Page 100 of Old Fashioned
Then, his head disappeared under the covers, his lips trailing a path down my navel to the band of my flannel pajama pants.
And we were done talking for the night.
Jordan
The next day, Sydney and I gathered with the rest of my family at Mom’s house before the parade.
It was tradition in Stratford — which I found pride in, seeing as how it could only be tradition if wewon. The town had thrown one the past two years after we’d won the State Championship, with the team being the focal point.
I knew this one would hold more weight.
The entire town was buzzing with what had happened with Patrick Scooter and Randy Kelly, with more and more accomplices to my father’s murder being outed each day.
And this would be the first time my family and I would make a public appearance.
Ruby Grace and Mallory made a giant breakfast for everyone at Mom’s, and I sat at the table, mostly playing with my food and watching everyone who sat around it. Everyone was there — my brothers and their significant others, Mom, Betty, Sydney, Paige, and even Sydney’s sister, Gabby, who was visiting from out of town to help with Paige.
She’d already pulled me to the side to threaten me within an inch of my life if I hurt her little sister.
But I know she believed me when I swore I never would.
“You look like you’re about toplaythe championship game,” she teased me. “Not go to a parade celebrating the fact that you already won it.”
“Oh, that’s just his permanent state of being,” Betty chimed in. “He’s the quiet type. Sydney didn’t tell you?” Betty clucked her tongue. “Could be in a romance movie with all that broodiness.”
Gabby laughed at that, and Betty steered the conversation away from me and onto Gabby’s job, which Betty seemed to be interested in. She wasespeciallyinterested in Gabby’s hot doctor boss. And Betty winked at me as the conversation turned, as if she knew I just wanted to be alone.
I thanked her with a nod.
Gabby looked so much like Sydney, and I loved watching them together. They had that familiar comfort that I had withmybrothers. It was in the way they spoke, the way there were so many things they didn’t have to even speak out loud for the other to understand.
Sisters.
And when I glanced at Mallory from across the table, it hit me for the hundredth time that week that I now had one, too.
“Jordan,” Mom said after breakfast, standing as Logan and Noah worked on clearing the dishes from the table. “Can we talk outside?”
Sydney and I exchanged glances, and she nodded encouragingly before I grabbed my coffee and made my way out onto the front porch with Mom. She sat in her favorite rocking chair, cupping her mug of tea between her hands, her favorite shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders as her eyes swept over the yard.
I took the seat next to her, and for a long time, we were both silent.
“Do you know why I named you Jordan?” she asked.
My stomach was in knots, because though we’d talked a lot since what happened at Patrick’s home on Monday night, we hadn’t been completely alone. And though she was still the same mom she’d always been to me, and I was still her son, there was a new, foreign cloud that hung between us — one with a lifetime of her hiding a secret from me that I found out in the worst way.
“I don’t,” I answered.
“In theNew Testament,the River Palestine is where Jesus Christ is baptized by John the Baptist,” she explained. “AndJordancomes from the Hebrew term,Yarden, which means to flow down. To descend.”
I frowned, but Mom looked at me then with a soft smile.
“That’s what you had done,” she said. “You had flowed down to us from the heavens we were praying to every night to help us get pregnant. Descended, as if God himself had placed you in our arms. And we never could have known then that he would bless us later in life with three crazy, but amazing little boys to be your brothers,” she said on a chuckle. “At the time, Jordan — you were it for us. You were our only one, and we thought that maybe you wouldalwaysbe our only one.”
The corner of my mouth lifted, and I reached over to place my hand on hers for a moment before I held my coffee mug again.
Mom held my gaze. “I’m sorry, Son. I’m sorry it wasn’t me who you learned your true past from.” She looked grim. “I know it may not make sense to you, and I understand if you’re angry with me. But… I made a promise to a woman who used to be one of my best friends. And, honestly, I swear, I didn’t know who your father was,” she added. “But, in my mind, as your mother, I was protecting you as much as I was protecting Mary by hiding the truth. In my eyes, you were never hers, anyway.” Her eyes welled with tears. “You are, always have been, and always will be mine and John’s son.”
I set my coffee down and stood, extending a hand for Mom to do the same. She set her tea down, too, and then she was in my arms, and I hugged her tight as her little shoulders shook in my grasp.
