Chapter 31
Jenna checked her phone for the tenth time as she stood next to the bridge at the Riverside Rec Area. Blake had asked her to wait after her parade because she needed to talk to her. She was staying at her dad’s tonight, otherwise, she would have just told her they could talk when she got home.
The parade festivities were winding down. A few minutes ago, Jenna heard over the loud speaker on the main stage that Tiana’s ex, Brock Bartlett, had given some of the money raised at the gala, a million dollars actually, to Healers Beyond Horizons.
Jenna watched as most of the parade goers were heading down Main Street towards Sue Ann’s and the booths. Although she tried not to, Jenna couldn’t help herself, she found her eyes scanning the crowd for Deacon. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, he was nowhere to be found.
Earlier she’d seen him waiting for the cheer float with Tabitha, Poppy, AJ, Liam, Niko, Tiana, Yaya, Mr. Santino, and Zion.
Tabby was wearing the Junior Cheer shirt Blake had made for her, and all Jenna wanted to do was walk over and fall into Deacon’s arms. She wanted to be with him, to wait for the float with him and Tabitha.
It’s not like she was alone. She waited with Asher and Ava, who somehow she didn’t feel like a third wheel around, Viv, who took the role of aunt to Blake very seriously and was filming the entire parade for content for Blake’s social media, and Viv’s husband Glenn and their kids.
Jenna volunteered for baby duty, mainly for the distraction, but it had turned into something completely different.
Over the course of the hour or so she’d been caring for baby Gabriel, she caught the baby bug, which was ridiculous.
Blake was almost grown. But that was sort of the point.
Blake was almost grown. She was fifteen.
In a few months she’d be driving and then gone.
It had been so long since she’d held a little one, and she’d actually forgotten the new baby smell.
No. She shook her head. She was probably just having a midlife crisis. Could you have that at 34? She checked her phone again and saw that Blake still hadn’t replied to her last text asking where she was and how long she’d be when she heard a familiar voice.
“There she is! My Barbie girl.”
Yaya.
Jenna lifted her head and saw that not only was Yaya walking towards her, the whole gang was. Well, she didn’t see Deacon, Tiana or Niko but everyone else was headed down towards the river.
“Hi.” Jenna was so happy to see Yaya that when she opened her arms for a hug, tears sprung in her eyes. She hoped that Yaya hadn’t noticed before she wrapped her arms around her, sniffed, and wiped them away.
Unfortunately, the woman might be 90, but she didn’t miss a thing.
Yaya placed both hands on Jenna’s cheeks and patted them. “No girl so beautiful should ever look so sad! Why sad?!” she demanded. Loudly.
Jenna glanced around hoping it hadn’t drawn attention.
“I missed you.” Jenna sniffed.
Yaya’s brows furrowed as if she didn’t believe her.
“I did.” Jenna smiled widely, but her stupid eyes welled up again.
“Come, come, come.” Yaya ushered her over to the bench. “Sit, sit, sit.”
As soon as she sat, Yaya took her hands. “What is it? What is wrong?”
“Nothing. I just haven’t seen you in a few weeks because we’ve missed your appointments and I was going to go see if you wanted to get coffee, but I didn’t want to bother you—”
“Ahh! You no bother!” Yaya gasped and patted her face again. “Too beautiful. My girl. You are my Barbie Girl, I am Yaya, no bother me. No, no, no.”
“You’re a newlywed.”
“Ahh, he fine. Grown man.” Yaya waved her hand to Arthur. “What is wrong, Moro mou?”
Jenna wasn’t even sure how to put what was wrong with her in words. After her and Asher’s conversation, she felt even more confused. She just stared at Yaya and shrugged as more tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Nothing!” Yaya snapped. “Nothing is wrong. This is about man, no?”
Jenna nodded. “Deacon St. Claire.”
“Good. Good boy. I like for you. This is boy from hand.”
Yaya lifted her hand and patted it.
“Maybe I just…I don’t think—”
“This. Yes, this is problem.” Yaya dropped her hand and patted Jenna’s cheeks. “No think. Just love.”
“What?” Jenna asked.
“When right person, no think.”
“Okay but—”
“No but. Just love. Life too short for but or think. Just love. He is good man, yes?” Her hands flew in the air.
Jenna nodded. “Yes.”
“You love, yes?” Her hands flew again.
“Yes.”
“Then is simple.”
“But what if—”
“No but, no what if. You know future?”
“No.”
