Chapter 16
JORDAN
Tate’s car, it turns out, is a compact SUV by a Japanese manufacturer, dark green and inconspicuous. Very responsible and reliable, just like I thought he’d drive.
He opens the back door and sets the cat, who he has carried all the way here so she doesn’t get her paws wet, in the back seat. I reach for the passenger door, but he gets there first, holding it open and waiting until I’ve clicked my seatbelt to close the door.
In the back seat, the cat has already fallen asleep.
“Where am I going?” he asks when he gets in and turns the car on. He turns my seat warmer on and adjusts the vents so warm air is blowing at me, but I’m distracted by his sharp, clean scent.
“Jordan?” He taps me lightly on the arm.
“Hmm?”
He’s watching me with curiosity and a tiny smile, like I’m amusing or cute or something.
“Where am I going?”
“Alexander and Gore. Three blocks up.”
We drive in silence as I sneak glances at the way his hands grip the steering wheel.
“Here’s fine,” I say as we approach my building, and he parks in front and cuts the engine. “Thanks for the ride.” I open the door and get out, filling my lungs with clean air.
Finally, I can think.
Tate gets out of the driver’s side and opens the back door. “I’ll bring her up.”
“No,” I blurt out.
I don’t want him to see my crappy apartment. Tate Ward is the image of someone who has their life together. The evidence is everywhere—his job, his car, his clothes, his early morning wake-ups. Seeing my shithole apartment is going to reinforce everything he already thinks of me.
He raises an eyebrow, tucking the cat beneath his arm. She barely wakes. “She’s going to scratch you again.”
She will. She’s been aiming for my eyes lately, too.
Like he knows I don’t have an argument, Tate heads to the front door of my building, eyes all over the things piled out front.
I stop short. The area in front of the building is cluttered with stuff. A kitchen table. A ratty old couch. Boxes of haphazardly packed clothes and toiletries and dishes.
My stomach drops. My stuff.
Tate gives me a concerned look. “Did you forget your key?”
Of course he doesn’t say anything about the boxes. He’s too polite. He probably thinks it’s always there.
In an instant, I’m opening boxes, searching, heart racing. Fucking Garth. The boxes are damp. My clothes are soaked from the rain. I feel sick. I’m going to throw up. I push a box aside, searching.
“Jordan, what’s going on?” His voice sounds very far away as blood rushes through my ears. “What’s all this?”
“My records.” I’m absent, focused on finding them. “And my record player.”
If they’re damaged, if they’re ruined, I’ll—I don’t know. Cry. Scream. Die. I’ll totally lose it. They were hers, and they’re all I have left of her. They’re my only way to feel connected to her, listening to those records and thinking about her.
I shove a soggy box out of the way, onto the ground, and there they are.
Tossed in a box carelessly, exactly like they’re not supposed to be stored, but thankfully, they’re dry and undamaged.
The record player is at the bottom of the box.
I don’t know if it still works, it might have been dropped and broken, but hopefully I can order a replacement part or something.
Holy fuck. I let out a long exhale, closing my eyes, tipping my face back.
“Jordan.” He says my name so softly, and when I open my eyes, he’s studying me with concern. He reaches to touch my face before thinking better of it and pulling back. “You’re crying.”
I blink, wiping my face. Oh my god. What’s wrong with me? I’m a mess. “It’s rain.” I look away so he doesn’t see my red eyes. “The rain got on my face. You can . . .” I gesture at the ground. “Put her down, I guess.”
My mind races as I haul the heavy box under the awning so it doesn’t get wet. I don’t know what to do. I’m evicted, obviously. Did Garth see the cat leaving the apartment? He must have.
Why, why did I bring this demon cat home when I knew I was on my last strike here? I glance at her and she gives me that dumb, snaggletoothed look.
Because I couldn’t leave her. Because she’s hideous and mean and alone. She has no one.
“Thanks for the ride,” I tell Tate, hands on my hips, staring at my pile of stuff. “I can take it from here.”
“Can we go see what’s going on?” he asks, his tone gentle and careful like I’ve never heard. “Please?”
I chance a look at him, about to protest.
“I’m not leaving,” he says, still gentle, but firm.
I shrug and let him follow me up the stairs to my apartment.
Papers are taped to my front door—the same ones I’ve been seeing around the building as people get renovicted for various reasons—late rent, smoking pot in their unit, noise too loud too late at night.
Pets are not allowed in this building!!!! Garth wrote under “reason for eviction.”
“You adopted a cat when you’re not allowed to have pets?” Tate asks in a low voice like I’m the dumbest person in the entire world.
I stare at the eviction notice. “Yep.”
I need to find a place to stay, and I need to bring the cat and the records and the record player. I should call a rideshare. It’ll need to be pet friendly.
He sighs. “What are you going to do, Jordan?”
“I’ll call Georgia.”
“They’ll be sleeping.”
It’s one-thirty in the morning. They’re definitely sleeping and I hate hate hate the idea of inconveniencing them like that. “Maybe not.”
He raises an eyebrow at me. “If they’re not sleeping, they’re in bed doing something else.”
Ugh. They would be. Lovebirds. Blech. Do I really want to interrupt them boning? No. No, I do not.
“I’ll go to a hotel.”
“One that takes pets?”
“Uh-huh.” If I can find one—and I can somehow get the cat there with my intestines still in my body—I can’t really afford it. My paycheck from the team hasn’t hit my bank account yet.
My gaze swings in the direction I walk to work, to the arena. I have a keycard that gives me twenty-four-hour building access.
“You’re not sleeping in your office, Jordan.”
Irritation singes up my spine that he can read me like this.
“Ask me,” he says.
“Ask you what?”
“You know what.”
I do know what, and I hate that it’s come to this. That he’s my last option. That he’s forcing me to ask for help.
Putting my pride aside, with a sick feeling in my stomach, I take a deep breath and look up at Tate, meeting his eyes.
“Can I crash on your couch tonight, Coach?”
His jaw ticks at me calling him that, but he gives me a friendly smile. “Of course. Come on.”
With the cat in his arms, he heads down the stairs and out of the lobby, and I have no choice but to follow. As he passes the pile of my stuff, he scoops up the box of records and record player and tilts his chin to the white box that appeared yesterday in my office, sitting nearby.
“But first,” he says, “put your goddamned coat on.”