She thought Blake was going to tell her that she was being weak or dumb or that it wasn’t complicated at all, but instead her daughter just wrapped her arms around her neck and squeezed. An impromptu hug from her near sixteen-year-old was a rarity, and she treasured it.
Once she pulled back, she figured Blake would hop up and head to her room to go text her friends or ask if she could go hang out with Noah, instead she crawled under the blankets, pulled the laptop between them, and pressed play on episode 23 of season 3 where Joey leaves on TrueLove to sail away with Pacey and snuggled up beside Jenna just like she used to do when she was a little girl.
“We can watch something else.” Jenna put her hand on the mousepad.
“No.” Blake stopped her.
“But you don’t like Dawson’s Creek.”
Blake pulled Jenna’s hand back as she shrugged and nuzzled her head into Jenna’s shoulder. “But I loveyou.”
Jenna’s mom-heart exploded, but thankfully years of preteen and teen training had prepared her to not show too much emotion, otherwise, this epically sweet moment for the Mother-Daughter Exchange Hall of Fame would be ruined, so instead of bursting into tears, pulling her daughter into her arms, and sobbing, she simply kissed Blake on the top of her head and said a quiet, “I love you more, Peanut.”
After watching four episodes together, before she and Blake both fell asleep, Jenna promised herself tomorrow was a new day and she was going to snap out of whatever was going on with her and get on with her life. Starting with no moreDawson’s Creek.Okay, two episodes. Cold turkey was crazy.
Deacon stared down at the text he’d just sent Jenna. She hadn’t liked it or responded. The message above was a thank you for the flowers. Just that, literally,thank you for the flowers—five words. Before that was the message saying she didn’t feel well so she and Blake wouldn’t be able to come over to see his mom and meet her husband.
Most of the other responses were just one or two words, the absolute bare minimum. She’d been so distantever since the night in the hotel. Something shifted after they had sex. More walls came up, which really sucked because for him it had had the opposite effect.
As he stared at his phone, his best friend’s five-year-old face came on the screen as a Facetime request. He used Cillian’s kindergarten photo as his contact photo. Cillian thought he did it to be an ass, but he really did it because it just reminded him of a simpler, happier time, when their biggest worries were finding the best tree to climb.
The summer Cillian moved to the neighborhood was the best summer of Deacon’s life. He hadn’t had any friends before that, just the gardener’s son, and he was twelve, so that really didn’t count. Marco came to work with his dad, so it wasn’t like they really hung out.
But then Cillian showed up on his doorstep, introduced himself, and probably because his father wasn’t home, Deacon’s mom allowed him to go outside and play. They rode bikes, skipped rocks, and hung out in Cillian’s tree fort in his backyard. After that, they were inseparable.
If it weren’t for Cillian, Deacon didn’t want to think about what his childhood and school life would have been like. Everyone loved Cillian, and since Deacon was Cillian’s best friend, they accepted him, it didn’t matter that he was rich or different.
“Hey man,” Deacon answered as his friend’s adult face appeared on the screen. “How’s Leanne? How are the girls?”
“Good. Everyone’s great!” Cillian enthusiastically replied, and he meant it.
Deacon could hear absolute carnage in the background: screaming, a television blaring, music playing, and Leanne yelling for someone to stop pulling hair. It was exactly the life Cillian had always said he was going to have whenthey were growing up, with the girl he said he was going to have it with.
Cillian O’Grady had been in love with Leanne Porter since she walked into our third grade class. His friend stared at the brunette with pigtails all day and did not speak. Not one word. Not at recess. Lunch. Or P.E. Then, on the bus ride home from school, Cillian announced he was going to marry the new girl, he was going to marry Leanne Porter, and she was going to be the mother of his babies.
It took some (a lot of) convincing, eight years, and the six inch growth spurt between junior and senior year really came in clutch because it shot him well past her five-foot-six frame which she maintained, to this day, he would have remained firmly in the friend zone if he had remained at eye level with her. Thankfully, at six-foot-two, he easily surpassed her height requirement of six foot.
Deacon heard the glass back door slide shut, and then the voices were muted in the background as Cillian spoke quietly, his face very close to the phone, “I’m trying to convince Leanne to try for a fifth.”
“A fifth?!” Deacon exclaimed.
“A boy,” Cillian stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world as he tipped back a bottle of IPA.
The door slid open behind him, and Leanne’s face appeared on the screen. She had baby Aisling, who was only three months old on her shoulder. “We’re not having another baby, Deacon. I don’t care what he tells you.”
“Hey Lee Lee, you look beautiful. How are you feeling?” Deacon asked.
“Like my uterus is closed for business. That’s how I’m feeling.”
Deacon chuckled as Cillian made a face at the camera as if that wasn’t the case.
“I can see you, Cil. If you want another baby, you get pregnant and grow one and gain fifty pounds and breastfeed till your nipples bleed, okay?”
Cillian leaned back in his chair and tickled Aisling’s feet, she giggled. “Okay, I will. I will do anything to have another one ofyoubecause you are a perfect angel.”
Deacon witnessed, in real time, Leanne starting to melt. It was the same dance they’d done when she said no after two kids. Then three. They did have really cute kids, so that worked in Cillian’s favor.
“No!” Leanne moved Aisling away from Cillian. “Don’t! Your voodoo perfect-baby powers are not going to work on me this time, Cillian Joseph Patrick O’Grady.”
