Liana
Two weeks later and Jaheim still lingered everywhere.
In my phone. In my head. I resented how naturally he had slipped into my life. I caught myself checking the front door of The Bloom around the same time every night. It was so bad and obvious.
At thirty-nine, I should’ve known better than to let a twenty-seven-year-old with dimples and good dick rearrange my emotional stability, but here I was.
Cowboy Jah: I got a surprise for you!
That was from earlier. It was stuff like this that had me smiling at my phone more. Sleeping better. Letting a man rub lotion on my back and hold me through the night without feeling the urge to run after.
I was getting used to being cared for again.
We had agreed to take things slow. Neither of us said what that thing was, but after the time we had spent together our heads knew what our hearts were afraid to admit.
We texted. He came by the bar a few times. Sometimes he brought food. Sometimes he sat there looking at me over the top of his laptop while we worked.
There was no pressure between us, and I had been trying to decide whether the absence of pressure was a good sign or a sign that I had finally met someone patient enough to wait me out.
I hadn’t figured that out yet.
The Bloom was packed out tonight. Summer sat right around the corner, warm weather pulling people out in droves on a Friday.
We were close to standing room only, but I moved through it with ease. Three years of owning this bar had made me tough as nails.
“Darnell, go in the back and bring me another case of Tito’s before these people start acting brand new,” I called out while sliding drinks down the bar.
“Already on it,” he yelled back.
Somebody near the jukebox nearly came to blows over song choices while Roya cussed out a man trying to skip his tab. Regular Friday night shit.
I glanced at the clock above the liquor shelves.
Seven thirty-four. It was right around the time Jaheim usually walked in.
The door opened and a woman I didn’t recognize stepped inside.
Her eyes moved around the room like she was searching for someone specific. A second later, she settled two seats down from the one I had been saving for Jaheim.
“Hey girl, welcome to The Bloom. First time? You lost? Looking for someone?” I smiled, running it all together.
“All of that,” she said with a small laugh.
“The Bloom is easy. Hang out, relax, drink a little. What can I get you?”
She ordered a fruity drink and kept looking around while I made it. Checked her phone. Sent a text. I minded my business until I didn’t.
“I don’t mean to pry, but is everything okay?”
“Sort of.” She smiled. “I’m actually meeting someone here.”
“Okayyyy date.” I snapped, “Local?”
“Kind of.” She turned her phone around and showed me his picture. “Jaheim. You know him, right?”
The look on her face told me she already knew the answer.
Maybe she wasn’t from Bloomington, but word traveled fast around here. People rarely stumbled into The Bloom by accident.
Somebody had told her about Jaheim.
Enough for her to walk in confidently and settle two seats down from the stool she somehow already knew was his.
I kept my face exactly where it needed to be. Because one thing people never fully considered was the risk in playing with you in your own house.
I wasn’t even mad at her. She didn’t owe me anything.
Truthfully, neither did Jaheim.
We hadn’t named this. Hadn’t defined it. Hadn’t promised each other a damn thing.
I had a policy, and at the moment, that policy was the only thing keeping me from making a fool of myself in my own bar.
“Camille, I know everybody who comes through here,” I said as her eyes grew wide at me, knowing who she was. “It’s nice to put a face to a name. Can I get you anything else?”
She smiled and shook her head while I moved down the bar.
My intrusive thoughts were going haywire.
I wanted to spazz. I wanted to kick myself in the ass for believing in bullshit fairytales even for a second.
The truth was, there were way more frogs than Prince Charming’s out here.
I, of all people, knew that shit firsthand.
I had the lamp charge and the divorce papers to prove it.
I moved around letting the bar keep me busy when Jaheim walked in wearing a jacket that made no sense for the weather. I moved out of his line of sight. I wasn’t in the mood, and the mood wasn’t coming back tonight.
I silently repeated my affirmations like a woman drowning who had just remembered she could swim.
I don’t force what’s mine.
I don’t chase. I attract by existing.
This is why you should have left well enough alone.
I was so deep in my own head, I didn’t see him approach until his big, wide smile was right in my face. He stopped in front of me and unzipped his jacket to reveal a big picture of Esme printed across his chest. Dead center. Her whole little face staring back at me.
Under any other circumstances, I would have lost it laughing.
I rolled my eyes and walked off, filling water glasses down the line.
