“Why don’t we just let the chef choose? Is there anything you don’t like?”
Lexi smiled and closed her menu. “Oh, I like that. I hate urchin. And olives . . . they’re the devil’s food. And the center parts of tomatoes. You know, the green core things.”
Her list was as unpredictable as she was, and he found himself even more intrigued. He asked the server to ask the chef to choose a handful of dishes, explaining Lexi’s dislikes and adding his own. Raw shit, and fish that still had its head on.
The chair and table were too small for his frame. Jordan could feel the wooden chair creak and groan every time he moved. The fucker was going to collapse underneath him if he sneezed. Dressed head to toe in black, he got the usual come-fuck-me looks from the women and looks that ranged from indifferent to intimidated from the men. Meanwhile, Lexi fit the place perfectly. She was wearing a thick cream-colored sweater with a neckline that dipped toward her breasts. A delicate gold chain with a lightning bolt hung around her neck. On her finger was a slim gold band, like a wedding ring, only on the wrong hand. She’d asked him if he was married, but he’d never thought to check with her.
“You don’t have a boyfriend do you?” he asked, not really giving a shit if she did. She was with him now, and that was all that mattered.
“No,” she said, the light of the small table candle casting a warm glow to her features. “Being a dancer makes it very difficult to have a relationship with someone.”
“Tell me about your day,” Jordan said, resisting the urge to lean across the table and take her slender hand in his. The relief he felt at finding out she was single was the sweetest thing.
“Well, I have class from ten to eleven thirty.”
“You study?” Fuck it. He reached for her and she met him halfway, linking their fingers together.
She looked down at their joined hands and grinned at him. “Not in a classroom. I have dance class. Gets you warm for the day and gives you chance to work on things you might be struggling with. Then it’s rehearsal until six-thirty. Tends to be principals in the morning. Pas de deux, partnering, that kind of thing. Full company in the afternoon. We have lunch, and breaks of course. It’s different when we have a show.”
The server arrived with three of their dishes. A salad, something fishy—no head, thank fuck—and a dish whose contents left him bewildered. The way Lexi’s eyes rolled back in her head as she groaned after tasting it, though, said it was good. He pushed the plate toward her, encouraging her to take more. She’d put very little of it on her plate.
“So you practice your next show in rehearsal?” he asked and took a bite of the fish, which turned out to be delicious.
“Many shows. I’m rehearsing three different ballets right now. So I bounce around, I—”
“Excuse me, Jordan? Jordan Steele, right?” A woman in a tight-fitting sweater rested her hand on the back of his chair and leaned so close that her breasts brushed his shoulder. He looked over at Lexi, who was eyeing him curiously. He let go of Lexi’s hand and removed the woman’s hand from the back of the chair.
“Yeah, but let’s be respectful to my girl. Back up a little, sweetheart.” People in the restaurant were looking at them. Certainly not everyone would know who he was, but in this day of public online humiliation, it would only take someone with a phone and a twitchy trigger finger to turn them into clickbait by morning. She thought she was on a date with her boyfriend, but when his mistress showed up, you won’t believe what happened.
“Your girl? I thought she might be your sister or something.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Not only because it was crystal clear that the way he’d been stroking Lexi’s hand was definitely not brotherly, but a sibling was something he’d wished for the entire time he was locked in the attic. Someone to talk to. To play with, and make up games for. Anyone who might have been as excited as he was about the bird that got trapped inside the attic for a week. Until his father had killed it.
In one line, she’d triggered his past and attempted to fuck up his present.
Jordan shook his head. “Nope. My date,” he said reaching for Lexi’s hand again, grateful when she took it. The ground felt unsteady. He wasn’t an asshole to fans, but he didn’t want to do anything that might upset Lexi. Usually he’d offer to sign a napkin or let someone take a photo, but he found himself wanting to dismiss the woman.
“I told you it was a date,” Lexi said quietly to him.
