by BK Rivers
Jordan sits next to me at the counter, scooting close enough to spread his legs around me. His hand pushes my hair over my shoulder, and then he brushes a whisper of a kiss across my jaw. Pretty sure I will never grow tired of him kissing or touching me.
“I ordered in, and it should be arriving—” A sharp knock at the door interrupts him. “Now.” He smiles and leaps off the bar stool. Moments later, he returns to the kitchen holding four white paper bags filled with food from Marillio’s, one of Phoenix’s best and most expensive Italian restaurants.
The four of us sit at the counter sharing the pastas, vegetables, and bread, not bothering to use plates. I love this side of Jordan. He’s carefree, at ease, and he finds some way to touch me throughout the meal. A brush of his fingers over my thigh, or a quick peck on my cheek, little things to keep my body attuned to his. I reciprocate by leaning close, resting my back on his shoulder. The space we occupy is charged with heated friction as we breathe in a synchronized rhythm, and right now I’d give anything to be here with only Jordan.
Instead, the four of us move to the couches and begin to watch a movie, some lighthearted romantic comedy I can’t pay attention to. I’m lying against Jordan’s chest, between his thighs with a blanket covering us. His hand has been slowly teasing my breasts and has now moved south. My breath hitches as he stealthily pops the button of my jeans and slides his hands down, down, down…
Heat rushes to my cheeks, and I swear there’s a fire licking at my chest as his fingers find their destination. He shifts behind me, gaining better access, making it even more difficult for me to keep a stoic face. Jordan’s fingers are meant for the piano; they’re long, agile, and they feel so good. My fingers curl over his thigh, gripping him hard, begging him to stop—we shouldn’t be doing this with Jeremy and Emily in the same room. I can’t keep my breathing regular; it’s coming in shallow pants while my body heats from core to cheeks. My grip on his thigh tightens, but his fingers speed up, bringing me closer and closer. My hips buck under the blanket, but Jordan pushes them down and kisses my burning neck as I come down from the orgasm. My heart is racing, Jordan’s hard length presses against my lower back, and I’m ready for round two.
“Your room. Now,” I whisper, fixing my jeans, and then take his hand in mine, while I slide off the couch.
Chapter 23
Jordan
Reggie’s hair feels like silk as it glides between my fingers. She’s tucked between my arm and chest, head on my shoulder. It gives me full access to her long black hair. A soft snore passes through her lips and it’s incredibly cute. She didn’t do that in high school, and I’m totally okay with it.
I must have a magical tongue because even though she tried to go home last night, somehow I convinced her to sleep here. Now it’s morning, and I have her still in my arms. I don’t want her to ever leave. That should scare me, but somehow it’s like a weight has been lifted from my chest. Like I’ve carried around this elephant and it’s been stomping on me every day, pushing me down, trying to suffocate me. But with Reggie here, the elephant has morphed into a sparrow and weighs nothing. In fact, it’s so light it may as well not be there at all.
Reggie stirs in my arms, and I pull her close then press my lips to her forehead. Hers turn up in a warm smile, and her eyes flutter open. A pink blush forms on her cheeks as her thigh climbs up mine and ultimately stops on my morning wood. I cock my brow, daring her to keep going, but her eyes widen and she jerks upright in bed.
“What time is it?” she says, glancing all over the room.
I place my hand on her bare shoulder and give a quick squeeze. “Hey,” I say. When she won’t look at me, I pull her chin toward me. “Relax. It’s early. You have plenty of time to make it home to get ready for work.”
She releases a breath, rolls her shoulders, and then climbs out of bed. She walks—bare ass naked—across the room, pulling a groan from deep in my throat. She is so damn sexy. I’m going to have to take a cold shower after she leaves this morning, because it’s obvious she doesn’t intend on joining me back in bed. She tugs on her jeans and shirt, covering the breasts I lavished last night. Why is it we wear clothes? I mean, we’re given these bodies, shouldn’t we be able to admire them whenever we want?
