I shook my head in warning. “Not now. I’m going.”
Jordan ushered me out the door before she could say anything else.
Fifteen minutes later, we were at his house and he was ordering dinner from a local Italian place that delivered. I didn’t feel much like eating, but I didn’t want to cheat him out of his pizza. He’d earned it. Jordan did what I wished I could have done a year ago—smacked the crap out of that creep, Gunnar.
While waiting for the food to arrive, we changed out of our work clothes. I made two new ice baggies—one for my swollen lip and one for his hand, which was now bruised in addition to being scraped. He was sitting on the couch reading emails on his phone when I settled in next to him, handing him his bag of ice. He thanked me and pressed it to his knuckles.
All through dinner, Jordan remained quiet, thoughtful. It wasn’t long before we reached that awkward moment where I didn’t know if he wanted me to stay over or I should ask him to drive me home.
In the uncomfortable silence, he broke out a spare laptop and told me to log onto my character, Beast. Meanwhile, he logged onto a character on the same server, a svelte, sexy elf woman with dark hair named SnowWhite. I didn’t say anything but looked at him under my lashes, feeling heat rise to my cheeks at the realization that he’d created that character, thinking about me. Or maybe, like me, he’d just wanted to watch her die over and over again? My mouth quirked. Hmm.
We spent an hour playing Dragon Epoch together. He gave me pointers and we defeated hordes of goblins, worked on quests, laughing until I yawned. With that, he reached over and closed my laptop and did the same to his. I figured I’d better give him the out. “Sid texted me earlier. The coast is clear at home.”
There was a long pause. “Do you want to go home?”
It was hard to breathe. I turned to him, looked up into his face and shook my head.
He raised his hand to my chin and tilted my head up, then lowered his mouth to press against mine. It was a gentle, tender kiss, and it was obvious he was being careful with my split lip because his touch was feather light. But even that was enough to get my blood pumping, every nerve coming alive. I leaned my head back on the edge of the couch and looked into his eyes, which looked gray-green in this light. I raised my hand to his jaw, now peppered with a sexy five o’clock shadow. “Thank you…no one’s ever stuck up for me like that.”
My hand stroked along his jaw and his eyes closed, as if savoring the touch. “It wasn’t anything more than you deserve, April. I just wish you realized it.”
My eyes stung and I blinked, surprising myself with the sudden emotion that rose up, clogging my throat. “Maybe I just needed someone to show me.”
He gently shook his head. “It has to come from inside. You’ve got to know deep in your heart that you are worth sticking up for. But I’m afraid that Snow White has been poisoned for a long time.” My breath caught…and not just because he’d finally gotten his fairytales straight.
I knew what he was referring to. The entire time I was growing up, I was taught that my mother’s love—if it could even be called “love” at all—came with conditions, and her feelings and needs were more important than mine or anyone else’s.
That’s why I’d never stood up for myself or expressed my feelings, never let her know how deeply she wounded me. Jordan had only seen a brief glimpse of what it had been like for me, but it had apparently been enough to discern that our dysfunctional relationship was at the root of my problems.
“How could you know me so well in the short amount of time that we’ve known each other?”
He shrugged and sighed, his warm breath smoothing over my face. “Let’s just say I understand you because…I’ve been there myself.”
“Your dad?”
He looked up at the ceiling for a long time before nodding. “Yeah. I was only worth something to him when I was following exactly in his footsteps.”
But I had options that he didn’t. His family being intact, he still had to try to make things work with his dad. But for me…I didn’t have that burden. It was alarming, the similarities in our family situations, though the personalities involved were so very different.
“Don’t you find it weird that we both have family members who think nothing of ambushing us? Your mom and grandpa…my mom. Even my dad with that lunch today.”
He tilted his head. “Yeah, that is weird. But you ambushed me too…”
I sighed. “You mean with Cynthia…I’m sorry. I had no idea that would go so badly. It’s just that it seemed like you both wanted to talk to each other. And you both told me separately that the other person would never want to hear what you had to say. So I just thought…” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have meddled.”