Staying alone in a hotel room hadn’t been quite so frightening for once because he’d known that Lexi was only a phone call away. Some nights, he couldn’t wait to get off stage so he could check his phone to see what she’d messaged. And with the three-hour time difference to the West Coast, he’d sometimes got in so late that he’d been able to catch Lexi with messages as she woke up in the morning.
Distance had made the idea of a relationship feel less intimidating. The way Lexi had looked at him when they had video-called had jumpstarted his heart in a way he didn’t think was possible. Slowly but surely, Jordan was starting to come to grips with some of the most basic elements of his life. He’d been into the bank with his ID to reset his password since he couldn’t remember it to get him through phone security. Now he knew how much money was in the bank, though he’d nearly puked in the wastebasket when he first heard the amount. It didn’t seem right that there were children growing up like him with a permanent cramp in their hungry tummies while he was sitting on tens of millions of dollars.
Nikan had taken him clothes shopping at the Holt Renfrew in Vancouver, where he’d spent an obscene amount of money on new . . . well, everything. When he’d seen the bill, he’d nearly walked away. But then he’d remembered the date he’d arranged with Lexi. Plus, Nikan told him to stop being such a pussy and to get over it. Suggested he just make a donation to the local food bank for the same amount if it bothered him so much, which he’d done before he’d even gotten on the plane home.
Which reminded him, he needed to go get ready and pull on a pair of those four-hundred-dollar jeans.
“I’m out, guys,” he said, snatching the phone off the table.
It was three in the afternoon by the time he found himself showered and dressed, standing outside of the Art Gallery of Ontario nervous as a fourteen-year-old in a whorehouse. A man walked by holding a bouquet of flowers. Shit. Should he have bought Lexi something? But if he’d bought her flowers, she would have had to carry them around with her. And what the fuck else was he supposed to buy her? Some smelly shit like they were selling in Holt Renfrew? He shook his head, so out of his depth that there was no point trying to swim.
Until he saw her.
She was wearing a white wool coat that fitted her like a second skin, and the pale gray scarf that wrapped up around her ears only served to make her cheeks look pinker. Her hair was up in a messy bun that was sexy as hell, and he hoped at some point she’d let him remove the pins. Let it fall down around her face so he could grab a handful of it and gently pull her close.
With a quick word, she took the elbow of an elderly lady struggling to cross the street and talked to her the whole way over, stopping to say a few words to her afterward before she walked toward him. A fucking ray of sunshine, that was what Lexi was, in his otherwise dark world.
And then she saw him.
And smiled. No, she fucking grinned and ran toward him.
Pedestrians needed to get the fuck out of her way because he couldn’t wait a moment longer to hold her in his arms. To feel her pressed against him. And to kiss away the nine days he hadn’t been able to touch her lips.
Lexi bounded up the steps and threw herself at him, laughing as Jordan grabbed her to keep her from falling.
“Hello, Jordan,” she said formally. “I missed you.”
She brushed her lips across his, but it was over way too soon for his liking.
“Hello, Lexi,” he said, equally formally. “Bring those fucking lips back here, now.”
And, thank fuck, she did as he commanded. Keeping her in his arms, he turned so that she was pressed up against the concrete pillar he’d been leaning on and kissed the everloving shit out of her. When her tongue brushed against his, he groaned in relief. He found strength in the way her arms wrapped around his neck. Confidence flooded him as she moaned. He kissed her like he’d imagined the previous night when his want for her had become so intense that he’d fucked his own hand in the shower, pretending it was her. To know that she wanted him just as badly as he wanted her dispelled the tension he’d felt in his stomach all day. It was replaced with warmth and a feeling of safety.
Lexi bit his lip, doing nothing to ease the discomfort of his cock, which was currently standing at full attention. He could think of only one other way to make the welcome home even more special, and it most certainly didn’t involve looking at ancient artwork and relics in a museum. For twenty bucks, he could have them across town in a cab, after which he could check them into the Royal York Hotel, best suite available, for the next month.
He lowered her to the ground, even though it was the last thing he wanted.
“I would say that was quite the welcome home, but I didn’t go anywhere,” Lexi said, a laugh bubbling behind the words.
* * *
“I think it would be fair to say that I haven’t had a welcome home like that before either,” Jordan said. He pressed his lips to her forehead and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
A part of her knew she should be embarrassed by the way Jordan manhandled her on the street. Lord knew that if her father had seen it, he would be in a state of apoplexy. But she didn’t have it in her to care. It was the most perfect reunion. She’d worn her favorite cream wool dress, cinched with a brown leather belt, but underneath it she was wearing new underwear from Victoria’s Secret in the hope that he might take her back to his place later. It was forward, she knew, but the last nine days of talking to the deeply thoughtful, and unintentionally sullen, man who currently had his body pressed up against hers had her all wound up.
Jordan’s brow furrowed as he studied her, like he was checking her over for injury.
“Do you ever really smile?” she asked. “Because I think I saw the glimmer of a smile when we went on our first date.”
“I do occasionally,” he replied gruffly
“If I kiss you again, will you smile for me?”
