Classes started at State U right after Labor Day. Amber was taking three tough courses that required tons of research and study, plus working on the weekends. I was working long hours, six days a week, trying to take care of my rapidly growing business and my Weaver-Wilson contract. As a result of our full schedules, Amber and I were only able to get together sporadically. Still, dating Amber was good for me and when we did manage to get together, we had fun. With all I had going on, Lindsey's memory spent less time in the front of my mind.
Even though I had Amber in my life, I didn't make the mistake of neglecting my friends and family as I had when I was with Lindsey. For instance, I still found time to have dinner with the Morrisons at least once a week.
Life was going great for Mitzi and her family. Todd had moved out of the basement, and was sharing an apartment with his girlfriend. Dallas had opted for the complete college experience, and was living the dorm life. Dallas, while very intelligent, didn't have that math geek thing like Dakota. Mitzi and Gil were falling in love and I couldn't have been happier for them.
Dakota was thriving at State, her intellect finally being challenged by the heavy math and engineering workload she was carrying. She was also geeking it up in the robotics club. Dakota was my best bud, but she never became like a little sister to me. I actually spent more time with Dakota than I did with Amber, because Amber worked on the weekends, while Dakota had them free.
On the third Saturday night in September, I paid up on the bet I lost to Dakota and escorted her to the ballet. I even visited the Men's Warehouse and let one of George Zimmer's wardrobe consultants hook me up with a new dark charcoal suit for the occasion.
I was pretty speechless when Dakota opened the door for me, wearing a little black dress and high heeled pumps. She had managed to tame her wild hair into a sophisticated do, and artfully applied make up made her look as if she were five years older. Dakota was pleased when I told her how beautiful she looked. She told me that I cleaned up well also. I was proud to have her on my arm as we strolled into the civic center.
Dakota enjoyed the ballet immensely, while I sat through it, pretending it wasn't boring me into oblivion. I admired the athleticism of the dancers, but all the rest was lost on me, 'pearls before swine', I guess.
During intermission, we joined the milling throng in the lobby. We were leaning against the wall, people-watching and sipping ten dollar glasses of mediocre white wine, when Blakemore and Lindsey strolled by us, arm in arm. They stopped not fifteen feet in front of us to kibitz with a cluster of well-dressed couples. Dakota saw them then and cut her eyes towards me.
"You okay?" she asked.
Surprisingly I was. Yeah, my heart felt a yearning tug towards my ex-wife, but I was surprised that there was some anger towards her to go with the sadness of seeing her there with him. It was the first time that seeing her provoked that reaction.
"I'm here with you DJ, so I'm better than okay," I replied.
I guess that was the right thing to say, because Dakota smiled and gave me a peck on the lips.
"Good answer, Fuller," she said.
After trying not to squirm through the last two acts, the ballet mercifully ended, and we went to Mario's for a late dinner. I walked her to her door at eleven-thirty. She slipped her key in the deadbolt and turned to me.
"Come in with me please, mom is spending the night with Gil tonight, and I'm home alone."
I nodded and followed her inside. She stood in the foyer while I checked the house to make sure no one had broken in, then walked to the foyer and joined her.
"Everything is as it should be, DJ," I said and started out the door.
She put her hand on my arm and stopped me.
"Stay with me for a little while Josh, I hate being by myself."
"Whatever you want, DJ, it's your night."
"Goody," she said with a smile. "Come up stairs with me so I can ditch these shoes, my feet are killing me. Then I'll put on some coffee and we can hang out."
Dakota had her own bedroom and it reflected her personality. She had a bookcase overflowing with serious looking tomes on math and science, and a state of the art computer. She had a poster of the periodic tables on the wall above her desk and one of Johnny Depp over her bed. One wall was almost completely covered with a chalkboard, on which esoteric math equations were scribbled.
