Chapter 7

(AL)


That night was the first in a while I had trouble falling asleep. When I was younger, this personal trainer had once told me that I had trouble relaxing throughout the day, so then I was so tired by the time I went to bed that I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. It had always been that way, except for when I was really nervous about something or deep in thought.

After Jordan had dropped me off at Kayleigh’s house, and making me promise profusely to text him the next day, I had gone straight up to bed, knowing I would have to wake up for school early the next morning. But, as I lay there looking forlornly at the ceiling, I realized it wasn’t exactly as easy as I had originally intended. I can’t tell you how long I tossed and turned that night, Jordan’s exquisite features etched in my brain. I could still feel his big hand enveloping mine, and I would press it to my cheek every so often to feel as if he were there with me. What was wrong with me?! I had never been like this before; so obsessed with this guy after only meeting him yesterday. This wasn’t fair. What had I done to deserve this pain and humiliation? I wasn’t cut out for this!

After resulting to a rather large sleeping pill, I finally dozed off. I managed to get around 4 hours in before I was rudely awakened by my cell phone, blaring in my ear. After letting out a list of profanities, I rolled over and picked it up. I had a text message from Jordan. Big surprise.

Hey kid! What’s shaking?

Not sleep, thanks to you. Is there a special reason for waking me up half an hour before my alarm?

No, not really. But it’s a bright and beautiful day outside! :D

It’s raining.

So?

Are you always this happy in the morning?

Yeah, it’s a necessity for this sport. You should see Sid. He gets up early even when we don’t have practice. That’s just not normal.

Yeah, Sid doesn’t really strike me as a fairly normal type of guy.

He’s a freak. What with the FRIENDS and all… ;)

Shut up. Friends is hilarious, and you know it.

Sure, sure. I have to go, but I’ll make sure to text you in the middle of one of your classes later. :P

Oh, thanks Jordan. You’re so considerate.

I know ;)

I sighed and rolled over onto my side, in an attempt to get ten more minutes of sleep before I had to get ready for school.





The day that followed was about the slowest of my life. I could hardly keep my eyes open throughout my numerous classes, and the minutes seemed to drag on forever. Finally, though, I made it through the day and dragged myself into the nearest Starbucks for my fourth coffee of the day. I was just sitting down when my cell phone vibrated in my jean pocket.

Did I make it?

I laughed out loud at this, making heads turn and look at me. I shrugged at them; it surprised me that Jordan had actually tried to text me in the middle of school.

No, fifteen minutes too late. Nice try though! ;)

Shit, I really thought I was gonna get you. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.

Don’t you have anyone else to annoy?

Nope. So what are you up to?

Sitting at a table drinking coffee.

Fun. Where?

At the Starbucks across from the U.

No way! Mind if I join you?

I might be gone by the time you get here…

Somehow I doubt that.

Just then, the front door opened, and Jordan walked in, a huge grin on his face. I had just enough time to see him close his cell phone and put it in his pocket, before he spotted me sitting in the back. If possible, his smirk grew even wider as he walked towards the table I was sitting at. He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down, his sea-blue eyes sparkling.

“Fancy meeting you here, kid,” He said.
“How did you…I mean, it’s been only-” I stuttered, shocked. He laughed.
“I was actually just driving by when I got your text,” he told me.
“Oh,” I said, noticing he was still smiling. “It’s dangerous to text while you’re driving.” I added, almost completely under my breath. He chuckled and leaned forward.
“It was at a red light,” he muttered, his eyes locked on mine. I just sat there, looking back, mesmerized by his beauty. After a few seconds I found myself slowly leaning forward across the table towards him. I couldn’t control it. His eyes were hypnotizing; I wondered if he knew what he was doing to me. He was still smiling.

I shook my head and pulled back quickly, making my chair squeal against the floor. For the second time since I’ve been here, all the heads turned to look at me. This time they lingered a second longer at who was sitting across from me, probably wondering what a girl like me would be doing with someone so…well, like him. I gave them all a small smile before slowly (and silently) pushing my chair back into its original place. Jordan was resting his chin on his hand, his elbow propped up on the table. He was studying me.

