Deconstructed(28)

“Sorry I missed you. I had some errands to run this afternoon.” So Ty Walker had flown back into town and had immediately come to see me? I couldn’t understand why he would be attracted to me. A preppy guy like him? A rough-around-the-edges girl like me? Didn’t add up, but still, I liked the attention he was giving me. Maybe too much.

“I thought we could go for a drink or something.”

“Weirdly enough, I’m at a bar now,” I quipped before I could think better of it.

“Wow, I like how you run errands. Where ya at? I’ll join you, if that’s cool.” His voice was honey—beautiful, drippy honey that made me feel something I hadn’t in a while.

“Actually, I’m in north Shreveport, my old stomping grounds. You probably don’t want to drive—”

“You realize this is Shreveport and not Atlanta, right?” he interrupted, laughter in his voice. “I’m pretty sure I can get through this colossal amount of five-o’clock traffic.”

Did I want to mix my new world with my old one? Did I want to line the too-pretty Ty up next to the all-American? I eyed Dak again, knowing that most men would come up short next to him. But Ty was a dish himself. And what did it matter? Dak was a memory.

Handing me my coffee.

“Thanks,” I said to Dak, who had made my coffee just as I liked it—the color of a good roux. He set it down without a word, turning his back on me, causing my heart to flinch. Suddenly I wanted Ty there. Into the phone I said, “I’d love to see you.”

I clicked the phone off and sent Ty the location pin. “A friend might join us for a drink. Please don’t mention my boss or her issue.”

Juke cupped his coffee in two hands and snorted. “I don’t talk. And don’t you mean a hot beverage? Because this doesn’t look as good as two fingers of Jack.”

I tapped the shiny bar top. “Change your thinking and you can change the world.”

Juke rolled his eyes. “Changing the world is overrated.”





CHAPTER EIGHT


CRICKET

Early Monday evening while I ate tacos with Scott, my potential attorney had called and set up an appointment for the following morning. Scott had looked questioningly at me across the table as I confirmed the appointment that would end our marriage. After I got off the phone with Jackie Morsett, I lied and told him that I had to go in for a mammogram.

He nodded and said, “I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself, honey.”

Oh, the irony.

After the call, I lost my appetite and nursed my spicy margarita while Scott shoved down his tacos and the remainder of mine. Then he went off to shag Steph or whatever it was he was doing, and I went home and reorganized my pots and pans so I wouldn’t open another bottle of sauvignon blanc and leaf through our family albums that I had created in my scrapbooking class, crying over all that was lost to me.

Of course, the next morning, the thought of meeting with my soon-to-be attorney threw me into a mixed state of denial, anxiety, and determination. Overwhelmed, I stayed in my pajamas too long and watched cute and oh-so-together Kelly Ripa chirp too happily and charm visiting celebrities. Which meant I then panicked because I had left myself only forty minutes to rip through my closet for something perfect to wear to begin divorcing one’s husband. I had thought to wear something severe and black, even contemplating lopping my beachy waves into an abrupt pageboy that screamed, Don’t screw with me. But I settled on a Lilly Pulitzer wrap dress that I had bought too long ago but still loved, and a loose ponytail. I felt more me in that getup, if not a little bougie.

Well, sometimes I was bougie. What of it?

Turns out my new attorney, Jackie, didn’t care because she had enough badassery for both of us.

Jackie wore a navy power suit, ivory blouse, and stacked gold chains against her dark skin. Her hair jiggled in coils that framed her rounded cheeks. The full lips painted boardroom red, big diamond studs in her earlobes, and cute frameless glasses perched on the end of her nose seemed right on her. She was rounded in all the right places, like someone who knew how to make a good pie, but then you peered behind the glasses into her eyes.

Those dark orbs reminded me of the sharks I’d seen when I took Julia Kate to a New Orleans aquarium a few years ago. They had whirled around, coldly assessing me from behind the twelve-inch-thick glass. I’d taken a step back each time one headed my way.

And if it weren’t for Jackie’s big smile and warm hands when we shook, I might have retreated for the door. She seemed to be the perfect balance of a woman who could gut you or smother you in a hug. Maybe at the same time.

She would do nicely as my attorney.

“Well now, Mrs. Crosby, I hear you’re looking for a female to represent you,” Jackie said, her voice smooth, confident, everything I wished I were.

“Is that wrong?”

“Hell no.”

“Oh, good.”

“Sit.” She gestured to a pair of fawn-speckled chairs centered on a zebra rug. I sank down on one and tried not to fidget. I had that habit, and my mother had tried to pinch it out of me on the fifth pew of First Presbyterian Church every Sunday. Jackie slid behind her desk, gracefully dropped into her white leather chair, and tented her hands with long fingernails just the shade of her lipstick. “You want coffee, Catherine?”