“True,” he answered. “But you don’t have Rhett Butler’s money.”

“Can’t you find one good thing about this place?” Garrett asked jokingly.

“The view,” Trent answered.

When Garrett didn’t respond, Trent turned to look at his best friend. They had known each other since they were roommates during their first semester at architecture school. Garrett had been born and raised in New Bedford; Trent was originally from Boston. Although they were diametric opposites in some ways, their strong and enduring friendship was something upon which each could always rely.

While Garrett was tall and lean, Trent was darker, shorter, and broader. Garrett’s hair was a sort of dirty blond, parted on one side and always seeming to fall down into an irrepressible wave on his forehead. But the first thing anyone noticed was his penetrating, crystal blue eyes, which upon studying anything that particularly intrigued him somehow became even more intense. Upon first meeting him, there were few people who did not mention those eyes, and they had long since become a standing joke between him and Trent. Dressed today in tan cargo pants, a black polo shirt, and a pair of deck shoes, he exuded a calm sense of purpose that Trent had always envied. Both Garrett and Trent were still single.

After graduation from architecture school, the two friends had scraped together all the money they could and formed Richmond & Birch, LLC, a New Bedford architectural firm specializing in the design of houses. Garrett was the majority shareholder and thus technically Trent’s boss, although neither of them looked at it that way. Their business had struggled mightily at first and nearly gone bankrupt twice before finally gaining some traction. Despite the recent economic downturn, Richmond & Birch had now become prosperous enough to allow Garrett to secure a mortgage for Seaside.

During that time Garrett had also gone to night school and acquired his Ph.D. in architectural history, specializing in historic American schools of the nineteenth century. As much for the love of doing it as his need for the extra money, he now taught night classes in architectural history at Boston College.

“I’m staying here tonight, by the way,” Garrett said, finally breaking the quiet.

“Huh?” Trent asked.

Before answering, Garrett also put his feet up on the porch rail. “Yep . . . first night, and all that . . .”

“So how am I supposed to get home?”

“You’ll take my Jeep, and then come back for me in the morning.”

“But there’s no furniture, you said,” Trent protested. “Where will you sleep?”

Garrett leaned back a bit more in his chair. “On the floor,” he answered. “I brought along a sleeping bag.”

“Okay,” Trent said. “But dear God, how you must love this place! It’s got to be dirty as all hell in there.”

“Oh, it’s worse than dirty,” Garrett answered. “When the bank foreclosed, the owners took it out on the house. They smashed in some of the walls, ripped up the carpets, tore out the appliances—that sort of thing.”

Trent nodded knowingly. Much of that had gone on in New England during the downturn. When the banks were forced to foreclose, many angry owners partially destroyed their properties as a form of unwarranted revenge.

“And knowing all that, you still wanted the place,” Trent mused.

“Sure,” Garrett answered. “They did some of the work for me, because the appliances were all junk, and they had to go, anyway.”

“What about the electric and water?”

“It’s got both, and the oil furnace works, but it’s bone dry. If I get cold tonight, there’s a pile of leftover firewood out back. And there’s some more in the barn.”

“There’s a barn?” Trent asked.

Garrett nodded. “Yeah, but it’s in pretty bad shape. There was also a guest cottage at one time, but somewhere along the line it was demolished.”

“I had no idea that college professors were so adventurous,” Trent chided him.

Garrett laughed.