Chapter 37 – Jordan
THIRTY-SEVEN
JORDAN
“You sure Nico and his roommates can come?” Xanie calls, grabbing her purse off the counter. I nod, telling her yes for the third time. “Okay! I left lipstick on the counter for you. Wear it.”
I toss a thumbs up in her direction from where I’m lotioning my legs on the living room floor. Ten minutes later, I exit our dorm to walk to the hockey house, torn between feeling like a done-up Bratz doll and hot.
“Jaxon?” I’m caught off guard finding the six-foot-four hockey player folded over, on the brick steps of my dorm.
He should be at their house, curating the perfect playlist or ensuring everyone has a drink.
Probably lighting up the pong table, at the center of it all.
He shouldn’t be here on my steps, hands clasped above his head tucked between his knees.
At the sound of my voice, saying his name for a second time, his head pops up.
“Blue.” There’s an unfamiliar break in his voice.
Jaxon’s sunny disposition is stormy, and larger-than-life body deflated.
The mouth I’ve come to enjoy—kissing it, kissing me, marking my skin like a tattoo gun—is twisted downward.
For so long, I thought his muscles were stuck, gave up the fight to do anything other than smile.
“What are you…what are you doing here?”
“I had nowhere else to go.”
Without a second thought, I close the gap between us.
“Are you okay?” Before the question is fully out, I regret it.
I hate the question. Hate the assumption that something’s wrong with me and the implication that it’s wrong to not be okay.
Aren’t we allowed bad minutes, hours, or days?
Aren’t we supposed to be able to feel everything?
Be in touch with our emotions? No one needs to smile twenty-four-seven.
And that includes Jaxon. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come off insensitive. ”
“It didn’t.” He shakes his head, letting out a harsh, decompressing breath.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Jaxon nods. Head tilting just enough that his mossy green eyes burn into me, blinking away moisture.
I reach for a hand tightly grasping his knees, loosening his fingers before I slip my hand into his.
Dwarfed in their sheer size, I drag our interlocked hands into my lap, refraining from letting out the hiss that builds on my tongue when his calluses scrape against my palm—anything that would paint a different picture than the one he wants people to see.
“My mom called.” His eyes flutter shut, chest rises with a languid inhale.
“She…she started talking. I couldn’t believe it.
Congratulating me on our win before words started pouring out of her, telling me…
me…about her day and the new company my stepdad is acquiring.
Five minutes. For five minutes, she spoke to me uninterrupted, like… ” His voice cracks. “Like before.”
For as much as Jaxon talks—and enjoys it—he speaks minimally about his mother. Only once, and briefly, has he opened up about the specifics of his parents’ divorce. He’s careful about what he shares, keeping worries and dreams close to his chest.
He was indifferent then, nothing like his reaction now. It tells me that whatever happened, it’s hurting him.
I’m not exactly sure what to say, so I stay quiet.
Jaxon tries to pull his hand away, but I keep it secured in mine. Tipping his head back to the setting sky, he releases a heavy breath.
“Guess how many words it took for her to realize it was me on the line?”
“Ten?”
“One. One fucking word.” A humorless laugh hugs the air between us. “It’s as if my voice is a detonator on her mood.”
“Who did she mean to call?” The question gentle, matching the caress of my thumb over his knuckles.
“My stepbrother.” My assumption is right. The only reason I even know he has siblings is because of Cooper.
A tear slips down Jaxon’s cheek, and he mutters, “You should’ve known better.”
“Jax,” I start.
“Fuck,” he curses. Then again louder, the grip on my hand tightens. “I should’ve known. She doesn’t watch our games, probably doesn’t even know our schedule or that I still play. I should’ve known better, Jordan.”
“Jax.” His gaze is off in the distance. I place my fingers under his chin, drawing him back to me, back to the safety net we’ve woven for each other. “You have to stop blaming yourself.”
“It’s always my fault.” The confession ripples through the cooling early autumn air.
Through the tear that’s now a waterfall of them.
“She left because of me. I was too much for her to handle, and with Dad’s schedule, she had to take care of me alone a lot.
