Seasoned

by Delaney Diamond

  “Depends on how you view it.”

  Tyson launched into an explanation about Jackie and the agreement he made with Kendrick.

  When finished, Yvonne asked, “Is Kendrick okay? Because maybe he’s pretending to be okay about Jackie, but he’s really not.”

  “He’s fine, trust me, but I’ll pay attention and make sure he’s not harboring ill feelings or hurt about her.”

  “I’ll check on him tomorrow anyway to be sure. Tell me something—is Jackie the woman you told me about years ago, the one you met at the bridal show here?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Oh, Ty, that’s wonderful! I mean, the whole thing with Kendrick is a little weird, but I always suspected you still carried a torch, even though you only spoke about her a few times. Don’t screw this up, please.”

  Tyson laughed and pulled away from the light. “I won’t. At least I hope not. I’ve got three dates to win her over, and I plan to work harder than I ever have to get her.”

  “Good luck. About Kendrick, you’re going to continue to give him the same allowance while he’s in New York?”

  “I’m going to increase his support by a couple hundred dollars.”

  Although Kendrick wouldn’t accept money from him, Tyson contributed to his lifestyle without his knowledge. Yvonne had agreed to pretend that she and Patrick were the ones who actually subsidized his living expenses.

  “You still don’t want me to tell him?” she asked with disapproval in her voice.

  “Not yet. Maybe later, but I want him to feel more comfortable with me first, and we’re not there yet.”

  “Okay, I won’t say anything.”

  “All right, I’ll catch up with you later and keep you up-to-date on the progress I make with Kendrick.”

  “Hang in there. And good luck.”

  “Thanks, sweetheart.”

  “I can handle Tyson,” Jackie insisted.

  She trailed behind Adelaide and Renee as they took the steps down to the beach at La Jolla Cove. Late in the afternoon, many of the families that had crowded the area earlier in the day were gone. During the descent, she spotted a little girl waving at—and dangerously close to—a couple of sea lions on the rocks before her mother rushed over and scooped her up.

  “Sure you can,” Renee said over her shoulder.

  Jackie ignored her friend, removed her sandals, and stepped carefully onto the sand.

  “How about here?” Adelaide pointed to a spot well back from the water.

  “Perfect,” Renee replied.

  They spread out Renee’s blanket and Adelaide placed the picnic basket she’d brought in the middle.

  Once they were all seated, Jackie popped the cork on the white wine she’d brought and poured them each a glass while Adelaide handed out the contents of the basket.

  “What do you have for us today?” Renee asked, reaching across Jackie to take one of the sandwiches wrapped in wax paper.

  “Grilled chicken sandwiches with smoked gouda, sliced avocados, and basil mayonnaise. There’s also individual fruit cups with nectarines, cubed watermelons, and my very own honey-lime dressing.”

  Jackie sniffed her sandwich and moaned. “You’re too good to us.”

  Adelaide, seated on the opposite side of the basket from Jackie, laughed and bit into her sandwich.

  Renee nudged Jackie with her right elbow. “Back to the topic we were discussing. When you came back from Atlanta, you were a mess. You talked about Tyson for months nonstop.”

  “Not nonstop,” Jackie said.

  “Nonstop. When you finally accepted he wouldn’t call, you buried yourself in work. Not long after that, you opened your second store, remember?”

  “That had nothing to do with him,” Jackie muttered unconvincingly.

  Adelaide pointed her wine glass at Jackie. “We weren’t friends back then, but even I know how dangerous this man is to your heart. The few times you’ve mentioned him, you made it very clear that you still carry a torch.”

  “A torch of anger, not a torch of lust.”

  “You don’t think you’ll be tempted to sleep with him?” Adelaide asked.

  Jackie shook her head vigorously. “No way. No how.”

  “The lady doth protest too much, methinks. That’s Shakespeare,” Renee said.

  “I know what the hell that is, Renee, but it doesn’t apply here,” Jackie said.

