Liana
I was ashamed to say that jealousy was coursing through me watching him dance with those old hussies.
“Not you about to lose your man to Miss Earline and Dot Dale’s old ass. Couldn’t be me, I would’ve knocked her down right then and there,” Noeva said, completely unbothered by the fact that she was suggesting assault at a family festival.
“He is not my man,” I said.
“Mhhm. You let him hit twice. Y’all go together, sister. I think you may be the only one confused about that.”
“I’m not confused. I’m embarrassed, and he’s being rude by giving me the cold shoulder.”
“He gave you a week, Liana. You blocked the man and then went out with Cortez knowing damn well them faux locs are paid actors. I’m not fooled.”
I cringed thinking about that night. So I had ducked off and given myself time to wrap my head around what we were doing. What I was willing to do. What I was ready to do. Those three things kept landing in different places every time I asked them. I had run out of patience with myself.
However, everything always led me back to wanting Jaheim… in my life. Consistently.
When I went and sat down across from him, I got exactly what I deserved, which was delivered with eye contact and zero elaboration.
Whatever the hell that meant.
The announcer called out five minutes until the pie-eating contest. I turned toward the stage and felt his eyes before I found them. He was already looking at me.
It wasn’t sexual. I wish it had been. Sex was easier to manage.
This was starting to look a lot like love.
Divorce had been necessary; I respected that truth, but it did a number on your mind and your body and your trust in a way nobody talked about enough. Some days, you were jaded. Some days, you were bitter. Some days, you were homicidal. Rarely hopeful.
I was starting to think I might be ready to be hopeful now.
“Contestants, please head to the stage,” the announcer called.
Jaheim stood up, straightened his shirt, and looked down at me. His wink sent a shiver down my spine. I pushed my sunglasses down and prepared for the show.
The bib got tied around him while he laughed beside Beau.
I looked around at the town I had come back to feeling nothing but gratitude for it.
Bloomington was messy. Warm. Everybody knew everybody’s business, but underneath all of that, most people wanted the same thing: an easy life filled with laughter, love, and community.
This was it.
This was exactly it.
“I told Beau he could take me out for real if he wins. I need to know he got that dog in ‘em.” She said barking.
I laughed so hard I thought I was going to pass out. Noeva shrugged like she hadn’t just said the wildest thing. We laughed until we had tears running and people around us were looking. Eventually, we pulled it together, and the horn sounded.
Jaheim locked in.
He licked that pie in long deliberate strokes and the temperature around me rose to genuinely dangerous levels. Hands behind his back, face buried in whipped cream, eyes on mine, not moving.
My lip went between my teeth. I squirmed.
Noeva wanted dog energy from Beau. I had been calling mine Cowboy this whole time when what I was actually dealing with was a panther. Patient, precise, and he had been watching me since the night I walked Jill out the door.
This was supposed to be innocent and Jaheim had completely ruined that within minutes. I was never going to look at pie the same way again.
By the time the horn sounded, I was damn near overheating.
I looked away and fanned myself.
“Bitch,” Noeva said, grabbing my arm. “If you don’t go get your man, I know something.”
I looked back at Jaheim. His face was covered in whipped cream and pie crust. He was grinning at me from the stage, completely aware of what he had done. I shook my head and smiled.
Beau won the contest, and Noeva left me in a hurry to congratulate him. She was so unserious, but I was going to love her through it the same way she had been loving me through mine.
Group one for bouquet picking was announced. The tension kicked back up when I saw Jaheim’s name on the same list.
I decided to approach him.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
I knew I was supposed to be standing strong, not folding, but I had gotten used to feeling safe with him.
I wanted that back.
“Have you ever done this before?” I asked, helping him gather his tools. Gloves, shears, a wicker basket, and a bottle of water.
“Do I put the flowers in the water?”
“No sir, you drink it. It gets hot out there.” I handed him the bottle. “I’ll help if you want.”
“You sure? I wouldn’t want your boyfriend to get upset.” He tossed his head toward Cortez, who looked away when I glanced over.
“Jaheim, can we please get this over with. I said it was nothing, you said it was nothing. Don’t be childish.”
