Love Remains (15 page)

On her way back to her office, Zarah thought about Dennis’s last remark. That he had “some” connections was a vast understatement. For someone who had spent the first twenty or so years of his career working as a city planner, and the last ten as the director of a historical preservation nonprofit, Dennis Forrester knew people in the highest echelons of just about every industry out there—from museums to publishing to education to Hollywood. If they needed something done, he knew someone who could do it for them. But it wasn’t for her to question how; it was for her to be grateful when Dennis’s seemingly endless Rolodex provided the name and contact information of someone who could make the impossible possible.

She dropped into her desk chair. Was it possible Dennis knew someone who could alleviate her Bobby problem?

“Thank you so much for agreeing to meet me after hours.” Bobby shook hands with the short, dark-haired young woman. Finally, someone from the singles’ group who didn’t look like a lingerie model wannabe. Not that this gal wasn’t pretty; she just seemed much more real, more natural, than all the other girls at the church. Well, almost all the other girls at the church.

Stacy Simms had a firm grip for someone so petite. “It’s my pleasure. I’m only sorry we couldn’t get together before now.” She grinned, showing slightly crooked front teeth. “You sounded somewhat desperate in the message you left Monday evening.”

Bobby grimaced. “Don’t get me wrong, I love my grandparents. I just need—”

“You just need a place of your own. I understand, and that’s what I’m going to help you do.” She looked up at the building they stood in front of. “I think this place has everything you’re looking for. And because this is a new building and it’s an unsold unit, the developers want to close quickly.”

Bobby glanced over the marketing flyer she handed him. Two bedrooms. Fabulous amenities in the building. Balcony. No fireplace—too bad. Granite and stainless in the kitchen. Underground garage parking. Stacy was right; it did look like everything he wanted. Could it really be that simple?

The concierge at the front desk greeted Stacy by name. One of the four elevators opened immediately for them. She hit the button for the sixth floor, and the doors slid closed.

“You must show a lot of units in this building,” Bobby said.

Stacy’s curtain of straight dark hair flowed over her shoulders and spilled down her back when she craned her neck to look up at him. “I do. And I live here, so they know me pretty well.”

“Well, there’s a ringing endorsement for this building.” He shifted his weight, moving him slightly farther away from Stacy. While she
was an attractive woman, and obviously single from her membership in the singles’ group and the lack of any kind of ring on her left hand, he knew from experience and many years of observation that business relationships and romantic entanglements did not go well together. Besides, there had been something in the tone of Patrick’s voice in the few brief comments he’d made to Bobby about Stacy that made Bobby want to keep his distance on his friend’s behalf.

As soon as Bobby walked into the condo, he realized he’d forgotten to look at one very important piece of information on the marketing sheet. “How many square feet is this?”

“The interior has 675, and almost 100 more if you include the balcony. Plus you’ll have a storage unit in the parking garage. It comes with one parking space, and you can buy a second parking space for an additional ten thousand.”

Bobby turned sideways to slip past the bar chairs that half blocked the entry hall between the front door and the living room. The kitchen, to the left of the front door, was indeed granite and stainless—but just looking at it from across the bar that separated it from the hallway made him feel claustrophobic.

“As you can see, everything is high-end. From the black granite countertops and backsplash to the dark walnut cabinets to the stainless appliances to the travertine floor.”

Bobby decided not to interrupt Stacy’s well-rehearsed sales pitch of the condo. Even though on paper this apartment had almost two hundred more square feet than his studio in Los Angeles, all his square footage there had been open, loft-style, and felt much larger than its five hundred square feet. The research he had done online showed him he could get something twice the size for less money than the asking price listed on the marketing flyer for this shoe box.

The bedrooms were tiny—he was pretty sure the bed in the master bedroom was actually full-size and not queen-size. But it didn’t matter, because he could still barely move around it in the room.

“So? What you think?” Stacy set her large leather planner on the
end of the kitchen bar.

“It’s very nicely appointed. The bathroom was great. But it’s just a little small for me. How far out from downtown am I going to have to go to get at least a thousand square feet?”

Stacy didn’t do a very good job of hiding her disappointment, and it made Bobby wonder if she got some kind of discount or special perks from the developer for selling units in this building. “Not too far. Though it will put you in midtown rather than downtown.”

“That’s fine. I think I’d rather be in midtown than in downtown, as long as it has good interstate access.”

Stacy picked her portfolio up and moved toward the front door. Bobby opened it for her and then waited in the hall until she locked up. She opened her planner and rummaged through it while they waited for an elevator.

“Here’s one you’ll probably like.” She pulled out another marketing flyer and handed it to him. “This is not for the exact unit that I’ll take you to look at, but it’s in the same building. The flyer is for a one-bedroom, but the one I want you to look at is a two-bedroom plus study. I know the smallest one-bedroom has just over nine hundred square feet, so the two-bedroom must be at least twelve to fifteen hundred, if not bigger. I heard the owner is facing foreclosure—so they should be open to a quick closing.”

In the lobby, Bobby studied a fine-art photo of the Nashville skyline while Stacy arranged with the agent for the other listing to be able to stop by and see it tonight. One really good thing about people desperate to sell—they were usually pretty amenable to dropping everything at the last minute for a showing.

He turned at a tap on his elbow. Stacy tossed her sable hair over her shoulder. “They’ll be ready for us to view it in half an hour. With traffic, it’ll take us a good ten or fifteen minutes to get there. I can show you all the amenities first, and then we can go see the condo. That sound okay?”

