Free Break and Enter by Etienne Page A

decided it was time to gather up Robbie and head back to the cabin. Mike picked him up and carried him to the truck while I said goodnight to our hosts, thanked them again, and got in the driver’s seat.
    At the cabin, we peeled Robbie’s clothes off down to his underwear and tucked him in bed. After Thor came back inside from taking care of his business, he curled up at the foot of Robbie’s bed as usual, and we shut up the house for the night and retired to our bed. We were too relaxed from the food and wine to do much more than cuddle a bit before we drifted off to sleep.
    We spent the next several days relaxing and enjoying our vacation. Each day the new addition to our family brought a new surprise and an occasional challenge. We woke up several mornings to find Robbie sandwiched in between us. His explanation was always the same—a bad dream. We made a run to Asheville and visited a couple of bookstores, where we purchased some books suitable for an almost-six-year-old, along with a set of phonics CDs. We had fun going through the phonics program with Robbie, and he caught on very quickly. There was little doubt in our minds that he would be at least on the same level as his classmates when he started school in September.
    Ernest Rodgers gathered affidavits and other material, and Martha’s department made short work of the requisite background investigations. Fortunately, both Mike and I were squeaky clean in that respect. In fact, neither of us had even had so much as a traffic ticket since we were in our teens, and both of us had sterling records from those days as well. The adoption hearing was set for Friday at ten in the judge’s chambers, and Charles and Philip were planning a three-day weekend in the mountains so they could be present. We were looking forward to seeing them again.
    We had a couple of meals with the chief and Sarah, and they and the Plotts came over to the cabin once for a cookout.
    Wednesday morning, we got a call from Zeke.
    “What’s up?” I said when he identified himself on the phone
    “Zeb and I drove by the rental houses this morning just like you asked,” he said.
    “And?”
    “It looks like the bungalow on Forbes Street is vacant.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “It looked kind of deserted, so we stopped and looked in the windows. Zeb and I think the renters have moved out—we couldn’t see any furniture.”
    “You know where we keep the spare keys to the houses, don’t you?”
    “Sure.”
    “Can you go over there and do an inspection before you have to go to work?”
    “You bet—we’re both working three to eleven right now.”
    “Take a yellow pad and make notes of any damages. Hopefully, they didn’t take the stove and refrigerator with them.”
    “They didn’t. We could see that much through the back door.”
    “Call me when you’re done.”
    “George.”
    “What?”
    “Will you and Mike rent that house to Zeb and me?”
    “The two of you?”
    “Well, us and our two friends, Josh and Norm.”
    “Josh is the blind guy we met at The Loop and Norm is the guy that spent the night with Zeb?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Is this getting serious?”
    “I don’t know how serious, but we’ve decided to all live together for a year and see what happens.”
    “What about school?”
    “We can transfer to FSCJ.”
    “Okay, then. Mike and I will make you a deal for month-to-month rental. What will you do about furniture?”
    “Lots of Goodwill and Salvation Army stores around. What will the rent be?”
    I gave him a figure, and he said, “We can handle that. The four of us will check out the house and let you know.”
    “Good. We won’t do anything until we hear from you.”
    Mike was standing behind me as I sat at the desk, so I said, “How much of that did you get?”
    “Enough, I think. The bungalow is vacant, and the twins and their new friends want to rent it.”
    “Yep.”
    “They got over the ‘fuck everything that moves’ phase a lot sooner than I thought