“Oh no. You might get high, but not with me. You crazy? Kinda mother would I be? I have cancer, that’s why I’m smokin’. What’s your excuse?”
“My mother has cancer,” Deuce said soberly. “That’s my excuse.”
She blinked at him once, twice and then a third time. By then, he realized that her tears were not because of the smoke.
“Chris.” She looked at his father and handed him the thick marijuana cigar, turning toward Deuce again.
She opened her arms. “C’mere,” she said.
Deuce shook his head. If she hugged him right now, he might cry. And he didn’t want his father to see him do that. They’d made a deal. No crying. Not in front of her.
“Here.” His father was offering him the blunt.
Hesitating a moment, Deuce took it and inhaled one long, deep toke. He could feel both his parents’ eyes on him, even though his were shut.
When he opened them again as he exhaled, he handed his mother the blunt and she took it without comment. Her eyes rested on him for a few moments, then she stubbed the cigar out in a nearby ashtray.
“Last time you tell me I’m the unfit parent,” she said, shooting Chris a look.
“You were never an unfit parent.”
Deuce looked up, stunned. His father was staring his mother in the eye, shaking his head.
“You were never unfit,” he said again. “You know that, right?”
Her eyes grew a little cloudy and she picked at the edge of a sofa cushion.
“I made some mist…”
“We both did.”
Remaining very still, Deuce listened. They were talking like he wasn’t even in the room, and he wanted it to stay that way. He almost held his breath.
“Neither of us was ready,” his father said. “But only one of us stepped up to the plate. And it wasn’t me.”
“It took me a minute, too. I remember when he was four months old … I went out with my girls because you was actin’ shady, and I thought, ‘I’ma just go out and have a good time. Fuck that nigga.’
“And me and Tricia was in this dude’s car, on the Major Deegan and he was goin’ like ninety miles an hour and Tricia was screamin’ and dude was laughin’—because I guess his ass found girls screamin’ funny—anyway, I remember thinking, ‘what the hell am I doin’ in this damn car? I can’t be dead. I got a son at home!’ That was it for me. I mean, after that, I still went out, but he was my priority. Always.”
“I know he was.”
“I feel like …” Her voice was halting.
Deuce watched his mother’s eyes get even cloudier.
“I feel like you didn’t know that. That you thought maybe I was …”
“I did know it, Sheryl. I always did. Even when we butted heads …”
“Okay,” she said quietly. “Because I would hate to go outta this life thinkin’ that …”
“Why you still talkin’ like that?”
“Because I need to make my peace with it, Chris. And I need you, and him …” Finally, she looked at Deuce again. “I need him to begin to make peace with the fact that I’m not going to m…”
Deuce stood abruptly, turning away from them both and leaving the room before his mother could say another word.
~~~
You awake?
Yes. U ok?
Nah. Not really.
His phone rang immediately. It was a FaceTime call coming through. Deuce answered and smiled at the sight of Zora sitting on her bed, leaning back against the headboard, her hair already wrapped up for the night in that scarf he was going to swipe from her room one day and toss in the dumpster on his way out of her building.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Nothing. My father’s downstairs. Walking down memory lane with my mother.”
“Well … that’s good, isn’t it?”
“That it took a terminal diagnosis for them to finally get along and act like adults? Nah. Not really, Zee. That’s not good.”
She sighed and bit her lower lip, brow furrowed. “I see your point.”
“I wanted this all my life,” Deuce said. “And now …”
“And now you have it.”
“But it’s too late.”
“Is it though, babe?” Zora slid down a little, so she was lying back against her pillow and holding the phone aloft. “Your mother’s still here. Your father’s there with her. Maybe they’re both trying to repair all the damage of …”
“Between them, yeah. But what about the damage to me? I can’t get any of that back. All those times I felt like I was bein’ ripped in half? When I …” He broke off, lowering his voice, remembering that his father was still in the house.
“How old were they again? When you were born?”
“Close to our age now. Maybe a little older.”
“You think we have it all figured out right now?”
“No, but …”
“Then why would they have, way back then?”
“I’ve figured out the big things, Zee. I know I want to marry you. I know I’d never treat you the way my parents treated each other. And …”
“And maybe part of the reason you know those things is because you had them as parents. You ever thought of that?” she asked quietly.
He said nothing.
“Maybe some of their mistakes taught you not to make the same ones,” she continued.
Still he said nothing.
“Experience that with them. If you can. Soak it in and hold it close. Every single second of it.”
At that, Deuce grinned. “Listen to you. Spittin’ poetry at …” He glanced at the clock across the room. “Nine fifty-seven p.m. on a Thursday night.”
Zora smiled back. “I love you,” she said. “So, I’ll spit poetry at three fifty-seven a.m. if you need me to.”
“You ain’ got them kinda skills.”
“No, I really don’t.” She laughed. “But I would try. For you, I’d try.”
“I know you would. I love you, too, baby. I’ma get some sleep. Tomorrow my girl’s coming to spend the weekend, so I’ll need my strength.”
“Damn right you will.”
~~~
How is it you never told me?