“You look tired,” he stated. I saw a hint of concern in his eyes.
“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” I replied. Because I was thinking about you…
“Really? I slept like a baby,” he said proudly.
“Wow, that’s impressive, especially after all those cookies you ate,” I said, frowning. His eyes brightened and his grin grew. I was beginning to wonder if there was truly a limit to his smile range.
“Mmmm, cookies…I’ll be right back,” he said, getting up and walking over to the counter. He returned less than a minute later with a large chocolate cookie in hand.
“Can you believe it? The nice lady over there gave me this for free!” he told me excitedly like a little kid. I looked over to where he was pointing and saw a rather slutty-looking waitress glaring back at me.
“Yeah, I think I can,” I said under my breath.
“What?” Jordan asked, his mouth full.
“I said you should really learn to swallow before you speak,” I told him loudly.
“Shut up,” he said, swallowing exaggeratedly. “You’re just jealous because no one ever gives you free food.”
“Uh-huh, oh yeah, I’m totally jealous of you, Jordan,” I said sarcastically.
“I knew it!” he exclaimed, taking another bite. He saw me looking at it longingly and grinned before breaking off a piece and handing it to me.
“Thank you,” I smiled, taking it from him and putting it in my mouth.
“Now we’re even,” he said. I laughed.
“Uh, no way, bud. For us to be even you would have to buy me about forty-seven thousand cookies,” I told him. He smiled.
“I could get that, you know,” he said.
“Yeah, and it probably wouldn’t cost you a thing either,” I replied, shooting a nasty glare at the waitress behind the counter, who was still staring at us. He just laughed, turning around to look at her, who sent him a wink. I felt like I was going to throw up.
“I think she might be flirting me,” Jordan stated wonderingly, his blond eyebrows furrowed. I loved it when he did that.
“You think?” I scoffed.
“Do you have a problem with that?” he asked, his blank look replaced by a smirk.
“Um…no, it’s just so nauseating to watch. I mean, has she no self-respect?” I explained, scowling.
“Don’t worry, this type of foolish behavior does not faze me,” Jordan said in a fancy British accent, making me giggle. What? Giggle? I don’t giggle. Ever.
“I wasn’t worrying,” I snapped.
“Your eyes contradict your words, kid.” He told me, shaking his head.
“My eyes?” I asked, confused.
“Mmhm,” He responded, taking another bite of his cookie. “They change color with your mood.”
“Oh, yeah, people have told me that,” I grumbled, annoyed. It was true. My eyes had never stayed the same shade of green. I had never seen it myself, but my family and friends had always made fun of me about it. They could always tell when I was in a good or a bad mood, or when I was lying about something. I can’t even tell you how frustrating it is to not be able to ever hide any emotions from anyone.

“Are you always this grumpy?” Jordan laughed. I sighed.
“I’m sorry, I’m just really tired,” I apologized. I didn’t want him to think I was a grudge. Luckily, he still seemed to be smiling. His mouth must be hurting by now.
“Don’t worry about it. Did you drive this morning?”
“No, I walked.”
“Okay, come on, I’m driving you home.” He said, standing up.
“No, you really don’t have to-” I began, but he interrupted me.
“It’s no trouble, Al.”
“Jordan-” I protested.
“I insist, really. You’re not gonna win this,” He interrupted again with a smile.
“Fine,” I sighed, getting up, finishing my coffee. He held the door open for me as we left the café. We were stopped by a little kid on the way to his car asking for an autograph, and he politely obliged. The kid’s face lit up when he saw the signature on his baseball cap and he skipped away happily to his mother who was waiting for him at the bus stop.

“I think you just made his week,” I smiled at Jordan as we stepped inside the car.
“Yeah, it’s so much fun how just signing your name can make someone so happy,” He replied. We rode the rest of the way to my house in silence; I was surprised he actually remembered where it was. When we pulled into the driveway, there were two cars already there. One belonged to Kayleigh, the other I had never seen before.

“That’s…Orry’s car,” Jordan mused, looking at me for an explanation. I laughed when I saw the blinds closed in Kayleigh’s bedroom window.
“I think we should probably leave them alone,” I said, and Jordan laughed too.
“I think you’re right,” he responded as he pulled back out of the driveway. We joked about our friends all the way to his house, and my stomach hurt from laughing so much. We found Sid, Max, and a guy I recognized as Marc-Andre Fleury all playing Guitar Hero in the living room.

“Who’s this?” Marc asked in a thick French accent, eyeing me. Sid scoffed.
“Dude, where’ve you been? This is Al,” he said, as if Marc were absolutely crazy as to not know who I was already. Marc’s face lit up with realization.
“This…? This is Al?” he asked no one in particular, a huge shit-eating grin on his face. He looked at Jordan, who nodded curtly, staring daggers at him. Marc muttered something in French to Max, who laughed and exclaimed, “That’s exactly what I said!”
“What? What did you say? Talk slower, I’m not completely fluent,” Sid said, stepping closer to the two Francophones to see what all the fuss was about. They just looked at one another and laughed. Sid let out a frustrated groan and collapsed down on the couch. Jordan sighed and walked into the kitchen.

