You gotta be

Round 12: Spring 2018


Tom Patterson is 25 and Dixie Greene is 24.
(Brooke is 26 and Charlie is 24.)

Narrated by Dixie Greene

I've grown to love our tiny house. And when I say tiny, I mean really tiny. We want to move to a bigger one someday but right now we enjoy living here. We couldn't afford a bigger house yet anyway and neither of us want to take on a huge mortgage.

It's nice to have our own little place where we can do whatever we want - even if it means prancing around in our underwear all day.

The best part is that we have our own yard. We always have a couple of wrecked cars on our drive way and we try to work on them whenever we have time. We both enjoy doing it and it's also a nice extra income because we always find a buyer quite easily.

Tom is a Patrol Officer so he works the evenings and nights. I usually wait up for him when he's supposed to come home before midnight. I keep myself occupied by cleaning the house. Tom always teases me about being a total neat freak but I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to live in a clean house.

I often read something while I wait for him, lately I've been reading a lot of thrillers. It might not be the best idea to read about serial killers when your man is out there fighthing the crime in the dark.

I was thrilled one night when he told me that he had been promoted to Desk Sergeant and he wouldn't patrol the streets at night anymore. Now I don't have to worry about him so much.

Janie was visiting mom and dad with Bridget the other day. Mom was more than happy to babysit Bridget for a while so Janie and dad walked up to our house.

We left dad and Tom outside to talk about cars and headed inside. Janie kept asking me if I had any news. I didn't have a clue what she was talking about!

"You know, you were so interested in all that baby stuff at our barbecue that I though you might have some news" she said.

"Janie, I'm not pregnant! " I said. "I do want children some day but not yet."

We talked about Danny's studies over dinner. He's been struggling with his grades lately but Janie said that changing his major did wonders.

"He's so motivated now. He's already planning to get a job in some graphic design office."

I've been getting a lot of visits from my siblings lately. Charlie came over and asked if he could work on the cars. He said that he gets bored in their apartment when Brooke is at work.

"I can't even play music because the neighbor starts complaining immediately, even though I don't even play that loudly" he said. Apparently some older guy moved into Brooke's old apartment and wants to prohibit anything that's even remotely fun.

Brooke came over after work too. We made arrangements to go out for dinner together some night, sort of like a double date.

We met at Tom's Diner which is close to Charlie and Brooke's apartment. It's usually packed full with teenagers in the afternoon so we went a bit later.

The food is just plain hot dogs and hamburgers but it's quite good anyway.

We had a great time and promised we'd do this again some time. Charlie and Brooke headed back to their apartment and Tom suggested that we'd take a walk in the park before going back home.

I've never been in the park late at night. It was so beautiful and peaceful there. The wedding arch made me think that maybe we could get married there one day.

Notes:

• Title from "You gotta be" by Des'ree.
• Tom and Dixie haven't rolled the want to get engaged (yet) but Tom has been thinking about engagement which I take as a sign that maybe he'll pop the question someday.
• Their house really is tiny but I like it anyway. I want to keep the house as it is so if Dixie and Tom ever have kids they'll move to another house instead of expanding their current one.