Chapter 12 #2
Niko had never been the guy that picked women he was seeing up at the airport or made them mixtapes or sent them huge bouquets of flowers just because it was a Tuesday.
In fairness, he would have absolutely done the airport pickup if not for who he was, but him arriving to pick up a woman would mean by the next week he’d be getting married, having an affair, broken up and gotten back together at least twice.
So that one was purely tabloid-based avoidance.
The others were just because he’d never been motivated to do those things for G.
When he woke up to take Tiana to work, he’d looked on her social media to find out how she took her coffee, and when he saw that she’d only ever gotten spiced chai from Brewed Awakenings, he’d quickly educated himself on how to make one. Thankfully, AJ kept his cupboards stocked.
But with Tiana, everything was different. He wanted to be different. He was different.
After pulling away from the curb, he drove down Main Street, which was fairly deserted at this time of the morning, besides Sweet Tooth Bakery and Brewed Awakenings Coffee Shop, both of which had patrons inside. One of the patrons he noticed was someone he’d been wanting to speak to.
When he saw the person in question exiting the bakery, he pulled into a spot a few yards down from her and got out.
He started walking towards Lauren Harrison, thinking any second now she would lift her head and see him, but he nearly collided with her before that happened.
“Lauren,” he said her name to draw her attention, so he didn’t startle her.
His plan failed. Her head flew up, and her drink flew into the air. From that moment, everything went in slow motion.
She yelled, “Noooooo—” as her left hand swung up in the air in what Niko assumed was an attempt to catch the flyaway beverage but only served in swatting it away.
Luckily, Niko’s hand-eye coordination had been described by coaches, sports writers, physicians, and teammates as superhero level. He managed to catch the cup in his right hand as if it was a ball he cradled in his glove.
The second his fingers wrapped around the drink, time returned to normal speed. Both he and Lauren stood there, stunned silent for what felt like an eternity but in reality was probably one or two seconds, before he cut to the chase as to why he had accosted her on the wooden sidewalk.
“Looks like that ninja training paid off,” Lauren teased.
When Niko was a kid, he would always say he had ninja training whenever he did something remotely athletic.
He’d forgotten that until now. Lauren Harrison hung out with three other girls who called themselves the Fabulous Four: Amanda, who now owned Mountain Ridge Adventures, which was where douchebag Brock and his family were staying, Karina, who ended up being an international pop star, and Samantha, who was a gold medalist Olympian.
They were a year or so older than Niko, and he had to admit he showed off any chance he got when he was around them.
“Sorry,” he apologized for the not-so-smooth approach. “I was driving by, and I have been wanting to stop by your office to talk to you, so I figured I’d hop out and see if you had any time free in the next couple of days.”
“I have time now.”
“Are you sure?” Niko would love to get the appointment out of the way. “I didn’t mean to hijack your morning.”
“You didn’t. I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d come down and do a little work.”
“Yeah, now works.”
They made the short walk down three doors to Lauren’s realty office.
“Heard AJ got engaged.”
“He did.”
“Have to say, I didn’t have that on my bingo card.”
“Me neither.”
“I always thought it would be you heading down to the altar first.”
“Really?”
He’d never heard that before.
She nodded. “You were always the one every summer helping with the kids’ camps. Whenever there were any family nights at the church, you went and hung out with the families to play the games, in between making out with girls behind the church.”
Niko forgot about that. He loved those nights. He did hang out with families. The families had moms that didn’t drink every night to fall asleep and dads who were still alive. Siblings who fought and bickered like normal, without having trauma bonded.
“All you talked about back then was when you were a dad this and when you were a dad that.”
“Did I?” Niko was trying to remember being like that.
“You did. Karina had a big crush on you. She thought she was going to have your babies.” Lauren stopped when we got to her office and turned back to Niko. “We were twelve, not anymore.”
“Yeah, obviously.” He didn’t think Karina Black was in love with him, but it was nice to know his showing off had not gone unnoticed. Hopefully he still had it and it would work with Tiana.
They walked into Lauren’s offices, and he was trying to remember when he used to talk about being a dad.
He did remember being obsessed with having a family after his dad passed away.
He just wanted what he had before he was gone.
He still wanted that. If he was being honest with himself, it was all he’d ever really wanted.
Niko waited at Lauren’s desk while she did a few things around the office to open up. When she sat down in front of him, she asked, “What can I do for you?”
Niko was torn between wanting to look at properties to buy to stay and live in or just to look at properties to flip. Buying was so permanent, and he just wasn’t ready to make that leap yet.
“I’m interested in doing some flipping in town. It was something AJ and I did in college.”
Lauren clicked on the keyboard as she spoke.
“I’m gonna be honest, we don’t a ton of inventory.
With the influx of tourists over the past five years or so, investors have come in and wiped out the inventory as far as residential properties.
But if you’d consider commercial properties, I know a very motivated seller with a prime location here on Main Street. ”
“Main Street?”
She nodded. “The brick building across from the Northeast corner. It has six units in it.”
That was the building Om Sweet Om was located in. Had Tiana used the settlement to buy the building? Surely that couldn’t have taken all her money. Was she selling the building? Was she selling her business?
No. That didn’t make any sense. He saw how proud she was of what she’d built. He saw the light in her eyes when students came up and spoke to her about her classes. Plus, they were packed. He’d heard that classes were booked weeks ahead of time.
“Can I ask why she’s selling?”
“He, actually, not she. He experienced some personal cash flow issues that came up suddenly a few months ago. It’s really impacting his tenants.”
His tenants. Tiana.
“Impacting them how?”
“The rent has nearly tripled.”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
“No. It’s not. If you were interested, I’d jump on it, he’s highly motivated to sell, and property on Main Street never becomes available for purchase.”
Tiana said she’d been living in that cabin for a few months, if that’s when her lease tripled, it would make sense that she’d had to…downsize. That could even explain the overdue bills from Golden Years. But where had her settlement from Bartlett gone? That was what he didn’t understand.
Niko didn’t have all the answers, but there was one problem he could solve. “Contact the owner, and I’ll speak to my financial advisor today. I want to put an offer in as soon as possible.”