callmeemily | BACKDATED (for Joel, dated Aug 22)

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BACKDATED (for Joel, dated Aug 22)

They've looked at a couple of places, but til now, none of them have hit the mark. Too big, too dark, no kitchen even though they'd been told it had a kitchen, that sort of thing, but this one they've been told that they'll 'love', and that's got Raleigh wondering as she waits outside of Crossroads, sitting on the bench outside because she's trying to soak up the sun before it's fall and they're plunged back into short days and cold nights.

She tips her head all the way back when she hears the door open and close and Joel lock it, and she's smiling. "Hey, thanks for doing this." She's thanked him with every one they've seen, because he takes the time out of his day - and more than that, he's the one who's signing the lease, because-- because. Because he's kind, because he's family, because he's honestly one of the nicest guys Raleigh's ever met.

She hasn't told him about the disastrous date that she had last night, or really given him feedback on The Most Boring Date In Existence, since he's the one who set her up on it - but she figures it may come up now, if he's heard the gossip. Either way, hopefully this would be the one.

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As he closes up the store, Joel finds himself really hoping that this is the one. It's not that he minds doing this at all, not that he cares about closing the store for an hour or so in order for them to check out some of the places, not at all, but every time they look at a place that doesn't even come close to what they've been asking for, he feels like he can sense Raleigh's disappointment. And maybe he's imagining it, maybe he's simply projecting his own disappointment at it not being the place he wants to help her find, but he doesn't want her to feel discouraged. They're going to find the right place, he's absolutely sure of it, and when they do, they'll know it.

For now, though, he might settle for finding a place with a kitchen when they've been told it has a kitchen. He'd been so angry over that one, furious with the agent for having wasted their time and although he'd been fairly restrained when giving him a hard time about it, Joel is sure the agent won't be doing that again.

He thinks of telling Raleigh she doesn't need to thank him, but he has a feeling she will anyway, so he just smiles as he shoves the store keys into his pocket and says, "You're welcome. I've got a good feeling about this place." He doesn't have any feeling, really, he just wants to remain hopeful and optimistic, which aren't usually default states for him to be in, but he's trying.

She's trying to keep upbeat, mostly because Joel's already putting himself on a limb with agreeing to do this, and she knows - she knows that she can't be too picky, because they can't keep doing this forever. She's taking this leap, this crazy insane leap, but it's his name that's on the line, his name and his credit, and she knows that, and there's no way she doesn't appreciate it with every fiber of her being.

She pushes herself to her feet, and she shrugs her shoulders. "Can't be worse than the last one, right?" The agent had tried to assure them that they could put in a kitchen, but Raleigh doesn't have that kind of money, nor does she have that kind of time. She wants to get started, to make a place hers - not gut renovate a place that she's pretty sure used to be a toy store.

Enough people at this point have said Yes, you should open a bakery, your stuff is good enough to open a bakery that she's actually doing it even though she's terrified, she's terrified she can't, that she won't be any good at it, and absurdly that the only people who will buy her stuff is her friends, because she's well aware that they're that sort of people, but she doesn't want to run that sort of business.

"At least it's close, right?" She's a little on edge, not so great with the small talk because she seriously has no idea if it's good, or not. If this whole thing will be good, or if it'll be another disaster, and she doesn't want to waste his time. They walk down the street together, with Raleigh's hands shoved into the back pockets of her shorts. "We can do lunch and stuff."

"Can't be worse than the last one," he agrees, then pauses thoughtfully as they walk, because that's not strictly true. It hadn't had a kitchen, which had been pretty awful, but he's sure there are worse things, floors and walls full of black mold, a place that looks like a prison more than a bakery. There are places that can be much worse, but he's hopeful that the agent is taking them a little more seriously now that Joel has given him a piece of his mind.

"It would be nice to be close," he says. "But I'm mostly concerned with finding you the right place. I still think near the boardwalk would be the best option for foot traffic." He doesn't think he's the best business owner in the world -- in fact, he knows he isn't -- but he's been at Crossroads long enough that he thinks he's learned how foot traffic works. He's hopeful that people will learn soon enough that Raleigh's bakery is something exceptional, something they'll travel across town for, but he knows at first that people passing by will probably account for a lot of her revenue. Especially during tourist season. He expects she'll find business booming in the summer, especially if she gathers a good town following this winter.

