Senior Year Box Set

Our trip would be almost ten hours long, hence the need for three pilots. With the time difference, we would land in Nice, France, at around eight in the morning. The seven-hour time difference was going to kill me.

When I finally got on the plane, I saw they had one side set up with two tables, each with seating for four, two facing front and two facing aft. Paul, Scarlet, Cindy, and Kevin had claimed one of them.

Across the aisle, there were narrower two-seat tables that only sat one across. Megan and Ashley were sitting at the one across the aisle from the other four.

In the back sat a big white leather couch with my name on it. I planned to sleep so I wouldn’t be wiped out when I arrived in Europe. Though now I figured that if I became restless, I might go up to the cockpit for a little while. I’d found that sleeping on the overnight flight was the quickest way to get acclimated. I’d done that both times that I traveled to the UK.

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About an hour into the flight, Cindy came back to join me.

“I wanted to update you on your houses.”

I turned off the movie I’d been watching on my tablet so I could give her my full attention.

“The remodel of the house in Malibu is almost done. We still have the pool area, pool-house addition, and garage to finish. They expect it will all be ready by the first of June.”

“That’s great. Anything I need to do for that?” I asked.

“No. Your mom has everything under control,” Cindy assured me.

My parents planned to move there this summer. After my mom’s cancer and my dad’s heart issues, they’d confirmed they wanted to enjoy the California weather. The house there was also large enough that all the kids and baby mamas could be in one place together. The logistics of watching my group of little ones would be much easier.

Besides, the place was too nice to just rent it out. My renter had informed us that he’d taken a job in San Francisco and wanted to break his lease. I was just happy he’d stuck it out so long and lived in the construction zone. The timing was working out almost perfectly.

“I also have some plans for your condo in Canada,” Cindy continued and showed me a floor plan.

It was a four-bedroom unit. That was one of the good things Zander had done: he’d bought places that could handle a crowd. Each bedroom had its own bath.

The plan Cindy showed me combined two of the bathrooms into one. With the new layout, she’d fit three showers, three toilet stalls, and a large sink area into the new combined bathroom.

“I debated about putting in four showers, but they would have been tiny,” Cindy shared.

With two of the bedrooms having bunk beds with a trundle bed underneath, you could comfortably sleep three in each room—six if you wanted to pack them in. The other two bedrooms had queen- and king-size beds, so you could get ten people in the unit comfortably. Five showers and toilets should be enough.

Cindy showed me the changes to the kitchen. The eat-in area had been lost to make room for the commercial-sized appliances you would need for the larger crowd. Where the eat-in area had been, she’d put an island with a sink and two dishwashers. There was also room for six stools on the island’s end and back side for extra seating. That would be a great place for eating a quick breakfast or somewhere to send the kids.

“I’m debating whether to open up the dining and living rooms so it’s all one room. What do you think? I don’t really see a need for a formal dining room if you’re on vacation,” Cindy explained.

“I say open it up. We have a formal dining room, and we’ve only ever used it for special occasions.”

She gave me a hint of a smile.

“Kevin said it should be designed like a man cave,” Cindy said and then showed me her design.

By the front door was a place to store skis and gear. Along one wall was a bar with a table that could be converted into a poker table. At the other end was a home theater, all done in wood and stone to give it a rustic appearance.

If I planned to use the condo as a vacation rental when I wasn’t using it, this would command top dollar. What she had designed blew away staying in a suite at a hotel.

“Get Scarlet the numbers and run it past my mom. If they’re good, I say go for it,” I said and then focused on the condos in Monte Carlo, Greece, and New York. “Have you started working on the three we’re going to this coming week?”

“I’m a little worried about the one in Monte Carlo. They converted an old mansion and turned it into four units. The building is over a hundred years old. I talked to some of my professors, and they worry it might have lead pipes for the plumbing, and the electrical might need a serious looking-at.

“From the pictures Chuck sent, I also see some water stains around the windows. Before I get too deep into decorating, I want to make sure it’s structurally sound,” Cindy explained.

“I agree.”

“The place in Mykonos is the opposite: it’s brand new. It only needs some minor sprucing-up. The guy that owned these has no sense of style.”

“And New York?”