Page 37 of Misadventures of a Biker

“Oh, wow. Those guys work fast.”

“They’d be a lot faster if I didn’t have them do a little extra work.”

She lowered her cup to the table and picked up her biscotti. She looked it over as if trying to decide where to sink her teeth. “You don’t think Teddi’s attitude could have something to do with the fact that you wouldn’t have sex with her, do you?”

I choked on my espresso. A teary-eyed coughing fit followed. When I caught my breath, I looked at her with eyes of disbelief. “She told you?”

She dunked her biscotti in her coffee and nodded eagerly. “She’s devastated.”

“Devastated?”

“Absolutely crushed,” she said over a mouthful of biscotti. “Things like that have a profound effect on women.”

“Believe me, I had no intention of causing her that kind of grief. My experience in dealing with women’s emotions is nil. I had no idea—”

“This is why we’re friends.” She pointed the uneven tip of her biscotti at me. “I can teach you such things.”

“Why would not having sex be so devastating?” I asked. “It doesn’t make sense that she’s pissed about something so stupid.”

“I doubt she saw it as stupid.”

“We were going to fuck,” I said dismissively. “We didn’t. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“The last guy…” She paused and looked me over. “Can I tell you about the last guy she saw without you telling her I told you?”

“Sure.”

“The last guy she saw was over a year ago. They were serious. Living together and everything. She heard he was having sex with another woman. She asked him. He denied it. Then, someone hinted that there was another. She asked him again, and he denied it. It went on for a long time. The accusations and the denials. Then, one day, she caught him.”

“How?”

“He worked for us.” A look of disgust washed over her. She shook her head. “This is awful. She met a woman at one of his listings because he was in Orlando at some meeting, or training, or whatever. Anyway, this client started telling Teddi how she was seeing this guy. She was buying this house, and he was going to move in with her. It ended up the guy this client was seeing was the same guy Teddi was living with. It messed her up pretty bad.”

“Guy sounds like a real shithead,” I said.

“There’s a lot more to it than that.”

“More than him being a shithead?”

“No,” she said. “More to the story.”

“Are you going to tell it?”

She seemed reluctant but continued nonetheless. “She’d given him almost every penny she saved to help finance some real estate thing. It was a lot of money. The investment scheme was basically a scam. It ended up that was really the only reason he was with her. For her money. She lost it all. Every cent. After that, she swore off guys, basically.”

“Holy shit. Where’s this guy now? In prison?”

“No. She didn’t prosecute him. She was too embarrassed. He’s working for another real estate agency here in town.”

“You’re kidding?”

“I wish I was.”

“That’s awful.” I exhaled a long breath. “Both parts to the story.”

“Now you know why it was a big deal to her. If she made up her mind to have sex with you, she reached a point she’d overcome everything with the guy who screwed her over. It was probably a big letdown. Then she was left wondering if she made the right decision or if all guys are turds.”

“I’m not a turd.”