The One That Got Away (10 page)

H
e had offered to simply meet her at a nearby restaurant, but Serena was in a zone that laid her feelings flat against her sleeve. “I don��t want to eat a meal with you, Tony,” she'd snapped when he first suggested a rendezvous at an Applebee's. “I want to talk. Where do you live?” Minutes later, she drove out to Sharonville and zoomed her Volvo into the parking lot of his Extended Stay hotel, her inhibitions loosening with each passing second.

When Tony answered the door, any doubts about the wisdom of her impulsive move faded. The man before her was not the same one she'd traded wisecracks with at Kym and Devon's wedding. Dressed in an unbuttoned white dress shirt, navy dress slacks, and an expensive-looking pair of dark brown shoes, Tony looked at her as if he'd known this meeting was inevitable. A calm, self-assured peace radiated from his every pore. He smiled slowly, rolling out his pleasure at seeing her in small bits. “Hello.”

“What's up?” The words slid from Serena with a tempting ease she hadn't allowed herself to feel in years. Leaning against Tony's doorway in her thigh-high plaid skirt, black heels, and white silk blouse, she recalled a striptease routine she'd done for him in their youth.

Gripping his doorknob and trying to deny a new flash of pain
shooting up his left leg, Tony did a double take at Serena's casual tone. It seemed the past eleven years had been erased. This wasn't Jamie Kincaid's wife; it was his “boo” of years ago.

When he stayed silent, stepping aside to let her in, Serena strolled past him, hips in motion. “I appreciate you taking my call,” she said, smiling with her eyes as she passed.

“Guess we finally felt like talking at the same time.” Admiring her walk, Tony stood at the doorway, hands in his pockets as she took a seat on the small couch in his front room.

Serena leaned back against the couch, spreading her arms wide and crossing her legs with sass. “You might say that.”

Once he had shut his door, Tony took a few steps toward her, choosing for the moment to suppress his delight at the trail of perfume she'd left behind. One of the newer Obsession concoctions, he'd smelled it on other women but it was a perfect match with Serena's natural scent. “So, I asked Larry who all he had interviewed for that finance director job—”

Serena shook her head, chuckling. “And he mentioned my change of heart.”

Poised a few feet from her, Tony crossed his arms. “It didn't sound like you, Serena. He said you submitted your resumé one minute, then called a couple days later to say you were too busy to interview?”

“Yeah, I know,” Serena replied, shrugging. “Flaky as hell, wasn't it?” She reached for her purse. “Would you mind if I smoke?”

Tony felt his eyebrows draw up. “I thought you—”

“Quit? Yeah, well, there's quitting, and there's cutting back. I can only be so good, Tony.”

He sucked his teeth, not appreciating the defeat in her tone. “This is a no-smoking room. If you gotta light up, let's get out of here.” He paused. “Unless you can't afford to be seen.”

Serena rolled her neck anxiously. “What kind of question is that?”

Welcoming her familiar defiance, Tony turned sideways. Downstairs he was growing, extending, pulsing. He hadn't had sex
since his hospitalization, partially because thoughts of Serena had rendered him no good for other women, partially because he was afraid his hobbled leg would disrupt the sexual rhythm he'd mastered over two decades of experience. With Serena of all women here before him, his unplanned abstinence made it hard to think straight. As much as he wanted her now, it wasn't yet time, and if Tony had ever wanted to have a woman at the right time and in the right way instead of just any old way, Serena was that woman. “Let's just get out of here, please?”

Insisting on something more adventurous than a lame meal of chicken fingers at the nearest TGI Friday's, Serena used Tony's laptop to pull up the night's happenings on
AroundtheNati.com
. Her search quickly yielded a concert at Bogart's featuring Glenn Lewis and Avant. The show started in minutes, but Serena called and confirmed they were still selling tickets.

She drove his red Passat to make things simple. As Serena maneuvered them toward the city limits, Tony probed her gingerly. “You didn't sound happy to hear from me a few weeks ago. What's changed?”

“Come on, Tony,” Serena replied, huffing and pushing her lower lip out for emphasis. “Do we have to get deep tonight? What if I just came to my senses?”

Tony tipped his neck back against the headrest. “What did Jamie do?”

Staring at Tony like he'd distracted her from a more important task, Serena zoomed through a yellow traffic light. “Jamie's just being Jamie. You knew that; that shit's not news.”

“Serena, please.” Tony's ears rang at the sound of her foul language. It was beneath her.

