Imitating Michael Jackson’s moonwalk would have been inappropriate, but that’s exactly what Jonathan felt like doing. He should feel guilty for lying about remodeling that back room, but when Ivana had barged into his office demanding the room not be touch, inspiration had struck, and Jonathan refused to feel even a twinge of guilt. He’d started to doubt he’d ever get Ivana to agree to go out with him.
Of course, this was not what he’d had in mind when he suggested dinner. Even though he was still new to the city, Jonathan had questioned Ivana’s directions when she’d told him the location of the restaurant where she wanted to have dinner. Toby had given him a crash course in the neighborhoods to avoid, and this one ranked high on the list. As he looked over the scores of faces crowding the tables in the soup kitchen, Jonathan couldn’t help but say a prayer for their situation.
“I don’t eat no green beans,” an old lady, who had on at least three coats even though it was pushing eighty-five degrees outside, yelled at him.
“Sorry, Ms. Mable. He’s new,” Ivana said as she placed an extra roll on the woman’s plate.
Jonathan leaned closer to her. “When I suggested we have dinner, I envisioned sitting at a table while people served us, not the other way around.”
“We eat when everyone else has been fed,” Ivana said.
“Hurry it up,” came a call from somewhere down the line.
“Get back to your green beans,” Ivana said. “You’re slowing down the line.”
“They’ll get the damn beans when I give it to them,” Jonathan muttered under his breath. “Ungrateful sons of…”
His respect for Ivana grew by leaps and bounds with every abusive remark one of the vagrants hurled her way. Jonathan had been ready to fight the first person who’d insulted her, but Ivana had stopped him. She’d told him he needed to understand that most of these people were angry at the world because of their current circumstances, and that he shouldn’t hold their sour attitudes against them. The way Jonathan saw it they all should be grateful that people like Ivana and the rest of her friends cared enough to fix them a hot meal.
By the time everyone had eaten their fill, which included seconds and even thirds for some people, there were a few pieces of roast beef and about ten string beans left for both he and Ivana to split. Ever the gentleman, Jonathan gave up his claim to the green beans so Ivana could have them all.
They took a seat at the table one of the other helpers had just cleared.
Now all he had to do was get her to talk about herself, which he had not been able to accomplish the entire time they’d served the homeless their meals.
“So, what’s the age difference between you and Sienna?” Jonathan asked, since his earlier question about her business had tanked.
“When did it become appropriate to ask a woman her age?” she countered.
“Come on, Ivana. You practically ignored me the entire time we were serving. Did you agree to go out with me just to be difficult all night?”
“I agreed to go out with you because you gave me no other choice.”
“So you’re saying you would never have gone out with me if it were not for wanting to save that back room from becoming my private gym?”
The look she gave him told Jonathan that was exactly the case.
Forget this. Why was he bothering with a woman who didn’t want anything to do with him? He was getting hit on at least a dozen times a night at the club. All he had to do was crook his finger and he could have a string of women in his bed.
But not a single one of them had intrigued him the way Ivana had. There was something about her that captivated him, so much so that he decided against ending the date early, as he had been about to do just a second ago. Instead, Jonathan employed another tactic, something he knew she couldn’t resist.
“Why don’t you explain just why that room is so important to you?”
She gave him the suspicious eye before taking a sip of water and asking, “Why?”
Jonathan shrugged, “It must mean a lot if you were willing to stoop to having dinner with me.”
She gave him a saccharine smile. “Only fools fall for reverse psychology, Mr. Campbell, and despite what the vast majority of people think, I am no fool.”
That. That right there was what had him coming back even though she shot him down at every turn. She had a hint of sass that tended to surface from time to time. It was such a contradiction to the no-nonsense image she usually portrayed. She fascinated him, plain and simple.
He was about to speak when she said, “The building that houses your new law practice is where the first Voodoo healing took place in New Orleans.” She pushed a few green beans around with her fork. “It’s an important part of the religion’s history, at least to us practicing it here in New Orleans.”
“What made you turn to Voodoo,” he asked, because he desperately wanted to know. He knew her religion was important to her, and Jonathan was dying for just a small look through this window to her soul.
“I was raised a Christian,” Ivana provided. “Actually, in many ways I still believe in God, but it was the compassion of the Voodoo that appealed to me. I’d never witnessed such generosity.” She looked up at him, her expression softened. “I was like you, you know. All about my career without a thought about others.”
Jonathan swallowed back his reaction to her baseless account of his personality. She’d drawn her own conclusions about him based on his being an attorney. He would set her straight soon enough. For the moment, he didn’t want to say anything that would stop her now that she was finally opening up to him.
