Chapter 4

Jordan unlocked and opened the door. I stood there, watching her go inside. I didn’t feel good about going in. I suddenly realized that I had only ever been in one other person’s house before, and the experience had been terrifying.

“I know the place is a mess,” she said, setting her purse aside, “but I wasn’t expecting company.” She turned and saw me still standing outside her doorway. “Aren’t you coming in?”

I focused on her, and her question. “I ... um...” I couldn’t make my feet move and my mind flashed back to the only other time. Pain lashed through me with the memory.

She came back out and studied my face. “Are you okay?”

I shook away the memory. “I ... I’ve never actually been in anyone else’s house before.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Really? Oh, well, this isn’t a house, it’s an apartment.” She smiled at her own joke.

I could tell she was trying to lighten the mood and smiled gratefully.

Her expression softened and she glanced up at the sky. “It’s too hot out here,” she said with a soft voice. She held her hand out to me, wiggling her fingers. “C’mon.”

I hesitated. I didn’t like being coddled like a five-year-old. Thinking about it though, I was acting like one, and she was doing nothing but being nice. I took her hand and my nerves calmed. The feel of her hand in mine was soft and pleasant. I don’t know what I had expected, but it was nice.

She led me inside saying, “I know my place is a pig sty, but really!” Once we were both past the threshold, she pushed the door shut behind me. The heat of the day was shut out, and some part of me, deep inside, felt closed in.

Her apartment was a lot more comfortable than the air outside, and it was more than the temperature. It was spacious, and something about the arrangement of her furniture, or the decorations, or ... something about it made me want to flop down on the couch. I couldn’t help but relax. My anxiety melted away.

She had a nice set of living room furniture. All of them were deep beige, almost tan in color. A coffee table was the centerpiece with a few magazines on it, and a few potted plants lined both windows. In one corner, there was an entertainment center with a huge flat panel television, a couple of different media players and several shelves of movies. Closer to the main door, there was a small breakfast table with only two chairs. It was all in excellent shape. In fact, it all looked as new as her car outside. What puzzled me was her comment about the place being a pigsty, because nothing looked out of place. I looked at her. I was relaxed but confused.

She smiled. “It was a joke Seth,” she said, squeezing my hand. “Lighten up.” She looked me over and said, “So, can I ask you something kind of personal?”

I met her eyes and felt calm enough to answer almost anything. “Sure. What would you like to know?”

“Well,” she said, suddenly looking apprehensive herself, “You seemed very anxious around Francine after the orientation.” She hesitated and looked at me. “Did something happen last night?”

I was relaxed but not out of my mind. I blinked a few times and licked my lips because my mouth was suddenly dry.

Jordan tugged on my hand and headed toward the couch. “Come here. Sit down.”

I followed her, mostly because she tightened her grip on my hand, but also because refusing would have been rude. We sat on her couch and she continued to hold onto my hand. I didn’t mind. If anything, I liked it. It meant she wasn’t afraid of me.

“Now,” she said, once she was settled, facing me with one leg bent with her foot tucked under the other. She was holding my hand along the back of the couch. “Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”

The urge to tell her filled me up. It would have been good to tell her what happened, to spit it out like some kind of poison that was eating at me, but I shook my head. “I don’t know if I should talk about it.”

She stared at me for a moment. Her expression reminded me of my mother’s whenever I said something that she knew wasn’t the entire truth. “So, something did happen.” I swallowed and she blinked. “It couldn’t have been all bad. Francine really did look like she wanted to hook up with you again tonight.”

Jordan couldn’t have meant what I thought she meant. “Hook up” could mean any number of things, including getting together for ... No. That wasn’t right. Francine didn’t want to be with me for that.

Jordan watched me and asked, “Are you afraid someone will find out about you and Francine?”

I thought about it. Who would be the most upset about anything happening between Francine and me? Well, her boyfriend certainly would, and if he ever ran into me, he would very likely get violent. I looked at Jordan and the sympathy in her eyes. Without really meaning to, I said, “Another girl walked up on us.”

Jordan’s eyes widened. “Someone found you?”

I shrugged. It wasn’t as if anyone could miss us. We were standing out in the open, but I didn’t say that. “She warned Francine that her boyfriend wouldn’t be happy with her.” I cringed at that point, realizing what my story sounded like, and expected Jordan to throw a fit about me “hooking up” with a girl who had a boyfriend.

She sat there calmly, looking more thoughtful than angry. When her eyes rose and met mine again, she smiled. “There is the possibility that she doesn’t have a boyfriend anymore.”