Her words brought him back into the moment. Back to her. “And I already conceded the point.”
Lexi grinned and he couldn’t help but smile too. Jordan rubbed his thumb over her knuckles and finally relaxed.
“Um, could I get a photo with you?” the woman asked.
“No,” Lexi said before he had a chance to answer. “It would make me very uncomfortable to watch that, but perhaps you could sign something for her, sweetie.”
“Sweetie?” he mouthed and laughed when Lexie shrugged awkwardly.
Jordan grabbed a napkin. “Do you have a pen?”
Lexi fished around in her purse and found one. Jordan quickly signed his name and handed it to the woman. Lexi watched her until she sat down on the other side of the restaurant. “You remember on the street, when you asked me what I wanted to know?” Lexi asked, taking another bite of the unknown dish.
“Yeah.” Jordan followed her lead and ate some more.
After chewing a moment, she covered her mouth with her hand and mumbled, “Well, now would be a great time for some answers.”
* * *
“I play bass. In a band. We play metal, some hard core rock . . . and we’re . . . umm . . . pretty big.”
Oh my. It so fit him. The look, the hair, the tattoos, the attitude. She looked down at the inked hand that dwarfed hers. Each finger was tattooed with a skeleton; the knuckle of each was the skull. “Big as in ‘We’ve played a few gigs but have day jobs’ or big as in albums, platinum records, multi-city tours?”
Jordan fidgeted in his seat and looked down, hiding those mesmerizing eyes of his. She could tell he was uncomfortable, had been since the moment they’d been seated. If he hadn’t been so on edge, she might have laughed at the way he dwarfed the chair.
“Big big,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “Very big.”
“Like I should probably know who you are and ask for your number on a napkin and a selfie with you?” Lexi asked playfully. She reached into her purse.
“I kind of like it that you don’t. Wait, what are you doing?”
Lexi pulled her phone and headphones out and opened her music app. “What’s your name? I’ll buy a song. Which one?”
“Preload. But don’t. Honestly.”
She typed in the name, and up popped the band. Wow. There were a lot of albums. And double wow. Jordan looked so hot on the cover of that one. “Seriously, tell me your favorite, or I’ll pick one. Let me see . . . ‘Preen—’”
“No. Not that one. It’s one of the darkest we ever recorded.”
“‘Anatomy of Sin’?” she asked.
“Definitely not, it’s about . . . well, casual relationships, of a sort.” Jordan blushed.
“You mean hook-ups?” Lexi laughed as he squirmed.
Jordan raised an eyebrow in her direction. “Lexi,” he growled in warning.
She scrolled some more. “‘Roller’? ‘Drenched’?”
“Fine. ‘Dog Boy.’ I wrote it.”
Lexi purchased the song and pressed Play. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard a metal song. Perhaps in a movie, maybe. But never by choice. She jumped when the song started. Loud crashing drums, a scream, too many guitars.
Jordan struggled to hide his laugh. She was determined to listen to the entire song that was currently decimating her eardrums even though the volume wasn’t turned up that loud.
She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t witness Jordan’s amusement. The chorus kicked in, but it changed from screaming to melodic. From growling and snarling to
something . . . hmmm . . . she had no idea what the right word was. She could dance to the chorus but struggled to understand the lyrics. Quickly, she yanked an ear bud out of her ear and held it out across the table.
“Sing me the words,” she said.
“Lexi, this is stupid, I—”
“Shh. Sing,” she said as she thrust the ear bud toward him.
Jordan took it, sighed, and put it up to his ear. “In this hole . . . the place I’ve grown . . . the place I’m told to call my home . . . I cannot die, although I’ve tried, I’m forced to live and fake this smile.” His voice was so deep, so . . . haunting.
The chorus kicked in again, but Lexi was transfixed by Jordan. The lyrics were so powerful. Shit. He’d said he’d written them. She grabbed for his hand, squeezing it tightly as he continued. It seemed like he was doing more than simply singing a song to her. He was actually telling her something about himself, she could hear it. No, it was more than that, she could feel it.
