Chapter 8
Chapter 8
R ibs had to knock twice before Jordan answered the door. When she did so, it wasn’t an exaggeration to say she looked like death warmed over, blond hair in a snarl, eyes puffy and red-rimmed, clothes sloppy and disheveled. She had an afghan wrapped around herself, and he didn’t think she realized.
“Hey, sorry,” she said, voice croaky with either missed or repressed sleep. She turned and stumbled away from him, back toward the couch where she collapsed in a heap.
“What’s up?” he asked, dodging toys in his path until he reached the end of the couch and sat delicately by her feet.
“The kids are sick.”
He sat up in alarm. “What? Are they okay? Do we need to take them to the doctor?”
She gave a sleepy chuckle. “No, they have sniffles. But sniffles upset them because they can’t breathe and they haven’t been sleeping. After only nursing at night the last couple of months, Nash now wants to nurse round the clock for comfort. I’m a little sleep deprived.” As if to prove it, she closed her eyes.
“Where are they now?” He looked around. The house was silent.
“They were so fussy I thought I’d try to put them to bed and, miraculously, it worked. They both conked out almost immediately.”
It was only a little after seven, which seemed early to him, but he knew nothing about children. Maybe it was a normal time. “I can go. You can sleep.”
“Mmph,” she said. He had no idea what that meant, but he took it to mean she wanted him to stay.
“Do you want to sleep first or eat first?” he picked up her foot, lying conveniently near his thigh, and rubbed his thumb in her instep.
She sat up, eyes wide with surprise.
He froze, somewhat abashed that he’d touched her so easily and without permission.
“That’s, um, nice,” she croaked.
He resumed his task, rubbing more of her foot, and she plopped backward onto the couch with a sigh, a contented one that time. “What was the question?”
“Sleep or eat?”
“It’s hard to think when you’re doing that,” she noted, sounding dreamy.
He smiled. She was a mess and yet somehow completely adorable, especially with her face taking on that rapturous look. Jordan had always been ridiculously easy to please, he thought. She was low maintenance, unlike some women he’d dated who never seemed happy.
“When’s the last time you ate?” he asked.
She squinted. “The kids’ leftover oatmeal at breakfast?”
“Jordy,” he intoned, giving her foot a squeeze.
Her eyes popped open. “What?” she asked, genuinely confused.
“You can’t exist on leftover oatmeal.”
She grinned. “You can, actually. You just end up looking like this.” She held up a piece of her lank hair.
“Hey, new idea. You go shower.”
She snorted a laugh.
“Not that I’m saying you need to. I merely meant you go take a few minutes for you while I set up supper.” He squeezed her foot.
“That sounds amazing, but there’s a tiny problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Now that I’m down, I don’t think I have the energy to get back up again.”
He leaned closer. “Want me to carry you?”
She jumped up and away. “Definitely no. You should not get close to this mother-of-preschooler stench I’m sporting. I’ll be back. Eat without me if you’re starved.”
“I’ll grab some leftover oatmeal if I can’t take it,” he assured her, smiling when she laughed.
While she was gone he picked up the toys from the floor and put them in the basket, then made his way to the kitchen and washed the towering stack of dishes. It was odd to see the house messy; every other time he’d been there it was spotlessly clean. He thought she was exaggerating about it being a mess until he saw it in person.
He was almost finished with the dishes when Jordan stood at the edge of the room behind him and gasped. “Gaines, you did the dishes? You’re the best.”
“Hey, my mom was a nurse who worked a ton. Her motto was ‘help out or starve and go naked.’ No free rides in my house.”
“I love that,” Jordan said cheerfully. She made her way into the room, pausing to pick up toys from the floor around the high chair. “But I have to say that if I took a picture of you right now, I could probably sell it for lots of money. There has to be some website somewhere titled SEALs Doing Dishes or something.”
“If you find it, please never let me know,” he said. She deposited a load of items on the counter. He finally looked at her and stopped short, mouth gaping. Her hair was wet and piled on top of her head in some kind of loose bun, and she wore a robe. That robe did things to him, short circuiting his brain until all he could do was wonder what she was wearing beneath it.
“I can’t tell you the last time I had an unaccompanied shower. I usually plug the bath and let the kids play in the overflow, then rinse them when I’m done like puppies. This was so great. Thank you.” She eased to his right and gave him a side hug.
“Oh, that’s, sure…” he mumbled, awkward now in the extreme as he debated leaving his hands in the water or using them to draw her into a real hug. The real hug scared him because he didn’t think he’d be able to control it. So he remained half wet and bumbling like he was twelve and noticing girls for the first time.
“Why don’t you leave the rest of those, friend. Let’s eat.” She tugged his sleeve and turned toward the bag of food he’d brought.
He was thankful for the reprieve, for a concrete place to turn his mind. “I got a little extra because I thought the kids would be eating with us. I didn’t think about the time, sorry.”
“It’s fine. They eat early, like we’re living in a retirement home or something. Early bird specials were made for people like us.” She tossed him a smile and returned her attention to removing food from the bag, a good thing since the smile short circuited his brain again. She was clean and fresh and warm and good smelling and she was wearing a robe. Were there clothes beneath the robe? Was she purposely trying to kill him or did she really not think how the robe would affect him, all white and fluffy and soft and intriguing? Jordan wasn’t the type of woman who played games or toyed with people, but how could she earnestly not know how appealing that was? Especially when she sat and the robe slipped and he caught a tantalizing preview of leg and thigh before she pulled it closed again. So this is what it feels like when a brain melts, he thought, staring hard at the sandwich she’d set in front of him.
“This looks and smells amazing,” she murmured, inhaling deeply.
