“I’m hungry,” she said.
“You’re always hungry.”
“Don’t … don’t be cute right now,” she warned. “Nothing about last night was cute. So don’t go trying to be cute now.”
“Maybe we can make it to breakfast,” he offered.
“Lunch.”
“Lunch?” Deuce glanced over his shoulder and back at her desk where her digital clock sat. It was past one in the afternoon.
“Let’s shower, and then we can go eat.”
They showered together. An infraction that could have gotten Zora kicked out of the dorm. Standing together in the stall, they washed each other, soapy hands roaming each other’s bodies in a way that was both very sexual, and not sexual at all. Deuce was erect, just seeing her like that, slick and dark, the sheen of her body wash making her glisten.
When she washed him, her hands were tender, lightly skimming the injured parts of his face. Then they stood under the stream and washed the previous evening—or most of it—away.
In the Hub, once they got there, several pairs of eyes followed them as they got their food; there were whispers behind hands, and a few wide-eyed stares. Deuce had gotten a much better look at himself, and it wasn’t pretty. His left eye was swollen, though not quite swollen shut, and the whites were white no more, but instead a frightening reddish purple. His vision on that side was blurred, something he would probably have to get checked out to make sure there was no permanent damage.
He and Zora ate in silence at first, but Deuce could feel that the tension between them had lessened. By the time Zora shoved her tray away and sat back, he felt more confident that maybe there was a way forward for them.
“What am I supposed to say to people?” she asked.
Deuce swallowed the mouthful he had been chewing. “What people?”
“Rashad for one. What am I supposed to tell him? After what you did, if we were to … do this, what would I even say?”
Deuce tried not to show his relief, taking another bite of his burger to mask it.
“Well?” Zora demanded. “I mean, you acted like …”
“You cut me off,” he said, finally allowing himself to express his frustration, his anger. “You left Jersey and didn’t even tell me. And then when I get here, I see you at some party, and you walk up to me to say ‘hi’ like nothing even happened?”
“You were with two girls, Deuce, and …”
“And you were in town making out with Rashad Dixon!”
Zora froze and for a moment looked confused, shaking her head. “No, I wasn …” And then her eyes lit up with new clarity. “You saw that?”
“No. But I heard about it after. In graphic detail.”
She rolled her eyes. “It sounds like the description you got was a little bit faulty, for real. That was nothing. It was …”
“Okay.” He leaned back and folded his arms. “And the girl I was with? That was nothing as well. So, we’re even.”
“Was it?” Zora asked, looking him in the eye.
“Was it what?”
“Nothing. Was it nothing? You and that girl?”
Deuce shrugged. “Yeah. At least last night it was.”
Zora bit hard into her lower lip and her nostrils flared.
She was jealous. Just knowing that made him want to cheese. Hard. But he contained it and leaned in again.
“Look. I don’t need any more action like last night. And I know you don’t need the drama. So I’ma just lay it out there. I only want you. A’ight? Just you. That’s what’s up.”
Zora’s eyes softened.
“And if you want, I’ll apologize to whatshisname. I won’t mean it, but I’ll do it if it’s what you want.”
Zora exhaled an exasperated sigh. “Why wouldn’t you mean it? He’s never done anything to …”
“He tried to come between me and you. That’s what his ass did. So yeah, I’m sorry I made you cry. I’m sorry I embarrassed you. But I’m not sorry I hit him.”
Zora rolled her eyes. “I have to work with him …”
Deuce gritted his teeth.
“… and he’s my friend. He’s always going to be my friend …”
He gritted harder.
“So yeah, it would be great if you could … try to … manufacture some remorse, and find a way to communicate that to him.”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
“And then I’m going to need a minute. To …”
“To what? Figure out how to spin it? So that no one thinks less of you for dumping Rashad Dixon for the likes of me?”
Shaking her head, Zora pursed her lips clearly holding herself back. When finally she spoke, her voice was trembling with anger. “You don’t get to talk to me like that. And you don’t get to order me up like something on a menu. You might be Christopher Scaife, Jr. but that doesn’t mean you get to have whatever you want, whenever you want it. Especially after what you did last night.”
So, this was to be his punishment. Exile.
“How long?” he asked. “How much time d’you need?”
Zora shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Deuce tried not to roll his eyes.
So, this was it. This was where he would meet Relationship-Zora. Already, she was shaping up to be much more difficult than Winter-Break-Fling-Zora. But it didn’t matter. However he got her, whichever Zora she was, he wanted her.
Sliding his hand across the table, he touched the tips of her fingers with the tips of his.
“Okay.” he said. “I’ll wait.”
Chapter 12
“Your movement’s seen a steady erosion of support over the last year. Some might even say that it’s dead. How would you respond to that?”
The reporter was an earnest-looking young man with bluish-gray eyes and an impressive head of sandy-blonde hair which he had styled into a pompadour. He wore silver rings on three fingers of each hand, and had a piercing in his nose. Just from looking at him, Zora could tell that he was probably the only person at the conservative local paper who even wanted to interview a couple of rabblerousing college kids who rallied around a subject as uncomfortable as police use of excessive force against the Black community.
