Chapter 13 - Jordan 

I step into the gym, taking in the familiar scent of sweat and determination. Mason is already there, throwing weights around with ease and grunting like a wild animal.

"Hey man, save some for the rest of us," I joke, clapping him on the back. Mason just grins and keeps lifting. "I'll make sure to leave some scraps for you, Jord." We both laugh and get to work, pushing each other to lift heavier and then run faster. The clanging of weights and the sound of our breathing fill the air.

After about an hour, we make our way over to the basketball court where a game just finished. I jog over to the rack and dribble a ball before bouncing it toward Mason. We each shoot a couple of hoops while the other retrieves the ball. 

“I decided I’m not going to take the offer.” 

Mason shoots and makes a 3-pointer. “What? The position for that director thing in Japan?” 

I nod and throw the ball back to him which he catches with both hands. 

“No shit. What was the deciding factor? You were at 40% yes which is pretty high for you.” 

That is pretty high for me. Usually, when I’m debating between two things there is always one obvious answer, but I give myself time to think it over just in case anyway. I make a physical list of all the pros and cons and look it over every day for weeks. My percentages are usually 80% to 20% or 25% to 75%, never close to 50%. I shrug and put my hands on my knees. 

“I want to be here for Jamie while he goes to school.” Jamie, my 18-year-old little brother, will be here in exactly one week and he’ll be living with me. I bought my apartment 3 years ago when Jamie told me he wanted to come to school here. It wasn't even decided he’d come, but the apartment is a 5-minute drive and 15-minute walk from the university he said he wanted to go to. That’s how far I planned ahead. He has social anxiety and even though I told him it would be a good idea to stay in the dorms and get to know people, he protested. Either way, I’m thrilled he’ll be here and so is he.

Last night on the phone he told me how excited he was, and how he already finished packing and planning everything he needed. It was a proud big brother moment for me.

Tossing the ball back and forth between his hands, Mason raises his brows and gives me a look. “And is that the only reason? Or is there, I dunno, a sexy bunny that’s keeping you here.” I try my hardest to glare, but Mason lets out a belly laugh and I start to smile too. 

I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t the other reason. In such a short time Leo has become a big part of my life, a constant that I can rely on every day. Even though we aren’t dating I can’t imagine us being apart. “Okay yeah, Jamie and Leo. You got me.”

Mason misses a shot and jogs to retrieve the ball before it rolls away. He picks it up and gestures toward himself before hurling the ball at me. “So fuck me, huh?”  I straighten up and catch it right before it hits my face. 

I give him the middle finger to which he grins in reply. “Love you too. You’re up.” I make my way onto the court and start shooting at the basket. 

 Me and Leo aren’t dating but that might all change tonight. Tomorrow is his 22nd birthday and at the end of a romantic date where I take him to a drive-in movie and make him ice cream cake, I’m going to ask him out. I’ve definitely had plenty of chances to ask him before this, but tonight just feels right. After spending days debating on if I should get him a gift even though he adamantly told me not to, I respected his wishes and got him nothing. Unless him watching me struggle to make a red velvet ice cream cake counts as a gift, which I’m sure he’d get a kick out of. 

Mason takes a swig of his Gatorade and motions toward me. “How's that going by the way? You never talk to me about any of your relationships.” That’s true. Whenever we talk about relationship things it’s always about him. He tells me his problems or what’s going on with Amber and I listen and give advice if he wants it. And that’s how I like it. It’s not that I want to keep my love life private from Mason. I just prefer keeping things between me and the person I’m seeing. 

 I dribble and shoot, the ball hitting the rim and bouncing back toward me. “It’s good. You already know we went to London.” I decide for now to not tell him we’ve slept together, but from the way I’m describing the trip I can tell he suspects it anyway. I run over to him as he throws me a towel to wipe my sweat. 

“Oh yeah?” He says.“So your no fucking my model's rule is out of the window then?” I bend down to pick up my water bottle and point it at him. 

“Technically, he’s not my model. He never signed a contract.” I respond.

Mason puts his hands on his hips, as a roar of laughter escapes his mouth. “If you have to start talking technicalities it’s out of the fucking window, man.” 

I roll my eyes and sip my water as we head toward the locker room. I can’t even argue with him because he’s right. After years of being so adamant about that rule, it’s completely out of the window now. I’m just glad Leo was the one to get me to break it. 

