Earning Yancy (8 page)

I sipped my drink, enjoying the tart flavor of blackberry lemonade. “So, what else do I need to know about you?”

Charles laughed. “Can’t we talk about you? I’m boring.”

I shook my head. “No, you know more about me than I do about you.”

Suddenly, his face grew serious. “I don’t think that’s true at all.”

I traced a finger through the condensation on my glass. “Well, you know the general stuff. I’m divorced and I have an eighteen month old daughter. And you’ve been to my house. All I know about you is that you graduated cum laude from University of Texas in Austin and your aunt owns a restaurant.”

“I don’t know how old you are.”

I chuckled. “It’s rude to ask a lady her age.”

“Okay, well, I’m thirty.”

I blinked several times when I realized he was a year younger than me.

“What?”

“I’m thirty-one,” I answered.

He grinned. “Great. I love older women.”

Before I could respond, I heard a familiar song. Charles grimaced and shifted in his seat. After listening for a few more seconds, I realized that I was hearing
Bella’s Lullaby
from the
Twilight
movies and it was emanating from his jacket.

Holding back a laugh, I said, “Are you going to answer that?” I couldn’t believe he had that song as his ringtone. It was not something most thirty-year old men would like.

He shook his head. “No, that would be rude.”

“It’s okay. It might be important.”

The music stopped and Charles relaxed. “No, it’s just my mother.”

“You should have answered it then! It could be an emergency.”

The song began again and Charles sighed heavily. “No, I’m pretty sure my aunt called her as soon as she left to get our drinks.” He reached into his coat. “I’m sorry. If I don’t answer, she’ll just keep calling.”

I bit my lip to hold back a giggle as he slid his thumb across the screen and put his phone to his ear.

“Hi, Mom. Listen, now’s not a good time. Can I call you later?” He paused, listening for a moment. “Yes, I’m on a date.” Another pause. “Yes, she knows it’s a date. Jesus, Mom. You really called me to ask this?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose in an effort to hold back a snort. He seemed exasperated but also affectionate. I liked that a lot. Even though he was irritated, he was making an effort to be respectful. He noticed the mirth and I saw a dull flush spread across his face.

“No, Mom, you can’t talk to her. She already knows I’m a good guy.” Pause. “I promise I won’t scare her away.” He glared at me when the snort escaped, then grinned when he saw me wiping away one of the tears that formed as I tried to hold my laughter in. “Mom. Mom. MOM! Look, I don’t know when you can meet her.” My eyes widened as Charles seemed to be listening to something else she said. “Well, I can promise you that listening to my side of this conversation is more likely to scare her off than anything I could do by myself.” Obviously, his mother took the hint because his next words were, “Okay, love you too. Bye.”

He tossed the phone on the table and I couldn’t hold back any longer. I laughed, big deep belly laughs.

After a few moments, I finally calmed down. “I’m sorry,” I gasped, “but that was funny.”

It was also enough to make the last of my nerves disappear. Charles might be extremely handsome, enough so that it made me tongue tied, but he was also a nice guy with what appeared to be a nutty family and he liked
Twilight
. I no longer had a huge crush on him, I genuinely liked him.

Charles apologized for the interruption, which I told him not to worry about, and we began to talk again. He told me that his dad had died from a stroke a few years before and that his mom was finally returning to her old self, bit by bit. I also found out he had an older sister and a niece and a nephew that he seemed to dote on.

Elaine brought our food, including two enormous slices of strawberry pie, and stayed to chat a bit before she kissed Charles on the cheek and said she’d see him at Sunday dinner the following week. I was surprised that he didn’t say anything to her about the phone call, but it was none of my business so I kept my mouth shut. He seemed amused by her behavior rather than annoyed.

The rest of the meal, we didn’t speak much, but I did tell him a little about my parents, my two sisters, and my assorted nieces and nephews.

After we ate (the strawberry pie was even better than Charles led me to believe), it was time to head back to the office. As we strolled back to work, full of good food, Charles surprised me by reaching down and taking my hand in his. We walked the rest of the way, holding hands the entire time. It wasn’t the kiss I’d been hoping for, but it was sweet in a way that was far more dangerous to my heart.

When we reached our office building, he walked with me to the stairwell and stopped me on the landing between the third and fourth floors. I didn’t think of it at the time, but there were probably cameras somewhere.

Charles surprised me yet again when he leaned back against the corner and slid his arms around me. As before, the kiss began gently, almost chastely, but Charles took things a step further. His mouth opened over mine, his tongue tracing my bottom lip. When my lips parted, his tongue met mine and didn’t retreat.

My hands gripped his shoulders as I rested my body against him. He took my weight easily, his arms tightening around my waist, lifting me to my toes, and bringing me closer until I could feel every ridge of muscle from his chest to his thighs.

When he finally lifted his head, we were both breathing heavily.

I stared up at him, trying to get my brain to function properly. “Wow.”

“Wow is right.” Charles gave me another quick, light kiss. “We should get back to work.”

“You’re right,” I sighed. I stepped out of the circle of his arms. “Thanks for lunch. It was great.”

He snagged my hand, toying with my fingers. “I want to see you again.”

