My stomach dips.
What is she doing?
Maybe I read this wrong. Maybe she does want more.
Does she want to fuck?
Shit. I don’t know.
But I told her I wouldn’t touch her unless she asked me to. I need words.
I pull my arm from her grasp and drape it around her shoulders, pulling her closer.
Her fingers drift lower, toward the hem of my pants, and my cock jerks beneath them. I clench my jaw, sucking in a breath.Fuck.I’m sure she saw that.
It wasn’t subtle.
Her palm splays flat, and then she breaks the silence. “This weekend was good. With Cole.”
Nope. Definitely not fucking.
“Yeah. I think he had fun, despite the circumstances.”
“Is it weird he hasn’t said anything about us?” she asks.
“What do you mean?” My fingers graze her shoulder, tracing a slow path up and down her arm.
“Well, he hasn’t said anything about us being together or married. It’s like it’s just… normal to him.”
“Hmm. Yeah. But he’s just a kid. I don’t think he really cares or even pays attention to us like we do to him.”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right.” She shifts, settling her head more firmly on my chest, my pulse ticking louder beneath her ear.
“It was good to hang out with Alley and Jensen, too. Just like old times.”
“Is it, though?” I ask. “Because nothing really feels like old times anymore.”
She sits up, her eyes searching mine. “What do you mean?”
Shit. Sometimes when Jordan’s this close to me, looking at me like that, I forget how to fucking breathe.
I let out a slow exhale. “I don’t know. Just… them. Gone. In Chicago. Alley pregnant. Cole…” I hesitate. “You. Everything’s different. And sometimes I miss how things used to be,” I admit.
“Ah, Mr. Structure,” she teases, her lips curving upward. “You’ve always hated change.”
“I don’t hate change. I hate feeling like I’m losing things I care about.”
“Matt… life is just shifting. Moving. Everything in the picture is still in the frame, the scene just changed.” She shakes her head. “You haven’t lost anything. We’re all still right here. You just hate that you can’t control what happens next.”
I let the weight of her words sink in, and a quiet chuckle escapes because she’s right. Of course she’s right. She knows me just as well as I know her, and somewhere beneath the armor she wears for the world is a deeper wisdom shaped by everything she’s been through.
“You calling me out?” I ask, caught in the depths of her eyes.
“Something like that,” she says with a small laugh. “What do you have to worry about anyway? I know the stuff with Cole is up in the air, but… you’re Matthew Grayson. Things always work out for you.”
She settles her ear back against my chest, and I pull her in closer.
Sure, they do.