Lyrics!
I leap out of bed, my junk swinging back and forth as I scramble to the dresser where I keep a pen and a pad of paper. I scribble down a few lines, concentrating on the words circling in my head.
“I’ve got to go,” Reggie says from behind me. Her arms circle my chest in a warm hug, and she kisses my shoulder. “Maybe we could go away for a night over the weekend, just you and me?” she suggests as one of her hands trails down my stomach and covers my half-mast, which springs to life at her touch. The pen stills on the notepad as she pumps and squeezes me.
“Reggie-bug,” I warn, but she doesn’t relent. Instead, her lips glide across the skin on my back, making me groan and rock my hips into her skilled hand. “Three…two…one,” I say as she milks me dry, followed by a quick kiss on my lips.
“Just a little something to think about when I’m not here,” she says, and saunters into the adjoined bathroom to wash up. Hell yeah, I’ll be thinking about her. She rushes out of the bathroom, plants a firm kiss on my cheek, and leaves in a hurry, taking with her some of the joy I felt earlier.
When I finally emerge from my bedroom, Jeremy is cooking breakfast for himself and Emily, who is wearing his shirt from last night. She’s sitting at the counter reading a book and tapping her foot to some song she must have in her head.
“Morning,” I say, pulling the orange juice from the fridge and pouring some into a glass. Jeremy tips his head, and Emily shyly says hi, her cheeks blushing as she dives back into reading. Okay. I stand next to JD and ask, “Is she always this awkward?”
He stops scraping the eggs from the pan and gives me a pointed look. “She’s not awkward. She’s just a little starstruck by you,” he whispers, and returns to his eggs. Ah, well, I can understand that, though I hate the thought of people being nervous around me. I never wanted to be that guy who made other people uncomfortable.
“You want some of this?” Jeremy asks, pointing to the eggs and bacon. If he’s cooking, then I’m definitely eating. I nod enthusiastically and join Emily at the counter. The color of her cheeks darken as I pull the book away from her and flip to the cover.
“You always bring romance novels wherever you go?” I ask, pushing it back to her. Jeremy’s eyes narrow at me, but I choose to ignore him.
“Actually, yes, I do. But this one isn’t a romance novel, despite the cover. It’s historical fiction.”
“About a big-busted woman wearing a pearl necklace?”
Emily dog-ears her page and closes the book, then proceeds to read the back of the novel to me. Okay, so it’s about a ballerina and the hardships she faced in the early 1900s.
“Fine. It’s not a romance. But you do bring a book wherever you go?”
She nods and says, “You never know when you need to pass some time.”
We go back and forth until Jeremy slaps two plates on the counter and tells us to eat. He glares at me while leaning over his breakfast.
Emily seems nice. Even though I thought she was after something other than Jeremy, she seems legit. And JD seems happy, even with the pregnancy news. Still, if they’re still together when she has the baby, I’ll encourage him to have a DNA test done.
When they leave the condo, I grab a quick shower and sit down at the piano with my notepad. When I write songs, the lyrics spill out of me first and the notes flow easily when attached to the right words. Hours later, my stomach growls, the sun has set, and I’m still alone in the condo. I grab a quick sandwich and sit on the couch to watch some television, giving myself a much needed break from the firm piano bench.
An incoming text wakes me up, though I didn’t realize I had dozed off. I sit up, turn off the TV, and glance around the condo. It’s after eleven, and Jeremy is still not ho
me. He must be staying with Emily. I check my phone and see it’s a message from Reggie asking if I’d thought about going away this weekend. I respond with a resounding yes!
Reggie: Yay! Where should we go?
Me: Sedona?
Reggie: Perfect!
I strip out of my clothes, lie down in the bed, which smells like Reggie, and ball my hands into fists before slamming them on the mattress. I want her lying next to me. I want to hear her soft breathing and wake up every morning with her head on my shoulder. Damn, I really miss the girl.
