Chapter 34 #2
They watched as Wes approached G, he paused a few feet away.
There was a silent standoff, both of them locked in place.
At last, Wes raised both hands, palms open in a little shrug, and G let out a trembling laugh.
She looked up at the night sky, as if asking for a sign, then back at Wes. For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
“Oh no,” Tiana whispered, covering her mouth.
But then he stepped forward and put out his arms, and she walked right into them, lifted hers, and wrapped them around his neck.
Niko watched as they embraced, she closed her eyes, and he could see her entire body just relax into him.
It was almost as if she’d been holding her breath all these years, and she could finally exhale.
Even though they were about twenty feet away, he was fairly certain he saw a tear fall down G’s cheek.
And he might be imagining it, but it was like her face changed in that few seconds of time, and she looked more like herself. With just one hug.
Was that possible?
Then Bartlett arrived.
Tiana squeezed Niko’s palm. “Oh shit,” she hissed between her teeth.
Niko leaned in, lips barely touching her ear, “It’s fine. Wes has got this. He’s been prepped.”
They watched the collision play out. Bartlett approached in the direct line of a man who didn’t believe in detours. He pulled at G’s arm. Wes quickly recalibrated and had G positioned behind him, and he stood between the two. But then something Niko hadn’t expected to happen did.
G took matters into her own hands and was wedged between the two men.
Not the G who showed up in Hope Falls, taking selfies and being oblivious to the world.
Not the G she’d been through seventy percent of their relationship, fiery and trying to pick fights with him.
Not the G he’d seen the past few weeks, timid and a shell of herself.
She was something new tonight, a composite sketch of the girl he met for the first time in Utah who taught herself to rappel on a dare in Moab, the woman who’d steered her career by the stars of her own ambition. Strong, independent.
She turned to Wes and said something to him, he shook his head, but then she insisted, and he, reluctantly, walked about fifty yards away, far enough for privacy but close enough that he could see her.
When she saw he was out of earshot, G looked up at Brock, and Niko couldn’t hear what she said, but from the look on Brock’s face, it was something he couldn’t argue with.
He opened and closed his mouth several times like a bass fish but didn’t actually say anything.
Then she removed her ring, put it in his palm, placed her hand on his chest, lifted up on her toes, and kissed him on his cheek.
His shoulders looked defeated and sad, but not mad, as she walked away towards Wes.
Tiana turned around, her face filled with wonder. “How did she do that?”
“I have no idea.” He lifted his hands in mock surrender. “I had nothing to do with that part. I just got Wes here.”
“She’s amazing. How did you mess that up?”
“You really want to know?” He asked, putting his hands on her hips.
“She wasn’t you,” he said, voice unguarded.
She smiled, and he bent down to kiss her, meaning it to be sweet and chaste, but the minute their lips met, the temperature of the night shifted.
Tiana’s fingers threaded into his hair, and her breath came out in a soft, greedy sigh.
The kiss unraveled quickly, both of them pouring a year’s worth of pent-up longing into it, until Niko’s head swam and Tiana’s knees buckled.
He caught her, holding her steady, and for a moment it seemed like the rest of the world had been erased.
It took every ounce of self-control to break the kiss, and when he did, she panted as her nails scraped his scalp. “Do we have to stay since you relinquished your co-Marshall duties?”
Fuck. She was going to kill him.
His hands roamed from her hips to her ass, and he squeezed as he pulled her against his erection. She whimpered. “I just have to do one more thing, and then I will take you home and keep you in bed until after the New Year.”
“What about my classes?” she giggled.
“Get subs.”
“Christmas and Christmas Eve?”
“I’ve developed a sudden allergy to tinsel.” He continued kissing her neck.
“Tinsel?!” She giggled some more. “Tinsel. You can do better. You need help.”
“I need you,” his hands squeezed again.
“Stop.” She laughed and swatted him playfully on his chest. “We’re in public.”
“It’s science,” he whispered, nipping her earlobe. “Your body chemistry is addictive. That’s why I’m keeping you in bed.”
“Uh uh, I promised your sister we’d go to her house for Sunday dinner.”
“Uhh.” He rested his forehead on hers. “I can’t get out of that one. But we’ll set an alarm, and we’ll stay for thirty minutes.”
