by Jack Harbon
“Yeah.”
“I—why?”
This didn’t make sense. Just a few days ago, Rex was leading book discussions and getting excited about what they were scheduled to read next month. Now, out of nowhere, the club wasn’t for him and he wasn’t all that interested in it anymore? That didn’t sound like Rex at all.
“I’m just being honest here. I’m not into this whole romance thing like I thought I was.”
The way he said it, Jordan wasn’t sure whether he was talking about the books or what was going on between the two of them. “I don’t get it. You know you like the club, Rex.”
“I don’t, Jordan. I thought I did, but it feels like I’m wasting my time. I have shit to do. I have someone interested in buying the house. I’m still not even done cleaning out everything inside of it, and I can’t keep letting you and the club distract me.”
Jordan’s throat squeezed tight. “I didn’t realize this was all such an inconvenience.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I should’ve never gotten involved in any of this.” He gestured to both Jordan and his house. “I knew I wouldn’t be here long, but I still went with it. That was a dick move on my part. But now I have a buyer, and when the house goes, so will I. Sweet Rose is…it’s not for me. There’s nothing here for me in this town. Nothing and no one.”
It felt cruel to say these things to Jordan, like telling a kid Santa wasn’t real or building up someone’s hope only to let them down. The truth was, it was easier to tell Jordan that he was just leaving town than it was to admit that he himself was aware that he’d never be enough. He wasn’t the “cinnamon roll” everyone in Meet Cute Club talked about.
He was an asshole. He was a coward who knew he would only be wasting Jordan's time and effort, were he to stick around. He was his father’s son, and no matter how far he ran or how often he cursed the man, they shared similarities that he would never be able to shake. Indivisibly tied by the tainted blood that ran in both their veins.
“Is this because of what Amy said?” Jordan asked softly. “The boyfriend stuff? I was only joking when I repeated what she said.”
“What? God, no,” Rex groaned. “I just can’t do this anymore, Jordan. I have to focus on what I’m doing. What we had was fun, but it’s time for both of us to be serious. I’m not a good guy, and you’ll never get the happily ever after you get in all of your stupid books.”
That seemed to do the trick. With agonizing satisfaction, Rex watched Jordan’s demeanor change. That painful look on his face cracked, revealing anger beneath the surface.
“I see,” Jordan said. Without another word, he turned and headed back to the house. When Rex grabbed his arm, Jordan jerked back, pointing a finger in his face. “Don't touch me.”
“I—”
“Get the fuck away from me, Rex. Since you don’t want to be here, go! Run away like you said you would. Like your dad said you would. I knew you were an asshole, but I didn’t think you were this cold-hearted.”
“Jordan…”
“You made me actually care about you, and then you tell me it never happened. That’s awesome, Rex. Really, thank you so much for wasting two months of my life that I could’ve been focusing on this club. Thank you for reminding me once again why these books are only fairy tales. For a second, I was starting to think one of those endings would happen for me.”
Jordan choked back a wave of tears, focusing on his anger instead. Rex had come into his life out of nowhere, swearing up and down that he would give this all a chance. Pretending he was worth any of the effort.
“Since you think this club is so stupid and none of it matters, don’t come crawling back here when you realize how much you miss me, Rex. I’ll mail your grandma’s books back to you.”
Rex sighed. “Keep them.”
“I don’t want them. You can donate them yourself. Or just throw them away like the trash you think they are.”
Rex stood with his hands in his pocket, jaw clenched tight as he fought back the urge to say anything else. Jordan deserved to get all this out. He was right. Rex had wasted his time, and these verbal slaps were well-deserved. Still, the shame and guilt made him want to die right there on the spot. Seeing Jordan this torn up drove his instincts to pull the man in his arms and apologize.
But he couldn’t. This had to be final. After he sold the house, he’d be gone. Entertaining the idea that he and Jordan could be together would only make things that much worse when he inevitably fled Sweet Rose one night, months, maybe even years, from now.
“Why are you still standing here?” Jordan asked. “You’re leaving, right? Don’t let me hold you up.”
“Yeah,” was all Rex could get out of his hoarse throat.
“Cool. Now leave. And don’t come back, you hear me? Don’t come back.”
A second later, Jordan slammed the front door closed. Rex pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, fighting back the scream bubbling up in his throat. “Fuck,” he whispered when really, he just wanted to shout. To yell at himself for fucking things up so monumentally. For being the one to have to do this for both of them.
The selfish part of him wanted to bang on the door and apologize. Pull Jordan to his chest and kiss away his tears and tell him that he was stupid for ever thinking he could leave like this. But this was a blessing. A bandage pulled off swiftly, a sharp bit of pain to spare something much more prolonged in the future. He could only hope that if he ever spoke to him again, Jordan would understand why he’d done this. He’d find someone worthy of the unfettered, unabashed joy that Jordan brought the people around him.
Rather than sticking around any longer, Rex grabbed his bike and headed out.
Jordan watched from the window, relieved and heartbroken to see him throw a leg over the motorcycle, start up the engine, and pull away from the curb. Rex was really gone.
