Back Into It

When I dropped Jenna off at Heather’s parents place they made a couple comments about being surprised that Jordan and I would need someone to look after Jenna that morning. I just brushed it off as them meaning that it was a surprise, with all the family that we both have, that we needed to call them.

“Everyone had prior commitments.”

Heather’s mom looked at me strangely but she didn’t say anything more, all her attention went to her granddaughter.

I knelt down to tell Jenna I would pick her up later and give her a hug. She gave me a ‘Jordy’ grin and proceeded to plant a sloppy wet kiss on my cheek. “Have a great day with Grandma and Grandpa, ok Sweetie?” With one final squeeze, I stood and turned to Heather’s parents. “Thank you both for agreeing to care for Jenna today, Jordan and I really appreciate it.”

Heather’s parents glanced at each other and then her father told me that they were happy to do it. “Tell Jordan we are happy he called. Although we understand, we were disappointed when Heather told us she was leaving Jenna with him – we didn’t think he would allow us to see her.”

“Not allow you to see her?” I gasped. “Jordan would never do that.”

“We see that now,” he responded.

“Good.” I smiled. “Now, I have to go or I’ll be late. Have a great day; I’ll be back at 3:30 to pick her up.”

As I pulled away from the curb outside their house, I happened to glance back and caught a glimpse of movement in the living room window – Jenna was waving at me.

****

I was in a little bit of a hurry when I pulled into the parking lot at work. In the rush to get into work on time, it never clicked with me that the parking lot that normally held a good twenty or thirty cars was nearly empty. Nor did it register that the truck sitting in one of the handicap parking spaces was Jordan’s. In fact, I was in my own little world that it took Jordan running up to me and taking hold of my hand for me to even realize that anything was out of the ordinary that morning.

“Jordy!” At first I was surprised – happy – to see him but soon it changed to wondering why he was there. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”

“I couldn’t go to work,” he told me.

I frowned. “Why not?”

“Closed.”

“Closed?” I repeated slowly. “What do you mean closed?”

A smile started to spread across his face. “Closed, as in not open. Much like what happens when there’s a stat.”

“A stat?” I didn’t know what he was going on with at first but suddenly, as if my brain finally woke up, it sunk in and I felt like a fool. “The Remembrance Day Stat! We don’t work today!” I slapped myself in the forehead. “That’s why Heather’s parents were so surprised that we wanted them to babysit Jenna today!”

As I lowered my hand, Jordan reached out, catching my hand in his. “You know what this means Babe?” He took a step towards me, a mischievous grin on his handsome face. “We –” Slipping my hand around his waist, he lowered his head until his forehead was resting against mine. “We get to spend some quality time together.”

It was a great idea since we barely had time during the week to spend together but I was a little confused. “What about Jenna?” I asked. “Don’t you want to go and pick her up?”

He nodded slowly, “I do.”

“Oh, then how…?” I motioned back and forth between the two of us.

He didn’t respond right away, instead, he lifted his head enough to plant a kiss on my forehead. “I want to pick her up right now but I also want to take you somewhere and….” The mischievous grin was back.

“Ok,” I chuckled. “So do you want me to meet you at home or…?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he nodded enthusiastically. “Meet me at home and we’ll go from there.”

****

Even though Jordan and I left my work at the same time, I managed to arrive to his place before he did. In fact, I went into the house, used the bathroom, changed my clothes and did a quick, simple make up job and was sitting at the kitchen table, wondering where he went, when he finally came through the front door.

“What happened to you?” I asked as he came around the table and kissed my cheek before he sat down next to me.

“Sorry Babe,” he plopped a cloth shopping bag on the table in front of him. “I just had to make a couple stops.”

“You went to see Jenna, didn’t you?” I grinned when he nodded a little guiltily. “Was she excited to see you?” Gasping, my eyes widened, “I bet she just ran to you.”

