“No, one cup in the morning is my limit,” Scott responded.
Michael stood still.
So did Scott.
After a few seconds, Scott smiled.
“Oldest trick in the book Michael. I’m not falling for it,” he said with a lopsided grin.
“What are you talking about, Scott?”
“I watch my sugar intake, which is why I drink it black,” he said.
Scott knew better. He played with some thoughts in his head before responding. You were waiting for me to say something stupid like ‘I like my coffee like my women, black and bitter’. Nope. “I like my coffee black.”
For the first time since walking in the kitchen, Michael smiled. Scott relaxed as Zelda came into the room, fully dressed in loose fitting pants, a Chicago Bulls tee shirt, and her hair in a ponytail.
“Good morning,” she said, yawning a bit.
Scott moved quickly. He grabbed the coffee mug from the counter to pour her a cup of coffee. He handed the cup to her along with a kiss on her cheek as he responded to her greeting.
“Thank you. I see you two have met,” she said sleepily.
“You look tired, Zelda,” Michael said.
“Well, if you wrestled with a bear for most of the night, you’d be tired, too,” she said with a wink at Scott, who was shaking his head no. Scott was shocked at the boldness of her referencing the sexual encounter with him last night. He was especially stunned at her boldness in front of her brother about their sex life.
“Zelda, your brother doesn’t find that funny. I don’t think it’s appropriate, either. I’m not comfortable with that kind of talk in front of him. He will punch me in my throat!” Scott said, his forehead furrowed.
“If that bothers him, he is going to be in for a world of shock tonight when we go at it again,” she said. “I can get loud, Mike.”
Both Michael and Scott stood side by side, looking at her in shock. Scott spoke up first.
“Darling,” he said. “It is my intention at some point to have your brother walk you down the aisle and place your hand in mine, giving his blessing to our union. He will not do that for a man he does not respect. I in good conscious can’t expect him to give me that respect when you are implying that I am using your body for my carnal pleasures!”
“Oh, shut up, Scott! Michael, I am using Scott’s body for my carnal pleasure,” she told her brother. “As far as that walking down the aisle shit, let’s get through tiling this backsplash first. If you can make it through this day without me wanting to kill you, we will be making progress. That puts us a long way away from a wedding!”
Micheal looked at Scott and grinned.
“You are enjoying this, aren’t you?” Scott said.
“Oh, yeah!” Michael replied with a bigger smile.
“Hmmph,” Scott said, setting down his coffee mug. He turned without a word and went into the bedroom.
“Where’s he going?”
“I don’t know, Mike, maybe to pee or something...,” she said disarming the security system to go out on the back porch to bring in a sheet of the tiles she planned to use.
Scott returned a moment later with two small green jewelry boxes.
“I forgot to give you these last night, Zelda,” he said.
“What is this?”
She opened the first box to find a pair of half karat diamond earrings. Zelda looked up at Scott in disbelief. He pointed to the second box. Her shaking hands fumbled to open the second gift, which held a gold banded bracelet with ruby encrusted red roses.
“I couldn’t make up my mind on whether to get you diamonds, roses or rubies, so I brought them all,” he said, watching her face.
“Scott, I can’t accept these,” she said. “These are very expensive gifts.”
“You said to surprise you. Have I fulfilled your request?”
She nodded, standing, her eyes misting. “Yes, you have! I am floored,” she told him.
“Therefore, all that really kind of remains is for me to pass this test of this backsplash project...,” he asked.
“The test?” she questioned.
“If I pass your test of completing this project with you, not becoming an ass, yelling at you, talking down to you, or calling in someone to fix the job I mess up, then you will start considering me for a long-term role in your life as just more than your man, but as the potential father to your children?”
It was Zelda’s turn to stand next to Michael with her mouth open.
“Is that what you want from me, Scott? You can see me as the mother of your children?”
“Yes. I can see that, but you will have to be my wife first. Which means, if I need to tile the entire kitchen, put in new wood floors, and cut down the tree in the back yard, I will do it. I want you. I am choosing you as my partner to journey through the rest of this life,” he told her.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said softly.
“Don’t say anything yet. We have just started our journey. I am letting you know my intended destination. I am hungry, too. I don’t really know how to cook anything other than toast. I need to eat something, get this backsplash done, pick out a new eye for Lucy, attach her foot, make a crapload of phone calls, and keep your brother from punching me in the throat. We have a busy day ahead of us,” he said with a frown.
Scott turned quickly looking at Michael, “Coffee makes me jumpy, which is why I only have one cup.”
Micheal started laughing.
He threw back his head, opened his mouth, and let out the loudest laugh she’d ever heard in her life from her brother.
“This is going to be fun!” Michael said. “Shit! I will cook breakfast for all of us.” He went to the fridge and pulled out some eggs.
“Your turn to buy groceries for the week, Zelda,” Michael told her. “I hope omelets are okay?”
She looked at Scott. “Add grocery shopping to that list of things to get done today,” she said.
“I need my container of eyeballs,” Scott responded, then left the room.
Michael was still laughing. “I was not ready for that one! Where did you find him? Never mind. This is rich. What are we doing for dinner?”
