And there was no need for that when he had her.
“Prepare yourself, baby,” Kaitlyn said with a little hesitance, “because if she wants to talk about it, then she’s thinking about it.”
Quint glanced over at her for a second before refocusing his eyes on the road. He said nothing else, but he left his hand sandwiched between hers; and Kaitlyn made sure that she never let it go.
The next morning Quint stood leaning in the door frame as he watched Kaitlyn help his daughter pack her clothes. He kept the sadness from his face, even as he felt as if his very heart were being plucked from his chest. He didn’t want Lei to feel guilty for her decision to move in with her mother.
He didn’t want to let her go . . . but he was.
Lei was old enough to decide for herself, and so Quint was respecting her wishes.
“Don’t forget your shoes,” Kaitlyn said, picking up the two pairs of sequined flats she’d given her.
Lei shook her head. “Oh no,” she stressed. “My mama would wear them, so I’m leaving them here.”
Quint’s gut tightened and his jaw clenched in annoyance. He had to bite his tongue not to snap out, “Why the hell are you going to live somewhere where you can’t even take your damn stuff?”
Behind Lei’s back Kaitlyn motioned for him to smile. He forced one to his lips, but he wouldn’t be surprised if he looked like a damn clown.
A horn blew. He pushed off the frame to walk to the door and open it. Vita’s new cherry red Miata was parked next to Kaitlyn’s red Volvo. He shook his head, thinking himself once a fool for letting material and exterior bullshit fool him into thinking Kaitlyn was anything like his ex-wife.
He had been wrong.
“Lei, your mom,” he called back to her as he began carrying her suitcases from beside the front door. “Open your trunk, Vita.”
She eyed him as he passed by her driver’s-side window before she leisurely unlocked the trunk and then lowered her window. “I guess you’ll be moving back into that big, old house,” she called out the window behind him.
Quint frowned, already on guard about her intentions. He said nothing as he slid the large suitcase and book bag into the empty trunk. Knowing Lei had another large suitcase, he left the trunk open before he walked back toward the apartment.
Vita suddenly swung her door open, blocking his path. She turned and sat sideways on the seat as she looked up at him. “I said . . . I guess you’ll be moving back into that big, old house of yours,” she said.
Quint worked his shoulders in agitation as he eyed her. “What does that have to do with you?” he snapped, losing his patience and desire for false niceties real fast.
“Plenty,” she stressed. “Because you might want to rethink it, since you’ll be back on child support. ASAP.”
And that was the other shoe that he had been waiting to fall. Quint eyed her and didn’t bother to hide his distaste for her. It was sad that he couldn’t stand the sight of a woman he thought he once loved—the woman who had bore his child.
The front door opened. Lei and Kaitlyn stepped out, and he watched as his woman hugged his daughter and kissed her cheek. He shifted his eyes back to Vita; his ex-wife took in the show of affection as well before she smirked.
Quint backtracked and went around Kaitlyn’s car to reach them. “Wait until I tell you what she just said to me,” he whispered to Kaitlyn when Lei walked over to greet her mother at the car.
Kaitlyn rubbed his arm. “I’ll be inside,” she said, turning to walk back into the apartment with a final wave at Lei.
Quint knew she wanted no part of the drama. He couldn’t blame her. He wished he didn’t have to deal with it either.
CHAPTER 15
Two months later
Kaitlyn parked her car in the small parking lot beside the boutique. She opened the vehicle’s back door to pull out the garment bags her boss had asked her to bring to Xena, his co-owner of Adorned. She closed the door with a bump of her hip and turned.
“Kaitlyn?”
Ain’t this some shit? She smiled as she eyed Anola and Tandy walking toward her in the parking lot.
“Oh, my God!” Tandy shrieked, rushing over to Kaitlyn to hug her, with Anola arriving close behind.
“When did you get back from Italy?”
“Did you buy the most amazing clothes?”
“Did you hook any cuties?”
“Did you get a chance to lie out . . . because you don’t look bronzed?”
Kaitlyn’s head spun as she looked back and forth from each of the fab divas as they shot questions at her like the paparazzi. She held up a hand to stop the barrage.
They both clamped their mouths shut.
Kaitlyn’s lips moved, but no words emerged as she struggled with continuing her lie or shaming the Devil with the truth.
“I have to be honest,” she said. “I didn’t—”
Anola’s Nicki Minaj ring tone sounded off, and she visibly jumped as she dug into her black patent tote.
It was Kaitlyn’s turn to clamp her mouth shut.
“Is that Ursula?” Tandy asked, leaning over to look down at Anola’s phone.
Kaitlyn’s face filled with disbelief.
“Yes. We gotta go,” Anola said, carelessly dropping the phone back into her bag. “Kaitlyn, there’s a Botox party at Ursula Griffin’s.”
“You totally know Ursula, right?” Tandy asked.
“She’s the daughter of that newscaster from Channel 4. They just moved in next to Anola and her parents and she has the best closet in the—”
“Botox?” Kaitlyn asked, her brow puckering as she completely cut off the Ursula Griffin bio. “I don’t need Botox, and neither do either of you.”
