Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Um, sir, please step away from the baby, sir…Beau, whoever you are.”
“Away!” Maisie repeats.
The big guy chuckles and rises. “Hi. Jordan’s brother. He told me to come introduce myself.”
Fifty shades of red. The embarrassment is all over my face.
Grimacing. “Hi! Sorry. I am so sorry, I’m––”
“Riley,” he says beating me to it. “Jordan told me to come over and check on how you’re doing.” He takes a seat in the folding chair next to me.
“Fine. I’m fine. We’re fine.” I feed Maisie another watermelon cube.
Jordan never mentions his family. I wouldn’t even know he has a mother if she wasn’t always in his face. “Jordan didn’t mention his brother was going to be here.”
“Jordan doesn’t mention anything unless you put him in a chokehold,” Beau is quick to explain. I like this guy. He’s laid-back with a sharp wit and an easy smile.
“Yeah, I don’t think that would work for me.”
Two women walk past us and make eyes at Beau, the man sitting next to me as if I don’t exist. Chew on that. I wanted to be invisible so I guess I got what I wanted.
“Don’t you love these things?” he says, smiling, two big dimples dead center on each cheek.
“Not at all. You?”
“Hate them. I rarely come, but I was in town.”
He doesn’t strike me as the type to hang with the silver spoon set. He’s the type I could see fishing on a small boat that he restored himself. A lover of nature type.
“You don’t you live here?”
Beau smiles, looks off at the polo players racing across the lawn. “No. Florida Keys. Near my dad.”
Which would make sense why I’ve never seen him. Another crumb of information to store away like a squirrel with a nut. “So he’s always been like this?”
“Mostly…less so before he got sick.”
Sick?
You know that feeling when an elevator suddenly drops? That suspended, I’m-going-to-crash-and-it’s-going-to-hurt feeling? That’s what’s going on right now. The wind is knocked out of my lungs.
“Before he got sick?”
“Jordan had cancer when he was a teenager.” Beau examines my face. “You didn’t know?”
“Out!” Maisie demands, now done with her feast.
Beau springs into action, unbuckling her stroller strap. Meanwhile, I’m in a state of stunned paralysis as I try to come to grips with what he just told me. Other than my heart beating rapidly and my lungs expanding with shallow breaths, I cannot move.
Jordan had cancer? Jordan had cancer. Jordan was sick. Which follows the logical conclusion. Jordan could die.
I’ve been here before. I’ve done this already. Memories from my dad’s illness surface, spill over, tainting my mood. Ruining everything. All the horrible treatments he endured like a champ when he was in so much pain he could hardly speak. The hospitals. The smells. My mother crying. The crying. So much crying. The priest coming over to issue last rites.
Jordan’s fine, he’s okay, he’s alive, my mind justifies. Jordan is healthy now. But I can’t calm the panic. The panic stays with me.
“Are you okay?” His question snaps me out of deep thought, slowly pulling me out of my misery. He looks worried.
“Yeah, I’m just…surprised.”
“Out!”
“I’ll get ya, pretty girl,” Beau tells her, smiling sweetly.
Maisie goes willingly to him, her little arms raised high in the air. What a shameless flirt.
“Hello, I’m John.”
I glance up to see a big burly-looking man approaching. He looks more like Beau than Jordan, the resemblance uncanny.
“You must be Jordan’s father.” I stand and offer my hand, self-conscious with all the attention on me now. I’m still completely shook over the news that Jordan had cancer.
“Nice to meet you Riley,” he says, gripping it. “Jordan speaks highly of you. He says you saved him from getting mugged? Is that true?”
“Oh, I didn’t save him…he still got mugged. I just helped get him home.”
“She did, Dad,” Jordan’s voice comes from somewhere behind me. “She’s just being modest.”
My face goes up in flames. Between all the attention, and the news, and Jordan being so unJordan today I’m pretty messed up right now. His family is being so nice to me I don’t know what to do with myself. Technically, I’m the help. And they’re treating me like I’m something more.
“Don’t believe a word they say,” Jordan murmurs into my ear as he passes by. I can smell him, the soap he uses. I can feel his breath near my face, skimming my cheek, and goose bumps break out on my skin.
He’s healthy. He’s alive. He’s fine…I try to downshift my speeding heart rate.
He takes Maisie out of Beau’s arms and she throws her chubby little arms around his neck. He blows a raspberry on her cheek and she screams and giggles, having the time of her life with him.
He’s fine. He’s healthy. He’s more than healthy, he’s in perfectly gorgeous shape, I tell myself. Then why does it feel like I have a fucking boulder stuck in my throat?