Page 41 of Cognac Secrets

“You really are doing it for her ain’t you?” he asked.

“Her place is off-limits, and I can respect that,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral and bored. “Hell, if I’m going to bring that caliber of woman to the flophouse I been living in.”

A grin split Hex’s face and he shot a glance at LaCroix and raised his eyebrows.

“Place next door to mine needs work,” he mused. “Why not have your cake and eat it too?” he asked.

I narrowed my eyes, “What you saying?” I asked.

Hex was smart in a lot of things, numbers was one of them – I didn’t know how much went to real estate, but I could and would hear him out.

“Just saying, it ain’t pretty rightnow, but it’s got good bones and with as much as the fellas helped me when I needed it around my place…” he trailed off and gave me a look and I barked a bit of a laugh.

“I’m handy in a lot of things, but home repair ain’t necessarily one of ‘em,” I declared.

“It’s definitely my bag,” Hex said, “and I’m plumb out of projects at my own house – you being right next door would be mighty convenient for me.”

I grinned some, “So this is less about helping a brother out and more about you having a project to keep working on.”

“Ah, yeah,” he said with a nod. “Don’t hurt that I have a whole lot of connections with a lot of the salvage places around here and I’d be spending your money. Hell, I don’t even mind if I don’t get to pick what I’m doin’ – it’s your house.”

“How much this gonna run me?” I asked. “Hypothetically.”

Hex grinned, “Well alright then,” he said. “Let’s get down to business.”

He leaned forward with a scrap of paper and a pen and started scratching things out. Numbers mostly, which was a language I more than understood. Numbers was for sure a universal language.

Eventually, LaCroix fucked off and left us to it and an hour or two later there was a rough plan in front of us on securing the place next to Hex’s for dirt cheap – pending a walk through, of course.

We wound up heading over there so I could look at his place and know the shotgun house right next door was pretty much a mirror image of his.

Corliss and Alina were in the loft doing something regarding their new business they were trying to set up and man… I knew at some point Sandrine could be valuable to them. She practically ran a shop pretty similar to what the girls had in mind ad were closing in fast on getting up and running.

I stopped myself from going down that line of thinking real quick.

It wasn’t like that,I told myself.Sandrine is just supposed to be a good time…

…and that was the problem, wasn’t it?

She was.

She was afantastictime. Much more than just in the bedroom.

“So how bad do you think the place next door is?” I asked.

Hex grinned, “Worse than this place when I picked it up, I reckon.”

“Which means?” I asked.

“Oh, a total shitshow,” he said and his grin grew.

“Casualty of Katrina and abandoned ever since except for some squatters. It sure is a fuckin’ eyesore – but that’s what I like about her. She’s still standing, no foundation issues, probably got mold issues,” we went out into the evening, which was deepening into night, the light failing fast but I wanted a look at what Hex was talking about.

Shit, the place next door looked fuckingroughcompared to his. I could see why he wanted it fixed up.

“New roof, new siding, may need some new trusses up there – depends on how rough the leaks have been on the existing timber but it’s been close to twenty years now, so I reckon it’s gonna be more bad than good.”

“Shit, this place looks like a fuckin’ money pit,” I declared. “Won’t be ready to move into formonths,” I sighed and put my hands on my hips.

---