My heart leapt. “Okay.” I licked my lips. “How about lunch on Friday?” I wanted to keep things simple for a little while and the casual meal we had today was perfect.

He winced. “You’re going to make me wait that long to see you again?”

Laughing, I said, “Sorry, my schedule is full Wednesday. I’m having lunch with some friends.”

“What about dinner?” When I hesitated, Charles squeezed my hand a final time. “I guess I’ll survive until Friday then.”

We headed up the final flight of stairs to the fourth floor and went our separate ways. Friday couldn’t come fast enough.

T
he week passed
with both excruciating slowness and light speed. While my days were busy and seemed to fly by, the evenings felt long. I almost regretted turning down Charles’ dinner invitation.

Charles sent me texts and emails throughout the week, and we talked on the phone a couple of times. Once again, I felt like I was back in high school, but not for the same reasons. I liked Charles, I liked him a lot, but real life meant that I couldn’t see him as much as I might want. I realized that it was probably a blessing in disguise.

Cooper had swept me off my feet and we were married within a year of our first date. Now that I had the advantage of hindsight, I realized there were signs of his true character all along. I allowed my infatuation with him to override my common sense and I’d jumped into a relationship that had ultimately failed.

Taking things slowly with Charles would prevent me from possibly making the same mistakes. Now that I had Carolena, I couldn’t afford to continuously date new men. I had to make good choices for my daughter and myself. I had also decided Carolena wouldn’t spend a lot of time with Charles until I was more certain that things were going well.

Finally, Friday arrived. As I had on Monday, I took a little extra care when choosing my clothes, styling my hair, and applying my make-up. It felt nice to have a reason to primp a little. When I got to my office, I found a caramel macchiato sitting next to my keyboard, a sticky note stuck to the side.

Had a meeting at 8. It should still be warm when you get here.

C

I sipped the latte and found it was the perfect temperature. I knew I must be grinning like an idiot. The three days I came in to the office this week, Charles had brought me a macchiato each morning. It was as if he knew the quickest way to my heart was through caffeine.

Still smiling, I booted up my computer and got to work, already counting the hours until lunch time.

At ten to
noon, I looked up from my computer to see Charles standing in my open door. His arms were crossed over his chest, a coat folded over them, and he was smiling at me.

“Hi. Is it time for lunch already?” I asked.

Charles nodded. “Yeah. It’s 11:50.” He took a step forward. “I didn’t know you wore glasses.”

I realized I was wearing my reading glasses. I loved them because they had rectangular black frames that I thought looked stylish. I only wore them when I sat at the computer for long periods or had a lot of reading to do. I reached up to take them off.

“I like them. You look like a sexy librarian. Or maybe a hot nerd just waiting to let out her inner bad girl.”

I laughed. “Yeah, right. That sounds exactly like me.” I took the glasses off and tossed them onto my desk. “I only wear them if I’m going to be reading for long periods of time.”

“Too bad.”

I rolled my eyes then saved my work and logged off my computer. “Are you done drooling? Because I’m hungry.”

“Whatever you like.”

I stood up and grabbed my purse and coat. “Then let’s go have lunch.”

As soon as we got downstairs and outside of the building, Charles reached over and took my hand. We held hands as we walked down the block to a small Chinese restaurant that I recommended. He asked me about my week, I asked about his. It felt so easy and natural.

I learned more about Charles at lunch. Little things, like stories about his childhood and how his niece and nephew seemed to be mirror images of he and his sister at those ages. He also talked about how his mother moaned he would never give her grandchildren and she would get pissy every time he pointed out that his sister, Sherri, had already given her two.

I found myself telling him about my own high school years and how I’d always been the studious, shy girl. My two older sisters had done everything they could think of to bring me out of my shell before they both graduated and left home for college. College had been better. I told him about my first party, which had been a rather pathetic, unfortunate experience that ended with me throwing up on the shoes of the cutest boy there.

Forty-five minutes seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Charles waved me off when I tried to pay.

“No way. I don’t want there to be any confusion over this being a date. I asked you to lunch, which means I pay.”

I gave up trying to grab the ticket, but I couldn’t resist teasing him a bit. “So, if I invite you to dinner or a movie, I can pay?”

He took out his wallet and stuck some money in the little black folder that held the receipt. “You can try.”

I shook my head and stood up. “We’ll see.”

Charles let me have the last word, though I did get a smirk in response. We left the restaurant and headed back toward the office at a brisk pace. This time, I reached for his hand first. He squeezed my fingers gently. I noticed he did that every time we held hands and I liked it. It was affectionate and….intimate.

Charles stopped me in the stairwell as he had Monday, and he kissed me. It was short, but thorough enough to leave me panting.

When he lifted his head, he said, “Please say you’ll go out to dinner with me tomorrow night? Instead of making out in the stairwell like teenagers, I’d rather make out in a car.”

I smiled. “Okay, dinner tomorrow but I can’t be out too late.”

“I’ll pick you up at seven.”

I nodded.

We walked up the stairs together, still holding hands, but releasing them before we entered the office. Somehow, we had an unspoken understanding not to flaunt the change in our relationship at the office.

Before he walked away, Charles glanced down at me. “I enjoyed lunch today.”