Lifers (10 page)

I’d seen the way he looked at me, and he’d told me that he thought I was attractive … well, ‘gorgeous’ was what he’d said. I took that comment with a grain of salt—I mean the guy was practically a virgin. Okay, probably not an
actual
virgin given what Mom had mentioned about him getting into trouble with girls, but unless he was taking it up the ass in prison, which I somehow doubted, then he hadn’t had sex in eight years. A born-again virgin, maybe. Either way, I didn’t want to make it harder for him. And I’d
definitely
seen how hard I was making it. Not that I was intentionally looking, it was just very, um … obvious and for it to be so obvious he must have had quite the … yeah, better not think about that.

But losing half an hour’s sleep made me grumpy. I was
not
a morning person.

I staggered down to the kitchen, desperate for a shot of caffeine before I moved an inch further.

I was listening out for the sound of Jordan’s truck when I suddenly saw him from the kitchen window. He was wearing his too-big shorts, and it looked like he was limping.

I banged on the window, and he jumped.
Shit, I must stop doing that to the poor guy.

But when he turned around, I was shocked. I yanked open the screen door and marched toward him.

“Jeez! What the hell happened to you now?”

Jordan was a mess. Blood was dripping down his leg from a cut across his left knee; his right elbow didn’t look much better, and the palms of both hands were badly scraped.

“Fell,” he said, with zero inflection in his voice.

“What? You fell in a way that managed to scrape your
left
knee, your
right
arm,
both
hands,
and
rip across the back of your t-shirt?”

He nodded and shrugged one shoulder.

“You’re full of shit, Jordan! Get your ass over here.”

He seemed reluctant to come in the house, so I grabbed a fistful of his sweaty t-shirt and dragged him inside, pushing him onto the couch.

“Sit there. Don’t move.”

He let his backpack slip off his shoulder and leaned back, his eyes closed.

I ran upstairs to get Mom’s first aid kit and a bottle of peroxide for the second time in as many days. Then, as an afterthought, I went to the kitchen and boiled some water, put it in a bowl and carried it over to the couch with a clean towel and more Bactine. It seemed likely that we were going to have to stock up on that if Jordan was going to carry on working here. Maybe kissing the boo-boos better would help, too—or kissing other things.
Aaagh! Mind on the job, Delaney!

“Soak your hands in there,” I ordered.

He hissed as his raw hands sank into the hot water.

“Wimp,” I teased him.

He raised his eyebrows, and I thought I saw a slight smile twitch at his lips.

When he’d washed his hands thoroughly, I dried them with the towel then smeared the palms with more ointment. He needed two small Band-Aids on the worst scrapes, but otherwise his hands weren’t too bad. After yesterday’s tussle with the rose bushes, his arms were already a patchwork of scratches and Band-Aids. He looked like he’d been wrestling a pair of bobcats. Did people still do that? Well, we were in Texas.

“Just keep your hands clean and dry. They’ll be fine. And remember to wear your work-gloves
all
the time. Now, let me see your elbow.”

I repeated the process of soaking and cleaning, and then used tweezers to pull out a couple of pieces of grit from his elbow. The cut was pretty deep but not too big. I cleaned it with the peroxide and felt his body tense as I dabbed the clear liquid into the cut, but he didn’t speak.

If I had to think of a word that defined Jordan, it would be ‘stoic’. He took pain the way other people took coffee. Definitely stoic, along with ‘hot’.

Still, this probably wasn’t worse than having a tattoo. I couldn’t help wondering when and where he’d got them all done. When he was 16? Possible—just.

His left knee had taken the worst of whatever had happened to him. And I didn’t believe his bullshit story that he’d simply fallen over. If I had to take a guess—which seemed likely since he wasn’t telling me anything anyway—I’d say that he’d been running when he fell, then rolled. Running
from
something, maybe?

It wasn’t my business, but I was still curious.

I settled down between his feet and took a good look at his knee. Several pieces of grit were stuck in there and I could see that I was going to need a magnifying glass as well as the tweezers.

“Wait here. Don’t move,” I snapped at him.

