Shaking my head, I figured that was another confrontation looming between us in our very near future. Taylor Jane was off-limits to the idiot population if I had any say in it.
“He went to college.” Taylor Jane huffed defensively and this time my eyes rolled. I’m sure Scott went to college. Probably some online school that had no way to adequately measure his ability to tell if a building was capable of standing, let alone undergo major renovations of the sort I’m sure Miss Design TV had hopes of doing.
“Hardly the same thing.” Mumbling under my breath, Taylor Jane eyeballed me from under her thick lashes. Because we were fighting, I waited for her blue eyes to laser mine faster than a whooshed light saber slaying me. I rolled my eyes to look at her in a stalemate.
The only geometry Scott Crenshaw paid any mind to involved the curvy ones attached to a willing and available female, which had better not be Taylor Jane. Shoving a protractor right up his ass was tempting. I wasn’t normally an over protective dick, but part of me felt a responsibility to her over the years that defied time, folded notes in tenth grade, geography, and a few verbal spats.
She continued to ignore any concerns I might have had for the haunted pile of wood and proceeded to tell me more details. “I’m so lucky I found it when I did, even outbidding a second buyer.” Her enthusiasm under normal conditions was contagious until I sorted out what she actually said… there was a second buyer?
Someone else wanted this dump… and she spent more on it?
Oh Christ.
My brain hurt trying to keep up with her. I’m sure luck had nothing to do with this, just a bubbled housing market that had yet to recover fully in our part of the country.
“You know, it was actually under budget, quite a steal.”
I’m sure it was a steal, right from her pretty little bank account. I was going to strangle that bank manager when I saw him next. If it was still Phil Harmond or his kid that took over, Paul, I was going to torture the life out of them both and then maybe bury them in the backyard of this shithole for taking advantage of her.
Her overly positive attitude told me this was pretty much a done deal. In fact, I’d place bets that she’d already signed the paperwork, damning the next three to six months of my life working on this thing.
My choices were to either help her, or I’m sure smarty-pants here would find someone else to do it. Yeah, only one option here. I sure as hell didn’t want a shitty contractor taking advantage of my best friend.
“Taylor Jane Bryant.” Using her full name, something only her parents and myself did, I needed her attention focused. “Honey, there’s a lot that goes into flipping a property. I mean, did you talk to anyone about this? What about your dad?” If her father, Alan, knew about this I had to shake my head at what the world was coming to. Alan Bryant was as protective of her as I was.
My skepticism must have been transparent because she resumed her full pout. “Don’t be condescending, Hunter, I’m not fourteen, I realize that. The bank wouldn’t have given me a mortgage if they thought this was a terrible idea.” The bank manager was probably dazzled by Taylor Jane’s big blue eyes and thought nothing of giving her a loan she had no business taking.
“I even drew up my own RFP and budget.” Smiling made her face light up with this inner energy you had to see to believe. Yup, fuck a duck. She dazzled the shit out of that bank manager with her mortgaged request for proposed funds. Where would she even get the collateral? I was afraid to ask about her parents’ house and couldn’t help the groan that passed my lips. It was useless to fight the tornado that was Taylor Jane Bryant.
“Hey.” She tugged on my arm, getting my attention. “I spent the last four years watching the Property Brothers do it while I was in college. It’s going to be fun working together, bestie!”
Oh God… even I knew of those guys, both nice, but a bad influence on Taylor Jane.
She tried wrapping her arm around my head, pulling me down to rub her knuckles against my scalp. She used to do this in high school and the feelings I tamped down back then roared with an intensity I barely reined in. It was irritating and put me into way too close proximity of my best friend’s breasts. Beautiful perky mounds I should not have been noticing. I tried thinking of other things, thinking of the girl I was casually seeing, but nothing stymied the softness and fresh smell of the girl right next to me.
I pushed back gently, untangling myself from her. “Are you seriously telling me you want to flip a house because two wankers on TV….” Pushing her off me gently, I couldn’t even finish my sentence that’s how flustered she got me. Taylor Jane had a full head of natural blond hair. Now I’m not saying she was that type of blonde, but I had my moments when I wondered if there were stereotypes for a reason.
In the silence of the truck, she flicked something off her leg and looked up at me with her big bottomless blue eyes.
Hook.
Line.
Sinker.
Shrugging, she fluttered her eyelashes, and I knew I was doing this before the words even left my mouth, telling her to knock it off with the puppy eyes. She was my apple pie and girl next door that couldn’t compare to anything else in this world.
“How hard could it be?” And there it was, she’d already barreled through like a rodeo bull and tossed me hard. I couldn’t say no in good conscious.
Damn it.
“If you don’t want to help me, Hunter, just say so and I’ll find another contractor willing to work with me.” She sighed, looking over her dream house from a B rated horror film.
Oh hell to the fuck no is she going to pull that trick with me.
Some happy meals lacked French fries.
Crayon boxes were often missing crayons.
Taylor Jane… had a sparkle that rivaled fucking vampires.
I’m so screwed.
Grumbling, I caught a hint of her smile and decided to roll with it. What choice did I have? “Tell me what you envision here.” Turning the key to the truck off, we sat inside the cool dampness. It didn’t help that there was a humid light rain falling and everything was wet. Our breaths kept the inside windows of the truck fogged, blurring the structural lines of the house outside. I don’t bother putting the truck back on to defog anything because I was going to pretend through the clouded windows that some level of ignorance was bliss. For all I knew we would have to bulldoze the lot and start from scratch. The fog mocked me like the structural integrity of the house.
“I want to update the property, restore much of its historic charm and add elements that make it a uniquely modern home that anyone would be pleased to own.” Yup. She was going to be the death of me, just tell me where to sign up and to make sure my life insurance was paid in full.
“So… not too many structural changes? Like you don’t want to knock down a wall and build an indoor pool or anything?”
Taylor Jane laughed, but I had to be reasonable. This woman could talk you into buying sand in the desert, so a simple house flipping project could be the next Mall of America if I wasn’t careful. A man’s gotta be prepared, if you know what I mean.
“Oh, Hunter, always the jokester.” She lightly slapped my shoulder, looking back at the house even though the condensation kept us from seeing it clearly. “No indoor pool, but a screened in Jacuzzi under the back deck sounds like a nice upgradable option.”