"I'm feeling lucky today," Seth said. He and Bayley were almost ready to leave home on the day of their property search in Des Moines.
"It's a bit early to be talking about sex," Bayley said as she put on a stylish thick black coat.
"I was talking about property. It was your mind that went to sex."
"True," Bayley confessed. "Probably because I know property isn't the only thing we're going to search for today."
"You still want to visit a sex shop, huh?"
Bayley laughed. "It's not a sex shop."
"It's not? I looked it up and it said they sell lingerie and sex toys."
Enjoying how he had put his foot in it, Bayley raised an eyebrow. "You looked it up, huh?"
"Wanted to see what you were getting me into," he lied, not fooling her for a second.
"Sure you did. Come on, let's go."
Bayley led the way out of their nice warm house, into the cold of Iowa's January weather. There was an inch or so of snow on the ground which had fallen during the night. With the temperature still below freezing, it wouldn't be going away any time soon. In fact, there were still a few flakes falling.
"Remind me again how you talked me into moving to Iowa?" she said.
"To give you an excuse to wear gloves even more often," Seth quipped back at her. There wasn't much she could say in reply to that, since he had said it while she was putting her leather gloves on. "I'm driving."
"Are you? How do you plan to do that?" she asked.
Seth looked at her in time to see her pulling the keys to their Mercedes out of her coat pocket. He had to laugh as he walked to the passenger door instead. He really enjoyed the way they spent so much time bantering with each other like that. "You're too shifty for your own good. Those keys were in my pocket."
"I know they were. That's where I took them from."
Seth chuckled as they both got into the car. "You get up to too much trouble for your own good."
Bayley laughed, then changed the subject as she started the car and slowly pulled off their driveway onto the frozen, slushy road. "So what's the plan for the search today?"
"I don't know really. Probably to just walk around downtown and see what we can see. If there's anywhere that catches our attention, we'll check it out."
"Fair enough. And we can check out some of the other coffee shops, see what the competition is like."
"We've probably been in most of them before," Seth pointed out.
"Yeah, but only for the coffee. We'll pay a lot more attention to things on a scouting mission."
"True. I think we'd make a good couple of spies. They should cast us in a movie together."
Bayley glanced at him and figured that he did look quite like a spy, with his smart pants and blazer on. She wasn't quite so sure that her beanie hat was a good fit for the image. "The name's Rollins. Bayley Rollins. Yeah, that kind of works," she said, imitating James Bond.
"And I'm on a secret mission to open a coffee shop," Seth added, and they both laughed.
The joviality continued throughout their drive into Des Moines. Once they had parked up and started their walk around the downtown area, things got more serious. While walking, they kept an eye on which areas had heavy footfall and which did not. They also took note of where the existing coffee shops were. Assessing both of those factors would give them a picture of where might be a good idea to open a new shop. The problem was that in the areas that might be best suited to their needs, there were no suitable retail units for sale.
"Pretty much a bust so far," Bayley said eventually. "I'm freezing and I could use a coffee. Why don't we go into the mall?"
They were fairly near to one of the mall's side entrances. It was about a minute up the street for them.
"Oh, the mall with your sex shop in it?" Seth asked.
"My sex shop? I don't remember buying one."
"The one you want to go to," he clarified.
"I believe it was your idea, Seth."
"It was not!" he said, laughing.
"Well, that's how I remember it."
"I'm sure it is. You know, that smart mouth is why I have to tape you up so often."
Bayley felt her cheeks warming up in embarrassment. "Don't talk about things like that in public!" she protested under her breath.
"Okay, we'll save it until we get home. I can do that."
"I'll look forward to it."
They walked into the mall, and were soon standing outside of the store in question. Mannequins dressed in sexy lingerie made up the window displays.
"Can we get one of everything?" Seth asked, trying to picture her wearing them for him.
"Easy, tiger. Let's go in and see what we came to see."
"Blue balls," Seth grumbled as he followed her inside. He had felt pretty uncomfortable about the prospect of going in ahead of time. Right away, his worst fear came to pass. They were greeted by a pretty blonde sales assistant, and he hardly knew where to look.
"Good morning, guys," the assistant said cheerfully. "Is there anything I can help you look for today?"
What the hell, Seth thought. He was in the situation now, so he might as well at least try to seem somewhat confident about it. "My wife has a fetish for gloves, so we want to see what you've got."
Bayley looked at him as if to say, 'I can't believe you said that.'
The assistant didn't seem to find anything remarkable about the request. "Okay, follow me. Let's see what we can find for you."
"I can't believe you said that to her," Bayley whispered to him as they followed behind the assistant.
Seth laughed. "That's exactly what I thought you were thinking. And anyway, it's true."
"No, it really isn't. In fact, I'm starting to think it's you who has one."
