Driving Heat

by Day, Zuri

  “Why would I tell him my name?”

  “You’re saying your name and address so the police will hear, and be able to help you.”

  “Oh! Cool!”

  Byron rolled his eyes. Here his daughter was, looking at an intruder encounter as one would an adventure while he was about to have a heart attack and go load his gun!

  His phone rang. He looked at the ID, smiled, and stood. “All right, kid. That’s lesson number one.” His tone went from studious to sexy as he walked across the hall and closed the door to his room. “Hey, you.”

  “Hello, Byron.”

  The clipped, professional voice stopped him dead in his tracks. He looked at his watch: 6:25. “Are you still at work?”

  “No, I’m home.”

  He relaxed. “Oh, okay. Did you get my message?”

  “Yes.”

  He was expecting a more enthusiastic reaction but . . . okay.

  “Did you eat yet?”

  “No, and that’s one of the reasons I’m calling. I’m sure that you meant well, but you didn’t have to go to the trouble of ordering dinner for me and my son.”

  “It’s what I wanted to do.”

  He heard her sigh into the phone. Did she just sigh into the phone? He looked at the phone, as if it had answers.

  This exchange is nothing like Barry said would happen. At all.

  “Is there any way you can cancel the order?”

  Byron’s mood was quickly moving from feeling amorous to being annoyed. “Cynthia, what’s going on?”

  “We really shouldn’t have this discussion over the phone.”

  This did not sound good. “What discussion is that?”

  A long pause and then, “The one where I explain that because of what in our code of ethics is defined as a conflict of interest regarding a client, I can no longer see you . . . in any capacity.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I am very sorry. Ending any kind of personal liaison by phone is the epitome of churlish behavior . . .”

  “Did you say childish?”

  “Handling this remotely is in very poor taste, though it would be even more difficult to do in person. Considering the circumstances, this inappropriate, unfortunate ending is for the best.”

  Byron had shifted from his position of romantic repose to now sit on the side of the bed wondering where was Cynthia—the one who less than twenty-four hours ago had cried on his shoulder, spilled out her heart, and cried out in throes of ecstasy—and who in the hell was this cold, robotic imposter, trying to tear his heart straight out of his chest?

  “Cynthia. Tell me what happened. I know something did because you and I together are magic. Real talk.”

  “What’s relevant is that which never should have happened, what I never intended would happen. And that’s a personal affiliation with you. It is ethically improper and I am truly sorry for any hurt I’ve caused you by crossing the line.”

  “This is about your job. Either someone found out, or is suspicious. And rather than take a risk on the relationship, on me, you’re choosing your job. How’s my assumption so far?”

  “Good-bye, Byron.”

  “No, Cynthia, don’t—”

  But she did.

  She’d ended their affair, provided an unflappable explanation, apologized for any inconvenience, and hung up the phone.

  Cold, curt, professional, not like the woman he held last night, but the one who’d boarded his bus.

  31

  Cynthia ended the call and wanted nothing more than to run to her room, assume a fetal position, and enjoy an all-out boo-hoo. Instead, she turned around and met the curious eyes of her observant son.

  “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Just now. What’s wrong?”

  The doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it!”

  “Jayden! No, let me.” Cynthia walked to the door and after looking through the peephole placed her head against the wooden door. A chef? The man with whom I just ended all contact has arranged for a chef to cook in my home?

  She opened the door, feeling lower than the sole of a shoe.

  “Ms. Hall?” the man asked, in a tone that suggested he ate happy for breakfast, zeal for lunch, and chipper as a pick-me-up before in-home appointments.

  “Yes, I’m Cynthia.” She wanted to tell him to go away, direct him to Inglewood to fix a meal for Byron and Tyra. She opened her mouth to do just that but “please, come in” came out instead.

  “Thank you!” He stepped inside. “Wow, this place is amazing! I’m Chip, professional chef and owner of Chip’s Choice Cuisine. I’d love to shake your hand, but mine are full.”

