Liana #2
“Never. It’s beautiful and true.” He thought for a second. “Aight, I’mma put ‘In Progress.’ Together we’re blooming in progress.” He laughed. “Now that’s some deep in love ass shit.”
He laughed and I gave him a small one back while internally I started spiraling.
Love.
He said it so casually, like it was just a joke about shoe embroidery, but the word stayed lodged in my chest anyway.
Now I was sitting there wondering whether he realized how loaded that sounded or if I was letting my feelings get ahead of me again.
Because part of me wanted him to mean it.
Did he think he loved me?
Did I love him?
I didn’t have an answer and didn’t have time to find one because he was already moving.
“Trini, you cooked with this date. I mean that.” He looked around the studio. “I need two of whatever we make. I’ll pay right now.”
“Why two?”
“We wear one pair. We frame the other.” He said it simply, like it was obvious. “Some shit you gotta preserve. This is that. I never want to forget today.”
I kept my eyes on him because he was too perfect and had every reason not to be. Life could’ve made him hard. It didn’t. That wasn’t an accident. That was intention. That was Eunice raising somebody right even from the grave.
Kae smiled like she had seen this before and moved to start the work.
We ate while the designers worked. I picked the table by the window on purpose. The sun was setting over Nashville, casting light across the rooftops below us. I sat in awe of the feelings running through me.
Apparently, I wasn’t as done with love as I thought.
“You want kids?” he asked, cutting his steak.
I sat up straighter across from him. “That came out of nowhere.”
“We in the thick of it, baby. I want to know. It doesn’t change anything, so you don’t have to be afraid to answer. Forever on whatever you on.”
I set my glass down. “I did. I do. I don’t know what that looks like at thirty-nine, but I haven’t closed the door on it.” I looked at him. “You?”
“Yeah. I want a family. A real one. My own to protect. If given the chance. But family doesn’t always mean kids.”
He went back to his steak.
I sat with that for a second. In that moment, I finally understood what made Jaheim feel different from every man I’d dealt with before.
He carried all that masculinity, all that confidence, without making it feel heavy on me.
He moved through the world without assuming anything was owed to him.
Not my time, not my body, not my history.
He showed up, waited, and let things unfold naturally.
That was rare. Rarer than people admitted.
“What are you most afraid of?” I asked.
“Becoming someone I hate.” He said it plainly. “You?”
“Disappearing again.” I picked my glass back up. “I spent a long time not being fully myself for somebody. I can’t do that again. I won’t.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to.”
“I know.” My eyes settled on his. “That’s why I’m sitting here.”
Kae came back over to check on the progress, giving us a pause. Jaheim was looking at me with so much admiration that I shook my head.
“Stop,” I fussed, joking.
“I can’t.”
“Me either,” I winked.
After another hour we were headed out of Sole Werkers, bags in hand, shoes ordered, hand in hand.
I reached over and kissed his cheek when we made it to the park.
It was getting dark, but the park was lit enough for us to walk and chill.
I hadn’t planned much else because both Jaheim and I liked a slower pace of life.
We found Boozy Susie’s and grabbed slushies with rum.
We laughed when we got a brain freeze from sucking way too hard.
“Did you have fun?”
“I did, Mrs. Harrison,” he said stopping to look at me. “What was that about? You ready to be my wife or something, bloom?”
I looked up at him with my boozy slushie and a brain freeze I hadn’t fully recovered from. I thought about lying but decided against it.
“I liked how it sounded,” I said.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
His steady unbothered patience had been dismantling me since April and it was doing it again right now. I had a decision to make. Meet me halfway was written all over his face. I had shown my interest with my actions today but anyone who said words didn't matter was a liar.
“Jah.”
“Mm.”
“I like you. A lot. More than I planned to and more than I’ve said out loud.” I picked at the straw on my cup. “You make it easy to be myself. I haven’t had that in a long time. I don’t know what to call what this is yet, but I know I don’t want it to stop.”
He took my slushie from me and held both cups off to the side before kissing me so slowly in the middle of the park I forgot where we were for a second.
Applause broke out around us as we pulled back breathlessly.
“Mrs. Harrison did have a nice ring to it though,” he said.
I shoved him and kept walking. “Last person to the car is a rotten egg,” I said, breaking into a light jog.
He caught up laughing, grabbed me, threw me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing, and carried me the rest of the block while I giggled until I couldn’t breathe.
He set me on my feet at the car and took both my hands.
“You ever need or want to let me know how you feel, don’t be afraid. Nine times out of ten, I’m probably feeling the same way.” Jaheim cleared his throat. “I think we can make it, bloom.”
“I do too.” I squeezed his hands. “Let’s go home.”
Jaheim drove back since I had more of my slushie than I realized. When we made it to my place, he ran us a bath. We soaked until the water went cold, talking and laughing, pruney and unbothered.