Chapter 26
PAIGE
I listen as Jordan tells me pieces of his life I’ve never heard. He tells me about his mom, the assembly, her missed appointment, her diagnosis, his guilt.
His face is solemn as he stares straight into the night sky. An entire city of lights glitters beneath us, but Jordan does not see them. He’s in another time, reliving a kind of pain that grows and festers—and changes a person’s life.
In the months since Jordan and I reconnected after college, I always thought Jordan’s care for his strong and capable mother far surpassed what his mom actually needed. I never understood why he was so intense.
Now I know. It was the only thing Jordan could do to make up for what he thinks he’s done wrong.
Every cell in my body yearns to comfort him, to take away the anguish in his eyes. Right now is about the time where I question whether he would welcome physical affection, but boundaries be hanged. Jordan is my best friend. I tug his hand from the railing, pulling him from his stupor, and wrap my arms around his waist.
His arms fold gently around me at first, then they tighten around my shoulders, and his weight transfers to me, not so much in a physical sense but an emotional one. In telling me these things, Jordan is letting me take on some of the burden that I’ve so desperately wanted to carry for him.
He buries his head into my hair, and I close my eyes, feeling his heart beating through his suit coat. “It was my fault, Paige. I’m the reason it got so bad. If she didn’t have to have chemotherapy, she wouldn’t have neuropathy. Something she might struggle with for life.”
My heart aches, knowing just how much he’s let his guilt torture himself for so many years. “Jordan,” I whisper. “You didn’t know.”
He steps back from me into the shadowed alcove of the terrace and rubs his hands down his face. “Paige, I guilted her into that assembly. She was reluctant to change her appointment, and I made her feel like a bad parent if she didn’t go.”
“Have you ever talked to your mom about this?”
Jordan stares out into the city lights, shaking his head. “No. I don’t want to hurt her even more than I already have.”
“I don’t think you would, Jordan.”
“If I tell my mom that I feel guilt for what I’ve done, she’ll feel responsible. She’ll think that she caused me to feel bad because of her illness.” Jordan laughs bitterly. “That’s just the way we Millers work. The only thing that could come from talking to my mom about this would be more pain. Something she already has too much of.”
“Jordan.” I step closer and reach my hand to his cheek.
For a moment, he shuts his eyes, leaning into my touch, but too quickly, he pulls away, frustrated lines appearing between his eyebrows.
“No, Paige, I can’t.” His voice breaks.
“You can’t what?” I ask.
He blows out an aggravated breath. “I can’t leave my mom.”
My brows furrow. “Why would you ever have to leave her, Jordan?”
“Because…” He scrubs a hand through his hair, his movements restless and fidgety. “I just…” He starts and stops the same sentence twice.
I have no doubt he’s at war with himself. “Because what?”
My words seem to jolt Jordan out of his restless struggle. He stops moving and looks directly at me, his eyes blazing with an intensity that makes my skin prickle with heat. “Because if things were different, Paige… I’d follow you anywhere. Not just because you’re my friend but because you’re more than that to me. So much more.” He laces his fingers atop his head and stares up into the night, as if all the stars in the sky might keep him from saying what he’s been holding back.
A moment later, his arms drop, and so do his reservations. Jordan looks at me with a longing that makes my heart pound wildly inside my chest. “You’re all I think about, Paige. When I’m away from you, I wonder what you’re doing. When you smile, I wonder how to make it happen again. When I’m near you, I want to be closer.” Jordan stretches out his hand, cupping my cheek. “Paige, you’re all I want.”
I can hardly breathe.
Those long-awaited words tug at my heart so forcefully that I nearly trip over my dress as I step toward him and clutch his open suit coat, hoping it will ground me as I process Jordan’s words.
I look into his golden-brown eyes. “Do you think I wouldn’t do the same? Do you think I wouldn’t follow you?”
“Paige.” My name sounds delicate on his lips. His warm hand skims across the dimple in my cheek, his touch soft and fragile. “I already held my mom back. I won’t do the same to you. If you go to California… I can’t. And I don’t want to keep you from your dreams.”
He tries to push me away with his words, but they only draw us closer together. He leans his forehead against mine, and I can feel his barriers begin to crumble. “I can’t give you sunrises on a beach. Or teach you how to surf.”
“And if I don’t care about that? If I want to stay here with you?”
Jordan pulls away, shaking his head. “Paige, no.”
“After college, before I came back to Colorado, I applied to several internships in California. And I had two great offers. But I came back here because I wanted to be with you.”
Jordan goes still, but something in his eyes softens.
“You were worth it then, and you are worth it now, Jordan Miller.”
And just like that, the glass wall between us shatters. Jordan’s lips are on mine, and this is nothing like the pantry kiss. His hands thread into my hair, pulling me into him as I wrap my arms around his back. His mouth is confident yet urgent against mine, as if seven years of lost moments like these are suddenly finding their way back to us.
For years, I’ve wondered what it would feel like to kiss Jordan. Would it be weird to kiss my best friend? Would our physical chemistry be as good as our emotional chemistry?