Jordan leaned forward and placed his lips right next to her ear. “If you kiss me again, I might just end up taking you standing up against this pillar. So I strongly suggest you take that pretty little ass of yours inside before I change my mind and do it anyway.”
Lexi shivered as his breath whispered across her skin and his words made her ache in the places that longed for his touch.
He reached for her hand and carefully peeled off her glove. Silently, he folded it and tucked it into her pocket. Then he repeated the process with her other hand.
She swallowed as he took her hand, scrambling to regain her control. They needed small talk, something less . . . flammable. “Are you looking forward to going inside?” she asked. It had been years since she’d visited the AGO, and when he’d asked her where she’d like to go, it was the first place she’d thought of.
“Yeah, I am,” he said, leading her in through the double doors. He leaned his head toward her again. “I’m really hoping that looking at stuffy old paintings and relics will help kill the boner you just gave me.”
Lexi laughed. “Oh my God,” she said. “I can’t believe you said that to me.”
Jordan grinned at her and led them to the desk to pay for the tickets and pick up a guide for the exhibits. They headed to the area of the museum that showcased the Group of Seven.
“Do you have a favorite Group of Seven artist?” Lexi asked as they walked along the corridor.
“Would you hate me if I said I didn’t even know who the Group of Seven is?” Jordan asked.
“You never learned about them at school? Carmichael. Harris. Lismer. Casson? No?” Most kids went to see the paintings at some point.
“I was rarely in school as a kid,” he said without looking at her.
Lexi’s stomach sank. She’d spent the time he’d been away trying to piece together what little he’d told her, but it hadn’t amounted to much. “I’m sorry, Jordan. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Yeah. Well. I’m probably one of the few kids who wished they’d been able to go to school. It took years of catch-
up to graduate high school.”
They walked into a bright room filled with the unmistakable artwork of the Group of Seven. “There were seven Canadian artists who mostly painted landscapes. I think it was pre-war, like nineteen-twenties or thirties. They were considered the first real national Canadian art movement.”
She watched Jordan’s eye rove around the gallery.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I like the blue and white one over there,” he said, pointing to a large painting that looked a little like the iceberg she’d accused him of being.
“It’s beautiful, but cold,” Lexi said and shivered.
“I’ll take cold over heat anytime,” Jordan said, holding her gaze for a moment.
They looked around for a few more minutes, and Lexi fought the urge to play teacher. Part of her wanted to share everything she knew, but part of her didn’t want to embarrass Jordan further.
When they were finished, Jordan took her hand, and she savored the way his fingers interlinked with hers. “The tips of your fingers are so calloused,” she said.
Jordan snatched his hand away. “Sorry, were they bothering you?”
Lexi pouted and reached for his hand, gripping it firmly. “No, they weren’t, and it’s just an observation. Your hands are nothing. Wait until you see my bare feet. They are an ugly mess, but hard in all the places I need them to be,” she said.
Jordan laughed. “Angel, I get to see you bare, the last thing I will be worrying about is your feet, and I’m sure I’ll be hard in all the places I need to be.”
She smacked his arm with mock disgust but was secretly thrilled by the naughty way he talked to her.
They reached the room holding the AGO’s masterpiece. “In here is a painting that cost over a hundred million dollars, if you can believe that. It’s a Rubens. It’s called Massacre of the Innocents.”
“That’s a stupid amount of money for a painting. Think of what kids’ charities could do with that kind of cash.”
“But it’s a wonderful piece of history. Painted in the sixteen hundreds, and it’s an awesome example of chiaroscuro. It needs to be preserved and—”
“Hey,” Jordan said, stopping them both just before they reached it. “I agree with everything you just said. What I don’t agree with is that someone had to pay over a hundred million dollars to do all that. Art is the privilege of the rich.”
Her brain said he was right, that the economics were all kinds of wonky, but her heart, the artist part of her, said he was absolutely wrong. You couldn’t put a price on beauty. And it cost a huge sum to conserve the majestic artwork.
They walked up to the painting, and she watched Jordan’s face as he studied its morbidity. Did he focus on the subject matter? The dead babies on the floor, the mothers panicking, a soldier driving a sword into a child. Or did he see the richness of color and the theatrical movement? Whatever he was studying had turned his face to stone, and she felt his hand tighten around hers.
Lexi looked at the canvas. It gave her chills, but it certainly conveyed the terror King Herod’s command to kill all the babies had caused.
“Jordan?” a male voice said uncertainly.
They both turned to see a tall man standing behind them who looked slightly older than Jordan.
“It’s been a while, but I thought that was you,” the guy said enthusiastically. He held out his hand toward Lexi. “I’m Gareth. Jordan lived with us for a while,” he said cheerily.
She shook his hand politely. “Lexi,” she said, pissed at Gareth for so openly revealing secrets about Jordan. He had no idea who Lexi was or what her relationship to Jordan was. The man was entitled to his privacy, goddammit.
Jordan stood straighter and more rigid than one of the sculptures she’d seen on the way in, his face completely without expression.
“You know, Mom’s here somewhere,” Gareth rambled. “I’m sure she’d be delighted to see you. We got her tickets for Christmas. You know, trip to the AGO and lunch. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” Jordan said. Lexi tried to read between the lines but got nothing from the short monotone sentence.
