Pink Champagne (6 page)

Caleb said, “How about this? You make a list of everything he should and shouldn’t take, you leave it with me, and you make yourself scarce when he shows up to get his stuff.

She smiled. “You’d do that for me?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I thought I was taking this week off for my honeymoon, so technically I don’t have to go in, but it would be nice to get a jump on my end-of-month reports, so, yeah. I think I’ll take you up on that. Thanks.”

“No problem,” Caleb said.

Chapter 8

Monday morning was cloudy and a little on the cool side, but Quenby was fine with a light, brown sweater thrown on over her blouse as she headed out to work. She’d left Caleb at the house that morning. He’d been curled up on the couch, peacefully sleeping. She’d tried to offer him the guest room, but there was no television in there, and he liked to fall asleep with the T.V. on, as he put it. His Southern accent was so sexy, and so was everything he said using it. She had an unfortunate weakness for so many things about him.

She said hello to her head teller, Sophie. Sophie had already gotten there and turned off the alarm, and she was counting the cash in her drawer. She smiled and waved to Quenby without slowing her pace as she went about getting ready for her day.

As soon as the other teller arrived, Sophie locked up her drawer and walked into Quenby’s office. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to have this week off.” Sophie and she had become pretty good friends over the years they’d worked together.

“I didn’t marry Derek,” Quenby said.

“I know. Indigo texted me about coming to that freedom party, and I would have, but my sister needed me. Last-minute baby-sitting job.” Sophie rolled her eyes. Sophie had been invited to the reception, but the wedding ceremony had been planned to be small. Close family members and guests of the wedding party only. “But you. Back to you! What actually happened between you and Derek? That part, I do
not
know.”

“I left him at the altar.” She grinned. It felt good to say it. She’d finally left him for once.
For the first and final time.

Sophie sat across from her desk, gripping her blue travel mug between her small, brown hands. She leaned forward in the chair, her silky black hair falling around her face. “What?” Sophie stretched the word to three times its normal length. “I need details, now, now, now. Ooh, I’m so glad you got rid of him. I can say that now.”

Quenby filled her in about the failed wedding and the freedom party. She didn’t leave out anything. She ended her story with Caleb and the kiss they’d shared at the freedom party.

“Caleb, huh? What does he look like? Is he on Facebook?”

“I don’t know. Haven’t looked.”

“You’re kidding me. Look, look. I need pictures.” Sophie gestured wildly in the direction of Quenby’s computer.

“You know Facebook is blocked on work computers.”

Sophie set her travel mug on the edge of the desk, and stood up. Leaning over, she tapped Quenby’s bag, which rested on the desk. “Phone.”

Quenby pulled her smart phone out of her bag, and Sophie huddled behind her so she could see the screen when Quenby pulled up Facebook. After Quenby did so and searched for Caleb, finding the right one without too much trouble thanks to his double last name and the Emory and UGA networks, Sophie grabbed the phone from her.

“He is melt me, melt me gorgeous.”

“Tell me about it.” Quenby grew warm thinking about him all over again. The way being wrapped in his arms the day before had felt so warm. Safe. Right.
 

“What was he doing here?”

“He flew up from Georgia with Macon for the wedding.”

“So have they gone back yet?” Sophie sounded disappointed.

“Macon did.”

“He’s still here?”

Quenby nodded. “At my condo.”

“Again. I ask you. What are you doing here?”

“Oh, that is a very long story.” She didn’t feel like getting into the thing with Derek stopping by to pick up his stuff at the moment. “Just tell me it’s stupid. I need to hear that it’s stupid. He’s only going to be here for a week, I don’t want to get tangled up in this—”

“Don’t want to get tangled up in what? Having a good time?” Sophie asked in that matter-of-fact way she had of getting right to the point.
 
She still had Quenby’s phone, and she was tapping the screen.

“What are you doing?” Quenby asked.

“Sending Caleb a friend request. From you.” Sophie handed the phone back to her with a happy smirk. “Because you weren’t gonna do it—”

“You’re right about that.”

“And you needed to.”

“What are you trying to do here?” Quenby looked down at her phone with a sigh.

“Be responsible for your happiness,” Sophie said. She was a lot shorter than Quenby, but she towered over her as she stood over Quenby’s chair. “Just get some, girl. When was the last time you had some decent sex? And don’t try to tell me it was with that fool you wasted five years of your life on.” Sophie was small only in stature. Her personality was huge.

Quenby cheeks warmed as she thought of yesterday afternoon. Instead of getting into that, she asked, “Is this really a good idea? Speaking of Derek, I almost got married a couple days ago.”

“It’s the best idea. Nobody’s asking you to marry this guy.”

“True.” But the problem was, she was already falling for him. And it couldn’t be smart to have a rebound fling with a guy she was developing feelings for. Right? Could she just tune out her feelings like that? “Don’t you have a teller line to run or something?”

“I’ll get on it, boss.” She grabbed her coffee mug from the desk and walked out. Sticking her head back in the doorway, she said, “Think about how much fun this week could be. Don’t let that go to waste. I’ll take him if you’re just going to throw him away.” With that, she walked back to the teller line.

#

Quenby smiled as she saw the email notification telling her Caleb had accepted her friend request.

She idly clicked over to his page, letting a strange little smile curve over her lips. Warmth surged through her as her mind went yet again to yesterday and the ways Caleb had touched her in her bedroom.

“Quens. What you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon?”

She jumped at the sound of Isaac’s voice behind her. Having been lost in thoughts of Caleb, she hadn’t heard him walk into her office.

“I see we’re working hard in here, huh?” he said. A grin curved over his thin lips.