“Long time no see,” Sid said to me, patting the seat next to him. I sat down, and a few milliseconds later, Max came down next to me.
“Yeah, were you the one who made those cookies that I found in the sink last night?” he asked, making a face. Sid laughed.
“Are you kidding? Those are Staalsy’s signature vomit-cookies,” he said.
“Oh, I remember those!” Marc exclaimed. “Aren’t they the ones that taste like garlic or something?”
“I think it was onion,” Max stated, gagging a little at the memory.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe you actually ate them,” I grimaced, just as Jordan walked into the room.
“Ate what?” he asked, laying down on the loveseat. He had a sandwich in his hand, filled with some questionable items that I preferred not to ask about.
“The cookies that you made last night. If you could even call them that,” I said. He got a hurt look on his face.
“Hey!” he exclaimed, sitting upright and glaring at me. “I worked really hard on those! And they didn’t taste half-bad, in my opinion,” he added proudly.
“How would you know? You even didn’t try any,” I said, glaring back. His scowl was instantly replaced by a cool grin.
“Of course I didn’t, they smelled like garlic,” he said as he lay back down and took a bite of his sandwich. Marc scoffed and grabbed the remote, turning off the Guitar Hero.
“Hey! I was winning,” Max yelled at him, throwing a punch at his arm. Marc instantly retaliated and they began wrestling on the floor. Sid tried the jump in and break them up, but he stood no chance. He eventually just let them go at it and fell back onto the couch next to me. He shot me an apologetic smile.
“I’m used to it, I grew up with two brothers,” I told him reassuringly. Hadn’t I told the same thing to Jordan just last night?
“Really? Older or younger?” He asked, suddenly intrigued.
“One’s older, and the other’s a twin,” I smiled.
“You’re a twin? Wow, that’s so cool!” He grinned. “But having two brothers, that must’ve been tough,” he said, his eyes growing soft. I just laughed.
“No, I loved it! They were awesome, they taught me to stand up for myself.”
“You must’ve been a killer hockey player then. Did you play on a guys team?”
“Yeah, all the way up to Midget,” I said proudly.
“Impressive. You still play?”
“Uh…no, I stopped a few years ago,” I told him quietly, getting uncomfortable.
“Why’d you stop?” Sid asked, oblivious to my malcontent. I cleared my throat nervously, thinking for something to say. I caught Jordan’s gaze, and it was obvious he could tell something was wrong. I pleaded with my eyes, and he gave me a small smile before speaking.

“Uh, Sid, I was on the Internet today and I found this video of you in the dressing room…playing with yourself,” he said, completely straight faced. Sid’s eyes grew wide and his face turned purple.
“WHAT?! WHO THE HELL TOOK THAT?” he screamed, jumping up.
“I dunno man, you might wanna check it out,” Jordan said, sending me a wink. I smiled at him gratefully. Sid ran out of the room, yelling at no one in particular.
“Dude, I wanna see this video,” Max said excitedly, following Sid, with Marc hot on his trail. As soon as they were out of hearing distance, Jordan got up and walked over to the couch, sitting down next to me.
“Playing with himself? How’d you come up with that one?” I laughed.
“Oh, honey, it comes with practice,” he stated proudly.
“Well, thanks, I owe you,” I told him. He just looked at me. I could see he was curious as to what my hesitation was about, but he didn’t want to ask because he could tell it made me uncomfortable to talk about it...I’m kind of good at reading people. “I just…can’t talk about it yet. I’m sorry,” I told him apologetically.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I understand,” he said reassuringly, putting his hand on my thigh. I knew it was supposed to be a comforting gesture, but I couldn’t help but imagine what his hands would feel like somewhere else…

He spoke again, stealing me away from my fantasies. “Al, you know you can talk to me, right? I mean, you can trust me,” he said, his eyes growing softer with every word. Oh, god, he was beautiful. What I wouldn’t give right now just to touch those perfect lips, or that goddamn irresistible jaw…
“Yeah, I know. And I will…soon,” I said, smiling slightly. He grinned back, and then we just looked at each other. After a few moments, he took a deep breath and bent over, picking up my bag on the floor. He pulled out my portfolio with all of my school work in it, and began shifting through the many sheets of paper.
“Um…what are you doing?” I asked him.
“Just trying to get to know you better,” he answered nonchalantly.
“And looking at my school work is going to help that how?”
“You can tell a lot about a person by their profession,” he said, his eyes glued to the sheets spread out in front of him. “For example…from these things here…”
“The basic layout of all the muscles in the face…”
“Right…from these things here, I can tell that you’re obviously smart, extremely passionate and a bit of a perfectionist.”
“Okay, the first one is a given…”
“I should probably add arrogant to that list…”
“…but I don’t see how you can tell that I’m passionate and a perfectionist –which I am not- from a few printed sheets of paper.”
“Ah, well, kid, you’ve gotta read between the lines. You see, all this stuff looks excruciatingly boring. You must be really passionate about the thing that you’re fighting for if you’re going through all this just to get there.”
“You’re a really wonderful guy, you know that?” I said sarcastically.
“I’ve been told.”
“Okay, what about the perfectionist thing? It’s impossible that you can tell that.”
“Wrong again, dear. You’ve got every single thing here written in blue pen, not one thing is misspelled or crossed out, and you color-coated your paragraphs in highlighter from order of importance, greatest to least.” He said, smirking slightly. I sighed twice. Once on the inside, once on the outside. On the outside, it was the sort of sigh that said, ‘Ugh, fine, you win this time, but you’re still annoying and slightly pig-headed’. But on the inside, it was the sort of sigh that said, ‘Oh my God, I had no idea you were so observant. I think that makes even more attractive than you were already. I’m falling for you harder than I expected.’ Yeah, I know. I hated that inward sigh.

