The Rebound Guy

THE REBOUND GUY

by

Farrah Rochon

Nicobar Press

Kindle Edition

Copyright © 2012 by Farrah Roybiskie

Cover by Mae Phillips of BabyFreshDesigns.com

ISBN: 978-1-938125-06-5

Kindle Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please do so through your retailer’s “lend” function. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The Rebound Guy

Chapter One

“Another late day at the office, Ms. Carpenter?”

“Another late one, Harmon.” Asia Carpenter waved good night to the doorman, who, as far as she knew, had never missed a night’s work in the six years she’d lived in a loft in this former 19th-century brewery in Manhattan’s historic Kips Bay neighborhood.

“This is the last time you get home after ten o’clock,” Asia muttered as she bypassed the bank of shiny brass mailboxes, heading straight for the elevator. Her finger hovered over the “up” button for just a second before she pivoted and walked back to her mailbox. She knew Cortland, her fiancé, hadn’t picked up the mail. Two years of living together and he had yet to have his mail forwarded from the apartment he’d shared with his old college roommate on the Upper West Side.

Asia thumbed through the junk mail as she walked back to the elevator, dumping it all in the brushed stainless steel waste receptacle before stepping into the empty car paneled with Scandinavian-blond wood. As she got off on the fifth floor, she whispered a silent “thank you” that she’d had the elevator to herself the entire ride up. She was too tired for idle chitchat with neighbors she still only knew by face. She’d learn their names eventually. If she ever found time to strike up a conversation instead of just offering a passing wave while striding through the lobby, that is.

She slipped out of her gray pumps before she even unlocked the door to her three-level loft apartment. Holding both shoes in one hand, she eased on the dimmer switch in the entryway so she would have just enough light to cross the kitchen to the lower set of steep, yacht-style stairs.

“Cortland?” Asia whispered, not wanting to wake him if he was already asleep in the open bedroom directly above her.

She tripped over something on the floor and grabbed the back of a barstool to break her fall, dropping her Italian glove-leather briefcase. She looked down to find the light-blue and dark-brown throw pillow that usually sat on Cortland’s armchair.

“What in the hell?”

Asia dashed up the six steep wooden treads to the high-ceilinged living room and turned on a lamp.

And gasped.

They’d been robbed. The flat-screen television, Cortland’s sound system, his favorite chair. All gone.

“Cortland!” Asia yelled. She turned and looked up to the open bedroom loft, but he wasn’t there. An eerie sensation traveled up her spine as she carefully navigated the tricky stairs down and walked through the tiny kitchen to the bathroom between the refrigerator and the entryway. She knocked before opening the door.

“Cortland?”

He wasn’t in there, either.

From the living room, she would be able to see all three levels of the small loft. Wrapping an arm around her waist to quell the sudden nausea swimming in her stomach, Asia trudged back there, slipping her personal cell phone from her jacket pocket so she could call to report the break-in.

Her eyes slowly scanned the space, trying to spot what else had been taken. All three levels of the apartment were visible from this vantage point.

Up in the bedroom, some of the sliding doors in the wall of closets were open, but she couldn’t tell whether anything had been touched inside. Down in the kitchen, in the wine cooler in which she kept her very best French and Australian wines, the racks were conspicuously empty.

A thief with a taste for the world’s finest wines. Lovely.

Asia was about to call the police when she caught sight of something on the reclaimed oak wine barrel that served as an end table next to her sofa.

For a moment she just stared at the three keys: one for the front door, one for the deadbolt, and a smaller one for the mailbox downstairs. Underneath them lay a sheet from the notepad she kept next to the phone. Her fingers shaking, she gingerly slipped the paper from underneath the keys and read the words scribbled in Cortland’s bold handwriting.

Look me up when you have more time for me.

The blue note dropped from her fingers onto the hardwood floor. Asia picked up a second piece of paper from the table.

“What?”

It took a moment to register what she was looking at. It was an invoice with the balance owed to the jewelry store where she’d picked out her engagement ring. $8,283.14.

Her eyes slid shut. A heavy dose of guilt joined the unease churning in her gut.

Suddenly, she understood what this was about. Cortland had planned a dinner for the four-year anniversary of their first date. She hadn’t forgotten about the dinner, but she had forgotten to call to tell him she wouldn’t be able to make it.

His anger was expected, maybe even warranted. But going through the trouble of dismounting the television?

“That’s a tad dramatic, Cortland,” Asia said as she hit the speed dial for his number. The call went straight to voicemail. She immediately redialed, pulling the hem of her silk blouse from her slacks as she climbed the second set of stairs to her bedroom.

“Pick up the phone, Cortland,” Asia said to his voicemail, straightening the black and white photograph of the chateau at Inglenook Estates in Napa that hung above the whitewashed wood bureau in her bedroom. “I know we had plans, but I got tied up at work. I’m sorry.”

As if her words had summoned it, her work phone vibrated in her pocket.

“Dammit.” Asia hung up on Cortland’s voicemail and answered the second phone. “Asia Carpenter.”

She pitched her head back and massaged the bridge of her nose as she listened to the person on the other end of the line.

“Tell me you’re kidding,” Asia said, though she knew it was no joke. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Try to keep the camera crews away by any means within the law.”

The chime signaling a text message bubbled up from her personal phone.

“
Don’t call. Don’t text. I’m done
.”