“No more hope. No more joy. Only pain for this dog boy. I cannot live, I’m scared to try, escape will find me when I die.” It was as though a fist was squeezing her heart. She couldn’t imagine what kind of experiences would lead somebody to write lyrics like that.
Lexi put down her phone and pulled his hand across the table toward her. She kissed the tip of each of his fingers. Jordan grabbed her chin and ran his thumb over the pillow of her lip, back and forth, until the song ended.
“Jordan, I’m—”
“Here are your next dishes,” the server interrupted, and Jordan pulled his hand away quickly. “Here is your charcuterie. The ibérico platter, the patatas brava, and a cheese selection.”
They were silent until the server had placed the new plates on the table and taken away the empty dishes. Then Jordan coughed.
“Jordan—”
“You asked why Cabbagetown?” Jordan said, placing some meat on her plate. “It’s where we grew up, me and the rest of the band.”
Lexi was confused by his sudden change of subject. “So you were school friends first?” she asked as she buttered some bread and handed it to Jordan. She didn’t take any for herself. Too much sugar in white bread.
“We grew up in a group home together. I was thankfully taken away from my parents a long time ago, did the whole foster thing. I got placed in a group home with the rest of the band. Our social worker, Maisey, was always looking for ways to help us . . . I don’t know . . . bond. She had this theory that nobody really got the choice as to who their family was. Just because you were born to the same mom and dad didn’t necessarily mean that you were going to like your sibling, and natural families had no choice other than to stick together and figure it out. Until they couldn’t anymore. She figured that just because we were in a group home didn’t mean we could just give up on each other when we felt like it. So she tried to create a common interest for us all. She bought me and the guys secondhand instruments.”
It was the most information he’d given her, and all of it made sense. The lyrics, his reluctance up until now to share anything with her, the pain she’d seen in his eyes when he’d sung those lyrics to her, his voice so raw it vibrated through her soul.
“Do you mind me asking why you ended up in foster care?” she asked.
Jordan tapped his fingers on the tablecloth, obviously struggling to decide what to tell. “My parents were assholes who should’ve been sterilized at birth.” His eyes were cold and hard as he spoke.
Compassion flooded through her, and she didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t begin to imagine what it was like to be removed from your family at such an early age, to have no one of your own to look out for you. In some ways, it put her problems with her father into perspective. For all he was difficult to deal with on a daily basis, he was a constant presence in her life. And while she was confident enough in her abilities now, she was certain that his confidence in her was what had carried them through the tough times when she’d felt like she wasn’t going to make it.
“That can’t have been easy,” Lexi said.
“This is usually the part in the conversation where I’d say something like, nah, it wasn’t too bad. But for you, I want to be honest. It fucking sucked, Lexi. But you know what, I can’t help but to think it had to happen. Because out of the deal, I got my brothers and a career I love. I don’t think that would’ve happened if I’d stayed with my family.”
She resisted the temptation to pry, to poke further to understand what exactly had taken place, although her mind ran riot with reasons for why social services had felt they’d had no choice but to take him away.
They finished their food in relative silence, and when the bill came, Jordan refused Lexi’s offer of splitting it. He placed his black Amex down on the table and returned her low-limit credit card with which she collected air miles.
Once the bill was paid, Jordan helped her with her coat and then slipped into his own. Lexi smiled when he put her scarf back around his neck. Jordan held the door open as she slipped through it. She deliberately left her gloves off so she could reach for his hand and smiled when he grabbed hold of hers. His hands were warm, and every now and then he would rub his thumb over her knuckles, which left her tingling with excitement. It was dark as they walked the rest of the way to her house. The air was incredibly still, the orange streetlights casting interesting shadows on the glittering snow. Some homeowners had already been out to shovel the walkways, making the trek home an easier endeavor.
