Domestic Do-over

by Kate McMurray

  “It makes sense. I know, it’s early, blah blah, but first of all, we love each other, and second of all, we spend nearly every night together anyway. Wouldn’t it be easier to have all of our stuff together in one house?”

  Maybe it really was that easy. Travis looked around the kitchen, and he could see Brandon sitting at the island in the morning while Travis whipped up some breakfast. Brandon would scroll through his email on his phone or flip through a newspaper, and they’d look at each other moonily when Travis handed him a cup of coffee. There were plenty of logical reasons against moving in together, but a lot of emotional reasons why it made sense.

  “You’re serious,” Travis said.

  “Very. Honestly, I’ve been thinking about it for weeks.”

  “And you can just do that? Buy the network’s half of the investment?”

  “I mean, I assume so. Kayla and I owned the houses on our old show. Restoration only fronted the money here as a way to incentivize me buying in. I’m sure I can come up with the money to buy them out. It might even make for a good premiere of the show. Brandon and Travis fix up a house, fall in love, and decide to move into it themselves. That’s quite a story.”

  Travis laughed softly and shook his head. He couldn’t wrap his head around any of this. He wanted the house, though, and he wanted to live here with Brandon, and the fact that it was even a possibility was such a miraculous surprise.

  But he also knew how much of a financial burden this put on Brandon. Travis had that nest egg he’d socked away to buy the house he didn’t get; it wasn’t enough money to buy this house outright, but it was enough to buy out the Restoration Channel’s share.

  Could he do this? It was a bonkers idea. But he couldn’t just walk away from this house, either. It had memories of Brandon embedded in it; selling the house to someone else would be heart-wrenching.

  Because Brandon was right. This house was Brandon and Travis’s.

  What an unexpected turn his life had taken.

  “Let’s do it,” Travis said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. I want to live in this house with you.”

  Brandon whooped and grabbed Travis, pulling him into such a tight hug that his feet lifted off the floor. Travis laughed and tried to regain control of the situation. He hugged Brandon, but then he pulled away to arm’s distance. He put a hand on Brandon’s chest.

  “But I have one condition.”

  BRANDON BRACED himself. “What’s your condition?”

  “Let me buy out the Restoration Channel. I have money set aside for my own house. That way you and I will each have a stake in the house.”

  Brandon’s first instinct was to tell him no. He felt protective of the house and of Travis. He could buy this house, and he’d make his money back as soon as they sold their next house. He wanted to buy the house as a gift for Travis, as an investment in their future together.

  This could also get them into a messy financial entanglement. Brandon knew that. Realistically, it was probably time to get accountants and lawyers involved, and they’d have to renegotiate Travis’s contract with the network, and they’d have to work out how to split profits, if they actually needed to split them up, or….

  But that was all stuff that could be worked out at a later date.

  And Travis was saying he wanted to go in on this house with his own money.

  “I see you hesitating, but I think it’s what makes the most sense,” Travis said. “And it means that if anything happens to us or the show or whatever, that I’m not relying on you financially. Because I won’t abide by that. I know you’re far more wealthy than I am, but I never want to be dependent on you in that way.”

  And Brandon got it then. “We should be on equal footing.”

  “Exactly. I know that things will get hairy when we move in together and we’ll have to sort through finances and the show and all that, but… that kind of takes the romance out of things.”

  Brandon laughed. “Really? You’re the unfailingly practical one.”

  “Maybe I have a romantic streak.”

  “I know you do.” Brandon leaned over and kissed Travis. The kiss lingered and grew until Travis pushed Brandon into the island.

  Brandon nudged Travis away before things got out of hand. “So, do I understand you right? Are we doing this?”

  “Yes. Let’s move into this godforsaken house.”

  Brandon looked around. Yeah. He felt good about this. “It’s a great way to get our relationship off the ground. Going in together on a house, becoming partners in all kinds of ways. I think this is good. Very good.”

  “We can move my furniture in here, though, right? Because some of yours is ugly.”