  “Oh, of course. Come right this way.”

  He followed her to the kitchen, placed a large recycle bag on the island, and unzipped a carry-on style case containing cooking utensils. All while talking nonstop. “I was so excited to accept this assignment. Your friend thinks you’re amazing. He went on and on about how much you deserve to sit back, relax, and have someone serve you for a change. He thinks you work too hard and says you’re . . . navigating a few challenges. I told him I had the perfect menu to relax you, rejuvenate you, and make your body feel good.”

  Seriously, the man was a walking infomercial.

  He turned to place a pot on the stove, and spotted Jayden eyeing him intently. “Oh, hey, buddy! How are you?” He walked over to the boy, hand outstretched. “My name is Chip. I’m a chef. I came to cook for you.”

  “What are you going to fix?”

  “What do you like to eat?”

  “We’re not choosy. Italian, Mexican . . . tonight we were having Chinese. But I guess we’re not going out since you came to our house. Mom, who is your friend that sent him over here?”

  “Someone you haven’t met, Jayden. Give me a moment so I can make sure Chip is squared away.” She turned to him. “I don’t cook much. What type of equipment do you need?”

  “I bring everything with me except a refrigerator and stove. Actually, that’s not quite true. I have a mini-fridge and hot plate inside my van.”

  “You cook in your car?”

  “Absolutely! You don’t?”

  “How old do you think I am?” Jayden asked, finding humor in the man’s obvious ignorance.

  “I don’t know . . . sixteen?” Chip winked at Cynthia.

  “I’m eight! Too young to have a car.”

  “Then that presents a problem for cooking in one.” Chip reached into the case’s side pocket and pulled out an iPad. “Cynthia, I was told your tastes are quite varied, as Jayden here pointed out. So I designed this menu.” He offered the iPad, which she accepted. “What do you think?”

  Cynthia read aloud. “Tomato bisque with cheese poppers.” How did he know this is my favorite soup?

  “Are those like jalapeño poppers?” Jayden asked.

  “Exactly,” Chip answered, “but not as spicy.”

  “Oh, good. Because Bobby’s mom makes the kind that are hot. Why are you serving them with biscuits?”

  “Jayden, don’t ask so many questions.”

  “I totally don’t mind,” Chip readily assured her. “In fact, I was about to ask if I could interview this young man for the position of sous chef. Just for the evening, of course.”

  “What’s a sous chef?”

  “The sous chef is second-in-command, and helps the chef pull off a fabulous meal.”

  “But I don’t know how to cook.”

  “I have a feeling you’re a quick study.”

  During their chat, Cynthia had quickly scanned the rest of the meal: Farmers Market salad, grilled lollipop lamb chops paired with a potpourri couscous, and candy sprinkle-covered ice-cream cones for dessert.

  He was thinking of Jayden. While discussing possible choices with the chef, Byron had kept her son in mind. This simple gesture proved he’d listened during their conversations and understood the elevated position Jayden occupied in her life. The truth of it took her app
etite, along with the certainty in the rightness of her decision.

  It took willpower, but Cynthia made it through Jayden’s newfound love for cooking, Chip’s incessant conversation about cooking, and what turned out to be an amazingly delicious meal. With the last of her control she bid Chip good-bye, got Jayden to bed, and had just poured a glass of wine to take to her bedroom when the doorbell rang again.

  Crossing the room, she looked at the counters for what the chef must have forgotten. She looked through the peephole. It wasn’t Chip.

  “May I help you?” she asked through the closed door.

  A soothing voice with an accent answered. “I’m looking for Cynthia Hall. My name is Thilago. I was hired and sent by a Mr. Carter to provide you relaxing massage.”

  As proof, he held up a bag in one hand and masseuse certification in another. “You can call him to confirm this. I am happy to wait.”

  “Um, give me a moment.”

  With the door once again her support, she placed her head in her hands, stunned beyond words. First a five-star quality dinner and now a personal masseuse?