Being with her in high school was easy, not that she didn’t make me work at our relationship. It was just something that felt right, like she moved to Phoenix with her family just to be with me. Like somehow the universe pushed us together, and we fit like peanut butter and jelly. We did everything together, and when we broke up it crushed me—I just never saw it coming. I think a part of me used that hurt to fuel my addiction. When the guys and I went on tour and started partying and doing drugs, it was like I could hide from the pain. The drugs numbed me, and I eventually forgot about it. I forgot I used to find myself picking up the phone to call her and tell her about the show we just performed or how we finally landed the contract to headline our own tours. My life was in a constant state of forgetting Reggie.
Now forgetting her is the last thing I want.
I want to remember the four freckles on her left shoulder and how it looks like an artist painted them on in a short, straight line. I want to remember the hollow in her neck and how it deepens when I kiss her. I want to remember how holding her in my arms feels like home and hope and promises.
But I’m leaving in two months for a six-month tour. I won’t have her with me. I won’t be able to hold her in my arms and breathe in her floral scent. Knowing this, it feels like a dull knife wedges itself between my ribs and tries to steal my breath. A pain grips me when I think about leaving her.
How am I ever going to leave her?
I know it’s late, but Washington is an hour earlier than Phoenix this time of year, so I dial up Jemma, hoping she’ll be able to knock some sense into me.
“Jordan, are you okay?” I hate that every time I call her she feels the need to make sure I’m not doing something to screw up my life.
“It’s nice to hear your voice too,” I say, mildly irritated.
“I’m sorry. It’s just late, and last time you called—”
I cut her off, knowing last time I called I was so desperate for help only she has been able to give me.
“Yeah, I’m good. Great actually.” We talk for some time about Roger and how he’s been there for me. Then she talks about how she and Vic are slowly setting up the nursery in the house Vic built. After Gran died and they got married, Jemma decided to sell the house and land, because it hurt too much living there without her grandmother. What she doesn’t know is that I bought it. I had my lawyers draw up an offer and send it anonymously, and thankfully she accepted. I’m the proud owner of forty acres, an old house, and an even older barn—with a Jordan-size, fist-shaped hole in the wall.
“Glad to hear it, Jordan. Sounds like you’re doing well.” I hear Vic in the background offer a greeting. “Vic says hi.”
“Yeah, I got that. So.” There’s no way to get this out other than just spilling it, so here goes. “I’m kind of seeing someone, and I don’t know what to do about going on tour in a couple months.”
The line is silent, and for a second I think the call was dropped. “Jemma?”
“I’m still here,” she says. “I guess I don’t know what to say. I’m happy you’ve found someone. You want to tell me about her?”
I do so much. And it pours from me and Jemma listens as our story is told, from the first time Reggie and I met in high school all the way to the end of our relationship. How the drugs not only grabbed hold of me but how they started out as a way to numb the pain. I keep going until she’s all caught up, and my fears of losing Reggie when I go back on tour are laid out like cards on a table.
“Are you in love with her?” she asks when the words stop flowing and silence fills the air.
“No,” I say much too quickly.
Wait.
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
I’ve just spent the last forty minutes telling Jemma about Reggie and how she makes me feel. Could it be that I do love her? I look forward to seeing her whether on a date or not, knowing I want to make her smile every second of every day. She makes me want to be a better man even though I’m not worthy of her. I want to prove myself to her, show her I can be who she needs. Several years have passed since high school, but we’re somehow able to pick right up where we left off. Being with her is like breathing. I can’t live without her.
Shit.
“Jordan,” Jemma warns.
Shit. Did I say that out loud?
“Sorry,” I say, clamping my eyes closed and squeezing the bridge of my nose. “I freaking love her, and that scares the sh—crap out of me.”
Jemma laughs on the other end of the call and tells me to breathe. As if that is going to fix this problem.
“It’s not funny, Jemma.” Great, Vic is in the background laughing as well. Why do they think me being in love with Reggie is funny? Am I that unlovable? Do they think I’m not good enough for someone to love me?
