August

Jay balled up a piece of paper and threw it at Hailey over their computers.

She laughed as it hit her face, "Yes?"

"Check your email," Jay said.

Hailey rolled her eyes, but still switched tabs and opened the email Jay had sent her. She raised her eyebrows and glanced up at him, "Jay."

"Isn't it cool?" Jay pushed his chair around their desks to be next to her, "Look how big the backyard is."

"Look at the price," Hailey sighed, "Stop sending me pretty houses that we can't afford."

"We could afford that," Jay said.

Hailey crossed her arms, "Be realistic."

"I am," Jay nodded, "I have money saved from when my dad died-"

"We're not using that to be our starter house," Hailey shook her head, "That's for our forever home."

A smile spread across Jay's face, "A forever home? Two months ago I couldn't even get you talking about buying a house and now you're talking about a forever home?"

"Shut up," Hailey laughed softly and blushed, "I'm just saying, I don't think this house we're going to buy will be where we live forever. Right now, we can afford a small house with a couple bedrooms, maybe a garage, and that's okay. We don't need a huge house."

"All right," Jay brushed her hair back from her face, "I'll cool it on the fancy houses."

"Thank you," Hailey said softly.

Jay moved his chair back to his desk, "Thoughts on pools?"

Hailey laughed and was about to delete the email when she paused and looked closer at the house. She never imagined herself really as the girl who wanted the white picket fence and the big blue suburban house…but there was something about slowing down here that appealed to her.

She scrolled through the pictures with a small smile on her face. The house was beautiful, but it certainly was a 'someday' house, not a 'our first' house.

"What'cha got there?"

Hailey jumped at Adam's voice in her ear, "Dammit Adam."

He chuckled and winked at Jay, proud that he managed to scare her, "Doesn't exactly look like this robbery we've been looking into."

"Stop," Hailey lightly shoved him away then minimized the email, "It's nothing."

"Looked like a house," Adam said.

Vanessa looked up, "You're looking at a house?"

Hailey bit her lip over a sigh, "Yeah, I was looking at a house."

"Well let me see," Vanessa pushed her chair over and grabbed Hailey's mouse. She opened her email back up and her eyes widened, "Holy crap. Are you two buying this?" She spotted the price and looked at Jay, "You can afford this and you live in that hole?"

Jay's jaw dropped slightly, "I do not live in a hole."

Kim laughed as she walked in the bullpen with Kevin, having heard his comment, "Your apartment has one bedroom and the living room is pretty much also the kitchen," she said, "Definition of a hole."

"It's comfortable," Jay crossed his arms, "Hailey, tell them."

She weakly smiled at him, "It's cozy."

Vanessa snorted and clicked through the pictures, "Kim, come look at this place."

"Is there a guest bedroom for me?" Kevin leaned over her shoulder to look.

"The backyard," Kim's eyes lit up, "Guys, we can have barbeques!"

"Oh, I'll bring the meat," Adam said.

"I make a decent brownie," Kevin added.

"Whoa, slow down," Jay hurried back over and took the mouse from Vanessa to close the window, "This is mine and Hailey's house, I don't remember asking any of you to come over."

Hailey laughed, "They can come over."

"Dinner at the Halsteads," Vanessa sang softly as she walked back to her desk.

"I'm really happy for you both," Kim smiled before going back to her own work.

"House is a big thing," Kevin nodded while sitting down.

"You have one," Jay said.

"Cause I had kids living with me," Kevin shrugged, "It's just you two."

"But we're married," Hailey held up her left hand, the rose gold silicone band tightly placed on her ring finger.

"Are you going to have kids?" Adam asked, his eyes flickering over to Kim.

"Maybe," Hailey smiled slightly.

Jay looked between all of them, "Okay, this is getting to be pretty personal."

"Do you have other friends that you'd rather talk about this with?" Vanessa laughed.

"Well, no," Jay rubbed the back of his neck, "We-"

"Then don't be so loud about a house," Vanessa rolled her eyes.

"She has a point," Adam pointed at her.

"But talking about having kids is weird, right?" Jay looked around at everyone, "Can we all agree that it is?"

"Because we're essentially talking about you two having unprotected sex?" Vanessa smirked.

Jay nodded, "Yeah, so let's-"

"Wait, wait, wait," Adam stood back up with a laugh, "Are we pretending you're like innocent or something?"

Kevin barked his own laugh, "Oh, that's good."

