The Billionaire’s Over 40 Love

“Guess it’s just us now,” Cal said as Faydra approached.

“That’s right and you two have my undivided attention.” Faydra and Cal continued to lap around the store behind Ruby who seemed to be taking charge. Every once in a while, she’d stop and start tugging on something and Faydra would sort through to find the right size and hand it over to Cal to carry.

“You’ve got a vast selection in here. We’ll have to come back.”

*****

Faydra smiled and nodded. “Absolutely, we get new stock weekly and we totally clear everything out for our seasonal items quarterly so keep us in mind for the upcoming holidays. Maybe a little elf costume? Reindeer?”

Cal chuckled, “She’d be a cute reindeer. She’s—” he was interrupted by a squeal at the nearest display rack. Ruby pulled off the brightest red dress Cal had ever seen and upon Faydra grabbing the right size, she ran directly to the back of the room.

“I’ll do it!” Ruby said as she ran into the dressing room and shut the door behind her. The doors had adult height security latches, for this reason, meaning Ruby was not locked in the little room but nevertheless felt independent.

“Alright, well we’ll be right out here if you need anything!” Faydra said towards the door. She moved to sit in the matching leather chair next to the one Cal had sat back in. With both of them keeping a trained eye on the tiny feet below the door, the two chatted casually. “So, are you new in town? Or just never come this way?”

“Well, to be honest, I’m usually not looking. I’m currently scoping out some real estate for a business front for my company, so I’ve had more reasons to drive down this avenue as opposed to some of the ones closer to my place. And I don’t always have Ruby with me, so this was kind of a special occasion, but I’m glad we ended up here.” Something in his eyes suggested that he was glad to be here for a different reason than he should be, but Faydra wasn’t sure.

She couldn’t tell if he was flirting with her or not, and if he was she surely couldn’t tell if he was married or in some type of relationship with the child’s mother. Faydra also began to realize how absurd it was to be decoding the man’s life right in front of him. There wasn’t a ring on his finger. A more aggressive single forty-one-year-old woman in Atlanta might bring up the fact he had no ring and spark up the conversation from there, but that wasn’t Faydra.

Faydra was mild-tempered for the most part and hardly felt her age. Most times she’d get asked for her age she’d struggle to remember, having to start the math backwards from the year she was born. And each time the same result, forty-one. She wasn’t ashamed of that number by any means, in fact, she took immense pride in what she had accomplished in the last twenty years. Unfortunately for the single men in Atlanta, Faydra’s progress hadn’t sparked the confidence she needed to make a move—including towards the fit business owner, with no wedding ring, that stood in front of her.

She settled on the idea that he was dating a single mother, and they weren’t married yet. She was about to move on and back to the subject at hand when a red poof stumbled out of the room in front of her. “Oh, look at that!” she said. Cal began to clap.

“I like that! What’s next?” Faydra stood up and carried over the blue shirt and matching striped leggings for the girl to try.

“Need my help?”

“No! I’ll get it,” Ruby said before retreating behind the door.

“So how long have you been here in Atlanta?” Cal asked her, resuming the small talk.

“Oh, I’ve lived here my whole life. Out in the edge of town while I was growing up and went to college downtown and started working here a few years after that when it was just a few tables at a mall shop.”

“Oh, wow really?” Cal said. He seemed genuinely interested.

“Yea, Candace—the owner, you’ll meet her I’m sure—she started the boutique in the early nineties I guess. Back then it was just baby clothes, but then when the city started bringing in so much wealth and celebrities she started forking over a lot of money to advertise to that crowd: Luxury children’s apparel, she calls it.”

“Well, the name is fitting for sure. This is some great stuff. I don’t consider myself an expert in women’s apparel, but Ruby seems to love it. The real test will be if it lasts through cosmic brownies, soda and hide and go seek. Does your store guarantee those?” he asked with an obvious sarcastic smile on his face.

“Hmm, well I’ll have to check but I don’t believe so—Wait, did that suit come with those same guarantees?”

“Would I have bought it otherwise?” the two laughed together as Ruby retreated again, this time in her blue and green get up. “Oh, yea Rubes, you look awesome! What do you think?”

“I love it! I want to wear it to school tomorrow!” She sounded as if she was yelling every time she spoke because she seemed so excited about everything. Faydra helped the girl back into the stall with the next dress in her hands, once again having the dressing room door shut in her face.

“So, you said you were looking for a storefront for your business?” Faydra remembered and asked, “What do you do exactly?”

“I run a small media company, Queens Media Group, and currently we’ve been working out of this warehouse facility but it’s not really customer friendly. Apparently, ladies wearing stilettos don’t like to step over piles of wires when they’re looking for someone to do their advertising. But we do a lot of different work over there: advertising, tech management, networking, a few of my guys are big on building the next big thing in computers and tech. My goal is to turn the warehouse into our playground and let everyone have the space they need to work and get it as messy as they need it to be. And I’ll have a few salespeople running the storefront, interacting with customers and so on.”

“Wow, it sounds like you really have this all planned out.”

“Yeah, this has been a dream of mine for a while.” Faydra couldn’t help but notice how his green eyes sparkled when he talked about what he was obviously passionate about. “When I was able to afford the warehouse, I thought I had made it big. We had a space to do it all. But we’ve been lucky enough to have some loyal customers and quality work come out of the last few years, so it looks like we’ve got the room and the funds to make an expansion. There’s a small commercial space down a couple blocks from here, very similar layout to this place, that I’ve had my eye on. So who knows, you might be seeing a lot of me in the next few weeks.”