Regardless, the words “snagging Jordan” remained with her.
She looked toward Jordan again. It was as if he felt her gaze on him, brief as it was, and their eyes crossed paths again.
Just then, those who were out on the balcony came inside and cut their line of sight. Hope took a deep breath and parted with Anne.
After a toast raised by Luke that was followed by the buffet opening, trays of cocktails were brought from the kitchen and placed on the drinks table.
Hope, who was just reaching for a plate, did a double-take upon seeing them. She raised her eyes and caught Libby’s gaze.
Libby shrugged, curled her lips down, and raised her eyebrows in a I had no idea.
Hope surveyed the cocktails. The glasses contained cherry-red or apple-green spheres that could only be made using reverse spherification. Others had foam fluffing the top of the liquid, and some had colorful droplets, looking like little gems at the bottom, such that were formed by spherification.
When she brought her gaze up a second time, she found a deep, dark amber gaze resting on her, piercing her from across the room. The smile that spread on the face, the deep brackets that hugged the mouth, the tan skin under the light-colored shirt, made her swallow.
Hope cleared her throat, which had suddenly become dry, when Jordan made his way across the room toward her.
“Thanks,” he said, stopping next to her.
“What for?”
“Getting me almost drunk all week long.”
“What?”
“Making these. I had to practice. Spherification and reverse spherification aren’t as easy as you made them sound.”
Those eyes, that smirk, that wall of a chest, his fresh-woods smell. And he had just verified that he had attentively listened to her lame lecture to Josh.
She tore her gaze from his. “It looks fantastic. I want to taste it all, but I probably shouldn’t.”
“You can start with one.” He pointed. “Green and red combination—gorgeous.”
She felt his gaze skimming her face and automatically reached up to touch her hair. She then took one of the glasses, and Jordan took another.
She raised her eyes, and their gazes landed on each other.
He clinked his glass with hers. “To chemistry.”
“To chemistry,” she echoed.
She took a longer sip than one would normally take from a cocktail, but she needed to alleviate the desert in her throat at the thought that this man had taken such notice of her words. Eric had always forgotten what she had said a minute after she had said it.
She used the long sip to build the next sentence in her mind so it wouldn’t come out as a convoluted speech.
“You like the result?” Jordan said over a huffed chuckle, watching her prolonged sip, putting his own glass down.
She stopped drinking and gazed at him from over the rim of her glass, feeling the shaper clinging to her heated skin. “Yes, it’s great. Thank you,” she said as soon as she could muster the words, despite his scrutiny. She placed the nearly empty glass on the table and spoke without looking directly at him. “And thanks for the ride home from Fred’s, you know, that day. It was … And I’m sorry I … I don’t usually …” She was doing it again. “It’s … It was very kind and …”
“No problem. My pleasure,” he cut her off, giving her a second to collect herself.
“And thanks for helping Hannah at the Model UN—the advice you gave her.” She now lifted her eyes to his face. “And more than that, for making her feel she could do it. I appreciate it. It meant a lot to her. She still talks about it.” She talks about you.
“Again, my pleasure. She’s a bright kid. She did well even before I talked to her and deserved better than the treatment she received there.”
Her heart missed a painful beat. He hadn’t sugarcoated it, but coming from someone who had taken the initiative to help Hannah, it wasn’t abrading to hear her daughter’s social issues openly stated. Quite the opposite. She felt seen, understood, empathized with.
“Hey, sweetie! Are you enjoying the evening?” Libby turned up next to them and swept Hope into a hug before she could reply to Jordan. “So, how about the surprise drinks that Jordan prepared for us?” Libby gave her a brief yet meaningful look before moving her beaming face to Jordan.