I was staring at the chalkboard, trying to make sense of the equation, when I heard her open a drawer. I turned around to see what she was doing and almost swallowed my tongue. She was standing there with her back to me, wearing nothing but a black thong. Both of her hands were on top of her head as she unpinned her hair. She turned around when she heard my surprised gasp, and my eyeballs yo-yoed down to her firm full breasts.
"What?" she asked nonchalantly.
"Put something on," I squeaked.
"That's what I'm doing," she complained, "just give me a second, I need to put my hair in a scrunchie."
I gulp, nodded and turned back towards the chalkboard. She padded over to me, took me by the arm and turned me to face her again.
"I'm not body shy, Josh, and I told you that when you stopped acting like an idiot, you could look at me naked all you wanted. Well, you weren't an idiot tonight, so I'm keeping my word."
After she'd had her say, she spun around and walked back to her dresser. She stood there for a minute so I could look at her firm, smooth derriere, then she shimmied into a t-shirt and stepped into a pair of fleece shorts. When she turned back around, I finally blinked and noticed the shirt.
"Hey, that's my shirt," I groused.
She grinned and said, "Not anymore, it's my favorite sleep shirt now."
Dakota acted normally when we went down to the kitchen, so I took her word about her undressing in front of me. She was my best bud, after all, and if she felt it natural to disrobe in front of me, I could live with it.
Dakota made us a cup of hot chocolate instead of coffee, and we sipped cocoa at the kitchen table while she waxed poetic about the ballet. I stayed another hour until she yawned tiredly, then I headed home. She gave me another brief kiss on the lips at the door.
As I drove home, I couldn't help but compare Dakota's body to Amber's. Dakota lacked Amber's sculpted beauty, but she was still really well built. In a word, my bud was a hottie. It bothered me a little that some college stud might soon discover that.
I flew up to North Carolina with Hawk the following week to look at his property. We met on the site with his builder the following morning. Hawk was right about it being a beautiful location for a house. We trudged around near the top of the hill for half an hour, before I found the perfect spot for the log home plan Hawk's architect had drawn. I sketched out what needed to be done to prep the site, then led the way down hill to the road.
As I walked, I spray painted a route for a looping driveway that gently curved through the trees. The driveway was the first order of business, then power had to be run up to the site and a deep well drilled. The crew that bulldozed the drive would cut into the hillside and dig the basement garage. The builder promised that his concrete crew would have the foundation poured by Halloween, so I told Hawk I'd come back during the first week of November.
September disappeared and before you knew it, October fifteenth and Shelby Jane's wedding was on us. Amber managed to wrangle the day off from the Kit-Kat Klub, and was my date for the event. Although my friends and family knew about Amber, this would be the first time any of them actually met her. I looked pretty spiffy in my tux when we pulled up to the botanical gardens, and Amber was a knock out in a white summer dress and strappy wedge sandals.
The wedding went off without a hitch, and my baby sister was such a beautiful and vivacious bride, it brought tears to my eyes. The high point of the wedding was indeed the releasing of the butterflies after their vows. I figure it danged well ought to be, considering dad paid five grand for the critters. Supposedly the butterflies were types that would stay around the garden and help naturally pollinate the flowers.
Amber charmed the heck out of everyone. My parents were especially impressed, because she was so opposite of Lindsey. Where Lindsey would have stoically endured being at the reception, Amber enthusiastically joined the fun. Just being with Amber made the reception fun for me too. The only thing that could have possibly made the event better was if my buddy DJ had been there. She couldn't make the wedding, because she was in Atlanta with her robotics club at some competition. I guess she was having fun though, what with ten colleges worth of geeks with whom to socialize.
After the wedding, life bounced along for me. Some days were good for me and some were bad, but gradually I was having more of the good ones. On the first of November, I had to hire a third superintendent, because we had more than thirty houses in the ground, and I had to add a bookkeeper to the office staff. I would also need a draftsman before long if the engineering business kept growing. While construction in general was flat, the market for the high-end semi-custom homes we specialized in was doing well. Word of mouth provided me my engineering clients. Nothing generated business leads better than satisfied customers.