“You got your nerve, Liana. Childish was what you did at the bar. Then you doubled down going to dinner with that cornball. That’s why you can’t fuck with me? I’m too authentic for you? You like to align with losers and fakes?”
I laughed and took off into the field. He kicked the dirt and came after me.
“Liana, shit. Wait. My bad.”
“No sir.” I kept walking. “You said what you said and you meant it. I may have a thing for losers, but it’s you who gives me thirst. At least my date didn’t stand me up.” I shoved him in the chest and walked further into the farm where the lilies grew. He was hot on my heels, cursing low.
“Liana, I want you so fucking bad that shit is driving me crazy. And all that surface bullshit is not enough for me. You got your shit, and I’ve made space for it. I got shit too. I don’t want my heart played with either.”
“And I haven’t pushed you to share it. But you could’ve told me at any time.”
I stopped and turned to face him.
“Cut here at an angle.” I demonstrated with the shears. “But I also haven’t made it safe for you to share. I know that. Sorry.”
We stood there looking at each other with dirt on our shoes and flowers around our ankles.
Pain, in my opinion, had a way of making people turn inward. Maybe too much. I’d spent a lot of time trying to protect myself, so I hadn’t stopped to think about what Jaheim was protecting, too.
He pushed a piece of hair behind my ear.
“That’s not true. I don’t want to scare you off. Or hell.” He stopped. “I don’t know.”
I grabbed his hand and pulled him behind the barn. My secret spot from when I used to work summers on the farm as a teenager.
The bench was old and weathered, but it would hold.
I sat him down and took his hands in mine.
“I’m not going to judge you or be afraid of you. I was a probation officer, Jaheim. I’ve seen and heard it all.”
He looked down at our hands for a long moment before exhaling through his nose.
The fight left his shoulders first.
“I told you I lost my mom at twelve but…” He stopped, eyes finding mine again.
I kissed the side of his face, silently encouraging him to continue.
“I didn’t tell you my dad killed my mother.” His jaw tightened. “I remember family members saying he loved her too much, but that always sounded like bullshit to me. You don’t hurt the people you love. You for damn sure don’t take them from the people that loved them.”
“Jah.” I kissed his face, his cheek, his temple, his forehead, wherever I could reach.
Every time he spoke about his mother, it was like he was handing me a piece of himself he didn’t trust many people to hold, and I intended to protect it.
“I’m so sorry, Jaheim.”
Hearing those stories always took me back to being twelve years old and still needing my mama for everything.
Jaheim had been robbed of a woman I already believed was extraordinary from the small pieces he had shared.
“It’s why I do everything I do,” he said. “The other night felt too close to some shit Jackson would do. At least I think. I know I never want to hurt you or scare you.”… “If you ain’t fucking with me, I’ll fall back.”
“What? No.” I tightened my hands around his. “No, no, no.”
“Liana—”
“Listen to me.” I shifted on the bench to face him fully. “What you did at Cleo’s was not what your father did. Your father used fear to control people. You showed up for me.” I held his gaze. “Those are not the same things. Not even close.”
He stared ahead for a long moment.
“I’ve been scared of myself,” he admitted. “I miss her so much sometimes. But for every second I miss her, I think about who took her away. I don’t ever want to become that man. I only want to protect.”
“You are not Jackson. You are Eunice’s son.” I said. “And I think your mother would be proud of the man you became.”
He looked up, meeting my eyes again, his face opening in a way that told me nobody had ever said that to him before.
“I’ve been scared of being wrong again.” I exhaled. “We’ve both been scared of different things and taking it out on each other. I don’t want to do that anymore.”
The barn faded into the background while Bloom Day carried on around us, music and laughter floating across the farm while the whole town lived out loud.
We sat on a weathered bench in our secret spot, flowers in our hands, holding the heaviest truths we had ever given another person.
“So what now?” he asked. I taking in the whipped cream he hadn’t fully wiped off his jaw. The rope chain catching the afternoon light. The scar through his eyebrow. The dimple. I missed him.
“Now you kiss me,” I said, crawling into his lap. I removed my gloves and then his.
“Broad daylight?”
