CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Are you sure you don’t mind me driving your very expensive car?” Jordan asked me as he adjusted the seat.
“I don’t mind.” I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes. I was beyond exhausted from keeping up with Bentley’s perfection–demanding coaching. And the battles with Stevie hadn’t stopped all week since Tuesday’s vault practice with Patrick. Tonight, she did her tucked full on high beam again for the first time in well over a year. And I did five on high beam. My chest was low on the last two and Stacey sent me back to the white tape line, probably on Bentley’s orders. That seemed to be his style. If you made the same mistake a few times in a row after being corrected, instead of yelling at you to get your ass in gear, he sent you back a step to do drills or more lead–up. But if you were screwing up and making different mistakes, he usually would let you keep trying. That was what had happened with the Jaeger on bars last Friday. I kept making changes but just not getting it yet. Until I did get it. Which he hadn’t so much as cheered about once since then. It was all about the handstands, and I’d done dozens of extra bar routines this week all because of those damn handstands.
“You look tired,” Jordan said. “Are you sure you want to go out tonight?”
I smiled at him. “Positive. Where are we going?”
“I just figured we’d park somewhere and make out in the backseat,” he said as he put my car in reverse. My eyes must have gotten huge because he laughed really hard. “Jesus, I’m kidding. We’re going bowling.”
“I don’t think I’ve been bowling since I was old enough to stop using the bumper things.”
“I know. Blair told me.”
Butterflies flapped inside my stomach. I didn’t know why I was so nervous. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been alone with Jordan. It just seemed like forever since I’d kissed him, and he was acting so formal and official.
Once we got to the bowling alley, Jordan left me with old smelly bowling shoes while he went to order us some food, returning a few minutes later.
After eating at the end of the bowling lane, we were finally ready to play. I picked out a heavy pink ball.
“Do not drop that on your toe,” Jordan instructed, standing behind me.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Thanks, Coach.”
The ball was tossed down the lane after it landed with a ground–shaking thud. It rolled into the gutter before reaching the halfway point.
“Nice try…” Jordan said.
I gave him a shove toward the lane. “Okay, go ahead if you’re so good.”
“You get two turns, Karen.”
I managed to knock a few pins down on my second turn and got better with each one that followed. After two games, we were back in the car.
“There’s a play at my school at eight,” Jordan said, adjusting the mirror. “It’s kind of lame, but we could probably make it in time if you want?”
A school play? That could be an item for a Normal Teenage Activity Checklist. “What’s the play?”
“Some twisted version of The Wizard of Oz, I think.” He grinned at me and I didn’t have any answer except yes.
***
“I got that the wicked witch is the old man, but what’s the deal with the kids dressed as birds?”
Jordan laughed and guided me outside of the school building. “No idea. That was the weirdest play I’ve ever seen and it’s only intermission. No wonder I haven’t been to a school theater performance in nearly four years.”
“The head old man has a great voice,” I pointed out.
“He’s the choir director,” Jordan said, laughing even harder. “He’s not even a student. I think they ran out of students to fill all the roles. They kept announcing all these additional auditions after the initial one, so I kind of figured they were hunting for more people.”
“Well,” I said. “I bet the choir is very good.”
“They are, actually.” He nodded toward a different building across the grounds. “Want to skip the rest of the show and I’ll give you a tour?”
“Sure.” I stuffed my hands inside my pockets, enjoying the nearly forty–degree weather—a nice shift from the freezing temperatures in February. Jordan walked me around, pointing out buildings and telling me funny stories. I think I could have walked that campus all night, but eventually he stopped in front of a building that had windows lit up all over the place.
“Dorm,” he said.
“Ah…where the meningitis lurks.”
He glanced around, looking nervous all of a sudden. “Do you want to go in? I have the key to my old room.”
“Doesn’t someone live there?” I bit my lip, staring over his shoulder, not wanting to look him in the eye.
“They’re both home for the weekend. They don’t care if we hang out there.”
“Okay,” I said, even though I wasn’t quite ready to decide yet. It seemed silly to stand outside and contemplate something that probably wasn’t a big deal to Jordan at all.
He removed a card from his wallet and stuck it inside the slot on the door. We walked through a hall with boys milling around everywhere. Several waved and said hi to Jordan, but no one looked too surprised to see him or said anything about me coming in with him.
Before I could even absorb this hallway, Jordan was leading me into a small dorm room and closing the door. A twin bed sat on each side of the room, blue comforters neatly spread over them. I recognized the uniforms hanging in the closet since they were identical to the ones I’d seen Jordan wear every day to school. At the end of each bed sat a desk.