When the stationary store next door went out of business, we jumped on their lease. We had a door cut between the two spaces and I located the builders over there along with the computer racks, printers and plotters. We were able to expand, because we weren't strapped for cash.
We did not have to wait until a house was completed to get paid. Instead, I had us on a 'draw' system, where we receive a percentage payment as certain construction milestones were reached. For instance, we drew ten percent of what we bid when the plans cleared the building department, fifteen percent when the slab was poured, twenty percent when the roof was complete and so on. Mitzi stayed right on top of making sure we collected our draws.
Although we promised a house to our client in one hundred and forty days, my houses were actually on a one hundred day schedule. I made up a spread sheet template that listed, by week, critical tasks we needed to complete in order to have the house ready in fourteen weeks.
My field superintendents (builders) scheduled out each house then lined up material delivery and trades to meet that schedule. If a builder hit the dates set for completing a step that earned a draw on time, he received a twenty-five dollar bonus. If he had a certificate of occupancy for the house in one hundred days or less he received a two hundred dollar bonus. A builder started each house with a potential to earn four hundred dollars in bonuses on it.
My guys were sharp and seldom missed a target so they were pulling in a couple of grand a month in bonuses. On a good month they made more than I did. That was okay though because our ability to turn out a high quality, zero defect house in one hundred days had the developers standing in line to hire us.
Because the building industry in general was in a slump, we had our choice of subcontractors and vendors. I was able to hire the best subs and buy high quality materials at very reasonable prices, so even though we kept our prices down, our profit margin actually increased.
Amber and I were getting along well and all my friends and family were for the most part happy and healthy. That left me with only one thing that caused me heartburn. Yes, it was Lindsey. My mind was still often on my ex-wife, but the sorrow from losing her had been almost entirely replaced by the anger I felt over what she did. I was also embarrassed for the fool I was for loving her so blindly, and disgusted at myself for letting her steal five years out of my life. For the first time, my thoughts of getting some retribution included Blakemore and her.
My revenge plotting against Blakemore was being frustrated by three things. One was the fact that it would be hard for me to get away with perpetrating some well-deserved whip-ass on Billy-boy. Hell, if Blakemore stubbed his toe right now, the cops would be at my door because of my messy divorce from his paramour. I badly wanted to kick his ass, but I wanted my freedom even more.
The second thing was that his connections and money insulated him from me catching him at something illegal, and he was smart enough that I knew he probably always covered his ass. Just seeing how he avoided any overt hanky-panky with Lindsey proved that.
The third impediment was my own values and ethics. Unfortunately, those prevented me from doing what was probably the only thing that might work: setting him up somehow. I'd give up most anything to bring Blakemore low, but I would not give up my integrity. About the only thing I had going for me was time, because I knew sooner or later, Blakemore would make a slip, and I'd be there to make sure he crashed and burned.
One thing I did do though was wrangle an invitation to any event I thought Lindsey and her new fiancé might be attending. That was easier now, thanks to almost two years of building houses for people with money and influence. I'd built houses for business owners, doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs, so chances are someone I knew had an in at whatever deal I wanted to attend. It was probably petty of me, but I did all that just so Lindsey could see I wasn't still sitting at home pining for her.
More often than not, Dakota was my cover date to those soirées. Dakota actually enjoyed going to these things and meeting people. My bud was a complicated little woman, in that she seemed to be two people. One of them was the seriously intelligent engineering student who cared more about solving a math equation than her appearance. When Dakota was that woman, she spoke the lingo of her peers and acted as nerdy as them. The other Dakota was sophisticated, cultured, and could hold her own in a conversation, regardless the topic.
Amber, with her network of friends at Crossman, Fielding and Blakemore, kept me abreast of what was going on in the company. That's how I knew Lindsey and Blakemore were engaged before they made the announcement public, and that's how I found out Lindsey went to court and took her maiden name back. She was now Lindsey Clark, Attorney at Law ... and amoral, heartless bitch.
