“You always loved a challenge, Julia,” Natalie says.
Jordan and I both look at Natalie in confusion when she calls me by my mother’s name.
Recovering quickly, I reply, “You know me. I’m not happy unless I’m busy.”
Natalie gets up out of her rocker, carrying her empty plate. “Jordan, thank you for breakfast. It was delicious.”
He forks a cube of cantaloupe. “Glad you liked it.”
“I’ll be with Donna and Gail most of the day if you need me,” she tells me, then kisses Jordan on his stubbled cheek. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t,” he promises.
“Have fun with the Ladybirds.”
That’s what her circle of friends calls themselves. Lady Bird was the nickname of former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s wife. Both hailed from Texas. There’s a famous wildflower center in Austin named after her.
I pick at my food.
“How’s the omelet?”
“Good,” I lie. I wouldn’t know because I haven’t eaten any of it.
“Nice try.” Jordan leans over and cuts into the folded egg with his fork, then holds the piece up to my mouth. “Try a bite. That’s all I’m asking.”
I regard the food hovering in front of my mouth with disdain. “I don’t need to play the choo-choo game and have food fed to me like an infant.”
He waves the egg in front of my face. “Apparently you do.”
I grab his wrist to still his hand. “No, I don’t.”
He sighs in exasperation. “Eat the damn food, Douglass. Don’t think I haven’t noticed every single time you pushed food around your plate and didn’t eat any of it.”
Even though I told him about my eating disorder last night in passing, he just doesn’t get it. Most people don’t. To them, food is just… well, food. Stuff you consume to give you energy and provide you with the nutrients your body needs. For someone like me, food is an addiction I have to work hard at to control, or else it’ll control me. I also don’t like eating in front of people. It makes me feel judged. Like with every bite I take, people are watching me with disgust, ridiculing me for each morsel of food I ingest and fat-shaming me for it.
I remove the utensil from his grasp and set both it and my plate aside on the small patio table.
Jordan and I haven’t spoken much about his past drinking, but it’s easy to read between the lines from what he has said about it.
“If I went inside and poured you a glass of wine, would you drink it?”
“Of course not.”
I nod sharply. “For me, food is a drug; it’s an addiction. The same as alcohol is to an alcoholic.”
He lowers to his haunches in front of me. “But you need to eat, sweetheart. People don’t need beer to live, but they do need food.”
I gesture a hand with a flourish down my front. “I do eat. Too much. Look at me.”
My attempt at self-deprecation fails.
Jordan drops to a kneeling position and cages me in with both hands on the arms of the rocking chair. And like with every other time he’s close, I lose the ability to breathe. Jordan Hammond literally takes my breath away.
“I am looking at you. I’ve always looked at you, even when I shouldn’t have. You’re beautiful, Douglass.”
I want to protest, but I can’t. Not when he nuzzles his nose along my temple, erasing all rational brain function in the process.
“You’re sweet,” he continues.