The text message came through just as he was on the edge of sleep and stumbling back into bed.
His brain was fried from exhaustion, from lying in bed for the past two hours, listening to his parents’ raucous laughter from downstairs. Then, he heard a car and went to look out the window, just in time to see the Town Car pull up for his father. He’d probably been too blunted to drive back to Jersey.
Deuce wondered what Robyn would make of that—her husband coming home high. No doubt she knew where he’d been, but there was no way she would be expecting him to return home under the influence.
Deuce’s phone pinged once again.
That was unfair, the second message read. For you to not give me a chance to be there for you.
Ellipses danced on the screen.
I mean, CANCER! And you didn’t tell me? Why?
At that, Deuce thought for a minute; he had to wrack his brain, but she was right—he hadn’t told Regan his mother had cancer.
He would think about ‘why’ later, but right now, all he could think of was ‘how’. How, if he hadn’t been the one to tell her, had she found out?
Hell, who cared? He needed sleep. Tossing the phone aside he yawned, lay back and shut his eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Could he have more clothes?
Zora rifled through the closet, pulling shirts almost indiscriminately off hangers, and tossing them onto the bed, adding them to the small selection of slacks, jeans and chinos already there. Then she went through the stack and chose the ones she thought Deuce most likely to wear; and a few she thought she might like to see him wear.
And shoes … he would need shoes. But probably not too many. Boots, loafers, sneakers. Picking one of each, she tossed those out of the closet and toward the foot of the bed the
n found a suitcase big enough to hold it all.
Once the clothes and shoes were packed, she went to the bathroom, picked out toiletries and shoved everything into the very adult leather toiletry case she found in a drawer under the sink. The case was soft and embossed with Deuce’s initials: CDS. His middle name—and his father’s—was Dylan.
That sounds so … incongruous, she told him when she first heard it.
What she meant but didn’t say because it sounded like she was stereotyping, was that for Chris Scaife who made his wealth primarily on rap music, she expected a name that was more ‘urban’ than ‘urbane’.
My father’s father was an English teacher, Deuce explained. Before he died, he taught English and Dylan Thomas was his favorite poet.
Wow. Really?
Yeah, Deuce said, his tone rueful. Not that he ever told me that. Robyn did.
For Deuce’s twenty-second birthday, Zora got him a framed copy of Dylan Thomas’ most famous poem, ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ printed on what looked like parchment paper. She remembered being worried that he wouldn’t get it, but when he saw it, he grinned immediately and pulled her into his arms, kissing her and speaking against her lips, a whispered, thank you, baby.
Because he had the means to buy himself just about anything he wanted, her gifts to him had to be much more creative, more personal. Like what she was doing for him now.
As she moved the toiletry case, a few items in the back of the drawer came into view—a small box of tampons, two hair-ties in pink and lavender, and a small roll-on of Viktor&Rolf Flowerbomb perfume. It made sense that the girl Regan seemed to be would wear a perfume called Flowerbomb. Shoving those items—and the twinge they caused—aside, Zora made sure she had everything Deuce might need and took the toiletry case out to the living room and set it atop the suitcase, and next to her weekend bag.
Now, all she had to do was get everything to Bedford.
~~~
It was dark by the time the car pulled up outside the house. Zora sat still in the backseat for a long time. She hadn’t considered this part. What was she going to do? Just ring the bell? Deuce’s mother was inside, and unwell. Maybe sleeping. Even on her best days, Zora had never been one of her favorite people.
“Miss?” the cab driver prompted. “Is this it? I thought you said the address was …”
“No. I mean, yes, this is it. Could you … Give me a second. Thanks.”
Digging out her phone, she sent Deuce a quick text message, hoping he was near his phone and would hear it, otherwise she would have to take her chances ringing the doorbell after all.
Zora waited five minutes before she heard the ‘ping’ of an incoming message.
Coming out, it read.
Moments later the front door opened, and Deuce made his way down to the curb, wearing tapered sweats and an undershirt with slides on his feet. He hadn’t played football since he was nineteen, but still had the lean and defined body of an athlete. At six-two, from a distance he looked lanky, but when undressed had well-defined muscles—especially those abs, good God—that she couldn’t keep her hands off.
His workout regimen was a habit he hardly ever broke. She used to tease him that it was the only thing that could lure him out of bed when she was in it with him.
Opening the car door, Zora asked the driver to pop the trunk. She was pulling out the suitcase by the time Deuce made it to her.
Leaning in, he kissed her, his smiled bemused. “You movin’ in, baby?” he asked.
Zora gave him a look.
“Hey, I would love it if you did,” he said.
“But your mother would definitely not,” Zora returned.
Deuce paused, hand on the suitcase handle. He looked down at it, recognized it and looked back at her.
“Most of this is your stuff. Clothes and other things you might need. I still had the fob for your apartment, so I thought … I hope you don’t mind that I …”
He gave her a look that silenced her.
“Of course, I don’t mind. I told you, my place is your place, now. You went all the way over there just to get me some clothes?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She shrugged, hoisting her pocketbook further up her shoulder.
