Chapter 5
Tiana knew that she should leave. She’d been, for all intents and purposes, hiding in a dark corner of the tent people-watching for the past hour and a half.
The problem was, she had no desire to go home to the depressing four hundred square foot cabin she was currently residing in since giving up her apartment to save money.
The cabin was more shed-like than cabin-like but she’d done her best to make it feel cozy.
There was no heat, which was fine because she had a wood-burning stove.
Still, it got cold at night. The electricity was shoddy, so that limited her food and activities.
But the biggest issue was cell service and Wi-Fi were both sketchy, which made being there feel very isolating and a little scary at times.
It was only about a mile away from civilization, but when that mile was surrounded by pine trees in a forest setting, it felt much more isolating than a city mile.
She promised herself after the next dance she would go.
There was a fine line between absorbing all the love in the air and feeling like an outsider looking in, which was how she’d felt her entire life.
It had always just been her. If she were being honest with herself, her people-watching had been mainly one person, Niko Costas.
He’d spent the majority of the night on the dance floor with relatives from his very large Greek family, mostly the kids.
Tiana had done everything in her power not to fixate on him, but she had failed miserably.
The man had more charisma in his little pinky than most people did in their entire bodies.
The last few notes of “Birds of a Feather” by Billie Eilish sounded and Tiana told herself it was time to pack it in.
She didn’t want to spend the evening at home depressed, thinking about how ‘miserable’ her love life was.
If she allowed herself to stay any longer, she was in serious danger of that happening.
Plus, she’d noticed in the past ten minutes or so, it seemed the wedding had thinned out significantly, and she didn’t want to stay past her welcome.
She rose from her private, darkened corner and grabbed her jacket and purse.
As soon as she stepped out of the white tent, she noticed that everyone she’d thought had left the wedding was gathered on the deck huddled in celebratory cheers.
They’d already done the cake cutting, plus the bride and groom were on the periphery of the group gathered.
“Hey, what’s going on?” she asked one of Yaya’s nieces.
“AJ just asked Poppy to marry him.”
“Oh my gosh!” Proposals were literally Tiana’s favorite thing to witness. She went down rabbit holes on YouTube of proposals in her free time.
“Don’t worry,” Sue Ann, who owned the local café leaned over. “Tessa got video of it.”
“Oh good.”
Tiana was waiting her turn to congratulate Poppy before she left when her phone vibrated, and she pulled it out, thinking it would be Pops complaining about one of the residents. It wasn’t. It was Darla Bartlett, her ex-mother-in-law.
Darla: Hey sweetie, would love to see you when we’re in town. We’re staying at the Mountain Ridge Resort. Can’t wait to take a class at your studio. We’ll be here until the New Year, so whenever you’re free!
“No fucking way.” Tiana registered hearing her voice, but she wasn’t sure if it was her internal voice or if she’d actually said it out loud. If she had, she hadn’t meant to.
“Tiana, what’s wrong?”
Tiana blinked as she lifted her head and saw that Poppy was staring at her. She must have said it out loud. She needed to get out of there and deal with this. “Sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ve gotta go.”
As Tiana turned to leave, Poppy reached out and stopped her by turning her back around. “No, wait!”
AJ must have heard the commotion because he was by his new fiancée’s side in a flash. “What’s wrong?”
Tiana glanced at Poppy and AJ, wishing she could just say, “nothing,” and then slip out. Unfortunately, despite not knowing Poppy long, she knew the woman would never let that happen. She was way too empathetic. “My ex is here, in Hope Falls, and he’s staying through Christmas.”
Every year the Bartletts picked a different destination to vacation together for the entire month of December.
It used to be Tiana’s favorite part of the year because his family was so amazing, and growing up never having a family, she’d always dreamed about belonging to one.
At least now she knew what all the messages from the WAGs were about. They must have known Brock’s plans.
“How do you know?” Poppy asked.
“His mom messaged me. She wants to see me.”
“You’re still close to his mom?”
“Yeah, I love his family. They didn’t…” Tiana hated talking about her ex, but the fact was he never stopped dating. “…cheat on me.”
“Wait, he’s here? In Hope Falls?” Poppy clarified. “Doesn’t he live in Ohio now?”
Her ex played professional football for the Browns. She nodded.
“Does he have any family here?” Poppy inquired.
“No. Just me.”
“Why is he here?”
“I won.”
“What?”
