Page 14 of So Not My Thing
“Fair, except he’s my cousin, so I can’t.” He sighed. “I’ll figure out how to make this up to you, but in the meantime, we’re here, right? Might as well talk about the space.”
Might as well use the time to convince him I was the wrong agent for him without actually saying I didn’t want to work with him. If I did, he might ask why, and that would open up a discussion I refused to have with Miles Crowe, ever.
“Sure, let’s talk about the property,” I said. “As you can see, it’s the most spacious one Brenda identified for you. Did you get a chance to explore it while I cleaned up?”
He nodded once, slowly. “Yeah. It’s definitely enough room, but I already knew from the presentation that this wasn’t going to be right. I was hoping for some new properties to consider.”
“These are the best ones in Downtown, and it’s most efficient to start by figuring out what does and doesn’t work for you and calibrate from here.”
“I guess that makes sense.” He sent a quick glance around the room. “I don’t know how to explain this, but places give me a vibe. I know,” he said with a wince, like he thought I was about to interrupt him. “It sounds like I’ve been in California too long.”
“Not really. People talk about places having a vibe all the time.”
“Right. Uh, I don’t think I mean it the way most people mean it.”
I was curious in spite of myself. “What do you mean then?”
“It’s like...I can kind of feel the soul of a place? I don’t know.” He shoved his hand through his hair like he was frustrated with himself for his lack of words. “I know what song I would write about a place I’m in. That’s the only way I can explain it.”
“What song would this place get?”
“It wouldn’t. That’s the problem. It’s a great space for something else. Maybe a FedEx or something, but this place hasnosoul.”
I didn’t want to tell him that I knew exactly what he meant. Tourists always beelined for the French Quarter without ever realizing that the true gem wasnextto the Quarter. In the Bywater, we had Royal Street and all the rest too, but once they crossed Esplanade into the Marigny and on to the Bywater, the streets were alive with locals who were escaping the neon clatter of the crowded Quarter. Ontheirside of Esplanade, it was full of bachelorette parties and moms escaping their kids for the weekend, everyone drunk and sloppy in the streets at night.
Onmyside, it was happy chatter, friends calling to each other, lively conversations between sidewalk tables, the music of locals spilling from the doorways of lowkey bars. And none of it disrupted by drunken shrieks and the rude things men called to women, trying to entice them to do a little flashing and earn plastic Mardi Gras beads, year-round.
“It sounds stupid, I know,” Miles said, and I realized I’d been quiet too long.
“No. It doesn’t. The Central Business District, as advertised, is pretty corporate.”
“Should we go look at the other two properties, then? Because this one is so not my thing.”
My breath caught, and my mind blanked as I struggled for words. He might as well have stabbed me for how hard those words hit me, theLive with Laurawords. The meme words.So not my thing.
Hedidknow it was me.
“You okay? Sorry, that was a bad joke. When I was an idiot kid, I...you know what? Never mind. Don’t know why I resurrected that.”
So...hedidn’tknow it was me in that meme with him?
I gave him a long look, weighing and measuring. He didn’t seem to be watching me for any kind of reaction to see how his joke had landed. I hadn’t seen a single flash of recognition in his face the whole time we’d been in here, no fishing to suggest that he knew who I was. Who I’dbeen. And what’s more, he’d called his words a bad joke and avoided a chance to bring up his own fame.
I ran through the evidence of the morning. He’d only been five minutes late because he was getting me coffee, he’d apologized for spilling it, offered to buy me a new shirt, and had the instinct to know this building lacked soul.
Maybe Miles was more grounded than I thought. He wasn’t Bywater-cool, but a lot of jazz clubs thrived in the French Quarter.
“Let’s not look at the other two places,” I said, making an announcement before I even fully realized I’d made a decision. “In fact, let me look at some different properties I’m thinking of in the Quarter.”
“Great, let’s go.”
“I didn’t mean now.” I swept a hand down to indicate my workout shirt. “I need to change.”
“Oh, right.” He looked sheepish. “Me too, I guess.” He plucked at his shirt, and it stuck to him slightly.
“You spilled on yourself too?”
“Kind of a lot,” he admitted.
