Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
JORDAN
I rub my temples as I stand in Ben and Hallie’s kitchen, wondering when my friends got so fucking loud.
Were they always like this? Between a six-hour car ride where Jeremy talked incessantly about nothing and the last two hours in this houseful of people, my brain is screaming for a quiet room and ten minutes alone. It seems like four hundred years since I left the hospital this morning and found Jeremy in my apartment. I have had more social interaction today than in the last two years combined, and I don’t love it.
“How are you doing?”
I turn from where I’m standing in the kitchen and look straight into Gabe’s sympathetic face.
“I’m fine.”
My answer is curt, but Christ Jesus am I tired of the sympathy. I’ve gotten so much fucking sympathy tonight I could drown in it. Maybe that’s what I get for staying away so long. My friends didn’t have enough time to smother me with sympathy in the months right after Allie died, so they feel the need to do it now.
I just don’t want it.
I’m not the grief-stricken, tear-soaked guy on the couch with the messy hair and dirty T-shirt anymore. Now I’m just the guy who wants to live his life and maybe not be asked how he’s doing six hundred times in an hour.
Gabe studies me, and I fidget under his stare. He’s the last person I would expect this from. His parents died when he was in his twenties, so he knows what it’s like to lose someone close to you. Although maybe losing parents is different than losing the person you thought you would spend the rest of your life with. The person you thought you would build a family and a home and a future with.
Maybe there’s a hierarchy of loss. Like, lose parents, eventually rediscover cheerful disposition. Lose the love of your life, become an irritable bastard with no patience for people.
“You haven’t really said much tonight.”
I shrug, turning to open the fridge for nothing in particular. “Not much to say. I was too busy having babies shoved at me and being plied with food. Evidently, none of you think I’m capable of feeding myself.”
I hate that too. I can take care of myself just fine. I don’t need my friends to do it.
“I mean, we might be right. When was the last time you turned on an oven?” Asher comes into the kitchen, tossing his beer bottle in the recycling bin and reaching around me to grab another one from the fridge.
“I cook,” I grumble. Sort of.
Asher snorts and leans against the kitchen island, beer in hand. “Heating up frozen pizza and boiling pasta is not considered cooking. Cooking is that thing you used to do, with recipes and spices and ingredients that require trips to the grocery store.”
“I mean, maybe in Manhattan frozen pizza is considered cooking?” Gabe muses. “It’s weird there.”
“You’re from Northern California, and you think Manhattan is weird?” I ask dryly. I hate this conversation. Any conversation, really, but it’s better than the sympathy, so I’m willing to go with it.
Gabe chuckles as Jeremy and Ben stroll into the kitchen.
“What are we talking about, pals?” Jeremy asks, sliding onto one of the bar stools.
“The fact that Jordan is thirty-four years old and living on frozen pizza like he’s still in college,” Asher says, pointing an accusatory finger at me.
Ben shakes his head. “That’s just sad, especially since you didn’t even live on frozen pizza when you were actually in college.”
“He was the chef in our apartment,” Jeremy explains to Asher and Gabe. “Made Ben and me sit down for a proper, home-cooked family dinner every damn night.”
“Impressive,” Gabe says, studying me yet again, this time with more intensity. I stay silent, hoping they’ll all move on. All the attention makes me want to scream.
“Wouldn’t be if you knew his family.” Ben claps me on the shoulder and moves past me to grab his own beer from the fridge. “The Wyles family is the most wholesome family on the planet. Pam Wyles is the most hard-core mom I’ve ever met, and Rachel Parker is my mom so that’s saying something. I think maybe it’s the four sons thing.”
“Don’t you have a baby to hold or something?” I ask Ben. I haven’t seen him without a baby in the crook of his arm since I walked in the door two hours ago.
“Nope. Hallie’s sister, Jo, is on baby duty. She took them up a little while ago to feed them and put them down.”
Before I can think of how to respond to that or make it weird by doing the thing I usually do these days and not respond at all, Molly appears in the kitchen doorway. “Look at all of you in here. It’s like you’re old ladies at a coffee klatch.”
“Rory baby, you should be sitting.” Gabe saunters over to his wife, sliding an arm around her waist and resting his other hand on her very pregnant belly. She moves his hand over a little to where I assume the baby is kicking from the way his eyes light up and the kiss he presses to her forehead.
Molly just smiles up at him. “I’m pregnant, not dying. Besides, I sat all day. I need to move.”
Gabe smirks at her. “Well in that case…” He dips his head and whispers something in Molly’s ear that has her face flushing and her thighs clenching.
Fuck me. I don’t know what it says about me that watching this little scene unfold just makes me want to roll my eyes. But I guess I should thank them because with the attention off me, I slip out of the kitchen. I turn towards the living room but when I hear Julie, who’s also pregnant, ask Hallie about something I think she calls lightning crotch and Emma starts laughing, I spin on my heel because no fucking way .