“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s not that I’m laughing at you. I just think it’s funny you’re scared.”
“I’m so glad I can be your source of entertainment for the night.”
“If you love her, tell her. If the two of you are meant to be, you’ll both figure it out.” Jemma’s advice is solid, but it doesn’t help. The issue at hand is I don’t know if I can go on tour knowing I’m leaving behind the woman I love. Shit, it feels strange to say that.
“Jordan, if she loves you too, it will all work out. I promise.”
How can she promise this when I can’t even admit to myself how I truly feel about Reggie?
Chapter 24
Reggie
Stacey is being very vague about where she’s going to be this weekend. In fact, other than telling me my parents will have Micah all to themselves, she’s said nothing about her plans. We never keep secrets, so what is she hiding from me? Micah’s in bed for the night, and she’s in her room, packing. Now’s as good a time as any to confront her.
I knock three times on her bedroom door and press my ear to the cold wood. On the other side, I hear the rustling of clothing and Stacey muttering a soft curse. Has our friendship really grown into this weird place where we have to hide things from each other?
The door swings open, and Stacey peeks out from the other side. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Can I come in?” I ask, since she hasn’t offered yet. And by offered, I mean she hasn’t opened the door more than six inches. Stacey’s eyes dart to the left and then back to me before she closes them and swings the door open the rest of the way.
“Is something wrong? I feel like you’re hiding things from me.” I sit on the edge of her bed and think back to when we first moved in together after high school. We’d been best friends since I moved to Phoenix, but becoming roommates was one of the best things in my life. I needed her then, and she was there for me. Now, sitting here glancing around her room, I see barely any traces of my eighteen-year-old best friend. Where her room used to be shades of violet and cream, now they’re the more subdued colors of a fashionable adult—beige and white. Her posters of teenage rock bands have been replaced with artwork she’s collected through the years. When did she grow up? When did I grow up?
Stacey pulls her suitcase off her bed and sits down next to me. She sighs and my heart threatens to fall to the floor. I’m losing my best friend.
“Reggie, you know I love you,” she says as her arm snakes over my shoulder. This can’t be good. It’s almost like the dreaded “it’s not you, it’s me” talk.
“But?” I ask, now totally unsure I want to know what’s going on.
; She sighs again and says, “I’m having a really hard time watching you go out with Jordan. I remember how you were after you broke up with him, and I don’t want to see that happen again.”
We’ve had this talk before, recently, and I feel justified in calling bullshit. Her secrecy can’t be because of me and Jordan dating.
“Then why does it feel like you’re hiding from me and keeping secrets? I can’t imagine that has anything to do with Jordan.”
“Micah’s been asking questions, Reggie. He’s almost eight years old; he’s not stupid. He knows something is up, and it’s breaking his heart when you’re not here and I can’t tell him where you are. Don’t you think it’s time you talked to him about his father?”
“You know I can’t do that.” I can’t sit still with the way my stomach is rolling over and over. The need to pace overwhelms me.
“Why not? If not now, then when? One of these days your sweet little boy will find out where you sneak off to, and it’s going to crush him.” Stacey bites her lip and stares at me while I pace. It does nothing for the nerves in my stomach.
“I don’t know, okay? Is that what you want to hear? That I’m selfish and want to give Jordan another chance? That when I’m with him sometimes I forget I have a son at home waiting for me? Okay then, there you have it. My son’s father knows nothing about him, and I don’t have any idea how to tell him because if I do, I’ll lose him. And then what?”
I slump to the floor and shove the heels of my hands into my eyes as tears roll down my cheeks. What am I doing? I’ve never yelled at Stacey like this, and I’m getting ready to go on an overnight trip with Jordan. I must have lost my mind the night Jordan stepped into Eggceptional. Stacey’s sitting next to me in a heartbeat, her arm pulling me in for a comforting hug. She brushes the hair off my forehead and squeezes me closer.