Chapter 17 – Jordan
SEVENTEEN
JORDAN
“Again.”
Patience isn’t something I’d naturally attribute to Jaxon Green.
Impulsive, absolutely. He’s like morning bed head, unruly and uncontrollable.
But the more frustrated I become, defeated with my lack of success as we’ve worked relentlessly on this drill for two weeks and never once scoring or getting around him, he’s never ebbed from a steady, patient confidence that I would get it.
Even earlier today, before I demanded to run this drill again and again, he had a relaxed set to his shoulders. An easy smile and centered breathing. When he spoke, giving corrective feedback, his tone reminiscent of a perfect lake day, I didn’t sense agitation once.
“That was better. Focus, and I promise you’ll get it this time.”
I apply pressure against Jaxon, using our height difference and the expanded muscles in my quads to my advantage, keeping control of the puck behind the net. Swiveling my hips, I manage to maneuver out from between him and the boards, zipping to the front of the next to take a shot.
The goal is empty, but that doesn’t matter to me. As the blade of my stick connects with the puck, ample pressure sends it whirling through the air with a whistle, connecting with the back of the net.
I whip around at the sound of his skates cutting to a stop on the ice. The internal feeling of accomplishment and pride I feel is worn externally on Jaxon. An embodiment of weeks’ worth of daunting sessions.
I’m panting, breathless, and too happy to move.
He skates to me, squeezing me tightly in a hug before slowly releasing me. “I told you, Little Carmichael. You’d get it.” Doubting yourself is hard to do around Jaxon when his belief in you never wavers.
Jaxon’s mouth moves, but I don’t register what he’s saying. I’m transfixed in how they form each syllable, curious—jealous that those words know how his lips feel, how they taste. The urge to kiss Jaxon is like a shaken bottle of champagne desperate for the cork to pop.
Like they’ve been stung by a bee—it finally clicks, what his lips look like to me. Heavy yet soft. Searing yet delicate.
One kiss wouldn’t hurt our frien—fuck it.
“Wanna do it ag—”
I swallow his words in a kiss.
Desperately pushing onto my toes, digging my skates into the ice to bring our bodies, our mouths, as close as possible. Our sticks clatter to the ice, vibrating through my body in race against my need for more.
Large hands circle my waist, each one swallows a hip, holding me steady as I claw myself closer to him. Dexterous fingers move along the waistband of my leggings with a frantic need that feels like an extension of myself.
Does he…did he want…the question fades from my thoughts when his tongue slides into my mouth, a whimper escaping from my lips.
It’s been a while since I’ve been kissed like this.
It’s been years since I’ve thought I could be kissed like this—three to be exact.
It’s exactly how I imagined kissing Jaxon Greene to be.
Hands in his hair, he groans as I tug on the sun-drenched strands.
He yanks on the end of my braid, my eyes flying open at the intensity.
Darkened greens look remorseful till I nod silently communicating that I liked it.
Jaxon does it again, taking liberty to kiss along my jaw line and the sensitive spot behind my ear before I recapture his mouth.
The rink goes silent, the playlist he put on fades out—or maybe this is how it is with him. Everything quiets. The need to be someone I’m not fades away. I’m just Jordan and he sees her.
Lungs in need to be filled with something that isn’t Jaxon, I pull back. Chest heaving, heart galloping, brain confused.
Because it hits me.
It doesn’t matter how his piercing and warm greens rake over me. It doesn’t matter that he’s as breathless as I am, or refuses to relinquish his hold on me.
Jaxon is Cooper’s best friend, roommate, and teammate.
From the first day we met on his move-in day three years ago, there’s been this imaginary brother-shaped boundary between us.
We skirted around it when I started at Lakeland the next year.
I convinced myself it was okay to get to know him under the guise that he’s my brother’s best friend, and that was the good sister thing to do.
Except the more I was around Jaxon, the more I was drawn to him and realized that I’d dull him. His light would get lost in my darkness, warmth in my cold. And that’s the other reason he can’t be anything more to me.
“I…I—”
Skates planted back on the ice from where Jaxon lifted me, I push back an inch. Then another till I’m out of reach and have enough room to turn. I hurry off the ice.
“Jordan,” Jaxon calls, my name padded with confusion.
I don’t stop moving. I can’t.
If I do, I’m not sure what will happen. Embarrass myself by revealing more of this stupid infatuation I have with him. Probably kiss him again because that’s what the best of my heart is saying to do.
Masked by the dimly lit hallway leading to the locker rooms, I don’t think he sees me pick up my bag and throw on my guards.
I disappear into the women’s locker room, throwing my stuff down in my old cubby.
Unlike the rest of the arena, it’s untouched in here.
