Chapter 9
“Put in corner!” Yaya instructed.
Niko had spent the morning after his run helping Yaya move into her new home.
It was still hard for him to believe she’d left the three-bedroom craftsman she’d shared with his grandfather for sixty-plus years to live in the one bedroom cottage next door to the Golden Years Assisted Living home where her new husband had been a resident.
Thankfully, the house was staying in the family.
His grandparents had gifted it to his brother AJ, who was renting it out to the woman who had helped raise his fiancée.
As Niko walked through the cozy cottage, he was impressed to see the octogenarian newlyweds were settling in quite nicely.
He attributed most of that ease of transition to Arthur Santino allowing his new bride to have complete control over any decor decisions, and the only thing he required was a place to store his Navy mug for coffee and a single drawer for his clothing.
He brought in the final box of knickknacks and sat it down beside the built-in bookshelves, as instructed, when something caught his attention at the edge of his vision through the frosted window of the cottage.
The movement drew his gaze like a tug on a marionette’s string.
He squinted through the cloudy glass, first seeing nothing but glare off the slush-packed walk.
And then, as if he’d conjured her from sheer will, there she was, Tiana Marie Matthews, face tilted against the wind, stride purposeful, hair the color of burnished chestnut streaming out behind her in ribboned curls, eyes cast downward and bracing against the November air.
For a moment Niko simply stood there, chest aching at the sight.
He’d always known she was beautiful, but in that instant—shoulders squared, lips bright red and full, her frame outlined stark against the gray day—she was so alive it made his whole body ache.
He was powerless to stop himself from staring like a schoolboy mooning over his first crush.
The world outside seemed to slow down to a single, flickering pulse.
He realized too late that Yaya, mittens clutched around the handle of a battered tea kettle, was watching him watch her. The woman may be in her nineties, but she missed nothing. She nudged him, lips puckering with mischief.
“She is very nice girl. Better than the piranhas always hanging around, asking for photo with you.” She gave his arm a squeeze, her grip surprisingly strong for a woman her age. “Go, go, go. You come back and unpack later.”
He bent to kiss Yaya’s cheek, she smelled of Vicks, lemon soap, and fresh basil. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Yaya,” he promised, and bolted for the door, nearly slipping on the first step as he hurried after Tiana.
He caught up with her at the edge of the Golden Years property on a stone path towards the river.
As he fell in line beside her, she gasped when she saw him. “Niko! What are you doing here?”
“I was helping Yaya get unpacked.” He motioned to the cottage.
“Oh.” She sighed in relief.
“Did you think I was stalking you?” Niko teased.
“No.” Tiana shook her head.
He’d been joking about the stalking, but he could see from her response she’d honestly jumped to that conclusion, which made him wonder what had given her such a bad opinion of him. Or maybe she just had a bad opinion of all men.
“How’s your day been?” he asked, finding himself in unfamiliar waters since most women were excited to see him.
“Fine, yeah, good,” she responded nervously.
He just wasn’t sure if it was the good kind of nervous, the butterflies-in-your-belly nervous. Or if it was the, why is this guy talking to me? When will he go away nerves?
Trying to figure out which it was, he continued, “I was actually going to call and see if you were free for dinner tonight.”
“Dinner? Tonight?” she repeated, her eyes looking absolutely terrified.
Maybe her nerves weren’t butterfly nerves. Maybe he actually had made her feel uncomfortable somehow. Even the thought that might be the case made him feel sick to his stomach.
“Yes,” he confirmed with a smile, hoping to defuse the situation and take the stakes way down. “You will soon find out, I am a very attentive, very thoughtful, very good fake boyfriend.”
“Oh, um…” Her head dipped as she licked her lips and brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
He could see that she was panicking, so he decided to try and joke his way out of this awkwardness. “I thought it might be a good idea for us to get our stories straight.”
“Story straight?”
“Yeah, our origin love story. How we met, when we went official, our song—”
Her smile widened, and he could see her starting to relax. “Our song?”
