Callie POV

I pushed the doors hard, putting all my frustration and anger out on them. The doors banged at the wall, as I walked out of the building.

This was getting ridiculous. I was starting to become beyond frustrated. When I had started the hunt for an apartment, I was excited and hopeful. Eager to see all of the opportunities. After multiple weeks of searching, I was starting to lose my patience. Today, I reached the last straw.

I was no longer looking for the perfect place. No, I stopped looking for perfect weeks ago. Now, I simply wanted to find a place. An apartment that I would not hate to return to after work. A place, that I wouldn't need to install second and third lock on the door or bars on the window. A room, where I wouldn't hear the upstairs or next door neighbors every step or argument.

I knew there was a reason this place was so cheep. And it was a good one. It had been a scene of a crime few days ago. I wish the landlord had speared me the details of the crime as I now knew that a mother, under the influence of drugs, had killed her underage kid, and then, after injecting another dose of drugs in her veins, overdosed and died. The apartment had, of course, been cleaned out, but still, after learning the truth, the ghosts of the place hung heavy in the air.

I was not ready to live in a place, that had such a dark past. It was too recent. Too horrifying.

I ran down the steps to the sidewalk, paced a few steps forward, before I spun around throwing my arms up "I'm done!"

"I'm so done with all of it!" I screamed it out, receiving few glances my way from the other other people on the sidewalk.

"Callie," hearing and seeing Coopers calm voice and demeanor, only upset me more. Of course he wouldn't understand.

"No, no!" I pushed away his hand that he had placed gently on my shoulder, trying to calm me down "I have lost count on how many apartments I have checked out! They all look so great on the paper...but not a single one...not one, was actually acceptable. I feel like I am cursed or something."

I paced back to the car "Is it me?" I pressed my fingers to my chest "Are my standards too high? Am I asking too much?" I asked him as Cooper slowly approached me "Should I actually be considering this place? It was a nice place, you know, despite the murder and death part,"

I put my head in my hands "This was the last place on my – to visit – places. There are no other options. I feel like I have seen all the vacant apartments in this city. All the landlords know me already. I am out of options."

"Callie, take a breath, please..." Cooper said placing his hands on my shoulders and forcing me to snap out of my rant. I stopped myself and looked up to Cooper's concerned eyes.

"Please, just breath for a moment!" At his request, I realized, that I indeed had been ranting away with barley breathing. I sucked in a deep breath and exhaled. Cooper smiled down at me.

"I'm losing my mind over this, Cooper. What am I going to do?" slowly I ran my hands over my face and through my hair

"Come on. We have one more place on the list," He said taking a step away from and walking around the car to the driver side

"No, this was the last one I had called," I replied, letting my hands fall down to my side as in defeat. I knew my list. There were 5 places I wanted to see today. This was the fifth. This was the last on my list.

Cooper just smirked at me, from the other side of the car and opened the door "Get in."

We drove for some 10 minutes. During the ride I had tried to get an answer out of Cooper as to where were we going, but Cooper had remained secretive and didn't give me any details as to where are we going.

Cooper parked the car by a multiple story red brick apartment building. The building itself, while it didn't look new, was very well maintained.

I followed Cooper into the building. There was a door code. Cooper punched in a number and the doors buzzed open. We moved through the hallway, pass the mailboxes, to the staircase. There was an elevator as well, which looked in a working condition but we took the stairs. We walked up to the third floor. All the staircases and hallways we passed were clean.

"Where are we going?" I finally broke the silence and asked my step-father as I followed him down the hallway

"Just a moment," he replied, without looking back at me.

He stopped, reached into his pocket and took out a key. He turned to the red doors, put the key in and turned two times. Once the doors unlocked, he pushed them open and gestured me to walk inside.

"Go on, Callie. Check it out. See how you like it."

"What is this?" I said baffled, looking between him and the hallway into the apartment "Whose place is this?"

"It's yours if you want to." His simple statement took my by surprise. My head snapped to him and I stared at him in silence. What he said, didn't make any sense at all.

"What?" the words barely rolled over my lips as I tried to understand what was happening, what Cooper was trying to tell me

"I said, it's yours-"

"I heard what you said," I interrupted him "I meant..."

"This is my apartment," Cooper said walking inside the apartment, leaving me standing in the hallway by the open doors alone. It took me a while, till I lost sight of Cooper, who had turned into a room and disappeared from my sight, to follow him inside the apartment, closing the doors behind me.

The apartment was dusty. It most definitely hadn't been cleaned in a long time. All of the furniture that I saw, was covered in white sheets. Obviously, no one had lived here for a while.

"Before I moved in with you guys, this was were I lived," I heard Cooper say from the other room.

When I reached the entrance of the room, he was in, I found him standing with his hands in his pant pockets looking at the wall with the window, that out looked the city.

Cooper glanced to me when he heard me enter "I decided not to sell it at first, because you can never really know how things can work out, you know. Of course I hoped that everything turns out great. And it did. These last years have been amazing. I have never been happier than living with you and your mom. I like to be part of the family."

Cooper walked up to the side wall and ran his hand over the wallpaper "I put the wallpaper on myself," he reminiscence. I could see in the eyes, that he was remembering the time. Cooper looked down and tapped his foot "Floorboards as well. Dark oak. Expensive, but...good. It took me days, but I did it all by myself."

"Cooper-"

My step-father turned to me again "Your mom and I discussed it. I was actually planning on finally selling this place, but...then you expressed your wish to move out. So, we decided to wait and see how the apartment hunt goes for you. If you had found a place yourself, I would be selling this place and help you buy your new one. But..."

"Yeah," I cached on his drift and looked down to my feet as well, admitting my defeat" That hasn't gone great so far."

"Yeah, so, here we are," Cooper gestured to the place "It's yours if you want to."

"I don't know what to say," I replied, walking deeper inside the room and taking a better look at it.

"Say yes."

"I don't think I can," I stopped in my tracks and looked at him "This is too much...if I say yes, how could I ever repay you?"

"You won't have to repay me, ever. It is my gift, to you!"

"A very expensive one."

"Callie, this was my home for over 10 years. I would like nothing more for this place to stay in family. You and Amy...you are my family. I know..." he pointed between himself and me "What we have...the relationship, it's not even remotely close to what you have with your mom. And it never will. I will always be the guy, who came into your life unannounced, unwelcome and married your mom. I'm the step-father, you never wanted in your life, that you never asked for...never needed."

I shook my head as tears whelmed up in my eyes. While some of what he said was true, there were parts that he was wrong about, as well.

"But to me..." I believe this was the first time I saw tears in his eyes " To me…" he shook his head and for a moment glanced sideways, away from me " I love you as if you were my own. I don't need a stupid Judge or some papers to tell me that," he placed his hand over his heart "You are my daughter and I love you."

I sucked in my lover lip as it had started to trembled slightly.

"And this, is what a father does. I want you to have this apartment. I want to sign it over to you."

"Okay," I whispered out just as the tears touched my cheeks

In relief, Cooper blossomed out in a smile "Okay."

I walked up to him, wrapped my arms around his torso and pressed my head to his chest. Cooper kissed the top of my head, before hugging me back.

"For what it is worth, I think of you as my father...and I love you as well."