“Thanks. I know it’s not some mansion in Beverly Hills with a pool or anything, but we love it. It’s got a big yard, plenty of room and Maysie has her whirlpool bathtub. We’re happy.” He flipped on the kitchen light and opened the refrigerator and offered me a beer.
I took it and popped the cap, tossing it into the red and white checked trashcan that Maysie obviously picked out. “So what brings you to our neck of the woods? Didn’t I just see your sorry ass this morning?” he asked, tipping back his beer and drinking most of it in one gulp.
He was right. I had just seen him this morning when he came by with more donuts from Maysie. We had tried to jam a bit but with the looming weight of our impending call with Pirate, neither of us was in much of a mood to play.
“Just doing some thinking. Thought I’d come by and check out the new digs,” I remarked offhandedly, sitting down on one of the stools at the island.
“You’ve got that line between your eyebrows. You must be thinking pretty hard then,” Jordan observed with amusement.
“Wrinkles are a dead giveaway, huh?”
“Yep. ’Fraid so. They give you a way every time. Your brow gets all furrowed and you look like your channeling your inner Luke Perry. It’s very angsty,” Jordan stated blandly and I tossed his beer cap at his face. It bounced off his cheek and rolled onto the floor, where he promptly picked it up and threw it away.
“Maysie would have ripped you a new one if she had found it, huh?” I deduced and Jordan made a cutting motion across his throat with his finger.
“I would have been a dead man.”
“Oh how times have changed, Piper,” I chuckled, purposefully using his old nickname. A nickname that didn’t carry any weight anymore. He wasn’t the Pied Piper of Pussy anymore. He was a one * dude.
Jordan cupped the back of his neck and looked around the brightly decorated kitchen, a look of disbelief on his face. “If you had told me four years ago that I’d be living in a Cape Cod with a white fence out front about to become a dad, I would have laughed in your face.”
I sputtered and almost choked on my mouthful of beer. I quickly swallowed and wiped my lips with the back of my hand. “Hold up right there! What did you just say?”
Jordan grabbed another couple of beers from the refrigerator and laid them on the counter. “Maysie’s pregnant.”
My eyes almost bugged out of my head. “Fucking hell! Are you serious? How long have you known?”
This changed absolutely everything. And from the look on Jordan’s face he knew that too.
“Two weeks. Maysie took a test right after she got back from the concert in Norfolk.” Jordan took a sip of his beer. “That’s why we wanted to move in here. We needed the room. We wanted a place to raise a family. We wanted a home.”
I slowly peeled the paper off my bottle. “So what does that mean for the Rejects then?”
I knew the answer. He didn’t have to tell me. I saw it written all over his face. Jordan Levitt may look like a tatted up badass but when it came to Maysie, he was nothing but heart. He loved that woman. And now he was going to be a dad. That turned his world—and by association ours—on its head.
“Maysie’s been awesome about the band. She’s been completely supportive—” Jordan began.
“She’s been great. We couldn’t have done it without her. Especially in the beginning.” And it was true. She had been integral in marketing the Rejects and getting our names out there. Before we had a manager she set up interviews, worked with my cousin Josh to get gigs. She was our one-woman publicity powerhouse.
And after we had started to get big, she stayed on the tour, providing all of us the moral support we needed to keep going. She wasn’t just Jordan’s girlfriend, then fiancé. She was our friend.