“In the divorce settlement, I won everything I asked for, and a lot I didn’t, he swore to me that as long as he drew breath, he would make my life miserable. This is just one of his creative ways to fulfill his promise.”
Tiana’s phone vibrated again. She looked and saw a text from Jess G. of a photo Brock had just posted to IG. “Oh no, it looks like he’s not alone.”
Since their divorce, he hadn’t dated anyone, at least not seriously, which Tiana was relieved about. Not because she was jealous, there wasn’t a jealous bone in her body. Her relief was due to the fact she felt she had a responsibility to warn women about the type of man he was.
This was a beautiful, striking woman with green eyes and auburn hair.
She wore an off the shoulder sweatshirt that revealed a tattoo on her shoulder and was snuggled up to Poppy’s ex in a booth in Brewed Awakenings.
She was a beautiful girl who looked confident, happy, and had an inner light that shined.
If she stayed with Brock, Tiana knew that light would go out. That confidence would be undermined, and her happiness would become totally reliant on his moods, his needs, and his whims.
She felt Poppy trying to take a peek at her screen, so she turned the phone around.
“That’s Gianna,” AJ stated.
Both Tiana’s and Poppy’s eyes shot to AJ’ and Poppy asked, “You know her?”
“That’s Niko’s ex-girlfriend.”
“The one that was off and on for ten years?” Poppy clarified.
“Wait, Niko Costas?” Suddenly, a realization hit her. Something she’d never put together before. “Did they go to college—"
“Yes,” AJ offered. “They were rivals.”
“I was going to say mortal enemies,” Tiana mumbled almost to herself, then asked AJ, “Does Niko know Gianna is here?”
“We saw her on the way,” AJ explained.
“Are they still…do they keep in touch?” Maybe Tiana wouldn’t have to warn her off at all. Maybe Niko can handle warning his ex.
AJ didn’t respond. Tiana wasn’t offended by AJ blanking her. He was level 1 autistic, and his brain categorized social interactions differently than other people.
“Where’s Niko now?” Tiana needed to warn him, and hopefully he could warn her. “Is he still here?”
Poppy pointed to the tent. “He’s on the dance floor with Tabby.”
Tiana scanned the dance floor, and when she saw him dancing with the five-year-old, her heart slammed into her chest like a crash test dummy.
The little girl was standing on his shoes, and he was leading them around the dance floor.
For some reason she had a flash of this man getting ready to take their daughter to her first daddy-daughter dance.
She blinked, pushing the thought from her mind, and then marched to the dance floor.
On her way, she wanted to kick herself. She couldn’t believe she’d never put two and two together, Niko Costas was the man Brock had always referred to as “Nicky C.” In fact, someone had even told her as much.
The first year they were together, when Brock saw Niko right after I did, he stalked over to go speak to him.
Brock’s teammate Darren, who had gone to college with both men, made a comment about a Nicky C and Brock B face-off happening and not knowing if he should get popcorn or a first aid kit when their paths crossed at the bar, because he had no idea what would happen.
She, naively, asked, “Oh, do they know each other?” He looked at her like she’d grown two heads and told her that they were Sherlock and Moriarty, Batman and the Joker, Superman and Lex Luther.
He couldn’t believe that Brock had never mentioned him to her.
They’d only been together a month, so he hadn’t.
But a year or so later, he started telling her stories about Nicky C.
It had never clicked who he was talking about.
That was so many years ago, so much has happened since then. She felt like she’d lived several lives in that time. At that time, she’d pegged Nicky C. in the roles of Moriarty, the Joker, and Lex Luther, oh how wrong she’d been. Now she knew the true villain was her ex, Brock Bartlett.
As she approached Niko, she was mentally rehearsing what she would say to him so she didn’t come off sounding crazy. The dance ended, and he swung Tabitha, Deacon St. Claire’s daughter, in the air before setting her down. She was giggling as her feet touched the wood floor.
He bowed to her. “Thank you for the dance, Princess Ninja Flower.”
She pulled at the side seams of her dress, fanning it out as she curtseyed and giggled. “You are welcome, King Gladiator Forest.”
Her giggling continued as she turned and scurried off the dance floor.
“King Gladiator Forest? I didn’t know I’d be meeting royal—” Tiana teased as Niko turned, and when his eyes met hers, she stopped talking. Her sentence stopped when all the oxygen got sucked from her lungs.