She wanted a family that was simpler, easier.
I was eight and didn’t know any better. For years…
years, Jordan, I did everything I could to earn her attention—even if it was from getting into trouble.
I wanted to earn her love, but nothing was ever enough.
The more I did, the more I became, the further she drifted away. ”
“Has she told you this?” He shakes his head no. “Has anyone?”
“My stepbrother.” Is it okay to hate someone you’ve never met? Jaxon explains how he’d intentionally select his words to poke jabs, what he’d tell him when adults weren’t around. No wonder Jaxon is under the impression that he’s on both ends of the spectrum—not enough and completely too much.
I laugh. Through thick, dark lashes, Jaxon looks over at me. “He’s a twatwaffle asshat.” A small laugh-esque noise works up Jaxon’s throat.
“Hey, now. Those are my insults.”
“I know, but they’re fitting.” I thumb away a lingering tear. “I’m sorry he said those things to you and made you feel small. Unlovable. Too much.”
“You don’t need to apologize for him.”
“I know. Same way you didn’t need to apologize for my ex but you did. I need you to understand that he’s wrong. You’re as big as the night sky.” As if on cue, the last bit of daylight fades into a cloudless night sky. Stars decorating and shining down on us. “There’s that much about you to love.”
The words, truthful to a fault, tumble from my tongue, and I’m forced to swallow the realization that’s hitting me. I think I could love him, could fall in love with him.
We sit there for a stretch of time, a comfortable silence falling between us. Eventually, I lean my head on his shoulder. “Wanna come up?”
Upstairs, Jaxon stays near me.
“You can sit on the couch or lie in my bed if you want. Make yourself comfortable.”
“I’m comfortable next to you,” he replies. Me too, I don’t say.
“You hungry?” I open the fridge. “We have salmon and green beans or…” I cross my fingers there’s something better in the freeze. “Chicken nuggets.”
I tug out the air fryer and dump half the bag of tenders into it.
“Maybe the whole bag,” he suggests. I set the timer for fifteen minutes, then guide us to the couch.
Jaxon sits first, pulling me into his lap, circling his arms around my waist, and pressing a light kiss to the top of my head. “Thank you,” he says into my hair.
“You’re welcome,” I reply, even though I’m not sure what he’s thanking me for.
“I mean it, Jordan. Thank you for listening to me and letting me…letting me be this way.” I chuckle softly. “What?”
“Thought you were thanking me for the nuggets.”
“Plenty of time for those to burn.”
“Hey now. I’m a better reheater than you,” I tease, fingers playing with his hair. “You know there’s no other version of you that I want. I like this Jaxon.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhm.” I kiss him.
“I like this Jordan too.” He undoes my hair clip, combing his fingers through it. Tucking the hair behind my ear, I shiver as his finger runs along my jaw. “Why’d you dye your hair blue?”
My heart plummets into my stomach. No one knows why I dyed my hair blue, not even Xanie. It wasn’t till recently I fully understood my rash decision.
I pull a handful of it forward to curtain my face. “Boredom.”
I can tell he doesn’t buy my lame excuse, but he doesn’t push. “Blue suits you. Would you teach me how to dye it? Or is that weird?”
“No. It’s—” It’s what? One of the sweetest things someone’s ever wanted to do for me? “I’d love to teach you.”
Jaxon hangs around after we eat, some superhero movie playing in the background. I think it’s Ant-Man, maybe an Avengers?
I dip into my bedroom to change. I change into my pajamas, finally escaping the mini skort and corset top I had on.
“I should get going.” Jaxon’s leaning against the door frame, eyes lingering on my tiny tank top. Hard, peaked nipples visible through the thin white fabric. “Jaxon Greene: missing in action. I’m surprised the guys haven’t bombarded me with calls wondering where I am.”
“Do you want to be at the party?”
He bobbles his head in a I-don’t-think-so-but-feel-obligated-to-be-there way which tells me the answer is no. “But I should probably go.”
“Or you could stay.” I bite my lip, eager for an answer while also wanting him to know that he doesn’t have to slip his mask back on. He doesn’t have to go back to being that Jaxon.