  Brandon laughed. “I love you.”

  Travis rolled his eyes. But then he said, “I love you too.”

  Epilogue

  IT HAD been Travis’s idea to host the premiere party for the show at their house. Brandon suspected this was because he had no interest in spending a night in a public place and he’d have some control over the guest list. Also, having the party in Brooklyn meant most of the Restoration Channel executives that might have gone to a party at a bar or club or other event space decided to pass.

  Travis was a genius.

  Erik and a few of his crew members had come. Ismael and most of the work crew were there too. Kayla and Dave had flown out for the party, and Maribeth, the new producer, had arrived with her husband as well. Mike and Sandy had brought their families, including Mike’s teenage daughter and Sandy’s six-year-old son, who spent a good portion of the evening running laps around the living room. There were far too many people crammed into the room, too much movement, too much talking, but it was just the sort of happy chaos that belonged in a home, and Brandon loved it.

  Travis had deemed catering too much of an expense, but he’d had a bunch of snack platters from a fancy grocery store near his parents’ house in Queens delivered, and he’d stocked up the bar they’d put in the dining room. Various party guests had brought other snacks and booze, so the offerings were eclectic. It certainly wasn’t cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at a high-end restaurant. It was very Travis.

  The TV was mounted above the fireplace in the living room; Travis had ultimately had to hire a guy to fix the chimney and fireproof everything, but it was worth it to make the fireplace the centerpiece of the room. The mantel below the TV was otherwise unadorned—Travis had cut that piece of wood himself too. Around them were the walls they’d painted together, the floors Brandon and Ismael had installed, the furniture Kayla had helped Brandon pick out, and the bright teal rug Travis had found at some discount store.

  It wasn’t like a staged house out of a magazine, as all the other houses they’d flipped had been. It was their home, and it reflected their tastes. And Travis’s, it turned out, veered toward the bold and bright in unexpected ways, especially since his wardrobe consisted of mostly black, gray, and navy work clothes.

  Brandon already knew this pilot episode ended with Travis and Brandon walking the cameras through their finished house.

  They had since flipped four houses and had just gotten an offer on the fifth, so they were basically one voiceover away from having their initial order of six episodes in the tank. The Jessica Benton project had ended up being a blast, especially when Jessica herself got involved in the design. She and Travis had similar taste, which kept the arguing on camera to a minimum. The narrative of that episode shook out to be Travis and Jessica teaming up against Brandon, who had the role of being budget-conscious when Jessica’s design ideas got too pricey for the neighborhood. And sure, maybe a giant crystal chandelier in the master bedroom of your Beverly Hills mansion made sense, but in an old Tudor-style house in Brooklyn? No.

  They’d worked on four other houses, all more traditional flips, including one old house that had been built to look like a pagoda. The Victorians who had built houses in the neighborhood had drawn from a ton of different inspirations, and Japanese art was
trendy the year this house had been built. Travis had done a ton of research on Japanese design to help make the interior match the exterior, and it had been a unique house for sure.

  But they’d sold all five houses for decent profits, which made up a little for the pile of money Brandon had spent fixing the house he sat in now.

  He’d heard from his family in the interim too. Robert had grudgingly congratulated his success, although didn’t seem eager to invite him back to dinner anytime soon. Luke had been more enthusiastic, and they’d been getting along lately. Brandon had considered inviting Luke to the premiere party, but he was in rehab, which was probably for the best.

  And the show had been renewed. There were a finite number of houses in Victorian Flatbush that could be flipped, but Maribeth’s idea was to start flipping houses in other Brooklyn neighborhoods. Brandon was starting to look for abandoned houses in nicer neighborhoods closer to downtown, but Travis thought it might be worthwhile to look in areas a bit farther out. Travis already had a lead on a place in Gravesend not far from Coney Island—a brick three-story duplex that would be really fun to renovate—just a few blocks south of L&B Spumoni Gardens, a legendary Brooklyn pizza place. They’d do the show together at least one more season; they’d gotten a twelve-episode order this time.

