Jordy
AFTER CHECKING IN at the front desk, we lugged our bags down the hall and into the room.
After setting mine down next to the bed, I looked around while Kieran was in the bathroom.
It was basic, not particularly fancy, but it looked clean and functional.
And as I’d been previously warned, there was only one bed, which made me very happy. I had plans for that bed.
“Alright, I have to go,” he said, as he came through the door to the little adjoined bathroom. “Just… Wait for me to get back and don’t go traipsing around getting into trouble.”
“I’m giving you a zero traipsing guarantee,” I responded seriously. Why did all the important men in my life imagine me as some helpless frolicking prince just waiting to be thrown into a burlap sack and held in a villain’s castle for ransom? “I’ll just stay in and study, like I said.”
“Fine,” he said, though the way he was regarding me made it look like he kind of didn’t exactly trust me.
Like I would risk pissing him off and sending him into a tantrum now, when I was so close to getting what I wanted.
“Oh, one more thing,” he suddenly remembered, before unzipping his bag and reaching into it to extract Orangey.
He tossed him to me, where I caught him out of reflex.
“In case you want to take a nap or something.”
Shocked, and for once speechless, I didn’t know what to say. That burning-hot humiliated feeling I’d had back at the house in my room started to spread over my skin again.
“I said I didn’t need this,” I managed to grit out between my teeth.
He stared at me for a few moments, before raising his eyebrow. “Yeah, and that was a dumb lie. I know you better than that.”
I opened my mouth to deny it, but I couldn’t quite find the gumption.
He was right that I’d been lying. But I was pretty sure he had to think I was a pathetic loser, still using a stuffed animal like a security blanket.
He had to find it unattractive, even if he didn’t say anything about it when we were at home.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” I asked.
“No?” He answered incredulously, like he had no clue why I’d asked such a dumb question. “Why would I care about that?”
“I don’t know. I just… I don’t want you to think of me like…”
“Like a kid?” He finished, cocking his head.
I shrugged. This conversation was embarrassing, and I wasn’t winning any points in the seduction department.
“Yeah, even if I did think of you like that, which I don’t, I’m pretty sure that ship would have sailed around the time you started trying to undress me every time we’re alone.”
I pursed my lips, glancing up into a corner of the room. I had kind of been trying to do that. “So… You don’t think it’s weird or anything?”
“No,” he said. “You have quirks, and so do I. You know weird, embarrassing shit about me, too.”
“Are you saying that because I looked at your porn history?”
He groaned, pressing his palms into his eyes. “Don’t bring that up again, or I’m going to kill you.”
“Sorry.”
When he turned around to head out the door, I let out a little whine, prompting him to turn around.
“I don’t get a kiss?” I wondered, even though I knew I was being annoying when he had to leave. I expected him to complain or at least grumble, but to my surprise he looked a bit sheepish and apologetic before trudging back over and planting a quick kiss on my lips.
“Sorry,” he murmured, before rushing out the door, and then he was gone.
Blinking in surprise, I stood there for a minute, staring at the closed door, clutching Orangey to my chest.
Okay, so maybe my pep talk in the truck had been more effective than I’d realized.
Or maybe he’d just been waiting for some kind of permission to start treating me like something other than his stepbrother.
Even though I’d given him that permission before, maybe it felt different now that we weren’t at risk of getting caught.
Because I was feeling uncomfortably sticky in several awkward places, I made quick use of the little shower by rinsing off.
Once I’d finished with that and made my way back into the room, I noticed I had a text from my dad asking how I was.
After assuring him that we’d made it in one piece, and that I’d be spending the day doing the pre-approved and previously discussed activities, I plopped down onto the bed on my stomach, hugging one of the plush pillows.
Seeing my dad’s text reminded me of the conversation I’d had with Dani the other night, the one I’d conveniently not mentioned to Kieran.
After the threatening texts that had mentioned a party, I’d waited for him to go to bed and then texted Dani asking if Andrew was there.
