Chapter One

A year ago, Emmet never would have guessed that his life would ever be so interesting.

But then he nearly got run over by a young woman on a motorcycle.

Mortified that she'd almost hit someone, she offered to take him out for coffee in apology. They'd hit it off almost immediately. They'd been together ever since, and had bought a house in her home neighborhood just a couple months ago, after the previous owners had decided to leave. Lucy had spoken several times of a man named Business who'd bought up all the surrounding land to build a housing development and had been hounding the people of her little neighborhood to sell ever since. The neighbors wanted out, but had been willing to sell to Lucy for a decent price. Between her motorcycle repair business and his job working construction, they managed to do well for themselves.

Moving into the suburbs was something of an adventure. Emmet had never been out of the city in his life, but Bricksburg was a charming town. The first time he'd gone with her to see the place, he'd thought the house would be like the others they passed in the development, new and neat and well-kept. He started to warm up to the idea.

And then they reached the cul-de-sac.

Emmet's jaw had dropped at the… uniqueness of the other houses there. The first on the right was a large, old Victorian that the owner had painted black and dark gray, the yard a stretch of manicured lawn with no other landscaping to speak of. Next door to the Victorian was a small craftsman-style bungalow. The house itself looked nice enough, painted a drab green with white trim and a cute little porch that gave it a cozy feeling, but the garden that engulfed the front yard was nothing for of a disaster, flowers scattered haphazardly about with a plethora of kitschy garden decorations ranging from metal flowers to abstract glass sculptures to ceramic gnomes. At least it was weed-free. "That's the house I grew up in," Lucy remarked upon catching him staring.

Next door to that was a house that honestly looked more like a boat, with a cannon on its roof, the grass ripped up and replaced with stone. Emmet spotted a number of nautical objects dropped carelessly on the stone 'lawn', ranging from driftwood to oars to fish traps and rope, and even an anchor. Then was the house they had come to look at. It was mid-century modern, the décor a little artsy-fartsy, rather like the bungalow's front yard, but otherwise fairly normal, and had a large garage.

Continuing on around the circle brought his attention to a house with a very retrofuturistic design, the concrete and steel structure painted mostly blue. Even more distracting than the house, though, was the massive model rocket in the back yard. Then was an adorable oriental-style house painted in pink and blue and yellow, every square inch of the property covered in vegetables, fruit plants, wildflowers, beehives, a chicken coop, and even a pen with a couple goats. The last house was a small cottage, the trees on the property having grown large enough to halfway hide the building. It seemed empty.

After moving in, Emmet discovered his new neighbors were every bit as colorful and interesting as the houses they lived in. He very quickly made friends with Kitty, the owner of the mini-farm, and Benny, a grounded astronaut who now worked from home designing new ships for the Space Corps. They, and Lucy's adoptive father, were remarkably friendly people who were quick to welcome him to the neighborhood. Jonas, a retired sea captain who lived in the boat-house, was a bit harder to win over, but after a month of trying to get to know him (and with some help from Kitty and Benny) he finally managed to sort of become friends with the surly older man. Bruce had been the hardest to get to know, as he rarely left his house. Emmet guessed he also worked from home. Even after they eventually met, he didn't seem to like Emmet. The construction worker only found out afterward that Bruce and Lucy were exes.

Finally, after living in the new neighborhood for a month, the curiosity was bugging him enough that he asked. "So what's the deal with that cottage? Does anyone even live there?"

Lucy looked up from her laptop at him, and shrugged. "Bruce told me once that the people that built the house he lives in, used to live in that cottage first. It's technically part of his property still. He has somebody come once a month to check on the place, make sure it's not falling apart and that no critters have moved in, but no one's lived there at least since Vitruvius adopted me. I think there's been several people that have inquired about it- aside from Business, anyway- but Bruce is… extremely picky about who he'll sell it to. As far as I'm aware, he still hasn't found the 'right person' to sell it to."

"Oh." He sipped his coffee. "Why didn't we look at it?"

She smirked at him. "One, I dumped him only shortly before I met you, and he's still sore over that. Two, I needed the garage space for my shop. Besides, I had an in with the Millers anyway, and neither of us wanted Business getting ahold of any house on our turf. As long as Bruce still owns that place, we don't have to worry about that jerk."

Two weeks later, someone moved into the last empty house on the cul-de-sac.