  A look passed between her friends.

  “You know what, we’re here to watch a sunset because that’s what Adelaide wanted to do, not talk about my inability to resist Tyson Small.”

  “Renee, behave yourself,” Adelaide said.

  “Me?” Renee said with an exaggerated gasp. “You’re just as bad.”

  “You’re both terrible,” Jackie said.

  “Okay, we’ll behave, but you promised to tell us what Kendrick said when he called,” Adelaide reminded her.

  “Oh, yeah. Well, that was a strange conversation. He called a couple of days after Tyson came by. We were supposed to go out this weekend, and I assumed he was calling to confirm our date.”

  “I can’t believe you were still going to date him,” Renee muttered.

  “I wasn’t sure I wanted to, to be honest. After my conversation with Tyson, I was feeling so…”

  “Confused?” Adelaide supplied.

  “Maybe,” Jackie said in a low voice, loath to admit that Tyson could upset the equilibrium of her life the way he obviously had.

  “Then what happened?” Renee asked.

  Curling her toes into the cool sand, Jackie continued. “He said he didn’t think it was a good idea for us to be seeing each other anymore. He’s leaving for New York soon, and he said he wasn’t comfortable dating someone his father had slept with.”

  Adelaide gasped. “So Tyson told him everything?”

  “Maybe not everything, but enough that he knows Tyson and I had been lovers.”

  Renee groaned. “Well, at least you don’t have to have the awkward conversation where you tell him yourself, but does he know his father is trying to get back together with you?”

  “I’m pretty sure he does,” Jackie replied.

  “Interesting. Which means he stepped aside so Tyson could make a move.” Adelaide sipped her wine, watching Jackie closely.

  “That’s what it sounds like, but Tyson’s only here for a short time, which means he’s looking for a fling.”

  “He said letting you go was a mistake. That’s not fling talk to me.”

  “You agreed to three dates and said earlier you can handle him, but…” Renee’s words trailed off with the arch of an eyebrow.

  “I’m going to have fun. That’s what I’m going to do. You’re with your handyman, and you”—she turned to Adelaide—“are back together with Hector. I don’t know where this is going, but I know what’s not going to happen. I’m not going to get my feelings tangled up in Tyson. This time, I’m in control. I have no expectations of a future with him so he can’t disappoint me again. Besides, you know my philosophy about relationships has kept me sane all these years. Rule number one…”

  “Never need a man,” Renee said.

  Jackie turned to Adelaide. “Rule number two…”

  “Always have your own.”

  “Exactly, ladies. The only thing I would really need a man for is to have a baby, and I don’t even need one for that.” She laughed.

  Adelaide’s face softened. “The adoption,” she said.

  Jackie nodded, a smile of pure joy breaking out on her face. The state was conducting a review of her background, to include criminal, medical, and employment history, among other factors. According to the caseworker, the assessment should be over soon. Once she was approved, she’d be able to pick a child, and the empty hole in her life would finally be filled.

  “Very soon I’m going to be a mother, and I won’t have time to worry about Tyson and whether or not he really cares about me. I’ll be too busy with my little girl.”

  She�
�d spent years concentrating on building a business and neglected having a family. She had four godchildren, ten nieces and nephews, thanks to her sister and two brothers, and three grand-nieces. Loving on them used to be enough, but over time she longed for more.

  Renee placed an arm around Jackie. “You’re going to be a great mom. I can already see your little girl now, buying snack packs at the grocery store and selling the individual bags of chips for a profit at school.”

  “I actually did that as a kid,” Jackie said with a sideways twist of her lips.

  The other two laughed.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Adelaide said.

  “We need to toast to motherhood.” Renee held up her glass.

  “To motherhood!” Adelaide and Jackie screamed, so loud a five-member family lounging nearby turned in their direction.

  Smiling and laughing, the three of them clinked their glasses together and hooted and hollered some more.