—— 

I take Leo to a drive in movie screening of 10 things I hate about you and afterwards we head back to my place. 

I was going to bake the cake last night but in texts from earlier today he insisted he be there.

Jordan: *picture with the ingredients of the cake* 

Leo: hahaha wait for me I wanna watch u make it >:)

Jordan: Do you get off on watching people struggle? 

Leo: yeah, that’s one of my kinks ;) 

Jordan: You have a million kinks 

Leo: no I don’t, stop exaggerating. I only have like 900,000

I’ve been wondering if Leo thinks I’m boring in bed. We haven’t done anything really freaky yet. Honestly, I’ve never done kinky shit with anyone. But I’d do almost anything with him. I hope he’d say something if he wanted more. 

The cake only takes about 10 minutes to mix the ingredients and 30 minutes to freeze it. I didn’t struggle that much making the cake other than when Leo kept licking the batter. “This is surprisingly good,” Leo murmurs with a spoonful of icing in his mouth after I cut him a slice. I pause and raise an eyebrow at him. “Surprisingly? Says the guy that only knows how to cook spaghetti.” Leo laughs, throwing his head back and covering his mouth. He walks out onto the balcony and I follow him.

“Not true. I worked at a restaurant for a couple of months.”

“As a chef?”

“No as a server, but I picked up on some cooking tips.”

Leo  tells me he plans on quitting the Rabbit Hole, because it’s not worth wasting his entire weekend nights there. 

“Plus school is starting soon.”

“You’re the only person I’ve ever met who’s actually excited about school starting.” I always loved summers as a kid. Spending them playing outside, riding bikes, going to the beach. We all hated when that had to end when fall came.

Leo shrugs. “Going to school was always an escape for me because at least I wasn’t lonely.”

I nod a few times. “Do you still feel lonely?”

Leo chews slowly. “Sometimes. But not that much lately.” He smiles warmly at me which makes my heart do this weird palpitation.

This might be the best time to ask. I’ve rehearsed this 50 times in my head, Mason would be laughing at me. Leo is the first person to make me nervous. Is it because I really fucking like him?

“There’s something I want to ask you.” I pause and look at the time on my phone. “Well first of all happy birthday, Leo.” The time is 12:47.

“Thank you.” Leo says and leans in to hug me. For some reason I’m briefly taken aback but I hug back. Somehow his touch completely threw me off my game and I’m quiet when we pull apart.

“Sooo? What did you want to ask?”

I take a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking a lot about us lately and I wanted to ask you something. For the last couple of weeks, we've been hanging out and having a great time together and I want us to make things official. So, Leo, will you go out with me?”

“Oh.” He immediately replies.

Oh? I feel an instantaneous knot form in my stomach. That’s not the reaction I was expecting. I mean I didn't expect him to jump up and down from happiness and scream yes, but that ‘Oh’ felt like a knife plunged into my lungs. 

“Um.” Leo adjusts himself on the blanket. He stares off into the distance for a minute, each second going by twisting the knife in my chest. I fight the urge to tell him nevermind, to save myself the embarrassment, but I don’t because I have no idea what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s considering it? That Oh and that Um didn’t sound considering though. I swallow a lump in my throat while what feels like centuries goes by in silence. 

Finally, after eons, Leo faces me to speak. “Jordan, I really, really like you.” 

Wait. 

What the hell? 

Am I getting friend-zoned? A million thoughts race through my mind simultaneously,  from ‘Jordan, you idiot’ to ‘Did I misunderstand all of this?’ to ‘Were we obviously just fuck buddies’ to ‘I should jump off the balcony.’ I hope my facial expression is as stoic as I think it is because I don’t know what my face looks like right now. 

“I can open up and be myself around you without you judging me.” 

So he is friend-zoning me. 

And probably never talking to me again. 

Great fucking job Jordan, you shouldn’t have said anything. 

You know he cuts guys off when they get feelings. 

He made that pretty clear. 

Now you ruined his birthday and whatever we had. 

Maybe this balcony is cursed. Our first fight happened here and now this. Note to self: never have another conversation with him on this balcony.

“And I can-” he continues, but I cut him off. 

“Leo, you can say no, it’s fine.” It’s not fine but I don’t want to make him feel forced to say yes to spare my feelings. Leo furrows his brows at me. 