She’d confirmed that he was, and that he’d even asked her about me.
Apparently he’d asked if I was seeing anyone, and Dani had told him that I kind of was.
Which was technically sort of true. I didn’t know any other way to phrase it.
But since then, I hadn’t gotten any weird texts so maybe he’d given up.
I hadn’t told Kieran any of that. If he asked me, I wouldn’t lie to him about it, but I didn’t see a point in ruining the trip by bringing up something that we basically already knew anyway.
Especially because we were kind of already starting on a pretty good note. I was surprised that he’d agreed to my experiment suggestion so easily, but maybe I’d just been doing a great job of wearing him down at home… Even if it didn’t exactly seem that way.
It was hard trying to understand what was going on in his head, especially because getting him to actually talk about it in anything other than the vaguest terms available in the English language seemed like an impossible task.
And I couldn’t make it obvious that I was trying to figure him out, or he’d balk and skitter off like a startled rabbit.
For a moody and broody tattooed tough guy, he seemed to have an awful lot of feelings.
Sighing, I opened up my laptop and navigated to some of the economics precourse work I had to get done. Might as well try to do something productive, seeing as I’d been made to promise to remain a prisoner in the room unless otherwise accompanied by a mature and responsible adult.
The fact that my dad considered Kieran more of a responsible adult than me was kind of laughable.
I was more mentally and emotionally mature than my stepbrother on any given day of the week.
It was a little irritating, but in the long run that attitude would probably work out in my favor.
My dad seeing Kieran as a protective and responsible symbol in my life could only be a good thing for us if we ended up actually getting together in a serious and public way.
After an indeterminate amount of time of familiarizing myself with economic indicators, business cycles, and the long-term consequences of stabilization policies, another text from my dad came through.
Don’t forget to eat lunch.
Sighing, I rolled my eyes a little, hoping he wasn’t obsessively watching my glucose levels on the monitoring app.
I’m ordering food to the room right now, I said, even though I hadn’t really thought of it yet.
But after scrolling through some local places on a food delivery app, I settled on an Indian place and ordered tofu tikka masala, switching the white rice option to brown.
Easy peasy. I paid with the credit card my dad let me have because I’d proven that I was responsible and wouldn’t go on crazy shopping sprees with it or anything.
Deciding my eyes needed a break from the screen, I prepped my insulin pen and injected myself before flopping back down on the bed to wait for the delivery. Squeezing Orangey tightly, I thought about how he’d ended up coming along on the trip with us.
I didn’t know how to feel about Kieran bringing him without my permission, other than the fact that he’d been so blasé about it gave me butterflies and made me feel swoony.
Maybe I could kind of understand why he was so weird about certain things when it came to me.
Maybe he just felt embarrassed, like I did.
But he should have known that if he could deal with my dumb little quirks, then I could deal with his.
My mind wandered back to the aquarium billboard we’d passed on the way.
I loved aquariums. My mom and dad used to take me all the time before she got too sick.
And then it was all visits to the hospital and then hospice.
And I hadn’t gone back since. I wasn’t sure if my dad had been avoiding it like I had, or if he just hadn’t thought about it.
I’d never brought it up to him, and then once he’d gotten with Crystal, our family activities changed to include her and Kieran.
I wondered if he’d asked if I wanted to go just to be polite. We’d never really had a serious discussion about my mom’s passing, but I knew that he knew a lot about it. Maybe that was part of why he’d never roasted me about Orangey.
I wasn’t sure if going again would bring up painful memories or make me sad, but if there was anyone I was willing to try it with, it was him. Part of me wanted to take him up on his offer, but I didn’t want him to be bored out of his mind just for my sake.
Pursing my lips as I considered, I picked up my phone and shot him a quick text.
Were you serious about maybe going to the aquarium or were you just being nice?
I knew he wouldn’t answer right away, but at least the question wouldn’t gnaw on me as much.