I shuffled around the room, picking up random objects and looking them over—trophies and scrap paper, anything to keep me busy and keep me from biting my nails. My hands had even started to shake.
“We can go if you want.”
I turned around to face Jordan. He looked like the most vulnerable, worried boy ever, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his eyes not meeting mine. Then he finally did look at me and let out a long sigh. “I’m totally giving you the wrong idea here, aren’t I?”
“Kind of.” I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. “I’m just nervous, I guess.”
My admission seemed to give him confidence, because he stepped closer and took one of my hands. “Just tell me what to do, Karen. I like us. I really like us. And I don’t want to screw it up.” He smiled at me. “In fact, if you could just give me a list of all the possible ways that I can screw this up, that would be extremely helpful.”
Feeling brave all of a sudden, I took a step in his direction, closing the gap between us. “I’d say it would be an epic failure on your part if you brought me all the way here and didn’t even kiss me at least once.”
“That…” He placed a hand on the back of my neck. “…was a great line.”
I looked up at him and laughed. “It was, wasn’t it? I’m pretty proud of myself.”
He kissed me on the mouth, leaving his lips there for several seconds, long enough for me to want them there even longer. But then he pulled me down onto one of the beds and we lay shoulder–to–shoulder on top of the covers, our heads at the bottom and feet propped up on the pillows. “This is why I brought you here. I just wanted to be able to relax and not worry about anyone else. Not because I wanted to—”
“Have wild animal sex in someone else’s dorm room bed?” I finished for him.
“I can’t believe you just said that.” He laughed again and turned his head. We were so close together, I could feel his breath landing on my cheek. “What’s going on with you and my dad this week? I’ve avoided asking because I assumed you didn’t want to stick me in the middle and you probably didn’t want to talk about it in the house, yes?”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” I admitted. “It’s like suddenly nothing is good enough for him. I’m so tired—mentally and physically—I’m leaving the gym after every practice with nothing left and it’s so hard and I just don’t know…” I covered my face and groaned.
Jordan rolled on his side and tugged my hands away. “Sorry I asked. New subject? Something we can’t talk about unless we’re alone. I want to take advantage of the situation.”
I snorted back a laugh and Jordan rolled his eyes. “Not that kind of taking advantage. Jesus, you have a dirtier mind than I do, and that’s saying a lot.”
I relaxed again and let my mind wrap itself around my current situation and what else I needed to know about Jordan Bentley. “You know how you said that I could ask you anything?”
“Uh–huh…and?” He twirled a piece of my hair around his finger like he had that night at Stevie’s, watching the red wind and unwind against his pale skin.
“About those two people…” I fought the urge to close my eyes so I didn’t have to look at him. “Who? And when?”
“Last summer,” he said, still watching my hair on his finger. “This girl that I worked with at camp, Liberty. We dated pretty much the whole time we were there and then at the end of the summer—”
“Right.” I cut him off before he could add on any descriptions. “But you broke up with her, right?”
“We sort of tried the long–distance thing but it didn’t work. She’s from Canada and a year older.”
“And the other person?”
“Just this girl, Alex. I met her at one of Tony’s parties. She goes to school somewhere in St. Louis.”
“You met her once and then—” I stopped after seeing his guard go up.
He dropped the hair from his finger and set his hand down beside me. “I met her a few times before, but it was stupid and honestly very awkward. I think both of us would run if we saw each other again.”
“So when you said two people,” I asked, “you actually meant, like, two times?”
“Correct.” He leaned down and touched his forehead to mine. “There’re a lot of things I haven’t done before.”
“Like what?” It slipped out before I could stop it.
Jordan kissed me quickly on the mouth and laughed. “Do you really want me to tell you? Like a detailed answer?”
I nodded, feeling my face heat up.
“Well,” he said, pulling back a little. “I’ve never been naked with anyone before. Like totally naked.”
“You can have sex without being naked?”
He flopped onto his back again and I took that as my cue to scoot over and prop myself up on my elbow, giving him more room. He didn’t have enough hair to twirl, but I could run my fingers through it. He closed his eyes when my hand landed in his hair and let out a tiny sigh. “Yes…you can have sex without being naked. Liberty was pretty weird about leaving her bra on all the time.”
“What else haven’t you done?” I brushed my fingers over his cheek, trying to cover every inch of his skin, checking for any of the stubble that seemed to require him to shave daily. But his skin was super smooth.
“I’m not going to list the crazy porno stuff,” he said.
“Good,” I said with a laugh. “Next non–crazy, non–porno thing?”
