Carter smiled. "Sounds like a good idea."
Thankfully, our food arrived before I could reveal any more intimate and embarrassing details about my life, like how I got my first period in school. I dug into the salad, trying to keep my eyes off of the pastrami sandwich that the waitress set in front of Carter.
After we'd both taken our few bites, Carter, perhaps sensing that I didn't want to spend any more time discussing my failed marriage than I had to, wisely changed the subject. Instead, he chatted about some of the local businesses in the area, many of which existed in buildings that he'd managed or helped to buy or sell. To someone else, this might have come off as bragging, but I saw Carter's eyes light up when he talked about these businesses, and I realized that he really cared about them. For many of the smaller businesses, he named the owners as if he still kept up his personal connection with them.
"You really like our little city of Davis, don't you?" I asked, when he finally paused for breath.
With a slightly abashed grin, Carter reached up and ran a hand through his short hair, mussing it slightly. "It's obvious, isn't it?" he let on. "Yeah. I might not have grown up here, but I've been living in Davis for nearly a decade, now. It really is the kind of place that you just fall in love with, sometimes without even realizing it."
I tried not to wince a little at his mention of love, but he must have seen the pained expression flash across my face. "Sorry. Not that kind of love."
"No, it's okay," I defended myself. "So, um..."
I stalled, not sure how to ask if Carter was currently seeing anyone. How could I possibly raise the question without it coming across as hypocritical, especially when, just a few minutes earlier, I'd been talking about how I needed to spend some time on my own without a man in my life?"
Carter just smiled back at me. "At some point, I'm sure I'll find a woman who shares the same passion that I do," he said, and returned his attention back to the other half of his sandwich, pointedly not looking at how my cheeks flushed at the potential implication of his words.
As he'd promised, Carter tossed down his credit card on top of the check, holding up a hand at my half-hearted protests and my attempt to reach for my purse. "Maybe in exchange for this lunch, you'll give me a heads-up if any nice pieces come into the gallery, so that I can snatch them up before they get sold off to little old retired ladies," he teased me.
"Well, you'll have to give me your number, so I can give you a call," I replied, smiling back at him. And I only wanted his number for the purpose of selling him art, I added firmly in my head. I definitely didn't want to ask him out, maybe let him take me out for a couple of glasses of wine before seeing where the night went.
I suspected that, as a real estate, he probably had an amazing apartment of his own.
When the waitress brought back our receipt, Carter flipped it over and used the pen to scrawl some digits on the backside. "Here you go," he said, handing it over to me. "And that's my personal cell, too, so you don't need to worry about restricting your calls to business hours only."
That was flirting, wasn't it? I might be a bit rough and rusty at this, but I could still recognize flirting when someone hit me over the head with it! This handsome, sexy guy was really flirting with me!
Still, just to be sure, I glanced quickly over my shoulder. Nope, no wildly attractive woman standing behind me. I'd made that mistake before, when I saw Tommy Gallager waving at me in tenth grade, but it turned out that he'd been waving to Lisa Evanson, standing behind me. I hadn't been able to show my face for the whole rest of the day, and ended up convincing the nurse to let me go home with a sick note.
"You probably ought to be getting back to the gallery," Carter said, rising up from his chair. "Shall I walk you back?"
"Thanks," I said, wondering vaguely if this walk back was going to end with a kiss, like a couple teenagers walking back to the girl's front door after a first date.
Sadly, there was no kiss forthcoming from Carter when we arrived back at the front door to the Halesford gallery, although he was gallant enough to carry my shoes for me (I tried them at the restaurant, but my ankle immediately told me to leave them off).
"I'm sure I'll be crossing paths with you plenty more in the future, Becca," Carter said, giving me one last smile that melted my heart and sent sparks leaping up inside of me. The man would start a brush fire if he kept on smiling like that!
"Bye," I echoed softly, standing beside the door and watching for a minute as he walked away. Good lord, even through those dress pants, the man's ass looked amazing, sexy enough to make my fingers itch to reach out and grab it!