A moment later, Max and Marc walked into the room, smiles on their faces. As they walked past us, Max high-fived Jordan and said:
“Nice one, man,” making Jordan grin cockily.
“Yeah, but you better hold on to your hats, hurricane Sid is about to hit,” Marc added, chuckling. Max sat down next to me and said,
“I love this part,” I raised my eyebrows questioningly, but before I could speak, he said, “Just watch.” A few seconds later, I heard footsteps crashing down the stairs. Jordan inhaled sharply in anticipation, a huge, shit-eating grin on his face, and said, “Here we go,” just as Sid came bursting into the room, red-faced and breathing hard. He took one look at the faces staring back at him, trying hard to hide their laughter, before erupting into a fit of rage.
“There was no fucking video!” he yelled, directly at Jordan, who was working hard to keep his emotions in check. He took a deep breath and said, very calmly,
“Huh…that’s weird. Well, sorry Caps, that was my bad.” He kept himself completely straight-faced throughout the ordeal, but Marc let out a burst of giggles as he finished. I could feel Max’s silent laughter shaking the couch.
“You guys are such douchebags!” Sid exclaimed, throwing his hat on the ground in frustration. At this, all three of them finally cracked. They all burst into laughter, and Jordan fell on the floor, he was laughing so hard.
“I-I can’t believe you fell for it again!” he managed to croak out, grabbing his side in agony. Sid groaned and sat down on the couch. Jordan was still shaking on the carpet and Sid nudged him with his foot slightly, sighing.
“You guys get way too much pleasure out of my humiliation,” he said.
“You know we love you, man,” Max said, composing himself.
“I wish I was still living with Mario,” Sid stated, walking over to the TV and getting out a season of Friends from the cupboard. All the guys let out a chorus of groans. “He let me watch Friends whenever I wanted.” He finished, sighing.
“Dude, come on, we let you watch it at first, but then it just started getting annoying,” Max said.
“Yeah, I mean there’s a point where it’s just too much,” Jordan said. “And that point was about two days after you moved in.” he added, cracking a grin. Sid just scoffed.
“Well, why don’t you ask Al, I’m sure she’ll want to watch it,” he said. They all turned to look at me. My eyes grew wide as I looked from face to face. Sid’s was one of hope, a slightly excited look in his eyes. Jordan’s was confident, as if he knew that I couldn’t say no to him, which was true. His eyes sparkled. Marc and Max had the exact same expression on their faces. It was curiosity, as if they were testing me, wanting to know who I would choose. They were both smirking; I knew this was amusing them. For me, this felt like more than a choice between some television shows. I felt like I was choosing between Jordan and Sid. Shit.
“Uh…I actually have some work that I have to do, so…” I said, picking up the papers that Jordan has taken out of my portfolio and putting them back in, being careful not to mix up the order. Wow, Jordan was right, I was a perfectionist.
“She just doesn’t want to hurt your feelings by taking my side, Sid,” Jordan told him smugly.
“That’s not true!” I exclaimed. “I actually have a lot of stuff to do, look!” I said, waving the papers in front of his face. Marc reached out and grabbed one, looking at it with a confused look on his face.
“What’s a…Frontal Belly of Epicranius Muscle?” He asked, looking at me as if I were crazy. I sighed.
“It’s the muscle in your forehead that let’s you raise your eyebrows,” I told them. I heard Max giggle slightly. I turned to look at him, and he was raising his eyebrows up and down continuously.
“I’m moving my Frontal Belly of Epicranius Muscle,” he said, giggling again.
“You guys are so immature,” Sid said, scoffing. He tried to lean his arm against the wall, but missed and stumbled sideways, almost falling over. We all burst into laughter.