take this one. “Not really. Water damage is water damage. Good thing it rained or we wouldn’t have found this issue.”

  Brandon sighed. “But it seems like such a big issue. How did we not find this in our inspection? A roof leak that’s this bad?” He pointed to the ceiling. “We should have seen that.”

  Travis did feel bad that they’d missed the leak. As Ismael’s grunts came through the ceiling as he positioned the tarp and the buckets, Travis wondered how they could have failed to notice it. They’d hired an inspector to take a look at the house, and he’d missed the roof. Travis had taken a look when he was putting together the initial cost of renovation, and he’d missed it. Ismael had missed it too. The attic had been dry when they’d done the inspection—there had been evidence of past roof repairs, but everyone had assumed the water stains in the attic were old. It was common for homeowners to fix leaks and not repair the damage the leak had caused; Travis saw that kind of thing all the time, especially in cases like this, where the attic was unfinished. If no one went up there, what did a little water damage matter?

  “I’m sorry,” Travis said. “It’s also possible that this damage is cumulative, or that the sheer amount of rain today made the leak worse than it had been. Hell, we’ve had plenty of light rain days since construction started and there was no indication that there was a leak, so it could have been that the patches were holding until met with a real test. Or this is a new leak. I haven’t looked at it close enough to determine. But this house was abandoned for a while before you bought it, right? I’m guessing the roof is no longer under warrantee. Ismael’s right, it’s a good idea to replace it anyway.”

  “At great expense. When we’re already way over budget.”

  Travis shrugged. “You can’t not fix it.”

  Travis was starting to get to know Brandon well enough that he could see the anger contained under Brandon’s stiff facade. That anger was justified. Even if Brandon had all the money in the world, the way this house was racking up expenses would be stressful for anyone.

  “Everything’s ordered,” Brandon said. “We can’t make any more cuts or compromises.”

  Meaning: Brandon had thought he was done spending money. There were no more compromises to design he could implement. Travis knew there was a line item in the budget for staging, that they’d hire a company to make the interior look good while they tried to sell it. But aside from a few things here or there, everything had been paid for. They’d saved some money where they could, but they were still quite a bit over budget.

  Brandon was shaking his head while he stared at the ceiling. “I knew this was a risk.”

  “It’ll pay off,” Travis said. “You know as well as I do that houses in this neighborhood are selling for upwards of two to three million dollars.”

  Brandon sighed. “My profit margin keeps shrinking. But, fine. New roof.”

  Travis nodded.

  “I can’t believe this,” Brandon said. “What else is going to happen?”

  “No guarantees. But this has got to be the last thing on the interior.”

  Brandon turned to Travis sharply. “Does that mean things could still go wrong on the exterior?”

  “No, I don’t really think so.” The day team had already power-washed the house, patched the siding, and demolished the busted-up front walkway. They still had to paint and put in a new walkway, but that had all been budgeted for. “I can’t make any promises, of course, but the siding work is done. Everything else that has to happen to the exterior is cosmetic. We can paint the front door instead of replacing it, which will save you some money. And we can do a less expensive treatment on the walkway since we haven’t bought the pavers we picked out yet.”

  “Is that what you think we should do?”

  Travis didn’t want the power of decision here. “It’s your house.”

  “We had a minimal budget for landscaping because I figured we could spruce up those flower beds out front and put down some grass seed on the dry patches and call it a day. I didn’t budget for sod, though. Can we… can we assess the outside? Make sure there’s nothing else that could go wrong? Because we haven’t put down grass seed yet, and we haven’t painted the exterior, and this house is scheduled to go on the market in two weeks, but there’s still so much to do….”

  “We can go back to the carpeting plan for the second floor, which would save a lot of money over doing hardwood everywhere.” Travis wanted to talk Brandon off the ledge before he really freaked out on camera. There were still ways to mitigate the cost of the roof.

  “No, I still want to do the hardwood.”

  “Brandon, come on. If you’re going to freak out about the budget, you have to be willing to make compromises. We can make up most of the cost of the roof by doing carpet, painting th
e front door, and using cheaper pavers out front.”

  “I have to think about this. I don’t really want to compromise on materials or design at this point. There’s already so much we’ve compromised.”

  “I’m just saying, if you’re freaking out about the budget, there are still some changes we can make. But it’s your house.”

  “It’s my house,” Brandon snapped.

  “My opinion doesn’t matter,” Travis said. “I’m just here to put your plans into action.”

  Brandon grimaced. “Fine. Let me make this decision. Go ahead and contact roofers, get some bids in. I’ll figure out what to do with the rest of the house. We can’t put flooring in here until the leak is resolved anyway.”

  “Right.”

  Brandon stormed out of the room.

  “This is good stuff,” said Erik.

  Once the cameras were off, Travis rolled his eyes. He wondered if he should go after Brandon or let him stew. Probably the latter. He needed to calm down before Travis pushed him any further. Travis took a deep breath. “Well, guess we gotta get to work fixing all this,” he said to no one in particular.

  BRANDON’S ANGER didn’t dissipate much over the course of the day. Part of the issue was that he had nowhere to direct it. He couldn’t be mad at Travis per se, since it wasn’t Travis’s fault the roof had a hole, although he was still mad no one caught it. He was a little irritated Travis had tried to reconcile the budget, but of course, that was his job.

  Actually, what really stuck in his craw was that he’d been fantasizing about him and Travis living here together, and now he had to face a dilemma: do what was right for the project, which meant adhering to the budget to maximize profit, or do what was right for himself, which was making this house everything he imagined it could be. And he didn’t know what would be best.

  If he bought the house, did he want to live here without Travis? Because he wasn’t at all sure Travis would say yes if Brandon asked him to move in. Brandon wasn’t even sure they were ready for a step like that. He liked the image of them living here, but they’d only been seeing each other a few weeks, and in secret at that. And if they were both paranoid about getting caught, surely moving into the first house they renovated together would tip people off that something was going on between them. This idea of moving into this house was such a ridiculous fantasy, Brandon was mad at himself for getting emotionally invested in it.