Hailey couldn't help but smile as Jay blushed. She glanced up at Adam and Kevin, "Hey, stop, you two. You're going to break my husband."

Everyone laughed again and Hailey winked at Jay. His face turned a brighter shade of red and he settled back in his chair, keeping his eyes trained on his computer.

Hailey shook her head with a soft smile and picked up her phone, sending him a quick heart emoji.

He glanced at his phone as it buzzed on his desk and chuckled before placing it in his pocket.

Hailey's eyes widened, "Aren't you going to reply?"

"After that little stunt?" Jay asked, "No."

"Burn," Adam whispered.

Hailey shoved his arm, "You stop eavesdropping and you," she looked at Jay, "I'm sorry."

"You are not," Jay laughed.

Hailey couldn't help but smile, "Okay, maybe not, but-"

"Nope," Jay laughed harder and stood with a stack of papers, "Apologize at home." He walked past her toward the stairs and brushed his fingers along her neck as he passed her desk.

Vanessa whistled, "And there we have it. He's back making lewd comments in the bullpen. Innocent Jay no more."

Kim clapped, "The man we all know and love."

"Shut up," Jay shot at her before heading down the stairs.

"Hey, I found one that I want to look at this weekend," Jay said as Hailey walked into their bedroom after her shower.

Hailey stopped drying her hair and raised an eyebrow, "That's what you say to me after I enter our bedroom in a towel?"

Jay looked up from his laptop screen, "Yeah."

Hailey laughed softly and opened the closet, "Well, what is it?"

"Just a ranch – two bedrooms, no garage, but the kitchen's pretty sweet," Jay clicked through the pictures on his screen, "Old fireplace by the looks of it too."

"Is that even safe?" Hailey asked as she slipped a pair of shorts on.

"I don't know," Jay shrugged, "Does it matter?"

"Yes," Hailey laughed, "I'm not going to buy a house that can catch fire."

"We just won't use it," Jay said, "No big deal."

"Oh, okay," Hailey tugged a tank top on and walked over to the bed, settling into Jay's side.

He wrapped an arm around her and placed the laptop on her lap, "Take a look."

Hailey rested her head on his shoulder and looked at the pictures, "It's not bad."

"Worth a look, don't you think?" Jay swirled her damp hair around his finger.

Hailey glanced up at him and smiled, "You want to?"

Jay nodded, "Yeah, why not? If we get there and it's not for us, it's not a bad thing. It'll help us narrow down what we like."

Hailey kissed his jaw, "I like that idea. Let's do it. Do we just call this number?"

"Yeah, I'll take care of it tomorrow," Jay closed the laptop and slipped it from her hands, leaning over her to set it on the ground.

"Why can't you call now?" Hailey asked.

"Because I need to know why you were trying to embarrass me earlier," Jay pulled Hailey on top of him before quickly flipping her on her back and sitting on her legs.

Hailey laughed, "Jay! Stop."

"No," he chuckled, "Come on, that wasn't cool. I consider myself a solid husband and I've only been doing this a couple months."

Hailey smiled up at him, "You are a very solid husband, I agree."

"So why do you love to torture me?" Jay said as he grabbed her hands and pinned them above her head.

"What are you doing?" Hailey bucked her hips, "I can break your wrists."

"You won't," Jay bent down and kissed her nose, "Answer the question. Why did you torture me earlier?"

"Oh come on," Hailey tilted her head to the side, "It was a joke."

"I don't like everyone thinking about us like that," Jay said.

"We're married, they know what we do," Hailey pulled at her hands with a huff.

"Which is fine, but we don't have to talk about it with them."

"We're all adults, Jay."

"Exactly, so we know how they operate in their heads and I don't want Adam and Kevin thinking about you like that."

Hailey stopped her light struggle against Jay's hands and stared up at him, "What?"

Jay bit his lip and shrugged.

"I don't think Adam and Kevin would ever think about me like that," Hailey said softly, "Don't you trust them?"

"Of course I do," Jay sighed, "But…Hailey…you realize you're the prettiest girl up there."

A smile spread across Hailey's face, "I don't know about that."

"You are," Jay quickly interrupted, "You're gorgeous. I mean, Kim and Vanessa are pretty, but you…you're beautiful and I want to keep you to myself."

Hailey couldn't help but laugh quietly, "You're super cute when you're jealous."

"I am not jealous," Jay raised an eyebrow, "Hailey, I'm just trying to protect you."