“I got tired of Corporate America pretty quick,” Ivana continued, still pushing the food around. “One day, one of my fellow Voodoo sisters approached me. She said something within me called to her, and invited me to join her at a healing. It was life-changing,” she said, passion gleaming brightly in her eyes. “I get chills just thinking about the love that was present in that room.”
She expelled a breath, looked down at her plate. “That’s why I was so against you moving into the building and tearing it apart,” she said when she looked back up at him.
Jonathan hitched a shoulder apologetically. “I didn’t know,” he said.
“Forget it,” she waved him off, but Jonathan didn’t want anything fueling the insensitive jerk persona she’d mentally created with regard to him.
He reached over and wrapped a hand around her wrist. God, her skin was soft. He looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I’ve given you grief over the room. I didn’t know how important it was too you.”
She stared at him, a wisp of hair bellowing softly in and out of her partially opened mouth. Jonathan ached to capture her full bottom lip between his teeth and suck.
A loud crash came from the kitchen, jerking them both out of the intense haze of awareness that had wrapped itself around them.
“Everything’s okay,” came a call from the kitchen.
Ivana pulled her hand from his hold, using it to tuck the wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “Well, I’m glad I got through this dinner. I can rest easy knowing the room is safe.”
Disappointment twisted his stomach. “Is that really the only reason you agreed to have dinner with me?” Jonathan asked, knowing his hurt showed in his face, but unable to do anything about it.
“It’s the only option you gave me,” she returned.
Jonathan shook his head. “I’m trying really hard here, Ivana, but you’re not making it easy.” He pushed his plate to the side and folded his hands on top of the table. “Why don’t we pretend we’ve never met? Forget the fact that you don’t like me, for whatever reason you choose not to like me.”
She held up her hand. “Before you go any further, let me explain just why I don’t like you.”
Oh, great. He had just asked for this, hadn’t he?
Ivana used her fingers to tick off the reasons. “Your office. Your club. Your car.”
“My car?”
“Yes. Your job.”
“Hold up. Back to the car. Why don’t you like my car?”
“Because it is the most ostentatious heap of wasted money I’ve ever seen. The only reason a man would pay that much money for a car is to compensate for his insecurities and low self-esteem.”
“You can tell all that just by the car I drive? Who’s practicing pop psychology now?”
She ignored him and went on with her Why I Despise Jonathan list. “The way you dress.”
“Wait, wait, wait. What have my clothes got to do with any of this?”
“Same as the car. Why else would you spend so much money on those suits and silk ties if not to make yourself feel special?”
“Isn’t that why anyone does anything for themselves? That’s the point of life, to be happy. At least for the majority of the population. And what about you?” Jonathan asked, past the point of being a little miffed. In fact he was well on his way to being damn offended by her observations. “Do you spend your evenings working in a soup kitchen only because you want to help people, or because you want to feel good about yourself?”
“Excuse me!”
“Do you really think you’re not getting pleasure from all your altruistic work?”
She sat up straighter, fire in her eyes. “The work I do actually does some good for society. All you do is provide a place for people to get drunk, then defend them in court when they crash their cars into someone.”
Tamping down his irritation became the hardest thing in the world. Jonathan took a second to find his center of control before speaking. “You’ve known of my existence for what, two…three weeks? Yet you’ve already got me all figured out.”
She plastered him with one of those superior looks.
Why should he even bother? She’d already made up her mind about him. He should just cut his losses and move the hell on.
But her assumptions were completely wrong, and he refused to just sit back while she continued to think the worst of him.
“What would you say if I told you one of the first things I did when I came to New Orleans was sign up for the Big Brother’s program? And,” he cut her off when she started to speak, “what if I told you that a percentage of the profit made on Ladies’ Night at the Hard Court goes to a battered women’s shelter my sister runs back in D.C.? And what if I told you that twenty percent of my law practice’s caseload is pro bono? You’re not the only one who fights for a cause, Ivana.”
Some of that hauteur had taken a backseat to surprise. She really did have a low opinion of him. But, apparently, his justification, which he was pissed he had to provide in the first place, still was not enough for her.
After a moment, the aloofness returned and she said, “And I’m supposed to believe that?”
Jonathan hit the table with his fist. “I give up. You’re going to believe only what you want to believe, no matter what I say. But let me clue you in to something, Ivana. All work and no play—even if you love the work—makes for an unfulfilled life. When you realize there’s more to living than fighting for ‘the cause’, give me a call.”
He pushed away from the table and left her sitting in the middle of the soup kitchen.
