Love Delayed (13 page)

“No, Leo
,” she sighed. “It wasn’t Lewin’s research on conditioned reflexes that influenced the rise of behaviorism. It was Pavlov’s experimental methods that helped transition psychology from introspection and subjective assessments to objective measurement of behavior.”

That reminded me of the tutoring call she said she had this morning.
As she spoke, Zoey removed the pan of bacon from the eye and turned the stove off. She rotated, in search of something and then took long strides over to the refrigerator. I couldn’t help but notice she was irritated, certainly not my cool and funny Zoey.

“
Lewin
was groundbreaking in modern social psychology because of his work that used scientific methods and experimentation to explore social behavior. Remember,” she paused, scanning the contents of the refrigerator. “Uhhhhh…he was a seminal theorist whose great influence in psychology still makes him one of the most distinguished psychologists of the 20
th
century.”

I stood back from the open area to give her space.
Zoey wore fitted jeans, a brown sweater and ugly ass Ugg boots. She tapped on the fridge door, humming. “No, that would be JP…Jean Piaget. Yes…”

She
pulled out the nearly empty carton of eggs, shredded cheese, a half cut green pepper and deli sliced ham. Then she started opening and
damn near slamming
cupboard doors, making me flinch. Finally she found another frying pan.

“Hang on Leo, I need to put you on speaker while I cook.”

She punched a few keys and then I heard the voice of young Leo. He sounded like a jock. I’d hoped he was paying her a fair wage. All of sudden I didn’t like sharing her time with a frat boy. They exchanged words as she continued rattling off names and theories. A crazy sensation ran through my chest when I realized she never paid me a glance since walking into the kitchen. I’d hoped she wasn’t hanging on to my rejection last night.

“Yeah
…well, I know his work is in psychosexual development. No one can forget Freud!” Leo informed, just a little too excitedly, bringing my attention back to their conversation. “Do you think if he were around today, he could help me score with you?”

My ass bounced of
f the counter. Zoey’s neck snapped to find me. Her arm slammed into my chest when I went for the phone. I stood in the middle of the kitchen flexing.

“
Uhhh…” she eyed me warily. “Leo, it doesn’t seem that I’ll be scoring…with
anyone
.” She rolled her eyes away from me on that. “Listen, go over the ones we’ve discussed today and we’ll plan a time to meet and get you acquainted with the others when I get back on campus.” She sounded even more aggravated.

When she hung up, she transferred plates of
omelets and toast to the island then went looking for utensils. My Niña was obviously frustrated.

“The last on the left,” I advised, feeling like a
useless ass.

She got forks and knives and we sat down to eat. The omelet was delicious. I was grateful that she was able to pull a rabbit out of
a hat for breakfast. I hadn’t planned on being at the house these few days and didn’t leave any notice for my housekeeper to stock it with food. We were lucky to find what we did. I’m usually in Philly during the season. Not much got me off schedule. Until…

I glance
d across the island. Zo was quiet.

“You okay, kid?” I tried
, adding a smirk to lighten the moment.

“
Mmm-hmm,” sounded from her throat after filling her mouth with a forkful.

“Then why the hell won’t you look at me?” I was now getting a little
irritated.

Her eyes slowly rolled up to mine. “Happy?” she snapped her neck.

There was my smart ass Zo. I chuckled and in spite of herself, so did she.

“You meeting up with the kid
, Leo, when you get back?”

Yup, I
’m sitting on a fucking maxi pad.

“That’s how I make my money.”
Her sarcasm was thick.

“Talking about psycho-development…specifically sex?”

She shrugged. “You know what they say: those who can’t have sex, talk about psychosexual development.” More sarcasm.

I dropped my fork
onto my plate. “Zo…” I called apologetically.

“I’m just kidding, you dork!” she giggled. “Calm down.”

I didn’t know if she was kidding about kidding or serious about both. Zoey was fucking with my head. I didn’t exactly know how to proceed with her after last night. I felt sexual tension, something I knew nothing about. Sex was never a big fucking deal for me; when I wanted it, I got it. And don’t get me wrong, I wanted it, but, I didn’t fuck friends. Problem was, Zo wasn’t a typical friend. I didn’t know what the hell she was.

When we were done,
she took our plates to the sink to clean. I stood, resting my hip on the counter next to her, watching her like an idiot. I’ve fucked more women than I care to think of, but this young jawn had my fucking panties in a bunch.

“So, what are we doing today?” she asked, still not looking at me.

“I think we need to get some food in here. We can start with that,” I offered.

She grabbed the towel to dry her hands. “Fine, let’s go while it’s early. I know how you are with crowds. Don’t want to get you mobbed,” she mumbled.

“I can actually visit this local grocery store with little fanfare.”

“Okay. I’ll go grab my things then.” Zoey turned to leave the kitchen.

I grabbed her
arm, yanked her little body into mine, took her by the face, and pushed my tongue in her mouth. It took her a while to kiss me back, but she did after some time. Her hands clutched my lower arms for balance. I didn’t stop until I felt she got the message.

“I don’t want to beef with you,
Niña,” I whispered to her as I held her head in my hands.

She sighed and closed her eyes. “We’re not beefing, Stent. We’re fine.” And then she pulled away from me, leaving the kitchen.

Twenty minutes later, we were at the grocery store, and rolling the cart down the aisle. Actually, I was pushing it and Zoey was rambling about ingredients needed for things she would cook while we were out there. When she asked about my diet restrictions, I told her I eat everything, but just nothing too heavy during the season; I was still on the clock, so to speak.

“What does your chef usually cook for you?” she asked while we were in the produce area.

