Don't Ask Me

Jordan finding out that he had a daughter pretty much ended the party. He wasn’t in the mood to celebrate, he only had one thing on his mind, and who could blame him? He went back inside the pub still looking kind of dazed and told his friends that for him the party was over, they were welcomed to stay but he was leaving.

On his way out the door, he grabbed my hand and pulled me along. “What are you doing?” I asked him but he didn’t turn around or even acknowledge me until we reached Nick’s car.

“We have to talk,” he told me as he tried to open Nick’s car doors, they were locked. “Damnit!” He pounded his fist off the roof of the car.

“Hey!” Nick shouted from halfway across the parking lot. “Don’t be beating up my car!”

“Sorry man,” Jordan mumbled without really looking at him as he joined us along with Amy. “We need to talk,” he repeated grabbing my hand again. I told him we would but maybe we should go somewhere were we could talk uninterrupted. “How about home? You do remember where that is, right?”

“Jordan!” I slapped him across the arm. “Of course I know where that is.”

He laughed, “I was just checking,” he looked around. “So you’ll drive?”

I went to say ‘sure’ when I remembered that I came with Josh. “Where is Josh?” I asked. Nick told me that he was still inside, that he saw Jordan pull me out of the pub but didn’t know if he was supposed to follow or not. I groaned; please don’t let him be in a mood now.

Returning to the pub, I saw Josh sitting my himself on a chair in the far corner of where we set up for the party, he didn’t see me as I walked up to him. Leaning down behind him, I slipped my hands down over his chest as I traced his ear lobe with my tongue. “Hey Handsome, think your girlfriend will mind if I take you home?”

Josh turned his head slightly to the right and smiled, “Mind? She’ll claw your eyes out just for thinking it!”

I laughed as I moved around to stand in front of him; he rose to his feet and pulled me into his arms. “She’s got a little bit of a jealous streak?” I asked while I pressed tiny kisses to his neck.

“Yes, she does,” He stated. “But for you, she might be willing to look the other way.”

I raised a brow, “Oh really?”

He nodded, “Yes I believe she would see that there really is no difference between you and her.”

I laughed, “God this is getting strange.” I threw my arms around his neck, pulling him down to give him a quick kiss. “Josh, is it alright if we leave here?”

His smile faded as he looked around, “Leave here? But I was having such a blast sitting by myself.” It wasn’t until he spoke the last couple words that I saw the grin that he was trying to hide. “Sure we can leave, where did you want to go?”

I told him that Jordan wanted to talk and that the best place to talk seemed to be at the house, I watched his face as I spoke, trying to figure out if he was ok with that or not. He slipped his hand on my back and guided me towards the door. “I’m sure Jordan has to have a lot of questions, some of which you can’t even answer but it will do him some good if you can tell him a little about his daughter.” Josh gave a little chuckle. “Sorry,” he said when I shot him a look, “I just can’t believe he has a kid and he didn’t know about her.” He stopped in his tracks, “I can’t even imagine what he feels right now. To not have known about her?” Josh just shook his head and we continued on out of the pub.

When Jordan, Josh and I arrived at the house, Nick and Amy were already there waiting for us. “I hope it’s ok that we are here bro.”

Jordan didn’t say anything but he did nod and to tell you the truth he did look a little happy to see that his brother was there for him.

Once inside we all settled around the kitchen table and that’s when the flood of questions flew from Jordan’s mouth. I really couldn’t believe that he kept them inside as long as he did. “When did you meet them? What does she look like? Is she talking? Walking? Hell what do kids do at her age? How old is she? Was Heather there? No, of course not, you would’ve known right away Jenna was mine.” He stopped for a second and took a breath, “I have a daughter,” he shook his head. “I keep thinking this is a dream and I’ll wake up.” He frowned, “But I have a feeling if it was a dream and not real at all, I’d be upset.” He glanced around the table, “Is that crazy?”

Through the chorus’ of ‘no, that’s not crazy’ Jordan’s attention focused on me again. “Babe you have to tell me everything.”

I nodded while I tried to figure out where to start. I told him about the first time I met Hank and Jenna, how I thought they were up to something because he kept walking through the department. I told him the conversation that Hank and I had that night, about Heather and her family, even what Hank said about him.

“You know I never cheated on her.” Jordan sat forward on the edge of his chair, “I can’t believe that he thinks Heather’s father actually likes me. The guy crosses the street when he sees me coming and he rather take his vehicles down the road and get changed more for a crap job than bring them into the shop. Although,” Jordan paused for a moment. “The guys told me that he did come into the shop while I was off, they said he was looking for me. What do you suppose he wanted?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know Jordy.”

Jordan got lost in thought for a moment, and then he turned to me again. “Tell me about her. What does she look like?”

When I told him that Jenna was beautiful, I wasn’t kidding. “She has so much hair Jordy; it’s so blond and curly. Her eyes are almost the exact same color as yours, it was her eyes that I recognized but I couldn’t put my finger on.” I jumped up and went into the living room where we dropped the posters of the pictures of the guys. I grabbed the one board with most of their baby pictures. “I’ve been staring at these pictures for the last couple days and it still didn’t hit me until Hank freaked tonight,” Josh moved the stuff from the center of the table for me. “She looks like you did here Jordy.” I pointed to a picture of Jordan and Nick when they were about a year old; they were in the bath playing. Jordan was chewing on a rubber duck as Nicky tried to grab it from him.

Both the guys looked over the picture. “Anna,” Jordan gave a little chuckle. “She looks like me, or Nick?” Everyone seemed to stop breathing when he said that, he looked around the table. “What?” He picked up the board and turned it around, “We are identical.”

I rolled my eyes, “Jordan watch what you are saying, people might not understand.”

“Well we are,” he looked at Nick. “Right?”

“Yes dumbass, we are identical. Only I’m not stupid enough to make a comment where people would think that you fathered my child.”

Jordan tossed the poster onto the table, “I didn’t mean that! I know you didn’t…you wouldn’t. Argh!” He put his hands on his head and squeezed his hair in his hands. “I don’t know what to do. I want to see her, I want to talk to Heather and tell her I know. I want answers, I have so many questions.” He looked up at no one in particular, “I just need to talk it out.”

“Well, you can -” I started to offer him some advice when he stopped me.

“No offense Anna but,” he turned his attention to Josh. “I know I’ve been a jerk towards you but do you think we could talk? You are the only one I know who even remotely comes close to being in my situation.”

Josh nodded, “I don’t know if I’ll be of any help but ok.”

I watched as Jordan and Josh got up and went into the living room, Jordan wanted to talk to Josh alone. I couldn’t even begin to describe the hurt that I felt, it was the first time Jordan had ever gone to anyone else for advice and the fact that it was Josh, who he didn’t even get along with up to this point. Well, I knew that it would be good for them to talk, that Josh might be able to shed some light on a rather dark subject area but still, it hurt to be excluded.

“Anna,” Nick reached out and placed his hand on my arm. “Don’t be upset with him, you just don’t have any experience in this area.”

I shook Nick’s hand off and excused myself. I headed for my bedroom, stopping to look in on them as I passed by; they were so deep in conversation that they didn’t even notice I was there. Feeling deleted and defeated, I made my way to my room and crawled into bed.