No! Bad Becca! Stay away from men, I reminded myself as I unlocked the front door and headed back into the art gallery to wait for a customer to show their face. You've sworn them off.
Still, I wondered how long I had to keep away from the male half of our species. I'd made it six months past the date of our divorce. Surely, that was enough time to be single, and now I could start thinking about dating again?
Chapter Six
*
"Only six months?? That's definitely not enough time to be single before trying to jump back into the dating pool again!"
I sighed as I looked across the high little table at my best friend, watching her shake her head firmly. "Oh, come on, Portia! Six months is plenty. I think I should get back into the dating game, even if it's just to dip a toe in. Won't it help me forget about Barry?"
Despite my wheedling, however, my best friend remained firm, her big dark eyes examining me closely. "A drunken one night stand where you don't even know the guy's name might help, but definitely not another relationship. Trust me on this, Becks. What's gotten into you?"
I sighed. "Nothing," I said, reaching for my glass of cheery pink-colored wine sitting in front of me. "Don't worry about it."
Across the little table from me in Vini, the wine bar that had become our de facto hangout spot after Portia got off of work, Portia kept her eyes narrowed at me. "Okay, something's definitely up, but I know that you're not going to tell me about it," she said.
"Portia, there's really nothing-"
"Why don't you tell me about your day," she interrupting, cutting off my denials. "This was your first day of running the art gallery, wasn't it? Was it exciting? Did you sell any pieces?"
"Exciting is definitely not the word that I'd choose to use," I said, shaking my head. "In fact, I think I'm going to need to take up reading during my down time there. Maybe I'll start with War and Peace."
"That boring?" Portia raised her eyebrows as she raised her glass of dark plum colored wine to her lips.
"I don't know how you can drink that stuff," I said, nodding towards her choice. At Vini, the wine bar in town, fancy machines automatically dispensed wine by the glass. The bar offered a selection of more than twenty different bottles to taste, spanning across a wide range of different varieties. This worked out well for both of us, since I tended to go for sweeter, lighter whites, and Portia instead picked out the dark and strong reds.
"It's got a lot of complex flavor," she answered, setting the glass back down and swirling it between two long, slender, elegant fingers. "It's not just a single note of sweetness, like the wines that you choose."
I stuck out my tongue at her to show her that her slights didn't bother me. I knew what I liked. And surprisingly, despite her snobbiness and the air of almost superior taste that she often wore around her shoulders like a cloak, I liked Portia.
We'd known each other since we were kids, back when the appropriate way to show that you liked a boy was to throw sand at him, and then run away screaming whenever he tried to talk to you. Even back then, however, there'd been something a bit different about Portia. While I was happy to run around with my hair all snarled up like a rat's nest, Portia always kept her long, nearly black hair falling down over her shoulders in smooth waves that the rest of the girls on the playground secretly envied. Even as a child, she always projected the idea that she
had everything under control, that she knew how to move smoothly through life while the rest of us splashed and floundered.
In high school, she'd been the dark-haired seductress who kept half a dozen boys charmed around her little finger. I watched her with open-mouthed amazement as I made my own clumsy way through three or four boyfriends, most of the presumptive relationships falling apart and sputtering out after just a few months. I didn't know how Portia managed to keep so many men interested in her with what seemed like next to no effort on her part.
Perhaps in other circumstances, I would have become Portia's preferred target of ridicule. The two of us were so different, after all; I was shorter and stouter, my body growing out in curves while hers extended into long, graceful limbs. By our senior year, Portia looked like she'd just stepped off of the model's catwalk, while I appeared more like I ought to be dressed in black and operating the spotlights from the shadows.
But instead of teasing and attacking me, Portia apparently decided that I needed a good best friend, someone to help me avoid the worst of the potholes on my road of Life. She took on this mantle for herself, always doing her best to steer me clear of the next upcoming disaster.