“Well, we’ve been watching your success. You’ve done really well. All those number ones. Mom had been thinking about reaching out to you. Seeing if you wanted to come visit. I should get your number.” Gareth reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He looked toward Lexi. “We were what—ten, twelve maybe?—when Jordan moved in. Great year or so. And it was fun for us to have another boy to play with.”
“Beat the shit out of, you mean?” Jordan said, his voice dripping with so much menace that the air around them chilled.
Gareth took a step back. “Oh, come on. It was never that bad. Play fighting between boys and all that.”
Jordan lifted the hair on the right side of his head. There was a long white scar from above his ear down his neck. “Play fighting with a baseball bat that needed seventeen stitches, you fuck.”
Lexi gasped as the reality of Jordan’s experiences settled over her. Just hearing the small snippet of what he’d gone through had ripped out her heart.
Gareth paled. “It was an accident. I never—”
Jordan took another step toward him, this time pulling his sleeve up to reveal another raised scar. “Twelve stitches. The day you tripped me on the stairs and sent me flying through the glass door at the bottom.”
“L-Look,” Gareth stammered. “I only wanted—”
People in the studio were looking at them, but Lexi didn’t care. Her only thought was how to help Jordan.
“You know what I wanted?” Jordan shouted. “A safe fucking place to sleep. But your mom sent me back to the home because you convinced her I started all the trouble. So, no. I don’t want to see your mom and eat food at your table while we all pretend you didn’t beat the shit out of me at every opportunity and aren’t hitting me up for some cash now because I’ve done well.”
He shoved Gareth out of the way and hurried from the gallery.
* * *
Jordan marched toward the exit with only one goal in mind. Escaping.
Escaping the need to pound the fucker into the floor in one proportionate act of retribution because by his reckoning, he owed the guy over a hundred stitches.
Escaping the hurt he felt inside. In his mind, he could remember the feel of every smash of the hockey stick against his back as he lay in bed one morning. And the despair. It almost brought him to his knees as he recalled how he’d had to miss his first-ever piano concert, one for which he had practiced daily so he could show Maisey how much better he was doing, because Gareth and his older brother Seth had held his hand in the door frame that morning and slammed the door shut on it so hard that his fingers had swollen to the size of grapefruits.
How dare the motherfucker walk up and talk to him as if they had always been friends? As if what he and his brother had done was playful banter and childish kicks. Fuck him. And fuck the lot of them. Every single motherfucker who’d laid a hand on him. He’d have killed them all given half the fucking chance—but Maisey had made sure he hadn’t. She’d made him promise that he wouldn’t become a statistic. That he wouldn’t go to prison. The thought that she’d come visit him there, even if he begged her not to, had kept him to his word.
He slammed the doors to the AGO open and jogged out onto the street.
And then that stupid painting. Massacre of the Innocents. The look of terror on the faces of those mothers at the thought of something horrible happening to their children. He was well on his way to thirty, so how could he, as an adult, still crave a mother who cared for him that way? He was a pussy. Yearning for something so pathetic that to the best of his knowledge didn’t even exist.
Fuck. FUCK.
And he’d lost his shit in front of Lexi. That look of shock on her face as he’d shared his stories. Those wide eyes that saw too much and held nothing but sympathy. How on Earth was he meant to share all of his past with her? And how could he be with
her if he couldn’t? Five minutes before they’d walked into that gallery, he’d been thinking of all the ways he wanted to fuck her, and, laughably, make love to her. And now it had all gone to shit.
Devastation didn’t even begin to describe the force squeezing his temples until he could barely focus on the road signs.
For the briefest moment, he considered getting his phone out to call Lexi to make sure she’d gotten home okay from where he left her. Though maybe she was still chatting with Gareth. Making small talk and shit.
He needed to calm down. Beneath the anger that crawled through him, he knew Lexi wouldn’t do something like that.
Jordan reached home and slammed the front door open, rattling the shelves and hooks that held all their coats and boots.
“You okay, man?” Elliott asked, coming down the stairs.
Jordan ignored him and stormed to the second fridge in the kitchen with the security code. He entered it and pulled out a beer before slamming that door shut too. “I’m fine,” he said eventually.
There was a hammering at the front door.
“Okay. Well, you drink away that problem you don’t got, and I’ll go get that.”
Jordan took a large swallow of beer, but it did nothing to fill the giant, bottomless pit in his gut.
“Look, just because the gate was open doesn’t mean you can come running inside,” he heard Elliott say.
Groupies. They did that sometimes, hiding in the bushes on the side of the fence until one of the guys came home and let himself into the house. Then they’d sneak up the driveway and, depending on stupidity levels, either attempt to take photographs through the downstairs windows or walk straight up to the front door and knock.
“You’re a sweet-looking thing, but honestly, I’ve heard it all before. Now go. The gate will be unlocked by the time you get there.”
Elliott was way more patient that he would have been. He’d tell whoever it was to fuck off. Jordan chugged another large swig of beer. It might not fill the hole inside him, but it would certainly get him so drunk that he would no longer have it within himself to care.
Jordan Reclaimed Page 9
