Chapter two – The Fourth
The girl who's just hit the baseball isn't much of an athlete, but there's something appealing enough about both her combination of embarrassment and her ability to laugh at it that makes Jordan smile and look a little closer. He's actually been having a pretty decent time at Shane and Andy's Fourth of July picnic, and as the afternoon spins along lazily, he finds himself looking at the pretty, pony-tailed brunette more than once, and liking what he sees. Liking it enough so that he's glad to notice she doesn't seem to be attached to any of the men there, and enough so that when he's ready for another beer and sees her standing by the cooler, he gets himself over there before she's walked away.
"Great day, huh?' he says, coming up next to her and reaching in for a beer.
"Perfect," she says, meeting his eyes.
He almost does a visible double take when he sees how pretty her smile is up close, but instead he does something just as unusual and lets himself stare.
"I'm, uh, Jordan," he says, after a pause, amused at himself. And then, since starting an actual conversation just for the sake of talking still isn't something he really does, he stands there, beer in hand, watching himself look at her.
"Jo," she tells him, picking up on the drift of it all and smiling a little bigger.
"So, Jo, do you work with Shane?"
Thankfully, she actually smirks at the idea. "You mean, am I a policewoman?"
"I'm kind of hoping not," he says, wondering just what's come over him.
"Well then," she says, pausing to tilt her head back and take a swallow of her beer before she grins full on, "you're in luck."
It's the grin that really does it, and so he clinks his beer bottle up against hers, his interest and the fact that he's not going anywhere so obvious that after another minute she invites him to come sit with her friends.
She's nice, Jordan finds himself thinking an hour later, still sitting with her at a picnic bench, after her friends have drifted off, nice, and very pretty, and fun. And even though it's not as if he hasn't met a million nice girls in his life, this one's got him intrigued. To
the point of actually enjoying talking to her and being interested in what she has to say.
Maybe it's because her family's Italian and she reminds him a little of his cousins that he feels comfortable around her right away. Maybe the fact that she grew up with 3 brothers and actually knows a lot about cars is what makes her easy to talk to, or finding out that she spends a lot of her spare time volunteering at an animal shelter when she's not working as a dental assistant makes him like her more. Maybe it's just how pretty she is, the way it makes him want to keep looking at her. And maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with having seen Angela Chase after so long, and remembering what it was like to let someone love him that's opened him up, made him think he could actually care about someone, let someone care about him. Because there's a moment, while he's sitting next to Jo at the picnic table when he remembers what it was like to feel this way, like life could be really good, a moment when he almost feels Angela Chase kiss his cheek and give him the go ahead.
"We're heading out," Shane calls as the sun lowers, walking in his direction with the picnic cooler in hand and little Stevie tucked under his arm.
"Yeah," Jordan nods, and Jo stands up at the same time he does, the two of them walking over together to where Andy and the few people left are pulling things together.
"Come to uncle Jordan, huh peanut," he says swooping down and grabbing three year old Mandy with one hand and picking her up, snagging a grocery bag with the other, and and grinning back at Jo, who seems to be appreciating the maneuver.
There's a loose straggle of a group movement exiting the park, and he notices two of the friends that had been at the table with them earlier have reappeared by her side, laughing and talking. By the time he's said goodbye to Andy, Shane and the kids, Jordan turns to see the back of Jo moving away through the parking lot, a friend on each side. He watches her for a second, appreciating the view, wondering if he should let her walk away, and then he takes off after her, calling her name, watching her turn and grin.
"Hey," he says, loving that grin, "could I take you out to dinner sometime?
She nods and bites her lip.
"Like tomorrow, maybe?"
The phones come out, their heads come together, and after she leans up on tiptoe and kisses his cheek before running back to her friends, he's stands there completely blown away, grinning like a fool.
#
"It's good for you," Andy laughs, three weeks later, shooting a rubber band across the desk in his direction, "I bet you've never had to work for it in your life."
"Yeah," he scoffs, and then smiles, remembering Angela Chase, "right. I was in high school once, you know."
"You're smiling like maybe that wasn't such a bad thing,"
"Whatever," he shrugs.
"I'd like to take this slow," Jo had told him over dinner that first night, and it's been weeks of dating now, weeks of something Jordan hasn't ever really done before. Coffees, dinners, Sunday hikes, even a movie in a multi plex, and then last night, dinner at her place followed by kissing and cuddling on her front room couch before he'd gone home slightly baffled and as unsatisfied as a fifteen year old. Not that he's given any of those specific details to Andy, but, as usual, as soon as she'd asked him how things were going and he'd said fine, she'd grinned and started in on him.
"Jo's coming out of a long time thing," Andy says, seriously, "plus, I don't think she's a very casual person. And she is ten years younger than you."
"Uh," he mutters, trying to neither say anything or get interested in what she has to say.
Jo having a past is no real news, and the fact that she's got nice written large all over her isn't either. And so what if maybe he is a little puzzled that a twenty seven year old woman who clearly likes him isn't ready to have sex with him after three weeks, but he's more out of touch with nice now than he was twenty years ago. For now, he's just enjoying being with someone likeable in this summer of long sunny days and warm evenings, someone so pretty, so sweet, so fun to be with.
"Hey," he tells Andy, "it's summertime and the living is easy. Don't make this into a big deal."
"First woman you've dated since I've known you, and it's not a big deal," she says, shooting another rubber band his way. This time it wings him and when he grimaces, she shakes her head and mutters, "just stating the obvious."
#
It should have been obvious from the start, Jordan finds himself thinking a few weeks later. Something that seems too good to be true usually isn't true, and Jo turning out to have her share of problems, including a break up she wasn't really over and a lot more complications than he would have imagined, shouldn't have been that much of a surprise. The surprise was just how unwilling he'd been to take on her complications and how disappointed he'd been in himself. He'd really hoped, for the first time he could remember, that he wasn't going to be alone forever, bumping along from occasional
flirtation to hook up to see you around, never loving anyone again. Driving away for the last time, leaving her crying while he tried not to be obvious about the fact that he couldn't get out the door fast enough, he realized how much he'd let himself hope for more, even for a minute found himself feeling bad about himself, thinking maybe he's not meant to stay around for anyone, maybe that's just the way it is for him, whether he likes it or not.
But he's not going down that road anymore. He'd hated himself for years without even knowing it for leaving Angela and just then, driving away from Jo's house, he'd found himself thinking of Angela, talking to her in his imagination, wishing he could talk to her for real. Because he'd liked Jo, he really had, but he'd loved Angela and that was something he understood now. Not that it changes anything, but because of Angela he knows what love feels like. And maybe it's just not up to him, whether that will happen again.
When he pulls up to his house, Clancy comes out of the back yard to meet him, and Jordan waits so they can walk up the steps together. When he'd moved into the house, years ago, they'd made a game of racing up them together, but Clancy was a lot younger then, and now he takes things slow.
"Hey buddy," Jordan says, as Clancy leans into his legs, pulling the dog's ears, grateful to have a physical connection to a living being, one that knows when he needs a little comforting.
It's a kind of love, he thinks to himself. Maybe not the kind you usually get but the kind he wants, where you're just there for someone. The kind that exists without questions, the kind where loving someone makes you go want to go closer to them when they hurt, instead of needing to get away.
#