She set her phone on the desk and looked up at him. Isaac was a commercial loan officer. He wore too much gel in his hair, and she could imagine him spending hours in front of the mirror in the morning, styling his frosted tips just right. Blond hair, blue eyed, gym-worshipping type.

“Says you,” she said. “Shouldn’t you be out stalking our poor customers, forcing loans on them, and stealing other people’s commissions?” Quenby shook her head. Two reasons he was there. She didn’t have the power to fire commercial loan officers even though she was the branch manager—that was the regional manager’s purview. Second reason, Isaac was unfortunately good at his job. He’d been born with the schmoozer gene.
  

“Oh, Quens. Don’t be bitter.” Isaac sat on the corner of her desk. He leaned over and glanced at her the screen of her phone. “What’s with all the Facebook stuff?
You looking for a date or something?
I’m free this weekend.” He grabbed her “branch manager of the year” paperweight off of her desk and tossed it up in the air and caught it a few times even though he knew how much that irritated her.

Quenby snatched her phone from where it lay on the desk. “I was just trying to connect with an old friend,” she said, her tone cool. By old she meant new, of course.

“Looks like you succeeded. Look at this message he just left on your wall.” Isaac winked at her and pointed to her phone. He put the paperweight back on her desk.

She pulled her phone close to her chest. “I really need to get back to work, Isaac.”

“Sure you do. ‘Work’.” He made air quotes with his index and middle fingers and then laughed. “Tell homeboy from Facebook I said hi.”

Quenby glared at him, but said nothing.

“Oh, by the way, I’m taking a long lunch. I met this hot little thing at the gym last week. Her divorce was finalized this morning. I’m going to pick her up from the spa, and we’re going to celebrate. Wink wink, nudge nudge.” Isaac chuckled. He admired himself for a moment in the reflection from the window in Quenby’s office door. “I’ll probably get a new customer out of it, too. Be back in a couple of hours. Behave yourself okay?”

“Bye, Isaac.”

“Bye, cutie.” Isaac gave her a look that left her feeling dirty, winked at her, and then left her office, chuckling to himself again.

“What an ass,” Quenby mumbled under her breath. And unfortunately, exactly the type she would have dated before the whole Derek fiasco. If they were pretty, she let a lot go.
Too much.
And here she went again—letting a gorgeous guy live on her couch for a week. Apparently, it was impossible for her to learn lessons.

She looked down at her phone now that it was safe. She smiled, tracing her fingers over the message Caleb had left:
Can’t wait ‘til 5:30PM.
She couldn’t wait, either. She wanted to wrap her legs around him again. Rebound fling or not, this would be one good week. Whatever this mess was, it was fun. She’d gotten herself into something that might have been a little not smart, but she liked being in it a lot.

#

Caleb opened the front door and came face-to-face with the groom from the wedding.

“What are you doing here?” Derek asked, attempting to move past Caleb.

Caleb didn’t budge. “Quenby asked me to be here.”

“Where is she?” Derek shouted past Caleb into the condo. “Quenby!”

“She’s at work.”

“Why would she be there? She told me to stop by today.”

“She didn’t want to be here for this,” Caleb said. “You can deal with me.”

“What the? No. She needs to be here for this.” He shook his head. “I won’t do it today.”

“Frankly, after the way you treated her, you’re lucky she didn’t just throw all your crap on the street. I would have. Clearly, she’s a better person than I am.”

“We lived together for five years,” Derek said, a smug note creeping into his tone. “It’s going to be complicated, separating our things.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Excuse me?” Derek gave him a look that was half-questioning, half-indignant.

“We did it last night. It was pretty easy, actually. Caleb stepped aside and gestured to two stacks of boxes in the middle of the living room floor.

“Who said you could touch my things?” Derek pushed past Caleb and into the living room. He circled the boxes, staring at them in disbelief.

“Quenby says if you want any of the furniture, you can arrange to have movers or someone else who’s not you come and pick it up. You can let me know what you want.”

“Not a damned thing.” Derek snatched one of the boxes from the shorter of the two stacks.

“Need any help with those boxes, man?” Caleb asked.

“Nope. Got it.” Derek stomped out into the hall with a box. He was clearly staggering under the weight of the thing, but he tried not to let it show.

“You sure?” Caleb started toward the stack of boxes.

“You touch anything of mine one more time, man! One more time!” Derek snarled. “And I’ll call the cops on you.”

Good thing Quenby wasn’t Derek’s any longer.

When he came up for the last of his boxes, Derek asked, “Is that your, uh, car down there parked in Quenby’s visitor spot?” Derek smirked. “That little compact?”

“Yeah.” It was his rental.

“That’s…economical. I double-parked my Jag next to it. I’m almost through here, so I won’t have you boxed in much longer. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Nope. Don’t mind.” Caleb didn’t bother to mention that he’d picked up that rental after flying first class from Georgia to Richmond. He also didn’t tell Derek how he’d driven Macon and himself to the airport in his Land Rover because he felt no need to get into a pissing contest with this jerk. Pissing contests were for guys who were insecure little boys inside. Guys like Derek.

Caleb
watch
Derek struggle toward the elevator with his box and thought about poor Quenby. She’d really been deprived if that was what she’d called having a man in her life for the past five years. No wonder she was afraid to take another chance. He’d bring her around and make her see that all men weren’t like Derek, though. He was determined to do that because he wanted nothing more than a chance to be a part of that incredible woman’s life.

#

Caleb looked up as Quenby came through the front door that evening. He slowly worked his way up from black pumps to shapely calves in nylon stockings to black skirt that showed off just enough
thigh
to black jacket.