“Nobody is coming back here. We weren’t even supposed to be this far into the garden.”
His hands found my hips as I rolled into him slowly. I had been turned on since watching him devour that pie. I knew I tasted better than whipped cream and pie crust.
“I can’t believe I was jealous of some old ladies and pie all in one day.” I shook my head. “I’m still not sure what it is about you, Cowboy, but I like it. A lot.”
He pulled me closer and looked up at me, making sure I meant it.
“I mean it. I want to figure this out. That’s what we’re doing, figuring us out.”
I kissed him first and he kissed me back like he was happy to finally be in the game. Every week of distance dissolved somewhere between his hands on my waist and a lip lock so vicious that when we finally pulled back we were both panting.
“Feed me first next time,” he said. “And I would’ve spared that pie.”
I laughed so hard I nearly fell off his lap. He caught me and brought me back.
His hands went under my pleated dress because his hands had magnets and my ass was apparently true north. He was hopeless, and so was I. I had stopped being surprised by it. In fact, I loved it.
“Three weeks was too long,” he mumbled against my chin.
His palm slid between my thighs and pressed just right, making my hips move against him before I could stop myself.
“I don’t appreciate you taking this from me.”
I gasped when two fingers entered me slowly. Jaheim had that effect on me. I had long squashed the age discourse because the dick was superb, the care was immaculate, and the vibes were top tier. I was done arguing with myself about it.
“I want the dick, baby,” I said, panting, climbing higher from his fingers moving in and out, the pressure making it hard to focus on anything else.
“Pull it out and put it in, Trini. I’m never turning down the pussy, baby.”
I calmed down long enough to pull his big dick out and slide down. He’d gotten me so wet I didn’t have any trouble.
“Shit,” we hissed together as our bodies connected.
“I missed you so much,” I whispered against his lips.
Bliss took over. His arm locked around my body as he lifted me up and brought me back down, filling me up and pulling me under at the same time. He grunted as we found our rhythm, the sun setting behind us in a field of flowers on my family’s farm on the first day of summer.
This was the BET Uncut version of a Hallmark movie.
“You ride this dick so good, Trini. Don’t hold that shit in.”
My walls clamped around him as he pumped faster and harder. We reached our peak together. I shattered and he seized, holding my body close by my neck.
We sat there for a minute trying to get our breathing back. It took longer than either of us wanted to admit.
Jaheim helped me to my feet and pulled his shirt off to hand to me.
“Strike one,” I said, taking it. “You gotta wear a shirt at all times, love.”
He looked down at his bare chest and back at me.
“Give it back then and let the whole town smell me on you. Yeah, I think I like that idea better.”
“Oh, you’re a freak.”
“You knew that.”
He wasn’t wrong.
The whistle blew signaling our group had twenty minutes left. We pulled ourselves together and slipped back into the flower field hoping nobody had noticed us gone, which in Bloomington was probably wishful thinking, but we tried anyway.
Jaheim picked it up quicker than I expected. His hands stayed steady on the shears, and he actually listened when I corrected his angles. By the end, he’d built an arrangement that looked good enough to sell.
He held the bouquet out to me. I took it, bringing them to my nose to inhale. I loved how fresh cut flowers smelled.
“It’s beautiful, baby. You did really good.”
Roses, Lavender, Lillies, and Baby’s breath from the border row that had always been communal, first-come, first-served, whoever needed it.
He had walked the whole farm and taken a piece of all of us without a map.
He pulled me in close and kissed my cheek before biting my ear.
“I love them.”
“Be careful, I like a little praise too.”
Heat flooded my face and traveled through my body.
“Go on a real date with me,” he said. “Not the bar. Not your place or mine. Somewhere I pick, somewhere I take you. Let me do that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”
He smiled. The full one. Dimple out, unbothered.
“Saturday,” he said.
“Saturday works,” I agreed.
We walked back through the farm toward the noise of Bloom Day, his hand finding mine. I looked down at our hands for a second before squeezing his tighter.
Bloomington buzzed around us loud, messy, and alive, but for the first time since my divorce, the noise in my head had finally settled.
Maybe hope wasn’t as dangerous as I’d made it out to be.