***
Toby walked through the gate of the newly erected chain-link fence that surrounded the playground. The plastic equipment was new, its bright reds, yellows, blues and greens much different than the old metal swings, monkey bars and merry-go-rounds that were here when he and Sienna were in elementary school.
“Looks like an entirely different place, huh?” Sienna said, reading his thoughts.
“I guess those lawsuits Roberta Taylor’s mother filed every time she got a scratch on that old playground equipment had more of an impact than I first thought,” Toby replied.
They walked past a row of seesaws and a giant sandbox with a huge plastic green worm in the center, on their way to the basketball courts at the far end of the playground.
After the day they’d both had, Sienna had suggested they do something to unwind. Aria’s radio interview had basically been a continuation of her interview on Katie LeBlanc’s television show earlier that morning. The radio disc jockey had seen the show, and even though Toby had stipulated before they went on the air that there would be no overly personal questions; the host had done just enough to toe the line without actually crossing it. Aria had been better prepared to skirt around the answers than she had been earlier this morning, but still, the ripples from the LeBlanc debacle were still being felt.
And it reflected in Aria’s performance earlier tonight. She’d been stiff, and the performance lackluster compared to the two previous nights.
Toby was trying not to worry too much. Sienna had damage control in hand. But Toby wasn’t so sure he was ready for her method of unwinding. He could have come up with something just as physical and a lot more to his liking than playing a game of basketball.
“Finish telling me what happened at the shindig you went to today,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to even think about it, let alone talk about it. I’m sure my mother will disown me. She’s probably drawing up papers right now to have me permanently kicked out of the Culpepper family.”
“Did you really tell them you’re a lesbian?”
“No, I just threatened my mother I would. She has a strong heart, because I was sure it would send her into cardiac arrest.”
Toby caught her by the arm and pulled her close. “Well, at least I know you’re not gay.” He captured her open lips and quickly sucked her tongue into his mouth.
When he finally let her go, Sienna stared up at him, an awed look on her face. “I can’t believe I’m kissing you this way,” she whispered, the awe making its way to her voice.
“Does it still seem strange to you?” Toby asked.
She slowly shook her head, as if running the idea through her mind. “Not so much anymore. You?”
“Not so much,” he mimicked, unable to help the smile that drew across his lips. “I’ve got a question? Which do you think Sylvia would rather, that you were a lesbian, or that you’re dating me?”
Sienna’s crack of laughter echoed across the empty playground. “I’m not sure. Maybe I should just tell her the truth next time.”
“You might just get that heart attack out of her after all.”
They walked side by side past swing sets, a merry-go-round, and hopscotches painted on the spongy playground floor. “Is the basketball court made of this material?” Toby asked.
“No, it’s real asphalt,” Sienna said. “It’s on the side designated for the junior high students.”
Moments later they arrived at the basketball and tennis courts. If he’d had rackets in his trunk, Toby would have suggested they play a little tennis instead.
What in the hell made him agree to play basketball after all this time? He’d tried over the years. He’d even managed to make it to an actual court once when Jonathan had dared him. But because God liked him so much, the sky had opened up with a huge rain shower just as Jonathan had passed the ball.
Toby looked up. This was probably the clearest night New Orleans had seen since he’d been back home. Guess God thought he’d had enough reprieves.
“What’s the matter, Toby?” Sienna asked, balancing the basketball on her hip. She was dressed in loose-fitting nylon shorts and a white T-shirt with a hot pink Nike Swish.
“Nothing,” Toby lied, waiting for lightening to strike despite the clear skies.
“You’re frowning.”
“Am I?”
Sienna placed the ball on the asphalt and closed the distance between them. She took both of his hands in hers and swung them from side to side.
“When I suggested basketball, I had a feeling it had been a while since you’d played. Was I right?”
He swallowed hard, and then admitted, “The Friday before the accident.”
The swinging stopped.
For a moment that seemed to last a lifetime, she stood there staring at him as if he were a stranger.
“Why?” she finally asked.
If he knew the answer to that question, he could give meaning to the reason of the universe. Then again, Toby had known all along why he hadn’t held a basketball in all these years; he just wasn’t ready to say it aloud.
In some ways, he missed basketball more than anything in the world. He ached to return to the court and experience the thrill of the game. Yet other days, the thought of playing again scared the crap out of him.
Answering her question, he shrugged. “I haven’t had the desire.” It was partially true. Who desired to be scared out of their minds, other than crazy thrill seekers who bungee jumped, or skydived? He wasn’t about to leap head first out of an airplane anytime soon, either.