“Oral sex.”
My whole body stiffened, hearing Jordan say something aloud that I hadn’t even begun to be able to visualize, let alone think about actually doing. “What else?”
“I’ve never kissed the same person long enough to get really good at it. With me and Liberty, once we moved on to third base, she wasn’t actually into kissing much. Honestly, we weren’t alone very often, and she liked us looking cute in front of people for the sake of looking cute in front of people. She was actually kind of bitchy when we were alone. I don’t even know why I liked her. Maybe I just wanted to give the girlfriend thing a try, since I hadn’t before her.”
“I can definitely see how you would look cute in front of people.” I combed my fingers through his hair again, making it stick up in the front. “You’ve got this boy–band look going on. You know, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to talk to you the first time we met.”
“I have two confessions to make.” He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, then moved them back to meet mine. “Make that three confessions.”
“Should we go in the chapel?”
“Actually, it’s four now, and right here is fine. The chapel makes me nervous.” He grabbed my hand and stopped it from moving through his hair. “First off, that is making me crazy. Way too crazy to think straight.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but he shook his head at me. “Still got three more. Number two…I might have kidnapped a pair of your panties. They’re pink and they ended up in my laundry and I’m keeping them. I don’t care what you say.”
I must have looked totally shocked because he pressed a finger to my lips, not letting me speak until he finished. “Number three…the first time I met you, I called you the wrong name on purpose. I knew exactly who you were. I watched you at Nationals last year. And since I know you’re going to ask, I thought you were really great but playing it safe and I also thought you were underscored in execution. But when I found out my dad would be coaching you all the time, and then when I found out you were moving in, I was hoping you would turn out to be a big whining brat or a total bitch so I could hate you and not be jealous of all the time you got to spend with my dad.”
My heart sank. I pressed both palms against his cheeks. “Jordan, I’m sorry. I can’t—”
He reached up and smoothed my hair back behind my ears. “It’s okay. I’m at the gym almost every day now, too. That’s not why I told you that. And I have a number four, remember?”
I forced a smile. “Okay, number four.”
He let out a breath. “I met your mom.”
“What? When?”
“Right before Christmas,” he said. “I came into the gym to tell Dad that I was back from school and she was in a meeting in his office.”
I pulled away from him just a little. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out my car keys, actually my mom’s car keys, flashing a tiny photo of me and Mom at the Grand Canyon last summer dangling from my keys. “I didn’t know it was her until I saw this tonight.”
“What were they talking about? Was I there? Did you say anything to her?” I didn’t know why, but it felt like this little revelation was a piece of my mother that hadn’t died with the rest of her.
“I don’t know what they were talking about, and I’m pretty sure you weren’t there because she left by herself,” he said. “She saw me waiting outside the office door and she stopped and looked me over and said, ‘You must be Coach Bentley’s son.’”
“She was really good at pairing people up, like parents and kids,” I said, fighting off tears. Jordan met my mom. It felt like a sign. Like we were tangled together in more ways than we thought possible. And looking down at him, I wanted to actually be tangled together. It just seemed so right and not nearly as scary as it had a few minutes ago.
He must have been thinking the same thing (of course he was thinking the same thing, he’s a guy) because he reached up and pulled my mouth down to his. I understood what he meant now about getting good at kissing by practicing on the same person because we had a lot of head bumping and teeth bumping. And eventually, Jordan rolled me over and held the sides of my face and he slowed everything down. There was no more bumping and it felt so good it made me dizzy and breathless. I loved the feel of his weight on me, and even when his hand slid under the back of my shirt, it was the best feeling ever—his fingers drifting over my bare skin. I was starting to understand why the naked thing was on his to–do list.
After a while, I didn’t even know how long because I’d been completely lost as far as time went, Jordan lifted his head from my neck. “We have to go soon.”
“Yeah, probably.” My hands were under his shirt now, moving up and down his back, feeling all the muscles and skin. I wanted to keep touching forever.
Jordan sighed and then kissed me one more time before sliding off the bed. He reached for my hands and lifted me to my feet. He held me at arm’s length and looked me over. “You have make–out hair.”
I tried to comb my fingers through my hair and Jordan waited patiently until I dropped my arms to my sides, satisfied. “Um, okay?”
He looked me over once more and pulled the hem of my shirt down, smoothing it straight. “That’s better. Let’s go home.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea, considering the five–hour practice I have tomorrow.” I held Jordan’s hand as we left the room and he locked everything back up again. The hallways were pretty clear when we walked through again.
