Jordan doesn’t answer. Instead he pops open his door. “I’ll help you inside.”
Somewhere between the hotel bathroom and the house I’ve taken off my shoes, and I hold them in my hand as I stumble toward the entrance. I grope under the mat and find the key. Jordan stands behind me as I push the door open.
It’s so quiet here tonight. It has felt like a safe house, like an oasis, but now the quiet seems deafening. It screams to be filled with all kinds of frightening things.
I toss my shoes to the side. I turn back to him. “This is it,” I say. “This is where we live.” Drunken stupidity.
Jordan tilts his head at me. “I know,” he says.
I press my hand to my neck. Once again, I think I’m going to be sick.
“Hey,” Jordan says. “Come on.”
He guides me down the hallway to the bedroom. I stand in the doorway and watch him slip past me to the bed. He tosses the throw pillows on the floor and pulls back the comforter. “There,” he says. “That should be sleepable now.”
I walk over and kneel on the bed but I can’t totally sit up, and I slide down against the pillows, letting my body fall into the soft cotton.
Jordan comes over to me. He pulls the covers up, and when his hand is at my chest, I reach out and thread my hands through his hair.
“Wait,” I say. I remember the morning on Maui. When I asked him to just sleep with me and he did. But this time he pulls back. He gently plucks my hands from his hair.
“You’re drunk,” he says.
“Why did you kiss me?” I ask.
“Paige.” He sits down next to me. “It was an awards show. We won Best Kiss.”
I shake my head. “You’re so angry at me. You try to hide it, but I can tell. Every time you’re with me. It’s like you hate me. You were so cold on tour. You barely spoke to me on my birthday. Even lunch wasn’t the same. And tonight…”
I see his chest rise and not fall. He inhales further. “I don’t hate you,” he says, but his tone doesn’t change.
“Why did you leave tonight?” I ask. “You wouldn’t even look at me.”
He takes another breath. I can almost feel the effort. “I don’t look at you…,” he says. He crosses his arms, and I keep my fingers curled in my lap, waiting for him to continue. “I don’t look at you because when I do, it makes me feel like I can’t do my job. I think about the next three years, Paige. About being on Maui with you and acting with you and watching you with him, and it makes me want to quit. Leave a job Ilove. Looking at you makes me want to give up.”
I feel the tears building. “I’m so sorry, Jordan.”
“That’s not the point,” he says. “You think I don’t understand. Ido. But what am I supposed to do?” He reaches his hand out tentatively, like he’s not sure of whether I’ll slap him away. And then his hand lands on my cheek. I feel his fingertips there—cool and light. Relief. “I can’t have you. Worse, I can’t even want you.”
I stay perfectly still. His thumb runs over my cheek and down to my lips.
“What do you think it’s like for me?” I whisper. I can feel my heartbeat everywhere—like a cranked-up stereo system. “I see you with Alexis, too. And I know I don’t have a right to care.”
Jordan shakes his head, but I keep going. “You should move on. I just want you to know…” His thumb runs over my bottom lip, and they instinctively part. I feel our onstage kiss from earlier.
“Move on,” he repeats, almost soundlessly.
“I want you to be happy,” I say. I do. I want him to be happy. I realize it like a knife to the heart. Even if it means never being close to him.
“I know,” he says. “I want you to be happy, too.”
I want to tell him I’m not. I’m not happy. That being away from him is torture. That Rainer isn’t here. That I don’t know how to help him and I feel alone—really, really alone. But I see the pain in his eyes, and I don’t want to make it worse than it already is.
But he’s here right now. Really here. It’s just the two of us. And it seems ridiculous—absolutely insane—not to reach out and touch him.
So I do. I place my hand on his face. He closes his eyes. “Paige,” he says. “Stop.”
“I can’t,” I whisper. My voice is hoarse. I trace his jawline with my fingers. He puts his hands on my shoulders and then runs them down to cup my elbows with his palms. My skin feels like it’s being lit on fire. “I miss you,” I say. “All the time.”
