I’d figured out on my run this morning that that had been a mistake, though. Space wasn’t what Jordan needed at all. He needed a Daddy, and he needed me to show him I could be that.
Somewhere hecouldn’trun away from me.
10
Jordan
I stared at my phone,my knee bouncing like crazy, and tried to figure out what Andy wanted.
I’d missed a call from him when I’d been at the gym earlier, but there was no voicemail, and then had come… this. He’d messaged and told me to call him. Just that.Call me. Like, what the fuck did that mean? Did he want to hook up again? He hadn’t said so since the last time, but now it was like, the middle of the day on a Saturday, so he probably had other shit to do and wasn’t going to just want me to come over and fuck all afternoon, which left, what? Was he calling to tell me to lose his number? He’d wanted me to stay after I’d blown him the other night—again, like, the dude was fucking obsessed with me staying past us both getting off for some reason—and I hadn’t, becauseobviouslythat would have been dumb.
But now… what? He was just dropping me because of that?
“Fuck,” I said, my throat feeling all tight and shit. I tossed my phone aside and shoved out of my chair, scrubbing my fingers over my scalp as I paced.
I’d meant to work on some editing for the channel after I got back from the gym, but I couldn’t get my brain to fucking settle down and focus on it, not with Andy’s message hanging over my head.
My phone suddenly went off again, the sound sending my heart into my throat, and I whipped around to stare at it from across the room like I suddenly thought I’d turned psychic now or something. Spoiler: I hadn’t, but like, who ever called? No one, that was who. Well, Nic did, and now Andy, but everyone else just hit me up with text since this wasn’t 1980 or whatever. So… yeah. Psychic or not, it was still a pretty safe bet that it was probably him, since I knew Nichol was off doing some stupidly romantic Scott-thing this weekend.
I stared at the phone even harder, and eventually, it stopped ringing.
So was that it, then?
He was done with me?
“Fuckingfuck,” I whispered, pretty sure I was somehow being a total fucking idiot right now, but not quite sure how to stop that shit when it was one of my primary skillsets.
The phone rang again, and I lunged for it, accepting the call the minute I saw it was Andy, before I could even figure out if I actually wanted to or not.
I mean, fuck, yes, I definitely wanted to… I just didn’t want to hear it if it was anything bad.
“Petal,” Jordan said, the smooth sound of his voice instantly washing away half my freak out.
“Uh, hey,” I said, fumbling with the earbuds I’d dropped on my desk earlier like a total douche, hands all shaky or whatnot from the other half of that freak out that was still alive and well.
I finally stopped dropping them and shoved them in my ears so I could switch the call to Bluetooth, then went back to pacing, so I didn’t implode or some shit from the jitters that had apparently decided to body snatch me now.
“You didn’t call,” Andy said. “Did you get my message?”
I swallowed. “Yeah, no. I mean, yeah, I was at the gym, and, you know, just... busy. Sorry.”
“Are you working today?” he asked.
I laughed, squeezing my eyes closed. “Uh, just busy with the channel. My YouTube channel? I don’t actuallywork.”
“That sounds like work.”
Fuck yeah, it was. But—
“I don’t have an actual job, though,” I clarified, which was probably going to make him think I was a huge loser.
“Really?” he asked, voice still completely Andy-nice instead of what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-you. “You support yourself just with your channel?”
“Yep,” I said, which was basically true at this point. I mean, it was still a motherfucking scramble and I never knew if I’d have enough on a month-to-month basis, and I had no, like, benefits or anything, and Idefinitelywouldn’t be buying a little slice of suburbia like he had anytime soon—or ever—but I mean… yeah. It pretty much paid the bills. I didn’t starve.
“That’s amazing, Jordan,” Andy said, which was definitely overstating the case. “You’re incredible.”
I rolled my eyes. “Dude, it’s just a few vids of me shaking my ass. Don’t get excited.”