Zelda’s eyes were on the two boxes of jewelry. He’d really surprised her with this one. She too was not ready for her odd doll making man. The bracelet was possibly the loveliest piece of antique jewelry she’d ever seen. Diamonds, rubies, and roses. He brought all three.
Scott Berger was a keeper. Who gave a shit if he knew how to lay tile. He knew how to lay pipe, dreams and spark her imagination. That trifecta alone made him her choice as well.
I choose you too, Scott.
Chapter 6
Breakfast was cordial and light-hearted as Michael and Scott found a common ground to talk about: basketball. Since both her brother and her man were fans of the Chicago Bulls, the conversation centered on Jordan and Pippen formerly dominating the league. While they chatted, Zelda’s eyes remained focused on the clear container of eyeballs sitting on the table.
She wasn’t certain if the eyes were staring at her.
The one green eye in the bottom of the container seemed to follow her whichever way she moved. Scott looked up to see what she was doing, then casually moved the box to the empty chair which was pulled under the table. He had placed the container in the seat, out of sight.
Observant.
Michael checked the clock on the wall. “Ooh, I have to get going,” he said. “Zelda, if you would grab some steaks, sausages, and chops from the store. I will throw it all on the grill when I get in so you don’t have to worry about cooking while he’s here.”
“That would be nice, Mike. Thank you,” she said.
“Scott, I usually pull into the driveway at 6:10,” Michael said.
“Got it,” Scott responded. He watched Michael kiss Zelda on the forehead, grab his lunch bag, and head out the door.
“Your brother works a twelve-hour day. What does he do for living?” Scott asked as
he stared that the clock which read five forty-five in the morning.
“He is an engineer like our dad was,” she said. “He actually gets off work at two, but he goes to the gym for his cardio. I don’t know what that 6:10 thing is about. He’s normally home by five-ish. He is a bit of a control freak, which is why he takes his lunch. Very rarely does he eat out.”
“You sure you want to cook while I am here since it is your day off? I mean, I can order us food and have it delivered,” Scott said.
“Mike won’t eat it if you do. Besides, once you eat my cooking, you will change your mind about eating out ever again, ,” she said with a smile.
“You have made me change my mind about a lot of things, Zelda Fitzsimmons,” he told her.
“Like getting your eyes fixed?”
“Yes, I am working on fixing the rest as well,” he told her.
“I didn’t ask you to do any of that stuff, Scott. I accept you as you are,” she told him.
“Yes, but I don’t want to walk down the street next to you looking like your pet either,” he said.
“Whaaaat?”
“You heard me. People will either figure I am really rich or I have good credit to buy you stuff which is why you are with me,” Scott said softly.
“Or I can buy a tee shirt which says ‘Dick Game is Da Bomb’ with a little arrow that points at you,” she said with a comical look on her face.
“You do not want to do that. Other women will try to find out how good the beast puts it down in the beauty,” he said.
“True, true. I would have to cut a bitch for coming at my man,” she said.
He reached for the container of eyeballs. The glass, plastic, and wooden orbs rolled in the container in the little compartments. Scott’s body language changed so quickly that had she not been looking at him, she would have missed it.
“Scott? What did I say?”
“Nothing,” he said, getting quieter, retreating into that spot she’d seen him enter into his head that morning in the hotel.
“Ask the question that is shutting you down and get the truth from me so you will stop having to wonder,” she said.
He smiled his adorable buck-toothed smile. “I’m good,” he lied.
“No, you are not. You want to know something and before we go any further on this journey as you call it, get it off your chest and out in the open,” she encouraged him. He spoke slowly, measuring his words.
“Zelda, what if I wasn’t good in bed or if I had a small dick. Would you still want me?”
“I can’t answer that,” she said honestly.
“Why not?”
“Because you are an absolute stud in bed and even if you were not hung like the hairy bear you are, your tongue game is on point,” she said, laughing. His eyes were wide. “Scott, truthfully, it isn’t about the size of the weapon. There are men who wield large instruments who might as well have a loaded gun they don’t know how to use. Sex is about the connection between a man and a woman. You connected with me in a way no one ever has, which dropped all of my guards. I don’t know how you did it, but you made me trust you. I gave myself to you that Wednesday night because I trusted you with my body and spirit without having you damage either.”
The brown eyes focused on her mouth, her face, and her words.
Yeah, said no man ever with a large caliber weapon. Oh, let me trade in this Magnum for the P380 over there so we can connect and talk about our feelings.
He only arched an eyebrow as he listened to her speak.
“I am not with you simply because you know how to turn me into a sex crazed idiot every time you unzip your pants. Scott, I am with you because I like and respect you as a man. As odd as you are, it is refreshing,” she told him.
“You find me refreshing?”
“Yes, Lawd! You are a conundrum, but I have to tell you what concerns me more than anything. I am not comfortable with the expensive gifts,” she said. “My last boyfriend always bought me something expensive when he’d did me dirty. Things I never knew about that coincided with my trips out of town. He would buy pretty baubles to assuage his guilt. I know it’s stupid, but when I saw the bracelet and earrings, my mind immediately went to you cheating on me.”