"This is it up here," he says as they turn a corner and he nods to an empty building. It looks like it needs a lot of work, but with the price range they're looking at, there's going to be work no matter what. He fully intends on helping Raleigh with that as much as he possibly can as well, which he knows will make the financial burden of renovations easier, too.

She can guess what he's thinking when he pauses - mostly because of when he pauses, but she refuses to even think it. It can always be worse, that's sort of how the universe works, but she's hopeful.

"I want to be close," she says as they found the corner. "It's part of what makes it the right place." He's right, about the boardwalk - but she knows that if the best foot traffic was across town, she would rather be closer and have a little less. She stops and looks at the place when they turn the corner - she's done that almost every time, and twice she's just had a bad feeling from the first second, from the first moment.

Right now, though? She's got none of that. There's no bad feelings.

She sort of lapses into silence, even though the real estate agent is there - her greeting is distracted because she's already looking at it, at the way it gets afternoon sun, at the way that it just pours through the giant front windows. She doesn't mean for Joel to have to do all the talking, but the agent lets them in and Raleigh's sneakers crunch a little because the place is all but abandoned, but... the look on her face says it all. "Can we look in the back?" Because the front? The front is perfect, to her.

The place is filthy. That's the first thing Joel notices when the agent lets them in. His black sneakers are grey within seconds and he glances down at the hems of his jeans, knowing they're going to be covered in dirt and dust by the time they leave, but it'll all be worth it if this is the right place for Raleigh.

The second thing he notices are the big windows and the way the light pours in. Close the Crossroads and big windows that let in the sun are two of the things on her list and when Joel looks at Raleigh, he sees none of the disappointment that has been there in the past. She looks hopeful. She looks excited.

The agent is talking about the gas hookup, which Joel marks off as another thing on Raleigh's list, but he's mostly ignoring the man as he leads her into the back. And that when he sees the giant walk-in fridge. "Holy shit," he says, glancing at Raleigh with a smile on his face. He doesn't curse often, but he's surprised by the fridge and he knows that's one enormously expensive item she won't have to have installed.

Raleigh doesn't even notice the dirt. That's probably the first sign that it's right, because she doesn't notice the grime - if Joel had asked, she would have said it was 'a little dusty' when it would be many, many rags and a lot of vacuuming and scrubbing and wiping to get it clean.

It's covered in soot and dirt and grease, and it's all nearly invisible as Raleigh walks through to the back, and she sees the fridge and she actually grabs Joel's arm, and she's- well. Raleigh's bouncing up and down, and she's pulling him towards it. "Look! Look, seriously- and there's the hookups for the ovens, I wish they hadn't stripped them, but- it's a good size, too. It's not too big, you know?" Not too big, not the size of a closet. There's some other supplies and shelving that've been left behind, and she's already seeing it, already seeing in her mind's eye just what the whole place would look like.

It's the kind of place that she could see--

Well. She's not thinking that she's going to have kids any time even remotely soon, but someday, someday eventually, it's the kind of place she could see baking things here when she's got a family, a squirmy four-year-old sitting on the counter as she teaches them how to make a proper linzer, and it just sort of sits right and she feels like she's...home.

"This is it." If she could, she'd buy it. She'd not rent it, she'd buy it, right now, no questions asked, not knowing how stable it is or if there's termites or if it's haunted, but they're looking to rent, and her eyes flick to Joel's. "This is it." She just knows.

The agent all but lights up at that and Joel takes Raleigh by the elbow, gently leading her away. There is a lot of work to be done with this place and if this is the one she wants, then this is the one she'll get, but Joel wants to be able to negotiate with the landlord when it comes time to set a price because he's sure what they're asking right now is too high given how much work they'll have to put into the place before she'll be able to open.

And he's glad she's excited. He just doesn't want the agent to witness all of it and think this is a sure thing, even if it is.

