Page 33 of Perfect Storm

When we first met their band, I thought Nick would hook up with her. They bonded over the bass, but turns out that asshole always had a thing for the girl whose heart he broke.

“What is all this about?” Adam asks.

“It’s about having fun, taking a break, living our best lives,” Jordan holds his arms to the side, a wide smile on his lips. “We don’t do enough of it, so I forced the issue.”

“You get packages?”

“You mean the bags with our schedules?” Elsa asks in response to Alessa’s question. She’s bouncing in excitement. “Yes, we got them on the bus. I can’t wait for the hike. I miss hiking so much. And the horses, are we allowed to ride them?”

“Tak,” Alessa replies. “All here for you to enjoy. Pool, horses. No fucking in hot tub,” she adds on the end and that gets a laugh from a few people.

“The hike is fucking awesome, Els Bells, you’re gonna love it,” Jordan grins, then he glances around and waves. The bar tender comes over with a large bucket holding three bottles of champagne. Sandy is behind him pushing a trolley that has tall champagne glasses on. “Gather round my people.”

I exchange a glance with Adam, who rolls his eyes. The guys and girls from BreakNeck and Red Alert gather around as the bartender pours everyone a glass of champagne.

Between him and Sandy, they hand them all out. Jenna takes hers and Adam goes to take it away, like the fucking ass wipe he is. She nudges him with her hip.

Too late, though. Jordan and Sandy saw it.

“Dude, what the hell?” he says to Adam. “Let the girl have her glass. We’re all here to celebrate.”

“Yeah, sure, sorry,” Adam steps back.

I’ve never seen him look more uncomfortable in my life, his eyes darting from Jenna to Sandy to Jordan.

“Shit!” Sandy exclaims beside me. She pushes through so she is standing in front of her daughter. She takes Jenna’s hand. “Why did he do that?”

Jenna looks like a deer in the headlights again, like after she got outed on the plane. But a smile breaks over her face and she glances back at Adam. He steps up behind her and pulls her into him, his hand around her waist.

“Are you?” Sandy takes both of Jenna’s hands now, shaking them.

“Yep.”

Sandy screams. It's so loud, it spooks the horses. And Jack, who almost drops his champagne glass.

“Shit, Mama, what’s going on over here?” Jordan must have missed what happened.

“I’m a grandma!” Sandy shrieks.

“Huh?”

“Keep up big guy,” I slap Jordan on the shoulder. “Adam knocked her up.”

“Archer!” Sandy glares at me, but it doesn’t last long before the smile beams across her mouth again. Another round of excitement passes through the group.

“Everyone, oh shit, except you,” Jordan points at Jenna. “Or can you, like, have a sip or something? One glass won’t hurt, right?”

“I’ll just hold it,” Jenna assures Jordan.

“Okay good. This is fantastic. The first BreakNeck baby. Everyone raise a glass to Jenna and Ad for starting us off on the next generation of bad asses!”

As toasts go, it’s typical Jordan. We all toast them.

Jordan tells us all to mingle, eat and drink and enjoy ourselves. So we do.

He gets cornered a few times and I see Brooke standing with her arms crossed, giving him a glare that always gets people to tell her the truth, but he just reiterates that he knows we’ve all been working hard, both bands have more grueling work coming up and we needed this break. I’m not convinced Brooke believes him, still giving him the evil eye.

Everyone is having an awesome time. I’m watching the girls dance when Jordan drops into the seat next to me. He reaches his arms up onto the back of the sofa, running his hand throughmy hair. I jerk my head away and look at him like he’s crazy, but he just grins.

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