He grinned wider, then leaned in again, kissing her harder, longer, deeper.
“Thank you. I would’ve made a run tomorrow.”
“I know. But I figured since we’re both up here for the weekend, I might as well save us the trip back into the city.”
Deuce shut the trunk and tapped it so the driver would know he was clear to pull away.
“How’s your mom?”
“Okay, today. It’s up and down. Depending on the pain. I think she was pretty good today.”
“C’mon in. I don’t think she’s sleeping so you can say ‘hello’ and then we can hang out.”
As they walked toward the path, Zora noticed a light come on upstairs, and in the window, a figure that had to be Deuce’s mother.
Steeling herself for the icy greeting that surely awaited her, Zora followed Deuce toward the still-open front door.
Inside, there were no lights on in the foyer, and only one on in the living room. Along with the flicker of pictures on the television screen and the dim voice from a TV show Deuce had to have been watching, there was no movement or sound from anywhere.
Deuce was already on the stairs when she looked around, so Zora followed, taking a deep, silent breath. There were certain aspects of Deuce’s mother’s personality she enjoyed, but she didn’t enjoy being disliked. With most people, their approval or disapproval mattered little or not at all. But to love Deuce the way she did, and not have a good relationship with his mother had always bothered her.
Deuce dragged the suitcase and her bag into his bedroom and Zora followed. As soon as she was inside, he leaned over and shoved the door shut.
Smiling at him, Zora leaned back against the door.
Deuce leaned in, tilting his head to one side, the way he did when he was about to kiss her on the neck. Just anticipating it made her skin tingle.
“No,” she enunciated, trying not to smile.
“No, what?” He feigned a look of confusion, coming even closer.
“I haven’t even gone in to say ‘hello’ to your mom. Remember last time.”
Only a soft, dusky light entered the room from the streetlights outside, and Zora could barely make out his features, with the half-lidded gaze he trained on her. When close enough to touch, he didn’t. Instead, he dipped his head only slightly and for one second, buried his face in her hair. He inhaled a little and sighed.
“You smell like cotton candy,” he said.
“Do you want to eat me up?” she said, before thinking about the response that might provoke.
“Now that you mention it ...” His fingertips teased the waistband of her jeans and Zora felt the goosebumps rise.
“Deuce,” she said, but with very little conviction. “I was only …” Her breath hitched at the word ‘joking’ and she didn’t manage to get it out at all. “I don’t think …”
“What?” He unfastened the button and slowly lowered the zipper. “What don’t you think?”
“Your mom …”
“Won’t come in if the door is shut.” He was looking down, concentrating on his task, his breath slightly audible now. “It’s the kind of thing you learn when you have a son.”
Zora exhaled, then held her breath as Deuce slid her jeans down over her hips. He took a step closer, cupping her butt in both hands. She swallowed hard.
He had always used sex to manage stress and difficult emotions. And she was always happy to indulge him in that. She was happy to indulge him now, too, even though part of her was listening out, for steps on the landing.
“Babe,” she said, gasping as he lifted her shirt, kissing her down her center and falling to his knees. “Maybe …”
“Uh huh,” he said.
But it was clear now that he was only acknowledging he
r protests and had no intention of heeding them.
Face to face with her lavender underwear, Deuce kissed her lightly on the hip where she was ticklish. Before she could respond with giggles, he moved across her abdomen while one hand breached the waistband and slid lower. That didn’t make her want to giggle at all. Her stomach spasmed and quivered as he made his way lower.
“Deuce,” she said, trying, and failing, to sound insistent.
“Uh huh …”
He peeled the panties down, painstakingly slowly. Once they were at her thighs, he looked up.
“Open your legs.”
Zora’s throat tightened with need. Finally capitulating, she softened her stance a little and let her thighs part.
“More,” Deuce said.
She moved her feet apart a little more, but the jeans prevented them from going much further than the position one might take in the gym just before a squat.
“Yeah. Perfect.” One hand held a butt cheek and with the other he parted her with his index and middle fingers in a ‘V’.
“Deuce …”
“Yeah baby?”
Not having it in her to tell him to stop, Zora let a hand rest lightly on the dome of his head, and he leaned in.
For a few seconds, he blew a column of cool breath, which caused her to shiver. But that was only a set-up for what was to come. When he touched her with his tongue, after the coolness, it felt like liquid heat. He licked and stroked her, pulling her clit between his lips, and Zora rose to her toes, instinctively trying to squeeze her legs together though she didn’t want him to stop.
Deuce’s hands fell from her ass, and moved to her inner thighs, holding them apart while he worked on her, his head moving while he went at her.
I fuckin’ love how you taste, he told her once. And she came immediately.
Thinking of it now, Zora felt close, and shoved back a little against Deuce’s forehead, until he pulled away from her. He looked up, and his eyes were dark and dazed.
Standing to his full height, he kissed her, his tongue breaching the seam of her lips. Between them, Deuce’s hands were busy but steady, and before she took full stock of what was happening, he had stepped on her jeans crumpled at her ankles, holding them down while he bodily lifted her free of them, tugging to get past her sandals.
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