Chapter 21
Shelley
"Let me in, you asshats,” I whisper to my sisters through gritted teeth as I pull at the locked doorknob of our shared childhood bedroom.
It doesn’t budge. This is their revenge for yesterday when Mandy thought I took too long to let her into the bathroom.
My sisters conspire with each other from the other side.
Their voices are so close, they’re probably sitting on the floor with their backs against the door.
“Sorry. Can’t. We’re already asleep.” My very much awake younger sister giggles. I can picture Mandy batting her eyelashes, and I can still hear her laughing.
“There’s another open bed just down the hall. In Jordan’s room,” Mads unhelpfully adds.
“I seriously hate you.” I seethe.
“No, you don’t.”
“You can thank us later.” Their sing-song voices float through the tiny gap under the wood panel.
I groan and wipe my sweaty palms on my pajama bottoms. I know it’s fruitless to argue when they’re determined to force me and Jordan together.
Not wanting to wake up my parents, I have two choices.
I can try to sleep in one of the recliners or rocking chairs in the living room, or I can ask Jordan if I can bunk with him.
And I do mean literally bunk with him, on Mike’s old bunk bed.
Every adult woman’s dream situation: sleeping in the same room with a guy for the first time in your brother’s childhood bedroom.
Fabulous. Exactly what I need: Jordan thinking I’m already trying to push him for more than he might be ready to give, and my parents potentially overhearing every little creak of the springs from the other side of the wall their bedroom shares with Mike’s.
With a sigh, I cross the hallway and rap lightly on his door.
Jordan doesn’t answer immediately, so I’m left standing alone in the hall, wondering if I should knock again.
Just as I’m about to give up and surrender to a sleepless night on a squeaky old recliner, the door opens and an adorably confused Jordan is rubbing the sleep from his eyes. When he sees me, he smiles.
“Shelley? What’s up?”
My brain almost forgets how to form words as my gaze slides down his bare chest and continues further to the noticeable bulge in his gray joggers, but I keep it together enough to say, “I’m sorry about this, but I need to ask you a favor.”
Jordan tilts his head to one side, a soft sleepy smile still on his face, waiting to hear what I need.
“Can I sleep in here tonight? My sisters locked me out.”
“They locked you out of your own room?” He seems amused. I’m not.
“Yes.” I huff and cross my arms. “Sadly, it’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last. They like to gang up on me. It’s a whole thing. They’ve always been like this. Can I sleep in here or…should I not?”
Jordan doesn’t say anything else, just steps aside and makes a sweeping hand gesture to invite me in.
My brother’s bedroom looks exactly like he left it.
Dark wood bunk beds sit up against the far wall.
A smattering of baseball trophies lines the top of the tall dresser, along with a bobble head of Cal Ripken.
There’s a framed black and white print of Mickey Mantle hitting a home run hanging on the opposite wall.
Somehow this room always smells faintly of socks.
“Here, you can be on the bottom,” Jordan suggests. When I pump my eyebrows suggestively, he laughs and shakes his head, moving to adjust the blankets. “Let me make the bed back up for you, and you can sleep here. I’ll take the top.”
I know I should tell him not to bother. I shouldn’t inconvenience him more than I already am. I could climb the ladder just as well as he can. But I like the idea of snuggling into the warm spot he just vacated. And suddenly I have an aching need to breathe in the smell of that pillow.
“Thank you.” I stand awkwardly with my arms swinging at my sides as he tries to straighten the quilt. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“No worries,” he assures me. “I never sleep well in new places anyway. And I was sort of hoping you’d stop by.” He stops fooling with the linens long enough to exchange a heated glance with me, but he cuts it short and goes right back to his task. Interesting.
When he’s satisfied enough with my new blanket arrangement, I crawl into the warm sheets, which now smell like him.
“Goodnight.” He tucks the blankets around me and strokes my cheek lightly before hoisting himself onto the top bunk.
It can’t possibly be comfortable for him up there. My own feet are brushing against the footboard. I’m tall at five foot ten, but Jordan is still six inches taller. He must be twisting himself into a pretzel to fit on that bed.
I lie silently for what seems like forever, flat on my back and staring up at the slats. Eventually, I blow out a breath and shift to my side, the old wood moaning as I move.
“Can’t sleep?” His deep voice floats down to me and I can feel it resonate in my chest.
“Guess not.” I shift again and try to find a more comfortable position, to no avail.
“I’d offer to sing a lullaby, but trust me, neither one of us wants that to happen.”
“Oh, I know. I saw a video of a certain someone doing karaoke last Valentine’s Day,” I tease.
Jordan laughs.
“What do you do when you can’t drift off?” I ask.
He chuckles again, quietly. “Have you tried snuggling Mr. Fluffers? Is he here?”
“Unfortunately, my sisters are currently holding him hostage, along with everything else in my room.” I lift my leg and poke my toe into his mattress. “I’m being serious. Is there anything that helps you?”