“What?” She flicked a nasty glare toward him, then put her gaze back on the road. “Am I not enough of a challenge when I act like the girl you knew? Huh? You want me to be a happily-married mother and professional, don't you? A prim grown-up that you get to
turn out
.” Her shoulders jumped as she said, “Yeah, it's all about what feeds Tony's ego.”

Tony tried to ignore the dig, but failed. “That's not fair, you
know it.” He saw no point in arguing this out; he recognized Serena's trash talk from moments in their past, moments when the manic depression she managed so adeptly tightened its grip. There was no setting her straight when she was in this space; best to play along and fight another day. He'd always found these moments fleeting with her, and they'd never dampened his belief that he could help her fight through the haze.

Inside Bogart's, they downed rum, Coke, and vodka before standing toe-to-toe on the club's crammed dance floor, fifty yards from Avant as the singer crooned about reading a girl's mind. It was too loud for most meaningful conversation, but that was just as well. The hypnotic rhythm of swaying couples gave them the motivation, the privacy, to simply rest in each other's arms. From up-tempo numbers where they matched dance moves to slow jams that merged them at the groin, Tony and Serena snapped into place. “Like we've never been apart,” he whispered into her ear. This, he thought, was what God intended when he formed woman from man.

In the midst of the moment, Serena felt the first peace she'd experienced in months. Here she was, surrounded by any number of folk who might recognize her with this man who was not her husband, and she couldn't have cared less. Whatever his other issues, Tony Gooden had tried to keep her from marrying the wrong man, and she'd always known that. Maybe tonight was her first step toward correcting a bad decision.

“So,” he said into her ear, louder than a whisper but with too much cool to sound like a yell. “Does this mean you're willing to interview with Larry now, maybe work for Rowan?”

“Not so fast, Mr. Gooden,” she replied, smiling and pulling him closer with a firm grip on his chin. “The hard part comes later.” Shutting her eyes, she let her lips go slack as his arrived to meet hers.

Meeting Serena's kiss and gripping her close, Tony felt his eyes fill with tears. It was as if he'd arrived home after years imprisoned overseas, been fed his first meal after weeks of starvation.
I'm home,
he thought as his mind emptied of everything that had come before this moment, everything that might follow.
Home.

F
inally indulging the desire that had first gripped her at Kym and Devon's wedding, Serena was so overcome with joy that she nearly sailed out the front door of Bogart's once Tony helped her slip on her light overcoat. One hand clasped to his, she didn't take her eyes off the star-lit sky overhead until they reached Tony's car. When he tried to steer her toward the passenger-side door she resisted, resting her backside against the driver's door and drawing his chin close. “Burnet Woods,” she said in reference to a nearby park. “It's too much of a pain to tell you how to get there, so I'm driving again.”

The grown-up in Tony fought back a pleased grin. Serena didn't have to connect the dots for him; she was ready, in that willing state that teen boys and most grown men lived for. Tempted as he was to take advantage, he wrapped figurative arms around his pulsing loins; he was in this city because he loved Serena Height-Kincaid, and she was far too precious to just slide up in without any forethought or planning. He pulled his car keys from her reach. “Let me chauffeur you this evening, okay?”

Her back arching defensively, Serena wrapped her arms around Tony's neck. “Is that the sound of you blowing me off?”

“This,” he replied after kissing her quickly on the lips and
lowering her arms from him, “is me savoring every moment. I'll make you a deal.”

Growing suddenly suspicious, Serena tried to read Tony's emotions through his slightly damp, glowing brown skin. She
had
showered before leaving the house, hadn't she? Something felt wrong about his restraint, but she decided to roll with it. “What's the deal?”

“You go for a little ride with me, I'll give you a nice surprise.”

Humming with laughter, Serena opened the driver's side door and held it open, an arm extended. “Climb in, kind sir. I'll ride wherever you go.”

They were ten miles north of downtown, speeding up I-75 toward Dayton, when Tony completed his part of the deal. “Look underneath your seat there.”

“Hmm,” Serena chuckled, leaning forward as her head filled with images of a silk teddy, a pair of lace panties. “Let's see whether I'm still as small as you remember.”

“Uh-oh.” Smirking, Tony stole a glance in her direction. “If you were expecting something sparkling and off the rack, you may be disappointed.”

“Oh, shut up,” Serena replied, rustling around beneath the seat. “You're so—” She was struck dumb as she slid the “gift” from beneath the seat.

“Your senior favorites book,” Tony said, referring to the thick pink-and-white scrapbook holding Serena's most precious high school moments. “You had left it at my place just before you started seeing, uh, Jamie. I never got the chance to return it, for obvious reasons.”

