He signaled for the server who was hovering a few feet away.
“We’re not going back to the apartment. We’re going to … do things. Other things. Until the sun goes down.”
~~~
“Y’know what I realized when you were gone? When we weren’t talking every day?”
“What? That I’m the love of your life?”
They were sitting in the grass on the Great Lawn of Central Park, watching nearby families picnicking, lovers kissing, and college kids playing frisbee. Zora had taken off her shoes and rested her feet in Deuce’s lap while he reclined on his elbows, worshipping the sun.
“I already knew that,” he said. “But what I realized was …”
Zora stopped him with a hand on his forearm and sat up.
“Do you know what you just said?” she asked, putting a hand on his arm.
Shoving his shades up to the top of his head, he squinted and looked at her.
“What’d I just say?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head, then grabbed his glasses from his face, putting it on hers instead.
Maybe one day she’d stop being surprised at how he loved her—as though it was something so natural it didn’t even need to be remarked on.
“I realized I never got you some dope-ass gift. Y’know the kind that has chicks posting Instagram stories and cryin’ and shit.”
Zora laughed. “I’m not even on Instagram.”
“I know.”
“Are you?” Zora sat up.
“Yup.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Deuce said. “I was an early adopter.”
“I feel like that’s something I should have known about you. Is it still an active account?”
“Probably.” He shrugged. “Haven’t used it in a long time, though.”
“Lemme see it.”
Deuce pulled out his phone and tapped a few times, finally getting to the app. When he did, his eyes opened wide and he started laughing.
“Nah, maybe you shouldn’t …”
Zora grabbed the phone from him and they playfully wrestled over it for a little bit until he had her pinned beneath him.
“Lemme see,” Zora pouted when he succeeded in holding it out of her reach. “I promise I won’t get mad or anything.”
“A’ight, but keep in mind most of this was before we met, okay?”
“Just … give me the phone, Deuce.”
He rolled off her and handed over the phone. Zora scrolled through his pictures while he watched.
A majority were of him, Kal, and a dizzying array of girls, broken up by the occasional image of a car, or a shot taken at a concert or party where it was difficult to tell who or what the intended subject of the photo was. The most interesting thing about the pictures of the girls, apart from how similar they all looked, was that Deuce only seemed to want to capture either their asses or their tongues.
As she scrolled through, Zora felt herself first grow jealous, then irritated, then amazed. This didn’t look like Deuce’s life and world. Not as she knew him.
When she was done, she handed him the phone.
“You okay?” he asked, when she said nothing.
Zora nodded.
“Baby,” he began tentatively, “I told you. That was all when …”
Zora kissed him before he could finish his sentence, tasting the saltiness on his lips, of their light perspiration from sitting in the sun. She slid her tongue between them and tasted his tongue, feeling him moan, and his hand cupping the back of her head to hold her in place.
When they parted, he looked at her bemused, and touched the tip of her nose with the side of his thumb.
“What’s that about?” he asked. “You tryna get me all worked up out here in front of all these people?”
“No.” Zora shook her head. “It’s just … I don’t care about those pictures. You’re not that guy. Those pictures … they don’t have anything to do with who you are anymore.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Zora bounced up and down on her seat like a kid preparing for a long road-trip. The trip, at least in the car, was going to be a fairly short one. Deuce had borrowed his father’s driver to take them to the airport.
“I’m excited …”
“I can see that.”
“Aren’t you?” she asked, nudging him in the arm. “Asha is going to be Asha Carter by Saturday night. And Kal … is going to have a wife. Like … what?”
“And you see all that, and no part of you wants to participate.”
“We are participating. What do you …?” She sighed. “Oh. You mean …”
“Yeah. I mean us.”
Zora reached forward as Rick got in the driver’s seat after loading their luggage, and pressed the button to raise the partition.
“You think talking about it over and over again is going to change our current reality? Also, I’m … I don’t think we’re ready to be married yet, Deuce. You’re building a business. I’m in school.”
“I don’t see what difference that makes. We’d still do those things.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because if we got married, I would immediately start focusing on you, and on ‘us’ instead of focusing on me.”
“What’s the difference? Focusing on you, focusing on us … what’s the difference?”
“See what I mean?” Zora shook her head. “That right there is why it would be a mistake. Your focus on building a business is the same as focusing on you. As it should be. And my focus on law school is the same as focusing on me. As it should be.”
But Deuce was already shaking his head. “No. For me, focusing on building a business is focusing on us. Our future.”
“Your future is as a businessman, Deuce. Mine is as a lawyer. We can be together and have separate identities. And the fact that you don’t see what I mean? That only makes me more sure we shouldn’t even be having a conversation about marriage. Even if we didn’t have the other stuff to deal with.”
“What other stuff?”
“Are you kidding me?” Zora turned in her seat. “My father is barely beginning to tolerate that we’re in a relationship. He’s tolerated it for about five minutes. And you want to ruin that by …”
“Telling him I want to marry his daughter? Yeah. That’s so … aggressive of me.”