  Cynthia no longer thought she’d made the wrong decision. She was sure of it.

  32

  Since giving Tyra a good night kiss an hour ago, Byron had sat in a darkened, quiet living room watching the face light up on his silenced cell phone: Tanya, Barry, Douglas, Tanya (for the umpteenth time), Ava, Mama, Nelson, and just now Barry again. If it weren’t for the fact that he hadn’t heard from his dad or Marvin, he’d have sworn that Liz had sent out a Code 3C—Carter Call Circle—a tag team–styled communication system his mother had implemented and kept in place since childhood. There needn’t be an emergency to have this plan implemented. In fact, at times the Carter Circle had been summoned for something as trivial as the answer to a Daily Double on Jeopardy. Liz had encouraged—translated, demanded—a transparent, close-knit family unit. It wasn’t unusual to speak with one or all of his siblings on any given day. Never more than a week passed without some type of communication. There were no secrets between them. “On some days all we’ll have is each other,” she’d tell them. “And on those days each other will be all we need.”

  Right, but what about those days when all we want is to be left alone?

  He’d been preoccupied yesterday, other more poignant thoughts blocking out the phone call that had upended his world. The family had gathered at their parents’ house in Inglewood to celebrate the tragically short life of Lance Montell Thompson. Once home Byron had made a final call to check on Ava to see how she was really holding up. A good thing, too. In the privacy of her bedroom, she wasn’t holding up all that well. She talked, he listened, until 3 a.m.

  But tonight, there was nothing to obscure the stark reality that the woman of his dreams had come and gone from his life. Was it only six weeks ago that I met her? A series of failed relationships had made him a skeptic when it came to true love like his parents had existing anymore. And most definitely would have balked at anyone claiming to have fallen in love this quickly. He thought that crap only happened in movies. Now he knew it could happen for real. It had happened to him.

  The doorbell rang, jolting Byron out of his pondering. He begrudgingly got up and walked to the door. I know this fool Barry didn’t come over here to . . .

  Halfway to the door another thought stopped him in his tracks. What if it’s not Barry? What if it’s . . . He stepped close to the window that faced the street, then leaned over slightly to peek outside without being seen.

  The doorbell rang again. He hurried to open it.

  “Ava. What are you doing here?”

  “From that look on your face you were obviously expecting someone else.” She stepped inside. “Is that why the lights are off? To set the mood?”

  They shared a hug and then walked into the living room. He turned on a lamp. Both sat on opposite ends of the couch, facing each other. “Did Mama send you over here?”

  Ava shook her head. “I haven’t talked to her tonight. Douglas called, though, said him and Barry had called and both gotten voice mail.” Ava had brought in a bottle of juice, which she set on the coffee table. “That’s not why I came by, though. I could tell last night that something was wrong. What’s up?”

  He shrugged. “Same old, same old.”

  Ava cocked her head and gave him a look. “You are so not telling the truth right now! You’ve always been a bad liar. I don’t know why you keep trying.”

  “It’ll be all right.”

  “Though dealing with my own pain yesterday, I noticed you were hurting as well. At first I assumed that, like everyone else, it was about Lance.”

  “It was, partly.”

  “But not totally. What’s going on, Byron?”

  “Aw, man. I guess I should talk about it with somebody; about to drive myself crazy with this one-sided conversation going on in my head.”

  “Let me guess. The beautiful and refined counselor got tired of the hood and decided to go back and play in her own yard?”

  Byron shot her a hard gaze. “If you came over for ‘I told you so,’ I’m not in the mood. I don’t need help feeling bad.”

  “No.” Ava softened her tone. “I came over to support you like you did me last night.” No response. “So, what happened?”

  Byron shifted his position and began idly moving around the junk on the table. “According to her it’s a conflict of interest; that she is prohibited from having personal relationships with the family of her clients.”