Jordan stayed quiet for the first half of the drive home, and when he finally spoke he said, “I don’t want to sneak around with you. I mean, we’re not telling my dad or anything, but no more pretending you’re at Stevie’s when you’re actually with me. It just makes everything seem worse than it really is.”
I stared at the side of his face, feeling so warm and perfect inside this car with the memory of his hands and mouth on me still fresh in my mind. “Good idea.”
“Eventually—like someday way, way in the future—we might want to tell him, and it seems better if he knew we were hanging out together and it just kind of turned into more.”
“Well, that’s the truth, isn’t it?”
He peeled his eyes from the road and looked at me for a second before picking up my hand and playing with my fingers. “That’s the truth for sure, but the truth is sometimes the hardest thing for people to believe.”
“Like it might be easier to believe that the coach’s son took advantage of an innocent young girl?” I asked.
Even in the dark I could see his jaw tighten. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“I’d never let that happen, Jordan.”
“I know.” He flashed me a grin. “And I really do need that list of all my potential screwups.”
“I’ll get right on that.” I relaxed back into the seat and closed my eyes. “That was a great first date. Really great.”
His fingers touched the back of my neck, rubbing it gently. “You look so tired. Want me to ask my dad to go a little easier on you?”
“Why? So I can look like a loser in Chicago? No way.”
He laughed. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”
When we pulled into the town house complex parking lot, I could see a large figure sitting on the front steps. “Who—?” I started to say as Jordan cut the engine, eyes squinting into the dark.
“Tony,” he answered, letting out a frustrated breath.
“You don’t want to see him?” I asked, wondering if he’d had a fight with him or something or if my talking to Tony alone at that party last weekend bothered Jordan more than he let on. I grabbed his arm to stop him from getting out of the car. “Jordan?”
He turned to face me, looking distracted, his gaze darting sideways toward the front stoop. “Yeah?”
“I asked Tony to find out from his mom where my parents’ accident happened,” I blurted out before I could change my mind. “That’s what we were talking about at his house last weekend.”
Jordan looked completely bewildered, like he was processing too many things at once. “It’s not that. Tony’s just dealing with some shit at home and if he’s here at nearly midnight, it’s not a good sign.”
Now it was my turn to be surprised. “Oh, well, I’ll go hide out in my room so you guys can talk.”
Jordan nodded but didn’t say anything. And when we got close enough to really see Tony, his red–rimmed eyes were the first thing I noticed. I immediately squirmed, if only on the inside. It seemed out of place and awkward for a big guy like Tony to be crying.
Jordan just stepped around him and unlocked the door, letting me pass through first. “You staying over, man?”
“Yeah.”
Even though I wanted nothing to do with watching Tony shed another tear, I was still pretty curious about his drama. Not that I knew him all that well, but so far I had gotten the impression that he was one of those people who was happy all the time. Maybe it was girl drama? But Jordan had said he was dealing with stuff at home. Like family drama. Obviously recurring family drama, if Jordan already knew what was wrong.
Bentley sat on the couch, a stack of papers piled on the coffee table along with his laptop. “Tony,” he said, giving the big guy a nod. “Oh! Hey, Jordy, can you give me that formula again for the budget spreadsheet?”
Jordan turned around slowly, his eyebrows lifted. “You used my spreadsheet? Is it working?”
“Uh–huh,” Bentley said, hitting keys on his laptop. “Well, it was, until I accidently deleted a column.”
I almost smiled at the look on Jordan’s face, a cross between shock and pride. He sat down beside Bentley on the couch and pulled the laptop toward him.
Bentley paused to glance up at me and Tony. “There’s lasagna in the fridge from Mrs. Garrett if either of you are hungry.”
“Sweet!” Tony said, thumping across the wood floors toward the kitchen.
I left all of them alone to have their different bonding time and put on my PJs and got into bed. I could hear Jordan and Tony playing video games in the living room right before I fell asleep a little after midnight.
Jordan,
Here’s your list:
Potential Ways You Can Screw Up Jaren
Stop saying and doing things that make me like you more every day.
I’m not even sure #1 is applicable because I already like you enough to keep me going for a very long time.
I refuse to list any typical boyfriend screwups or human screwups in general (cheating, murder, becoming a sociopath, etc.…) because we are beyond that. Not that those things are forgivable, but I already know you well enough to know that you won’t do anything like that.
We really don’t need this list at all.
Love, Karen
P.S. Everybody screws up sometimes. Mistakes aren’t always deal–breakers.
P.P.S Did you tell Liberty you loved her? Have you ever told anyone that before?