Yes it does, he agreed, eyes darting to her face in time to see her close her eyes and smile. She opened them, caught him staring, and froze.
“You’re making fun of me,” she accused.
“Really, really no. Why would I make fun of you?”
“Because I’m having this overt reaction to food and dishes,” she motioned helplessly toward the sink. “I’m usually the one who’s doing all the things, making the food and cleaning, and it’s so, so nice to have a night off. Thank you.”
She beamed at him and he felt like his heart might actually explode from the combined pain and joy of it. “You’re welcome.” Their eyes caught and held and he thought maybe he wasn’t the only one who felt a little off kilter when she dropped hers and picked up her sandwich.
“My mom’s been beating the drum relentlessly, trying to get me to move home.”
“I thought you weren’t going to make any decisions for a year,” he reminded her, tamping down his sudden panic. Jordan moving away? Unthinkable.
“That’s the line I keep spouting, but I wonder why? What’s the point of waiting when it’s what I’ll probably end up doing anyway.”
“What? Why? Why would you do that?”
“I’m kind of all alone here, Gaines.”
“Uh, hello,” he pointed to himself.
She smiled. “You’re sweet, and you’re a pal, but you have your own life. Everyone does. Amelia helps out when she can, but she’s so busy. You work a crazy amount and someday…”
“Someday what?” he asked when she trailed off.
“Someday you’ll have a family of your own, as you should. I need to figure out a permanent solution for us. The kids would have cousins, if I moved home.”
“And what about you? What would you have?”
“Someone to call, in case of emergency,” she said.
“You have that here,” he said, pointing to himself again, this time with more urgency.
She gave him the smile again and shook her head. “I don’t, though. You’re gone more than you’re here, like Jay. It’s weird because he was gone so much I learned to adapt. But now that he’s gone gone, I feel so…vulnerable.” She shuddered and drew the robe tighter.
“Jordy, I hate this. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t count on me.”
“It is what it is, Gaines.” She paused and bit her lip. “Can I give you a piece of unsolicited advice?”
He nodded.
“When you find that girl, that special someone, make sure she knows in advance what she’s in for, that she’s well suited. The long and frequent absences, they take a toll. Before we had kids, it was fine, almost fun. Not that I didn’t miss Jay, but it was an excuse to go out with my girlfriends or stay in and read a book, do a manicure, watch a movie. But then after kids…I feel like a bomb went off, like someone took a wrecking ball to everything that was. I had no idea single parenting would be this hard. So just…just make sure she has informed consent, okay? Save yourself a whole lot of drama and heartache.” She reached across the table and squeezed his forearm.
He shifted his arm and grasped her hand again. “I’m sorry, Jordy, that it was so hard before, and that it continues to be hard now.”
“It’s going to get better, I know. I can almost see it, almost feel it. This season of no sleep and no time will be gone, and I’ll miss it. Or at least that’s what people so helpfully tell me when Nash is having a full on meltdown in the grocery store.” She rolled her eyes.
“Let me ask you this: if you felt like you had a better support system here, would you still want to go back to your family?”
She snorted. “No. My mom about had a cow when I married Jay, as I’m sure you remember, but even as a twenty year old child bride I knew it was the right thing to do, and I knew I needed that buffer between myself and my family who never had an opinion on my life they didn’t care to express. I love them, but they drive me insane. Moving there would be for the kids, not for myself.”
“Then please, please stick with the original plan. Give it a year and make certain it’s the right thing, okay?”
“I can’t imagine what difference a year will make,” Jordan replied. She studied him through narrowed eyes, probably trying to figure out his angle or vested interest in keeping her there.
“Please? For me? I…I don’t want you to go. I don’t think I could take it.”
“Hey,” she said softly, giving his hand a squeeze. “You’ll always be involved in our lives, okay? The kids will want to know their dad’s best friend. You have all the good stories they’ll someday want to hear.”
“It’s…not…just…the…kids,” he choked.
“I know,” Jordan said, tone sympathetic.
“You do?” he asked, breath and heart temporarily stopped.
“Yes, it was hard, losing him like that. Maybe you and the other guys feel a little survivor’s guilt because, with all you went through together, he’s the one that chose to end it. But you tried, Gaines. I heard you try, so many times to reach him and help. And I appreciate it, more than you know. It means the world to me that you tried that hard. His mind wasn’t right the last couple of years.” She paused and brushed her eyes. “He couldn’t see a better time, couldn’t see the other side when we’d work our way through the hurt. But it’s not your fault, and it would kill me if you felt in any way like it was.”
He did feel some guilt over Shimmer’s suicide, was plagued by all the if onlys . If only he’d tried harder, if only he’d dragged him to some kind of therapy or intervention or PTSD treatment. But that wasn’t what he meant. He meant he couldn’t lose her, didn’t know how he’d survive if she packed up and moved away. It would feel like his heart packed up and went with her. And she had no idea. And her husband, his best friend, had only been gone two weeks. What is wrong with me?
He had no idea, and he wouldn’t find an answer tonight. So he let her believe it was about Shimmer and not about her. But he couldn’t stop himself from reaching for her, from pulling her into an enveloping hug. Friends can hug , he assured himself.
Jordan seemingly saw nothing amiss in the action. She snuggled into his embrace, wrapping her arms around him, going all in on it like he somehow knew she would. Before, when Shimmer was alive, he’d only given her cursory hugs, a light embrace on her wedding day, to say goodbye at the end of a visit or thank her for a good meal. This was something different, something possessive that reflected all he currently felt. Maybe it was wishful thinking on his part, but he thought it was what Shimmer would have wanted. Take care of her. He would do that in the best way he knew how, as soon as he figured out exactly what that was.