When classes ended for Amber in the middle of December, so did her romance with me. The split was not the result of some big blow-up between us, nor was it one-sided. We'd talked about it almost from the start. Amber and I were compatible in a lot of ways, but we just weren't in love with each other; there was no chemistry and no spark. I mean I'd always have a warm spot for her, because she set me back on my feet after Lindsey, and she felt the same way about me, because I showed her there were nice guys out there in some unusual places.
We ended it when we did, because at the end of the year, Amber was giving up her dancing career. Then she would have the time and clear conscience she needed to find one of those nice guys and fall in love. You know what? I was her most ardent well-wisher in that regard.
Amber and I mutually called it quits so both of us could get on with our lives. I was fine with that, but I was none too thrilled that it left a gaping hole in my sex life just as I was starting to enjoy having one again. Thankfully, that was a situation that didn't last a week. My relief came in an unexpected way when I wasn't even looking for it.
Three days after Amber and I stopped dating, I was at Mister Poon's, grazing at the lunch buffet with Mitzi, when Lee Poon sat down with us. Somewhere during our conversation, he asked about Amber, and I told him we were just friends now and no longer dating. Poon was glad we were still friends.
"You need keep friend like Amber, Josh-u-ah," he said. "She eat like sparrow and help Poon make some money back for all you eat."
Mitzi and I hadn't been back to work for fifteen minutes, when Poon called me on my cell.
"Josh-u-ah, come back see Poon, need favor," he said.
I finished what I was doing and drove back to his restaurant. He greeted me profusely at the door and took me back to the gazebo. Lee's wife Ling was sitting back there, along with Iris and Rose. Ling looked serious, but the twins seemed excited. Poon sat down next to his wife and gesture towards his daughters.
"Girls tell you."
I nodded and looked at the girls expectantly.
"Our cousin Joi, the oldest daughter of Mom's sister, is visiting us for a while," Rose said. "She is twenty-three. She would like to experience some American culture, but my parents wouldn't let her, because they could not find a suitable escort they trusted. That changed when you told dad about breaking up with Amber. My parents would be greatly honored and eternally grateful if you would take her out a few times and show her some fun things."
"That's no problem, Iris, I'd be happy to show your cousin around. Are you two going with us to translate?"
Rose giggled and answered, "She speaks English, Joshie, and we'd just be in the way."
The looks the twins exchanged and their excited giggling should have been a warning, but old dopey me showed up nicely dressed on the Poons' porch the very next evening, totally unawares. I figured cousin Joi would be a shy and demurely quiet young woman from a rural province. The date was strictly platonic, so my plan was dinner at this little Italian place over by the ocean, then a stroll over to Beach Street for some souvenir shopping. I'd have her home by ten, no problem.
It was a big problem, because, except for dinner, not a single thing I just said happened. Cousin Joi turned out to be five foot-ten, and fashion model slender. She was from Hong Kong and spoke excellent English with a sexy British accent. The only concession Joi made to being Chinese, as far as I could tell, was the slinky Jade green Mandarin dress she wore and the two gold trimmed black lacquered chopsticks that held her ton of hair on top of her head. Because the weather was unseasonably warm and balmy, she carried, instead of wore, a long coat that matched her dress.
Rose and Iris were cracking up as I stood there staring at the beautiful young woman, still holding her hand after we were introduced. Since Lee and Ling were at the restaurant for the evening crowd, the twins gave me the rules.
"Have fun, you two, and don't do anything I wouldn't," said Rose.
"Stay out as late as you want, call us first and we'll sneak you in," added Iris.
Joi kissed the twins on the cheek and they did the same to me. Then Joi looped her arm through mine.
"Shall we?" she asked in that sexy accent.
"You betcha," I answered in my best Bogart imitation.
