For once, I agreed with Jamison.
EvenIcouldn't believe I'd said yes.
Seriously, what the fuck was I doing here?
For weeks, he'd been nagging me to see the place. And for weeks, I'd been putting him off.
But now, a few short hours after returning from Mackinac Island, here I was, Johnny-on-the-spot, checking out what Jamison called his hottest property even though the place was colder than the corpse we'd surely find in the basement.
I mean, just look at the place.
From the road, it might've been a rich guy's country estate.But up close?It looked like the rich guy had died and never moved out. The thing was a horror flick waiting to happen.
Ivy strangled the brick like it had a vendetta, and the once-grand portico leaned left, like it had one whiskey too many. The roof was sagging, the windows were cracking, and the front door was off-kilter, like it was missing a couple of hinges.
The name of the place,Miss Lavinia's Academy for Young Ladies, was still carved into the stone archway like a tombstone for every debutante who had ever walked through that door.
The carving might've looked classy, even now, if not for the fact that some genius had tagged it with red spray paint, changing Lavinia to Vagina, using two G's instead of one.
I was still shaking my head when Jamison sidled next to me and said, "Told you it had character."
I gave him a long, sideways look. Jamison had the overgroomed vibe of someone who spent way too much time in front of his mirror. Today, he wore tailored slacks, Italian loafers, and a black button-down, crisp enough to cut glass.
His black hair was too slick, his teeth were too white, and his fingernails were too glossy for me to believe he didn't have a bottle of nail polish stashed in his car.
But hey, even Jamison had his uses.
I returned my attention to the property. "Character'soneword for it."
Next to me, Jamison laughed long and loud, like the ghost of Miss Lavinia was tickling his privates. When he finished laughing, he said with an elbow to my ribs, "Man, I forgot how funny you are."
What a kiss-ass.
A shameless social climber with more hustle than taste, Jamison Banks was the kind of guy who name-dropped like a Hollywood agent and gossiped like a teenage girl.
But every now and then, he turned up an off-market property so crazy brilliant that I hadn't yet blocked his number.
Today could be one of those days. But I wasn't holding my breath.
When I didn't reply, he said, "So? You ready to be wowed?"
I wasalreadywowed, as in,Wow, what a shithole.
But in the spirit of blind optimism, I ventured inside. It wasn't politeness – or even curiosity – propelling me into the gloom.
It was practicality.Sometimes, a shitty exterior hid a real treasure past the front door.
Not with this place.
As we toured room after room, Jamison kept up a steady stream of commentary on the woodwork, which was rotting, the high ceilings, which were sagging, and the vintage chandeliers, which looked one spark away from disaster.
What hedidn'tmention was the smell, making me wonder if we'd be finding that rich guy after all.
And yet, I couldn't help but smile as I took in the crumbling plaster and faded walls. As shitty as the place was, it was still nicer than myfirstflip – an old hotel that was half as big, but ten times uglier.
I'd come a long way since then.These days, I didn't even look unless the profit was in the stratosphere.
This raised an odd question.Why exactly was I here?