The words didn’t quite make sense to him. They were still fresh, foreign in a way. Jordan stood still as a statue in the window, his mind racing and his stomach twisting. The cupcakes from earlier soured in his belly, and he felt the overwhelming urge to throw up. He wanted to grab all of the books from his shelf and toss them to the street. He’d tricked himself into thinking any of that joy was real, that one day, a man like one of the leads would walk into his life and show him that he was worthy of love.
He swiped at the wetness prickling his eyes, laughing bitterly.
“Stupid,” he said, his laugh quieting, wavering until he stopped fighting back the tears. He stood in the window, face held in his hands, body racked with sobs. Despite the forest fire of rage in his stomach, what he wanted more than anything was for Rex to just come back.
Jordan knew he wouldn’t.
Fourteen
Jordan woke before he opened his eyes, and rather than rolling out of bed like he did every other morning, he lay still, listening to the repetitive tick-tock of the clock hanging on his wall. It was steady, never missing a beat. He kept his eyes closed, trying his hardest to let the sound lull him back to sleep. Things were more pleasant in his dreams. Even the nightmares.
As hard as he tried, though, he couldn’t drift off again. He was cursed with consciousness, forced to finally open his eyes and stare up at the blank white ceiling. When he turned to face the clock, he felt a jolt. Nearly ten o’clock on a Saturday, and he was just now waking up. Any other weekend, he’d be in a panic, running around trying to get ready before the meeting. This morning, he couldn’t find the strength to care.
He could barely muster up the energy to roll over and grab his phone from the nightstand. There, he found two missed calls from Charles, as well as a few texts from the other members.
Is the club meeting today?
Jordan?
Hello?
He couldn’t do it.
For a moment, he considered strong-arming himself into crawling to the shower, but what was the point? If he wasn’t going to be as enthusiastic as he usually was, they might as well all sta
y home. The remaining three club members deserved better than that.
Three.
That was all he had left. When he’d first met Rex, he was at least making things work, but now two were gone, and he was sure that soon, the others would follow. Rather than watching helplessly, he decided then and there that he’d say something.
No meeting today, he texted back, then put the phone on silent and tossed it to the floor.
He knew shortly the phone would be blowing up with calls, everyone asking what was wrong and why he hadn’t responded sooner. It was shitty to leave them all hanging, but what was shittier was the fact that despite all the texts he’d received, none of them had been from Rex. By now, Jordan had expected the man to come crawling back, begging and pleading for forgiveness. He’d have eventually realized how big of a mistake it was to dump him and the club.
But Rex was gone. He was really gone, not just “I’m making a bad decision and I’ll regret this soon enough” gone. Jordan knew he’d have better luck trying to turn water to wine than get a response from Rex. The thought made his chest ache and his stomach sink, but he refused to cry anymore. Crying achieved nothing, and it only made him exhausted afterwards. The best thing would be to do something to get his mind off Rex’s absence.
Fill the empty holes in his schedule with people he cared about.
Sherleen.
She was the reason he tossed aside his covers and nearly dragged himself to the shower to clean up. As shameful as it was to admit, Jordan hadn’t showered since his job interview on Tuesday afternoon. There’d been no reason to since he’d stayed firmly planted in bed, head buried under his pillow as he fought off every little reminder of Rex.
He couldn’t even stomach looking at his bookshelf downstairs. It took all his mental fortitude not to swipe the shelves clean and toss every last romance book in the trash. He didn’t care about his collection anymore. Somehow, Rex had wormed his way into the one safe haven Jordan had, a parasite in what he’d once considered paradise.
Though he wanted nothing more than to get rid of the books, he refused to let someone have that power over him. He’d been in love with love before Rex had ever stepped foot in his life. Now that he was gone, he wouldn’t let Rex take this piece of joy with him on his way out. Not after all the hours he’d put into the club, and the years he’d spent, nose deep in the pages of every book in his collection.
After his shower, he pulled a baggy hoodie and jeans on, grabbing his phone from the floor and dialing Sherleen’s number. She answered immediately, eager to go shopping with him at McDaniel’s Grocery. She was in desperate need of some of her favorite Minute Maid juice, and she wouldn’t stop bugging him until he agreed to take her.
Waiting in his car outside of the nursing home, Jordan glanced to his left. Only a block away stood the towering building he’d had his interview at. The place was incredibly stuffy, and he wasn’t going to be much more than a glorified secretary for Snapdragon Energy. The company wasn’t much, just a smaller corporation that provided power to a section of Sweet Rose, but it was better than nothing. Being proactive gave him something to do other than wallow away in his emotions, and it didn’t hurt that he’d finally have another job.
“Hey, baby,” Sherleen said as she put her walker in the back of his car. She closed the back door and climbed into the passenger’s seat, reaching over to give his hand a squeeze. “You look good. How you been?”
He forced a smile and shrugged. “I’ve been.”
“It’ll be okay, Jordan.”
He desperately wanted to believe it, even to the point that he was willing to ignore the fact that people couldn’t just walk out of lives without leaving an impact. If possible, he would’ve deluded himself to help ease the pain. But that wasn’t the kind of person he was. He was realistic, and realistically, this would take time. How long, he wasn’t certain, but he knew for a fact that these things never ended as painlessly as people hoped.
