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“Mr. Delaney?”
“Jesse,” I said. “You must be Jade Santana. A pleasure to meet you.”
I put on my best smile for her. The last thing that I wanted her to think right now was that she had made a mistake.
“And you. You can call me Jade.”
She offered me a smile in return and then quickly opened the back of the rental moving truck she had driven.
“So, I could hardly get everything all packed last night. I think it’s good that you’re here to meet me… would you mind helping me unload? There are just a few heavy boxes that might be tricky for me to carry up the stairs.”
I nodded slowly.
I had indeed offered to help her move everything inside. What kind of a landlord would I be if I had no intentions of fulfilling that promise if she asked me to do so?
She motioned towards the back of the truck.
“Have anything fragile in here?”
“I marked all of that with red masking tape,” Jade replied. “All the fragile stuff, I’d like upstairs if you can manage to help me do that.”
I nodded slowly.
I suspected she had some knick-knacks or something that she wanted to display, and the fact that she wanted them all upstairs told me that she wanted to display them for herself or her friends. I didn’t know yet. Not that it really mattered. I wouldn’t be home much to see who she was bringing around.
I grabbed one of the first boxes from the truck and took it inside. She’d labeled some of the boxes “bedroom” or “office” but the unlabeled ones, I just dumped in the living room. Jade seemed to be on top of grabbing most of the fragile items before I could grab them.
From the shape of the box and the weight, I wondered if I had happened to grab her computer. I wondered what she would need a proper desktop for, but it was none of my business.
Once the truck was emptied, she took a seat on the couch. I sat down on one of the chairs in the living room.
“Thank you for your help, Jesse,” she said with a soft smile. “My friend was not able to get this afternoon off to help me. So… what is this room supposed to be? When it’s not full of boxes?”
I blinked once and then took a deep breath. I wondered if she was going to be this inquisitive the entire time we lived together. However, the one saving grace was that I’d be home perhaps once a week to share the house with her. If that.
“This is usually the living room,” I answered. It seemed obvious to me. I mean, there were couches and a TV. Maybe she was just trying to make conversation. I was very new at this whole “landlord” thing, so I wasn’t really sure if it was normal to sit chatting with your tenant over a pile of boxes.
“Oh nice! I like it!” She pointed to a painting over the fireplace that depicted my family’s ranch. “That’s cool.”
I nodded. “How about I show you around the house and then let you start unpacking?”
“Sure!” she said with a widening smile.
I took a deep breath and led her around the house. Her enthusiasm was unexpected. How could someone have so much energy after driving for hours and then unpacking a moving truck?
“You’ve had the house cleaned since you put it up for rent,” she mused as she scanned the mudroom. “I wondered why there was a bit of a spot in here. Is it often you come in through here? Does this door lock with a key too?”
“It locks with the regular house key, but I only come through here if I’m coming back from a fire and need to strip off all my gear. The laundry room is through that door,” I said, pointing, “and I can easily get some clean clothes. If you ever see a pile of freshly cleaned folded pajamas that aren’t going anywhere, that’s the purpose they serve,” I informed her. “Oh, and while we’re on the subject of things that go on around the house, I have one little rule that I’d like you to follow while you live here. I can abide most visiting and working from home—where you call into the office via phone or video conference. However, the one thing I must ask that you refrain from doing while you live here Is working full-time out of the house and having people coming in and out. I refuse to support that.”
Jade stared at me for a second longer than seemed normal..
“Yes. You mentioned that multiple times in your posting. And in your lease agreement.”
Did she sound mad? It was a basic rule.
“My friend and I are in the process of setting up a storefront downtown so you have nothing to worry about,” she said shortly. “Thank you for the warning. I’m assuming I can at least mail things from here?”
I felt my face turn a little hot. “Of course you can mail things from here,” I replied. “I just don’t want a ton of customers visiting the house.”