Tape with my neat handwriting scribbled across it and a photo of Xanie hang inside.
Still reeling from our kiss, I force myself to sit. Hands unsteady, a barely noticeable shake to them while I unlace my skates, almost cutting my thumb on the blade.
Jaxon
Panic dots my tone and vision.
The sudden sound of a ragged inhale and cursing. I round the corner, the locker room opening up to the main rectangular space, nicking my shoulder in the process.
“Jordan.” I rush to her, dropping to my knees in front of where she sits. I take her shaking hands. “Let me.”
Eyes that burned with fire only minutes ago won’t look at me. Jordan keeps her focus distant, almost as if she’s trying to forget what happened.
Maybe she is. Maybe she regrets it.
A sharp pain ricochets through me at the thought.
I’m well aware there’s this imaginary boundary between us. Where I’ve teetered on the edge of it, she’s been miles away till recently. It’s felt like she’s been right there, toeing the same fight I’ve been fighting since the day we met three years ago.
“I can do it.” Jordan shakes off my touch, leans forward to continue untying her laces.
“I know.” She huffs before pinching her eyes shut. My mouth curls. “But let me.”
Jordan grips the bench on either side of her. I finish loosening her left skate and slip it off.
“Want them in your bag?” I ask, working on the right skate. She doesn’t respond, but eyes find mine. Dark lashes flutter against freckle speckled cheeks. There are new ones from the summer, most coming from our week at her family’s lake house.
I exchange the skates for her chunky sneakers, carefully putting them on her feet and bunching her socks around her ankles in the way she always wears them.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” Jordan finally says. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“But we did.” I emphasize the we. There’s no reason for her to take the blame when I’ve wanted to kiss her just as bad. And as much as I loved her boldly making the first move, I should’ve kissed her a long time ago. The number of missed opportunities are becoming longer than a CVS receipt.
Her pupils flare, and she attempts to look away but I gently clasp her chin to draw her eyeline back to me. “What if I want it to happen again?”
“What…what do you mean?”
“I wasn’t done doing this.” I lean forward, pressing my lips to hers. Against her lips, I ask, “You weren’t finished either, were you, Blue?”
I can feel the corners of my mouth curl as she keeps trying to kiss me between words, teeth nipping at my bottom lip.
“No.” It’s breathless and desperate.
Jordan
“Good,” he says between kisses. “I’ve thought about this for so long.”
Jaxon drops my chin. His body folds and moves, and next thing I know he’s laying me down along the bench, climbing over top of me, mouth never leaving mine.
My legs fall open before I knot them around him.
Calluses scrap against my inflamed cheeks—his hands are large enough to cup the sides of my face and tease my roots—when he tilts my head and deepens our kiss.
A needy whimper reverberates through me and the locker room causing Jaxon to groan and grind into me again. I lift my hips, shamelessly to feel every long, hard inch of him.
The loss of his mouth on mine is devastating but I don’t mind when he finds the pulse point in my neck. Jaxon trails kisses from there to my shoulder, my sweatshirt askew.
“You’re perfect.” It’s a tattoo on my skin. “You have no idea how much I want you, Blue.”
His hips roll into me again and again. It makes my pulse skyrocket, heat shoots up and down my spine, pooling between my legs. I mirror his rhythm. The quiet locker room now echoing with a melody of my moans and his dirty yet sweet nothings.
Teeth scrape against my collarbone then sooth with an open mouth kiss.
I fight the urge to close my eyes and let myself savor the moment, keeping them pried open to watch him.
Commit everything to memory. Commit the way his eyes flick up at mine through dark, thick lashes.
Sweat from our workout glistening on his brow, a droplet like the first dusting of snow in the winter, clings to his heated skin.
It sounds stupid, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone more beautiful or had someone look at me as if they can see through me, and like it.
Needy, I drag his mouth back to mine. He kisses me fervently, like I’m the only air he needs to survive.
Lost within each other, I’m not sure how much times passes. Enough that the motion-censored lights go out. Without windows, we’re dunked into pure darkness.
Jaxon breaks our kiss, climbing off of me and triggering the lights.
I brush a pointer finger across my swollen lips.
“Do—”
“I’m—” he starts at the same time as me.
“You go,” I encourage, caught off guard by his closed-off body language. He’s backed up to the other side of the room. A hand rubbing at his temples.
Jaxon dips his head and shakes it. “I’m sorry. We—I—I’ve got to go.”
Jaxon
What are you doing? I scold myself. Leaving? Really?
I stop halfway out the arena doors, turning and sprinting back to her. Flinging the door open, I’m still just as out of breath as I was when she initially kissed me, blue clouding every sense.
“Jordan.” Her name echoes off the walls. The locker room is empty.