“Let’s go,” he said, changing the subject and pulling away from the curb. Sherleen’s somber brown eyes examined him, but thankfully, she said nothing.
Saturdays seemed to be the busiest at McDaniel’s, which was fine by Jordan. The more time he spent out of the house and around other people, the better. He followed Sherleen up and down the aisles shopping for groceries, only slipping away to pick up a few things he needed for himself. He stepped up to the deli to find Tony behind the counter like usual.
“There the kid is,” he said with a toothy smile. “I was starting to wonder where you were at.”
“Last week got busy,” Jordan lied, trying his damnedest to keep his voice chipper. “Can I get the usual?”
“Honey-baked and cheddar, coming up.”
Jordan pushed his cart over to the lobster tank nearby, leaning forward to watch as the creatures all scuttled over one another. He found them to be quite creepy-looking, but in the kind of way he could never stop staring at. But like all things lately, watching the crustaceans immediately made him think of what Rex had ordered at the restaurant.
Internally groaning, he thanked Tony for his order and headed off to find his grandmother. Much to his disappointment, she stood in the book section, flipping through a paperback that had just arrived. He approached apprehensively, holding back the urge to roll his eyes at all the happy couples embracing on the covers.
“This one looks interesting,” Sherleen said, holding up a book with a Black couple. “I don’t know when they started putting us on the front of these, but I like it.”
“Wasn’t too long ago, unfortunately.”
“Well, I say you read this for your next meeting. He’s a cop, and she’s the sole witness to a murder that took place in the wealthy part of town. And apparently, he’s got all kinds of Southern charm.”
“Honestly, I don’t know if I’m even doing the club anymore.”
The smile on Sherleen’s face fell, and she put a hand on her hip. “What are you talking about?”
“Nobody cares anymore, Grandma. People keep leaving, and I really just don’t give a damn about these books anymore.”
The way she narrowed her eyes at him made Jordan shift on his feet and look away, far too uncomfortable to deal with her menacing glare. “Jordan, stop playing with me. This is all you talk about. You’re not going to give it all up just because some boy said he didn’t want to be part of it anymore.”
“It’s not just that,” he said with exasperation. Yes, it was a sizeable chunk, but that wasn’t the only reason. “I can’t keep wasting my time reading these things. First of all, it gets expensive having to buy five paperbacks every week.”
“You don’t have to buy that many, you want to.”
“Anyway,” he said, moving past her interjection. “I’ve been looking for jobs, too. I have a second interview with Snapdragon tomorrow, and I really think I could have that secured. I don’t have time to be wasting on stupid stories that all end the same. I’d rather spend my time doing something productive.”
Sherleen’s lips pulled into a flat line, and she put the book back on the shelf. “Hm.”
God. Jordan knew that “hm.” When she had nothing nice to say, Sherleen would often respond with a simple “hm” and get back to business. He wanted to insist that this was a good thing, but he doubted she would listen. Her mind was already made up.
Whether she liked it or not, Jordan knew he had to hang it up for now. It was time to be an adult and drop the hopeless romantic act, at least until he was once more employed and able to afford spending so much on books that pitched a fantasy to him that he was certain wouldn’t come true.
“If there’s anything else you need to know about the place, please don’t hesitate to call me, Jalisa,” Rex said, grabbing his pen and underlining a few important details he’d need to remember.
He’d been on the phone with Jalisa for the past half hour going over everything involving a potential buyer. The house was nearly finished, save for a few boxes up in the attic th
at he planned on tackling after the call. Soon, this house would be gone, and with it, all of the memories.
It was bittersweet in a way, really. Rex had never been the kind of person that found places or objects sentimental. In his mind, those things could be taken away or lost. He placed importance on experiences rather than tokens. He couldn’t lose an experience once he went through it, and he would always be able to come back to it in his mind.
That’s why it was surprising how down he felt about the idea of someone else living in Nana Bailey’s home. She’d owned it for forty years before she passed away. His father had been raised in the house, and when things between him and Alan got bad, he was also raised here. It felt like giving up a piece of their history.
Alan didn’t want the house, though. Rex didn’t need it. Not when he had plans to leave and travel the country again. Amy was just starting her life in a new apartment for the first time, and his mother had only recently finished payments on her own home. Nobody needed Nana Bailey’s home the same way they all had years ago.
That was the part that struck him the hardest. She was really gone, and they were moving on without her. It felt wrong in a way. She’d done her part in raising not one but two generations, and somehow, selling the home felt like giving up all her hard work. As tempting as it was to head down that road, Rex cleared his throat and finished up his conversation with his real estate agent.
“Sounds great. I’ll contact you tomorrow with some more information about the buyer, how does that work for you?” she asked.
“Perfect. And if you can’t reach me, you have my email as well.”
After the call, Rex leaned back in his seat and looked around the kitchen. The room was as empty as every other room in the house, minus the air mattress he slept on upstairs. After the nightmare of last Saturday, he’d gone into a state of hyperfocus, burying himself in work to get his mind off of Jordan. The sooner he got the hell out of dodge, the easier this would all be.