Asia pinched her eyes shut. If she had a moment to throw a fit over Cortland’s departure she would, but spare moments were like snowstorms in July: nonexistent. She’d smooth things over with him tomorrow. Right now she had to deal with a reckless, trust-fund troublemaker with too much money and too much time on his hands for her peace of mind.

Tucking her shirt back into her pants as she made her way down the stairs, she grabbed her purse and lifted an apple from the small scale replica of a grape bushel basket on the kitchen counter. This would have to be dinner tonight. She grabbed a second apple for Harmon and locked the door behind her.

***

“You need to get rid of this plant. It’s dead.”

Asia peered at her sister over the rim of her reading glasses. “I thought you said you were coming over to provide moral support, not criticize my plants?”

“If you want my advice—”

Asia put up a hand. “I said support, not advice. And just to be clear, I didn’t ask for either.”

India continued talking as if she hadn’t spoken. “My advice is that you should consider yourself lucky and move on.”

Asia looked up from the summary she was writing, detailing the events that had occurred the previous night in a suite at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, where Noah Rochester II had apparently planned an orgy with a group of his “friends,” some of whom he’d met just hours before.

She cast a dubious look at her sister. “My fiancé just moved out of our home, and you call that luck?”

“You really need to update your movie collection,” India said, then she turned away from the distressed white-ash armoire where the DVDs were stored. “First of all, it’s
your
home,” her sister stressed. “You had it before you met him, which makes you very lucky. Secondly, Cortland Stewart has a stick the size of a balance beam up his ass. You should be happy you’re rid of him.”

“I thought you liked Cortland.”

“I’ve spent the past four years trying to figure out why
you
liked him.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because he’s perfect for me?”

“Perfect?” An incredulous grimace scrunched up her face. Then, per her typical tangential thought process, India asked, “What is his middle name?”

“Robinson. Why?”

“That’s it. Cortland Robinson Stewart. He has three last names. That’s what was wrong with him.”

Asia threw her hands up in the air. “In what world does that make any sense? We’re both named after countries. What does
that
mean?”

“Asia isn’t a country.”

“Oh, shut up. You know what I’m saying. And Cortland
is
perfect for me. We work for the same PR firm. We’ve got the same career goals.”

“Neither of you have a life,” her sister injected. She gestured at the notebook computer in Asia’s lap. “Look at you. You’re supposedly going through this traumatic breakup and you’re working. That’s pitiful.”

“I have to get this done by this afternoon,” she said, returning to the document on her screen.

“I thought you’d taken an emergency vacation day?”

“Just the morning,” Asia said. “And it’s not a breakup. It’s just a bump. Cortland is upset because I missed a dinner he’d had planned for weeks. He has a right to be upset.” Though moving his things out and refusing to answer her call last night was over the top. “It’s not a breakup,” Asia reiterated.

Her sister let out an indelicate snort. Fitting because there was nothing delicate about India Carpenter. Asia took in her baby sister’s cargo shorts and faded t-shirt with the Dr. Pepper emblem across her breasts.

“I thought you had class soon?” Asia asked her.

“I do.”

“You’re going dressed like that?”

India glanced down at her clothing. “It’s ‘Ethics.’ As long as I don’t show up naked, I’m within the dress code. If it were my ‘Environmental Law’ class, I probably could show up naked.”

Asia held in her sigh. She’d learned to tolerate India; it was no use trying to change her. Asia wasn’t sure she wanted to anyway.

“Oh, oh, oh. I know what you need.” Snapping her fingers, India rushed across the glossy floorboards and plopped down on the sofa. She reached for the laptop, but Asia jerked it away. “Let me see it for just a minute,” her sister said.

“I’m working.”

“Repeat after me: Today. Is. A.
Vacation.
Day.”

“Half day,” Asia corrected her. “And I’m still working.”

“Just give me the computer.” India wrangled it from her and folded her legs underneath her. Asia wanted to strangle her for putting her dusty sneakers on the pale-blue linen sofa cushions, but didn’t have the strength.

“I swear, this is fate,” her sister said, her fingers flying across the keyboard. “I read this article online just this morning. The guy is fascinating. Here it is.” She turned the screen toward Asia.

“The Rebound Guy?”

India nodded, a wide, excited smile splitting her face. “He is exactly what you need.”

“I do not need a rebound guy. I already have a guy.”

“Who moved all his shit out and left you with a bill for your engagement ring. Why would you even
want
that guy?”

Asia started to speak, then stopped short. Unable to think of a comeback, she went for her computer. “Thanks for coming over, but you should probably head to class.”

India stretched the computer out of her reach. “I’m only a few minutes away from campus. I’ve got time.”

“I don’t. I need to get back to work.” Her sister jumped up from the sofa, still holding the laptop. “Come on, India,” Asia said in a warning tone.

“Trying to get over a bad breakup?” India read. “Need help making your ex jealous? The Rebound Guy may be just what you’re looking for.”

Asia pushed herself up and started for her sister. India sideswiped her, still reading. “This knight in shining armor, with a heart of gold, specializes in helping women navigate the troubling waters we find ourselves in after the end of a long-term relationship. And take it from me, ladies, he isn’t hard on the eyes, either.”

“Would you give me that laptop and get to class?” Asia said, finally catching up to her sister and plucking the computer from her fingers. “Something told me not to answer the door when you knocked.”

“Hey!” India said with an affronted pout. “I just saved what’s left of your tattered pride. The Rebound Guy will make you forget you ever knew Cortland Robinson Stewart. Is he the second, or the third?”