But that was the thing—she wasn’t sure she could do that. She wasn’t sure she was actually physically capable of doing that. It felt like trying to would be going against every part of her DNA.
She walked into the shop and was surprised to find no customers. Jenna was behind the counter, looking down at her phone, engrossed in whatever was on her screen. So engrossed, she didn’t even realize the bell had rung, indicating a customer had walked in.
Tiana made it all the way up to the counter and said, “Am I interrupting something?”
Jenna’s eyes flew up, and so did the phone. She fumbled in an attempt to catch it as it arched toward Tiana, who put her hands up out of sheer instinct. She wasn’t trying to intercept it, but when something is flying at your face, your arms lift to block it, which, thankfully, she did.
No sooner had her fingers wrapped around the device than Jenna snatched it away from her.
“Sorry,” her friend apologized.
Tiana wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for.
“Oh, it’s okay. What was, who was that?”
“Nothing, it’s just my um…financials.”
Tiana would bet her yoga studio that Jenna had never lied to her before, so why was her friend lying to her now? There was no way she was looking at her financials. She had to be messaging Deacon. Right?
“I was looking for you to say goodbye last night, but I couldn’t find you.” When Tiana and Niko left the storage closet, after she went to the bathroom and refixed her makeup and hair, she went looking for Jenna and couldn’t find her anywhere. Her or Deacon.
“Oh, yeah, I had to, um… I left.”
“You left.”
“Yeah.”
The salon phone rang, and Jenna appeared relieved for the distraction. Okay, it was obvious something had occurred between her and Deacon St. Clair the evening prior, so why wouldn’t she tell Tiana about it? She couldn’t be embarrassed. The man was a billionaire. Literally. Not only that, but he was hot, kind, and funny, he gave millions to charities, and oh, and he was brilliant—he graduated from MIT at twenty with two degrees or something. That wasn’t even scratching the attraction surface.
When Jenna hung up the phone, she chirped, “So what’s up?”
“I was just going to ask what happened last night. You looked, I don’t know…stressed. Upset.”
Her brow furrowed. “Last night?”
"I saw you in the hall with Deac?—”
“Oh, no,” Jenna cut her off before she even got Deacon’s name out. “That was, um…” She licked her lips, and her cheeks flared with color. “That was a misunderstanding.”
A misunderstanding that made her blush three different shades of pink. Okayyyyy. So clearly her friend didn’t want to talk about whatever was going on with her Mr. Billionaire, she hoped that whenever, if ever, she did, she’d come to her.
“What about you?” Jenna quickly turned the tables. “Did you talk to Niko? You sat with him, right?”
“We did more than talk.”
Jenna’s eyes lit up. “I like the sound of that.” She checked the time, hopped off the stool, rushed to the front door, locked it, and turned the Back in ten sign. “I have fifteen minutes before Eleanor comes in for root touchups.” She hooked her arm through Tiana’s, dragging her into the backroom and flopping down onto the loveseat. “Tell me everything.”
Tiana took a deep breath. She had a hard time sharing personal things with people. She’d never had a mom or sisters or even a best friend, really, and for so much of her life she’d witnessed people weaponize information against one another, using it as leverage or emotional blackmail.
But she was in uncharted waters with her relationship with Niko, and she didn’t want to fuck this up.
“Niko told me he loved me last night.”
Jenna’s expression demonstrated equal enthusiasm, as if she had just won the lottery. “Tell me everything. I want every last detail. Don’t leave anything out.”
Okay,nowTiana understood why Niko had apologized for the circumstances in which he declared his love. Every time someone asked for details of the story, they were going to have to make a call as to whether or not they would tell them the truth.
“Basically he just said that he loved me, that he wanted to grow old with me and have grandbabies.”