I thought I saw a flash of irritation, but his blank look was soon in place again. I was kind of pleased that I was getting under his skin. I wanted to know what the real Jordan was like. He was a master at keeping himself closed off. It couldn’t be good for him—it wouldn’t be good for anyone to keep themselves wound so tight. I imagined he’d had eight years of it. I shivered at the thought of what unraveling eight years of fear and tension might look like.

I found a scratched magnifying glass at the bottom of Mom’s ancient makeup bag. Satisfied I had the tools for the job, I ran back downstairs and was pleased to find that he hadn’t moved.

“How y’all doin’ over there, cowboy?” I said, in my best Texas drawl.

“Waal, jest fine, ma’am,” he said, hamming it up for me.

This time there was a definite smile lurking at the corners of his mouth, and it gave me hope.

I knelt down between his feet again and started pulling out pieces of grit.

I saw a muscle quiver in his thigh a couple of times, but he didn’t say anything.

When I heard Mom’s car outside, I felt Jordan tense up again, but I was so focused on what I was doing that I just carried on.

Mom walked in the door and I heard her shocked intake of breath.

“Oh excuse me!” she gasped, and immediately started to back out.

What the hell?

I turned to see her retreating figure.

“Mom! What are you doing?”

She turned around to meet my irritated gaze. Her face was burning with embarrassment.

“What?” I said again.

She took in the sight of Jordan’s messy knee and the first aid kit, then heaved a sigh of relief.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I thought…”

I realized what she’d seen: me kneeling with my head nearly in Jordan’s lap. She’d obviously sprinted to the wrong conclusion.

“Jeez, Mom, really? Did you think I was blowing him right here on your sofa?”

Her face went an even darker shade of red, and behind me Jordan sounded like he was choking.

Mom uttered a few mangled vowels then almost ran to the kitchen, mumbling about making coffee.

“I should go,” Jordan said in a hoarse whisper, standing up awkwardly.

“Sit your ass down and let me finish!”

Hesitantly, he lowered himself to the couch again. I shook my head in disbelief at the weirdness of people and went back to work.

Five minutes later, I was happy that I’d gotten all of the grit. I finished cleaning him up then slapped a large Band-Aid over his knee.

“You’re done.”

He stood up hurriedly, his eyes fixed to the floor, as usual.

“Thanks,” he said, softly.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m a regular Saint Joan.”

“A warrior.”

“What?”

This time he risked meeting my eyes.

“Saint Joan was a warrior. She led the French in battles against the English.”

“Who died and put you in charge?” I said bitchily, still more than a little irritated with my mom.

His face froze.

“Oh, God! I’m so sorry, Jordan! That was…”

But he was already out the door.

Jeez, was there ever a time when I didn’t have my foot in my mouth?

Mom watched him through the kitchen window.

“Torrey…”

“Don’t start, Mom.”

“I shouldn’t have assumed … but what you said—that language was uncalled for.”

I whipped my head around to look at her.

“Seriously? You’re that much of a hypocrite that what bothers you is
not
the fact that you leapt to a hugely wrong conclusion about both me and Jordan? But
that’s
not what bothers you—oh no! The fact that I called you on it is a big fucking problem!”

“Please don’t swear! You know I don’t like it.”

“Fine! I won’t swear if you won’t assume that I’m a giant slut!”

I walked out of the room, fire just about shooting from my eyeballs. By rights the house should have been alight by now.

I ran up to my room and upended my purse to try and find my car keys, causing unpaid parking tickets, lipstick and loose change to rain down on my bed.

Then I sat down heavily, bouncing slightly on the too soft mattress—I couldn’t take off in a cloud of smoke and squeal of burning tires because my car was still fucked.

I looked out of the window, my eyes searching for Jordan. He was standing with his shoulders slumped, staring at the thicket of brambles and roses in front of him.

The way he was just standing there was painful to watch. He looked so defeated. I hated that I’d contributed to him feeling like that. Just because Mom had assumed I was being my usual sluttish self. Okay, so I’d hooked up with quite a number of guys in the couple of weeks I’d been here, but did she really think I’d do a guy on her sofa in the middle of the day? Scratch that, because the answer was obviously ‘yes’.

