Fixer: A Bad Boy Romance (34 page)

"As opposed to what else?"

"Nothing. Don't worry about it." Carter still wore a frown as he set my phone back down on the counter. "So what, he's going to drop the gallery if you don't sell this statue of his? Seems a little extreme."

"No, nothing like that," I said. "But the commission on it is enough to- to handle my expenses."

I hoped that Carter wouldn't ask about my weak cover-up, but I saw his eyes narrow. "What expenses?"

"It's really nothing," I insisted, but damn it if tears weren't starting to well up at the corners of my eyes, betraying my true feelings.

I tried to blink them away, but Carter moved around the desk in a flash. He crouched down slightly so he could gaze into my eyes. "Hey, Becca, it's okay," he said softly, putting both his hands on my shoulders. "What's wrong? Talk to me."

I shook my head, but now the tears were coming down my cheeks, no longer held back by my eyelashes. All of my worry about selling the sculpture, about meeting Barry's stupid payment deadline, came rushing up. I'd managed to hold it in check before now, but something in the gentleness of Carter's tone made it all spill over the edge of my control.

Carter, meanwhile, just moved in a little closer, putting his arms around me. He felt warm, solid, a reassuring and comforting rock in my sea of frustration. I held onto him, smelling the soft scent of his cologne, as my chest shook and heaved.

"I'm sorry," I choked out when I finally got my breath back, when my lungs stopped sucking in short, staccato breaths. "I didn't mean to just unload-"

"How about lunch?" he asked.

The non sequitur at least stopped my little gasps as I tried to control my twitching diaphragm. "What?"

"I'll come back around lunch, and you can tell me what's going on," he repeated. "In my experience, it's easier to talk about problems when there's food in front of me, preferably something that's been fried. Plus, lunch is usually after noon, so it's acceptable to have a drink."

I smiled at the lame joke, even as I wiped away the tears from my cheeks. I probably looked puffy and red. "I guess I could do lunch."

"Great," Carter promised, releasing his hands from around me after giving me one last squeeze. "I'll be back in a couple of hours."

"Thanks," I said, as he rose up.

It wasn't until he'd already left that I realized that he'd forgotten his still-steaming coffee cup on the desk. He had set it down when he moved forward to hug me, and must have overlooked it, distracted by the weeping woman and lingering after-images of a huge stone dick. It was too late for me to go rushing after him to bring it back.

In my defense, I left it alone for a good three minutes, just in case he came back for it, before I stole it for myself.

Chapter Twelve

*

True to his word, Carter strolled back into the gallery a few minutes before noon. "I've got a couple options, but you can make the final decision," he greeted me as he walked in. "Either Mexican or Asian - I know a couple great places for either one, just let me know what your preference might-"

He paused, frowning at me. "Hold on, isn't that my coffee cup?"

"No," I said as I took my lips off of his cup. "Maybe. You abandoned it, so it was fair game. It would have just gotten cold and gone bad otherwise, since you didn't come back for it."

For a moment, I thought that I saw Carter's lips quirk up in a little smile before he clamped back down. "So, what's it going to be for lunch?"

I frowned. "Can I hear the options again?"

Eventually, after I couldn't make up my mind, Carter decided on the Mexican place. "The Halesford Gallery is in a good location, at least," he told me as we walked along the sidewalk in the bright sunshine. "Lots of nearby lunch places."

"Lots of places for me to spend all the money I make instead of saving it," I challenged him. "Perfect. Just what I need right now."

He looked over at me. "Yeah, are you going to talk about that, from this morning? Or do I need to fill you up with chips and guacamole?"

"Definitely need the chips and guac first," I promptly answered, making him snort a little.

"At least you're wearing decent shoes today," he said, nodding down at my feet. "Although I do kind of miss the high heels."

"What, you liked watching me twist my ankles and topple over?"

He shrugged. "They made your legs look nice, that's all."

That response shut me up, and we walked the next couple blocks to the restaurant in silence.

The Mexican restaurant that Carter picked out, Taqueria El Burrito, was booming and busy, and the interior was filled with the chatter of customers, even drowning out the ever-present Latin music playing in the background. Despite all the customers, however, there were still open seats at the big tables, and the kitchen seemed to be moving orders quickly. We placed our orders at the front, received a number to set on our table, and then snagged chips and salsa on our way over to an open seat.

"Okay, here's your snackage," Carter said, putting down the basket of tortilla chips. "Now, talk. What made you start crying this morning? I need to know, so I can avoid mentioning it in the future."

I sighed, grabbing a chip and using it to deliver a big scoop of salsa to my mouth. "Okay, remember how I mentioned that I used to own a house, because I used to be married?"

Carter nodded, waiting.

"Well, there's another little bit to that story," I confessed. "See, I told you that I caught Barry cheating on me, and that proved to be the final straw - especially when I put it together that this wasn't a one-time, brand new occurrence. It had been happening behind my back for months, and I only just caught on."

"So what happened?"

"So I had to get out of there, right away," I said, pausing for a moment as a pimply teenage waiter delivered a big plate of steaming hot food in front of each of us and darted away. He swept our number off of the table as he left without a backward glance, not asking if we needed anything else. "I didn't want to deal with Barry any more, and I just wanted to get divorced. I told him that, before I stomped out."

Carter winced. "I'm guessing that the divorce didn't prove as clean of a separation as you wanted."

"Nope." Angrily, I took a big bite of quesadilla, and then winced as the hot cheese stung at my mouth. Delicious, but almost too hot to eat. "As it turned out, when we got the house, he put it in both of our names - and that included the mortgage. When I got divorced, the market was down, and he insisted that I had to buy out my half of the mortgage, since my name was on the title."