  Finally, they calmed down, sipping wine as the sun went down behind the horizon and splashed its red and orange rays across the blue sea.

  6

  Their first date was at his apartment. How convenient. The short-term rental offered a great view of the city from three wide windows that overlooked the water.

  He’d even put out a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, her favorite red, which she sipped as she watched him work in the kitchen. He wore a long-sleeved forest-green shirt and black trousers under a white apron with the words You know you want some embroidered in red on the front.

  And boy, did Jackie want some. Tyson was a triple threat. Good-looking, good-smelling, and on top of all of that, he cooked. But she’d already made up her mind that she would not sleep with him and would stick to her decision, no matter what Renee said.

  That didn’t mean she couldn’t look her best, though. She wore a paisley purple and green wrap dress and three-inch strappy heels. She’d gotten her teeny-weeny Afro colored red to hide the grays that had taken over a third of her hair, and for her biweekly mani-pedi at the spa, she’d had them paint her toenails and fingernails lavender.

  The rib eyes Tyson picked up from the butcher sizzled on the indoor grill when he turned them over with tongs, and their scent filtered into the living room where she stood.

  Jackie sauntered over to the bar, rested on her elbows, and watched him work. “Those smell heavenly.”

  “I’m not going to brag like a lot of men do and say this is my own special recipe, but you’re going to love them, believe me.” He turned away from the grill long enough to flash one of his megawatt smiles before going back to work.

  Jackie’s gaze made its way down his back to his firm behind. Lord, that man had a beautiful ass—so beautiful she was tempted to grab it.

  “You want to listen to some music?” Tyson asked.

  “That would be nice.”

  “Old or new?”

  “What do you think?”

  He chuckled and wiped his hand on a towel and picked up a remote from the counter and pressed a button. The lights in the room lowered. She looked at him but he only smiled and then pointed the remote at the system in the living room. “Never Too Much” by Luther Vandross came through the speakers.

  Jackie swayed to the music.

  “That’s his greatest hits album. The only artist I enjoy more is Charlie Wilson,” Tyson said.

  “I like him, too, but Luther does something to me. We’re going to have to listen to the whole album.”

  Tyson watched her dancing solo in his living room. “You have some great moves,” he said.

  “So I’ve been told.” Stop flirting. Stop flirting.

  His lips parted as he was about to speak, then he shook his head as if he’d changed tactics, and said, “I’ll get the salads together.”

  Jackie would’ve offered to help, except he’d already refused her first two offers. Clearly, he wanted to be responsible for making tonight special all on his own. He set a big salad in a wooden bowl on the table in the alcove off from the kitchen. Soon, twice-baked potatoes, the rib eyes, and the bottle of red wine joined the bowl.

  “Dinner is served,” Tyson said. He neatly folded the apron and placed it on the counter. Then he pulled out one of the chairs at the table.

  Jackie sat down with a flourish and glanced over her shoulder at him. “This all looks delicious. I feel rather special.”

  He bent to her ear. “You are rather special.”

  His breath brushed her skin and she froze, aware of the heat and warmth his body exuded. Only when Tyson was seated opposite her did she breathe easy.

  “Bon appétit,” he said.

  Jackie ate several bites of food before she looked across the table at him. “Delicious. How did you learn to cook like this?”

  “It was a matter of survival. After my wife and I split, I realized how spoiled I’d been. Growing up, I never learned to cook because that was the responsibility of the women in my family. Then I got married, and Yvonne took care of the house and the kids and made sure I had a hot meal waiting for me every day after I came home from work, even though she worked, too.”

  “She was a saint,” Jackie said, taking a sip of wine.

  “Yeah, she was. Married to a great guy now.”

  “You’re still friends?”

  “We are, but that’s because she and I admitted we’d made a mistake getting married because she’d been pregnant with our first daughter.”

  “An amicable divorce. That’s rare, but not surprising with a man like you. I swear you could sell ice in a snowstorm.”