  “I thought you met her before you even knew she worked with Leah. Plus, if she knew this, why’d she go out with you in the first place? Wait, does she know that I’m your play sister, that we’re not actually related?”

  “Ava, you’re as much my sister as if Liz Carter had carried you in her womb.”

  “But she didn’t carry me.”

  “You’re still family.”

  “You know I feel the same about all of you. Being an only child, having your mother basically adopt me after y’all moved next door is one of the best things that’s happened in my life. But if she knew we weren’t blood-related, that might change things. That’s if Leah being her client was the only reason.”

  “What other reason could there be?”

  “Who knows? But it sounds like you should have asked more questions.”

  “It was a rather one-sided conversation. Before I could ask her too much of anything, she’d hung up.”

  “Hung up! You mean she cut you loose over the phone, didn’t even give you the common courtesy to say good-bye in person?”

  “That probably was a good thing.”

  “If you say so.” Ava reached for the bottled juice, watching as Byron mindlessly took a pair of Chinese meditation balls out of a small satin box and began slowly rolling them around in his right hand. As he maneuvered them around and around with his fingers, soft ringing chimes and metal clinking against metal disrupted the silence.

  “I can’t believe how hard I fell for that girl.” His voice was low. He looked at the balls instead of his sister. Rotating clockwise . . . three, four, five times, and then clumsily and with effort turning them the opposite way.

  “I didn’t even know you were into her like that. It definitely didn’t show at the block party. But then again given what you said she told you, I guess y’all were keeping it on the low.”

  “I wasn’t trying to. I mean, none of this was planned.”

  Ava’s look contained a healthy dose of skepticism.

  “Okay, I did go after her a little bit . . .”

  “I know you did! She’s cute and you’re a Carter!”

  “So are you, basically.”

  “Hey, I have no problem owning mine. Just sayin’ . . .”

  “Cynthia had no plans beyond meeting for coffee.”

  “And then you poured on the Carter charm.”

  “Every time we’d get together everything would just flow, it was natural. It didn’t feel like there was this big diff
erence between us, like she was on one level and I was on another.”

  “You were raised to believe that nobody is better than you.”

  “You felt that way, couldn’t believe we went out more than once.”

  “That wasn’t a reflection of how I feel about you, Byron, but how I felt about her. Don’t get me wrong. As a counselor, I think she’s very qualified. Leah likes her and I am seeing progress. Woman-to-woman, she seems friendly and genuine. But regarding the two of you on a relationship level, I just didn’t see it.”

  “Well, we did. It was the first time I could imagine actually spending my life with the same woman.”

  “Dang, bro! You felt that way after what, a month?”

  “Yes.” He switched the meditation balls to his other hand, but after a couple turns placed them in the box.

  “What was it, gold dust on her kitty?”

  “Girl, you’re crazy.”

  “Could it clap on cue or dispense money like an ATM?”

  “Ha!” Byron cracked up, and realized it had been a minute since he’d enjoyed a hearty laugh.

  “I’m glad to see you smiling.” She reached for the juice bottle, took a drink, and recapped the bottle. “And not to wipe it off so quickly, but when was the last time you heard from Tanya?”

  “She’s called four times just today.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I told her I wanted to have a paternity test done on little Ricky.”

  “And she didn’t run right over to retrieve an old toothbrush or some of your hair? That’s not your child, Byron.”

  “That’s basically my thought. But I want to know for sure.”

  “I don’t blame you.” Ava stood. “We’ve both got to get up early, so I’m going to go.”

  Byron stood as well. “Yeah, and I’m pulling a double tomorrow.”

  “Why do you work so much? And you never take your vacation days. You probably have two months’ worth by now.”

  “At least.” They hugged. “I’m glad you came over, sis.”

  Byron took a shower and then climbed into bed, phone in hand, scrolling through missed phone calls, notifications, and . . . wait a minute. He scrolled back. What he thought he’d seen was confirmed. While talking with Ava, Cynthia had called.