Life After Treasure

“Are you excited?” Riley asks as we get into his car.

We are on our way to the realtor’s office so we can go look at some places that we want to live. Hopefully a new, bigger place will encourage Riley to not constantly work on his book and shut the world out.

“Yeah, I’m excited. I’ve never been house hunting before, only apartment hunting.” I say as he stops at a light.

“This is a first for me too.” He says pulling into the realtor’s parking lot.

He and I walk through the parking lot before Riley opens the door for us to walk into the realtor’s office.

“Hello; can I help you?” The receptionist asks us.

“We have an appointment with Karen Greene.” Riley tells her.
“Oh yes, she’ll be out in a few moments. Why don’t you two take a seat?”

Riley and I walk over to the waiting area and sit down. I bite down on my bottom lip and start chewing on it. Riley looks over at me, chuckles and grabs my hand to hold it in his.

“Stop being so nervous,”

“I can’t help it,” I laugh.

“Ms. Greene is ready to see you now; go down the hall and it’s the first door on the right.” The receptionist says.

Riley and I walk to the room the receptionist told us to go; we see a brunette woman with a black power suit on sitting at her desk.

“Hi, you must be Riley and Madison.” She smiles at us.

“That’s us.” Riley says sitting down and I so the same.

“It’s nice to meet you.” I smile.

“So let’s start off with what your budget is.” She says pulling her keyboard towards her and putting her glasses on.

“Well we don’t really have a budget.” Riley says.

“You have to have some sort of a budget.”

“Well we just got two big checks from the government, and trust me… we don’t need a budget.” I explain.

“Oh my god, you’re those people that found that treasure. Aren’t you?” She exclaims.

I look over to see Riley grinning from ear-to-ear. He usually doesn’t get recognition for the finding.

“Yes we were a part of it.”

“Alright, so no budget. What location are you looking at?” She asks.

“Near downtown D.C. or just on the outskirts of,” Riley says.

“Okay,” she says typing, “What style of house do you like?”

“Colonial, definitely something with history.” I say.

“I have a few houses on the market that fit that description. Are you free for the rest of the day? We can drive over to them and check them out.”

“Yeah we don’t have anything planned for today.”

“Why don’t you guys follow me in your car to the first location?” She smiles getting up and we follow suit.

We all walk outside and get into our car while Karen gets into hers.

Throughout the day we visited three homes and found nothing we liked. The first place had too many things that needed to be fixed; the second just wasn’t what we were looking for, and the third was not in a good neighborhood.

We are currently on our way to a townhome right in downtown D.C. Riley pulls the car behind Karen’s and we all get out.

“So this is a three bedroom townhome, three bathrooms, vaulted ceilings, and a porch off of the living room.” She says walking towards the red door.

We follow her into the home and go down a short hallway and go to the left into the kitchen. We then go into the living room, out on the deck, back in the house, to the dining room, up the stairs to check out the two guest bedrooms and bathrooms, and then the master bedroom and bathroom.

“So what do you guys think of the house?” Karen asks.

“I love it.” I smile.

“Me too, and it’s really close to work.” Riley agrees.

“So this is the house you want?”

I turn to Riley and he nods his head.

“Yeah, we’re gonna buy this one.”

“Alright, let’s go back to my office, sign some papers and I’ll give you the keys.” She smiles.