"It's got just about everything you want," he agrees, unable to keep himself from smiling. She just looks so happy and to have had any part in that makes him happy. "The fridge is a nice surprise, too. Let's look at the basement, though, see what the foundation is like." He can do minor repairs down there if need be, but he needs to make sure it isn't crumbling down around them.

"The basement is fully finished," the agent supplies. "If a bit dirty."

"It really does," her voice is quieter, and she glances up at him, and there's hope, there. As ridiculous as it sounds. "Do you like it?" She's hoping he says yes, she's really, really hoping he says yes, especially because she's sort of tossed all her emotional eggs into this basket.

They move down into the basement, and there's fluorescent lighting, and it looks dry, no noticeable cracks in the walls. There's some bags of flour that Raleigh is sure are pretty gross and unusable, and the furnace looks like it's about 800 years old, but it seems pretty solid. It's.... home. She just looks at it - the building, not the basement - and she actually feels.... right. This feels so right, deep in her bones.

She looks around the basement, and then finally turns back. "If we would lease it," she says after a second, even though the part of her that says it's right actually balks at the if. "It's going to need some pretty extensive work. How would that change the price?" The agent balks for a moment, frowning. She'd thought that this sale was going to be easy, especially after the last couple he's shown them, so that's the last question that he'd really expected.

Raleigh looks up at Joel, her brows furrowing. "So, I'm thinking new furnace, some major renovations upstairs--" They moved back up the stairs as she talked. "It's going to have to be completely rehabbed, and-" It's like she finally noticed the dirt, and she wrinkles her nose a little. "... Hosed down?"

"I do," he says earnestly. "I like it." It seems to be everything Raleigh wants and that, more than anything, is what he's concerned with. But the foundation looks solid and the basement is in relatively decent shape, especially compared to the upper level. There is a lot of work to be put into it, but it's not impossible. He knows Raleigh is willing to do anything to make it work and there are plenty of things he can offer.

"Major renovations, certainly," he agrees, glancing around the basement around before he heads back upstairs with her. He doesn't want the agent thinking this is an easy sale, not when there's going to be so much work involved. Raleigh is certainly capable, but he's worried the agent is thinking he can take advantage of her enthusiasm and Joel isn't going to let that happen. He has to hide a smile, though, when she starts to talk about all the work and he doesn't know if she means it or if she's putting it on for the agent, but it's working.

"There's at least a month of heavy work before you'd be able to open," he says. "Which cuts down on revenue. We'd have to consider that first month, possibly more."

"I know... the landlord said he might be open to discussing no rent being due until whatever business goes in can open," the agents offers and Joel smiles again.

She means it - mostly because she does know it'll impact the price, but not how much - all she can see is what the place will look like when they change it, and she's not looking at the agent, she's looking at Joel. "It's going to take time to get it cleaned up, but also it's going to cost money to actually get the new stuff. Would he pay for the furnace, or would that be on me? There's some stuff that's obviously what I want - like windows, in the kitchen, that's all me, but there's actual structural improvements that aren't just cleaning up the mess."

She doesn't know how she could afford a new furnace or floor or roof, if it came to that, but she doesn't know how commercial leases work, if she'd have to pay for it.

What she doesn't expect is that the agent would pipe up, "We also have authority to put concessions on the rent for the first year, due to some of the repairs needed." They've been trying to rent this place for years, if they finally got someone who would take it... it was better than it sitting empty.

That's good news and Joel brightens a little, though he tries not to show it. The landlord is obviously having trouble getting rid of the place, so if the agent tries to pressure them into anything by saying time is of the essence, it isn't going to work and he's fairly certain if they ask for a little time to think about it, they might be offered a slightly better situation yet.

He knows Raleigh wants this place and he doesn't want her to think he disagrees, so he flashes her a small, secretive smile before turning to look at the agent.

"I think we'd like to take a bit of time to think about it," he says. "There's a lot of work to be done." And there is, but the agent doesn't know that Joel can do a good portion of it himself, that the amount of work they'd have to contract out is actually quite small. "Raleigh? Say a few hours for us to talk about it?"