“Then love only important thing. When is love, no think, just yes. Now you say.”
“What?” Jenna wasn’t sure she wanted to say it.
“Now you say!” Yaya grabbed her cheeks again.
“When is love, no think, just yes,” Jenna repeated.
“Again,” Yaya instructed, still holding her cheeks.
“When is love, no think, just yes.”
“Again.”
She took a breath and found her lips curling at the edges as she echoed for the final time, “When is love, no think, just yes.”
“When is love, no think, just yes.” Yaya smiled and kissed her on her forehead.
Jenna’s phone lit up and vibrated with a text. It was Blake telling her she forgot her backpack down by the paddleboats where she’d met her team before the parade and could Jenna get it for her and bring it up to Two Scoops so they could talk now.
“Sorry,” she apologized to Yaya. “It’s Blake.”
“Yes, yes, yes.” Yaya shooed her away. “Go, go, go.”
Before she stood up, Jenna threw her arms around Yaya once more. It was always strange when she actually hugged Yaya to feel what a tiny-framed woman she was. She just had such a larger-than-life personality that she seemed so much bigger, but she was so petite.
“Thank you, for…” Jenna wanted to say for being the only grandma she’d ever had, but she knew if she did, she’d start bawling. "…for everything.”
“Yes, yes, yes, Moro mou.” Yaya patted her back. “Se agapó. Go, go, go.”
Jenna wasn’t sure what Yaya had said, but it felt very affectionate and filled her with love as she stood and headed down the dock where the paddleboats were stored during the winter to collect Blake’s backpack.
She loved her daughter to death, but she really was going to have to figure out how to start making her more responsible.
As she climbed down the ladder, she wondered why in the world the cheer team would meet on the dock in the boathouse that stored the paddleboats for the winter before the parade.
“Small towns are so weird,” she said to herself as she slid the barn door open and gasped.
There were no paddleboats. No backpack. There were fairy lights strung from the walls and rafters, and Deacon, standing beside a sailboat floating in the water, pulled into the dock that Jenna recognized immediately. Her hand shook as she pointed to it. “Is that?”
“No, it’s not the boat, but it is a replica of the nineteen-sixty-two John Alden schooner that is currently docked at the Seneca Harbor Park Pier in Watkins Glen, New York, which was used as Pacey Witter‘s boat, the True Love.”
“How did you…why did you…whose boat is this?” Jenna stepped inside and realized there was music playing.
It was music from the Dawson’s Creek soundtrack.
“Well, that’s up to you.” He grinned.
“To me?” She placed her hands on her chest. “Why me?”
“I was sort of hoping that it could be a family boat. That it could be Blake’s, Tabby’s, yours, mine, and Rocco’s if you agreed to be a family, but if not, then it is yours and Blake’s boat.”
“Mine and Blake’s?”
“Yours, technically, but I’m assuming you’d share it with her.”
Jenna couldn’t believe this was happening as she walked over and traced her fingers over it. This couldn’t be real. Things like this didn’t happen to her.
“How did you do this? When did you do this? Why did you do this?”
She turned around to him and found that Deacon had crossed the dock and was now standing only a foot away from her.
He looked so handsome. Her chest ached at just how handsome he was.
His square jaw was covered in more stubble than normal.
Then she noticed his cheeks were a little sunken in and although it was barely noticeable, there were faint shadows of dark circles beneath his eyes.
Without running it past her brain, her hand flew and touched his cheek. “Are you okay? You look tired?”
His eyes closed and he exhaled at the contact. When he opened them, he grinned. “That’s a nice way of telling someone they look like shit.”
Her thumb ran along his jaw, not because it needed to, just because she didn’t want to stop touching him. She never wanted to stop touching him. But she forced herself to, and she dropped her arm back down by her side. “You don’t. You couldn’t. You just look tired.”
“I haven’t been sleeping great,” he admitted.
She smiled. “Same.”
“I don’t know what’s keeping you up at night, but I met this woman at a bar about a year and a half ago, and before she even looked at me, I fell in love with her.”
Jenna started to shake her head as she smiled.
“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. It was one of those, the world-stops, heavens-open, angels-sing moments.
Then she looked at me, and time stood still, I forgot my name, where I was, what I was doing, everything.
Actually, she kicked a guy in the balls first, but then all that happened and the only thing that existed was the angel sitting in front of me.
Honestly, I thought I was hallucinating.
But she was real. And you’re not gonna believe this, but she actually went home with me that night. ”
“She did?” Jenna played along.