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back was going to end with a kiss, like a couple teenagers walking back to the girl's front door after a first date.
    Sadly, there was no kiss forthcoming from Carter when we arrived back at the front door to the Halesford gallery, although he was gallant enough to carry my shoes for me (I tried them at the restaurant, but my ankle immediately told me to leave them off).
    "I'm sure I'll be crossing paths with you plenty more in the future, Becca," Carter said, giving me one last smile that melted my heart and sent sparks leaping up inside of me. The man would start a brush fire if he kept on smiling like that!
    "Bye," I echoed softly, standing beside the door and watching for a minute as he walked away. Good lord, even through those dress pants, the man's ass looked amazing, sexy enough to make my fingers itch to reach out and grab it!
    No! Bad Becca! Stay away from men, I reminded myself as I unlocked the front door and headed back into the art gallery to wait for a customer to show their face. You've sworn them off.
    Still, I wondered how long I had to keep away from the male half of our species. I'd made it six months past the date of our divorce. Surely, that was enough time to be single, and now I could start thinking about dating again?

Chapter Six
    *
    "Only six months?? That's definitely not enough time to be single before trying to jump back into the dating pool again!"
    I sighed as I looked across the high little table at my best friend, watching her shake her head firmly. "Oh, come on, Portia! Six months is plenty. I think I should get back into the dating game, even if it's just to dip a toe in. Won't it help me forget about Barry?"
    Despite my wheedling, however, my best friend remained firm, her big dark eyes examining me closely. "A drunken one night stand where you don't even know the guy's name might help, but definitely not another relationship. Trust me on this, Becks. What's gotten into you?"
    I sighed. "Nothing," I said, reaching for my glass of cheery pink-colored wine sitting in front of me. "Don't worry about it."
    Across the little table from me in Vini, the wine bar that had become our de facto hangout spot after Portia got off of work, Portia kept her eyes narrowed at me. "Okay, something's definitely up, but I know that you're not going to tell me about it," she said.
    "Portia, there's really nothing-"
    "Why don't you tell me about your day," she interrupting, cutting off my denials. "This was your first day of running the art gallery, wasn't it? Was it exciting? Did you sell any pieces?"
    "Exciting is definitely not the word that I'd choose to use," I said, shaking my head. "In fact, I think I'm going to need to take up reading during my down time there. Maybe I'll start with War and Peace."
    "That boring?" Portia raised her eyebrows as she raised her glass of dark plum colored wine to her lips.
    "I don't know how you can drink that stuff," I said, nodding towards her choice. At Vini, the wine bar in town, fancy machines automatically dispensed wine by the glass. The bar offered a selection of more than twenty different bottles to taste, spanning across a wide range of different varieties. This worked out well for both of us, since I tended to go for sweeter, lighter whites, and Portia instead picked out the dark and strong reds.
    "It's got a lot of complex flavor," she answered, setting the glass back down and swirling it between two long, slender, elegant fingers. "It's not just a single note of sweetness, like the wines that you choose."
    I stuck out my tongue at her to show her that her slights didn't bother me. I knew what I liked. And surprisingly, despite her snobbiness and the air of almost superior taste that she often wore around her shoulders like a cloak, I liked Portia.
    We'd known each other since we were kids, back when the appropriate way to show that you liked a boy was to throw sand at him, and then run away screaming whenever he tried to talk to you. Even back then, however,