I couldn’t really blame her—I hadn’t given her many reasons to think well of me. She didn’t know that I still had boundaries; they just weren’t the same as
her
boundaries.

I heard the front door slam so I assumed she’d gone back out. She was probably as eager to get away from me as I was from her. I sighed heavily. I might not be able to fix my relationship with my mom, but I could try to make things better for Jordan.

I went back downstairs and opened the screen door leading from the kitchen.

“Hey, cowboy!”

He turned around; his face stiff with the studied blankness that seemed to be what he did to hide himself. I guess it was a necessary skill in prison.

“You going to fix my car for me or what?”

He blinked and stared at me warily.

“You still want me to try?”

“Well, duh! Of course I do!”

He nodded and limped toward me.

“Are you going to tell me what the hell happened now, or do I have to play twenty questions again?”

His eyes wouldn’t meet mine when he replied.

“I fell over,” he said, again.

“Fine. So don’t tell me. You fell over. Whatever.”

I tossed my keys to him. “Fix my car and I’ll fix you something amazing for lunch. How about feta and quinoa spring rolls with roast tomato nam prik?”

His eyes widened.

“Um, I don’t know what that is. The only words I recognized are spring rolls and tomato somethin’ or other.”

“Guess the prison wasn’t too hot on Thai food, no pun intended.”

He shook his head.

“I’ve never had Thai food. Is that, as in, Thailand?”

“Oh, baby, you’re in for a treat! I make the meanest nam prik this side of Bangkok. You feeling brave?”

“Not so as you’d notice,” he said, his mouth twisting down. “And I’m real sorry I made things tougher between you and your momma.”

His voice was rough with sincerity, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Ha! That was nothing to do with you. We have our own drama, so don’t worry about it.” I paused. “It was pretty funny though, when you think about it.”

From the way his face immediately reddened I guessed he wasn’t ready to make a joke of it.

“So, the Princess: why won’t the bitch run?”

I followed him outside and realized immediately what was missing.

“Jordan, where’s your truck?”

His eyes slid to my car and he wouldn’t look at me.

“Had a problem with it this mornin’.”

“So … you walked here?”

“Yes, ma… yeah, I like to run, so … um, can you pop the hood for me again and I’ll take a closer look?”

He was clearly unhappy talking about whatever had happened, so I left it at that.

It was fascinating watching him work, he was so competent and in charge. It offered another glimmer of the person he used to be, and the person I hoped he could be again.

And I admit it, seeing his tight body bent under the hood of my car was a real turn on. If he’d been anyone other than who he was, I’d have jumped him by now. But knowing he was in a vulnerable place—that had me hitting the brakes hard. He needed a friend, not a casual hook up. Although, on the other hand, maybe he wouldn’t be so uptight if he got laid.

“Well, you seem to know what you’re doing,” I said, after several minutes of enjoyable ogling, “and I feel like a spare part. I’ll go whip up something exotic for lunch.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he said, peering up at me. “I brought a sandwich.”

“Pah! Sandwich, smandwich! I can do better than that. Prepare to be amazed.”

I headed back to the kitchen, pleased that I’d gone grocery shopping with Mom earlier in the week, and stocked up on the kind of things I liked to eat. I was
so
bored of pasta with spaghetti sauce, no matter how many mushrooms Mom put in it.

I lined up my ingredients like soldiers about to go into battle, which was an apt simile, because when I cooked, I always seemed to end up using every utensil in the house, and left it looking like the fridge had exploded.

Quinoa had been a go-to staple when I was a student: easy to use, you could store it forever, and it went great with whatever you threw into it. Today, I added frozen peas, onions, Greek cheese, lemon juice and foraged a bunch of dried mint leaves. Maybe when Jordan had finished on Mom’s garden I’d plant some herbs for her so we could cook with fresh spices.

The nam prik needed a bit more preparation: tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, red chili, ginger, coriander, lime juice and the secret ingredient that I’d had to order from Galveston, tamarind paste.

I cheated with the filo pastry, using the ready-made frozen stuff. I was pretty sure Jordan wouldn’t know the difference, unless I was dumb enough to leave the packet wrapper out.