He and Makela continued to look as Jayda’s small frame grabbed her big shoulder bag and threw the strap across her neck in a slant across her nice-size chest. Which made Kenny crave her again. That was going to be the hardest part for him to get over: not having Jayda in his bed. But that big shoulder bag she loved to carry everywhere she went, along with those jeans and sleeveless blouses she loved to wear, only reinforced for him the problem: she was not in his league. He wore a suit everywhere he went, and look at her!
But Jayda was oblivious to any of his thoughts. She hurried across the sidewalk to their table in an upbeat mood. “Sorry I’m so late,” she said breathlessly as she plopped down in the third seat. “I had a delivery to a sweet old lady who wouldn’t stop talking to me. She even invited me in for a cupcake.”
“Let me guess,” said Kenny as he crossed his legs and tapped the ash of his cigarette into the tray, “you accepted the invite.”
“She was just lonely. I figured what’s a few minutes of my time? It could be the highlight of her day. Maybe the only time she gets to talk to somebody all day long.”
But Kenny wasn’t having it. “So you leave us hanging around waiting on your ass so you can eat a cupcake with some old bitch? Is that how you roll?”
“You maybe,” Jayda said dryly as the waiter came over to their table, “but not me.”
Makela looked at Kenny with thatno she didn’tlook on her face as if she expected him to set that woman straight. Kenny was staring at Jayda with his own nasty look.
But the waiter interrupted his response. “What would you care to drink, Miss?” he asked Jayda.
“I still plan on working a few more hours, so you’d better just bring me a Pepsi.”
“Coming right up,” the waiter said, and left.
“Imagine coming all the way to a bar for a Pepsi,” said Makela with a grin. “Who knew that was a thing?”
Jayda ignored her snide remark. But Kenny didn’t ignore Jayda’s. “What did you mean by that? I don’t leave people hanging. I don’t roll like that.”
When Jayda looked at Kenny, he could feel her disappointment in him. Because it was those eyes that did him in every time. Those big, tobacco-brown, almond-shaped eyes that looked as if she could see right through him. He wasn’t shit and somehow she knew it. Her eyes showed it.
“Where were you all night?” she asked him.
“Who said I wasn’t home all night? You were sleep. And I left early this morning.”
Jayda gave him that x-ray look again. “You’re gonna outright lie? That’s what we’re doing now?”
“I was hanging with the guys at the club last night, alright? It got late, I got drunk, and I couldn’t drive home. Since one of them lived nearby, I crashed at his place.”
Makela smiled a smile that Jayda caught. She looked at her so-called friend. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” Makela started looking around as if it was no big deal. “Nothing at all.”
The waiter returned with the Pepsi. “Is that all for this table?”
“Yes thank you,” said Kenny. When the waiter left, Kenny began standing up. “I’ve got to run anyway,” he said as he pulled out his wallet.
“Run?” asked Jayda. “But I just got here.”
“But I’ve been here,” said Kenny as he tossed a fifty on the table, “and I got things to do.” He leaned down and kissed Jayda on her cheek. Smooth as velvet was her skin. He was going to miss that too. But Makela was right. Time for him to drop that zero. And he left.
Makela smiled and looked at Jayda. “When are you gonna wise up and get rid of that cheater, girl? You can do way better than Kenny.”
Jayda sipped from her glass of soda. Boo-Boo the Fool she was not. “So can you,” she said as she sat her glass down. She had no proof that Makela and Kenny were hooking up, or had hooked up last night, but she had plenty suspicions. But she’d been judged falsely her whole life based on suspicions too. She wasn’t doing that to somebody else.
Besides, Makela was always going to be Makela. They’d been so-called besties ever since Jayda and her father moved to Harlem when she was ten, and neither one of them had ever truly trusted the other one. It wasn’t even a friendship in Jayda’s eyes. Just somebody to hang out with. But Makela wasn’t her problem. She knew who Makela was. Kenny was her problem.
But a sadness overtook her nonetheless. Because she knew eventually she had to face the truth that she was in yet another dead-end relationship that was going nowhere fast, doing nothing for her but making her feel worse about herself, and would lead to a breakup in the end anyway.
And one thing every former boyfriend knew about Jayda Robinson: once they dumped her (and it was always them to do the dumping because of her unrelenting need to always hold on to something rather than nothing), she never looked back. Never any breakup to makeup. Just breakups.
But she’d been with Kenny for over two years and knew him since high school. She had hoped he would somehow work out. She knew he wasn’t there yet. Not by a long shot. But she had hoped he could get close enough. All her other girlfriends settled down by settling forclose enough. Why couldn’t she?
Because she wasn’t built like her girlfriends and she knew it. He had to show her way more than he was showing her before she fully committed her heart. She’d had her heart brokenbefore by other boyfriends in the past whenever she leaped in too soon, and none of them had the potential of being husband material to her like Kenny had. But Kenny had a long way to go in the character department, and she was getting tired of dragging him along.