"You do not need to protect me," Hailey wiggled herself enough to reach over and kiss Jay's wrist where it was still pinning hers down, "I can promise you that I am only yours and that our friends respect that."

Jay breathed out, "Yeah…I…I'm starting to feel bad about what I said; maybe I was rude."

Hailey smiled up at him, "Maybe a little, but," she shrugged as much as she could, "It's kind of sweet."

Jay chuckled, "What?"

"You have always said I was your girl," Hailey whispered with a smirk, "Makes sense you want to keep it that way."

Jay lowered himself on top of Hailey and kissed her softly before breathing, "You are my girl." He slid his hands up and interlocked his fingers with hers.

"Yours," Hailey said against his lips.

"Forever," Jay squeezed his legs around her waist as he trailed his lips down her throat.

"Mr. and Mrs. Halstead?" a woman asked as Jay and Hailey stepped onto the driveway of a small brick home.

Hailey's heart fluttered and she smiled up at Jay. He winked down at her and grabbed her hand, "Yeah, that's us. You're Darcy?"

"Darcy Hannigan," the woman smiled and shook their hands, "Thank you so much for coming. The Briars are ecstatic that a young couple is looking at their house. Please, come inside."

Hailey looked around before they could step on the run down steps. The area was fine, she could hear kids playing in the yard of a house three down, some sort of ivy was climbing up the fireplace and it was actually kind of pretty. It wasn't the worst first impression. She could actually picture herself sitting on the porch with Jay where the two rocking chairs were already sitting. She smiled at the thought and grabbed the doorknob.

Jay couldn't believe what he was seeing. The house looked nothing like the pictures online and he was sort of pissed off. The door had looked white not a faded yellow and the grass was dead looking, it'd take weeks to make it grow back. There was someone smoking next door; how was he supposed to enjoy a coffee with Hailey on this porch – that honestly looked pretty gross if he was being honest, there was even some sort of stain peeking out from the doormat – if all he could smell was weed?

"So the fireplace is original," Darcy was saying when Jay tuned back in to the conversation.

"That's actually pretty neat," Hailey dropped Jay's hand and walked closer to it, running her hand along the mantel, "Jay, come look at this. There are little carvings in it."

He rubbed his face then walked over, "Wow, yeah, that's something."

"And it works?" Hailey asked, squatting down to look inside.

"Technically yes," Darcy nodded, "But Mr. Briar said not to recommend using it."

"Oh," Hailey's face fell, "Well, we know a few firefighters, maybe they could fix it," she brushed her hands together as she stood up.

She looked around the small quote/unquote quaint living room and all Jay could do is find every crack in the wall, smudge of potential mold on the floor, and cobweb on the old chandelier that he had to admit was a little cool.

"The kitchen is beautiful," Darcy said while leading them through the small archway, "They redid it last year."

"Why?" Jay asked and crossed his arms.

Darcy seemed thrown off with his blunt question, "Um…they…"

"They probably just wanted to," Hailey waved her hand slightly and walked around the island, "Gosh, is this granite? Jay, did you know you can just put hot pots right on granite and it won't break?"

"Yeah," Jay took a deep breath, "So, Darcy, listen-"

"And down here," she quickly cut him off, seemingly anticipating what was going to happen based on the frown that had been on Jay's face since he was within ten feet of the house, "Through this door is the hallway to the bathroom and the two bedrooms."

"I wonder if we could break this down," Hailey glanced at Jay then walked into the hall, "Oh, it's carpet, huh…we could tear that up."

Jay followed her and scrunched his eyebrows together, "This is a little gross, Hails."

"It's just carpet," Hailey squeezed his arm and pushed open the bathroom door. She paused, "No shower? I thought the pictures had a shower head."

"It's resting on the edge," Darcy said weakly, "It's just a handheld one."

"Hailey," Jay whispered.

"We could fix that," Hailey shrugged and led the way down the hall, "Which one is the main bedroom?"

"They're about the same size actually," Darcy answered.

"Hailey," Jay hissed and tried grabbing the back of her shirt, but she slipped into one of the rooms.

"They're using it for an office," Hailey said, "Jay, we could do that. We don't need two bedrooms right now."

"Yeah, maybe," Jay nodded and hurried to follow her, quickly grabbing her waist and whispering in her ear, "Can we head out?"

"Like to the backyard?" Hailey turned in his arms.

"The backyard is truly lovely," Darcy smiled wide, "Please, follow me."

Hailey's face lit up and she walked past Jay to follow her back to the front door.

