Chapter 35: Grandpa Scuito's Miracle Hair Pomade
"Did your grandpa ever explain how to get this stuff
out of your hair?"
They're in his shower, and rapidly finding out that Grandpa
Sciuto's pomade may have been a world beater when it came to proving stable
hair that stayed in any position for as long as you wanted it there, but it was
proving extremely stubborn when it came to removal. It's laughing at his
organic, moisturizing, super gentle for dry hair shampoo.
"Will you hate me if I say lye soap?"
"You're not sleeping on my pillow cases
tonight."
Abby turned and pouted at him.
Tim kissed the tip of her nose, and then pointed her face
away from him, filled his hand with yet another dollop of shampoo, and worked
it through her hair.
"I still think it smells better than burnt computer
equipment and failure."
"You're absolutely right. That doesn't mean I want it
on my sheets."
"Pretend it's lube. Getting that on the sheets never
bothers you."
"Lube washes out. If I can't get this out of your hair,
it's not going to get out my sheets, either."
"We could get new sheets."
"I like my sheets, they're soft and snuggly
and..." That sentence trails off as it occurs to him that she said,
"we" not "you."
His fingers stop rubbing the shampoo into her hair. His
hands drop to her hips, and she turns toward him.
"We're not just talking about sheets are we?" he
asks.
"I don't think so. I got my credit card statement
today. You want to guess how much I spent in gas this month, driving from your
place to my place to work and back again."
Tim nods. "I've got a pretty good idea." His own
statement showed up two days ago, and let's put it this way, he can get some
sheets made out of gold for what he's spending on gas.
Tim lives in Silver Springs, Maryland. This is located at
the far north end of the Metro DC area. Abby lives in Alexandria, Virginia, at
the far south end. And while a drive straight through town isn't horrendously
long mileage wise, (about seventeen miles from his place to hers) no one in
their right mind tries to drive directly through Washington DC.
So, by the time the somewhat less direct route's been worked
into the equation, they live about an hour apart. The Navy Yard is somewhere in
between, closer to Abby's than his place. So, say he wakes up at her place and
wants to go to his place. He drives an hour to get from her place to his, then
half an hour back to the Navy Yard.
Most people who work in DC and live in the metro region cope
with this by using the Metro (public transportation) which would be fine, if it
didn't close down at midnight, i.e. before they get done with work a lot of
nights.
So they drive. A lot. But if they didn't have two homes,
they wouldn't have to do quite so much driving.
Tim's thinking that's where she's going with this, and it
certainly makes sense to him to go there. His fingers start rubbing the shampoo
back into her hair again. "How long do you have on your lease?"
"Until August. You?"
"June. Can you sublet yours? Unless I'm willing to pay
a pretty big fine, I can't break my lease."
"How big? I've got money, McGee." Abby runs the
lab, and though it's easy to forget with her perky appearance and demeanor,
she's equivalent in rank to Ducky, and makes about three times McGee's salary.
"I know. I've got money, too. Just don't like wasting it. Rather buy nice
sheets with you than pay three months' rent upfront."
"Okay. I can sublet, if I can find someone to take the
lease. But my place is bigger and closer to work."
"True. And you've got a better kitchen." He's
noticed that, when he's got someone to actually cook for, he enjoys it. This
has resulted in both of them getting a bit plumper lately, but her less so than
him.
"There's not really a good spot in my place for your
computers."
He nods at that. "Or my typewriter. What are you paying
in rent?"
"$1850."
"I'm paying $1675. You know, we could get a really nice
two bedroom for less than $2500."
"We could. We could probably find a nice three bedroom
for less than we're paying combined right now. Put the money we're not spending
on gas and rent into savings for a down payment on a house."
"Do you want a house?" His fingers are stroking up
and down the back of her neck as he asks.
"Eventually."
"I've got $400,000 in the bank." Tim doesn't
have a lot of secrets, but that was one of them. He almost never talks about
money.
Abby turned to face him, eyes wide. "What? Last I heard
your money vanished into a hedge fund, never to come out."
He shrugs a little. "Yep, vanished into thin air. Then
I wrote four more books and made some more. They're paying me pretty well for
the Deep Six books."
"How well?"
"Do you know how advances and book contracts
work?"
"No." She's staring at him intently, and he's
forgotten her hair for the moment.
"Okay. They pay me a chunk of cash when they get the
first draft of the book, and another chunk when it's finished, and a third
chunk when it goes live. That money represents slightly more than what they
think my take of the total sales of the book will be over the next three years.
So for the first Deep Six they paid me ten grand, and if Deep Six had sold like
every other first mystery, ten thousand copies or so, they would have basically
gotten complete ownership of the book at the end of those three years. But Deep
Six earned out, which means it sold more copies than they paid me for, so every
quarter they have to send me my percentage of the sales. So, for the sequel
they offered me more money. Deep Six: Black Rock earned out, too. So once
again, each quarter I get another check. But they don't want to pay me
quarterly. They want to make sure that advance is so big that at the end of the
three years they own the book and can do what they want with it. So the advance
for Foreign and Domestic was three hundred thousand dollars, which they're
pretty sure won't earn out, and so am I. Fairy Fire and Nymph Nights didn't
earn out, so I made about fifteen grand on them. And, so, yeah, I've got some
money."
She's shaking her head. "Yeah, some. Wow."
"So, anyway, if you wanted to get a house... I mean...
I've got down payment money."
"You've got buy it outright money!"
He shrugs a little at that as well. "I'm contracted for
two more Deep Six books after this one."
"How much will that work out to?"
"Five books in total. Call it a million one all said
and done, with a steady sixish thousand dollars a quarter from the two that
earned out. And there's an option for three more after the current five,
that'll run at 750,000 if I take it."
"Remind me not to distract you from your writing."
He smiles. "So, you're okay with that?"
"What, I put up with you poor, but now I know you've
got money, so you've got to go?"
"Something like that. Ten minutes ago I was a wage
slave, and now I'm not."
"I can deal with you having money, McGee. Kind of like
it actually. Though, really, freaking out over less than six thousand to get
out of this place?"
"Okay, yeah, it's silly, but... I watched my net worth
go from over 150,000 the two thousand dollars I had in my checking account
in less than a week six years ago. So, I'm a little twitchy about my
cash."
"I can understand that."
She's standing there, facing him, water beading off her hair
like a duck's back, and Tim rests his arms on her shoulders. "So, do you
want to get a house? Or find an apartment for us?"
"How about an apartment for now, and we'll get the
house when we get serious about making some McSciutos."
He's grinning. "That sounds really good."
She looks up, kisses him soundly, and then sprints out of
the shower, water droplets flying behind her. For a second he stands there
looking confused, and then she's back with a bottle of dish soap.
"Dawn! They use it to get oil off the birds in an oil
spill, so it should get the pomade out."
She hands him the bottle, and he squirts some into his
hand. A few minutes of sudsing seem to
be making a difference. Her hair is still greasy, but much less so.
"So, it looks like your hair can be saved, and you will
be granted permission to sleep on my pillowcases. Given that, do you still want
to get some new sheets with me?"
"I like your sheets, McGee."
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