Pushing through the back door and onto the deck overlooking the backyard, I take a deep breath of cool, spring night air and then another. Never in my life did I think I would miss a place like Manhattan, but in this moment, I would give a limb for my quiet apartment in a city where I don’t know anyone and no one knows me.
I have entirely forgotten how to be around people.
“Fuck,” I mutter, wondering how much longer this night could possibly go on. Although, I’m staying at Emma and Jeremy’s tonight with them, their very inquisitive eleven-year-old, and the two-year-old they recently adopted, so I’m not sure that will be any better.
I sigh, shoving my hands into my hair, wondering how the fuck I became this person. One who is cranky and irritable and hates being around people, even if those people are his best friends in the world.
I mean, I know why.
Losing the love of your life before you’ve even had a chance to make that life fucks with you in all kinds of ways. Mostly, I’m fine. I can think of Allie without breaking down, and I can be grateful to have experienced the kind of love we had without railing at the injustice of it ending too soon. But her death took the light-hearted, cheerful, always up for anything part of me and replaced it with something even I hate to be around most of the time.
I groan out loud. This is why I don’t come here. Everyone thinks it’s because of the memories and all the happy couples when I’m no longer part of one, and it was at first. But now it’s because being back here with all my best friends is like standing in front of a giant mirror reflecting all of my most terrible qualities back at me, with no clue how to change them—or if I even want to. That’s why I never go see my family in Boston either, much to my mom’s chagrin.
“Rough night?”
I startle a little at the voice coming from out in the yard. Squinting into the dark, I make out the silhouette of Hallie’s youngest sister, Jo. She’s lying in the grass, propped up on her elbows, her head turned back towards me.
“It’s nothing,” I mutter.
“Doesn’t seem like nothing,” she says. “The neighbors down the street probably heard your sighs. Any particular reason why you’re out here looking like a grumpy bear when all your people are inside basking in friendship and love and new parenthood?”
“I like the quiet.” I grip the railing and lean into my hands. My eyes are trained on Jo, who is still looking back at me, the end of her ponytail brushing the grass.
“Not me. I’m rarely quiet. I mean, why be quiet when there’s so much to say, right? Sorry to interrupt your quiet time. Although not really, since I was here first and really, it’s you who interrupted me. So, I guess if it’s quiet you’re looking for, you should probably go somewhere else. Or you’re welcome to join me.”
I can just make out her friendly smile in the dark, and I have no idea what possesses me to move, but before I know what’s happening, I’m across the lawn and looking down at Jo, not at all sure what to do with my hands.
“I mean, you could keep standing over me like some weirdo, or you could just sit down.” Her voice is amused as she looks up at me.
Again, my body moves of its own volition, sitting down next to her before I realize I’m in motion. The ground is cool under me, and above us the sky is clear. I glance up, wondering when the last time I saw stars was. No stars in Manhattan.
“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Jo asks, a smile in her voice.
“What?”
“Deciding not to be alone.”
Huh.
I stare at her and am smacked in the face by the realization that this is, in fact, the first time in two years I have actively decided not to be alone. I’ve been around people plenty, but it’s always been them coming to me. I’ve never sought anyone out. I’ve never responded to anyone’s request to come to them. Fuck, Jeremy had to kidnap me to get me to come to Pittsburgh to meet my best friends’ babies. And my family comes to New York to see me; I never go to Boston to see them. But now, here I am. I could have gone back inside just now or found a different place to be. But instead, my feet brought me here.
I don’t know what to say to that, so instead I just grunt something unintelligible and stretch my legs out in front of me, glancing up at the stars.
“They’re easier to see if you lay down. The stars,” she says at my questioning look. “It’s why I came out here. It’s a really clear night, and I like looking for constellations.”
Before I can respond, Jo lays flat on her back, face pointed towards the sky, her green eyes sparkling, although at what, I’m not sure. There’s a smattering of freckles across her nose, and her chestnut ponytail is spread over the grass and streaked with what I’m almost positive is yellow paint. I briefly wonder if it’s intentional, but when I see matching paint streaks on her T-shirt, I decide it’s probably not. Her jeans are torn at the knees in a way that seems accidental instead of intentional, and her legs are crossed at the ankles, feet clad in pink Converse.
I haven’t spent all that much time with Jo Evans in the years I’ve known Hallie, but for some reason, in this moment, she’s the only person in the world who doesn’t irritate me.
“You know if you want to check me out you really should be more subtle about it.”
“What?” My gaze snaps up to her face because, fuck no. I don’t check out women. Especially not the younger sisters of my very good friends.
“Oh, my god, I was kidding,” she laughs. “You’re fine.”
“What are you doing out here anyway?” I mutter. “Don’t you have babies to watch or something?”
She holds up her phone, and for the first time I see the baby monitor on the screen, the picture showing two sleeping babies in matching side-by-side bassinets. “My little besties went down like champions. I’m the world’s greatest aunt and an absolutely stellar babysitter.”