When I got a notification on my phone that the food delivery guy was at the hotel, I made sure to pocket my key card to the room before hurrying down the hall to retrieve it.
A male alpha with his hair shaved into a fade and a friendly smile, holding a grocery bag with styrofoam takeout boxes in it, waved at me.
“Jordy Nolan?” He asked, glancing down at his phone for confirmation.
“That’s me,” I said, reaching out to take the bag. Once he handed it over, I noticed he was wearing an Oldport University sweatshirt. “Hey, nice shirt! I’m starting at OU in the fall.”
“Seriously?” He asked, eyes widening. “Me too! My girlfriend and I just moved here because we both got in.”
“My best friend and I got approved for in-dorm housing, so we’re going to be staying on campus,” I replied. “I’m a poli sci major.”
“Wait, for real?” He asked. “Me too! I bet we have a bunch of the same classes!”
To our surprise, we did have a lot of the same classes. After a quick vent-fest about how hard some of them looked, he laughed and shook his head while holding out his hand.
“Sorry, I didn’t even think to introduce myself. I’m Xavier.”
“I’m Jordy,” I said, awkwardly balancing my food on my hip so I could hold out my hand to shake his. “Oh wait, you already knew that.”
He laughed. “It’s okay. My girlfriend and I don’t really know anybody here yet, and it’s kind of awkward trying to make friends, so…”
“Oh, yeah, I totally get it,” I said. “I’m sure it’ll be the same way for me and Dani.”
“Well, it’ll be cool to already know someone. We’re staying right down the street from campus. We should all hang out,” he suggested.
“Definitely!” I agreed. “I can add you on Insta,” I said, again awkwardly shifting my bag of food to pat my pockets, only to realize I’d left my phone in the room. “Uh…”
“Just give me yours,” he said, then typed it in as I gave it to him phonetically. “Followed you,” he said, before stuffing his phone back into the pocket of his sweats. “Have a good one, man! We’ll talk soon.”
“Cool, thanks!” I said, turning on my heel to scurry back down the hall back to the room. Once I’d put the food down on the bed, I snatched up my phone from the little nightstand I’d left it on. Kieran had texted me back.
I was serious. If you want to go, let’s go.
It would be more like a date than anything we’d done before, but maybe he was taking it in stride because of the whole experiment thing I’d proposed. Either way, I was pretty sure I wanted to do it.
Tonight?
After hitting send on the reply, I opened up my food and started devouring my lunch. The drama-fueled daytime talk show on the TV kept my attention enough that I didn’t obsess over waiting for him to answer me.
The food was fresh and flavorful, and even with the dumb added fees of using the delivery app, not too pricey.
I might have already discovered a nice little place near the school I could grab easy and healthy food from.
There was a ton left over that I couldn’t finish, so I boxed it back up and set it in the mini-fridge in case Kieran wanted some later.
I was excited to start college, but there was definitely a small part of me that felt some anxiety about leaving everything I knew and being totally on my own, even if I was just an hour away from home.
But if I was already making friends, how bad could it be?
And I’d have Dani with me, so I wouldn’t be totally lost. Or we’d be totally lost together, which was still infinitely better.
It was too early to start thinking about what would happen with Kieran and I when I went away.
Would he be okay with a long distance thing, as long as we could see each other on weekends and holidays?
Would we even be a thing by that time, anyway?
Or ever? Judging by the way he’d acted before leaving it seemed like he wanted things to go in that direction, but I knew the blockage that was holding him back was still there.
When my phone vibrated, I snatched it off the bedspread to read Kieran’s response.
Yeah. I have a couple more hours and then we can do whatever you want.
I was kind of doubtful that he’d be open to doing whatever I wanted, but the sentiment was sweet. Sighing and dramatically flopping down onto the bed, I squeezed my eyes closed.
Why was it that I was so good at making sure I always got what I wanted, except when it came to my stepbrother?