After having finished their breakfast and continued to discuss the details for a moment, the group decided to start with preparing the beginning stages of the business. They had still a lot to do before they could finally start with the business.
As Loraine was heading back her room, she was stopped by Alice, "Loraine, wait! I forgot to finalize the deal about the house you wanted. I assumed that you would take the house closer to the center, given that the store would also be in that vicinity."
Hearing this, Loraine was first surprised but later nodded her head, "That is indeed true, that would be great to have."
"If that is the case, can I come up to your room so that we can finalize everything? After which I can hand over the keys to the house to you." Alice said.
Hearing this, Loraine did not mind and directly invited her up to her room.
As she entered the room, she was surprised to see James still lying in bed. Annoyed by this, she looked over to find a drinking cup on top of the table. Walking over to it, she filled it with water before going back to the side where James was laying. Without even having a bit of mercy, she emptied the whole cup over James.
Having water poured over him, James shook awake as he immediately got up. Looking around, she saw the angry face of Loraine staring at him. "What are you doing? Can't you see that I was sleeping?" James said without any thought.
"Why are you still in bed? Didn't you wake up earlier?" Loraine's voice was mixed with disbelief and anger.
Before James could reply to her, he heard laughter behind Loraine. Looking past Loraine, he saw that Alice was standing there enjoying the scene. Feeling ashamed of this, James looked back over to Loraine and apologized quickly before getting up and left the room to get dressed up.
"You don't have to be so hard on him." Alice said after she started to control her laughter.
"I know, but he has to start getting used to waking up early. We do not have an easy road in front of us. So we have to work twice as more compared to the rest if we want to make it together." Loraine said as she bent her head and looked into the empty cup in her hands.
Understanding what Loraine said, Alice agreed, "That is indeed true. And with that mentality, I am sure that you will do great here in Valencia. Getting started is definitely not easy. But ones you there, it will become a lot easier."
After a while, James came back into the room. He felt a bit emotional. He had heard the majority of their conversation and understood now why Loraine was angry about it all. Walking over to Loraine, James kissed her on the forehead and apologized ones more for his behavior. After which he turned around to face Alice and said, "Sorry for the scenery that you just witnessed. To what do we owe this honor to have you here in our room?"
Smiling Alice replied, "You don't need to apologize. As for the reason, I wanted to finish up the arrangement of the house as fast as possible." She looked over to Loraine and continued, "Because after that we still have a lot to do with the new endeavor. I wanted to finish up all the small issues before moving on."
Hearing this, James looked over at Loraine as he grabbed her hand and replied, "Ah, so the talk went well. I am happy for you. I hope that you will do well in this undertaking. As for the house, I agree, do you have anything for us to sign? And also the price, if we can do something about it, that would be great."
Hearing this, Alice pulled out a parchment out of her satchel and laid it on top of the table. There was a basic contract concerning the transfer of ownership of the house to them. "This is the contract of ownership. With this the house will belong to you. As for the price. The house costs 80 gold. It is already an affordable price for you. However as we will become partners, I am willing to reduce my cut a bit and make the price 75 gold."
Hearing this, James agreed. But before he could say something it was Loraine that replied to her, "Deal! We can do that." As she was saying that, she was tugging at James, notifying him to get necessary payment.
After a moment, they finalized the deal and Alice handed over the keys to the couple, and said with a smile, "With that, you are now the proud owner of property here in Valencia. I welcome you two."
The couple accepted the keys and looked happily to each other. This is their first step in their new beginning.
…