“You know they’ll probably be up again in like an hour, right? They’re a month old.” The words just slip out. Evidently my hatred of small talk is escaping me at the moment.
Jo just shrugs, grinning at the screen. “More cuddle time for me. There is nothing better than baby cuddles. I swear, if I didn’t have to work, I would just hang here and hold babies all day. It’s the best. Anyway, you should really lay down and look up. The stars are amazing right now.”
Without any real reason not to, I do what she says and lay flat on my back, staring up at the sky. She’s right, it really is amazing.
“There’s Orion’s Belt.” Jo points up to a cluster of stars that is definitely not Orion’s Belt. “And there’s Pegasus, and Ursa Major, and oh! Gemini! That’s my favorite because, obviously.” She beams over at me.
When I look at her with nothing but confusion, she gives me a duh look. “Because I’m a Gemini, Jordan. May twenty-second. Although I probably don’t have to tell you that. I usually don’t have to tell anyone my horoscope. I’m like the most Gemini to ever Gemini.”
She rolls her head back up to face the sky and points again. “There’s the Little Dipper. I think most people love the Big Dipper the best because it’s the easiest to find, but I’ve always liked the Little Dipper. I think it’s the youngest sister in me.”
I can’t decide if I’m overwhelmed because I’m not used to talking to people or if Jo is, in fact, the most outgoing human on the planet. “You know you haven’t gotten any of those constellations right, right?”
She scoffs. “What are you talking about? Of course I did.”
In lieu of answering her, I point up at the sky. “Orion’s Belt.” Then I slide my finger across pointing out each constellation in its appropriate place. “Pegasus. Ursa Major. Little Dipper.”
She screws up her face as she follows my finger. “I think you’re wrong.”
“I’m not.”
“How do you know?”
“Astronomy class in college.”
She turns her head, narrowing her eyes at me. “College was a long time ago. You’re, like, kind of old. Maybe you forgot.”
I glance back up at the sky, wincing a little at kind of old because it’s uncomfortably close to Jeremy’s comment this morning about me being one of the old guys yelling at people to get off his lawn. “I don’t forget anything. Besides, you’re not that much younger.”
“Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight next month. Gemini, remember?” She’s right; she’s not that much younger, but right now, those six-ish years feel like a century. I’ve lived ten lifetimes in the last two years.
“So where is it, anyway?”
“Where’s what?” I respond, rolling my head back to her, but her eyes are fixed back on the stars.
“Gemini. It’s the only one you didn’t point out.”
“Up there.” I point up and see her follow my finger, her face screwing up in concentration. “It’s those two bright stars next to each other. They’re named Castor and Pollux, and they form the heads of the Gemini twins. If you follow the stars down from there, the constellation looks like two stick figures holding hands. It’s harder to see the whole thing without a telescope.”
Jo lifts up an arm to point at the sky, muttering to herself a little as she tries to locate the stars I’m pointing out. I raise my arm, nudging hers a little so she’s pointing in the right place. “Castor. Pollux.” My hand brushes hers, and the contact sends a jolt down my arm. Dropping my arm like I’ve been burned, I sit up quickly, clenching my jaw. Because what the fuck?
“Want a Fireball?”
“A what?” I don’t mean to snap but I do. Jo is unphased though. She seems unphased by whatever just happened when we touched, too. Maybe she didn’t feel it. She sits up and digs something out of her pocket, handing it to me.
“A Fireball. You’re clenching your teeth so hard I’m shocked your molars aren’t dust. I figured if you’re going to break your jaw, better to do it with candy than with whatever’s going on in your head right now.”
I stare down at the bright red, cellophane wrapped jawbreaker. “It’s cinnamon.”
“Uh, yeah it is. Only the best cinnamon candy on the planet. Have you never had a Fireball before?”
“I have just…not for a while.”
Two years. That’s how long it’s been since I’ve had a Fireball. Fireballs were Allie’s favorite. Anything cinnamon really. Mine too, but I got out of the habit of eating them after she died for no reason other than I stopped doing a lot of things we used to do together.
“Okay, well, no time like the present for the most amazing candy of all time.” Clearly seeing that I’m not making any move to open it, Jo takes the Fireball from me, opening it and dropping it into my palm.
Without any reason not to, I pop it in my mouth and immediately taste the familiar spicy cinnamon sweetness. A thousand memories flood me.
Jo tosses another one in her mouth and grins at me. “Good, right?”
I nod, not sure exactly what to say. But Jo doesn’t seem to mind. She glances at the baby monitor next to her and then lays back down with her eyes on the sky, chattering away about how much she loves the stars.
I lay back down too.
With the taste of the Fireball on my tongue and the voice of a girl I barely know in my ear, I feel oddly settled for the first time in as long as I can remember, and I can’t quite work out the reason why.