She laughed, leaning into me, patting my shoulder, and then handing me a business card. “I’m an interior designer. I can help you decorate.”
I frowned at her. “Out of the goodness of your heart, huh?”
She winked at me—and it came across as cute and sarcastic and flirty, rather than sultry. Still hot, though. “Nope. I just need a design challenge.”
I huffed. “Well. You’ll have a challenge, that’s for damn sure.”
She tapped her notes on the clipboard with a fingernail. “I’m about done here. I just need to decide between two kinds of flooring for my client’s kitchen.”
“What are the two choices?”
She led the way to the flooring aisle, going right for the composite selection. Lifting a dark gray wood grain sample in one hand, and a pale tan bamboo replica material in the other, she glanced at me. “What do you think?”
I rolled a shoulder. “Guess it depends.”
“Cabinets will be white, stainless steel pulls to match the appliances.”
“I mean, I don’t know shit about design. I just know the darker stuff,” I tap the selection in question, “is more durable. Less likely to get damaged, and the waterproofing on it is better. Although, if it does get scratched or dinged hard enough to show, it’s more noticeable.”
She shot me a quizzical look. “I’ve asked three different employees here about this stuff and no one told me that.”
I dug in my back pocket, pulled out the tag that identified me as an employee, and clipped it to my belt. “I get in trouble sometimes, because I tend to tell more of the truth than I should to sell the more expensive products. I just got no patience for bullshit.”
“You work here?”
I nodded. “Yep. I usually work the open shifts, or I close the shop. I’m rarely here in the middle of the day.”
She nodded, understanding dawning on her face. “Ah. That explains why I’ve never seen you here. I’m only here during the afternoons. I tend to look at my clients’ spaces in the mornings, draw up designs right before lunch, and then shop for materials after lunch.”
“And I’m always gone by lunch,” I added, leaning heavily on my cane. “Old men need their naps.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “You’re not old.”
I laughed. “I ain’t pretending, Liv.”
“Come on, now. You can’t be more than forty-five.”
I outright cackled in disgruntled amusement. “That’s almost an insult.”
She jotted down the item number of the gray composite flooring, and then glanced at me curiously. “How do you figure?”
I patted my generous belly, scratched the liberal gray in my shaggy, unkempt beard. “If I’m forty-five, I ain’t aged well atall.” I laughed again. “Shit, girl, I ain’t aged well for sixty-two, which is my real age.”
She stopped mid stride and stared at me. “You are not.”
I shook my head. “Why are you trying to butter me up, buttercup?”
“Do you think you look old?” she pressed, the sweetness of her smile taking some of the sting of the deeply probing question away.
“Feel old, sometimes,” I said, dodging.
She rolled her eyes. “That wasn’t the question.”
I waved my hand, hating this whole line of conversation for more reasons than I cared to think about. “Anyone ever tell you you’re nosy?”
She snorted. “All the time.” She sighed, a wistful, aching sound. “My husband used to tell me I was nosier than Pinocchio at a liar’s convention.”
I stumbled and had to catch myself heavily on my cane. “Goddamned cane. Goddamn gimpy-ass leg,” I muttered under my breath. “You’re married?”