“Trini, don’t tell me you changed your mind. I want some time with Esme,” he laughed, following me, searching my face for whatever he had walked into.
“I’ve definitely changed my mind.” I set a glass down harder than I needed to. “What’s your game, Jah? Huh, did you miss my criminal record when you stalked me?”
“What game? What are you talking about?” He lowered his voice and moved closer. His fingertips brushed against my exposed thigh. “Talk to me.”
“I’m working.”
“Liana.”
He said my name through slightly gritted teeth, which almost made me stop. Almost.
“You got company,” I said, eyes on the bar top. “Two seats down from your usual spot. She’s been waiting on you.”
Even without looking at him, I caught the shift in his energy.
“Who?”
I tilted my head toward the end of the bar without looking at him. Camille had spotted him by now and was doing that small wave, fingers only, the universal signal of a woman who wanted to be seen without appearing to want it too badly.
Jaheim turned. Looked. Turned back.
I scoffed because he had the fuckin’ nerve.
His face shifted instantly, what crossed it looking nothing like guilt. Nothing like the carefully assembled expression of a man whose plan had unraveled.
Straight confusion.
The real kind. The kind that moved too fast across somebody’s face to fake before they had time to get control of it.
That almost got me too.
Almost.
“I didn’t invite her here,” he said.
“Okay.”
“I’m serious. I don’t know why she?—”
“Jah.” I finally met his eyes, keeping my voice even and my expression neutral because this was my bar, my town, my people, and I was not about to bleed in front of any of them over a man I had explicitly told myself not to catch feelings for. “Go handle your company. I’m working.”
His attention shifted to Camille for a second before landing back on me.
“That’s what you want, Bloom?”
“I don’t want anything.” I picked up my rag. “Go ahead.”
He went to Camille, and I tried not to watch him, but I failed almost immediately.
Jaheim steered her gently toward the door with one hand resting at her elbow instead of her back. The detail irritated me because I noticed it instantly. I wasn’t supposed to care at all. Feelings were exactly what I had been trying to avoid from the beginning.
“Neicy, your hand.”
Roya’s voice pulled my attention downward. Blood slid across my palm and dripped onto the bar beside the shattered remains of a glass I didn’t even remember breaking.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath.
Roya grabbed my wrist before I could pull away. “This is why you need to stop pretending that man don’t matter to you.”
“Mind your business, Roya.”
“You standing here bleeding in my face. It became my business.”
I wrapped a towel around my hand and pulled away from her touch before she could look at me too closely. The last thing I needed tonight was pity mixed with curiosity.
“I mean it tonight,” I said firmly.
Roya lifted both hands in surrender, but her expression softened anyway.
Mine didn’t.
By the time I made it back to my office for my keys and bag, embarrassment and jealousy sat heavy in my chest, right beside the disappointment that came from hoping when I knew better than to.
I needed air more than I needed answers.
Within five minutes, Esme and I were headed out the back door toward home.
Two Days Later
The incessant ringing of my doorbell caused me to groan. Two bottles of wine the night before and not a single regret until right now.
A second later, pounding rattled the door hard enough to drag me fully awake.
“Liana, you better not be in there still sleeping. It’s ten o’clock.”
My mama’s voice carried through the door. My head was pounding by the time I made it downstairs, and the bright sun hit me the second I cracked the door open.
“Mommy, please. Not all that yelling. You either, Granny.”
“Oh, now I can’t have an opinion about you looking a mess and forgetting our meeting?”
“Who pissed in your Cheerios?” I asked, face turned up.
“Your father.”
“Lawrence, accused her of meddling,” Granny added.
“Lucille, now look at you meddling.” She turned to me and smiled. “I wasn’t meddling. I want to know what happened with the nice man you’ve been seeing.”
“So Daddy was right?” I turned and headed to my room to wash my face and brush my teeth. Talking about Jaheim wasn’t on the agenda today. Not while I was still going back and forth about whether I had overreacted.
The shower helped a little. Standing under hot water with nowhere to be gave me room to think whether I wanted it to or not.
Jaheim was on my mind. The look on his face. The confusion.
Two days had passed, and I already missed hearing from him. The other night showed me I wasn’t quite ready. Even taking it slow had pulled insecurities out of me I thought I had dealt with. It was me, not him. Well, no. It was him too, because why have her at my bar at all?
The me part came in because I refused to wait around while he fed me lies.