To my surprise, I think Portia really enjoyed it, too. She often rolled her eyes at my antics, but I think that I helped her to live vicariously, that she got to enjoy activities she'd never consider for herself by listening to my breathless descriptions. After all, a confident, composed woman like Portia would never drunkenly wander over to a hot guy in a bar and brag about how she could almost nearly fit a pool ball in her mouth. Me, however? After a few big mugs of beer, it sounded like a hilarious idea!
"The rest of the day at the Halesford Gallery proved to be nearly as boring as the morning," I picked up after a minute. "I did have a couple old ladies come wandering in, and one of them bought a little glass pendant, but that's really about it. So much for my idea of earning tons of commission by selling expensive art to high-class folks."
Portia laughed out loud. "Becca, you'd stick out like a sore thumb among the upper crust, and that's a good thing," she said. "You're too genuine, too straightforward, too... too you! And while the Halesford Gallery does have some nice pieces, I don't exactly think that all the wealthy elites of the world are flocking out to Davis, California to purchase the artwork with which they'll decorate their multi-million dollar homes."
"Too bad," I grumbled, reaching for my wine and finishing off the glass. "That's what I need to find, if I'm going to have a hope of paying back Barry."
Portia leaned back in her seat, flipping her hair back over her shoulder with a practiced, elegant twist. I watched, trying not to feel envy as I considered how I couldn't hope to pull off such a gesture with my own frizzy, wavy strands. "How's that going, again?"
I sighed. "Well, all the paperwork is finally signed and filed, but I'm still on the hook for my half of the mortgage, after the house equity. And it's not looking pretty."
"What's the damage?"
I thought back to the pile of letters sitting on my counter, letters that I'd dropped there and refused to pick up again, as if by avoiding them I could avoid all the consequences that they described as well. "A bit over ten thousand dollars," I confessed.
Portia winced. "And that's after accounting for all the assets that you contributed to the marriage?"
"What assets? Portia, I was a naive young girl just out of college - I barely had two dollar bills to rub together! I didn't have any assets to bring to the marriage. Barry brought all the assets. He just wanted a woman to cook and clean and be his domestic little servant, maid and housekeeper and cook and occasional lay all rolled into one."
"Asshole," Portia declared, once again demonstrating her value as my best friend.
"Yeah, but I'm still stuck with needing to pay him to get this divorce over and resolved for good," I said after a minute. "And that due date keeps on getting closer - it's less than a month away! I don't know what I'm going to do if it gets here and I haven't yet figured something out."
"Something will come up," Portia insisted, and for a moment, I felt her confidence sweep across the little table and into me, buoying me up. "Now, let's get you another glass of wine!"
As Portia slid off of her high seat and I followed after her, my empty wine glass in hand, I tried to not compare the two of us. Even now, almost a decade out of college, I still couldn't help feeling like Portia somehow managed to win the genetic lottery, and I got all her castoff, rejected genes. She insisted that I looked just fine, but that wasn't what my eyes told me whenever I looked at her.
Today, Portia was clad in a blouse and pencil skirt, similar to my own outfit. Hers, however, looked amazing on her slender body, as if she was modeling the clothes for a high-end fashion catalogue. The skirt hugged her legs, showing off her slender calves and gracefully tapering thighs, and the soft cream color of her blouse contrasted perfectly against the waterfall of dark, brown-nearly-black hair that cascaded down over her shoulders and settled in between her shoulder blades. I knew that Portia attended spin classes at the gym three times a week, and the results showed in her fit, slender arms and in the way that her shoulder blades stood out gracefully from her back.
I, on the other hand, looked much more... frumpy, I decided, was the appropriate word. Sure, I'd put on a skirt that fit me, but it still squeezed my legs and hips closely and made it very clear that I'd filled up every available inch of space inside the garment. I could feel my thighs bump together whenever I took a step. Similarly, although I'd hoped that my top might disguise the slight muffin top that poked out from above the waistline of the skirt, it also clung to my breasts and made me look like I was about to take a starring role in a low-budget adult flick streamed over the internet.
