Page 26 of Misadventures of a Biker

Frank released my hand and gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “That’s Shane.”

Shane wasn’t as tall as Frank, but he was big by any means of comparison. With his mouth curled into a permanent grin and his hair cut short, he was much less intimidating than his business partner.

I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Devin clapped his hands together. “Sorry, fellas, but Teddi and I have a meeting we need to get to in about thirty minutes. We’re going to need to make this quick.”

Five minutes prior, I was barely capable of carrying on a meaningful conversation. Devin’s declaration of our “meeting” caused me to slip right back into my mush-minded state. As my mind reeled to come up with the possibilities of what might happen between us, the men began to discuss the flooring.

“Meeting at five thirty?” Frank asked. “Other’n our dumb asses, who meets this late in the day?”

Devin gave him a nod of reassurance. “The real estate market never sleeps, does it, Teddi?”

I was in the midst of deciding if having sex with Devin was a good idea, a great idea, or a bad idea. I was nowhere near a concrete conclusion.

I shook my head to free it of the clutter. “Huh?”

Devin glared. “The real estate market never sleeps. Does it, Teddi?”

“Umm. No,” I replied “Never.”

Devin gestured to the baseboard at his feet. “This was tile at one time, and someone put this engineered wood in its place. They removed the tile when they did. This flooring is a quarter of an inch thinner than the original tile. I’m wondering if you could lay an LVT over it that looks like stone. Something to brighten it up in here.”

Frank gazed at the length of the entrance and then peered into the great room. “Place looks like a dungeon.”

“That’s why you’re here, brother.”

Shane wandered down the hallway and ventured into the living area.

Frank put his hands on his hips and surveyed everything within eyeshot from floor to ceiling. “What’s the square footage?”

“Almost twelve thousand,” Devin replied.

“Including the guesthouse,” I added.

“Used LVT on a new construction in Miami last week,” Frank said. “Looked like tumbled travertine tile. When the job was almost done, the owner came in. She looked around and started screaming, ‘What the hell have you done?’ She thought we’d put real travertine in. Said she couldn’t afford it.”

In the middle of trying to figure out what one of Devin’s tattoos was, I shifted my attention to Frank. “What was the installed cost?”

“We used a high-end product on that one,” Frank said. “It wasn’t cheap.”

I’d had a feeling Devin was mistaken with his figures. I prepared myself for a letdown.

“What’s not cheap?” I asked.

“Ten bucks a foot,” Frank responded.

Ten dollars a square foot sounded reasonable to me. “That sounds like a pretty good—”

“Go to hell,” Devin snarled. “I’m not giving you ten bucks a foot.”

Frank shot Devin a glare. “Settle down, Bone. That’s what it cost her. Your girl will only have to pay about six fifty.”

Your girl?

I wondered what Devin had told him about me. Maybe calling me Devin’s girl was some kind of biker lingo. Either way, I liked hearing it.

“Five fifty sounds better,” Devin said.