There was pain in Tiana’s eyes, real pain, and Jenna decided to help her friend in real time, to take a different approach altogether. “Maybe the talk, even though it was aboutyou, wasn’t aboutyou.”
“What?” Tiana looked more confused than when she’d apologized for taking back her own phone after almost hitting her in the face with it.
“I’m just saying, as a parent, I think…” Jenna took a breath and exhaled, trying to find the best way to understand the concept she was trying to explain. “Okay, so Blake isveryemotional. That’s not a good or bad thing, it’s just the truth. If she were going to be marrying someone?—”
“Who said anything aboutmarriage?!” Tiana practically took her head off.
Thankfully, Jenna lived with a teenage girl, so it didn’t faze her at all. “Niko did, last night. He said he wanted to marry you and have babies with you and grand?—”
Tiana blinked. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. Sorry, go ahead.”
“Wow. Defensive much?”
“Sorry.” Tiana smiled sheepishly.
Jenna couldn’t help herself, she had to give her friend a little bit of a hard time. “Yeah, it’sso weirdthat Pops didn’t talk toyouwhen clearly you are so open for and calm and?—”
“Okay, point taken.”
Jenna continued, “Anyway, if she was serious with someone, and I knew she was emotional a lot, someone who was going to be with her would need to know that. They would need to be patient and know that it was not going to be a smooth ride, there would be highs and lows, and they would just need to be there and love her. I wouldn’t go toBlakeand tell her that. I would go to the person who wanted to be with Blake. I would want to look in their eyes and tell them what a beautiful, big-feelings girl she was. I would want to see for myself if they really knew who she was and if they could handle that. I couldn’t find that out in a conversation with Blake.”
“I feel like I should pay you for these therapy sessions.” Tiana stood, indicating she’d gotten what she needed from Jenna.
Jenna hugged her. “Are you kidding me? I am fueled by tea and drama, and lately, you, my love, are a Bridgerton-level supply of both.”
If that wasn’t the pot calling the kettle black, Jenna didn’t know what was. She walked Tiana to the door, and after she let her out, she looked back down at her phone,slid the text messages to the side, and pressed the red trash button, deleting her naughty thread.
Every time she thought she could walk on the wild side, she ended up getting too close to the edge and that, that was too close.
21
Ava greetedDeacon at the door with the warm neutrality of a seasoned therapist, monochrome shirt and slacks, tortoiseshell glasses, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, ushering him inside with a smile that was inscrutable in its lack of judgment.
The first thing that struck him as he entered her office for his second appointment was the silence. Not the hush of a luxury spa or the sterile quiet of a hospital waiting room, but real silence and the soft comfort he felt in it. A velvet sort of absence, cultivated by intention, as though every sound from the world outside had been vacuumed out and Ava herself wove the remaining atmosphere into a blanketed covering for both of them. Even the ticking of her clock was so muted it drifted into the conceptual.
“Hi, how have things been this week?” she asked, settling into her chair with the practiced form of someone who’d spent thousands of hours making strangers feel less alone.
Deacon hesitated as he sank back into the couch, feeling not at ease but exposed. He had no clue how thingswere going. He truly didn’t. When he left Jenna’s house the night before, he was sure it was over. But then, he couldn’t sleep and he had a gut feeling that she couldn’t either, so on a wild impulse, he started texting her. And she didn’t block him. She readeverytext. Including the ones he’d sent her that morning. He knew because she had read receipts on her phone.
“Good, I think.” Deacon heard the hollowness in his voice. He braced for Ava to dig, an expertly blunt probe into his lack of conviction, but she only nodded, lips pursed in a way that meant she was giving him the floor if he wanted it.
She waited, not saying anything, which meant he was supposed to speak. The pause was stretched, measured, and strategic. Deacon knew this move, he used it in interviews, on the all-hands calls, in boardrooms where silence was a tool for drawing out what people truly thought.
Deacon weighed his next words. All he wanted to talk about was Jenna. But what if Ava knew her? What if they were friends? He didn’t want to do anything to expose her. She clearly didn’t want anyone to know anything about them.
But this was therapy, and Ava had said nothing went past these walls. He decided to trust her. And obviously he wouldn’t say Jenna’s name or anything that would give away who she was.
“I spent some time with the woman I was telling you about.”
“How did that go?” Ava’s tone was gentle, not prodding.
“I don’t know. She has an issue with money in general, but specifically with me having money.” Deacon alsoknew she had an issue with other people’s opinions of them, but the money thing was also real.
“An issue with you having money?” Ava repeated, not with skepticism, but with that gentle therapist’s reframe that always landed just a half-pitch above incredulity. She set her pen down on the notebook and slouched deeper into her chair, like she was getting ready to dig in for a long haul.
Deacon hesitated. “She doesn’t like that I have it.”
"Oh.”
