Office Hours |h.s|

ninety seven

Maude

"Aw you didn't have to bring anything!" Grinning at the sight in front of me, I can't help but feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

Cassidy and Noah stand at the front door of my house, a big gift bag between them. Today's the first time they're seeing my place all finished and set up. It took a while for me to get the place in perfect shape, to a point where I'm ready to show it off to my friends and family. There are still things I'm waiting on, but all the big furniture pieces and decorations are in place and look stunning.

Decorating a house has proven to be a good decompression method between studying for the bar and working at the new firm. After a rough day at work or if studying is turning my brain to mush, I was able to turn to a project or build a piece of furniture. I've gotten pretty handy these last few weeks, especially once Spencer left and I was on my own.

Cass probably would've helped, Noah too, but they've been busy on vacation and once they got back they went right to work. Plus she's been busy studying for the Bar too and I don't think she would've appreciated me calling her at four in the morning to come help me build a dining table. Then again, maybe she would've...

Either way, I'm glad that she's seeing the house for the first time all finished. I know she's been worried about me living on my own in a new place, but it's not like I wanna live in a house with people who are essentially married. Cass and I are past our 'having sex in the same room' era and we really don't need to be taking any steps backwards.

I've liked living alone to be honest. Cass moved in with Noah right before our second year started, and I haven't looked back since. Of course I miss her, but I also saw her every single day without fail. But now we're further apart and see each other a lot less, but we still talk all the time. If anything we talk more now than we ever had.

Letting them inside the house, I take the gift bag while they settle in. "Follow me, I've got some wine and then we can start the tour."

"Maude, this place is amazing!" Cass grins, hugging me from behind as we head toward the kitchen. I beam with pride, just so in love with my new space. It's cozy and warm and timeless and most importantly, it's mine.

Handing Cass a glass of wine and Noah a beer, I lean against the kitchen cabinet. "It's definitely crazy that this is my home. It's so much bigger than that apartment."

The house isn't huge, but I wouldn't want a bigger house anyway. It's still only two bedrooms, but the difference is, it's a house. It has two levels and a full kitchen and a backyard. My bedroom alone is about half the size of that apartment we were in. For just one person living in it, this house is pretty perfect.

"It's beautiful, Maude, congratulations." Noah smiles over at me before taking a sip of his beer.

"Thank you. Getting it to look like this was hard work, that's for sure."

"So Spencer helped you with all of this?" Cass asks.

"Yeah, he helped so much." I smile and nod even though that's the biggest lie.

Spencer did help with a lot of the bigger projects like painting the walls and moving all my shit from the apartment. Any repairs that had to get done, Spencer took care of them within the first week. He went back home pretty quick since he had work.

Everything else, well Harry helped me. I didn't go to him much since we're still in this weird kinda friends phase, but he did help with moving heavy furniture around until I was happy with how it looked. Plus he was super helpful when it came to hanging things up on the walls or when I just needed some companionship while building a desk.