“It’s not the most comfortable but it fits the space, and the color makes me happy. I’d give you a tour of the rest of Pelican Pointe, but the complex is recovering from a minor natural disaster. I’ll give you a call later when things are cleaned up and dried out.”
“That’s why I’m calling. I was scrolling though my phone to see who I drunk-dialed and texted last night and to assess whom I should actively avoid the next few weeks or,worse, owe an apology to.” Colby nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders at his Sunday morning ritual, “and all my news apps are reporting biblical flooding in the Carolinas. Powerful waves, high tides, whipping winds, it’s a vocabulary lesson in scary words that city-dwellers like me don’t have to worry about.”
From the way he elaborated, she suspected he was trying to make the point that he thought it was time for her to come home.
Kenny rolled her eyes. “Wasn’t it just last month that your ‘friend,’ the ‘best barista in Chelsea,’ was arrested for making bombs in his apartment and had wallpapered his bedroom with maps of the subway system? I think you have your own set of problems, Colby.”
“I’m sure that was all a misunderstanding,” he laughed. “Now that I know you weren’t whisked out to sea, tell me about yesterday’s shopping trip! This is the first I’mseeingyouin a few weeks and it’s obvious you’ve shed those pesky pounds. What kind of ensemble did you put together to drive this golfer out of his mind?”
Kenny recounted every detail of her charades in the dressing rooms at the boutiques around Coligny Plaza, complete with commentary about why each outfit would and would not work for her date with J.P. She missed having Colby on the shopping spree. He had a ruthless critical eye, but it was offset with a keen sense of style that she relied on. He had a vision for fashion that she was blind to.
He was in the middle of analyzing the risk factors associated with wearing white jeans after Labor Day, he was particularly hung up on the shade of white, when Kenny abruptlyshooshed!him.
“Don’t. Say. A. Word.” Kenny firmly directed as she quietly placed her mug on the patio and slid down the lounge chair like she was hiding from someone.
The stucco wall that enclosed the patio was high enough that there was no chance anyone on the other side of it would be able to see her. Even when Kenny stood vertically, the wall came to her ribs, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
“What’s going on? Are you okay?” Colby whispered.
She picked up her finger andshooshed!him again like she was a grade-school teacher trying to corral a room full of rambunctious third graders.
Colby’s squinted eyes grew wide, and he obeyed.
“I’m not worried about it; you shouldn’t be either. I think Mr. C will be thrilled when he finds out. And to have you here, full-time, he might be more excited than me!” Kenny heard a familiar voice exclaim.
“I hope so. The last few summers have been great, and I thought I was okay with it being a warm weather fling. But this last month has been hard. I realized I had deeper feelings than I knew or wanted to have,” a female’s voice said softly, sounding both optimistic and hesitant. “Last night confirmed what I secretly hoped for a long time, that thereissomething real between us.”
Kenny’s insides tumbled and her head spun. She lost feeling in her right arm and dropped the limb and her phone to her waist. The undeniable, smooth-talking voice was J.P. She didn’t know if she wanted to throw up, disappear, or confront the sappy couple who presumably were still basking in whatever happened between them the night before.
“Relationships are never easy, and I’m told the good ones rarely make sense. We have to work on them,” J.P. encouraged. “What do you say we grab breakfast?”
“I’d love that. You know breakfast is my favorite meal,” the female voice giggled.
By now Kenny was on all fours and crawling on her hands and knees, phone in hand, across the patio to the glass door. She palmed the door with her left hand, slid it open and dragged herself inside.
What is going on? What are you doing? Colby silently mouthed with exaggeration and alarm.
Once she was safely inside, she sprung to her feet, ran to the front of the villa, and flipped the camera around on her phone so she and Colby could peer out the window together.
“Thatis J.P.!” Kenny shouted, directing the phone to a couple who were walking toward a red Wrangler. “Andthatmust be last night’s hook-up! What a slime ball! And look at her! Of course she’s gorgeous. I should expect nothing less. He looks like a movie star.”
“They both look pretty disheveled to me,” Colby said in what seemed to be a feeble attempt to reign in Kenny’s outburst. “Youwouldnevergo to breakfast looking that way. Her hair looks like a bird’s nest and those gold sweatpants look like they came from the lost and found box in a high school boy’s locker room. That color wouldn’t flatter anyone’s complexion,” he spoke in disgust.
“I can’t go there. I don’t want to think about why they look disheveled. Look at him now, trying to act like a gentleman,” she spewed as she watched J.P. help the tall blonde into the passenger seat of his Jeep. “My God, her legs are a mile long. She doesn’t even need help getting into the car. Her hair looks like it was professionally pinned into an up-do, not a bird’s nest.”
“She looks like an Amazon woman. If that’s the type this J.P. is interested in, you never stood a shot, Hunny,” Colby lamented from inside the phone.
“She looks like a runway model, not an Amazon woman. But you’re right, I should’ve known J.P. would never be interested in someone like me. What was I thinking?” Kenny’s voice trembled.
She was on the verge of tears.
“Stop that right now, Kennedy Sloane!” Colby scolded. “Do you know how many men would drop everything to be with you? How many men have tried?”
“I don’t understand, Colby!” Kenny broke into full blown sobs. “How can I keep misinterpreting my life like this? I really thought this was something special. I thought the connection was mutual. Was this all a dream, too? Did I dream up him kissing me? Did I dream up him asking me to dinner?”
“Oh, Love. It wasn’t a dream. I heard it in your voice, and I saw it in your face when you answered the phone this morning,” Colby comforted. “He was just a bad seed.”
“I thought he was different. I felt different when I was around him,” Kenny cried.
