Page 57 of Long Road Home

I snorted at the thought. People didn’t change. They got better at hiding it.

“It was a decade ago, I would like to think we’ve all changed and grown since then. Haven’t you?”

My nose wrinkled. Somehow he managed to take my thought and twist it so now I was feeling bad about being rude to Christa.

“Yes,” I admitted, my tone heavy with defeat. He had a point, after all. “Yeah, I’d like to think I’m different.”

“And I’m asking for you to keep in mind that other people might be too. Especially tomorrow. Okay?”

He had such damn hope in his eyes. I still felt like we were fighting a losing war, one where both of us were left destroyed on the battlefield. But like I’d always done, I clung to his hope, hoping it was enough for the both of us.

“I’ll try.”

“Good.” He nodded toward my pot pie. “How’s your meal?”

I couldn’t hide my grin. “Best pot pie I’ve ever eaten.”

Conversation changed while we ate,but never recovered. Jordan talked about his life after baseball, his decision to return to Carlton instead of doing something in sports, like broadcasting. He insisted he didn’t want to end up in a small market or on the media platform, dissecting all of his former friends and other player’s abilities when he’d been injured in a way he couldn’t fully compete again. He felt that made him a douche, and without a lot of options, he came back and decided to invest in his home community.

I figured there was more to the story, but since I’d shut him down on pushing me, I hesitated in doing the same thing to him.

Eventually conversation shifted back to Toby, which was always easier, but it was like every other conversation we’d had so far.

So by the time our food was done, Jordan paid, and Christa gave us whatseemedlike a friendly wave goodnight, I’d had all the drama and walks down memory lanes I could handle.

Basically, I’d ruined our first date in a decade because I couldn’t get past high school crap that didn’t even matter anymore. The more that lingering thought swam in my brain, the more I hated myself for falling into the trap.

Some backbone I had.

Jordan pulled into the driveway of Tillie’s home, one I was slowly beginning to think of as mine until disastrous date number one occurred. We couldn’t even get through a meal together. How in the heck could we ever be anything more?

“I’m sorry I ruined dinner,” I said. My keys were already in my hand, my escape seconds away from Jordan’s heavy sighs and tense shoulders. He’d kept his hands on the steering wheel on the way home.

No touches to my skin that radiated to the apex of my thighs or my nipples like on the way to Down Home.

He shoved the gear shift into park and without looking at me, opened his door. “I’ll walk you in.”

Still the gentleman he always was, he came to my side of the SUV, but I already had the door open and was hopping down before he could help me. We walked next to each other, the clinking of my keys in my hand and the whistling of the breeze through the trees the only sound in the air. It felt like a lead weight to my shoulders and I was slumped and defeated by the time I unlocked the doors and stepped in. I moved back in case Jordan wanted to come in.

He did, and I could barely look at him as he walked in, eyes straight ahead toward the kitchen, one hand on his hip and the other at the back of his neck.

“Any chance you have beer?”

He probably needed another drink after that disaster. “Yeah. I got some on the way home from Rebecca’s today.”

Jordan went straight for the kitchen. I kicked off my heels and followed, smiling when I found him. He’d pulled out a bottle of white wine and grabbed two glasses and was opening the bottle.

“Changed your mind about the beer?”

“Thought you and I could share a drink instead. Want one?”

After the flood of emotions all day? “Yeah. A big one please.”

He went to work on the wine bottle, veins popping on his forearms as he worked the corkscrew. There was something so damn sexy about the simple gesture of opening and pouring a bottle of wine and how manly he looked doing it that flooded me with regret all over again.

“I’m really sorry about tonight. About Christa. I know it was a long time ago, but it was so hard at the time, and I guess I’ve never really dealt with that.”

He slid a wineglass in my direction and lifted his own. “I know what it’s like to be talked about, you know. When we were together, after you left, when I came back after getting injured. I wasn’t immune to people saying shit about me, and I’m still not. I just don’t give a shit what people think who only know a sliver of the truth.”

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