Page 131 of Yours to Lose
JORDAN
November
At the loud crash and Jo’s muttered, “Shit,” I stroll through a maze of half-unpacked boxes into the bedroom.
Our bedroom.
That makes me smile almost as much as the sight in front of me. Jo stands with her back to me and her arms crossed, her foot tapping out an irritated rhythm.
“I told you that you didn’t need to pack the hangers, Jo Jo.”
She spins around, narrowing her eyes at me. I know it’s wrong to smile in this moment but fuck, I just love every damn inch of her, right down to her high, messy ponytail, flannel pants,Game of Bonessweatshirt, and exasperated scowl.
“Well, what was I supposed to do with them?” she asks, glaring at the overturned packing box and the black plastic hangers covering the bedroom floor as if they personally wronged her. “Hangers are the stupidest things on the planet. They’re big and shaped weird, making them impossible to reasonably fit into a garbage bag to throw away, and it seemed strange to just leave them in the closet in my old house. But now we have those fancy padded hangers Elliot brought over, so all I have is a box full of inferior hangers, except I don’t even have that because the box broke and, well—” She gestures to the floor.
My smile spreads because irritated, rambling Jo is my favorite Jo. I’m in front of her in two strides, framing her face with my hands and pressing my mouth to hers. The kiss sends a bolt of lust through me, and I groan when she stands up on her tiptoes, sweeping her tongue into my mouth to tangle with mine. It’s always this way with us, and I hope it never changes. I know in my bones that it won’t.
“I love you,” I say against her lips. “I’ll take care of disposing of the hateful hangers. Besides, if Elliot sees a plastic hanger, he’ll start lecturing us about how closets owned by adults require adult hangers.”
Jo laughs, wrapping her arms around me and laying her head on my chest. “He really does have a lot of opinions on organization, which is good because I have none.”
“You and me both,” I say, leaning my head against hers and breathing in her cupcake scent, feeling every single part of me settle. It’s been six weeks since the morning I showed up at her apartment, and I still feel like there is no amount of her that will ever be enough. It might have something to do with the fact that we spent most of those six weeks apart while I had to be in Boston for work, and she took care of some final things at the museum and got ready to move. It felt like forever, but as of last night, we are both officially here for good, and everything in me is lighter at the thought of making this place ours. “I ordered pizza,” I murmur against her hair. “I have no clue where any kitchen stuff is, and I don’t feel like finding it tonight when I could be spending the night wrapped around you instead.”
Jo kisses my chest and leans back, grinning at me. “You are the perfect man. You got the dipping sauces, right?”
I scoff, leaning in to kiss her again. “Like I would forget your pizza crust dipping sauces.”
“Like I said, the perfect man.” Jo grins at me, pulls away, and saunters out of the bedroom. “I’m setting up a blanket fort in the living room,” she says over her shoulder. “I feel like the first night in our new house deserves an epic blanket fort.”
“Jo Jo, you are the perfect girl.”
“Oh, I know,” she calls, and thirty seconds later, I hear the sound of a box being cut open and her rummaging around. Our stuff is mostly everywhere, and at this point, it’ll probably take weeks to get everything unpacked and organized, but I couldn’t care less. Because Jo is here and so am I, and we’re making this life together, and nothing will ever be better than that. Besides, if we wait long enough to unpack, Elliot will probably just do it for us, and I can really get behind that.
“Uh, Jordan?”
Jo’s voice is confused, and I head into the living room to find her. When I get there, she’s standing, frozen in front of an open box, staring at a single piece of paper in her hand.
“What’s up, Hurricane?”
Jo whirls around, holding up the piece of paper. “Why does this letter say you made a five-million-dollar donation to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, earmarked for the kids’ programs I created?”
I smile and shrug, sauntering towards her. “Because I did.”
Jo opens her mouth and closes it, eyes bouncing from the paper to me and back again. I can see her brain working like she’s trying to decide what question to ask first. I wait her out. This wasn’t exactly how I anticipated her finding out about this, but I’m a more go-with-the-flow kind of guy these days, so I’m rolling with it.
“Why?” is all she manages, still staring at me wide-eyed.
I tug her towards the couch that sits right in the middle of the room waiting for us to find its permanent location and pull her down with me so she’s sitting sideways on my lap. I brush her hair back from her face and keep my eyes on her. “Because I can.”
Jo turns so she’s straddling me. “You have five million dollars?”
Shrugging, I settle my hands on her hips. “I have a lot more than that. Remember the estate planning I told you I was meeting with Molly about?”
Jo nods, putting the letter down on the couch and linking her hands around my neck.
“It had to do with a trust Allie and I were in the process of setting up. No one knows this except for Molly, but Allie invented something before she died. It’s a kind of patch made with stem cells that can heal the hearts of kids suffering from a certain kind of heart failure, eliminating the need for a heart transplant.”
“Holy shit, J,” Jo breathes. “That’s incredible. So freaking badass. And it works?”
