The Scandal and Carter O'Neill by Molly O'Keefe Page B

said. And he meant it.
    She watched him, her eyes measuring his sincerity, as if she were trying to find his angle. His motives for caring.
    The moment got small and tight; it was the night of the ballet all over again. The air between them was cluttered with too many emotions: wariness, genuine respect and a heaping dose of lust. At least on his part. And he had the sinking suspicion that he was alone with that.
    But then she cleared her throat, her eyes darting away, and the moment shattered.
    Apparently his sincerity was unconvincing.
    “I have a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday, and I’m sure the whale feelings are par for the course. The real question is, what are you doing here? I thought you didn’t like soul food.”
    “Someone recommended this place to me,” he said and her smile was quick. A flash, like the memory of the one kiss they shared, and then it was gone. “Truth is, I’ve never had any. I mean, other than what my grandmother cooked and I imagine that was pretty tame compared to…” He gestured toward the giant black woman behind the cash register, who had to be ninety if she was a day.
    “Mama is the best,” Zoe said and the woman behind the cash—Mama, Carter deduced—broke into a wide warm smile.
    “Hi, sugar,” she said and Zoe let herself get pulled into a monstrous hug. It looked good; Carter couldn’t lie. He was tired and worn-out, and getting folded into that giant hug seemed like a pretty good way to spend a few seconds.
    “This is Carter,” Zoe said, turning to introduce Carter.
    “I know who he is,” Mama said, and as she tucked her arms up under her shelf of breasts Carter prepared himself for more deadbeat daddy stuff.
    “Mama,” Zoe whispered. “He’s not the father.”
    “Oh, any fool could see that,” Mama said. “Not sure what’s going on there, but Mr. O’Neill, you got my vote if you gonna be running for mayor. We need to be cleaning up these communities, like you been trying to do.”
    Carter smiled, pleased and relieved. Zoe looked stunned, as if shocked that anyone believed in his message.
    “Thank you, Ma’am.”
    “Call me Mama. Now, what you two having?”
    “I’ll have what she’s having,” he said.
    Zoe ordered catfish and greens, and she reached for her bag to pay, but he put down a twenty.
    “Eat with me,” he said, the words popping out of his mouth, inspired by the strain around her eyes and the weary slouch to her shoulders.
    She seemed unsure. As if saying yes might change their arrangement.
    “It’s just dinner,” he said, feeling oddly slighted.
    She shook her head. “It’s not, Carter,” she said, so forthright and honest it shook him. “Not for me. I like you. I need to go with my head on this one. And my head says dinner would be a mistake.”
    “When have you ever gone with your head, Zoe?” He didn’t know much about her, but that she lived through her heart was obvious to the world.
    “That’s the problem,” she said. “That’s always the problem.”
    “Then how about coffee,” he said. “Thursday?”
    “More reputation repair work?”
    If that’s all he could get.
    You’re pathetic, he told himself, but himself wasn’t listening.
    “Yes,” he said. “We can meet at the coffee shop outside city hall.”
    Mama slid big takeaway boxes onto the counter.
    “Here y’all are,” she said. “Have at it.”
    Zoe took her bag, swinging it up over her shoulder, and then took the food.
    “Zoe,” he said. “Let me help.”
    “I’m fine,” she said. “Really.”
    She wasn’t going to let him help. She wasn’t going to eat with him. She was shutting him right out.
    Just business.
    She’d told him—he shouldn’t be so hurt or surprised. But he was.
    “Well—” her smile was sharp and false, a knife through his stomach “—I guess…I’ll see you on Thursday.”
    “Sure,” he said.
    And she was gone.
    TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Zoe climbed the stairs to her loft, feeling harried and fat and more