They both eyed her like she was an alien. “So you don’t want to go?” Tandy asked, looking confused.
Kaitlyn shook her head. “No, I’m good.”
“Let’s all hook up for sip and shop tomorrow,” Anola said, leaning forward to air-kiss each of Kaitlyn’s cheeks. “We have so much to tell you.”
Tandy air-kissed her as well. “Yes, we have lived since we saw you last.”
“So have I,” Kaitlyn said, even though she knew they spoke of living in completely different ways.
Kaitlyn had found love, grasped at her maturity, and earned the respect of her family. She loved her friends, but she knew they spoke of parties, fashion, and scandalous gossip.
“We gotta run,” Anola said, pulling Tandy by the wrist to her white BMW Roadster.
“Call us,” Tandy called over her shoulder.
Kaitlyn waved them off and made her way out of the parking lot and into the boutique. Just as she pushed the glass door open, they pulled out of the parking lot, blew the horn, and then sped off down King Street.
Kaitlyn felt like she hardly even knew—or understood—them.
Quint stood back and observed his handiwork on the crib he was commissioned to design and build as a surprise for an OB-GYN’s wife. They had struggled for many years to conceive, and the doctor wanted a unique and sturdily built crib that they planned to pass down through their family for the generations to come. He got the job off a referral from the widow for whom he had done the custom picture frame.
In fact, he got that job and two more. He was swamped. He yawned as he began cleaning his tools. He was exhausted. Between his work at the apartment complex, the increased carpentry work, carving out quality time with Lei, and still making time to devote to his relationship with Kaitlyn, Quint was beat.
Quint hadn’t been running or gone weight lifting in weeks. Although he missed the physical exertion, he was enjoying working—and making good money—from his craft. So much so, he was seriously considering walking out on faith and leaving the job at the apartment complex behind to focus on building a real business of his custom cabinetry.
He took the job to be able to be there for Lei, but that was when she was living with him. Now that she was back living with her mother, he could speed up his plan to mo
ve back into his house and live off his savings while he focused on woodworking. He had only delayed the move so far because he wanted to make sure his ex-wife wouldn’t fly the coop again and leave him to willingly rearrange his life to suit his daughter living with him.
Quint glanced at the time on his cell phone. It was well after nine. He finished up in his shed and locked it securely, glancing up at Kaitlyn’s rear windows to see her apartment was still dark. He made his way to the front of the property, and her car was nowhere to be seen.
Usually she got home from work around six and she would call him or come back to the shed to sit with him as he worked. He frowned.
Did something happen?
As he unlocked the front door and entered his apartment, he called her cell phone. Relief flooded him when she answered the call.
“Hey, baby,” she said cheerfully.
The background chatter was so loud that he barely heard her.
“Hey, I was just checking on you when I didn’t see your car,” Quint said, turning on the lights as he made his way to the kitchen to grab a bottle of beer from the fridge.
“Oh, I’m at my parents’. Everyone in my family was here, just cutting up,” she said.
“Tell Quint I said chill out. You good,” he heard one of her brothers holler out in the background.
Quint smiled. “Just wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“Aww, thanks, babe. My mama already made you a plate. We had baked spaghetti.”
The mention of food made him remember that he hadn’t eaten and his stomach grumbled in protest as he dropped down on the couch and turned on the television. “I can use it. Thank her for me.”
“Be there soon.”
“A’ight.” Quint ended the call and tossed his cell phone on the chair as he flipped through the channels. He had barely settled on an old Richard Pryor movie before his cell phone vibrated.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Hey, Daddy.”
He smiled. “What’s up, Lei?”
“Nothing. Just got done with my homework.”
Quint put the TV on mute with the remote as he noted the odd inflection in her voice. “Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. I just wanted to call you before I went to bed. I know you miss me,” Lei teased.
“I damn sure do.”
“I miss you too, Daddy.”
He thought of his little girl toddling toward him as she took her first steps. “Movie night?”
“Definitely.”
He was still smiling when they ended the call. Lights flashed against the wall of his living room. He rolled off the couch to look out the window at Kaitlyn parking and then climbing out of her car to pull shopping bags from her trunk. Many, many shopping bags. All glossy and designer labels.
Quint frowned as he opened the door. “Hey, baby, you need help?”
Kaitlyn nodded as she handed the majority of the bags to him before reaching for a couple more bags and a Styrofoam to-go container. “Thanks.”
“Been shopping?” he asked dryly before easily jogging up the stairs to her front door.
“Yesssss,” she said with emphasis from behind him. “My parents turned my credit card back on today, and I treated myself to a little shopping excursion after work.”
Quint made a face. “You mean they treated you,” he pointed out.
Kaitlyn remained quiet.
Quint reached the top of the stairs and looked back at her. She had paused midway.
“What?” he asked.
“You say that like it’s a problem, Quint,” she said.
“They see I’m working hard and congratulated me, but you’re making me feel some kind of way.”
Quint shrugged. “Kaitlyn, look, if you okay with your parents paying your bills again, then it has nothing to do with me.”
Kaitlyn dropped her head as she continued up the stairs to stand before him with the straps of the shopping bags around her wrist and the container of food in her hand. “You’re right. It doesn’t.”