“Oh, Lord,” Serena said, feeling the light of the smile radiating from her own face as she flipped through photos of herself cheerleading, playing in the band, attending prom with Dawn's father, Brady, and cruising the halls amidst a pack of girls she always cut class with. Taking a deep breath to ward off the sentimental feelings flooding her, she couldn't meet his eyes. “Tony, I thought I had lost this altogether. I never even realized I'd left it at your place.”

“Well,” Tony replied, “before I apply for sainthood, it wasn't like I didn't know you'd left it there. I was still in a spiteful place when I first found it.”

Serena cut him up and down with a
tsk-tsk
of a stare. “Oh, so you let me pull my hair out thinking I'd lost it, huh?”

Tony shrugged. “I wasn't exactly going out of my way to return your things. That said, I did have it out in my car when I crashed the wedding.” Slowing the speed of his Passat and hopping over into the right lane, he turned to face Serena nearly full-on. “If you'd made the right choice that day, you'd have gotten this back then.”

“Don't go there,” Serena said, her voice dropping. “I'm not ready to get deep, Tony. I just want to have fun tonight.” She took a look around, frowning when she saw they were nearing Cin-Day Road. “And where do you think you're taking us? You may not realize, but we'll be in Dayton's suburbs in a few minutes.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tony replied, his tone calm and patient. “Isn't there an area up ahead called Centerville, has a nice mall and a lot of other shopping?”

“Yes, it's your typical midwestern middle-class suburb, packed with Olive Gardens, Applebee's, and Starbucks. Why are you driving there? We've already passed five other exits just like it.”

Tony kept his focus on the road, but in the light of a passing Jeep Serena could see his eyes flash with the precision of a planner. “You don't know anyone who lives in Centerville, do you?”

“You'd be right with that guess,” she said, catching his calculation instantly. “Once you get past Monroe, you're out of my community. Thank you for preserving my reputation, Mr. Gooden.”

“I know, never mind that we just bumped and ground our way through Bogart's, right? At least this way we can talk away from prying eyes. Unlike some of these other redneck communities, I'm assuming Centerville is the next area I can roll through without being pulled over for Driving While Black?”

Serena tittered. “Don't bet any money on that one.”

Their conversation downshifted into small talk until they
pulled off the highway, rolled past an emptying Dayton Mall, and parked on a sparsely lit, tree-lined residential block a mile down the road. Serena sat in silence as Tony climbed from the car and walked around to her door. As he opened it for her, he reached a hand forward. “Walk with me?”

As they strolled hand in hand, their hips close but far apart enough to look respectable, Tony smiled in Serena's direction. “Okay, so tell me exactly why you called from out of the blue
now
.”

“Tony, we talked about this before we went to the club. Don't make me rehash Jamie's mess, please.”

Biting his lower lip and grinning, he said, “I'm not asking a thing about Jamie. I'm asking about you.” He came to a stop, clasped both her hands, and peered into her oddly shy gaze. “Are you manic right now, Serena?” When she tried to tick away from his line of fire, he cupped her chin lightly. “Maybe just a little bit?”

The question made Serena's spine itch, but she was shocked by the warmth suddenly coating the pit of her stomach.
He knows,
she thought.
Senses, at least.
In the days of their youthful romance, her mania had reared its head a few specific times, including one that resulted in her hospitalization. Tony had seen her through that crisis, visiting as much as was allowed and moving her in with him for the first few nights after she was released from the hospital. She had always waited for him to finally grow tired and dump her over the depression, and to this day she wondered whether that had been a factor in the end of their relationship.

He was still looking at her, calm but concerned. “I won't judge you. I need to know if you're with me tonight for the right reasons, that's all.”

“Trust me,” Serena whispered, leaning her head against his chest. “I'm here because I've wanted to be right here since I saw you at the wedding. Honest.” She patted his lean stomach for a minute, inhaled his woodsy cologne, the pomade brushed into his hair. “But, yes, I'm a little manic. I haven't taken my lithium in a few days. I guess I've let Jamie get to me again.”

Given that she'd held Jamie's most recent confession so close,
spilling it to Tony sounded strange to Serena's own ears. She watched her ex-lover's face twist with disgust at the news of Jamie's betrayal, and knew again that she had chosen poorly on the day of her wedding.

“That's enough,” Tony said finally, laying a finger to her lips as she recounted another litany of Jamie's infidelities. “He's really beside the point. The question is whether you want to get back at him through me, or whether you want to eventually be with me.”

