In Your Room

Jordan dropped my hand as soon as we walked through the doorway to his bedroom. Striding across the room, he stopped at the foot of his bed and carefully lowered Jenna on the mattress.

The moment her bottom touched her daddy’s favourite dark blue striped comforter, she flipped over onto her hands and knees, still holding onto her doll somehow, to scamper towards the head of the bed, her little bum wiggling as she moved.

With a glance over her shoulder, she dropped her doll to grip the comforter in her tiny hands. She tugged with all her might on the comforter but it barely moved more than a couple inches.

While Jenna was doing this, Jordan stood watching her, pride evident on his face. Jenna must’ve figured that she moved the blanket enough; she dropped it and started to crawl further up the bed, onto Jordan’s pillows where she laid her head down.

“Are you a sleepy little girl? Did all the dancing wear you out?” Jordan sat on the bed next to her, smoothed her hair back from her face. “Did you want daddy to get your blanky?” Jenna reached out her hand towards him, circling her small fingers around his pinky. “Ok Peanut, Daddy will get it for you.” He made his way out of the room, telling me he wouldn’t be too long.

Once Jordan left, Jenna started trying to push his blankets down further. “Oh sweetie,” Jenna looked up at me as I crossed over to her. “Daddy will be right back with your blanky; why don’t you lie down while you wait?”

Without much hesitation, Jenna did as I suggested, only to jump up a moment later to stare at me. “What’s up?” I asked her in a funny voice as I leaned into her. She giggled, poked at my nose before falling down against her daddy’s pillows.

Laying as still as she could, with her eyes closed, Jenna looked like she was about to fall asleep but suddenly she jumped up to stare at me again; I faked being surprised, she crinkled up her face and giggled as she fell back again. She did this a few more times, cracking me up every single time.

“You are just like your daddy!” I exclaimed as we both collapsed onto the mattress from all the laughing. I started to tell her a few of the times her daddy cracked me up so badly I almost peed my pants. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without him in my life Jenna; he kept me sane when the world seemed to be falling apart around me.” I smiled as I stroked her head; she was gazing up at me from under half closed lids. “He’s always been important to me - he’ll always be - I just don’t know…” I trailed off, sighed, and thought I just didn’t know how important he was too me or the role he would play in future. With a slight shake of my head, I asked her just where her daddy was. “He said he would be…” I lifted my head to glance at the door - Jordan was leaning against the doorjamb, watching us. “Hey…”

Jordan stayed in the doorway, his expression difficult to read as his gaze jumped from me to Jenna and back again. I started to explain how I ended up on bed but he waved his hand, as if it didn’t matter, as he started towards us.

Jenna, when she realized Jordan was close, sat up and held her arms out for him. A smile appeared on Jordan’s face as he sat on the other side of the bed. He held up her blanky, “See what daddy got for you?” Chattering excitedly, Jenna reached out to wrap her arms around the fleece Dora blanky. “Lie down,” Jordan suggested, “Daddy’ll cover you up.”

As soon as Jenna was resting comfortably under her blanky with one arm thrown over her doll, Jordan slipped off the bed without a word and wandered over to his closet. At first I was watching him, wondering what was going through his head - wondering what he was thinking while he watched me with Jenna - but I couldn’t see what he was doing, so I turned my attention back to the little girl curled up into a tiny ball in front of me.

“So Anna,” Jordan broke the silence that settled over the room. “Did you want to see the dress I bought my date?”

“Sure,” I said as I moved to sit up on the bed. I really didn’t want to see the dress; I didn’t even want to think about Jordan having a date for the party when I was newly single and a little upset about that. “Speaking of dates how is Olive-via?”

“Olive-via?” Jordan laughed. “She was doing great last night when I was talking to her; I suppose she’s still that way.”

“Oh,” I smiled. “What does she think about you dating other women?”

Chuckled, he told me she was fine with it. “It’s not like we are boyfriend/girlfriend Anna, we don’t really know each other that well.”

