Bad Girl by Goode, Ella (chrysanthemum read aloud .txt) 📕

I want more. I’m sure I could have it, get my fill and bide my time, but it makes me feel cheaper than I already do.

The problem is, I’m not sure I could ever get my fill. I’m always going to want so much more.

Chapter Fourteen Warren

Leila looks pale. I thought her refusal to play chess was odd, like she’d had some negative experience and now associates the game with bad memories, but maybe she isn’t feeling well.

It’s been a stressful few days, I guess. Not everyone is fueled by pressure. It’s time to get her out of this house.

“Do you have a jacket? It’s only around sixty, and I’m going to bring the convertible out. It can get cold.”

“Where are we going?”

“For a drive. There’s a property I recently bought, but it needs a lot of renovations and build outs for the new commercial tenants. I want to go check up on the progress. Call it a business field trip.”

She wrinkles her nose in distaste. For a finance exec, she really doesn’t have much interest in how the sausage is made. Most of my numbers people would jump at this on-site evaluation, if only to tell me that my numbers were bad.

“I’ll buy you ice cream on the way.”

Leila runs over to get her jacket. “I want a large.”

“Large what?” I amble behind her.

“Large of whatever it is that we’re ordering.”

It turns out she likes chocolate dipped strawberries blended with ice cream. She has good taste. It’s delicious. I make her feed me since I’m driving.

“Large is not big enough when I have to share it.” She pouts. “Here, have some more of your toffee one.”

“It’s not as good as yours.”

“You should’ve ordered mine then.”

“Noted. Next time.”

“How long do you plan to keep me locked up in your house?” she teases.

“Oh, forever.” And I don’t laugh. Not even when she continues to giggle. She’ll come around though. Everyone comes to my way of thinking eventually.

Maybe it’s the sunshine or maybe it’s the convertible, but she opens up a little on the way to the D1 Tower project. She tells me about her mother and missing her. She admits my digs are better than the long-term motel room.

“Your microwave doesn’t take five minutes to cook a sixty-second burrito,” she says.

“That’s good. That thing ran me three grand.”

“Three thousand dollars for a microwave?” she yelps.

“Hey, it does other things too.”

“Like what?”

I shrug. “Who the hell knows.” I swerve into the curved drive and park in front of the lobby. Construction is going strong. I nab a couple hard hats from the back seat and plop one on her head. “It’s what we put in all the units. High end all the way.”

“The microwave should assemble the burrito and then cook it at that cost,” she mutters.

“If you find an appliance that does that, let me know. We could make a killing.” I hold open the lobby door and usher her inside.

“How did you get into commercial real estate? You said your dad was mostly residential?”

“Yeah. He had a buyer who owned this four-door strip mall—'doors’ is how we talk about rentals. If a unit has sixty doors, that’s sixty tenants. Got me?” She nods. “So it was a small thing with a cracked concrete parking lot, broken signs, and a complete vacancy. He wanted to get rid of it because he hadn’t been able to rent it out and the taxes were killing him. What he didn’t realize was that he was trying for the wrong tenant. He’d tried to lure the staples like a dry cleaner and a nail salon and a pub, but that wasn’t the demo. There was a skate park across the street. The tenants needed to match that, so I asked my dad for a loan, bought the property, recruited a bike and skate shop and an ice cream and burger joint as my anchors. The nail salon stayed because moms that dropped their kids off at the skate park would sit inside, drink champagne, and get their nails done.”

“Wait, is that the Wheels Plaza over on 64th and University?”

“Yeah.” I feel my chest puff with pride.

“That area is booming now. It’s so busy all the time.”

I grin like a child receiving a gold star in kindergarten. “Yeah, just like this area. This place is nice, but I’ve got my eye on a property over on the waterfront. It’s a gem.”

“Is that the Park Hill one you were talking about on the phone?”

“Yup.”

“You seem excited.”

“I am. This shit is fun. The pie is limited. There’s only so much real estate to sell so you have to hustle, you have to be creative, and you have to know what you’re doing. Too many times someone gets involved in the game who doesn’t know what they’re doing. I don’t fault them. They’re brought in by someone else who’s taking advantage of their ignorance or their naivety or both.”

“And as long as you don’t have to see the consequences, then it doesn’t matter who loses?” she shoots at me.

I take a moment because she’s pissed, which catches me off guard. I thought we were connecting, but the way she accuses me of being shady makes me wonder if she or someone she knew lost money on a speculative land deal.

“No. It does matter. There are some fucked-up people in the real estate business and if there’s someone who I feel is in over their heads, I try to warn them. But a lot of people do not want any help, Leila. Like a few weeks or months ago, some guy killed himself after he’d invested all his life savings into an investment scheme to purchase this hotel property. The guy who was running the scheme didn’t have enough for the bid minimum. Instead of telling his investors that, he ran off with the money.”

“This place? The one we’re looking at?” She turns in a slow circle in the middle