Zora exhaled. “I see how you want to handle this weekend now. Instead of celebrating with our friends, you want to make it about …”
“Y’know what? Fuck it. You’re right. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
Zora leaned back again, but not before lowering the partition. Her signal, he guessed, that their argument and probably all conversation was at an end.
~~~
“Oh my god, you look pregnant!”
“Oh is that what this is?” Asha joked, patting her stomach.
She flung her arms around Zora and they both twirled as they hugged, while Deuce and Kal looked on, waiting for them to get the giddiness out of their systems.
But Zora could tell that the guys were just as happy to be together again as she and Asha were. It hadn’t been that long since their visit to New York, but it seemed like an age, especially since Asha now had an unmistakable and visible bump that identified her as “expecting.”
“God, you look beautiful.” Zora held her at arms’ length. “You are legit-glowing. I always thought it was fake when people said that. Pregnant women usually just look bloated and tired.”
“I am tired. And bloated. But apparently that goes away soon. Like, as soon as I give birth.”
Zora laughed.
“C’mon y’all. We’re in short-term parking,” Kal said.
Handsome and in his element, because he was in his hometown, Kal looked … manlier or something, like he was standing taller, and prouder. Fatherhood was going to agree with him.
“What’s up, big head?” he leaned in and gave Zora a quick kiss.
“Nothing. The usual. Friends getting married, having a baby. You know. Nothing too exciting.”
Kal grinned.
“Let’s get outta here. You two feel like going straight to the hotel, or …”
“Nah, let’s swing by your spot,” Deuce said.
“Manage your expectations. We got a crappy little apartment compared to your crib, man.”
“I like our apartment,” Asha said, sounding offended.
“I know you do. But … once this one pops out, we’re moving.” Kal draped an arm across her shoulders and his other hand fell, briefly cupping her middle.
As they led the way, Deuce and Zora followed, walking a few feet apart, not speaking. The flight was a quiet one, and they only spoke when necessary. Halfway through, he slid his MacBook out and started working, so Zora napped, even though she would have liked him to instead talk to her about his work. Or anything.
Their argument was still on his mind obviously. And on hers as well. She didn’t think she was being stubborn. It was beyond premature to talk about marriage.
They’d been back together for less than two months, and already had one almost-breakup under their belts. It was crazy to even think about marriage. Except, walking behind Kal and Asha, it seemed less crazy.
Maybe life didn’t line up the way you intended it to, and you couldn’t check off boxes in sequence, moving ever closer to stability. Maybe you just muddled your way through, grabbed happiness when you found it, and held on to it with both hands.
And Deuce made her happy, Zora thought as she glanced at him, his jaw set, his eyes fixed stubbornly ahead, refusing to look at her. Even now, during a disagreement, he was the person who made her happiest in all the world.
“I have an idea,” Zora said once they were in the car, heading toward the airport exit.
She and Asha were sitting in the backseat, the guys up front.
“What if Asha came to stay in the hotel with me, and you guys stayed at the apartment tomorrow night? I feel like the night before her wedding she shouldn’t see you, Kal. And we can get massages and have room service and do bridal shower stuff.”
Next to her, Asha shifted slightly in her seat and Zora could tell the idea her excited.
“You want to do that, babe?” Kal asked, glancing at Asha in the rearview mirror.
“If Deuce doesn’t mind trading his comfortable hotel room for the sofa in our apartment,” she said carefully.
“Nah. That’s cool. Sounds like a plan. Me and Kal can hit the town, have a bachelor party.”
“Bet,” Kal said.
~~~
Kal and Asha’s apartment wasn’t as humble as Kal made it out to be. It was much older than Deuce’s for sure, but roomy by New York standards; certainly roomier than Zora’s own apartment. And Asha had obviously taken care to decorate it. There were thriving plants everywhere, and pictures in frames of Kal and Asha hiking, at the beach, eating tacos at a roadside food truck, and at a football game.
They were building a life, Zora realized as she browsed each one. And Asha was memorializing every shared experience with such care that if she didn’t know better, Zora would have thought she and Kal had been together for many years and not just a little more than eighteen months.
In the kitchen, at the window over the sink, Asha had placed a row of tiny spice pots, growing mint, cilantro and sage. Pictures of Kal running, probably at practice or regional meets, were affixed to the fridge with magnets. And there was one of Asha, a close-up of her lying on her back in the grass, her locs fanning around her head, her hazel eyes squinting against the brightness of the sun, and her face radiant with happiness.
The bedrooms were no different. Each had been modestly, but carefully made into homey, warm spaces. None of the walls were the standard ascetic apartment eggshell, but instead had been painted warm earth tones to complement the buttery yellow of the kitchen. The spare room was almost empty save a futon and a few free weights scattered around, but there was a dark rug, pillows on the futon and a bean-bag to make it look cozy.
Zora was beginning to think that Kal and Deuce were getting the better deal by sleeping here, instead of at the hotel.
“We can dump your stuff, head on over to my folks’ place to eat, and then we’ll leave you two at the hotel to rest up,” Kal said. “Sound good?”