“But I’m not saying no Jordan.” Confusion strikes me, shoving out any other emotion I was feeling. I shake my head, trying to make sense of this. “I’m confused.” 

If he wanted to say yes, wouldn’t he just have said yes? Instead of telling me he really likes me? Taking the plate of cake off of his lap, he moves closer, his thighs almost on top of mine, and interlaces our fingers. “Jordan.” That is all he says, eyes locked on mine. 

God, I wish I could rewind time back 5 minutes. For the first time, I break his eye contact. I look to the right, out at the dark sea. The breeze is cool tonight, and crowds of people sit at the outdoor bar directly next to the dock. Goosebumps growing down my arm, I try to focus on anything. Anything other than this growing anxiety in my stomach. 

“Jordy, look at me.” I snap back to reality at his use of my nickname. When he asked me if he could call me Jordy I told him no. But he still does it. And I can’t say I’m mad about it. I love the way it sounds when he says it. 

It takes me a few more seconds but I turn my attention back to his dark green eyes. “You’re overthinking again. Let me finish, okay?” I nod and almost smile at this.

We both realized we are opposites when it comes to how we think. I overthink everything. Even the little things. In the third grade, my mom asked me what theme I wanted for my birthday party and gave me 3 options. I couldn't pick. Every single choice I have to make kicks my brain into high gear. It was a couple of days before my party and little 8-year-old me was stressed beyond belief about picking between spiderman and superman. In the end, I didn’t even have to stress because my amazing mother ended up combining all 3 themes for the party. I had a spiderman cake, a superman bouncy house, and batman themed balloons. We barely had any money but she always made sure that I and Jamie got to enjoy special days. 

Leo on the other hand self admittedly doesn’t think things through. “I’ll think about something for like, a second, then just do whatever my intuition tells me. I think everything happens for a reason.” God, I wish I could be like that. Just do what I feel is right. Picking my first instinct instead of second-guessing and going over all of the options and consequences for weeks on end. Mason joked with me saying I have OCD and that I should see a psychiatrist, but I like to just think that I’m meticulous. 

I come back down to earth when Leo talks again. He lets go of my hand and cups my face. “As I was saying. I really like you. This was the best summer of my entire life all because of you. I think you’re probably my soulmate. No, I…definitely think you’re my soulmate.” 

My heart pounds through my chest. 

His soulmate.

What? 

How did we get here? 

I’m getting whiplash from going through the 5 stages of grief in the last 2 minutes. I went from contemplating jumping off the balcony to suppressing the biggest smile. 

His soulmate. 

The way he said those words rings in my ears. 

“And that’s why I need you to be patient with me. I want us to be together, but I need some time. I rushed into my last relationship and I don’t want to make that same mistake again.” I see a flicker of pain behind his eyes on that last sentence. I haven’t asked how his last relationship ended because I figured it ended badly and that’s why he doesn’t want to talk about it. I openly told him the names of my exes and I even showed him pictures because he asked. But I know nothing about his ex. His one and only ex. 

“So, if you’re willing to wait for me when the time comes, I’d love to be your boyfriend.” 

I’d love to be your boyfriend. 

Damn. 

That almost gets me but when will that be? I mean I’d wait centuries for him. But how will I know when? God damn, my head feels like it’s about to explode. I feel so needy and that’s not like me at all. Even when I was in a relationship, I didn’t want to be around them 24/7. I needed my space and they respected that. Until they didn’t. But right now I can’t shake this uncertainty of not knowing when. 

Fuck, I need some more wine. 

“How about I ask you out when I’m ready? Before the end of the year.”

And just like that, as if he read my mind, Leo instantly eases all the built-up tension inside my body. 

Before the end of the year. 

A clear timeline. 

I can work with that. 

I remove his hands from my face and drop my head. “Leo you really know how to fuck with someone's emotions.” When I look up he’s trying to suppress a smile which makes me laugh. “I almost had a heart attack.” 

He raises his eyebrows teasingly. “Yeah, you looked like it. Sorry.” I shake my head, pull him onto my lap, and wrap his arms around my shoulders. “Okay. I’ll wait for you.” I rub his back as he tucks his head into the nook of my shoulder. “Thank you. You’re amazing.” He mumbles under his breath. 

“I know.” I playfully retort. I feel his breath against my collarbone as he laughs. We sit like this for a few minutes before he drifts off to sleep.