“I did, I just wanted to see how Jenna was doing.” He confessed that he felt really guilty about leaving Jenna there when he wasn’t working. “But Heather’s parents looked so crushed when I showed up and I know what they were feeling – I feel it every time I have to give Jenna back – I just couldn’t and that didn’t make Jenna happy.” His voice cracked a little. “I made my little girl cry Anna. I made her cry.”

“She’ll be alright Jordan. When we pick her up later, she won’t even remember that you didn’t take her with you this time, all she’ll be thinking is, ‘my daddy is here’ and ‘he’s the best’.”

Jordan snorted. “I don’t think she’ll be thinking I’m the best Anna.”

“No?” I scooted out my chair to sit on his lap. “She does think you are the best Jordy, if she didn’t, it wouldn’t matter that you didn’t take her with you. Jenna loves you.”

Resting his chin on my shoulder, he told me that I was the best. “I love you.”

****

With Jenna at her grandparents’ house, Jordan, after spending a good hour and a half on the couch snuggling and chatting with me, asked if I wanted to go for a drive. “It’s a beautiful day,” he stated when I moaned my distaste for leaving the couch. “We can look for houses,” he tried to persuade me.

I knew that it would be a great time to look but I didn’t really want to get up.

“Anna, come on.” He started to playfully poke me in the sides. “Our dream house isn’t going to come knocking on our door. We have to go out and find it.”

Pouting, I told him I knew. “But,” squeezing him tightly, I asked if I could have another half hour of cuddling before we went out in the cold, sunny November morning.

He gave in, some what reluctantly. “It’s not that I don’t want to cuddle, just so you know Babe.”

“I know,” I smirked. “You can’t get enough of me.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Pushing me away, Jordan shoved off the couch.

“Wait, what…” I stared after him, completely shocked.

Without a word, he disappeared only to come back a few minutes later with the Real Estate Guide in his hands. Flipping through the Guide, he lowered himself next to me again. “I was looking through this last night,” he told me as he slipped his arm around me. “I saw a couple that sounded promising. Want to see?”

I really didn’t have much of a choice; he pointed out one house and then proceeded to shove the Guide in my face. “I can’t see it when you do that.” Taking the Guide from him, I read the ad he pointed out. “1954 three bedroom, 1 bath farm house on 5 acres located 10 minutes from town…” I trailed off as I read the rest of the ad to myself. Biting my lip, I glanced at Jordan. “It sounds good Honey – a lot of upgrading, more than likely but I think we should look at it.” Flipping to the next page he marked, I asked him if he called Wanda to set up a viewing.

“There wasn’t an answer.”

For a half hour I listened to an animated Jordy talking about the houses he wanted to see and all the plans he had for when we finally found the one for us. He was eager to head out and no amount of flirting on my part was going to keep that man home for another second longer.

****

We drove around for hours, it seemed but we didn’t really get a chance to view any houses – from the inside at least. Since all we could do was drive by slowly and check the houses out from the car, that’s what we did. Unfortunately, half of the houses he thought looked good on paper didn’t hold that much promise in broad daylight.

“We’ll find it,” he insisted after the 1954 farm house turned out to be a step up from a run down shack by the glimpse we got from the highway. “I still want to see it from the inside,” he informed me. “You never know, it may just need a little outside TLC.”

“That’s possible,” I gave him a smile that I hoped didn’t show how doubtful I was that he would be alright from the inside.

“Yeah…” he trailed off. “Although, there’s no way that the house is 10 minutes from town. It’s more like 25 minutes.” With a quick glance in my direction, he told me that he didn’t want to live that far out of town. “Hell, if that were the case, I would be looking for houses in Lakeland.”

As we closed in on the city limits Jordan decided to take one of the back roads instead of following the main highway into town ‘for something to do.’ Just after he made the turn, my phone rang.

“Can you meet me later this afternoon?” The caller cut me off before I had a chance to finish my ‘hello’. “Without Jordan? I need you, I really need you Anna.”