Jordan’s arms drop to encircle my waist as he pulls me closer. He deepens the kiss, and my body melts into his. Let’s just say I should never have questioned our physical chemistry.
A full-blown Fourth of July fireworks show is going off in my chest. With every kiss, I’m tapping deeper into parts of Jordan than I’ve ever known before. Everything that Jordan is, his warmth, his playfulness, his addictive energy, his strength—it all surrounds me like a blanket, one that I want to stay curled in forever. This is so much more than I could have imagined. In his arms, I feel safe, wanted, whole.
The catchy tune of Michael Jackson’s “Bad” breaks through the moment, and Jordan and I instantly jolt apart from one another. It’s too close to be coming from inside the Gala, which means that either that song is Jordan’s new ringtone or someone else is out here with us.
Jordan looks down at me with a question in his eyes and a smile on his lips. “Did you change your ringtone?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “‘Bad’? Really, Jordan?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? That’s your song.”
I pinch him in the side, and he laughs.
We start looking around the terrace that, until this moment, we thought was empty, when we see a wide-eyed teenage boy blinking back at us from the shadows of the alcove. His tall, wiry frame hesitantly steps out from the darkened corner as he silences his phone and shoves it into his wrinkled suit pocket.
“I’m so sorry.” His voice cracks as he takes a reluctant step toward us. “I promise… I… I wasn’t creeping on you.” The boy is a deer in headlights. “I was waiting out here for a friend to call me because the service inside is terrible. I thought you guys saw me here, but then you started, you know...um, kissing. Then I realized you probably didn’t see me. I thought about leaving, but then I was like, ‘No, Trevor, that will be way more awkward if they see you now.’ So then I thought I’d wait you out, but then…”
“Trevor,” Jordan says, cutting off the poor boy’s monologue.
At some point in the kid’s nervous rambles, I shove my face into Jordan’s chest and pull his suit coat around my head, laughing so hard I can’t stop.
“Um. Yeah?” Trevor stammers.
“I’m sorry you had to witness that,” Jordan says. “But she just can’t resist this.”
“Jordan,” I chide.
Poor kid. I can’t see him right now because I’m locked inside my Jordan cocoon as tears of laughter trail down my cheeks, but if I could see him, I think his legs would literally be knocking together in sheer horror.
“Sorry for the show. But if you’re interested, you can always stick around for the sequel,” Jordan says.
I pop my head out of Jordan’s suit coat. “No, Trevor. You can go,” I say, barely holding onto a straight face.
The boy shuffles forward, not quite making it around us.
“On second thought.” Jordan smiles down at me. “Make it a trilogy.”
Without hesitation, the boy bolts for the doors, and disappears into the building.
I feel Jordan’s chest rumble against me as he starts laughing.
“You terrified him. He’s probably scarred for life.”
“Nah, he’s bad . He’ll tough it out.”
I laugh at Jordan’s reference to the boy’s ringtone.
“In fact, Trevor did me a favor. The whole time we were kissing, I thought, ‘You know what would complete this moment? The King of Pop.’ Trevor delivered. I’ll tip him when I get inside.”
I swat his arm, but my smile is beaming. Jordan and I may have broken physical barriers tonight, but he’s still his cheeky self around me. I love that almost as much as I love how Jordan’s resistance to us is not evident on his face anymore. A small part of me wonders if it could be temporary, but when Jordan’s lips find mine again, I allow myself to hope as he carefully pulls me into him. This time, his kisses are light and delicate, but each graze of his mouth against mine sends a blazing fire through me.
Eventually, another couple enters the terrace, and we break apart to avoid another Trevor situation.
“Well, Paige Devons, I think this terrace has an expiration date,” Jordan says, still a breath away from me.
I rest my head on his chest, soaking in the last bits of this imperfectly perfect moment with Jordan. All the while, I desperately cling to the hope that tonight, I won’t be Cinderella. I don’t want the clock to strike midnight and everything to return to normal tomorrow. I don’t think I could take it if Jordan pulled away once again.
But I’m also not naive enough to believe his fears about holding me back from a future in California will disappear with a kiss. Things like that take time. Time I’m willing to give. But I also need to know where he stands. I pull back, far enough to look up at him. “Do we have an expiration date?”
Jordan’s lips press into a thin line. “I hope not.”
Not the most solid answer, but I know it’s the best he can give right now.
Jordan must see the hesitancy in my face because his hands slide down my arms and he entwines his fingers with mine. “Paige. You need to know that I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole life.” He brings my hand up to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to my fingers. “I want to be with you. I want to date you and only you.”
“Are you saying you want to be my boyfriend, Jordan Miller?” I ask, lightheartedly.
“Yes,” He smiles down at me, his eyes brimming with sincerity. He steps closer and strokes his thumb down my cheek. “Yes, that’s exactly what I want.”
My smile couldn’t possibly get any bigger. I run my free hand through the side of his hair. “Will you promise me something then? If you ever start to think that you’re hurting my future, or my dreams or whatever, will you promise to remember that I want this? That I will always choose you?”
He nods and seals the deal with a kiss before we walk back into the ballroom with our hands entwined for all to see.