"Not even a door to the back," Jay said under his breath as he slowly walked behind them.

"So it is a cement pad," Darcy started, "But it is a safe area and you could put a sandbox in if you had kids."

"That'd be cute," Hailey nodded as she looked at the dying plants in the pots.

"Sand in the house?" Jay whispered.

Hailey shrugged, "Was that it?"

"Pretty much," Darcy weakly laughed, "What'd you think?"

"It's definitely something," Hailey smiled, "Do you have a business card?"

"I have it already," Jay grabbed her hand and tugged her closer to him, "Thank you Darcy, this was very nice of you to show us, we'll be getting back to you."

Darcy didn't have a chance to say anything else before Jay was dragging Hailey back to the truck.

Once they were in the car, Hailey looked at Jay and raised an eyebrow, "So?"

"No," Jay started the car and drove back to the road, "Not even going to consider it."

"What?" Hailey laughed softly, "Jay, it was cute."

"Maybe in the sixties," Jay shook his head, "I'm not living there with you. It was gross."

"It was a fixer-upper," Hailey argued, "We could be like Chip and Joanna!"

Jay cracked a smile and chuckled, "I don't know, Hails, that needed a lot more work than you were noticing. Also, it looked nothing like the pictures online."

"That's how online dating goes," Hailey laughed, "Maybe we can get them to lower the price even more so we can have more of our budge to play with."

Jay took a deep breath, "Here's the thing though, we can make that house beautiful, but it's not going to fix the area. It rubbed me the wrong way."

"We both know it's not filled with gangs or drugs," Hailey said.

"It could be though," Jay breathed out, "I didn't love it and if we're buying a house I really think we should both be a hundred percent in love with it, right?"

Hailey laughed, "You know what I love? How you picked this house out and now you hate it. I think you're being picky."

"There was mold, Hailey, mold," Jay squeezed the steering wheel, "That's an issue."

"So the mold wasn't great," Hailey shrugged, "But it can be cleaned, at least I think it can be."

Jay shook his head, "I don't know, Hails."

"Think about it?" Hailey reached over to squeeze his leg, "Please? It might be fun."

Jay blew out his breath and looked at her. She did seem happy and she was getting him to watch all those HGTV shows with her that have actually grown on him over the past year.

"I'll think about it," Jay said softly, "But I don't want to promise anything."

Hailey's smile widened, "Thank you."

They fell into a silence as Jay drove back to the apartment. He was going to take his normal left turn when he spotted a handful of balloons on the corner of a street next to a sign that said 'Open House This Way.'

Hailey saw it too and patted his leg, "Hey…"

"Yeah," Jay switched lanes and followed the signs until he came to a small neighborhood with light colored houses lining the street.

Jay was happy to see that the grass was truly green.

Hailey liked that the majority of the houses had a garage.

Jay didn't see a cracked porch attached to any of the houses.

Hailey rolled down the window and heard a group of middle-schoolers laughing in one of the front yards.

Jay slowed to a stop in front of a small two-story house with beige siding and a tiny front porch. It had a big window in the front and a small attached garage toward the back at the end of the driveway. There was a wired fence around the long backyard that was filled with grass and had bushes along the edges.

Most importantly, though, was the bright blue open house sign stamped into the ground with red balloons tied around it.

Hailey took a deep breath, "Wow."

"Yeah," Jay whispered.

They stared at the house for a few minutes, both of them memorizing every piece of it.

"Should we go look?" Jay eventually asked.

Hailey swallowed, "Do you think the price is too high?"

Jay tore his gaze from the house and looked at her, "I think we could at least look. It can't be worse than the last one."

Hailey laughed and ran a hand through her hair, "Okay," she set her hand on the handle as Jay shut off the car, "But promise me something?"

"Of course," Jay nodded.

Hailey bit her lip over a smile before saying, "Promise me we'll try to make it work?"

Jay's own smile widened, "I think I can promise that."

Hailey quickly pecked his lips and was about to jump out of the truck when she hesitated and said, "As long as there's no mold and no one's died there."

Jay laughed, "Deal."

A/N: Hi! I hope you liked this one :) I actually had a lot of fun writing it and wrote the majority of it in one sitting which was exciting. If you wanted to see some of the adventures Jay and Hailey have in this house, you can check out my story 'We Can' and the sequel 'We Are' that I just started. :) Talk soon and I hope you enjoy tomorrow's episode! I cannot wait, especially with all the sneak peeks we got today that completely distracted me from any work that I needed to get done lol