“Responding to the poor guy.”
Pregnancy or not, Gigi lunged for the phone and succeeded in spilling the last of her drink and the ice all over Jordan, who never flinched as she held the phone out of reach to finish her text. “What the hell are you saying to him?”
“I’m telling him you’d love to see him to discuss this further.”
“Oh my God! I’m going to stab you!”
“No, you aren’t. You’re going to pull yourself together and talk to him like the adult you are.”
“No, I’m not. I can’t see him again.”
“I have to go to the bathroom. Stay right there.”
Gigi slumped into the sofa and then realized Jordan had taken the phone with her. “I’m coming in there after my phone!”
“Oh damn, turns out I have to poop.”
Gigi would’ve laughed if the whole thing hadn’t been so absurd. Too bad they weren’t filming this for the show. Matilda would love it. “If you’re ruining my life in there, I’m going to dump you as a client and a friend.”
“Can’t hear you!” Jordan came out a few minutes later. “Phew, pregnancy poops are smelly! Mason is going to kick me out of here at this rate.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
“Literally.”
“Give me my phone.”
“Oh snap, I left it in there by accident. Up to you if you want to risk going after it. Mason would advise you not to.”
Gigi rolled her eyes. “That man loves you so much, I’m sure he thinks your poo smells like roses.”
Jordan cracked up laughing as she returned to her seat on the sofa. “I don’t think he’s that far gone.”
“Yes, he is. I have to get going. Get my phone.”
“Nah, I need you to hang with me for a bit because I’m feeling sort of weird, and Mason is at work.”
“Weird how?”
“Just strange.”
“Like, good-pregnant strange or bad-pregnant strange?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Do we need to go to the clinic?”
“It’s nothing like that. Yet, anyway. But I don’t want to be alone.”
“We shouldn’t just sit here and wait to see what’s going to happen. You need to be seen at the clinic. Victoria will know if it’s something you need to worry about.”
“I’m afraid it might just be heartburn, and I’d be so embarrassed to go to the clinic for that.”
“Is there something you can take?”
“I had a Tums. Waiting to see if it’ll work.” She burped for effect. “Ah, that felt good.”
“What exactly is it that Mason sees in you, anyway?”
“I have no idea, but whatever it is, I hope he keeps seeing it forever. It’s a really nice thing, you know, to have someone who’s all yours forever.”
“How do you know it’s forever?”
“Sometimes you just know.”
“In all fairness, you thought Brendan would be forever.”
“I never had the faith in him or our relationship that I do in Mason. It’s an entirely different thing from what I had with him.”
“How is it different?”
Jordan appeared to give that some serious thought. “It’s deeper. We talk about everything. He’s taken the time to really know me and understand me. He knows me better in a few months than Brendan did in years, because he wants to know me that way. I talk to him about things I never talk about with anyone else. Like the custody shit, and I find that talking to him about it gives the whole thing less power over me than it’s had in the past. By sharing that pain with him, it’s like he takes on some of it for me. If that makes sense. And he’s been amazing since we heard our father died. I was more upset about that than I expected to be, but having Mason there to go through it with me somehow made it easier.”
As she listened to Jordan, a lump of emotion lodged in her throat. She’d expected Jordan to say something like he’s a god in bed, or he makes me come like a firecracker. Both those things were probably true in addition to the other lovely things Mason had given her. Gigi had been around long enough to know that for Jordan to talk about the custody battle she and her sister had endured, mostly at the hands of their recently deceased father, was a big deal.
It was an equally big deal that you told Cooper about your crack-addict mother, the foster care and the absentee parents you emancipated from as a teenager. Gigi wanted to tell her inner voice to shut the hell up, but she couldn’t deny the truth. It had been a momentous thing for her to share that stuff with Cooper. And why exactly had she done that, anyway? Because he was easy to talk to, and that made her want to share things about herself with him that she never shared with anyone, even the two men she’d been briefly engaged to. If she’d been alone, that thought might’ve made her groan. That was all the more reason to keep her distance.
He was dangerous.
And then he appeared in Jordan’s doorway, looking inside, seeking her out with the intense gaze that seemed to see right through her. And were those roses he was holding?
“You total bitch,” she whispered to Jordan.
“Someday you’ll thank me.”
“Today is not that day.”
Chapter 20
“Cooper, come in,” Jordan said. “I was just leaving to do some, uh, errands. Won’t be back for hours. Mason is working late. The place is all yours.” As she walked by Cooper, Jordan squeezed his arm, letting him know she was firmly on Team Cooper.
Worst best friend ever.
The screen door slammed shut behind Jordan. A few seconds later, her car started, and the tires crunched over the crushed shells as she backed out of the driveway, probably on her way to Eastward Look, where she’d nap the afternoon away. In the meantime, Gigi was left alone with the one man she had planned never to be alone with again.
Jordan had figured that out and had taken matters into her own hands.
“She sent that text telling me to meet you here, not you,” he said.
“Ding, ding, ding. Tell him what he’s won, Johnny.”
“I’ll go,” he said.
“It’s okay. You can stay.” Despite her fierce desire to protect herself from whatever this was shaping up to be, she couldn’t bear to hurt him. Not to mention that being willing to leave, if that was what she wanted him to do, earned him major points.
He came farther into the room, put the bundle of roses he’d brought on the kitchen counter and rested his hands on the back of a chair. “Would I have heard from you if Jordan hadn’t texted me?”
“No.”
“Ouch.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not you. It’s me.”
“Didn’t they make a movie with that title?”
“Maybe, but in this case, it’s true. You want things I’m not capable of giving you.”
“What things do I want?”
“A commitment. A relationship.” She wrinkled her nose as she said the dreaded word. “Emotions that don’t exist in me.”
He came around the chair and took a seat, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning toward her. “You know what makes me so damned sad?”