“Yeah.”
Zora turned to look at Deuce upon hearing him speak. He looked pensive, and she wondered whether he had seen in this apartment what she had seen—signs of two people who had, in all the ways that mattered, already meaningfully married their lives to each other’s.
~~~
Kal’s parents’ house was a small Spanish-style bungalow in a working- to middle-class neighborhood. It was the kind of neighborhood not too many of the kids Deuce had grown up with lived in. The houses were close together, with a small patch of yard on either side, and only a modestly-sized backyard.
But the spread Ibrahim and Jada Carter laid out was no less impressive than many of the backyard cookouts Deuce had been to. There was chicken and steak, beans and cornbread, potato salad and rolls, three different kinds of cakes and the obligatory bowl of cloyingly sweet tea.
People wandered in on what looked like no particular schedule, greeting Kal and his father with solid hugs and yells of congratulations. He didn’t know much about Kal’s pre-college life, except that then, as now, he had focused mostly on running. Each person he was introduced to, Deuce had never heard of before.
Zora was moving comfortably through the crowd, helping Asha and Kal’s mom bring out more food, cups, ice, whatever. Occasionally she glanced over at him and smiled uncertainly, and Deuce wondered whether she guessed at what he was thinking—that he wanted this for them, and was despairing of them ever having it. Someone wandering in without knowing who was who, might just as easily think this was Asha’s family as Kal’s but for the strong physical resemblance between Kal and his parents.
Idly turning his beer bottle in his hand, he didn’t notice that Ibrahim Carter was coming his way until he sat next to him. Deuce nodded his acknowledgement, and the older man did the same.
“How you doin’?” he asked.
“Okay,” Deuce said. “Little tired from the flight but good. The food … man.” He motioned toward his empty plate. “Thank you.”
“I should be thanking you,” Ibrahim Carter said. “In fact, I’m overdue.”
“For what?” Deuce asked.
Ibrahim laughed. “Well, Kal said you wouldn’t even see it.”
“Oh. You mean the … Nah, “Deuce shook his head. “You don’t have to …”
“But I do,” Ibrahim said. “Had I been here, there might have been opportunities for me to do for my son all the things he needed a father to do. Including helping him reach this goal of his. And get to the Olympics. But as fate would have it …”
“Mr. Carter, please …”
“Ibrahim.”
“Kal is my brother. Anything he needs … anything, and I’m there.”
“He appreciates that. And I appreciate it. I wanted to look you in the eye and tell you that as far as I’m concerned, you’re family.”
“Thank you.”
“No, son. Thank you. And thank you for letting me be my son’s best man at his wedding.”
“Oh. That was …”
Ibrahim clapped a hand on Deuce’s shoulder and laughed his booming laugh once again.
“That’s okay. I know by rights it should probably be you. But I’m going to be selfish with this one. You understand.”
“I do, sir,” Deuce said as Ibrahim stood.
Kal’s father flashed him a wide smile. “I tell you to call me Ibrahim and yet you still can’t help but call me ‘sir’,” he said, nodding his approval. “I’m glad my son has you as a friend.”
~~~
The hotel was nice; more than nice, it was almost palatial after the homey rusticity of Kal and Asha’s apartment, and the Carters’ backyard. But as Deuce and Zora unloaded
their luggage in the sitting area, it felt cold and sterile.
“When Asha comes to stay,” Zora began, hoping to break the ice that had crystallized between them. “Is it okay if I charge some stuff to the room? I want to make sure she has …”
“Yeah. Charge whatever you need. Don’t worry about the cost. I’ll leave you a card as well.”
Deuce was already stripping his shirt over his head, his back to her.
“So, about earlier, when we …”
“Zee.” He turned to face her. “Let’s … not tonight, okay? I’m tired. I just wanna …” He indicated the large California king-sized bed, that Zora had specifically chosen when they booked the suite, imagining long, sexy nights christening it during their mini-vacation.
“Okay,” she said. “I think I’ll take a shower before I …”
“Okay.” He cut her off, sitting on the edge of the bed back to her, and beginning to peel off his jeans.
In the bathroom, Zora stared at her reflection in the mirror and asked herself the question Deuce had once asked, mouthing the words quietly so he wouldn’t hear her from the next room.
“You ever feel like you just stay fuckin’ up?”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Kal was pacing back and forth, sitting and then getting up again, walking a few paces down the hallway, and coming back. Deuce and Ibrahim watched him, exchanging amused looks.
“Damn, man,” Deuce said. “Looks like you might have a runaway bride.”
“Be nice,” Mrs. Carter whispered, her voice laced with laughter. “I think he really is nervous she might not show. It’s so sweet.”
Just then, someone in an attention-getting light-green suit rounded the corner at the end of the hall. Javier. And behind him was Asha in a winter-white sleeveless dress, a light summer scarf around her neck and her hair arranged in a pretty side-swept style that had all her locs spilling to one side and resting on her shoulder. It wasn’t a traditional wedding get-up, but was uniquely Asha.
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