"Right, a few hours," she says obediantly, and she's walked over to the corner of the kitchen, and looks back at the agent over her shoulder. "Can we just have time by ourselves? We need to talk and I want to look around some more. I mean, you know where we live." The town's not that big, and it's not like there's anything to steal, or anything like that.

The agent hesitates for a minute but then she nods. "Just stop by when you're done so I can come back to lock up." The agency was only two blocks away, it's not like it was an issue - and if it meant that the place could get rented? She'd give them a key right now if she had to.

Raleigh nodded and waited for the agent to (awkwardly) leave before she turned around to look at Joel, biting her lower lip. "Well?" She wants to know what he really thinks, if it's any different from what he said before.

"Honestly, there's a lot of work to be done," Joel answers. He doesn't want to sugar coat things and make her think this place is going to be easy by any means and he doesn't think she'd believe him even if he did say that. "A lot of work. That said, I've been doing renovations on the store for a long time and there's a good portion of that work I know how to do." Between the two of them, he thinks there's probably a lot they can do without having to worry about a contractor, because that's where the costs will really start to pile up. The more they can avoid having to hire out, the better.

"That's where you'd end up spending a lot of money to get this place into shape where it would pass an inspection," he says. "So that's good news."

Then he looks at her and smiles, shaking his head. "You love it, though." And that's enough. If it were a death trap or if he thought the work involved would be too much, he'd try to talk her out of it, but he can see how much she loves it and the work is doable. It's a lot, it'll be hard work, but it's certainly doable and if this is the place Raleigh wants, Joel doesn't see any reason for them to keep looking.

"I know there is," she says even as she looks past him at the corner, because she really does want to put in a window, but then she finally looks back. "I mean, I know that I'm pretty much going to be working on getting this place cleaned up and fixed until it opens." He continues, and Raleigh realises that he's actually committing himself to this, to doing the work and showing her how to do it, too.

Her brows furrow together and it's because she's touched, she really is. "It's good news," she says with a nod, but then he says that - he says You love it, though. and he's not wrong, he's so not wrong, and she looks at the front room, scrubbing a hand over her face. "I really do," she says quietly. "I... This is so dumb, because I'm not- because dates... and I don't even get along," She's not mentioned to him how it went with Michael the Boring, or, worse, how things went with Richard, but she continues. "But when I was in the kitchen, like... I can see myself there- I mean, someday, maybe, if I have kids-"

She doesn't even know why her eyes have welled up, but it's a good thing. It's a good thing, that she can see her future here even if she doesn't know if she'll ever get there, and she rolls her eyes at herself. "Yeah. Yeah, I do love it, you're right. You're right, I love it a lot. It's the right place."

Edited 2014-08-29 20:01 (UTC)

He raises an eyebrow when she says she and dates don't even get along and he takes that to mean the date he set her up on didn't exactly go well. It's fine, he isn't about to take it personally, but he thinks Michael is nice and he wonders what it is that didn't work. Maybe they just didn't have much in common and that's fair, but he is curious.

He doesn't ask, but he smiles when she says she thinks she can see herself here with children one day. They haven't talked about it a lot, they haven't really discussed what Raleigh wants one day, but he and Spencer know where their little family is going to go and when he hears Raleigh say that, it makes something in his chest loosen, something feels a little lighter. Her children will be here one day, she'll teach them to bake, she'll have this place with them, and Joel knows any children he and Spencer have will be welcome here, too.

"That's an incredible thing to imagine," he says, reaching out to tuck some of her hair back without thought before he looks around the kitchen again. She's one of few people he's able to touch without being awkward, without overthinking it and he pauses, running his hand over a windowsill that's thick with dust. "If it's the right place, then it's the right place. You know the work that needs to go into it, but you know that I can help you with a lot of it and if it feels right..." He trails off and shakes his head, smiling at her. "I just didn't want to make it too easy on the agent. Hopefully she'll come back with a few more options for us now that she thinks we're not entirely sold."