“Here’s the thing,” Sienna said, letting go of one of his hands and hooking his arm in the crook of her elbow. “That answer would probably fly with just about anybody, but you need to remember who you’re talking to. You not having the desire to play basketball is like my mom not having the desire to criticize me. What’s the real reason, Toby?”
Toby tried to stave off the irritation, but he could feel it building. Sienna was not the first person to try to get him to “talk it out.” It had not worked with Alex, Eli, Jonathan, or even his mother. It wasn’t going to work this time either. He didn’t want to ruin their night by stopping her cold, but she wasn’t giving him a choice.
She took it out of his hands by laying out the truth.
“You’re scared,” she said simply.
Denying it would be fruitless, so Toby decided to say nothing at all.
“You have every right to be,” Sienna continued. “Basketball represents a dark part of your past.”
“When did your Marketing degree turn into a Ph.D. in Counseling?” He didn’t mean for his voice to have that edge, but damn, she was asking more of him than he was willing to give.
“It doesn’t take a degree to understand human emotion, Toby.”
Don’t roll your eyes, he told himself, but they rolled anyway. Pop-psychoanalysis had that affect on him.
“So, do you think if I break past this barrier and actually play a game of basketball my entire life will be one big party?”
“No,” Sienna said, frustration making the word clip. “I was thinking if you played a game of basketball you’d remember the game for what it was before college scholarships, sports agents, and skanky cheerleaders shaking their butts in your face.”
Despite his annoyance, Toby couldn’t help his chuckle. “When did you start feeling this way about the cheerleaders?” he asked.
“Seventh-grade,” she answered. “Now back to the point I was trying to make. It’s just a game, Toby. I know you inadvertently blame basketball for much of the pain you’ve experienced since the accident, but you need to remember the good times, too.” She stretched her hands out and turned in a slow circle. “This is where we had the most fun of our lives, right on these courts. Well,” she looked at the coal black asphalt underneath them. “On the same grounds, at least. They’ve spruced up the actual court.”
A mini tug-of-war played out in his brain as Toby debated whether he was ready to take such a huge step? But why was it such a big deal? What’d he think, that an SUV would come careering through the fence and knock the rest of his vertebrae out of place?
Sienna was right. For most of his life, basketball had been everything to him, and not because of the glitz and glamour that came with an NBA career. He loved the game because it was fun. Period.
Toby reached over, grabbed the ball, and did a Harlem Globetrotter-caliber finger spin. “So, first to ten wins?”
Whatever agony he would experience as a result of playing basketball after all these years would be worth it just for the chance to see the smile that lit up Sienna’s face.
“You haven’t played in a while,” she smiled. “You sure you don’t want to stop at five?”
“I think I can hang,” Toby replied. “After all, you’re a girl. That gives me a slight advantage.”
Sienna punched him on the arm. “I would tell you to kiss my ass, but you’d probably take it literally.”
“Most definitely,” Toby said, leaning over and planting a quick kiss right below her ear. “Come on. Let’s see if I’ve still got it.”
“I’ll take it easy on you since you’re so out of practice.”
“Don’t bother, baby. When I win, I want to know that I’ve earned my prize fair and square.”
“What prize?” Sienna asked.
He let his eyes roam up and down her body and grinned at her instant blush. “As much as you’re willing to give me.”
Toby in-bounded the ball to her and Sienna made a quick pass behind her back as she darted to the goal, laying the ball in.
“I see you’ve kept up your game.”
“Not really. The only people I can get to play with me are Ivana and Lelo. And they do play like girls.” She laughed. “You don’t have anything to worry about. That was my best move. I just figured I’d come out with all guns blazing and rattle you a bit.”
Toby soon discovered Sienna had a lot more moves where that one had come from. The only thing she hadn’t managed to do was dunk on his head.
“Okay, play time is over,” he said after she got away with an easy lay-up. Back in the day, he could have blocked that shot with his eyes closed.
“You think just because you’re ready to get serious that the game’s gonna change?” Sienna asked, teasingly holding the ball just out of his reach. She crooked two fingers. “Bring it on, baby.”
Toby dove for the ball, stealing it away. He quickly put it through the hoop and followed with another three shots to Sienna’s one.
God, this felt good. Watching his perfectly executed jump shot arcing to the hoop sent a rush of satisfaction coursing through his blood. It felt natural to palm the ball, to dribble it back and forth between his legs.
“Where’s all that talk?” Toby held his hand to his ear. “I don’t hear you saying much.”
“Shut up,” Sienna said after an unsuccessful steal attempt.
Toby’s head fell back with a crack of laughter. Damn, he’d missed this. Nothing had ever set his blood to pumping like a physically exerting pick-up game.
