“Yeah, I think I understand what you mean. Although I’m starting to think you’re a closeted sociopath.” he chuckled, but then turned serious again. “Well, Claire and Aaron got into a massive fight over it. In the end she decided to simply not go back into their house and made Ava stay as well, since she didn’t want her to be alone with Aaron and Logan.”
“There a reason you specifically mentioned Claire’s boy toy as well?” That caused him to wince once more.
“Well ... that was the other thing. While Aaron lied about accepting her conditions, Logan did exactly what you thought Aaron would do if Ava denied him. He couldn’t even be bothered with the condoms. He just took off with Maggie and didn’t look at Ava the entire evening. That hurt her even more than what Aaron did. She told Danny that, at that moment, she thought she understood a little how you must have felt ever since you found out about us.”
“Not like it’s a contest, but she had at least one parent stand up for her.” I dismissed Ava’s relayed statement, and immediately felt like an ass about it, though I would not admit that to him. It helped that he only gave me a mournful look and didn’t comment on it as well. “So ... what does all that have to do with you buying the houses, and what do you need my help with?”
“To answer your first question, we’re not specifically buying the ones you printed out. We plan on buying the Condo near campus, but we found another one that’s closer to us. It has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and doesn’t look as bad as the one you picked out. The price is about the same, though, so that won’t be an issue.”
“Okay. But
“We thought that, for now, we could let Claire and Ava live in it. I know, it’s not what you had planned.” he hurriedly added the last part after seeing my expression change. “But think about the possibilities! You could let her pay rent with your cash as well, which would mean that you could use the money even sooner! Rent for a house is much higher than for a room in a Condo!”
“Sure it is!” I said angrily. “Only I’d have to tell her about HAVING that cash, and when you collect more than ten grand a year in cash payments, your bank will notify the IRS, which will ask where that cash came from. If you point to Maggie, Ava, and Claire paying their rent with it, they’ll look into their finances and notice that they shouldn’t have that kind of money, considering how they’re all unemployed!”
“Not necessarily. You see, after what happened, Mom and Dad decided that they want to be closer to us and support Claire. Officially, I could rent out to them.” he said confidently. “And if Claire and Aaron reconcile and move back in together, the house would be free for you to live in and pay rent yourself.”
“You serious? So, Mike’s gonna be able to pester me every day from now on?” I asked.
I could see this was not something he had thought about, and his enthusiasm was severely diminished. Though, after some consideration, I decided to let him go ahead with his plan. If the grandparents had a place to live closer to all of us, maybe they would finally stay long enough to actually work on our relationships instead of going on another cruise. Also, John knew a lot more about money than I did, and he had access to people who knew even more about it than him. If anything, I believed that he had no interest in being audited by the IRS. Then I noticed something he had said.
“Wait.
“Yes.” he confirmed sadly, and noticed my skeptical face. “Tim, when Claire and Dad came back after meeting you on Christmas Eve, she was devastated! It took Mom and Danny almost an hour just to get her to stop crying.”
“Okay? What’s that have to do with Aaron?” I asked, and he sighed. Suddenly, he seemed to come to some sort of conclusion, and his tone became rather serious.
“I’m not going to ask you to forgive us. Danny and I talked a lot about it, and ... I admit ... I liked having my wife and daughter to myself. I liked that we had more women than men in our groupings. I know we were the ones who screwed this up, and we screwed it up rather thoroughly, so I accept your position in all of this. Claire knows this as well.”
“Appreciated.” I commented, which he simply ignored.
