Roxy believed that, too. She wondered just how far back Bentley’s sales pirating had started. Was it something she could prove? If so, she could potentially present it to the state licensing board.
But would they actually do anything about it? The procurement of a client who was working with an agent but wasn’t contracted to that agent was a gray ethical area. In fact, the Code of Ethics actually promoted a healthy competitive spirit in the realm of identifying and signing new clients. Maybe that was how the licensing board would see Bentley’s actions.
And maybe that was how he had gotten away with it for so long.
She blew out a sigh and closed the lid on her laptop. She wouldn’t get any work done with her focus so scattered. She didn’t anticipate getting much sleep either. Her merciless brain kept flashing Bentley’s image at her.
“Bastard,” she muttered.
She needed a distraction. Grabbing her phone, she pulled up Callan’s name in her text list and clicked in the bar to start typing. Before she sent the text, she glanced at the time. It was after eleven.
Too late? she asked herself.
Callan had been getting up early to hit the gym nearly every day. During a dinner they had shared together after a day of viewing houses, he mentioned his goals for the upcoming season and the steps he was taking to achieve them.
He had also told her about his grandfather, G-Man, explaining that these changes to his approach to his career were in honor of him. She deeply respected that.
Which meant bothering him at close to midnight wasn’t really the most thoughtful thing to do.
Sighing, she started deleting what she had typed. As she did, she saw three dots pop up in a bubble beneath his last text.
A smile lifted the corners of her mouth.
You ever gonna send that text or what? he sent her.
She realized he must have been looking at their chat history and saw the three dots as she typed. Carrying her phone to her bed, she flopped down on top of the mattress and clicked on his name to pull up the option to call him. He answered on the first ring.
“Ooo, a phone call from Roxy Wagner,” he said. “I get to end my day on a high note.”
Her smile spread. As always, the sound of his voice gave her heartbeat a swift kick. His sweet words added a nice layer of warmth to the mix. Even though she was aware flirting came as naturally to him as it did her, it always felt as though he was being genuine with her when he said things like that.
It made her feel special. And after Bentley had made her feel anything but, it was more than welcome.
“I needed a distraction,” she said.
“Ouch.”
She laughed. “Fine. I wanted to hear your voice, okay?”
“Much better. What am I distracting you from?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. That’s the point of a distraction.”
“Oh, right. Well, gosh, whatever can we do to distract you?”
Her body hummed over the innuendo, but she wasn’t really feeling it right then. “I need to be in a better headspace for that,” she said.
“That bad, huh?”
She pictured Bentley calling her “sweetheart” followed swiftly by “bottom feeder” and clenched her jaw. “Yeah.”
He paused before saying, “You know, I can be there in twenty minutes. Fifteen if I funnel my inner Roxy.”
That prompted more warmth in her chest and another laugh. “Thanks, but that would lead to breaking my no-sex pact and I’m not ready to do that.”
“Haven’t we already broken that pact a couple times this week?”
“That was phone sex, which is basically self-love. If I was counting self-love, I’ve broken my pact more like four times this week.”
“Oh. My. God. You’re killing me over here.”
Her cheeks tingled from smiling, telling her they were on the right track. “I need to get my mind off negative crap. Talk about something that will make me smile.”
“I can be there in thirteen minutes.”
She snorted in amusement. “Why don’t you tell me your favorite childhood memory?”
“Oh, all right,” he said on a dramatic sigh that she knew was for effect. “My favorite childhood memory, huh? I’d say it was probably the summer G-Man took me fishing in Houghs Neck. He chartered a boat for just the two of us. I was about ten.”
“Did you catch a big fish?”
“Hell, no. I was sick half the time and never got the hang of angling. But it was the first time I remember doing something besides practicing hockey over the summer.”
Her heart gave a little squeeze over that. Based on many of the things he’d told her, she’d deduced that he’d had a rather strict and regimented childhood. But her pity was the last thing he wanted.
“It sounds like your grandfather knew what you needed and made sure you got it, just like a grandparent should,” she said. “Daj is the same way.”
When he opened up to her about his grandfather, she had felt it only right to share a little about her family, too, revealing how close she was with her grandmother. It was a commonality between them…one of several she’d recently discovered in their time together.
“G-Man was an amazing grandfather, but Daj is next level,” Callan argued. “The woman showed you how to roll on a condom, for God’s sake.”
“Well, I told her I was going to go all the way with Stevie Woodbury in the tenth grade and I skipped most of ninth grade health. What else was she going to do?”
He made a grunting sound that she supposed was agreement.
“Do you have any good memories that do involve hockey?” she asked.
“Sure. And now you’re going to ask me my favorite, right?”
“That’s the theme here.”
“I figured. That’s a tough one.” He paused for a minute, then said, “I’ve got it. The summer I turned fifteen, G-Man arranged for the Stanley Cup to be brought to my birthday party.”
“Holy shit.”
“No kidding. I lost my fucking mind. Ate my birthday cake right out of the Cup. One of my favorite photos is one of me and G-Man hoisting the Cup like it was our victory. My mother’s got it in an album somewhere.”
“That’s an amazing memory. I’ve got nothing to compete with it.”
“You don’t have to have a birthday with the Stanley Cup for it to be a good memory,” he pointed out. “What’s your favorite childhood memory?”
Despite her comment to him, she really did have some wonderful childhood experiences to draw from. She’d been blessed with parents who felt their family should be the center of their world.
“I’d say it was the camping trip my family took when I was six or seven,” she said. “We rented a cabin in the North Georgia Mountains for a long weekend. I just remember that it was such a peaceful time. We never even turned on the television. We just played games, went on hikes, sat around the campfire, explored the surrounding wilderness, and went shopping in all the cute local shops. I think that trip is what spurred my love of adventure.”
“That sounds nice.”
“It really was.” And reconnecting with that memory put her in the headspace she needed. “And now I’m ready for you to distract me the way you really want to.”