Chewing over his words, Serena felt some of her own mental fog lift. “You may have a point, Mr. Gooden, but for the record why would I want to jump right from Jamie to you? Like I said at the wedding—Kym's wedding, that is—it's no coincidence that you're still single. If you wanted the dream a woman like me wants—the spouse, the kids, the white picket fence—you'd have found someone to discover it with by now.”

“Interesting theory,” Tony replied, languidly resuming their trek but keeping his eyes on Serena's. “So there's no chance a man like me is single because he's carrying a torch for that one special someone?”

“Oh, I've known men for whom that might be true,” Serena said, “but you're nothing like them. They were all the sort of guys who only get so many cracks at the women of their so-called dreams.”

“And I'm the type who can just land a superwoman whenever I want one?”

Serena sliced him with another stare. “Don't act like I don't have a memory, brother. You and I were always fighting off folk trying to get between us. We were both in demand.”

Hands in his pockets, Tony shrugged. “I don't get your point, Serena.”

“How's this? I'll bet you've ended every relationship since me, just as it got serious.”

Tony peered heavenward, did some quick calculations. “You'd be right about eighty percent of the time. I have had my heart broken since you, believe it or not. That's proof that my heart's generally in the right place.” Her name had been Juanita, and the pain
had lasted roughly seven and a half weeks, if he recalled correctly. By comparison, the clock on the pain Serena inflicted ten years earlier was still running, but he didn't mention that.

As they continued past one brick ranch home after another, Tony and Serena's discussion continued this way, rising and falling, alternating between playful conversations about their adult lives and heated discussions over the meaning of this very night.

“What drew you to Cincinnati, really—me or the Rowan Academy?” Serena crossed her arms, getting to the point as they circled back toward Tony's car.

He took a slight step away from her, as if sensing the importance of his answer. “I believe in what Rowan does, don't doubt that,” he said. “And it was Larry Whitaker's call, months ago, that first got me thinking of moving here. Would I have moved here if you lived somewhere else, though?” Tony paused, took a few quick strokes on his beard. “I'll let you make that call.” A small part of him feared that the truth would eventually lead to a stalking charge.

They were there in the dark, staring at each other and standing not fifty yards from the Passat, when a police cruiser pulled up with silent lights, its orbs and flashes placing the couple in an unwelcome spotlight.

The next few minutes proceeded in the exact way that Tony's father had warned him of from a young age. “When you're in
their
neighborhoods,” Wayne had first told him when he turned thirteen, “you have to accept that you're on enemy territory. You're not welcome, least of all after dark and even more so if you're in an odd car—either one that's a junk heap, or one that's nicer than most of the residents can afford.” When the pair of officers, both of them around Tony and Serena's age, climbed from the car, Tony heard his father's voice whispering inside his head. As the heavier officer's greeting question—“You two live around here?” delivered in an inappropriately skeptical and threatening tone—hit his ears, Tony acquiesced to Wayne Gooden's teachings.

With one officer in his face and the other one leering
disrespectfully in Serena's direction, Tony spoke calmly and respectfully, carefully explaining exactly why he and his lady friend had traveled thirty miles up the interstate to hang out in this precious, alien neighborhood. He even ignored the taller officer's knowing crack about their left hands—Serena's wedding ring, his complete lack of one. He was pissed off at their nerve, craving the chance to suggest they get real jobs fighting crime in an urban area. He realized, though, that he had to look out for Serena's immediate welfare as well as his own. As a result, Tony did what the responsible black man occasionally must do: eat it.

Back in the car, hurtling back down I-75, Tony's grip on the steering wheel didn't lift until Serena grazed his shoulder. “You gonna make me ride all the way back in silence?”

“Got to get you home,” Tony said, forcing a brittle smile. The sober end to the night had reminded him that Serena had a family waiting on her. “You need to be rested when your mom brings the girls back in the morning.”

“That may be true,” Serena replied, “but that doesn't mean you have to drive. I think you need a little rest, Tony. Why don't you pull off at the next exit. We'll get some coffee; then I'll drive the rest of the way while you cool off from those assholes' harassment.”

Releasing the knots in his brow, he was unable to argue with her logic. “All right, you have a deal this time.” His guard down, he took an exit three miles later and made a right turn off the ramp.

That's when she signaled her intentions, a warning that came too late given her quick touch. “You remember what we used to call our ‘rest stops' back in the day?” His mouth had barely formed an “o” meant to ward her off when Tony felt Serena's hand running from his right knee up the middle of his thigh.