It was my turn to think. Was it possible that he had found out and broke up with her because of what happened? Was that why Francine had looked so happy to see me, because she didn’t have a boyfriend anymore? If that was the case, and we went further, what would stop her from leaving me for someone else? I was too full of questions about it.

Jordan squeezed my hand, and I looked up. “Honestly,” she said, “I wasn’t worried about whether or not she had a boyfriend.” There was an implication in her words that took me a moment to understand. When I did, that morbid, self-loathing part of my mind forced me to laugh, and I laughed harder than I had in a very long time.

When I calmed down enough, I noticed Jordan’s expression. She looked slightly stunned, but had a small smile on her face. “Was it something I said?”

I shook my head and took a few breaths to calm down. “You were worried about me having a girlfriend?” I asked. It sounded too ludicrous to be possible.

“Well, yes. You were acting like you were more worried about what she would think than what Francine’s boyfriend might do.”

I shook my head, pointed at my chest, and repeated, “Me? A girlfriend?” The humor was wearing off quickly.

She nodded but then asked. “You don’t have one?”

I shook my head, a lot more sober. “No. Never have.”

She looked at me suspiciously. “Oh, c’mon. You can’t tell me you never even dated any girls.”

All of the odd humor was completely out of my system and I sat there staring at Jordan as if she had grown a second head. She really didn’t understand, and I wasn’t sure I was in the mood to explain it to her.

She squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know, and that was why I asked. I thought maybe you and Francine might have something going, but if that’s not the case then I won’t bring it up again.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said before I took a deep breath and let it all out in a heavy sigh. “No, I said it was okay. I didn’t expect the direction of the question.”

She nodded while watching me calm down. She was still holding my hand on the back of the couch and I realized she never let go, not when she was asking about Francine, not when she asked about me having a girlfriend. I thought it was a little odd, but then I didn’t know Jordan. She might have liked holding hands.

She squeezed my hand again and said, “So, do you want to change here, that way you can jump right in when we get to the party?”

When she made the offer back at the University Center, it had seemed like a perfectly logical and okay idea, but in her apartment, alone with her, and after the conversation we had, I wasn’t so sure. Whatever had calmed me down before wasn’t strong enough to curb the return of my anxiety.

I looked past her. There were two doors. She would probably go to her bedroom to change. I seriously doubted she was going to get undressed while I watched. Just as quickly as the thought crossed my mind, it evolved and became extremely vivid.

She unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it completely open. Her eyes rolled up to meet mine for only a second, and her gaze was intense. When she looked back down, my eyes followed hers. Her breasts looked even more impressive than before. Her lacey bra only really helped to support her breasts. It looked too thin to hold them in place. Jordan reached for the waistband of her skirt and raised her hips to slip out of it.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. When I looked again, Jordan was sitting there, properly dressed and still holding my hand. My heart was racing. I may have gotten into trouble for staring at Lisa Hartwell in school, but I had never imagined her undressing like that. Where had the thought about Jordan come from? Had I really accepted the fact that I wasn’t at home anymore and could think a little more freely? Did I really believe that I could think like that and get away with it? I had no answers, and I couldn’t ask Jordan. She wouldn’t understand. There was also the conflicting idea that I didn’t want her to think that I thought badly about her. She was very pretty, beautiful even, but I didn’t mean to think of her the way that vision portrayed.

Focusing on her, the real her, I found her staring back at me. She patiently waited for me to make up my mind about her offer. I met her gaze, both trying to apologize for what I had been thinking and terrified that she might find out about it. Between her holding my hand and her eyes watching me so intently, it took a lot of effort to think clearly at all. Finally, I blinked and shook my head slightly. She wasn’t going to undress like that in front of me. It was that simple. I looked over at the two doors and asked, “Do you have a bathroom I can change in?”

She sat there looking at me for a moment and then said, “Well, if you don’t mind the mess, sure.”

I shook my head but didn’t say anything. Did she really think I’d consider changing right there in the living room where she could see me?

Squeezing my hand again, she got up from the couch. I stood up too and followed her to the door closer to the kitchenette. She let my hand go after she opened it. The main living area may have been huge, but the bathroom wasn’t. There was a big difference in clutter too. She bent to pick up various bits of clothing and drop them in the hamper. When she saw me watching she said, “Sorry, I really need to do laundry.”

I shrugged. “It’s cool.”

She turned and bent over to continue picking things up. Her backside was pointed right at me. The skirt she wore hid any real detail, but I had another vision. She looked back over her shoulder at me, smiling in a way I had never seen anyone smile before. She reached back, ran her hands over her cheeks, and then pulled at the waistband of her skirt, slowly sliding it over her skin, revealing her hips, buttocks, and thighs...

I shook myself again and took a deep breath. What was wrong with me?