Chapter 26
LIBBY
If I’m being honest, I don’t like being in bed by myself.
Which is completely ridiculous. I only slept in that huge guest bed with Jordan for two nights. Not even consecutive. We’ve been living in our townhome for three nights now that I’ve been by myself.
But my sheets smell like freshly laundered sheets and not like Jordan, and there’s no scooting to the middle of the bed and burrowing myself next to him to be cozy.
For three nights we’ve climbed the stairs together and gone to our separate rooms. By ourselves.
Alone.
I flop over for what feels like the millionth time and huff in frustration. Why can’t I sleep? It’s almost two in the morning. I’ve fallen asleep for small stretches, but somehow now I’m wide awake. The sleep-sounds machine I have next to my bed is doing nothing.
I flip it off and reach for my headphones to listen to an audiobook when I hear the faint noises of someone downstairs in the kitchen.
Well, probably not just anyone. In all likelihood it’s Jordan, and if it’s not, I need to wake him up to go and investigate.
I throw on a hoodie over my tank top. As I pass Jordan’s room, I note that the door is open and he’s not in bed. I’m not quiet as I come downstairs, so Jordan looks up at me from a spot at the table where he’s drinking a mug of something.
“Sorry,” he says with a grimace. “Did I wake you?”
I shake my head. “Couldn’t sleep and heard someone downstairs. Thought I should check it out.”
His eyes rake over my body and linger on my legs.
I’m wearing shorts—though I should have put on sweats if Jordan wasn’t going to be in bed with me, keeping me warm—and my oversize hoodie drops past the hemline.
I ignore the flutter in my stomach at his clear admiration before he quickly brings his gaze back up.
“And what were you going to do if it was an intruder?” he says, his voice sounding slightly strangled.
“I would go get you.” I shrug. I do feel bad that my attire might be torturing Jordan right now, but there’s nothing to do about it. He lives with me.
“Ah, yes.” He nods and holds up his mug. “Warm milk. Will made some for when we were staying with them. Thought I’d try it. Want some?”
“No. Not my thing. I just need a glass of water.” What I really need is an excuse for why Jordan needs to stay in my room with me—so I can torture him more, obviously. It’s weird, knowing how we feel about each other and not doing anything about it.
But I can’t jump into a relationship with my husband because we have feelings for each other.
Is it just that it’s two a.m., or does that sound ridiculous?
I don’t want to hurt him down the road if this doesn’t work out. This plan to be patient makes sense on paper.
He stands. “I think I’m going to watch something until I’m ready to fall asleep. You’re welcome to join me.” He gestures toward the living room, where my furniture has been set up, but it’s his ninety-eight-inch TV mounted on the wall. My TV—the “small” one, according to him—is now in my bedroom.
“That sounds great.” I grab a glass of water and follow him into the living room.
He waits for me to sit down, which I do on the far end of the couch, and then he sits on the other end.
But he’s huge. He takes up a big portion of the couch, and even though I sit as far as I can to one end, it still feels like we’re close.
After running into him half naked yesterday morning, it feels like everything I do is so unfair to him.
Like I’m teasing him when we can’t be together for real like he wants.
“Libby? It looks like you’re trying to climb off the other side of this couch.” Jordan raises an eyebrow at me.
“I don’t want to…” Lead him on? Those aren’t the right words. I do have feelings for Jordan. That’s undeniable at this point. It just doesn’t seem to matter. Maybe I’m the one still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Aren’t I?
What is the other shoe?
I can’t come up with any way for Jordan to betray me—but isn’t that the point?
I didn’t see it coming when Grayson wouldn’t let me charge my phone to call my mom and tell her I was okay.
He’d been so nice, so sweet. And he kept saying it like it was for my own good.
They were being overprotective. I was an adult (he claims he didn’t know I was underage). I didn’t need to check in.
“We’re friends,” Jordan says gently, breaking me out of the spell. “You can sit next to me. It’s fine.” He reaches over, scooping an arm around my back and then looks at me with a question.
Always asking permission.
I nod at him, and he pulls me closer, then slides his arm out from behind me and pulls the ottoman close so we can put our feet up.
We’re not touching, not really, but we’re inches apart, and the heat between us makes it feel like we might as well be pressed up against each other from my shoulder, down my side, at my hips, and my thighs.
He takes the remote from the table on his side of the couch and turns the TV on, opening Friends reruns.
“Friends?” I question with a small smile. “Is that some kind of subliminal message?”
He chuckles. “The title … or the will-they-won’t-they of Rachel and Ross?
” His expression is a challenge. Heat rises in my cheeks, and he watches my face, not breaking eye contact.
“My mom and Baylee love it. It’s a comfort show for me,” he says, not making me answer. “Do you have a favorite episode?”
I shake my head. “Let’s start from the beginning.”
He nods, pressing play on the first episode. “Have you seen it before?”
“Not every episode. One here or there. My older sisters got into it when I was a teenager, but it just felt like an old show.” I lean back into the couch, careful not to adjust too much and rest my shoulder against Jordan’s.
He looks down at me and then shifts his arm to rest on the back of the couch. He raises his eyebrows in question. Is this okay?
“It’s fine.” I huff. “It’s all fine, Jordan.
Touching, holding hands, kissing, sleeping in the same bed…
” I cover my face with my hands in embarrassment at saying that last one out loud.
Then I straighten again. “But it’s not fair.
I can give you all of that, but I can’t give you everything.
You deserve someone who trusts you with her whole heart, and I’m so afraid that I’ll always be keeping something back, protecting myself. ”
He curls his arm around my shoulder and pulls me to him gently, keeping his grip soft so I can pull away at any time.
“I’m not in a rush,” he says in a low, husky voice.
“I’m going to be here, day after day, showing you who I really am.
And I’m okay being your friend until you’re ready.
That’s all fine too.” He squeezes my shoulder before loosening his grip again, and it’s so much like the side hugs my dad gives me that I want to laugh, because this is not a dad hug.
I desperately want to lean into him, curl up against his side.
“Baylee hasn’t dated since Bryce,” he goes on, “and I know it’s not the same, but I think a lot about how difficult it’s going to be for her to trust that the next guy is telling the truth. I want to believe there’s someone out there willing to be patient for her.”
I lean my head into the crook of his arm. He said it was okay, so I’m going to cross the line for right now. “It may not be the same, but it’s still hard no matter what. And Baylee is blessed—like me—to have someone like you by her side.”
“Thanks,” he says softly.
We turn back to the show, watching silently for a while, and then only commenting here and there until Jordan notes that I’m falling asleep.
“You need rest in your bed,” he says, standing and then pulling me up.
Come with me, I want to ask, but that’s too far over the line, even if we are married. So he walks me upstairs and says good night at my bedroom door.
Somehow, even though I’m alone and I don’t want to be, Jordan’s comforting words allow me to fall asleep.