“But JoJo is here, Daddy. I can’t stay up a wittle while longer?” Belle pouts.
“Not tonight, Belly.”
“And you’s not eatin’ a cupcake with us?”
It takes everything in me not to devour the sugar-laced deliciousness, but I’m too conscious of everything I put into my body now to have a setback. I might not stop at one.
“Not right now.”
Belle shrugs and chooses a devil’s food cupcake, inhaling deeply before she takes a bite. “Oh well, that’s more for me!” she mutters with frosting coating her lips.
Jordan closes the box and shoves the cupcakes aside, out of sight and out of mind.
After Belle finishes her cupcake, I get her ready for bed. She doesn’t even argue, in a complete sugar coma from her snack. “Can JoJo read me a bedtime story?”
Before I can object, Jo snuggles into bed next to Belle with a book and begins reading to her. I press a kiss on Belle’s forehead and whisper goodnight. I lean against the doorjamb and watch the two of them together, and it shreds at my heart because this is the life Belle is meant to have. Happy with a daddy and a momma instead of me doing it all on my own. But that isn’t her reality. Jordan holds the book in one hand, her fingers delicately brushing the wisps of hair out of Belle’s half-lidded eyes as she reads to my girl. It’s freakin’ precious as all hell. This is what I want for my daughter. For me. But I don’t know how to create this for our family. Wrapped up in my head, I don’t realize Belle is sound asleep until I notice Jordan tiptoeing across the room toward me.
“She’s out like a light.” The look on Jordan’s face completely takes my breath away. She’s happy that she shared that moment with Belle, that my little girl looks up to her and needs her the way Belle does.
“Thank you,” I whisper. Jo studies me for a moment, her chest rising and falling slowly, seemingly caught up in her own mind. Realization that she’s staring at me seems to dawn on her, and she inhales deeply as she sidesteps me. The moment passes between us so quickly I don’t even have time to react.
I peek into Belle’s room to make sure her nightlight is on, and then I pull her door shut.
Turning down the hallway, I find Jordan in the living room snooping through the titles on the bookshelf. “In the mood to read the latest edition of Toolbox?” I joke as I take the corner of the couch, crossing my ankle over my knee.
“Not really.” She trails her fingers across the spine of each book as if she’s looking for something specific; I don’t know what. Until she turns around with my high school yearbook in her hand. “Really. Didn’t realize it was Throwback Thursday, Jo.”
She smirks and sticks her tongue out as she pads across the hardwood toward me. I wish she wouldn’t do that. Make simple gestures that are innocent and friendly that my fucked-up mind twists into something … more, something dirty.
“It’s actually Transformation Tuesday, so I thought we’d take a stroll down memory lane.”
“We really don’t need to do that.” I reach for the yearbook.
“Ah-ah-ah.” She wiggles her finger in my face. Jordan takes the center cushion beside me, and I lay my arm across the back of the couch, eager for her to be close to me. The scent of her perfume assaults my senses, and I hold my breath for just a moment, not to memorize the scent—it’s already embedded in my brain—but to swallow it back and savor it. Regardless of whether Jo’s been in the gym training clients for twelve hours or she’s fresh from a shower, like she is tonight, she always has a sweet scent about her. It comforts me in the weirdest way, and I really can’t put it to words.
But tonight, it’s almost like she went out of her way to show me the other side of her beauty. Her usual knotted ponytail or messy bun is loose around her shoulders, and she’s changed up the tank top and capri leggings for skinny jeans and a long-sleeve sweater. Her usual makeup-free face is just the same, but her eyelashes seem darker, maybe highlighted with mascara, or whatever it is chicks use. She’s absolutely stunning, and I’m struggling even more with her close proximity to keep my hands to myself and our relationship platonic.
“You okay?” She crinkles her nose up and tilts her head to the side as she looks at me.
“Just peachy, darlin’.” I wink without thinkin’. I’m not trying to flirt. Really. I’m not. But Jo seems to like my response because her smile is wide, a sparkle lightin’ up the flecks of gold in her brown eyes.
She flips the yearbook open and flips through the pages like she knows exactly what she’s looking for. She stops on a page, her finger softly sliding over each image until she lands on my senior portrait. “Madden Alexander Davenport, Class of 2007. Member of the Who’s Who Among American High School students, member of the Honor Society, Spanish Club, Future Builders of America…”
Jordan reads over my senior bio, jarring memories of the past and the guy I once was. But I haven’t a clue why.
“Shortstop for the Coastal Pirates, and most likely to be remembered as the class clown.” Jordan giggles to herself then side-eyes me as she turns the pages to the sports section, where her finger lands on the regional championship picture. “You were an amazing baseball player. Team couldn’t have won that trophy without you.”
“You’ve been talking to Laney, I see.”
She shakes her head, a knowing smirk proudly on her lips.
“Bottom of the ninth, the bases were loaded with two strikes on the board. Ryan Guilliams, the Tigers’ best switch hitter, was up at bat. He hit a line drive, which you recovered and passed to first base. End of.”
I have no idea how she knows this, but she’s right.
“Murmurs around town were that you’d go off to UGA and play baseball, but you didn’t. You stayed right here on the island and went to work for your dad, helping manage the many projects Davenport Construction was responsible for developing at the time. You got your business degree at Georgia Southern, studying when you weren’t on a job site.”
“Google?” It’s definitely a question, but I state the single word, unsure of where she’s learned so much information about me. Sure, we’ve talked about our lives, quite a bit actually, since I’ve been training with Jordan for the last six months, but I never shared any of the details she’s going over right now.