“It’s nothing,” she assured him.
“Tell your face that.”
Did she actually look that bad? She leaned over and checked her reflection in the small mirrored surface above Pops’ dresser. Shit. She did.
“It’s just…a lot.”
“Yeah, welcome to life. No one said it was gonna be easy, kid. You’ve had it a lot worse, so what’s the problem?”
“This isn’t the same.”
“I know it’s not. This is real.”
“Is it?” she snapped. She didn’t mean to, it was just after hearing Poppy in the car she’d wanted to tell her what she’d heard Jessie and Niko say, but she couldn’t because Poppy was AJ’s wife.
“What does that mean?”
“I heard Niko and his publicist talking about how basically the plan worked perfectly: bad boy meets one woman who transforms his behavior, he gives up womanizing and the fact that it’s his enemy’s ex is even better. I heard them say that he hired the paparazzi to follow us around, and now his reputation is good, so he has offers for correspondent and anchor jobs, which is good because he’s not going back to the Waves. It’s not public yet, but he’s not. So is it real?”
Pops’ eyes narrowed. “You heard Niko say those things?”
“No, I heard Jessie say them to Niko, but he didn’t deny them.”
“Did you ask Niko about them?”
“What’s there to ask? That’s pretty self-explanatory.”
“Maybe.” Pops shrugged.
“Maybe?!”
“Maybe,” Pops stated firmly. “When you’ve taken as many trips around the sun as I have, you learn to always check cause salt and sugarlookexactly the same.”
Tiana knew what he was getting at, but what other explanation could there be? “What else could she have meant?”
“Beats me? Which is why you need to ask Niko.”
“Hello, Mr. Matthews! Good to see you up and in your chair.” Sally, a nurse who liked to sing show tunes and was veryimpressed with her own voice, came in with a sweeping motion. “What do you have to say for yourself today, good sir?”
“Your attempt at social interaction is hereby acknowledged and recorded,” Pops, who was not a fan of show tunes, stated formally.
Sally’s head fell back, and she cracked up.
Tiana looked out the window at the primroses in the garden and zoned out while Sally took Pops’ vitals. She knew Pops was right, she needed to speak to Niko, she was just scared. She wasn’t sure what scared her more, if there was a simple explanation, or if there wasn’t. Did she want things to be okay with Niko? Or was there a part of her that was looking for a reason to cut her losses and bail?
That sounded insane, but she was scared it was the truth.
“Are you plotting your escape?” Pops asked.
She laughed. “I don’t think this window opens like that.”
“I wasn’t talking about the window, I was talking about you being the Houdini of emotional attachment.”
“What?”
He stared straight into her eyes. “Who is your best friend?”
“I don’t know, right now… it’s probably Jenna.”