“Sounds great. Where exactly are we going?”

“Just south of Hillsboro Village—the condo complex is right on the corner of Hillsboro and the 440 Parkway. Stay on Broadway all the way down almost to I-440—you know Broadway becomes Twenty-first Avenue and then Hillsboro Pike, right?”

If she was taking him to the building he thought she was taking him to… “Yeah, I know exactly where you’re talking about.”

“There are several units for sale in the building, which explains why this one hasn’t sold. It’s almost nineteen hundred square feet, it’s on the top floor, has downtown views from a panoramic balcony,
and
it comes with a two-car individual garage.”

“Really? And it’s in my price range?”

“Near the top, but still in it. Ready to go?”

Bobby followed her little blue BMW down to the area of town where he would really rather be. She did indeed pull into the guest parking lot of the building he’d been eyeing ever since he came back to town.

Though it wasn’t a high-rise, the sprawling complex surrounded an enormous, beautifully landscaped courtyard. The workout room contained top-of-the-line equipment, and he could picture the singles’ group having a get-together in the party room.

He was almost ready to put in an offer before even seeing the condo.

Stacy’s phone beeped. “Text message from the agent—the condo is ready for you to see.”

The fourth-floor unit turned out to be on one of the corners. Bobby’s hopes rose even higher. From what he could see from the outside, the corner units had magnificent balconies.

“Here we are.” Stacy opened the door.

Bobby stepped into the hallway. Hmm…a narrow, enclosed hall was not what he’d been expecting.

“The door to the right”—Stacy opened it—”is the office.”

It wasn’t huge, but it was big enough for a desk along one wall and bookcases on the others. The entry hall angled. An opening to
the left revealed a dining room—an actual dining room—and directly across from it, a good-sized kitchen with stainless appliances and dark granite.

“There should be”—Stacy opened the door in the angled wall beside the refrigerator—”a walk-in pantry.”

Excellent. Now he could actually keep more than a couple days’ worth of food in the house. The double doors to the left of the pantry revealed a full-size washer and dryer.

“Do all of the appliances stay?”

Stacy checked something on her smart phone. “Yes. All appliances stay.”

“It seems rather closed off. Is there the possibility that I can take down some of these walls? I’d love for the kitchen and dining room to be open to the living room.” From the hallway, he had seen part of what turned out to be a magnificent view of midtown and downtown, and he could only see a sliver of it through the opening over the kitchen sink. The corner of the building was anything but a corner—it was round, giving a panoramic view with floor-to-ceiling windows and glass doors on either end in the fan-shaped living room.

He wanted that view—and he wanted to be able to see it from all of the main living areas of the condo.

“I’ll check to see if renos are an option.” Stacy tapped on the screen of her phone.

While she was busy checking on that for him, Bobby found what he hoped was the second bedroom—not huge, but adequate—and guest bathroom. On the opposite side of the living room…yes, this was the master bedroom. The current owners had a king-size bed in the room, and there was still plenty of space to move around. And the master bath was one of the nicest he’d ever seen.

Renovations or no renovations, this was it. He’d be happy here.

Stacy was still doing something with her phone when Bobby rejoined her in the living room. “How much?”

She looked up and gave him the asking price.

“Comps?”

“Hang on.” Apparently she had an app for that on her phone, because within minutes she gave him the sales price of several other condos in the area and one in the complex that had sold in the past three months.

She looked up from the phone. “Sounds to me like they’re trying to make a profit on this place instead of get out of it what they owe the bank.”

Bobby’s decision was made. “Write up an offer for fifteen thousand under asking.”

“Are you sure you want to start that high? I think you can get it for way under that.”

“According to the comps you just gave me, that’s a fair price for this unit. Fifteen thousand under, and thirty days for closing.” Given the sparse furnishings in the place, it didn’t look like they’d need much time to pack up.

She pulled a form out of her planner and filled in the appropriate information.

He read it to verify she’d written in the numbers and date he wanted, then signed it.

“I’ll call the other agent and fax this over tonight. I’ll ask for a reply by noon tomorrow.” She extended her hand. “Congratulations, Bobby. I have to say, you’ve been one of the easiest clients I’ve ever worked with.”

He shook her hand. At her age, she couldn’t have worked with that many. “Thanks.”

Long after Stacy drove off, Bobby sat in his car, staring at the building. If all went well, a month from now he’d live here. No more worrying about disturbing his grandparents. No more hints about finding a girlfriend. No more living out of plastic bins. No more Maximus.

His phone started playing “Rocky Top,” the song he’d picked for Patrick, a die-hard University of Tennessee fan. “Hey, what’s up?”

“What’re you doing tomorrow night?” Patrick asked without preamble.

“Friday night? Hadn’t planned on anything. Why?”

“We’re pulling together a guys’ night. We try to do it every so often—get together for some male bonding time. Zarah just reminded me that the girls are doing their thing tomorrow night, so I figured it would be a good time for us to do something, too.”

Gee, thanks, Mack
. Bobby had gone almost two entire hours without a single thought of Zarah. He’d planned to call Patrick to see if there was anything going on with the singles’ group this weekend—the idea of sitting in the living room watching TV with his grandparents, while scintillating, didn’t really appeal. The only reason he hadn’t yet was the knowledge that if there was a get-together, Zarah would probably be there. And while he still hadn’t been able to bring himself to do the background check on her, the idea he was going to have to do it, and soon, made it hard for him to think about facing her.

“A guys’ night, huh? Sounds great. I’m in.”

Chapter 12