“I dunno, shakes, vegetables, lean meats. Shit with lots of protein,” I answered while reading scores on my phone.

“That doesn’t help,” I heard from just ahead of me. “But I think we have enough to survive these next two days.”

I glanced up to find her staring at me, I guess for an answer.

“Okay,” I answered like the dork she often accuse
d me of being.

“You can start off to the register. I just remembered
Adobo
seasoning. I don’t know if your chef has that at the house.” She started off in the opposite direction. Zoey called over her shoulder, “Don’t wait for me. I can pay for the seasoning!” She winked as she sashayed, I’m sure purposely, for humor.

On the way back to the house, the snow started coming down. It brought out an
animated Zoey. After putting away the groceries, we found our way to the formal living room, in front of the fireplace, roasting s’mores. It was something I’d never done, but had always seen on television. And my determined Zoey, had my ass holding marshmallows and Hershey’s chocolate bars in between two graham crackers, laughing my ass off.

She sat with her legs crossed, this time in tights, a long t-shirt, and thick socks. Her eyes were big and smile was bright as she made jokes about the annual women’s retreat at her church and how Angela would put melted chocolate in the elderly women’s beds, making them think they shitted the
mselves in bed at some point in the night because they somehow never found the chocolate when going to bed. The stories didn’t stop and neither did the laughs. My cool Zoey was back.

“So, tell me:
What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?” Zoey asked. “I think for me it was letting Kaleemah Brown cheat off my math test for the whole school year in high school. I never had the heart to tell her no. Angela scolded me for that all year until she convinced me to trick Kaleemah during our finals.”

“What did you do?” I lifted a brow, genuinely interested.

“So, I started writing down bogus answers and equations, giving Kaleemah the perfect view of my paper so she could copy it. Then when she was finished recording them, she handed in her paper. I stayed behind, waited until she left the room and told the teacher I needed a fresh exam paper because I’d confused all of my equations for different applications.” She shrugged. “He believed me, seeing I was an honor student. And of course, I turned in the correct answers.”

“What happened to
Kaleemah?” I asked as I bit into my third s’more.

“It was the end of the school year. For all she knew, I flunked along with her. She didn’t fail that semester, but she did flunk out of the honors program because our finals counted for such a high percentage of our grade.”

Zoey reached over and wiped my mouth. “You’re just s’mores’d out, Stent. Your turn. What was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?”

“
Hmmmm…” I thought for a moment. “I’ve done lots of stupid shit in my day, kiddo. I think the stupidest was back during the summer when Alton and I got drafted.” I put my sandwich down on the plate and took a sip of the milk she insisted I drink with it. “We were at a country club in Mullica Hill doing off-season training—back then we trained in random places. One morning, Al and I woke up and made a pact that we were getting off the property to have some fun before we checked in for official training. I told him I was craving
White Castle
, and he said he’d never had it before. So, I made it my mission to take him to experience his first double with cheese. We bummed a ride up to Newark with a trainer who had a hoopty and we barely made it to the one on South Orange Ave. The trainer left for a car repair shop we passed on the way up, saying he’d be right back once he got his joint fixed.

“Well, after we ordered our food
, we walked a few blocks to a park that I knew we could chill at until our ride came back through. But when we got there, dudes from the Westside was there and knew who we were. They wanted a challenge. Now as employees of the NBA, we’re not allowed to play street ball, but two kids from Newark and Bridgeton would never be played like fucking suckas. So, we dropped our shit and balled the hell out. People always slept on Al because of his height, but was blown away by his speed and rebounds. We burned their asses on that court. It was so bad that dudes wanted to fight. Again, the two of us being from these cities, weren’t new to street fighting, so we were ‘bout it. That was until more of their Westside clique showed up flexing because they knew we’d just gotten signed.

“I’ve never shied away from a fight. When you grow up in the
hood, you know you gotta do what you gotta do, but when I thought of the bright future I’d just signed up for, it wasn’t that simple. Shit, there was no way I was going to punk out. Well, just as it was about to go down, the trainer pulled up, beeping the horn like a fucking maniac. It somehow got our attention and Al and I locked eyes, quickly agreeing to our next move. We hauled ass out of that little park so fast and barely made it into the car before it spun off. Dudes was chasing us for blocks. Throwing bottles, rocks, sticks…anything they could find, but we made it.”

I turned to look at
Zoey. She was totally engrossed in the story by the way her face appeared frozen. I’d hoped I didn’t scare her with a story that happened years ago.

I chuckled then waved my hand in her face. “Earth to
Zoey,” I teased.

She blinked and finally said, “I guess poor Alton never got to taste those doubles with cheese. Such a sad story.”

I fell back, laughing hard as hell, holding my stomach. There was never a dull moment with this girl. Leave it to her to make light of Al and me damn near losing our careers and lives over a stupid challenge.

After she calmed from her laughing spell, she said, “Let’s play a game.” There again was that devilish twinkle in her eye.

“Ah…shit,” I grunted. “What type of game? You already have me here eating s’mores at the fireplace like a damn suburban camper.”

She giggled,
and then started cleaning our mess from the hearth. As she began stacking the crackers, chocolate and bag of marshmallows, she explained, “Okay, the game is called, “Play the Game You Want to Play”.”

As childish
as the name and request for this game was, this girl could get whatever the hell she wanted from me. I was intrigued.

“What the fuck?” I
barked as I followed her to the kitchen after grabbing what she couldn’t fit in her arms. “I’ve never heard of said game.”

She waited until we arrived
at the kitchen to start explaining. “It’s simple. You just tell me what fun thing…or play you want to engage in and we’ll do it. Then before we turn in for the night, I’ll pick the game I want us to play.”