Page 13 of Something Borrowed

“What?”

“Vic’s a miss, not a mister.”

“Yeah, she has breasts.”

“What?” Carrie sputtered. “That’s not how you usually talk about women.”

Cal held his hands up and explained his comment and the strangeness of the weekend callout.

“Oof, her mother sounds like a piece of work.”

“Yeah, Vic apologized for her—”

“Codependent,” Carrie said knowingly.

Cal nodded, knowing the best way to avoid her going into psychobabble mode on him was just to agree—speaking of codependent. He grinned a little.

“Alert the presses. He smiles!”

Cal ignored her. “Yeah, Vic called her ‘awful, terrible, rude and mean,’ and that might seem like an exaggeration for some people, but in this case, I think it’s barely a start. There’s something wrong there.”

Vic’s sad eyes flashed in Cal’s memory, and suddenly Cal realized he had an answer to Carrie’s question. Or a partial one, anyway. Some of his malaise was down to sad-eyed Vic. It wasn’t the first time his thoughts had turned to her since meeting her Saturday. Not even close. She’d been on his mind off and on all week.

“What?” Carrie asked, inquisitive as a ferret.

“What do you mean, what?”

“That look on your face—what is it? Like you just realized something?”

Cal shook his head.

“I’m serious, Paul Bunyan. Fess up.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Carrie’s eyes narrowed. “It’s this Vic woman, isn’t it? You like her or something.”

“What?—no. Of course, I don’t like her. I mean, I don’t dislike her. I don’t even know her. I met her once. At a job.”

Carrie squinted at him and looked like she was about to say more, a whole lot more.

“I don’t like her.”

“Mmhmm.” Carrie sipped her coffee and peered over the rim of her mug with an exaggeratedly wide-eyed, skeptical look.

“I don’t!”

“Okay,” Carrie chirped. “Millions would believe you.”

“Don’t you have work to do?”

“I do, actually.” She turned toward the computer. “And so do you.”

“In a bit. I’m having a sandwich first.”

“Oh, good. Me too. What are we having?”

Well-used to Carrie’s sandwich-stealing ways by now, Cal had taken to making her a lunch every day along with his own. She always insisted she didn’t eat lunch, but what she meant was that she couldn’t be bothered to pack a lunch, and she thought she’d be fine without one—until she saw his. He couldn’t say no to her, and really, if he was honest, he liked sharing lunch with her.