  It had been a year since Brandon had signed on to do this show. What an amazing year it had been.

  “Babe, it’s starting!” Travis shouted from the living room.

  Brandon finished mixing his drink and walked into the living room, where everyone was piled on seats or the floor. Every possible piece of seating was taken, but Travis gestured at the floor in front of his feet, so Brandon sat there, between Travis’s legs. Travis ran a hand through Brandon’s hair, probably without even realizing he was doing it, because Ismael gave him the hairy eyeball.

  “Dude,” said Ismael.

  “What?” asked Travis. Then he took his hands away, so he must have realized what he was doing.

  On screen, Brandon said in voiceover, My name is Brandon Chase. I’ve been flipping houses for nearly ten years. Now, with the help of my romantic partner Travis, a licensed contractor, I’m flipping houses in Brooklyn, New York. We’re taking on the worst homes in otherwise great neighborhoods. Victorian Flatbush is a world unto itself, a gorgeous neighborhood full of hundred-year-old mansions in a variety of architectural styles. We’re finding the neglected ones and restoring them to their original glory.

  The voiceover played footage of Brandon and Travis at work together on several different houses. There was an image of Brandon bashing a cabinet door with a sledgehammer, Travis laying down hardwood floor in the Benton house, Travis and Brandon having a heated discussion while standing over counter and cabinet samples. Then the episode opened with the footage of Brandon and Travis doing the initial walk-through of this very house, with Travis finding lots of issues.

  “Ah, the good old days,” Travis said. “Before I really knew you.”

  “You love me,” Brandon said.

  “I do. It’s annoying.”

  “Hush.”

  The episode was a highlight reel of the whole process of renovating the house: Travis finding the foundation issues in the basement, Travis picking fights with Brandon over the design, Ismael putting up drywall, Brandon and Kayla shopping, Brandon putting in floors, Mike and Sandy working on the kitchen and bathrooms, Ismael telling Brandon about the roof leak. They’d filmed Travis’s reaction to the final kitchen unveiling—he still hadn’t quite been over Brandon’s choice of those tiles, so it was a convincing reveal—and then they’d had to film Brandon and Travis having a discussion about potentially keeping the house.

  After that was footage of Brandon and Travis moving their furniture in so that there could be good before-and-after shots with furniture. Then there was one final shot of the house, over which the house’s purchase price and Brandon’s investment were shown. Normally this would be the part of the show where the math illustrated how much of a profit they’d made selling the house, but in this case, Brandon explained in voiceover that he and Travis loved the house so much, they couldn’t let it go.

  “What did you think?” Brandon asked everyone in the room, although really he was asking Travis, who had never seen himself on TV before.

  “Good shot of the McPhee company T-shirts,” said Mike.

  “You know what? That was fun,” said Ismael. “That roof leak was a doozy.”

  Brandon thought the show was good. Two months of footage edited down to about forty minutes—plus commercials—made the whole experience seem a little more intense. But the crazy thing to Brandon was that he could actually see himself falling in love with Travis on screen. He recognized how his own facial expressions changed around Travis as the show went on. And he noticed Travis’s body language changing around him too, in subtle ways that probably only Brandon could see. It was such a strange document of their relationship, this forty-minute television show.

  “It’s very weird to see myself on television,” said Travis. “Is my accent really that bad?”

  “It is,” said Brandon. “I like it.”

  “Good Lord. I sound like Bernie Sanders.”

  Brandon laughed. “You sound like you grew up in Queens. Which you did.”

  “I don’t think I want to watch many more episodes.”

  Brandon laughed. “Don’t sweat it. You look great on TV. Like a badass with a heart of gold.”

  “Shut up. You’re biased.”

  “I think you both look great,” said Kayla. “On TV, I mean. And you look like you actually still like me, which will hopefully keep people from egging my house.”

  “Egging? Really?” asked Travis.