Raleigh laughed when he talked about making it easy on the agent. "Hey, I'm leaving that one-hundred percent up to you, because I know that if I open my mouth, it'll be clear that she could ask for the moon and I'd try to find some way to make it work." Shaking her head, she looks at him for a long second, and she's been sort of wondering, wondering what'll happen with her while he and Spencer build their life together, but it's not really the time to ask. Maybe... maybe she'll talk to Spencer about it, because it's the kind of thing she knows they should talk about, at the very least.

She smiles, instead, shoving her hands into her back pockets. "Thank you. The offer to help, I mean, I... I wouldn't have been able to do this without you, or even really- I mean, I don't know what I would do, you know? So... It means a lot."

Someday, maybe, they'll talk about what she wants, what she thinks her life should be like, but right now what she thinks it will be like versus what it should be like are different enough that she thinks the conversation won't be a good one - but this is the first step in changing that.

"You would find away," he says and while he's more than happy to help, he's sure that this is something Raleigh wants badly enough to make it work no matter what his level of involvement. Maybe having here makes it a little easier for her to do certain things and he's glad he can do that, he likes being able to help her, especially when it comes to something like this, something she's been dreaming of. But she's determined and she's capable and if he wasn't here, he thinks she'd still find a way to make it happen.

"You want it and you're smart," he says. "Without me, you'd still find a way." And he has no doubt, no matter what she does, this place will be successful. "But I'm happy to help. I'll take care of things with the agent, but I'm fairly certain we'll be able to work out an arrangement that will work best for you. The landlord wants to get this place rented and I don't think they're going to have a lot of luck. There aren't a lot of people looking to open new businesses here who are capable of doing the work that's needed."

He's getting excited now and he grins over at her. "So tell me what you're seeing," he says. "Walk me through this place and then we'll go back and see the agent. It'll make her think we've had to spend a lot of time really thinking about whether it's worth it."

Raleigh laughed. "I'd mortgage my teeth if i had to, to get this place." She's not kidding, and she looks around at it, and she sees.... she sees things that aren't there yet, and she knows he's right. She'd find a way, but this way? She's not going to have to barter her first born for it. "We'll figure it out, I'm not worried."

He's smiling, and then he asks her to walk him through it, and she just sort of... lights up.

She's so excited, so happy, right now.

Grabbing his hand, she pulls him to the front of the store, careful to step around the stacks of... well, crap that the previous owner left. "Okay. So, everything, obviously clean, and no wallpaper, right? I'm thinking mostly white walls, and that one little wall - that'll be bright yellow and have a big square with chalkboard paint that's framed out in natural wood so that the specials can be on it." She chews on her lip for a second. "Wood shelves, not metal ones - they're not homey enough, if they're metal. A couple little tables in here, and outside - I mean, there'll only be room for like, three, but yellow chairs. Wood tables. Wood floors, if that's what's under the linoleum."

She chews on her lip. "No blinds. Curtains, maybe, but the rod goes so far past the window that when they're open, you can't see them from the outside. Whenever we're open, they're pushed all the way back." She turns back to look at him. "Does that sound- I mean..." She bites her lip for a second. For all that she knows exactly what she wants, she doesn't know if that's just... her. "Would you like being in a place like that?"

He lets her pull him along as she describes what she wants to do and it's all easy enough to imagine. The shelves and tables are things he can make, though he suspects she'll probably want to find a place where she can buy the chairs instead of leaving those to him, if only for the comfort of the people sitting in them. Joel is great at building rustic furniture, which is what he thinks she wants from the shelves and the tables, but he's never put much time into learning the more delicate process of making something a person can comfortably sit in for longer than five minutes.

"I can make those. The tables and the shelves. Probably even the chalkboard, too," he says, nodding as he imagines it. What she's describing sounds like a great little place and what's important is that she has such a clear vision. He knows of businesses that suffer simply because their owners are never quite sure what they want them to be, but Raleigh knows and that gives Joel even more confidence in the fact that she can do this.

"It sounds great," he says honestly, giving her a smile. "You know what you want and... people will love it. We'll make it work, we'll make it exactly what you want it to be, I can promise you that."

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BACKDATED (for Joel, dated Aug 22)

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