They stopped in front of her house, and she was relieved to see that the lights were out in the living room, meaning her father had already gone to bed.
“Thank you so much for dinner,” she said. “I’m really grateful that you chose to share with me what you did. It’s shitty that those things happened to you . . . which feels like such a lame thing to say under the circumstances.”
“Most of that is public knowledge,” he said, shrugging as if it were nothing. Her heart sank a little at the revelation, but what had she expected? That he would tell her all of his deepest and darkest secrets on their first date that wasn’t even really a date until she’d told him it was.
“Not to me it wasn’t. I’d rather learn it from you than the internet.” She pulled her hand away from his and stepped back, knowing it was a little petulant.
“Lex,” he said gruffly, reaching for her hand. He tugged her back toward him. “I’m sorry. I’m out of my depth. I don’t date. I don’t share. I don’t do small talk and bistros and ballerinas. I don’t do complicated. But you make me want to try, and it’s fucked up.”
He pushed her hood back and pulled her hat off before throwing it onto the porch chair. When he slid his fingers into her hair, Lexi’s breath caught in her throat and her knees weakened. “Try me, please,” she whispered.
He pressed his lips to hers.
* * *
He got it.
He finally got it.
He got why John Lennon left the Beatles for Yoko.
He got why Dred wrote a love song for Pixie.
From the moment Jordan’s lips touched Lexi’s, he couldn’t imagine anything else feeling and tasting quite so perfect for the rest of his life.
He ran his tongue along the seam of her lips and she groaned, opening for him. He thrust his hands further into her hair as their tongues touched. She tasted of wine and sweetness, and he couldn’t get enough.
While her eyes were closed, his were open, unwilling to miss a single moment of what was happening between them. He angled her head, and she rose up on her toes to meet him. He thought he was going to faint as the blood rushed from his brain to his cock, which ached for contact.
Lexi’s arms wound their way around his waist, her hands finding the way under his leather jacket and sweater to rest upon his back. Skin on skin. How he wanted them to be. Naked. Exposed. Nothing between them as he made love to her in a huge bed that they could stay in for days.
Except he didn’t have a huge bed. And he didn’t hav
e the kind of room she deserved to stay in. He had an attic. And a box under his bed that held his most treasured possessions that nobody else would understand. A secondhand copy of Scales, Chords & Arpeggios, and the first birthday card he ever received from Maisey and Ellen. Random shit nobody else would care about.
Jordan pulled away slowly and looked carefully at Lexi. Her lips were pink and plump, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide.
“Jordan,” she whispered.
“I gotta go. Bye, Lexi,” he said. He needed to get home and then drink enough to forget about her. Banish the stupid idea swirling around in his mind that they could have any kind of relationship. He should never have kissed her. It was hard enough to walk away before, but now that he had a clearer idea of what it was he was actually walking away from, it hurt all the more.
“Wait,” Lexi said as she grabbed his arm.
The small voice in his brain told him to keep walking, but he couldn’t. Instead, he turned to see what she wanted.
Lexi grabbed a pen from her purse, the one she had given him to sign the napkin in the restaurant. She reached for his hand and turned it over so his palm was facing up and quickly scribbled something on it. When she was done, she stood on her tiptoes again and kissed his cheek.
Weakness was a new sensation, but he felt it down to his boots as, against his better judgment, he leaned his cheek ever so slightly toward her lips.
“Good night, Jordan,” she said and bounced up the porch, grabbing her hat from the chair where Jordan had tossed it.
She paused in the doorway to wave good-bye and then closed the door silently shut.
Only when he was certain that she was definitely gone did he allow himself the luxury of seeing what she had written on his hand. It was a phone number. Despite himself, he felt a murmur of excitement that she found him worthy of a second date.
Jordan turned toward home. As snow began to fall again, he hurriedly made the short hike across the Don Valley river and ravine to his neighborhood, trying to halt the avalanche of emotions because of ten hand-scribed digits.
Jordan Reclaimed Page 7