Rashad looked at Zora before answering, asking with his eyes whether she wanted to field the question. He always did that—made sure that when they were speaking together, he didn’t automatically take the lead. Particularly since people were likely to assume he was the leader anyway. Rashad was scrupulously attentive to all the “isms”– racism, sexism, ageism … No one could accuse him of a single one.
Zora shrugged, to indicate that he should take the question if he wanted it.
“First of all, this isn’t my movement,” he began, stroking his goatee thoughtfully. “It isn’t even just a Black movement. It’s a human rights movement that every American should support, no matter your race. Because Black Lives Matter may focus on a very specific strain of the disease, but it’s one that we should all want to see eradicated.”
That answer caused the reporter to lean in, listening with even more interest now, though the interview was drawing to a close.
“BLM is about the abuse of the power of the state to deprive citizens of their due process—and in some cases, their very lives,” Rashad continued. “And when the state takes your life, and says it’s justified, there is no redress that’s adequate. For anyone.
“White people think this isn’t their problem. Until it is. But by then, as a society we will have accepted a gradual erosion of standards about what is or isn’t appropriate, lawful, or justifiable for the men and women in law enforcement to do. You see, Rich …”
That was one of Rashad’s tricks. He used people’s names a lot, often shortening them to create a false sense of kinship. The reporter, who had introduced himself as Richard Stanley hadn’t invited them to call him “Rich” but Rashad did it anyway, because he knew the man would walk away thinking how personable, how approachable, how … charismatic that BLM activist
was. And all that good feeling would somehow make its way into the words and tone “Rich” chose when he filed his story.
Zora tuned out the rest of Rashad’s response, taking the opening to glance down at her phone. They had gotten their pictures taken for the paper about an hour earlier, and now the Q&A was dragging on. She’d conceded the last few questions to Rashad because she had no confidence in her ability to give a coherent response. Something had occurred to her just that morning in the middle of her English seminar, and she was eager to get back to her room to have it either confirmed, or denied.
Fidgeting, Zora wondered whether she should text Mia and have her come over. But Mia … she was her girl, but there was no way she was going to be able to keep her fat trap shut about something as juicy as this. And honestly, there was only one person she wanted around while she figured this out.
Opening the messaging app, Zora typed out a quick line and, before she had a chance to change her mind, hit ‘send’.
“So, Zora.” Their interviewer drew her attention back to him. “Your co-chair thinks that the movement has a long future ahead of it. What do you think?”
“Oh, I agree,” she said keeping her voice light. “Absolutely. What you’re seeing right now with BLM is evolution, not death. We started by mobilizing people in a very visible and vocal way, but now it’s time to go into some closed rooms, strategize and build. But yeah, we’re not going anywhere.”
Shad looked at her and nodded, smiling his agreement. Zora smiled back. Rich noticed the exchange and nodded and smiled himself, a good sign that Rashad had worked his magic very effectively.
“One last thing,” he said. “Word on the street is that you two are partners in other ways as well. How about a future there?”
Shad grinned his most charming grin. “Hey. This woman is always gon’ be in my life. So yeah, I guess there’s a future there, too.”
“Coolness.” Rich scribbled in his notepad while Zora glared at Rashad. “Thank you both for all your time today,” he said when he looked up again.
After shaking hands, and exchanging a few more pleasantries, Zora and Rashad watched Rich walk away. When he was safely out of earshot, Zora turned, and with folded arms looked up at her ex-boyfriend.
“Why would you say …?”
Shad laughed. “C’mon Zora. You really want him all in our business? What was I supposed to say? ‘Nah man, she dropped my ass for some other dude.’?”
“No one dropped anyone for ‘some other dude.’ And I hope that’s not the story you’re going around co-signing when people …”
“I don’t put my business out there like that. So chill. Besides, what I said was ambiguous. I just wasn’t about to get into all that with him.”
Sighing, Zora nodded. “Okay, but don’t … feed into that mess.”
Shad shrugged. “What mess? I know as much as anyone else. That you’re supposedly with some joker but no one actually sees you with the joker. All I know is, I hope he don’ got you on some DL bullshit, Zora. Because you know all that is …”
“We’re not talking about him,” Zora said, shaking her head. “Just know that I got this. Okay?”
It had been three weeks since the fight, and a little less than that since Deuce had been able to make himself seek Rashad out and offer what Shad called “the most half-assed apology” he ever heard for head-butting him and almost breaking his nose. But Rashad, given who he was, wasn’t one to involve “the authorities” in things, whether those authorities were the university administration, or the police. So, he had grudgingly accepted the mea culpa and agreed to try to move on.
And as for Deuce and Zora; they were talking every day now, a few times a day; and she sometimes let him come by so they could study together, but there was no more than that. There was only that much because after just three days of silence when she told him she needed time, it was she who was jones’ing for him.
So Deuce came over twice or so a week and lay across her bed to read for his classes while she worked nearby on her papers, or BLM business. Or they sat on opposite ends of her small loveseat, her feet in his lap, while he played with her toes and they watched TV on her small set that otherwise rarely got used. They both did an admirable job of keeping their hands off each other even though Zora could see the strain and frustration on Deuce’s face every single time she showed him the door and told him she had to go to bed, and that she planned to do that alone.