  “I mean, it’s only happened twice, but the second time I heard a woman yell, ‘Cheater!’ from her car. That Brandon is actually gay obviously never entered her mind as the reason our marriage didn’t work out.”

  “There was that story in People in which someone who doesn’t even know Brandon posited that he just fell in love with me regardless of gender,” Travis said. “It was fun to read that I’d led the poor man to the dark side.”

  “I wanted to be lured.”

  “It’s not the dark side!” Travis threw his hands up.

  Brandon laughed. He twisted his body so that he could put a hand on Travis’s thigh and look up at him. “Trav, I would not have fallen in love with you if you were not a dude. How’s that?”

  “A little better.” Travis crossed his arms.

  Brandon loved when Travis was passionate about something like this. He patted Travis’s thigh. Other than that, did you like the show?”

  Travis stared at the television. “It was very strange. Two months of work boiled down to less than an hour.”

  “Yeah, you never get used to that,” said Kayla.

  “On the bright side, we live in this house now,” said Brandon.

  “That’s true,” said Travis. “It is a pretty awesome house.”

  “It’s the best house.”

  “It’s our house.”

  “God, you guys are lame,” said Ismael.

  Travis laughed. He pushed at Brandon’s shoulders until Brandon moved out of his way, and then he stood up. “Well, eat up. There’s plenty of food left. I want you all to finish off the trays and stuff and then get out so that I can continue pulling Brandon over to the dark side.”

  “Too late,” said Brandon.

  “Sex. ‘The dark side’ means sex, doesn’t it?” said Ismael.

  “Dirty, filthy, gay sex,” said Travis, apparently no longer offended.

  “Yuck,” Ismael said, but he was laughing.

  After the credits ended, an old episode of Dream Home came on TV. “Ugh, this garbage?” said Kayla.

  Brandon laughed and led everyone back into the kitchen, and his guests chowed down on the food. While everyone was preoccupied with eating, Travis sauntered over and hooked an arm around Brandon’s middle.

  “Does that whole
seeing-yourself-on-TV thing get any easier?” asked Travis.

  “No. I always see every blemish on my face or weird squeak of my voice or unflattering pose as I’m putting in tile.”

  “So let’s just not watch our show again ever.”

  Brandon chuckled. “That’s fair. But you know what I couldn’t stop thinking about when I watched the episode?”

  “What?”

  “It was like watching myself fall in love with you. Restoration Channel viewers will fall in love with you too, you know.”

  “Hopefully not in the same way.”

  “Well, no, probably not. I’m just saying, you look hot when you’re working on a house.”

  “You’re really biased. I look sweaty and tired.”

  “Well, I am biased, but you’re also hot. And I love you.”

  “Okay, okay.” Travis stepped away. “I love you too. But I’m serious about watching the show. You’re hot too, but I see you in person all the time. I don’t need to see you on TV.”

  “Okay, Trav. Okay.”

  “I’d like to see more of you.” Travis waggled his eyebrows.

  “Not with all these people here.”

  Travis winked and turned around. He clapped his hands twice. “Party’s over, folks. Eat up and get out.”

  More from Kate McMurray

  Elite Athletes: Book 3

  Sprinter Jason Jones Jr., known around the world as JJ, is America’s hope to take the title of Fastest Man in the World, the champion of the Olympic 100-meter sprint. Two years before, a doping scandal brought his winning streak to a crashing end, and even though he’s been cleared of wrongdoing, he’s finding it hard to escape the damage to his reputation. At the Games in Madrid, no one believes he’s innocent, and officials from the doping agency follow him everywhere.

  It just fuels JJ’s determination to show them he’s clean and still the fastest man on earth.

  If only he wasn’t tempted by foxy hurdler Brandon Stanton, an engineering student and math prodigy who views each race like a complicated equation. His analytical approach helps him win races, and he wants to help JJ do the same. But JJ’s been burned too many times before and doesn’t trust anyone who has all the answers. No matter how sexy and charming JJ finds Brandon, the Olympics is no place for romance. Or is it?