Cousin Joi turned out not to be shy, demure or quiet. We talked all through our Chicken Parmigiana, and that was fine with me, because Joi was intelligent and witty. She was also an accomplished flirt, and what normal guy doesn't like having a beautiful and sexy woman flattering the hell out of him? I told Joi about what I planned next, as we waited for our check.
She bobbed her head and said, "That sounds lovely, Joshua. But first I'd like to see where you live. The twins told me you have an apartment with a veranda over the ocean."
As a matter of fact, I did. I'd moved out of my parents' basement in October, and rented a fully furnished two bedroom, fifth floor, ocean-view condo from Gil Weaver's partner, John Martin. The condo was older and on the small side, but it had a big balcony facing the ocean, and it was a bargain at twelve hundred dollars a month. I signed a six month lease, but John said I could stay as long as I wanted.
Once at the condo, I pushed open the slider and let Joi out onto the balcony. I uncorked a bottle of good Rhine wine, poured two glasses and joined her. The green in her dress shimmered in the moon light with an ethereal glow. The gentle ocean breeze teased wisps of her inky tresses from her upswept do.
"That dress in this light is amazing," I remarked, "but I'm afraid the wind is messing up your elaborate hairdo."
Joi laughed, reached up with both hands and pulled out the lacquered sticks. Then she tossed her head front to back and her black mane cascaded down her back, almost to her waist.
"The hair is easy to fix, Joshua; it only takes me a minute to put it up like that. As for the dress, real silk shimmers."
I nodded and she put her hand up and touched the collar of the dress.
"This style of dress is called a cheongsam in China, and is a fairly recent invention from the early twentieth century. It is very flattering, but also quite utilitarian."
She reached behind her with her right arm and tugged then grabbed the dress' high collar and pulled it forward. As if by magic, the dress fell away from her torso, slid down her slender hips, and pooled around her feet.
She daintily stepped out of the dress, picked it up and tossed it through the slider onto the couch.
"See, easy on, easy off."
I didn't say anything, because I was totally dumbfounded. There was absolutely nothing under her dress, no underwear, no hair, no blemishes, nothing but flawless olive skin. She smiled at my plight, stepped forward and planted her lips on mine. Joi might have only been twenty-three, but she seduced me so skillfully and completely, that she had us naked in my bed in fewer than ten minutes after we walked into the condo.
I was flat on my back, naked as the day I was born, with her just as naked looming over me, when my brain activated and I tried to stop things.
"Joi, you are beautiful and sexy, but I promised Lee and Ling..."
That was as far as she let me go before she put her fingers to my lips.
"You promised them you'd show me a good time. So get busy, I'll handle Auntie and Uncle."
I drove Joi home at midnight. I had to drink two bottles of Gatorade before I could even attempt walking down the stairs. She held my hand as we walked to Lee's door and smiled serenely. Amazingly, she looked just as fresh and put together as when I picked her up five hours earlier.
She kissed me passionately at Lee's front door, then pulled her head back and gave me that sexy smile.
"I had a wonderful evening Joshua. If you promise to pick me up early Saturday morning, I'll let you rest tomorrow."
Without consulting my schedule or checking my workload, I nodded and asked, "How early is too early?"
Listen, I'll be the first to admit that I'm no Romeo. What with training, Afghanistan, my commitment to my education and my six years with Lindsey, I'd only been with five or six women in my life. Still, my male ego wanted to think I was a more than adequate lover. After all, I was attentive to my partner's needs, endowed better than average, I had stamina and I had self-control. Yet Joi taught me more about making love in three hours, than I'd learned in ten years. No way was I not going to see her again.
I was sitting at my desk Friday morning recuperating from my wild night with Joi, when the chain of events that led me to extracting my revenge on Blakemore began. It started innocently enough with my cell phone ringing. I flipped it open without checking the caller ID, and identified myself.
"Fuller Engineering, this is Josh."
The caller replied.
"Hi Josh, it's Amber, and I need a big, big favor..."