"What was the damage?"

I sighed, setting down the hot quesadilla slice before it burned my fingers. "After all the bills and everything, after I'd given up just about everything that I'd saved - and remember, I pooled a lot of our money because I thought we'd be married forever - I still owe a bit over ten thousand dollars."

Carter nodded; his mouth was full of his burrito, but he clearly wanted me to continue.

"And the deadline for that bill is in just a couple weeks," I finished. "I'm nowhere near getting that much money - I spent most of what I had left over to move into my cheap little apartment. My uncle Preston took pity on me and offered me the job at his art gallery, even though I don't have any sales experience."

"Not true," Carter countered. "After all, you told me that you were quite the closer for tomato sales."

His lips quirked as he finished this sentence, and I had to smile with him. He just had the kind of warm, disarming face that made it impossible to stay mad at, I decided as I looked across the table. It was a kind face, not nearly so self-absorbed and presumptive as Barry's features.

Not that I was considering him as a potential replacement, of course. I quickly pinched myself under the table to remind my wandering mind that I wasn't yet on the market for any sort of romance.

"But anyway, if I can sell this big statue by Onyx, the commission would be enough for me to pay back Barry, right now," I said. "And let's face it, I'm not going to earn ten thousand dollars this month by selling little watercolors to the senior citizens who make up most of the gallery's customers. I need to get a big sale, and that giant sculpture is the biggest thing that I could move."

Carter nodded. "You just need to find someone willing to throw away six figures of perfectly good money on a giant, black stone cock."

The word sounded absolutely ridiculous coming from his lips, and I laughed before I could stop myself. Little bits of quesadilla sprayed out in front of me, and I gasped in mortification as I threw a hand up in front of my mouth. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry!"

"Don't worry about it," he replied, laughing with me as he passed me a napkin. "I should learn not to make jokes when your mouth's full."

"Don't make jokes when my mouth is full, don't talk about my cheating scum of an ex-husband... sounds like you've got a lot of rules to follow," I challenged him.

He just smiled. "I think that I'm up for the challenge."

I caught myself as I beamed back at him. We were flirting! That's what this was! Just when I'd told myself that I was off limits for romance, here I was, not even five minutes later, out flirting with this sexy real estate agent!

After a moment, however, my smile faded as I remembered the seriousness of my situation. "Anyway, my challenge is that I need to find someone to buy that sculpture. I really don't want to have to think about any sort of alternate method for getting my hands on the money I need to pay off my ex-husband."

"I'll see what I can do," Carter said, and I paused with a chip halfway to my mouth.

"You want to buy it?"

"Oh, heavens no," he answered quickly. "That thing definitely would look out of place in my own place! But I do know some art collectors, and I'll give them a ring to see if any of them might be shopping for a new centerpiece."

"I don't even know how I'll convince someone that it's art, and not pornography," I lamented.

Carter shrugged. "Look, you just need to find someone who feels really insecure and wants to prove that he's got nothing to hide - or maybe someone who's hurting after a divorce, and really wants to stick it to his or her former partner that they weren't that great in bed. Whatever the reason might be, you only need to get one sale, and you'll be set. Just one. That's not that bad, is it?"

His tone, just as much as his words, helped to cheer me up. "Yeah, I guess it's manageable."

"Great!" Carter took another bite of his burrito, and then frowned down at it. "I always forget just how much food they bring us, here. I don't think I'm going to be even close to finishing this."

I guiltily said nothing, not looking down at my mostly emptied plate. I hadn't had much breakfast, I told myself. That was why I laid into the quesadilla I ordered, leaving little more than a couple of scraps behind on my plate.

Carter took a moment to wrap up his burrito, and then smiled back at me. "This was fun," he said.

"Yeah, it was." Surprisingly, I really did feel that way! Carter was just so likable, so disarming, and I found it so easy to hold a conversation with him. Where I might have stumbled or paused awkwardly with another person, Carter kept the conversation flowing, moving forward - and, of course, he wasn't too bad on the eyes, either.

"How about dinner?"

I paused, frozen halfway through the act of dropping my napkin on top of my plate to cover up its emptiness. "Dinner?" I repeated blankly.

"Yeah, tonight. Got any plans?"

My mouth had already half-formed the shape of the word no before I caught myself. Of course I didn't have plans, but I also didn't really want to be jumping into dates with a new guy, especially when the old guy wasn't even all the way out of my life yet. What could happen if Carter and Barry ended up crossing paths? For a moment, I saw myself as the potential future guest on Jerry Springer. "This ho can't wait to jump into bed with another man!"

I must have stayed silent for too long, because Carter's easy smile turned to a slight frown. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, no, it's nothing you said," I quickly reassured him. "I just... I'm not sure if I'm ready to move this fast, yet. I mean, it sounds dumb, but I'm still trying to tie up the loose ends from my divorce. You probably don't want to get caught up in any of that drama."

"It's true that I'm not one for drama," he said, but he didn't drop the subject yet. "How about we just go out to dinner as friends? Just for fun. No relationship strings involved."

I knew that I should stick to my guns and say no, but he looked so cute, like a puppy, and I heard Portia's voice insisting that I needed to get back on the horse and move past Barry. I could go out with a guy without making it into a full relationship, right? Just a fun, friendly, low-key date that didn't mean anything?

"Okay," I gave in. "But it's just casual. Nothing serious."

"I'll make nothing but jokes for the entire night," Carter promised, beaming back at me. "I can even be especially lewd, checking you out all night. That will totally keep you from feeling pulled into a new relationship. By the end of the night, you'll want nothing to do with me."