Then I reached down, slipped off my high heels and tossed them over the back of the couch into the living room. They bounced off the seat of the couch and I heard them hit the floor.

I tossed my purse in the same direction. It bounced on the seat and stayed there.

The renovating the house business wasn’t playing out like in my dreams (exactly).

Hector and I fought tooth and nail about everything house.

Once we were done with the floor, the mantel and the skirting boards, Hector announced he wanted the living room off the kitchen, better access to beer during games.

I explained (patiently, at first) that the dining room had to be off the kitchen.

We hit a stalemate that meant weeks of stacked furniture covered in plastic.

Then one night I got creative with lingerie and talked him into it (about two seconds before he cl**axed).

It wasn’t fair, in fact, it was really not fair but this lesson served me well in the coming weeks.

Hector didn’t seem to mind.

To the right was an antique, walnut, twelve-seat dining room table I found on Antique Row on Broadway. I had it refinished, the seats of the chairs redone in a dusky gray and dusky gray-blue stripe. It now had a big round vase on it filled with calla lilies. A matching sideboard sat against the wall to the kitchen, displaying my Mom’s Waterford crystal that I took from her locker, the family photo of Mom, Dad and me and another photo of Hector and his Dad taken when Hector was nineteen. There were white Christmas lights weaved in real pine greenery on the mantel.

To the left was Hector’s midnight blue twill furniture but I’d added some toss pillows with blue, gray and chocolate brown designs. The TV from the bedroom was installed in the corner, all the furniture positioned for maximum viewing potential. In another corner was a huge, real fir Christmas tree decorated in blue and white lights and blue, silver and white ornaments. There was more greenery and lights on the mantel weaving around silver-framed photos of Hector’s family and other photos of my Mom, grandmother and grandfather. A huge white poinsettia in a shiny blue pot sat dead center on the coffee table.

To the back of the living room through the French doors was the den, complete with big desk, reclining chair and Hector’s desktop computer.

The front rooms were all perfect.

The kitchen was now a pit. Everything had been yanked out by Hector, Buddy and Eddie a few weekends ago and carted off in a reclamation truck.

My cooking lessons were on hold. With the kitchen like it was, we were definitely not hosting Christmas dinner (Blanca was).

I walked in, pulled off my cape, draped it on the banister then went up the stairs and straight to the bedroom where I fell face first on the bed.

I didn’t used to be the kind of person who threw her shoes across the room (or her purse) and left my coats on the banister.

I used to be clean and tidy.

Obsessively so.

I also used to be the kind of person who woke up at the barest hint of sound.

I wasn’t either of those anymore.

Real Sadie was a lot more relaxed. She slept better and she didn’t get wound up about stupid stuff.

I liked Real Sadie. Most of the time, she had it going on.

I felt the bed move when Hector sat on it and the zipper at my back started going down.

“I’m going to sleep right here,” I informed him.

“Como quieras,” Hector said softly and, hearing those words, I smiled into the bed.

I didn’t have to open my eyes to see the room.

Hector had made the bedroom his next project (after the living room and before the kitchen). He’d taken time off and we’d slept on the pull out couch for a week while he refinished the floors, replaced the skirting boards and painted the walls (I wanted to help but the gallery was being redone and Roxie’s wedding plans were heating up so Ralphie and I were kind of busy). The walls were a warm, gray-green and there were new, shiny maple skirting boards. Hector had bought a new bed, nightstands and two new dressers, one low with a mirror on top, one tall and wide with six drawers.

We fought about the furniture because I wanted to help pay.

He refused.

I pushed it.

We came to a stalemate.

Days later, in bed, he held off letting me finish until I begged him then he demanded I shut up about the furniture and I agreed.

Turnabout, I guessed, was fair play.

I wasn’t complaining.

The zipper went all the way down, Hector got off the bed, the dress was pulled off at my ankles and I heard the heavy material land somewhere in the room.

This should have alarmed me. The dress was velvet, it was gorgeous and it was expensive.

I didn’t lift my head.

Instead, I laid in nothing but a pair of emerald green, French cut panties on the bed.

I heard Hector’s boots then clothing hit the floor then he came back to me. I was pulled up, rolled into him, the covers yanked out from under me then snapped back over me. I settled with my head on his chest, my arm around his abs.

“Sadie, the pins in your hair are jabbing my skin.”

“Blooming heck,” I muttered, rolled with a heavy sigh to my back and started to pull the pins out of my hair.

Hector got up on an elbow and watched me.

Then he asked, “What’d we buy Hank and Roxie for their wedding?”

My hands in my hair stilled and just my eyeballs rolled to look at Hector.

Hector and I had bought Eddie and Jet a brand new kitchen for their wedding. Jet loved to cook, Eddie was fixing up their house but on a cop’s budget and with work and Rock Chick duties taking up most of his time, he’d not gotten around to giving her a new kitchen. I heard her (on several occasions) waxing poetic about how she’d love something “state-of-the-art”.

So Hector and I gave it to her.

It cost twenty thousand dollars and it made two hot-blooded Mexican-American men temporarily lose their minds.

Jet, at first, had been shocked.

Then, when I explained myself, she’d been understanding then appreciative then gleeful.

Blanca went straight to gleeful and started hinting (broadly) that she needed a new kitchen too (Hector didn’t know it yet, but that was her Christmas present).

Jet had talked Eddie around. It took awhile but she did it.

“Um…” I answered Hector’s question.

He fell to his back, stared at ceiling and muttered, “Fuck.”

I got up on my elbow and looked down at him, hair half falling down, half still in pins.

“Hector! I’m loaded! What am I going to do with my money but spend it on friends?”

He got up on his elbow, Mr. Mood Swing fully morphed into anger and faced me. “I don’t know,” he clipped. “Save it? Put our kids through college with it? If tonight was anything to go by, we’ll need it to pay for their goddamned weddings. Fuck, knowin’ you, we’ll need every last penny to pay for ours.”