Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
“Yeah. I’d love the help.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Jordan
I’d been obsessed with two things lately. Okay, four things.
Ian.
David.
Culinary school.
Moving.
The Ian-and-David thing was going fine—well, it was perfect, actually. In the last month, things had seemed to change. I’d told Daddy I loved him, and he said the same. We hadn’t said it again, but it was out there and we both knew it. And then there was the change in Ian. It was like he was opening up right in front of me. He was still him, and he still held back in some ways, but he was also thriving in ways I didn’t think he ever had. Sometimes when we were at the center, I would just stand back and watch him. He loved volunteering there, and he and Peyton had become friends.
And he was so hot when he came home all sweaty and dirty from working on the house. He was like a super twink. While I was fine leaving the heavy lifting to anyone other than me, Ian liked it.
Daddy had changed us both, and I didn’t know if he even realized it. Nothing felt as good as being under David’s care.
Still, I was struggling with telling my grandma. She knew we were together, and she didn’t like it. She was worried because of Mom, scared I was gonna be just like her. Plus, it had been just me and her for so long. She’d loved me and taken me in when my own mother hadn’t. I was afraid of letting her down. How did I tell her that the dream we’d had my whole life wasn’t my dream anymore? Or that maybe it never had been, that maybe I just never knew what I wanted so I’d latched on to hers.
With a sigh, I got out of David’s car and headed into my grandma’s house—well, my house.
“Hey, Granny.”
“Whose car is that?”
“David’s. I dropped him off at work today. Ian’s car finally died, so I’m playing chauffeur for both of them.”
“Well, isn’t that fancy?” she huffed.
“Granny…”
She held up her hands. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll be good.”
“Thank you.” I went over and hugged her. “He really is good to me. They both are.”
“It’s not the young one I’m worried about; it’s that doctor. I’m sorry, Jordan, I know it’s not fair, but he reminds me of the man who took your mother away from me—away from us—and I don’t…”
“You won’t lose me, not ever. Mom made her own choices. David would never pressure me that way, and he wouldn’t allow me to treat my own family badly even if I wanted to.”
“Allow you?”
Shit. Definitely not the right choice of words to use with Granny. I was slipping like that around her too often. She would never understand our relationship. “You know what I mean.”
This also wasn’t going to make it any easier for me to move forward with what I planned to say. That fact was, school would be starting again in a month, and I didn’t want to go back—not to the community college, at least—so I needed to talk to her about it. If I’d made this decision before David, I didn’t think it would have bothered her. Sure, she might have been a little sad that I wasn’t doing what we’d talked about for so many years, but she would have thought I made the decision on my own. No matter how untrue it was, now she would think I was changing for David.
“I tried a new recipe the other day. I’ve been doing a ton of baking at David’s. Do you want to make cookies with me?” I had the bag of ingredients in my hand.
“Sure,” Granny said. “I miss baking with you.”
We went into the kitchen together, washed our hands, and started. We chatted about random things—her knitting club, her arthritis, and things like that—as we mixed and prepared. I made sure to keep talking about how much I enjoyed baking, and sharing stuff about David, because I wasn’t opposed to sucking up.
When they were in the oven and we sat at the table, I couldn’t help wringing my hands together, while trying to ignore the hard thump, thump of my heart.
“Let’s have it, then,” she said.
Damn it. I should have known she’d see it.
“Have what?” I stalled.
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, kid. I love you and I know you. There’s something you want to say.”
She was right, of course. It was ridiculous that I was being weird about this at all. It wasn’t like I planned to ignore everything we’d wanted for my future. The plans were just changing slightly. “I don’t think I’m going back to school next month.”
“What! Are you crazy!”
“Shit. No. I didn’t mean not to school at all, it’s just… Granny, I don’t want to be a nurse. I know that’s what we planned. I know that’s always what I said I wanted, but I think…I’m pretty sure I just didn’t know what my dream was. All I knew was I wanted you to be happy, and I wanted to do something for you that no one else in our family had done, so I latched on to your dream as mine.”