Chapter 12 #2
She watched as he whispered something in her ear, Shelby’s lips parted on a gasp, and her eyes shut as she nodded. That was it. A second later, the office door was opened, he had his wife whisked inside, it shut, and the hallway was empty.
No one would have any idea the two were in there, but Jenna knew. She wished she didn’t, because she actually felt envious of them.
She’d always jealous of people who were in relationships, people with families but nothing else.
She was never jealous of anything material or physical.
She was five foot two, curvy, blonde, with blue eyes.
Did she wish she looked like Gal Gadot? Sure.
She’d love to have legs a mile long, a bone structure that you could cut glass on, and flawless, roll-out-of-bed, magazine-shoot-ready skin, but she was never jealous of her.
Would she like to have a nicer house, or car, or not stress about living paycheck to paycheck or how she was going to afford to pay for Blake’s living expenses when she was in college? Of course, but she never felt envious of people who had that luxury.
But when it came to people who had true love, who had a strong family unit, you might as well paint her green and call her the Jolly Green Giant, or she guessed the Hulk would be more appropriate to compare her to than the Jolly Green Giant, cause she wasn’t jolly.
She knew her feelings of jealousy stemmed from her childhood.
All she wanted as a child was a family. All she wanted as an adult was the same thing.
So seeing happy couples and happy families all around her was hard.
She wanted to be happy for them. She knew she should just appreciate her little family with Blake, and she did.
She was blessed. Very blessed. Why did she feel like a terrible person for envying her friends?
Jenna’s phone buzzed twice, and she glanced down to read the message. As she was reading it, she heard Tiana’s voice.
“Sorry I’m late.”
Jenna looked up and saw she was out of breath, and she wasn’t alone.
She brought Niko Costas, Yaya’s grandson.
Her “fake boyfriend.” As much as Jenna wanted a relationship, Tiana did not.
She’d had a horrific divorce, in the public eye, with a professional NFL player.
She’d sworn off men for the foreseeable future while she built her business.
Unfortunately, her ex was currently in Hope Falls, making her life miserable, so she’d agreed to fake-date his nemesis, Niko Costas.
No one knew that the relationship wasn’t real except Jenna, obviously.
Niko offered her the opportunity, he’d even sent her a cute text where he superimposed his face on Julia Roberts’ body from Notting Hill, saying that he was just a boy, standing in front of a girl, asking her to be his fake girlfriend.
Jenna told her if she didn’t say yes, they couldn’t be friends. And she meant it.
And now, there they were, the ‘happy couple.’ So cute.
“Thanks for rushing, but it’s actually for no reason. Kiki and Robbie just texted, and Layla has the flu.”
Layla was Kiki’s younger sister, who, Kiki was raising.
“Oh.”
“I’ll play,” Niko volunteered easily.
Yaya always said Niko was the easy, go-with-the-flow one. Tiana needed someone like that in her life.
“You will?” Tiana seemed surprised.
“Sure.” He nodded.
“Thanks, but we need four.” Jenna would have loved to get to know Niko better, but maybe this was the sign that her last Trivia Night was just not meant to be. “So we’re still one person short. I’m Jenna, by the way,” she introduced herself.
“Oh!” Tiana glanced between them both, her eyes moving rapidly. “You two haven’t met?”
Niko held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Niko.”
“Oh, I know.” Jenna couldn’t help but smile as she shook his hand. If he only knew the things Yaya had told her about him.
“You said you need four people?” he asked in way of clarification.
“Four minimum,” Jenna confirmed.
His lips curled in a cocky grin. “I can find us a fourth.”
Jenna watched him turn and head to the bar in full hunter/gatherer mode. She loved to see a confident man, but most of the people in the place were already in teams.
“So how’s it going?” Jenna asked as soon as he was out of earshot, and Tiana sat down.
A blush appeared on her friend’s face. “Yeah, it’s um, good.”
“Whoa.” Her face shade was a rapid change. “What happened? Did you guys fake-hook-up?”
“What? No!”
“Did you?” Jenna asked again.
“No!” Tiana insisted in a whisper.
Jenna believed her, but something had happened or changed. She could see it in her friend’s face. She stared at her, trying to figure out what had happened when she felt the atmosphere shift and she got goosebumps on her arm.