"Okay then, starting today you can never wear any again, in any situation. I'd be fine with that."
"I wouldn't," Bayley said, and they both laughed.
The assistant helped them browse for a few minutes that felt extremely awkward for Seth. He asked himself several times how he had managed to let Bayley talk him into the store in the first place. He was glad when Bayley seemed happy with some black PVC gloves that she was trying on. They were long ones, finishing above her elbows. He had been left holding her coat.
"What do you think of these?" she asked him.
"If there's an outfit to match, very nice."
"I can find you something to match," the assistant said confidently, setting off across the store again.
Seth trudged after them. All he wanted was to see the purchases on his wife in their bedroom. Him being a part of the purchasing process wasn't necessary in his opinion.
Within a few minutes, Bayley was holding up a very skimpy PVC bra against her body in front of a mirror. "What do you think, Seth?"
"I think you'd look unreal wearing that, and so do those panties that you've got there, if that's the right word." He doubted there was enough material there to qualify as panties. There wouldn't be much left to the imagination when she was wearing them that was for sure.
Bayley giggled at him, enjoying his discomfort. "Maybe we should look around some more before we decide?"
"I think these will do just fine," he said.
Giving him a break, Bayley looked at the assistant and said, "We'll take these, please."
Five minutes later, at long last, Seth escaped the store. Bayley laughed at him once they were out in the mall. "I don't think I've ever seen you look more awkward than you did in there."
"But I went in, and we got a sexy outfit for you, which I paid for by the way. I expect to see it tonight and get my money's worth."
"Oh, do you? I'll be the best judge of when you get to see it," she said, as always enjoying their combative banter.
They went back and forth while walking through the mall, still going at it when they exited out into the cold through the main entrance. For now, they had both forgotten that they had originally gone in for coffee.
"Hey, look at that," Seth said.
It took Bayley a moment to figure out what he meant. Then she saw it. Across the street, directly opposite the mall entrance, there was a 'For Sale' sign. It was on what looked a storage unit or something similar, long disused. The unit was located under a flyover bridge that carried a road over several blocks. All they could see where large, old wooden doors with faded, chipped green paint. What was behind them could only be guessed at.
"That's our place," Seth said.
Bayley looked at him as if he had started growing a second head. "That place? You serious? It's a... a hole under a flyover with some doors on it."
"Visualise, angel. Look at the location. Imagine people coming out of the mall, right where we are now. They're thirsty, cold, and right across the street is a trendy coffee shop called Bean Again. Look at the footfall, even on a day like this."
Bayley looked around. The area was busy, there was no doubt about it. No one was looking across the street, but there was nothing over there worth looking at currently. She tried to picture Seth's vision in her mind. It wasn't easy to do, and that wasn't her only concern. "Assuming we did buy that... that... whatever it is, it would be so much work to turn it into a coffee shop. A lot of time and a lot of money."
"True, but it would be worth a fortune when it was done, and it would be busy pretty much all day every day. Sometimes a lot of outlay is worth it for what you'll get back down the line."
"I guess we could view it," Bayley said, not feeling convinced at all by the idea.
"Yeah, there's no harm in viewing it. All I'll ask is don't be automatically negative about it. I've got a feeling about it, Bay. I got the same feeling about our house when we viewed that."
"Okay, of course," she said, trying to sound more upbeat. "You're the one with the knowledge here, and you've been teaching me about everything. Let's arrange a viewing and see what we think of it. I bet it would be our biggest project yet if we do take it on."
"It would for sure. But I know you relish a challenge." Seth knew he had her with that line. Not only did she relish a challenge, she couldn't resist them. The way she had worked so hard to rehab her knee had been the most recent proof of that.
"Alright, I'll get us a viewing," Bayley said. Now motivated, she already had her phone out, and was soon typing in the real estate agent's number, taking it from the 'For Sale' sign.
Seth controlled his urge to smile as he listened to her business-like phone call. Businesswoman Bayley had only come to the fore relatively recently, but he found it very hot to watch and listen to her work.
After stating the reason for her call, she gave her name, her phone number, and their address. Then she described their location and the property they wanted to view.
"Tomorrow? Yes, we can do tomorrow. What time? Okay, we'll see you then. Thank you."
"Tomorrow at ten," she reported once she had ended the call.
"In the morning?" Seth asked, simply to be stupid. He knew she liked it deep down when he acted like that.
"Yes, in the morning," Bayley signed, no-selling the humour.
"Let's look forward to that then. Let's have a look at some coffee shops, then we can head home, right?"
Bayley gave him a side-eye look. "Right. I'm sure we both know why you're in a hurry to do that."
A/N: A successful shopping trip, and a 'property' to view. Do you think they'll be able to bring Seth's extraordinary vision into reality?