The corners of his mouth crawl up the sides of his face, amusement their guide. “Are you asking to break the no sleepover rule, Little Carmichael?”
Break it, abolish it. I don’t want him to leave. Maybe ever. “There’s an extra toothbrush for you in my drawer in the bathroom,” I add as enticement.
“You bought me a toothbrush? To keep here?” He grins, big and bright. “I’ll be right back.”
Jaxon offers to brush my hair, braiding it into a single plait while we search for another movie. He’s mastering the skill and I’m becoming obsessed with him doing it, almost needy to feel his fingers comb through my hair.
It takes us over thirty minutes to decide before we curl up in my extra-long twin bed, tangled together, lacking any concern about the lack of space. Pressed up against together, hands playing with each other as a movie we haven’t watched a single second of plays lowly in the background.
We talk about his childhood instead. He tells me more about his dad and grandma.
Tells me about the pet lizard he convinced them he had to have, till he realized he doesn’t like reptiles and donated it to his fifth-grade class.
I laugh so uncontrollably that I shed a tear when I learn about his first kiss and that he was so excited he accidentally chipped the girl’s front teeth.
I soothe him after a story about his senior prom.
He had shown up in what was supposed to be a red suit, but when it came in was yellow, and when crowned Prom King—no surprise there—the DJ slipped up and called him Big Bird.
Secrets whispered into the dimly lit room, the only lights coming from my laptop and glow in the dark stars we stuck to my ceiling earlier.
I’d found them on the counter a few weeks ago, a chicken scratch Post-it attached referring to the night out on the pool deck.
I hadn’t gotten around to hanging them. We don’t have a step stool and I can’t reach even on a chair.
When Jaxon is here we are rather preoccupied.
There’s talking and body contact but not like this.
He tickles the underside of my boobs, the only spot I’m ticklish, to get me to spill about my horrific first kiss. A spin the bottle gone wrong in middle school.
I didn’t play Wordle that morning, the text from my dad still unread. Jaxon requires us to make up a Wordle for each other on our phones. He gets mine in four guesses.
I don’t get his, but he cheated. He selected M-I-N-E and the last square was a smiley face emoji. There’s a gap where my heart skipped a beat. It does this around him—races, skipping beats. Slowly, he’s wedging himself into those gaps. Taking up space in every aspect of my life, of me.
Pressing my lips to his, I finally relent. Finally, stop trying to pluck him out of those gaps and instead embrace what I considered a childish crush for years is a full-fledged one. I like, maybe love, Jaxon Greene.
“I figured out my answer,” I tell him as I pull away, cheek pressed into my pillow, not letting my gaze leave his.
“Thank god. It really shouldn’t take this long to decide which condiment you’d have coming out of your pointer finger.”
“If I only get one, it’s a big, monumental, astronomical”—my eyes get bigger, brows raise as I say each over embellished word—“decision. Are you not happy that I didn’t take it lightly? I thought hard about this.”
The left corner of his mouth snakes up into a grin, digs into his cheek to form a shallow dimple. “You’re right.” Obviously. “I am very happy that you took my question seriously.”
“Dijon mustard.”
Jaxon rolls onto his back and groans. Hands tug on the front ends of his curls before scraping down his face. “No, no, no, no.” He keeps repeating the two-letter word. “Three hours and this is what you come up with. Dijon mustard?”
I poke his shallow dimple. “I’m kidding.”
“Good.” He exhales a large breath…that I can’t tell is real or fake. “I was going to have to break up with you.”
Wait…what?
Did he just say break up with me?
“What’s your real answer?” he asks before I have time to process his previous sentence. A slip up, that’s what it is. He doesn’t want to date me…we can’t date for an obvious older brother and best friend shaped reason. My feelings for him may be evolving, but that’s all they can be: evolved.
I blink. Blink again to drag myself back to the present moment. “Ranch.”
“The second-best answer, so I’ll allow it.”
We fall back into a popcorn-style secret telling, the movie now long over and the time on the clock drifting past midnight. I fall asleep, my back to his front, in his strong arms.