And their game was definitely a physical one.
The bump and grind of their bodies as they each jockeyed for position was as erotic as anything Toby had experienced in the bedroom. Moist skin collided with moist skin. Lush breasts branded his chest. The stimulation from Sienna’s sweat-soaked body brushing against his left him hard and aching.
“I guess you don’t buy into the notion of sparing your girlfriend’s feelings by letting her win, do you?” she asked after Toby sunk another jump shot.
Toby shook his head. “You’d never accept a gimme win.”
“Yes, I would,” Sienna puffed. “God, it’s hot out here.” She made a T with her hands, “Timeout. I’ve got to take off this shirt.”
“Whoa, girl,” Toby said, halting her as she reached for the bottom of the T-shirt. “Leave the striptease for later.”
“I have a shirt on underneath this. And you can forget a striptease,” she finished, then pulled away from him and brought the T-shirt over her head.
Instant salivation started within his mouth. He’d run his hands over that toned stomach just last night, but damn if his imagination had dreamt up anything even close to the soft curves and silken skin displayed before him.
“Don’t tell me you’ve always looked like this under your shirt.”
“Like what?” Sienna asked, as if that delicately defined six-pack could be found on the average woman walking down the street.
“I just want to make sure you haven’t always been this fine, because if you have, Alex deserves the right to tell me “I told you so” to my face.”
“What are you talking about?”
He shook his head, chuckling at her obtuseness. “For years Alex has been telling me I should hook up with you. It’s true,” Toby assured her, when she gave him a look of disbelief. “But it’s always seemed too strange, you know? I mean, you’re you. Cee Cee. At that time, I couldn’t imagine the thought of us being together.”
Sienna plunked her hands on her hips. “I should kick your ass.”
“Why are you getting upset with me? I had to practically beg you to start dating. If I’d asked you back then, you would have laughed in my face.”
Before he knew what happened, the basketball crashed into his chest.
“Ow!”
“I wouldn’t have laughed in your face, you idiot! I would have asked what had taken you so long!” Sienna choked.
Wait, was she crying?
“Sienna.” Toby reached for her, but she pulled away.
“How blind can you be?” she asked. “I’ve spent most of my life loving you, Toby. Do you have any idea how hard it was to listen to you talk about all the girls you got with in high school? Some of the stuff you told me shouldn’t even be said in a locker room with just guys around.”
“That’s the way we talked to each other back then.”
“Not we. You! I never had anything to say about boys I slept with back then because I had never slept with any boys. But there I was, listening to the one I was in love with talk about skeez after skeez. You probably don’t even remember their names.”
No. He didn’t. But that wasn’t important right now. He was way more interested in that other thing she’d said. She had been in love with him?
“Cee Cee.” He reached out for her again, and this time she allowed him to pull her into his arms. The blow from the basketball had been replaced by a different kind of pain, and it hurt a thousand times worse.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Toby whispered.
“Why did I have to?” her muffled reply came from where she rested her face against his chest. She tilted back a little. “You knew me so well, yet you never saw how I felt about you. Why is that, Toby?”
How was he supposed to answer that? He did know her. He knew her better than he knew just about anyone, but he had never suspected Sienna thought about him in an even remotely romantic way.
Even if he had known, would it have changed anything? Back then he would never have gone for a jock like Sienna. He’d preferred the pretty girls who dressed in tummy-baring shirts and skintight jeans. Those were the girls who guaranteed a little action at the end of the night. The Toby of years ago probably would have laughed in Sienna’s face if she had suggested anything romantic between the two of them. It’s a good thing he’d grown up, because that Toby was a fool for not seeing the woman hiding behind the tomboy she used to be.
“I’m sorry, baby.” He rubbed his hand up and down her back. “I never wanted to hurt you. You know that don’t you, Sienna?”
She rubbed her face against his chest, wiping her nose on his shirt.
“Now I feel stupid for blubbering like an idiot.”
“No, I’m the idiot,” Toby said.
She raised her head a smidgen. “No argument here.”
Toby laughed. “Why don’t we call it a tie and go find some dessert. You feel like a little peach cobbler from Mother’s Restaurant?”
“With ice cream?”
Toby nodded, still rubbing his hands up and down her back. “Anything you want.”
“That’s a dangerous offer.” Sienna chuckled through another sniff. “I could wipe you out.”
“I wouldn’t mind. It would serve me right for being so stupid.”
“Not stupid, just blind,” Sienna told him.
He raised her chin, staring into brown eyes made luminous by barely shed tears. “Not anymore.”