He eyed her. “Whatever, Kaitlyn. Could you unlock the door?” he asked, irked and sounding it.
She literally stomped her foot. “What do you mean ‘whatever’?” she snapped.
Quint looked annoyed. “Yo, why all the attitude?”
“Why all the judgment?” she shot back.
Quint bit his bottom lip and shook his head as he stared at her.
Kaitlyn brushed past him to unlock the door with her free hand and hold it open for him to carry in her bags. “Why are we arguing?” she asked as she flipped the switch to bask the living room with light before sitting the bags and food by the table under her oversized photo.
Quint set the bags on the sofa. “Look, I apologize, okay? It’s none of my business and I’m out of it,” he said, coming over to press a kiss to her temple before picking up the plate.
Kaitlyn held up her hands. “Okay, I don’t get it. That’s all.”
Quint looked down at her. “I know,” he said with the utmost seriousness.
And that’s what concerned him.
He said nothing, and he had hoped for the best, but he had not missed little things that proved Kaitlyn was reverting back to some of her old ways, and her family was once again enabling it. He had not missed that last month the check to pay her rent had been drawn off her father’s business checking account, not her own. She was beginning to miss a random day here and there of work. Last week she was looking through catalogs for new cars.
Quint noticed it all and said nothing, but he thought a lot about it because the woman he fell in love with was the funny, confident woman who faced adversity and overcame her shortcomings to kick ass and take names to be a better person.
It frustrated him that the same family that had done a great thing in making her take responsibility for herself couldn’t see that they were slowly undoing their work.
He could see it, even if they couldn’t, and it frustrated the hell out of him.
Kaitlyn stirred in her sleep and rolled over to find her bed empty. She lifted her head off the bed and looked around. Quint’s spot was cool, so she knew he had been gone from her bed for a while.
Flinging back the covers, she climbed from the bed in her footed pajamas to leave the bedroom in the darkness.
Maybe he’s watching TV, she thought.
But the living room was empty as well.
Kaitlyn turned and walked across the short length of the apartment. In the kitchen she opened the back door; and through the slats of the wrought-iron railing, she could see the light on in his shed. She made her way down the stairs and over to the workshop. Without knocking she eased the door open.
Still dressed in his pajama bottoms and a wife beater, Quint looked over his broad shoulder at her before turning back to the piece he was working on.
Kaitlyn frowned at the coolness she felt from him. His dismissal was colder than the January air whipping around her. She stepped inside the shed and closed the door behind her, glad for the space heater he had running.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“You shoulda woke me up,” she said, reaching up to touch his arm and lightly squeeze his bicep. “I woulda put you to sleep.”
Quint shifted to the other side of the crib . . . and away from her touch. “I really want to concentrate on this,” he said.
Kaitlyn stiffened her back; she felt completely dismissed.
“Cool,” she managed to say; then she turned to leave the shed, even as the hurt of his distant treatment literally caused a pang in her chest.
Once back in her apartment, she removed the footed pajamas and balled them up to toss in her dirty clothes hamper before climbing into her bed, naked. She lay there for a long time with her hand stretched out to palm the spot where Quint usually lay.
In the moments just before her eyes finally closed, as she drifted off to sleep, she knew he was not returning to her bed that night.
The next morning proved her right, and Kaitlyn thought about that as she sat at her desk, gazing out the window at downtown Charleston. She saw nothing of the views, though, because her thoughts were on Quinton. After they had words about her shopping spree—something she still didn’t understand—they had eaten the food she brought from her mother and then lounged together as they watched TV. He even spent the night at her apartment, but they hadn’t truly spoken to one another. That night they hadn’t made love or even touched one another in their sleep.
“Kaitlyn, did the manager of the Charlotte store e-mail you her choices for the fashion show?”
She looked up at her boss standing behind her. The tall and handsome blond man was twisting his diamond band around his finger. She knew that meant he was annoyed. Pulling up to her desk, she accessed her company e-mail.
“No, not yet,” she answered. “Do you want me to call and request it before close of business today?”
He winked at her and smiled; his veneers were as bright as egg whites and a little too large for his mouth. “Thank you,” he sang in a falsetto before turning and heading back into his office.
Kaitlyn quickly made the call, but her thoughts never strayed from Quint. She just didn’t understand how he could be so annoyed by something her parents had done for her. She hated to think he was intimidated by her parents’ wealth, because there was nothing she could do about that.
Usually, throughout the day, if he wasn’t too busy, he would call her. Today she received no calls, and she refrained from calling him because of his cool treatment of her from the night before. Another first.
When Kaitlyn headed home for the night, she was intent on sitting Quint down to talk. She hated feeling disconnected from him, but she didn’t appreciate feeling judged either.
Or put aside. Forgotten. Dismissed.
As she pulled her car into the complex, Kaitlyn spotted Quint talking to contractors outside Mrs. Hanson’s old apartment. Her neighbor had understandably found it hard to live in the same complex as the woman who had been sleeping with her husband, so she had moved out last month. With his lover being married—and not looking for a new roommate, word on the street was Mr. Hanson was back home with his mother. Quint was busy getting the unit ready for a new tenant.
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