Chapter Twenty Maya
Chapter Twenty
Maya
I was just lifting my beer off the coffee table with my legs stretched across the empty couch cushions, my head re-sinking into the corner pillow, when there was a knock on our apartment door. “Emily,” I groaned toward the hallway, where her room was located at the end. “I think your food is here.”
“Will you get it for me?” she yelled back.
“Only because it’s you,” I replied, mostly to myself since I wasn’t loud enough for her to hear. “I swear, if it was anyone else, they couldn’t even pay me to get up.”
I pushed myself to my feet and wobbled to the door.
Every muscle screamed from the thirteen hours I’d spent hauling ass around the rehab center today and the five arduous, personal-best miles I’d put in this morning.
The one thing about angst: The second it got thicker than normal, I always seemed to hit new running goals.
Still holding my beer, I turned the knob and pulled the door open, prepared to grab the food.
Except there was no bag and no delivery driver.
The man standing outside our door was Jordan.
My lungs attempted to fill as I took him in. As the details of his presence hit me. As his scent slowly wrapped around me and wouldn’t let me go.
With his arm above his head, he gripped the top of the doorframe, his broadness taking up the entire narrow space.
Haunting green eyes behind black-framed glasses—which I’d never seen before—stared back at me.
Extra-thick scruff lined his cheeks.
A black shirt, the first two buttons undone, showed the muscle around his collarbone and the light dusting of ash-brown hair that covered it.
I’d never seen anyone more handsome in my life.
Each second of silence that passed made my breathing speed up, my skin turn hot, my body feel as though he were tracing the tips of his fingers over every inch of me.
“Maya . . .”
That one word was like a rock skipping across a lake’s surface, creating ripples every time it landed, but the circles surrounded my chest, and each time the rock touched down, it made my heart beat faster.
I didn’t know what to do with my hands—or my body, or the jittery sensation that now consumed me—so I brought the beer up to my lips and took a sip. I swallowed, finally finding my words. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought you might be hungry.”
“Hungry?”
He reached toward the floor and lifted a bag. It took a moment before I realized it was big enough to hold more than one meal and probably several sides.
“You brought me dinner?”
A smile crossed his beautiful lips. “And dessert. But there’s a catch.”
“Which is?”
“You have to eat it with me.”
I leaned against the wall to the right of the door. “You’re asking a lot of me.”
“It’s just a meal, Maya. I’m not asking you to move in with me . . . or for you to marry me.”
I wasn’t quick enough to catch the first flip, but I pushed against my stomach as it did another turn.
Move in. Marry. Questions I was sure Jordan had never asked another woman, considering he didn’t even date.
Was that what caused them to stir in my throat? Or was it his tone? Or the way he was looking at me as though he was using every bit of restraint not to throw me over his shoulder and take me to the closest bedroom?
“I figured it might take a little convincing, so I brought this.” He leaned down again and returned with a six-pack of Sam Adams.
“Your plan is to get me drunk?”
“My plan is to spend time with you. I know how much you love this brand. You don’t have to drink it now. You can wait until after I leave.”
I crossed one arm over my chest, positioning the other so the beer wasn’t far from my face. “What made you think I would let you in?”
“I’m perfectly happy eating out here.” He glanced down the short hallway. “Assuming your neighbors won’t call the cops on me.”
“And if I’m not hungry?”
“You can watch me eat.”
I rubbed the mouth of the bottle over my lips. “How did you know I’d be home?”
“I was just at the rehab center, visiting Grandma, and since you weren’t there, I assumed you were here.”
I sighed. “You have an answer for everything.”
“I have an objection to whatever you throw at me. I don’t have an answer for everything.”
I drained the rest of the bottle. “What’s your objection to time? I told you that was what I needed. Yet here you are.”
“I gave you time.”
“Two days.”
“And it felt like a fucking eternity.”
“Jordan—”
“We don’t have to talk about my family.” I didn’t know how, but he seemed even closer. “It’s a wound we don’t have to reopen, although at some point very soon, we should finish the conversation from the other day. But here, now . . . I just want to spend time with you.”
Emily came up behind me and wrapped an arm around my waist, resting her face against the side of my shoulder. “You don’t look like a delivery driver.” She laughed. “Hi, Jordan. It’s nice to see you again.”
“Good to see you, too, Emily.”
I turned my head just enough to see my best friend’s profile. “See him again?”
“I might have run into him the other day when I came looking for you in Bettie’s room.”
“And you two talked . . .” I wasn’t asking. I was stating what was now obvious.
“We talked for a hot second. Nothing major major,” Emily replied.
Was that the truth? Or was that all she was willing to divulge while she was in front of Jordan? Or all she was willing to give me in general?
As soon as we were alone, I’d find out.
I’d also ask if she was the reason why he was here.
Because I wouldn’t be surprised if Emily had something to do with it.
Not that he wouldn’t have come up with the idea on his own; the man was relentless in pursuing me.
He called. Texted. My mind just wasn’t in a place where I could give him the response he wanted.
“Maya, the poor man is standing in the hallway, holding something that smells delicious. Are you going to invite him in? Or are you going to make him wait out there all night?”
I let out a small hum while I looked at Emily. “I haven’t decided.”
“Small piece of advice if you do let him in.” She snorted. “All our roommates are home, and they’re going to smell that food and come into the kitchen like vultures.” She smiled. “Which means you better take Jordan into your bedroom to eat it.”
I let out a huff. “Of course that would be your suggestion.”
“I think it’s a hell of an idea,” Jordan said.
“And of course you would say that,” I muttered to him.
It wasn’t just a look or a glance that he gave me—it was the type of stare that had the power to make me feel it across my whole body.
Did I want to bring Jordan into my space? Into the privacy of my bedroom? Where my door would be shut? Where we would be alone? Where—
“Well?” Emily questioned me, causing my thoughts to come to a screeching halt. “What’s it going to be, bestie?” She nodded toward Jordan. “I’d hate for the food to get cold.”
Her expression told me she cared nothing about the food changing temperature. She just wanted me to invite Jordan in.
They were on the same team. That was clear.
When the air came out of my lips, it made a whooshing sound. “You two are unbelievable . . .”
“While she’s deciding,” Emily said, ignoring me, “why don’t you come in and put the food in the kitchen so you don’t have to stand there and hold it.”
Even though there was plenty of room for him to turn sideways and slip through the entryway, he didn’t. He stayed right where he was.
His gaze hadn’t moved either. It was locked on me. Intensifying. “I’m not going anywhere unless you invite me in.”
The grittiness of his voice settled inside me, despite nothing in me actually being settled. Because as soon as his statement entered my body, it meshed with the tingles that already existed.
My body was betraying my heart.
But was it?
Why was everything so mixed? And unknown?
And confusing?
And was time together such a bad thing? Especially if it was just time and nothing else?
“If I bring you to my room, will you promise to behave yourself?” I asked him.
He licked his lips. “Define behave.”
“Oh, he’s good,” Emily whispered.
I shut her out of my head and said, “Behaving means you won’t touch me.”
“That’s all you’re making me promise?” He shifted in the doorway, and that slight movement sent me another whiff of his woodsy-tea scent, reminding me why I loved it so much. “Because, Maya, my words can be as powerful as my hands.” His teeth nipped the same lip he’d been licking. “You know that.”