“Thirty minutes?” She beamed up at him. “Only thirty minutes?”
“Yep.” He nodded.
“What are you going to say the alarm is for?”
“The truth. Sex. It’s the longest I can go without being with you.”
She was laughing and trying to wriggle away from him when his text alert beeped, but it sounded the same as his alarm. “See.”
She laughed harder.
He pulled it out and saw that it was go time. He hoped she couldn’t see that his hand was shaking as he put the phone back in his pocket.
“Okay, one last duty, and then I can get that booty.” He swatted her backside playfully, but he watched as her cheeks flushed and her eyes twinkled, he cataloged that for later. Swat equals flush.
“Shall we?” He offered her his arm.
She slipped her fingers around his bicep, and they leisurely made their way down by the riverside rec area. He kept waiting for her to ask what they were doing, but she was too busy people-watching. It was one of her favorite activities, and the Christmas parade was optimal for people-watching.
It worked out well for him because he was freaking out and wasn’t sure he would have been able to make small talk or come up with a fake story.
Luckily they made it all the way to the base of the bridge without her suspecting a thing.
It wasn’t until they started walking across the bridge and she saw all the different lights strung across it and the flowers, and the arch above it, that she asked, “What is this?”
“This was my best interpretation of a combination of all your pictures.”
“What? How?”
She was looking around, taking it all in, when they got to the center, he stopped, and he pulled out four documents from his back pockets.
“Oh.” She looked surprised, and confused, and he thought maybe a little disappointed, which actually was a good thing.
“Before I ask you what I brought you here to ask you, I wanted to give you these so you know no matter what your answer is, you are and always will be taken care of. Okay?”
Now she really looked confused.
“Okay?” She looked down at them still in Niko’s hand. “Am I supposed to open them?”
“This is a life insurance policy.” He handed it to her, or tried to.
She pulled her hands away. “I don’t want that.”
“Too bad. I know as long as I’m alive I will take care of you, and now I know that when I’m not, I can too.” He handed her the next envelope. And this is the deed to your building.”
“No!” She shook her head. “That’s not…that’s too much. What are you doing?”
“I decided I don’t like being a landlord. It’s not for me.”
“You can’t do that!”
“I can actually.” He tilted his head and grinned. “I already did.”
“This is a trust for Pops.” He handed her the envelope. “You are named as co-trustee and beneficiary, but he no longer has to worry about being a burden on you. He is in charge of his own finances.”
She opened that one, and when she saw that it was half a million dollars, tears fell down her cheeks.
“And this is a pink slip and keys.” He handed her the final envelope.
“I can buy my own car,” she sniffed.
“You did. That one. I just got it back for you.”
She gasped. “Is this?!” She opened the envelope and pulled out the pink slip.
“That is your Range Rover that you bought with your money. It is yours again.”
Tiana’s arms flew around Niko’s neck, and she hugged him tighter than she’d ever hugged him before. She hugged him like she was never going to let go. He held her as she cried into his shoulder, repeating, “I love you,” over and over.
“She say yes!” Yaya yelled from the side of the river.
“Not yet!” Niko yelled and waved back, and there were scatters of laughter.
Tiana released her arms and wiped her cheeks. “Sorry, sorry.”
He reached into his pocket and realized he was nervous as he got down on his knee. His hands were shaking.
Tiana noticed, she wrapped her hands around his. “You’re shaking.”
He smiled up at her, not sure why his heart was going so fast or why he felt like he couldn’t breathe. “I know.”
She reached out and ran her fingers through his hair and leaned down, whispering in his ear, “I’m gonna say yes, does that help?”
He laughed and nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”
She straightened back up.
“Tiana, I’m not sure what happened when I saw you all those years ago, at that bar, but it was like I recognized you.
I knew you. For years I told myself I was imagining it, making more of it than it was.
But then I’d see you again at a charity event, a golf tournament, a gala, or an awards show, and it would still be there, I was drawn to you. So I stayed away. I did.
“Then you were single, and you moved to my grandparents’ hometown, and I still thought no, I’m going to stay away, because honestly, I thought you were way too good for me.
And then I turned around on the dance floor, and you were standing in front of me, and it was like my soul said, finally.
And when I took you in my arms, it was like I was home.