  Tyson laughed out loud and dabbed his mouth with the napkin. “Thanks, I think.”

  “So you divorced the woman you married and then decided to play the field and never get married again?” Jackie asked.

  “Not as bad as all that. Before Yvonne and I divorced, we had an unspoken… understanding.”

  Jackie lifted her eyebrows in a silent request for him to expound.

  “We were married but seeing other people,” he explained.

  “Oh.”

  “Unconventional, but like I said, we recognized we didn’t belong together. When she and Patrick decided to get married, it forced me to move out and work in earnest on my business ideas. I never had much money, and man, did I want to succeed. But I wanted to have a good time, too, because she and I had married so young. We had both just graduated high school when she got pregnant and we got married, thinking it was the right thing to do. Eventually, I felt like I’d missed out and decided that I’d experience everything I hadn’t experienced.”

  Jackie cut into the tender rib eye. “I’m going to assume that means women?”

  Tyson laughed and shrugged. “Of course. But not only women. I partied hard, drank a lot, and, in general, acted like a fool.”

  Because she was learning more about him in one night than she had during their week in Atlanta, Jackie couldn’t stop asking questions. “What finally got you straightened out?”

  “A pregnancy scare.”

  Her mouth fell open. “One of your girlfriends?”

  “More like a hookup. We scratched each other’s itch from time to time. I wish I could tell you the scare happened when I was younger, but it happened when I was old enough to know better, a couple of years after you and I met. I was forty-nine years old. When she told me she was pregnant, I was devastated. My girls were grown and Kendrick was already in his late teens, I was making good money at the financial services firm where I worked—not great—but okay, so the last thing on my mind was having a child. That stage in my life was over.” He shook his head.

  An uncomfortable heaviness weighed in Jackie’s chest. Staring down into her glass of wine, she thought about how she still wanted to be a parent. And here he was, talking about not wanting to go back down that path.

  Across the table, he watched her with a frown creasing his brow. “I know what you’re thinking. He ain’t shit. Believe me, I know that. At least, I wasn’t. I’m a different man now.”
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  “I wasn’t thinking that,” Jackie said.

  “Then I misunderstood the look on your face.”

  “You did. What happened with the baby?” she asked, curious despite herself.

  “After she had the baby, we did a DNA test and learned that it wasn’t mine. I had already known there was the possibility that the child could be another man’s, so it’s not like she tried to trap me or anything. But I’d never been so relieved to get a negative test in my life. That’s what turned me on the straight and narrow. No more running around for me. I continued consulting, and after hours and on weekends I worked hard on the software idea that had been at the back of my mind for a while. Five years ago I sold it and my life has been good ever since.”

  “Congratulations,” Jackie said sincerely. When they met years ago, he’d expressed a desire to run his own business because he’d grown up poor and didn’t want that life for himself or his family. To see him finally achieve a lifelong goal gave her an immense sense of satisfaction.

  At the end of the meal, they walked out to the balcony—Jackie with remnants of wine in a glass—and stood overlooking the water. In the distance, the lights of a few boats twinkled in the dark.

  “We’ve been talking about me the entire time. What have you been up to? Still traveling?”

  “Not as much as I’d like to, but I plan to change that in the future. More traveling is definitely in my plans.”

  “You own two more stores now, right? Congratulations.”

  “Thank you. It’s lots of work, but I love it. That’s about all I have to say on the business front. On the personal side, my parents are settled in Florida now. I helped them buy a condo on the beach, which was a longtime dream of theirs.”

  “What about your sister—the one who was in your hotel room that one time I stopped by? She was crying about something, and I left so the two of you could talk.”

  “Oh, Fiona. She was going through a messy divorce. She finally got rid of her cheating husband and went back to school. She became an anesthesiologist and still lives in Atlanta.”

  “Have you visited her in the intervening years?”

  Jackie opened her mouth and quickly shut it. An awkward silence overwhelmed the small balcony.