Page 17 of Yours to Lose
“Will you still think I’m the best when I tell you I’ll need you to spend the next six weeks before you leave creating a file of everything we’ll need to know to run the summer camps? I know the planning is mostly done, but I want to make sure everything is in one place.”
I scoff. “Do you not know me at all? It’s already in one place. I have anIf Jo Gets Hit By a Truckfile.”
Barb coughs out a laugh. “Excuse me?”
I shrug. “I didn’t want the kids ever to miss out if something happened to me or if I couldn’t be here for some reason. I made sure everything was well documented so you could step into my shoes if you had to. And, well, I guess now you have to.”
Barb shakes her head, giving me an incredulous look. “You’re one of a kind, Jo Evans. I’m going to miss the shit out of you.”
I grin at her again. “Oh, I know. I’m extremely missable.”
* * *
Later that afternoon, I dance out of the museum. Standing in the courtyard outside the entrance, I close my eyes and tip my face up to the sky, loving how the spring afternoon sun feels on my skin.
What an amazing fucking day.
Opening my eyes, I flick my hair behind my shoulders and take it all in. The familiar, weathered sandstone building. Groups of students. Families. The buzzy, excited energy that comes with people and kids on the cusp of an adventure. I know how it feels, because I feel it myself, and what an adventure it will be.
Summer in New York. A shimmer of excitement runs through my veins.
Making my way through to the street while mentally planning an afternoon shopping trip—because, hello, three months in New York—I stop short when I see a familiar figure on a bench just outside the crowds, staring up at the museum.
CHAPTERFIVE
JO
There are people everywhere, but Jordan Wyles is all alone.
It’s the same thought I had two nights ago when Jordan came out the back door of Ben and Hallie’s house, sighing and muttering and tugging at his hair. Over the last couple years, I’ve overheard Hallie and Ben and their friends talk about how Jordan is cranky and withdrawn, but that’s not the vibe I got from him.
I don’t think Jordan is any of the things they say he is. Or maybe he was. Probably was, actually. But he’s not that anymore.
Jordan is lonely.
And of course he is. I don’t know him as well as Hallie does, but I know enough to know you don’t lose the love of your life in the sudden, violent way he did and come out of that unaffected. Especially if the love of your life is Allie Hayes, the coolest, most badass woman on the planet.
But I also know he laid on the grass with me in Hallie’s backyard and showed me constellations when he didn’t have to. And listened to me ramble on about whatever was in my head that night the way I do. And he ate the Fireball I gave him even though he stared at it first like it had wronged him in some way.
So, yeah, Jordan may be lonely, but I also think Jordan wants a friend. And yeah, I know he already has a bunch of those, but for some reason, he looks like this, even though he has them.
It’s a good thing I am an absolutely stellar friend, and I happen to be about to spend three months right in the city where he lives.
Jordan is about to be friended so hard, and he doesn’t even know it. My excitement overload for my summer in New York ratchets up a couple of notches.
Strolling over to where he sits, I plop myself on the bench next to him. “Pretty great, right?”
He jolts, like he didn’t even realize I sat down. “Jo,” he says, his voice a deep rumble. “What are you doing here?”
I study him for a second. The jeans and dark green henley T-shirt he’s wearing fit his tall, lean body perfectly. His light brown hair is sticking up everywhere—like he’s spent the entire day running his fingers through it—but somehow the mess suits him. And his eyes. Never in my life have I seen clearer blue eyes. They are eyes that should sparkle. That should be a part of the grins that spread across his face every day, early and often. That should be filled with love and happiness and only good things.
His eyes don’t do any of those things anymore, but I make a vow right here that they will again, and I’m going to be the one to make it happen. I never make promises I don’t keep. Okay, that’s a lie. I’m enthusiastic and prone to superlatives and I make unkeepable vows all the time. But this one is important. And when it’s important, I always follow through.
“I work here.”
He furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “You work here at the museum?”
“Sure do. I’m the program director. I’m in charge of pretty much all the museum programming, but most of my job is the kids’ stuff. So, what are you doing here?”