There’s a long pause, but after the beat of silence, he says, “I don’t think I should answer that.”
My curiosity is piqued. “No? Why is that?”
“Your innocent ears might not be ready to hear the answer,” he quips.
I roll my eyes. “I know people jerk off, Jordan. You don’t have to sugarcoat it. I was just hoping for a more useful answer. You know, something that might actually work for me, too.”
I hear him shift above me and his tone sobers. “That still isn’t working for you? I thought you said the cream was helping.”
It’s the first time he’s the one to bring up my biggest insecurity, and it’s sweet that he honestly seems concerned about me rather than wanting all the sordid details of my quest to find the ever-elusive O.
“Not yet.” I sigh.
“Have you been practicing a lot?” I can hear the genuine curiosity in his question.
“Maybe.” He doesn’t push any further, but I offer, “I did some research, and it said audio porn worked for a lot of women better than the visual stuff. So, I paid for a month of access to a site that Mandy recommended.”
“And?”
I shrug even though he can’t see me. “It was a lot more comfortable for me than trying to watch the visual stuff,” I admit. “But all I could think was that I knew the scenarios weren’t real. I don’t know those people, and they don’t care about me either.”
There’s a long pause, and I wonder if Jordan fell asleep, but his voice is quiet and strained when he speaks again. “Do you think it would help to try with…someone who does care about you?”
Would it help?
Or would it make our entire situation infinitely more complicated than it already is?
I want to tell him about the crush I’ve been harboring for years, which has only grown since I accidentally sent that voice message.
I want to tell him about the way my stomach squeezes and my palms get sweaty every time I see his name pop up on my phone screen, and how for the first time in my life, I actually like feeling those things.
I want to tell him that being near him makes me more comfortable in my own skin, and I feel empty when he’s not next to me.
How I haven’t been able to stop thinking about our kisses.
But all those thoughts are coming too fast, one on top of the other, and I know I’ll never be able to get them out the way I want to, the way he deserves to hear.
So instead, I gather my courage, determined to show him.
I blink up at the wooden slats and suck in a shaky breath, knowing his body is stretched out only inches above them. “Maybe?”
“Do you, um, do you want me to try to walk you through it?”
He’s trying to help you manage a medical condition, I remind myself. Plus, after what he’s confided in me about his own sexuality, I know it’s possible that even if he does want me, it might not be to the same degree I want him.
But I do want him.
And he did kiss me. Thrice.
So, I ask, “Can you come down here?”
It only takes a few seconds before he’s sliding into the bottom bunk with me. I pull up the covers so he can get under them, and we lie facing each other, our bodies pressed close in the limited space of the twin bed.
I want to be clear with him. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. If this is too much, you can tell me.”
Jordan shakes his head. “If you think for one second that I don’t want to do this, then you are severely misreading the situation.
” He scoots forward until there is only a breath of space between us, and his hand comes up to cup the back of my head.
His fingers grasp my hair as he leans his face into mine.
“I thought…” I pause to gather the courage to tell him, “I thought maybe you didn’t feel it. At least not as much as I do.”
Jordan’s skin brushes mine as he shakes his head. “That’s not how it works. Or maybe for some people it is, I don’t know.” He straightens and shrugs, then his eyes lock on mine. “For me, it’s more like…Well, have you ever seen Shrek?”
“Yeah?” I have no idea where he could be going with this.
“Okay, so you know how Shrek met Fiona when she was all conventionally attractive, but he really fell for her after she showed him her true form?”
“Sure.” I nod along.
“That’s kind of how it is for me.”
“You like me now because you’ve seen me be ugly?”
He laughs softly. “I doubt you could ever be ugly, no matter how hard you tried. But sort of. I like you because you let me know you. The real you. The messy, chaotic, disorganized cyclone who somehow loses one sock.”
I look down at my feet poking through the covers, where sure enough, one of my fuzzy socks has disappeared and the magenta polish is chipping on my uncovered toes.
Jordan is still smiling when he says, “No one has ever gotten into my head the way you have. And that’s why I want you.”
It’s my turn to smile at him. “Really?” When he nods, I tell him, “That’s good. Because you’re in my head, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I swallow around the lump in my throat.
He brushes a kiss lightly over my eyebrow, and I bring my hand to his chest and lay it flat against his skin.
He tilts his head, and his own brow furrows. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Shelley. Your body language seems like you want to be touched, but your eyes are telling me something different.”
“I’m trying to figure out where to start. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or push too far for you. Can I kiss you?”
One corner of his mouth turns up in a small smirk. “Kissing is definitely an option.”
“Okay. Then I choose that.” I beam up at him before he leans in to brush his lips over mine.
A spark ignites inside my chest, and my hands slide to his shoulders to pull him closer.
He tastes like toothpaste and smells like home as my fingers slowly move up to the back of his neck so I can lock him into this moment with me.