Page 112 of Yours to Lose
I hope the details involve him professing his undying love to me and me moving here to Boston to be with him and his big, wild, crazy family because I love it here, and I love them already too. But Jordan has to be settled first. He has to be ready, and he has to be sure. If I follow him here now, we won’t have a chance. The fact that Jordan nods in agreement, eyes blazing as he wraps his arms around me and holds me tightly against him, makes me sure of it.
Thunder rumbles in the distance and lightning flashes, but neither of us moves. And then the sky opens up, and rain comes pouring down, soaking us both. Tipping my face up, I laugh because this is a sign if I ever saw one. If we’re going to be separated in a few weeks for who even knows how long, I’m going to grab hold of all the time we have left with every single optimistic bone in my body. Starting right freaking now. I jump up, holding out my hand to Jordan, who takes it and stands.
“What’s so funny, Hurricane?” Jordan asks, raising his voice over the pounding of the rain. He wraps his arms around my waist, his mouth tipping up in a smile. He looks so gorgeous with rain dripping down his face, wet hair fanning over his forehead.
I wind my arms around his neck and stand on my toes. “We’re basically in a rom-com right now. You have no choice but to kiss me.”
Jordan brings a hand up to my face, grazing my cheek with his fingers as he pushes my wet hair behind my ears, his eyes swirling with emotion. “Oh, yeah?”
I shrug. “Those are the rules.”
Jordan smiles, leaning down until his lips graze mine. “I’ve always been a rule follower,” he murmurs before covering my mouth with his in a hot, wet kiss full of passion and longing and promises we can’t make in words. Our tongues tangle in a sensual dance as we press closer to each other. I whimper. He groans. Words likemineandyoursandforeverandonly youswirl around us like wind in the summer storm.
And as the rain pours down over us and we kiss like the world is ending, I send up a prayer to the universe that one day, this city won’t just be his. It will be ours. Together.
And we’ll say all those words out loud.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE
JORDAN
“Aren’t they great?” Jo raises her voice so I can hear her over the music. We’re standing in a crowd of people in front of the Bandshell in Central Park at a Summer Stage concert featuring an all-female rock group that Jo discovered through her boss at work.
I dip my head to get closer, loving her shiver when my lips graze the shell of her ear. “They’re amazing. So are you.” I press a kiss to the spot where her neck meets her shoulder, and she spins in the circle of my arms, grinning at me. She’s wearing a black tank top and cut-off shorts, her hair in two long braids, and a purple trucker hat that saysFeministon her head. She has a can of Dr. Pepper in one hand, the other wrapped around my waist, and her face is flushed, the lights from the stage playing over her gorgeous features in the darkened park.
She is summer personified.
“You’re amazing,” she says, leaning up to kiss my jaw. “I know a crowded concert isn’t exactly your jam, but I appreciate you humoring me and coming along for the ride.”
“Hurricane, I told you, I only want to be where you are. You’re going home in ten days, and there is nothing on earth that would make me spend a night away from you.”
Ten days.
My stomach twists at the thought. At the feel of time with her slipping through my fingers. I know it’s not the end, but it feels that way, with us about to be separated by miles with no real plan for what happens next.
Jo leans forward and kisses my chest, smiling up at me. “I’m not the only one going home, though. You won’t be in New York much longer than I will.”
She’s right. At Jo’s urging, I called my dad’s friend about the open attending position at Boston Children’s, and just like that, I’m going back to pediatrics. In Boston. It feels right, even though being separated from Jo feels entirely wrong.
I manage a smile. “Life comes at you fast.”
Jo looks up at me with her big, green eyes, and everything I feel for her is reflected right back at me. She loves me. I see it. I hear it in every word. Feel it in every touch. I want to grab onto that love and hold it close to my chest. Beg her to move to Boston with me. To turn this summer into a life together. One that means forever.
But to do that, I need to give her the words I feel with every single piece of me, but I can’t seem to say. Because, once upon a time, I promised someone forever, and that life was taken away from me. And the idea of loving like that again and losing it, losing Jo, cuts me off at the knees. It’s a ridiculous thought because I love her like that whether I can say the words or not, but I still can’t manage to get them out. And if I can’t say the words, I can’t ask her to give up her whole life to be where I need to be.
She deserves more than that.
She deserves everything.
Jo brushes my hair back from my forehead and settles her hand on my cheek in what I now recognize as her gesture of comfort. It settles me as much as it deepens the pit in my stomach because she can’t look at me like she does and brush my hair back from hundreds of miles away.
“What’s on your mind, J?” Jo’s voice is soft, like she knows it’s tenderness I need to soothe my roiling thoughts. It’s a wonder I can hear it over the crashing of the music, but then I realize it’s not because I would be able to pick out her voice anywhere. It’s a part of me. She’s a part of me.
I reach for her and wrap my arms around her shoulders, holding her tight. She winds her arms around my waist, and I feel her heart beating against mine, and for a minute, it’s just us, wrapped together, like nothing in the world can keep us apart. But soon, we will be apart.
“I’m really going to miss you, Hurricane,” I say, my voice raspy and a little bit broken. “Maybe I should move back to Pittsburgh instead.”
Jo pulls back, shaking her head, her voice as serious as I’ve ever heard it. “You can’t, J. Pittsburgh isn’t for you anymore. You don’t want to be there. You want to be in Boston. You need to be in Boston. You need your city and your family and there are lots of kids there who need you to heal them. It’s your place, Jordan. It’s where you belong.”
