Page 41 of For Emery

“Why do I need to be serious?”

I shrugged. “It just seems like you’ve got an answer for everything.”

“I do.”

He’d changed. I guess I should’ve expected that to happen in four years. But it made me wonder. Was that what happened when guys grew older? Or did it have something to do with me leaving? Would he have changed had I not left?

I grabbed some throw pillows from my bed and tossed them to the floor. My stuffed panda, which had been tucked between the pillows, tumbled into view on my bed. Shit.

“Is that?”

I scooped it up and placed it on my desk. “Yup.”

“You kept it?”

“Of course.” A stretch of silence passed as I sat down on the small area rug, pushing the pillows against the side of my bed and resting my back against them. I looked up at Jordan. “You gonna sit?”

He quirked a brow. “Don’t trust yourself with me on the bed, huh?”

“Why wouldn’t I trust myself? We’re friends.”

He sat down beside me, his body pressing to my side and his scent filling each and every one of my breaths. “Just saying.”

“You’re actually not saying anything,” I said.

He lifted his hat and turned it backward on his head. “Just saying, the last time we were in the same bed things got a little…intense.”

The memory of our one and only kiss had carried me through some very dark days. And the fact that he remembered—that he remembered so many important moments—solidified for me that what we had back then had been real. It might have only been friendship, but it had meant something important to both of us. “Intense?” I dared to ask.

“What would you have called it?”

“A nice moment between friends,” I said, trying to be nonchalant, though the memory was as fresh as the night it happened.

“If that’s how you treat all your friends, count me in.” He crept toward me, his lips pursed and aiming for mine.

I shoved him off. “Jordan.”

He laughed. “I’m just teasing you. Tell me you still know how to be teased.”

“Of course I can be teased. I just don’t know where those lips have been over the last four years.” I said it jokingly, but the thought had plagued my mind for four long years.

He laughed.

“Have you had many girlfriends?” I asked nonchalantly, though my heart began to pound away in my chest as I braced for his response.

Jordan’s body went ridged beside me. It was the exact opposite of the reaction I expected from him. “A couple. No one special.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “They were good girls. Just not right for me.”

I bumped him with my shoulder. “You too high maintenance or something?”

“Nah. Just not feeling it.”

I nodded, his admission easing my unwarranted jealousy.

“How about you?”

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