“Anyway, you need a ride back to your dorm?”
“Yes. Please. As long as it’s without all the commentary.”
“Commentary-free,” Rashad said, holding his hands up.
A week earlier, there had been almost a foot of snow, as February reasserted herself, reminding them that January wasn’t real winter. Navigating one’s way around campus was an obstacle course of frozen pathways as the snow melted under the late afternoon sun, and re-froze again by seven p.m.
Zora was glad for the ride once Rashad got his car warmed up, and if she admitted it to herself, glad for his company as well. He hadn’t changed in his manner towards her at all, considering everything that had gone on, but there were fewer occasions for them to have those epic-ass conversations, and she missed them. He had accepted their breakup now. Zora believed, though he would never say it, that he had even come to realize that she was right, and that he didn’t love her the way he used to, and should. They were better off as friends. But managing the terms of their friendship was something they still hadn’t figured out just yet.
It would be a while before she lost the impulse to call him every time she read something she knew he might find interesting, or when she saw a program on TV she knew he would want to watch. Zora was attentive to Deuce now, even when she wasn’t with him. She navigated their new status much as she did those patches of ice around campus—cautiously, and alert to possible danger. She knew Deuce wanted her—it was the single most significant source of confidence she had in their relationship.
His wanting her had been the centerpiece of their time together over Winter Break. But the only real test of whether or not there was more was to not let him have her in that way. At least not for now. He thought the enforced abstinence was because of the fight, and even joked about it, occasionally trying to tease longer, deeper kisses out of her, or asking whether he was still “on punishment” when she stopped his hand from sliding down from her waist toward her ass.
And maybe it had been his “punishment”, at first.
But now, part of Zora wanted to see how long he would hold out, how interested he could remain in a girl who wasn’t giving it up. So far, the answer was ‘very interested.’ He was the one who had established the rhythm for their contact each day, by calling or texting every morning, and then again later in the day, asking whether he could see her, and accepting her response, even when it wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
Occasionally, Zora checked up on him, guiltily, furtively, asking casual questions of Mia and Sophie about whether they had seen him on campus, and who with. Mia was happy to play the spy, but Sophie not so much. She was unhappy Deuce had been taken off the market, and unhappier yet because it was Zora who had accomplished it. And it did appear that the word had gotten around, that Deuce Scaife was no longer a single man, and that it was Zora Diallo who had scored the prize. She noticed strange girls’ eyes following her with bitter stares at the oddest times and places; girls she didn’t know, and whose past liaisons with Deuce she could only guess at, and hoped never to have confirmed.
“Well, look here … speak of the Devil,” Rashad said as he pulled up to the front of Zora’s dorm.
None other than Deuce was walking up the path toward the front door, with his hands stuffed into his jeans. He looked back at the car when it pulled up and did a double-take when he saw who was driving, and who the passenger was. And then he waited.
“That who you were texting in the middle of the interview?” Rashad asked.
“It was hardly the middle, Shad.
It dragged out forever.”
Shaking his head, Shad made a slight scoffing noise. “You did a good job anyway. Especially with that last question. You hit exactly the right note. I think he was fishing to see whether we were nervous about the bad publicity. So … good job with that.”
“Thanks,” Zora said, gathering up her bag and pulling her coat closer around her. Now that Deuce had seen her in Rashad’s car, she didn’t exactly want him to think she was in no hurry to get out of it. “And thanks for the ride.”
“Can I kiss you goodbye?” Rashad asked.
Zora glared at him and he laughed.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m messin’ wit’ you. I just wish I could get one last shot at his ass. That’s all. And since I can’t fight him …”
“Thank you, Rashad,” Zora said pointedly as she shoved open the door. “We’ll talk later.”
She met Deuce halfway up the path and as she looked up to greet him, he leaned in and kissed her, square on the lips, briefly sliding her the tip of his tongue. Then he pulled away—far too soon, and far too late, because now Zora felt a tiny ignition inside her, like someone had flipped a switch.
“Hey,” she said. Her voice trembled a little.
Deuce’s tongue snaked over his lower lip. “Hey,” he returned. But despite the kiss he didn’t look particularly pleased.
It was only then—dummy that she was—that Zora realized that the show was all for Rashad’s benefit. She tried not to roll her eyes.
“So, what’s up?” Deuce asked as they headed inside. “You said it was urgent.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s go in first.”
Once in her room, Zora was distracted as Deuce shed his coat. Underneath, all he wore was a plain blue Henley. He hardly ever wore anything else besides Henleys, jeans and a rotation of boots. Nothing fancy or flashy, except for shirts like this that hugged his chest, well-defined arms and narrow waist. He was the kind of guy who should never wear a shirt unless he had to because it was fifteen degrees outside.
Shaking her head, Zora refocused. How could she even be thinking stuff like that? Especially considering why she’d called him over. Reaching into her backpack she pulled out a paper bag and tossed it on the bed.
Young, Rich & Black Page 13
