I was almost sick.
I fought to keep myself professional, acknowledged him with a crisp wave of my hand, and tried not to call for Hadley. I can handle him myself.
He leaned against the counter as I finished with my customer. From the corner of my eye I could see the easy confidence in his stance, the heavy muscle that could move as quick as a cat if provoked. He was relaxed, at ease, as if he had nothing in the world to fear. I should envy that, instead I found myself remembering the way his lips slid against mine, the sheer strength of his body when I’d been pressed against him.
My cheeks burned pink as Jordan replaced my happy customer. His presence knocked me so left of center, that I fumbled with the paper as I tore off his sale receipt. I mentally cursed him for making me tremble, for leaving me so flustered I couldn’t think. This wasn’t like me, I wasn’t the girl that went all jittery because the guy she liked was standing right in front of her. Damn him. Damn him for making me that girl, time and again.
I refused to admit I was afraid he’d be angry with
me.
The fear didn’t leave me worried that he’d
physically hurt me. No, I feared that when I looked at him, I’d see the same look I’d seen in his eyes when he’d told me to go that day. I couldn’t bear it twice in one lifetime.
I gathered the bottles with trembling hands and spoke to the counter, hating myself for the way my voice cracked. “Did you leave the empties in the back with Aiden?”
“Are you going to look at me?” The tone in his voice was placating, calmed enough that I brought my gaze to his, curious as to what I would see there in place of the anger I’d feared.
“Ow, shit!” I banged my leg on the counter, the metal cylinder I’d been carrying slipping from my grasp.
Proving how fast the bulk of him could move, Jordan was suddenly around the counter kneeling in front of me. The dropped bottle cradled in his hands. It never hit the ground.
“Thanks.” I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. His face wasn’t hard and unforgiving as I feared it would be. Instead, it was as calm as his voice. It was his eyes that threw me off. The rejection I’d feared wasn’t visible.
His eyes were darker than a moonless night and teeming with something I couldn’t place. It was an emotion that terrified me more than the violence I’d seen in his eyes on race night, more than the rejection I’d been so afraid of.
“That left a mark.” Carefully, he set the bottle on the ground and reached for my leg. The warm pad of his thumb brushed across the scrape at the bottom of my knee. Every part of my being responded to the simple touch. My trembling hands fisted to still the rapid beating of my heart. The tenderness in his voice was one reserved for someone cherished. I had to close
my eyes against the feeling it brought to my chest. If I could have, I’d have crossed my legs against the way his voice rumbled right through me, steeping me in forbidden arousal. “Put something on that.”
“And the other bottle.” I managed to pass it to him as he stood. I took a step back when he stepped closer to me. I felt it, I know he did too, that magnetic pull that always seemed to be there when we stood too close.
“Now you’re running away from me?” His voice was strained. Was it pain I heard, rejection even? Surely not, not from the almighty Jordan Slater.
It was inconceivable to me that Jordan would see my retreat as rejection. As that’s what I had done without realizing it. I had retreated across the counter without handing him the receipt. “N…n…o,” I stammered. “It’s not that I—”
“I’m sorry, Raelynn.” His hand reached out to mine and drew back before making contact. His lips formed a thin line as he dipped his head.
I’d expected a lot from him but not an apology. “For what?” I couldn’t look at him, not then, not
when I could barely contain the trembles that still shook my hands. I couldn’t hide what I was feeling from Jordan. If he could see my face, he could see right through me. I focused instead on the white material of the t-shirt that was stretched snug across his chest. His muscles were tight with tension, as if he, too, barely held himself together.
“For a lot of things. For last night, for knocking that smile off your face when I came in, making you drop stuff, stutter, all of it. I’ll see you later.” He rubbed a hand down his face and shook his head. Then with a
slap of his fist to the counter, he took the receipt and the bottles and headed out the door.
He left me standing there, staring at the strength in his retreating back. I was more confused now than I’d been since I’d been home. My stomach twisted and my chest ached. I had to fight to draw breath. There were no bad memories, not even in my own twisted ball of pain and longing. Where Jordan was, no one else existed, not even Caleb and the pain he’d brought.
“Seriously, Raelynn? You’re going to stand there and let him walk out like that?” Hadley seemed to pop up out of the nowhere that was her office.
She was right. I was moving even as the door swung shut behind him. It wasn’t Jordan that left me all out of sorts but me all on my own. I couldn’t place him anymore, in neither spot he’d occupied in my life. One minute I wanted him so badly I could barely function and the next, I wanted everything to be how it had been before.
“Jordan!”
He turned from where he slid the bottles into the back of his work truck. “Yeah?”
“I—” I stopped a few feet from him, even though I wanted to throw myself into his arms. “I’m sorry too.”
The grin was slow and sincere as it spread. “Yeah, well.”
“It wouldn’t work between us, would it?” Even after all this time, after all the things that I’d put myself through, I was still that teenage girl standing in his driveway begging him to want me. But, if he didn’t, then I’d know where to place him, where he fit in.
“Probably not.” His voice echoed with a sort of ache that shook me more than I cared for.
“This sucks.” I wrapped my arms around myself like it was cold outside. It wasn’t, but it felt as if ice- water was coursing through me.
“It does.” For a long moment, we just watched each other. So many things we should both say hung in the air between us. Finally, Jordan gave a roll of his shoulders and a sad smile. He climbed into his truck and closed the door. I had to admit to a rush of relief with that barrier in place.
I saw that same look of longing in his eyes again and my breath caught. It was what I’d wanted to see that day long ago, what I’d dreamed of seeing since I understood what that feeling could mean. “Later.” I forced out though my mouth had gone dry. I waved once and retreated inside.
Where Jordan was concerned, I didn’t know what to do or what to feel. I was a hot mess. I was shattered.