“Mom, when Deacon came up and pulled you back?—”
“Did you do your homework?”
“Mom, how are you talking about homework right now?”
“Because it’s still a school night.”
“Moma guy tried to?—”
“Did Mr. St. Claire say what time he’d be home?”
“He said not past ten.”
“Okay, well then you should really get your?—”
“Noah’s calling, I gotta go. Love you.”
“Love you more.”
When Deacon heard the call end, he walked back into the room and found Jenna staring down at her phone. “Oh my god.”
“What?”
“The video. Videos. Why would people take videos?”
As she said that, his phone buzzed. He picked it up and saw he’d missed several texts from Mikayla. The first said security had to ask Vargas to leave. He messaged back asking if she was okay. She said she was great, she wanted to make sure Jenna was okay. He glanced up at her and had the same question.
He looked back down at his phone and scrolled through the videos he’d been tagged in. There was video of Mikayla and Jenna standing beside the table, Vargas grabbing Mikayla’s arm to move her to the side and him reaching around her to try and grab Jenna, then Deacon moving both women out of the way and telling the man to sit down.
The next was from a different angle. It was Mikayla handing Jenna her purse, hugging her, and then Jenna walking out of the ballroom and Deacon following her.
The next was a different angle of Deacon walkingacross the ballroom towards the scene, pulling both women back and inserting himself between them and telling Vargas to sit down.
He saw he had over a hundred Instagram notifications.
“How many videos are there?” he muttered to himself.
“I don’t know?” Jenna responded. “Blake just keeps sending me more.” She looked up at him. “Do you see what I mean?Thisis why!”
“This is why what?” he asked.
She shook her head and pointed to the bedroom door. “You need to go homenowand go out the way you came, the back door, please, and the back alley.”
She’d had him park down the street and wait five minutes before he came to her house. And she had him use the back alley and come in through her back door so her neighbors didn’t see.
“Jenna?” He took a step towards her. “This has nothing to do withus. Things happen, life happens, people always talk because they’re bored but that’s?—”
She lifted her hand, stopping him, both literally and figuratively. “There is nous.”
He just stood there for a second, staring at her, then turned around and walked away.
The first time he laid eyes on Jenna, she was kneeing a man in the balls. Honestly, he'd rather have her do that than suffer the impact of the words she’d just said. That would have hurt less. Because he’d looked into her eyes just now and he knew she meant what she said. She believed when she said,there is no us.
20
Jenna feltlike she was living in the Twilight Zone. Usually Fridays were busy days in the salon, but because of the gala the night before, it was dead. Everyone must have had areallygood time last night. She’d had six cancellations so far, including her favorite client. Yaya missed her standing appointment.
She’d been both dreading and looking forward to seeing her Greek fortune teller. She was feeling very much at loose ends, and whenever that was the case, just being in Yaya’s presence made her feel better. She was her personal equivalent of Cher’s “snap out of it” slap. Nothing ever seemed as bad after a few minutes around Yaya. And right now, Jenna was feeling very overwhelmed.
