Page 10 of One Little Chance
“Eh, in the grand scheme of things, you were here longer than you weren’t.” Jordan shrugged, still able to shrink my fears in one sentence.
“Sometimes, it feels like my time away was mostly me piecing myself back together.” I sighed.
“I can’t imagine you being anything but that bold Sophia I always knew,” he said. “I know how hard things were for you, though. It must’ve taken time.”
“It took a few years, but I did some growing that makes me proud. It just felt like I needed to get away from everything to do it.”
“You needed to be repotted for a bit?” Jordan nodded. His five o’clock shadow was sharper than I’d ever seen it.
“Sure. Now, I’m ready to dig my roots into Sweet River soil again.” I peeked out the window to the ripple of gray overhead.
We hadn’t spoken like this in years. My heart was a hummingbird in my chest. Jordan cleared his throat.
“I’ve got to ask.” His voice was low. “What brought you back to our Sweet River soil?”
“I finally stopped fearing how badly I wanted to come home.” It was honest, maybe too honest, but this was a Truck Chat, wasn’t it?
“Scared of little old Sweet River?” Jordan said in mock surprise. “Summer festivals and coffee shops and—” I crossed the console and gave him a shove. “There’s a whole lotta history here, I know.”
“I missed these chats,” I admitted.I missed you.
“We spent a lot of time in that old truck of mine,” he said distantly like his mind was far away in a memory.
I swallowed back my visceral reaction to the memory of how we used to tangle up in the back of his truck and kiss across consoles. “Uh-huh,” I murmured, my skin suddenly warmer.
“Remember that long drive to Galveston?”
“Yes. I said I wanted to watch the sunrise over the beach someday.” I played with the zipper on my coat. “So you decided to drive me to the beach the very next morning.”
“You were not happy about that wake-up call.” He was grinning wide and boyish.
“Well, you did come knocking at my window at three a.m.”
“I thought you’d tell me to go home, honestly.”
“I wasn’t going to ever turn you away,” I said through a lump in my throat.
I could still hear us laughing groggy and giddy as we drove along the darkened highways. Playing twenty questions to stay awake, singing country music to each other, his Tim McGraw to my Faith Hill.
I could still feel our sandy feet in the cold morning sand, watching the sun come up over the bay in pink blush and turquoise.
Jordan was playful and giddy as he made my dreams come true. “You know, Rogers,” his favorite nickname for me, the one that felt like a comforting kiss on the forehead every time he said it. “I’m just so happy to have you here in my arms,” he’d said, my back against his chest, his arms encircling me, my fortress of forearms and warm skin.
“It was a sad day when I had to turn that truck in,” Jordan said finally, his head hanging low. “I needed a bigger, newer model when I started the business.”
“I’ve seen that ad for your home construction business all over town since I got back,” I said admiringly. A picture of him and his dad with tool belts on was slapped on nearly every bus and store window.
“You can’t escape me, huh?” he joked, but he had no idea how true it was. Jordan was around every corner, ads or not. And, even when he wasn’t, here I was driving down the street to revisit our memories.
“I take it work is good?” I asked.
“Yeah, yeah. It’s fun,” he said, his eyes looking nearly gold today. I knew how bad he’d wanted it. “You get hired at Sweet River Elementary?”
“I did. I took over for someone who left on maternity leave in January. A sweet class of second graders,” I said, then chuckled. “There are a couple of, uh, unruly kiddos. But there always are.”
He smiled. “I can picture you tussling with ‘em.”
“You know I can tussle,” I said, chin up.
