Fearless
Chapter Four
WHERE'RE MY REVIEWERS AT?
Wow. It felt good to be alive.
The sky, the air, however polluted it was, and just the liberating feeling of being free. He grinned, for the first time in what felt like years, he felt really happy. Like, real happiness, not the Hallmark kind.
Jordan had ditched her nurse uniform and wore a simple t-shirt and jeans, her brown hair pulled back in a beanie. Her chestnut boots clicked on the sidewalk. "Nice day, huh?"
"Imagine being outside for the first time in three months. That is literally what I'm feeling right now."
"Guess I can't judge, then." She glanced at him, and at the writing on his arm. He had put the hoodie in a backpack that was recovered from his old house. Funny how it wasn't "home" anymore. "What's that?"
He looked at his arm. He was really pale. "Umm...I was talking to this girl, and she gave me her number?"
Jordan grinned, like one of those "I know a secret" grins. "Is that all?"
"Pretty much." Well, it was. They were talking and she gave him her number. That's what he said.
She gave him a sideways glance. "If you say so..." She stopped in front of a small, bright blue car. "Your ride's here."
"Nice Prius."
"Shut up."
He got in the passenger seat, putting his backpack on the floor. "So, where's your place?"
"Byrd Building, a few blocks from here, which makes for an easy commute. Two bedrooms, so you'll get your own room. We're sharing a bathroom, though. Which reminds me, some ground rules. You must give me all the bathroom time I need. Must."
Jonathan nodded. He'd lived with his only his dad for six years, he didn't know that much about girls and bathrooms. He assumed makeup and just...girl stuff. (The internet was a thing, you know.) "Got it."
"Um, other than that? Uhh, you're a kid, get to bed at a decent time, don't eat everything, etcetera."
"Got that too." Living with Jordan seemed pretty easy.
"Oh, and no bringing any of your five girlfriends home without my permission."
"What?"
"Verne Sinclair sent me an angry email about teenagers, hormones, and his daughter. I'm assuming most of it is exaggerated, but still. And then that different girl that gave you her number. That's two. Anyone else?"
He smirked. "Yep, this one girl that practically fell into my lap, then this hot nurse that apparently has a thing for teenage boys, and did I mention the hooker?"
She snorted. "Man-slut indeed."
They smiled at each other, and broke out laughing.
"I'm sorry," he said after he recovered.
"You're hilarious."
"That's what my "second girlfriend" told me."
She laughed again, and narrowly managed not backing into someone when she parallel parked in front of what he assumed was the Byrd Building. It was nice, or it seemed nice from the outside, all art-deco with columns and older architecture.
They went to the elevator, Jordan putting a card through the gates at the door. Jonathan poked the sleeping security guard. "I'd feel really safe here."
"Yeah, well, at least there's the card system. Either way, you could have the entire GCPD here and a robber could probably get in here. Security and Gotham don't really mix."
"Agreed."
After a minute in the elevator, Jordan used her card again to open her apartment. "This is my place. Welcome home, kiddo."
'Home'. The word felt funny out loud. When he thought of home, he thought of the house he'd lived in before the fire, with a mother and father and most of all, a family.
Jordan's apartment was nice, very cozy. Coffee colored hardwood floors accented cream walls bathed in soft yellow light, and the furniture and layout was very contemporary. The door Jonathan came through faced a window that was the entire wall opposite the door.
To the right of the door, there was a sitting room, with a dark sofa and coffee table facing a flatscreen TV on the wall with the door. To the left was a kitchen and dining area, centered around a large granite counter in the middle of that space.
Jordan led him past both of those spaces and into a door behind the kitchen on the left side of the apartment. "This is your room. Um, tomorrow you can just take my credit card and buy whatever you need. Under 1,000 dollars, that is. I've got work tomorrow, and you were homeschooled, right?"
"Yeah, by my dad." Wait. Was Jordan going to make him go to a public school?
"Okay. You're gonna need to go to school, kid. Get an education and stuff."
"Yeah, I know. I will." But to be honest, the thought of school terrified him. He had no experience talking to people his own age, much less people in general. His life consisted of his mother and father. And when his mother died, it was just his father.
There had been the odd friend or two that he had met through his father's work, but he had to cut ties eventually, when his father had finished whatever tests he was doing.
The most notable had been Grant DuPonte, the kid of one of the professor's at his dad's college. They had met when Jonathan was six. Grant had been Jonathan's best friend, and they even did regular best friend stuff – texting, sleepovers, that sort of thing. That is, until his father left the college for good, when Jonathan was around eleven.
Other than that, social experience was already thrown out the window.
"Look alive, kid. It's not going to be that bad. Don't you want to be around kids your age?" Jordan asked. She meant well, but Jonathan winced.
Thanks for reminding me. "It's just...I don't even know how to act."
"Be yourself. Don't give in to peer pressure."
"That's it?"
"Pretty much, actually. Kids are vicious pack animals that prey on the weak and gullible. Don't be weak and gullible."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"You're welcome." Jordan's phone started buzzing in the pocket of her jeans. "I've gotta go, that's the hospital. They need me in ER. Don't burn the apartment down."
She grabbed a backpack sitting on the coffee table that he assumed were her work clothes, and walked out. Jonathan sat down on the sofa, fingering April's phone number.
He had spare time. Why not call her?
Or are you Jonathan/Laurel? Or Jonathan/Girl You Haven't Met Yet?
