Tiana got a very strange expression on her face, then said simply, “Basically he just said that he loved me, that he wanted to grow old with me and have grandbabies.”
Jenna placed both hands on her stomach. “I think my ovaries are aching.”
“Do you want to have more kids?” Tiana asked.
Flashes of Blake, Tabitha, Deacon, her, and a baby played in her mind like a movie. Holidays, birthdays, dinners, school runs, playing at the park. It was a lifetime in an instant. She blinked, and it was gone.
“No.” Jenna was not going to allow herself to indulge in fantasies. She held her arms up and crossed her forearms in the shape of an X to ward off any pregnancy fairies and told her friend, “No deflecting allowed.”
“Fine, okay, so he told me all that, that was at the fundraiser?—”
“At the fundraiser?!” Niko was declaring hislovefor her at the fundraiser?
“Yes.”
“Shit, I knew I shouldn’t have left early.” The one time Jenna played hooky and she missed her friend, her best friend in Hope Falls getting love declared,
“And then when we got home?—”
“Wait!” Jenna raised her hand. “Did you say it back?”
“No.”
“Got it, you lied.” Jenna took out a pretend notepad and pretended to write. Jenna wasn’t the only one with suppressed issues. It was probably why the two of them got along so well. “Lied. Noted.”
“I didn’t lie,” Tiana defended herself.
“By omission, but it’s still a lie,” Jenna stated flatly.
Tiana was so in love with Niko Costas it was ridiculous. She was just in denial. It was painfully obvious. Another thing they had in common, but at least she was self-aware enough to know she was in denial.
“Anyway, when we got home, he told me that he’d spoken to Pops about me.”
“Oh, okay.”
Tiana grew up in foster homes, but she was close to Pops, a man who ran a liquor store nearby. He wasn’t technically family, but he was the only family she had. She was abandoned as a baby, so she never knew any blood relatives. Hewasher family. The fact that Niko spoke to him meant he wasseriousabout Tiana.
“I don’t know the entire conversation, but he did say that Pops showed him pictures I used to draw.”
Jenna’s face scrunched up. “Pictures you used to draw?”
“Yeah, there was this bridge by my first group home, and the day I arrived there I saw someone get engaged. I thought it was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen. So I used to draw that all the time, for years. I always thought that was my gold standard for my happily ever after.”
“Why did he show those to Niko?” Jenna was gently trying to prepare Tiana for the fact that Niko was clearly going to propose, but she could see her friend was not getting it.
“I think Pops thinks that I’m closed off because of Brock, and he wanted Niko to know that I used to believe in love or something, I don’t know. I was a kid. That’s not real. It’s a fairy tale. He also said that Pops basically told him that it will be difficult for me to accept love and to trust someone.”
“No cap.” Blake was always saying no cap, and Tianathought it was funny when Jenna used teen slang, so she wanted her friend to have a little comedic reprieve.
Tiana grinned. “Part of me is happy that Pops trusted Niko to speak to him about me like that, but then another part of me didn’t understand why Pops spoke to him about it. If he thinks I have all these issues, why not come speak to me about them?”
Aww, Tiana was jealous of Pops and Niko bonding. Jenna wanted to pull her friend into her arms and tell her that she understood. She got it. She hated hearing Blake going on about howcoolAva and Viv were, what great advice Ava gave (which, btw, was herjobsince she was a therapist), what great style Viv had, and shopping for prom dresses with Ava and Viv, but ultimately, the more people that loved Blake the better.
Just like Jenna knew, Tiana would come to the realization that the more people who loved Pops the better. But she had to get there on her own.
“Have you asked Pops about it?”
“No, I just found out last night.”
