“Thank you, for…” Jenna wanted to say for being the only grandma she’d ever had, but she knew if she did, she’d start bawling. "…for everything.”
“Yes, yes, yes, Moro mou.” Yaya patted her back. “Se agapó. Go, go, go.”
Jenna wasn’t sure what Yaya had said, but it felt very affectionate and filled her with love as she stood and headed down the dock where the paddleboats were stored during the winter to collect Blake’s backpack. She loved her daughter to death, but she really was going to have to figure out how to start making her more responsible.
As she climbed down the ladder, she wondered why in the world the cheer team would meet on the dock in the boathouse that stored the paddleboats for the winter before the parade.
“Small towns are so weird,” she said to herself as she slid the barn door open and gasped.
There were no paddleboats. No backpack. There were fairy lights strung from the walls and rafters, and Deacon, standing beside a sailboat floating in the water, pulled into the dock that Jenna recognized immediately. Her hand shook as she pointed to it. “Is that?”
“No, it’s nottheboat, but it is a replica of the nineteen-sixty-two John Alden schooner that is currently docked at the Seneca Harbor Park Pier in Watkins Glen, New York, which was used as Pacey Witter‘s boat, the True Love.”
“How did you…why did you…whose boat is this?” Jenna stepped inside and realized there was music playing.
It was music from the Dawson’s Creek soundtrack.
“Well, that’s up to you.” He grinned.
“Tome?” She placed her hands on her chest. “Whyme?”
“I was sort of hoping that it could be a family boat. That it could be Blake’s, Tabby’s, yours, mine, and Rocco’s if you agreed to be a family, but if not, then it is yours and Blake’s boat.”
“Mine and Blake’s?”
“Yours, technically, but I’m assuming you’d share it with her.”
Jenna couldn’t believe this was happening as she walked over and traced her fingers over it. This couldn’t be real. Things like this didn’t happen to her.
“How did you do this? When did you do this?Whydid you do this?”
She turned around to him and found that Deacon had crossed the dock and was now standing only a foot away from her. He looked so handsome. Her chest ached at just how handsome he was. His square jaw was covered in more stubble than normal. Then she noticed his cheeks were a little sunken in and although it was barely noticeable, there were faint shadows of dark circles beneath his eyes.
Without running it past her brain, her hand flew and touched his cheek. “Are you okay? You look tired?”
His eyes closed and he exhaled at the contact. When he opened them, he grinned. “That’s a nice way of telling someone they look like shit.”
Her thumb ran along his jaw, not because it needed to, just because she didn’t want to stop touching him. She never wanted to stop touching him. But she forced herself to, and she dropped her arm back down by her side. “You don’t. You couldn’t. You just look tired.”
“I haven’t been sleeping great,” he admitted.
She smiled. “Same.”
“I don’t know what’s keeping you up at night, but I met this woman at a bar about a year and a half ago, and before she even looked at me, I fell in love with her.”
Jenna started to shake her head as she smiled.
“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. It was one of those, the world-stops, heavens-open, angels-sing moments. Then she looked at me, and time stood still, I forgot my name, where I was, what I was doing, everything. Actually, she kicked a guy in the balls first, but then all that happened and the only thing that existed was the angel sitting in front of me. Honestly, I thought I was hallucinating. But she was real. And you’re not gonna believe this, but she actually went home with me that night.”
“She did?” Jenna played along.
“She did. I couldn’t believe it. This perfect creature blessedmewith her presence. I knew it was probably only because she had this asshole of a husband who she’d found out had cheated on her with her best friend, and he showed up talking shit, but beggars can’t be choosers. I figured I’d be her shoulder to cry on, and then in a few months, maybe a year?—”
“Ayear?” she repeated.
“Yeah, see I was talking to my friend Cillian on the phone the other day, and, uh, he’s married to Leanne, they have four girls?—”
“Oh, she had a girl?” Jenna had wanted to know what they had, but Deacon was very distracting when he was around so she kept forgetting to ask.
