Page 53 of Once Bitten
“That’s not true.”
“Doll…” Steve sighed, running a hand over his face, but he stopped when he saw her expression. “Hey, what is it? There’s something else going on here other than you wanting to go out, isn’t it?”
“It’s just that you know everything about me....My friends, my family, my work, what I like to do.” She bit her lip and looked down. “You’re completely involved in my life, but maybe I’m not doing that with you. And besides…” her voice trailed off, and Steve reached out putting a hand on her leg.
“Besides what?”
“I thought it would be nice for you to be out with your friends.”
Steve raised an eyebrow and then looked over at the counter where his phone still lay. “This is about that, huh?”
“About what?” Jordyn asked, hating that Steve knew exactly where her brain had gone that day.
“About you thinking I’m missing out on fun with the boys,” Steve replied.
“Well aren’t you?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
Steve chuckled and shook his head. “No, doll.”
“But—”
“I’m not missing out on anything good by staying in with you, and besides, I had my fill of all of that before you. I’m over it.”
Jordyn bit her lip and looked away. She wanted to believe him, but it still tugged at her that maybe she had been a little too focused on her own life and what was happening between them to really consider what it would be like to be a part of Steve’s world. She’d done it for one night, yes, but this was different. Now he was her boyfriend, now they were far beyond one night, and she wanted to be closer to him in a way that she hadn’t before. She wanted to go out and she wanted to do it with Steve.
“Jordyn…”
“What?”
“I know you don’t believe me, but baby, it’s true.”
She looked at him, then. “I just want to see a little bit of that Steve Ryans. I’ve heard of him here and there,” she said, thinking of Tina’s comments and what her run in with Heidi at Steve’s tattoo shop had revealed, “but, I don’t know him.”
“He’s not that great.”
“Maybe let me decide?”
Steve was silent for a second before he nodded. “You think going out with me is going to show you more of who I am?”
“Well, not completely, but it’s a step,” she replied, looking up at him. “You’re a very private person, Stevie.”
He tensed slightly before giving her a nod. “I am.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” she sighed, crossing her arms. His past hadn’t become a topic of conversation between the two of them. No matter how gently Jordyn tried to get him to talk about growing up in Brooklyn or what he'd done in the years before he had arrived in Golden, Steve still hadn’t told her much. When she turned the conversation to his family, he never failed to skirt around it. She’d pretended she hadn’t noticed, but she had and so she’d stopped asking, convinced that he would tell her when he was ready.
Each time it happened, she told herself it didn’t bother her that she knew virtually nothing about Steve before he had arrived in town, and even then her knowledge was spotty at best. It didn’t matter because she knew that she was falling in love with the man. That everything between them was real and good and true, but it did matter. Jordyn only knew what came up in conversation with Jamie, or when Jamie told stories from when they were kids, growing up in Brooklyn, but those stories all seemed to stop around the time Steve had graduated high school. Yet, in those stories, all mention of his family was avoided. She couldn’t even name his parents, and she only thought that she vaguely remembered hearing about a little sister.
She eyed him and could see that he was wrestling with something big. It was just a request to go out but his cagey-ness about his past was out in the open between them, and she watched him carefully, hoping he would let her in to what his life had been like before her, at least while he lived in Golden.
Finally he nodded and gave her a tight smile. “Okay, doll. You wanna go out? We’ll go out.”
“Really?” Jordyn asked, eagerly, shifting forward with a big smile on her face. She might have worried that she had pushed for too much, but his tight smile had softened at her excitement, and he nodded, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
“Mmhmm. Do you like pool?” he asked.
“I don’t know how to play,” she confessed with a frown. “It always seemed really intimidating.”
“Ah, well, I’ll just have to teach you then, won’t I?”