Maybe Carter James had just gotten out of prison, and I was the first woman he'd seen since before his incarceration, I considered to myself. He'd just lied about the real estate agent stuff, and he wanted to get with an easy woman before the cops caught back up with him for violating his parole. He planned to spend his last hours of freedom seducing me and enjoying the touch of a woman one last time before the cops came busting into his cheap hotel room and dragged him back to super-max.
"So, what's it going to be this time?" Portia asked me, nudging me and jarring me out of my little daydream. "Something even sweeter? Moscato? Or more of that rose stuff?"
"And you'll go for something that burns at the back of the throat, I'm sure," I countered. "Why don't you just start drinking bourbon, so you can totally fit in with all the sophisticated men?"
"If only they dispensed bourbon in taps like this," Portia lamented. "That would be my dream bar."
I punched her lightly in the arm and went to fetch myself a new glass of wine.
"So, any upsides?" Portia asked, as we settled back in at our seats at the high little table.
"To bourbon?"
"No, to working at the art gallery."
I frowned for a moment, considering whether I should tell Portia about Carter James. On one hand, she was my best friend, and I'd confided in her about every single crush I'd had, ever since I fell for Tommy Jones way back in fifth grade.
But on the other hand, nothing really had happened between Carter and me yet, right? So maybe it wasn't yet worth mentioning. If he'd actually asked me out, on a real date, then maybe I should bring it up. Besides, Portia had already suggested that I shouldn't be thinking about dating anyone.
For a moment, the wonderfully exhilarating, tantalizing idea of a one night stand with Carter James flicked through my mind. Even if he did turn out to be a criminal who had escaped from jail, something about the way he carried himself still assured me that he'd be a lot of fun in bed. He would make me forget all about Barry, most definitely...
...and then, I went on, I'd just be obsessing over a new man. Another man to break my heart and leave me worse off than before.
"Nothing comes to mind as of yet," I answered Portia. "But then again, it's only be
en a day, so maybe something will end up coming up tomorrow."
"That's right. Tomorrow's a whole new day, filled with possibilities," she declared, holding up her wine glass as if making a toast. I giggled, and Portia flashed me a quick little smile, her dark eyes briefly crinkling.
After taking a sip, she lowered the glass and looked around the wine bar. "Now, which of these gentlemen should you try and impress by attempting to fit a cue ball into your mouth?" she asked, making me nearly spit out my own mouthful of wine with laughter.
Chapter Seven
*
"Besides, I could have told you even earlier that it would have been a bad idea," Portia insisted to me, swaying a little on her chair. She leaned in towards me a little too far, and I surreptitiously put an arm against her shoulder to keep her from tipping all the way off of the chair and ending up sprawled on the floor of Vini.
"What would have been a bad idea?" I asked.
"Marrying Barry, that's what!" Portia hiccuped. Somehow, she even made that bodily gesture appear soft and feminine. How the hell did she do it? When I hiccuped, it sounded like a drunken sailor letting out air.
"Why do you say that?"
Portia held up her hands. "Becca," she said, spreading out one palm. "Barry Bulger," she went on, opening the other hand. She brought the two hands together in a soft clap. "Becca Bulger. Can you possibly think of a worse name?"
I giggled like a little kid with a secret. "Okay, yeah, that would have been pretty bad."
"Exactly!" Portia reached forward and picked up her wineglass, and then frowned down at it as she noted that it no longer contained any more wine. "Hey, what happened to all of my wine?"
I poked her in her trim, flat little stomach. "You put it all in there for safekeeping!"
"I did, did I? Drat." Portia frowned down at herself, as if trying to work out how to get at the wine she'd already consumed, and I giggled again. This was one place, at least, where I excelled over my best friend; I had never met more of a lightweight when it came to alcohol. Portia's classy, confident demeanor totally fell away whenever she had more than a glass or two of wine or other booze in her system.
Fixer: A Bad Boy Romance Page 21