“Zelda, your lovemaking is so thorough, I have no reason to ever cheat. Shit, this morning, I woke up dazed and confused. I thought for a minute there you put it on me so good that you had fixed my eyes, then I remembered I had surgery to correct them,” he said with a straight face.
Zelda’s facial expression was icy. She didn’t know whether to laugh, thank him for the compliment, or slap his face for saying she fucked him so well she cured his astigmatism. Then he moved on to his next task as if he’d said nothing more than if he were asking for more coffee.
Scott picked up the container of eyeballs, opened it, and selected three possible matches for Lucy, who sat in the corner, watching the whole scene. He stood, retrieved the doll and popped in the perfect matching eye.
“Take a look at me, Honey. Let’s make sure you can see me,” he told Lucy. He used the levers on her back to make her eyes look left and right. The new eye was off just a hair and Lucy appeared to have a lazy eye. Two quick flicks of his wrists and the eye was balanced.
“Good girl. Give Mr. Scott a smile,” he told Lucy, opening her mouth, then moving her eyes. Satisfied, he moved on to work on her foot. Using his tool set, he repaired her tiny wooden toes, moving the little leg back and forth.
“There you go, Sweetie. You are all better now,” he told the doll. “Let’s see if you can stand up.” He lifted Lucy by her arms as if he were helping an infant get her feet under her to take the first steps into life.
The actions were so simple, yet complete, that Zelda immediately envisioned him doing the same thing for their daughter. She stood moving closer to him, her arms around his waist, hugging him from the back. “Scott,” she whispered his name.
“Yea...sss..., he said, turning his face to look at her. He knew that look. He lay Lucy on the table to give Zelda his full attention, his arms now around her shoulder. “Darling, if we go down this road this morning, that tiling is not going to get done and we won’t get to the grocers.
“Okay, so we make this one a quickie,” she said reaching inside of his pants.
“Nope,” he told her. “Tiling and grocers. Then we have until 6:10 to get it in. Work first then frolic. Besides, I need about a good hour to take care of you the right way.”
She was disappointed.
But he was right.
They had things to do and projects to complete today.
Plus, she loved how he took care of her the right way.
The backsplash was a small area of only 10 x 12 feet, which didn’t take long to plaster on the mastic. Considering she had never tiled anything in her life, she listened as he gave her instructions, showed her how, and explained it again, watching her perform the task. He laid in the mastic and notched the putty as she put on the first layer of tiles. Scott came behind her, measured, cut, and filled in the smaller spaces along with spacers to ensure evenness.
“Let’s allow it to set. Once get back from the store, we can mix the grout and seal it, and we will be all done,” he said to her.
“That was pretty simple,” she said. “Where did you learn to lay tile?”
“When I was about 15, my dad thought it would be a good father-son bonding experience to retile the entryway of the museum. A freak tornado came through that year as well and tore up a great deal of the building, and the insurance mainly covered the inventory, so we had to do all the repairs. I learned a great deal about my father in that month,” he said.
“May I ask what you learned?”
“I learned his vision is or was as bad as mine, that he didn’t know the first thing about laying tile, and all he really wanted to do was spend some time with me,” he told her.
“I am certain the project turned out great.”
“My buddy Dwayne, his father is a contra
ctor, helped me out. In the evenings, I would get Dwayne to come to the museum and help me get the floor done the right way. My father never knew that he didn’t do all of that floor and I will never tell, but the time together is what was important,” he told her.
“Your dad runs the museum. I think I read that somewhere.”
“Yes, my sisters work at the company with me,” he said.
“I look forward to meeting them,” she told him.
“Oh, they can’t wait to meet you as well,” he said, pausing. “When are you coming to spend some time at my place?”
“I am in Cincinnati next month for an author-reader luncheon thing,” she said.
“Stay with me instead of at the hotel,” he told her.
“If I can work it out,” she said.
“Good enough. Are you ready to go shopping? This should be fun. I have never been grocery shopping,” he told her.
“What? Not even with your Mom?”
“Nope,” he said.
“How do you eat? Feed yourself?”
“Chandler,” he said. “He takes care of that stuff. Did you want me to drive? I haven’t driven in forever. I am kind of nervous about trying to operate a vehicle since getting my eyes done. Before my eyes were too bad to drive, now I am afraid they may be too good.”
“No, I’ll drive,” she said.
“Cool! Let’s roll,” he said, excited. There it was again. That adorable, grin with those horrible teeth. The smile was genuine and it came from his heart.
Everything came from his heart.
I like that about him. I am also enjoying his excitement over the smaller things in life. His excitement was almost infectious.
He was too excited. He was all over the grocery store putting things in the basket she didn’t want or need. Where he’d stored the mini calculator was also a question she couldn’t answer because he pulled it out, calculating the cost of a ten-pound bag of flour over the cost of a 2 pound one.
“I don’t need ten pounds of flour,” she told him.
“Yeah, but by weight, it is more cost efficient to buy the ten versus the two. The markup on the two pounds for the single person is ridiculous!”
A Tantalizing Tuesday (The Zelda Diaries Book 2) Page 4