“This is my girlfriend, Tiana. And this is Jenna.”
“She owns The Beauty Spot,” Tiana added.
Jenna saw a hand in front of her face, and she reached out to shake it.
When she looked up to the man attached to it, she felt like the universe punched her right in the stomach.
The only other time she felt like that was when Carmela Sanders, a senior at Clairemont High, sucker punched Jenna, who was a freshman, in the stomach because she thought Jenna was flirting with her boyfriend, also a senior.
Jenna didn’t even know who Carmela Sanders’ boyfriend was.
She remembered walking down the hallway, Carmela suddenly being in front of her, and something that felt like a wrecking ball hitting her in the stomach and then not being able to breathe. That’s exactly what this felt like as she stared up at D.
The man who she’d met at O’Grady’s bar. The man who she hadn’t stopped thinking about since. The man who she’d spent the best night of her life with was standing in front of her. Actually, he was lowering himself down in the seat in front of her, holding her hand.
She might not be able to breathe, but thoughts were swarming her head like bees in a hive.
He looked so handsome.
So much more handsome than she remembered.
How could one man be so handsome?
Was he real?
Was she having a nervous breakdown?
Was this the moment when she was finally committed?
Had she died?
Was this her heaven?
Was he dead?
Was she right and he was Patrick Swayze ghosting her?
Could other people see him?
Then he spoke, and his voice brought her back from her spiral. That voice that had whispered in her ear to come. That voice that had told her to go into a room and strip and wait at the end of the bed. That voice that had told her that her smile could end him, that voice said, “Hi.”
She never thought she’d hear that voice again. The second she did, her body responded to it. It was like a balm for her soul. The sharp, rigged edges of panic that had risen were now soft and pliable. She could breathe after she heard his voice.
“Hi,” she repeated the two-letter word back to him, trying to convey so many questions swirling internally as inner thoughts in her head.
What are you doing here?
How did you find me?
Are you going to pick me up and carry me out of here like Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman?
Please pick me up and carry me out of here.
“Hey speed daters, looks like you’re down a couple players!” Lana Newman from The Quizney Princesses shouted out, and in one fell swoop, reality came crashing down around them.
Jenna blinked and jerked her hand away as she realized she was surrounded by neighbors and clients, all of who would have a lot to say if she didn’t get her shit together and pretend like the man in front of her wasn’t someone who could make her come on command and who she’d been unhealthily obsessed with for a year and a half.
Luckily, she’d been wearing masks since before she even knew that’s what she was doing, so she’d been training for this her entire life.
She turned towards the tiara-and-boa-wearing ladies’ table.
“We’re good. We got replacements. But thanks for the concern.
” Her voice sounded wobbly like she was using one of those voice modulators Blake and her friends thought were so funny.
She couldn’t help it. Her entire body felt wobbly.
“Speed daters?” Niko repeated the name as if he didn’t approve.
“That’s our team name,” Jenna started to explain, but the tremble in her voice was even worse, so she shut the hell up.
Her heart was beating so fast she couldn’t actually believe it wasn’t like in one of those cartoons where you could see it pounding out of the wolf’s chest. That’s what it felt like it was doing.
Tiana picked up the team name explanation baton that she’d dropped.
“Well, it’s officially, We Thought This Was Speed Dating.
It was a joke because we had no idea it was a trivia night the first night we came, and we were just coming to have a drink after work with Kiki and Robbie, who work for Jenna.
It was a random girl’s night, so we decided to put our names in and try.
We didn’t know how seriously people take it. ”
As her friend spoke, Jenna gave herself an internal pep talk.
She had to get it together. If anyone picked up on anything going on between her and this man, it would be plastered in the local newspaper and in the FB group by the morning.
This town ran on gossip and not always the good kind.
Not only did she have a business, she had a teenage daughter and an ex-husband who lived in town.
The last thing she needed was to be painted with a scarlet S on her shirt.
Was she projecting, maybe from her own childhood?
Possibly, but still. She needed things to stay cool.
For the next hour, she had to pretend she didn’t know D. Which, in fairness, she didn’t. Niko hadn’t introduced him. He hadn’t said his name at all. Where had he found him? Was he just some random dude at the bar? Was he pretending to be the bartender again?