“Of course our song—that’s vital information. Our first kiss, pet names for each other, coffee orders, peanut butter preferences—”
“Peanut butter preferences?” she cut him off again with a chuckle.
He nodded. “Crunchy or smooth.”
“You think that’s important to know?”
His brow furrowed. “Absolutely, peanut butter preferences are very intimate.”
As he said the word intimate he noticed that her cheeks darkened with color. He was already trying to figure out a way to work that same word into the conversation once more when his phone vibrated, but he ignored it.
“Aren’t you going to check that?”
“No,” he answered easily. He wasn’t going to waste this moment with Tiana.
Not more than a second later, her phone also beeped, indicating a message. Unlike him, she did not ignore it.
She pulled her phone out to check her message, so he did the same. His text was from Zion, telling him that he was at Brewed Awakenings coffee shop with Karina Black, and Brock and Gianna just came in, and apparently Gianna had fangirled when she saw the pop star.
Niko knew G was a huge fan of Karina Black. She’d asked him about a trillion questions about the pop princess after finding out he’d summered and spent all of his holidays in Hope Falls.
Zion’s message ended with a call to action requesting, no insisting, Niko and Tiana get their “fine asses” down to the coffee shop because they had a plan.
Niko looked up at Tiana. “Zion messaged and said we should—”
“I think I got the same one.” Tiana cut him off as she turned her phone around, revealing Zion had sent her the identical message. “What do you think his plan is?”
“I have no idea. I had dinner at Frankie and Liam’s last night, and Zion was there. I told them about our…arrangement, and he seemed to be very excited about the idea of fucking with Brock about it. But we don’t have to—”
“Honestly, I’d rather just get it over with,” she blurted out as she shook her head and stuffed her phone back in her jacket pocket.
“I’ve spent the past two days with a pit in my stomach, expecting to see him every time I turn a corner or the door opens on my studio. At least now this will be on my terms.”
Niko could see that she wasn’t happy about the prospect of seeing her ex, but he was glad he would be there by her side.
“Are you sure you want to do this now, with me, as us?” His question was loaded, and she knew what he was asking. She’d agreed to this ‘fake relationship,’ but this was go-time. Did she actually want to go through with it?
Her nerves were obvious as she pulled her plump lower lip between her teeth. He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until she nodded and he exhaled.
His chest filled with pride that she trusted him enough to be his fake girlfriend.
It was strange that Niko felt honored to be her fake boyfriend.
As they made the short walk to the coffee shop from the retirement home along the river up past the yoga studio, Niko could feel Tiana’s nervous energy radiating off of her with each step she took, it increased tenfold.
“How’s your grandfather feeling? I heard he was under the weather,” he said, trying to distract her.
She hesitated for a split second, as if she was about to share something, but then decided against it. “He’s doing better, thanks.”
Disappointment sank in his gut. He wanted to be the one she trusted to share everything with, instead of having to carry it all on her own, because as an outsider looking in, that’s exactly what it looked like she was doing.
As they crossed Main Street, Niko could feel her anxiety winding tighter and tighter.
He wished he could do something, anything, to calm her down, that he could absorb all of her tension into his own body, that he could protect her from her own brain chemistry.
At this point, he would settle for just being able to pull her into a hug for support.
When they approached the door, he noticed out of his peripheral vision that Gianna was seated in the corner of the shop with Brock. He would put money on the fact that Tiana had no clue they were being watched, or that her face looked like she was being marched to her execution.
Niko knew that he couldn’t let her walk into the shop in the state she was in.
Making a split-second, executive decision, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled, spinning her around and into him.
She gasped, looking up at him in pure shock at the suddenness of his actions.
He took advantage of her momentary shock, kept one arm snaked around her lower back, trapping her body firmly against his, wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, and tightened his fingers, tilting her head back as he lowered his mouth to hers.
His plan had been to press a soft, chaste kiss to her lips. Nothing too much. Just intimate enough to show that they were more than friends, more than casually dating. That they were at the PDA stage in the relationship.
The thing was, the moment his lips touched hers, something happened.