Jordan sighed, her hand moving on its own to grab her phone out of her pocket. Simon eyed her, but she ignored him as she glanced down at the screen.
Hi, how are you?
Same question every time. And then, without fail, approximately three minutes after the first text, came the long block of words describing Meredith’s wonderful life.
I’m in Colorado and thought of you. Remember that road trip we took right after college? What was it, thirteen other girls? Emma, Kendall, Ava, and honestly, I can’t even think of who else. All I can remember is that the biggest blizzard to hit Colorado in like a decade rolled in and I have never been so cold in my entire life. We stuffed ourselves into one subzero sleeping bag, hot water bottles at our feet, and still weren’t warm. I’d always wanted to go back when the weather was decent. Estes Park is truly breathtaking, and I...
And on and on she went.
“Seriously?” Simon said, now reading over her shoulder, pan of sizzling bacon in one hand.
Jordan pressed the side button, turning the screen dark.
“She was ‘thinking of you’?” Simon said, his voice incredulous.
“What’s going on?” Pru asked, looking alarmed.
“Nothing, Grandma,” Jordan said, then glared at her brother. “Simon, don’t.”
“Has she been doing that a lot?” he asked, finger jutting toward her phone.
“I don’t respond,” she said, stuffing her phone back into her pocket. She was suddenly so tired.
“I sure as hell hope not!” Simon said, his voice growing more stressed by the second, which was exactly why Jordan never told him about Meredith’s little text intrusions. Simon wasn’t her ex-wife’s biggest fan, though Jordan supposed that was to be expected. It wasn’t like she was singing Meredith’s praises lately either, but still. The woman survived cancer. She had been Jordan’s wife. There was a part of Jordan that could never hate her, no matter how much she wanted to. It wasn’t Meredith’s fault that Jordan wasn’t the one.
That she wasn’tdestinymaterial.
“Honey, sit down,” Pru said, concerned eyes on Jordan. She pattedthe spot next to her, but Jordan shook her head. She couldn’t handle the sympathetic look on her grandmother’s face right now, the way Simon rubbed his jaw like he did when he didn’t know what to do.
She was so tired of being the one they all worried over. She didn’t need their concern anymore, that anxious crease between their eyes that only made her feel weak and useless. She needed...
I can tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue.
A laugh bubbled into her chest, but she pressed it back down. Still, there was no stopping the smile that pulled at the corners of her mouth.
Simon’s eyebrows went up in surprise.
“I need to get to work,” she said, jutting her thumb toward the back door before refilling her coffee cup to the brim and heading outside, her smile still fixed on her face.
BY THE TIMEfive o’clock rolled around and Josh’s group and the show’s crew headed out for the day, Jordan’s sunny smile had darkened into a storm cloud. She’d made a lot of progress on her kitchen cabinets and a table for the dining room, fielded some deliveries for items that were definitely not on Astrid’s design plan... but she hadn’t seen Astrid herself at all.
It was driving her fucking bananas. And the fact that Astrid’s absence was driving her fucking bananas was worrisome, to say the least.
She kept replaying their entire night together over and over again in her mind, like her life itself was a silent movie, complete with over-the-top facial expressions and dramatics. Specifically, her brain kept getting hung up on helping Astrid into bed. The way she’d thrown off her clothes with total abandon and snuggled into her high-thread-count sheets with a happy groan, her hair fanning out over her pillow.
And then...
She left you like you didn’t mean anything. And you do. You mean something.
Jordan had felt all the air fly out of her lungs in that moment. Honestly, eighteen hours later, she still wasn’t sure if she’d taken a normal breath. She didn’t know what to think of Astrid’s words, the gentle way she’d said them—albeit, with a slight slur—and how Jordan couldn’t properly swallow for a good five minutes afterward.
And then Astrid had dared to not even show up at the inn today. Not that she was there every day, and she wasn’t on the call sheet, but a person couldn’t simply say a thing like that to another human and then disappear. Then again, maybe Astrid didn’t even remember saying it. She’d been drunk and tired and had recently vomited into a bush.
You mean something.
Jordan’s electric saw buzzed through her thoughts. Wood shavings drifted through the air, filling the space with that clean, rugged smell she loved, like trees spilling secrets. She spent another half an hour on the custom vanity she planned to work into the master bedroom, trying to drown out Astrid’s soft voice with her work.
BY MIDNIGHT, JORDANgave up on sleep. Shoving the covers back, she pulled on the same pair of jeans she’d worn that day and a soft hunter-green Henley with the neck a bit too stretched out. She grabbed her bag and sneaked out the back door, heading straight for her workshop.