“But you were talking about visiting her and how you couldn’t move there because of Jenna.”

He nodded, “Yes, I am going to visit her this summer and I was thinking that I couldn’t move there because of Jenna but Anna, we are still getting to know each other.” He shrugged, “If she was here it would be different but she’s not.”

“So you get to date whoever you wish, while she -”

“Gets to date whoever she wishes.”

“Oh, so she knows about your date for the party? And she’s fine with that?”

“Yes,” he replied simply and then pulled a hanger from his closet and held it out for me to see as he walked towards me.

“Pretty,” I said of the ivory cotton sleeveless dress he held. “I like the little pink flowers and that satin bow is so cute…” I trailed off. “Why are you showing me this?”

Grinning, he told me I wanted to see his date’s dress, “this is it.”

“Your date?” I stared at the toddler dress, the warmth of embarrassment spreading across my cheeks as I finally realised his ‘date’ was Jenna. “You jerk!” I grabbed one of his pillows and swung it at him. “You know damn well I thought you meant a real date!”

“I know,” he laughed.

“I should’ve known,” I rolled my eyes as I pushed off the bed. “I have to go.”

“Wait,” his laughter stopped, worry quickly clouded his usually bright green eyes. “You don’t have to leave,” he told me, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I debated making him think I was leaving because he had a little fun just now but I decided not too. “Jordy I’m not mad and I’m not leaving because of anything you did. I have a list from Zack - a mile long - of stuff I have to pick up from the store for the party. That’s why I came into town in the first place.”

“Oh, well, sorry I took up so much of your time.” He moved to the closet to hang the dress back up.

“Jordan,” I sighed as I joined him. “That’s not how I meant it.”

“I know Anna,” he smiled down at me. “It was nice to spend some time with you, even if it was only for five minutes.”

“Wouldn’t want you to get sick of me,” I joked but he didn’t laugh. “Walk me to the door?”

Spreading his arm out in front of him, he motioned towards the door way as if to say ‘after you’ but instead of going, I wrapped my hand around his elbow and pulled his arm back down to his side and then I linked my arm with his. “Let’s go.” I started forward but I guess my action surprised him a little because it took a moment for his feet to move on the carpet.

At the front door, I released his arm. “It was good to see you,” I told him. “We’ll do this again soon.”

He raised a brow, “we will?” I nodded. “I’ll believe it when I see it Babe, you’ve been pretty busy lately.”

“Yeah,” I lowered my head because I felt bad for being a terrible friend lately. Taking his hand in mine, I smiled up at him again. “But we’ll get to hang out for a little bit at the party tonight.”

He shot me a questioning look after a quick glance down at our hands. “But you’ll be busy tonight playing ‘hostess’, like always, even though you don’t have too.” I chuckled. “And when you aren’t playing ‘hostess’, you’ll be so wrapped up in Josh and Jess, you won’t even know anyone else is there.”

With a small shrug, I let go of his hands, “I guess you’ll have to prove me wrong Jordy.” Raising up on my tippy toes, my left hand slide to his shoulder for balance as my right one rested against his chest while I leaned in to kiss his cheek. My aim was off a little, I ended up kissing the corner of his mouth. “I’ll see you at the party,” I told him as I moved away, grasped the doorknob and walked out into the warmth of the day.

But it wasn’t half as warm as the feeling that washed over me when my lips briefly pressed against him.

Don’t even go there! My inner voice screamed. Go to the stores, grab the stuff on the list and get home as fast as possible so that Mary can put you to work. Don’t think about it!

The liquor store was the first stop on my list; it was the furthest of all the places I had to go. I grabbed a cart as soon as I walked in through the door - it was the last one there and, just my luck, it had a wonky wheel.

As I moved forward, I pulled out my list, double checking what I needed. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going and soon I walked right into another customer in the busy store.

“Oh!” I cried out when the cart stopped abruptly. I started to apologize as I lifted my head, “I’m so very sor -”

“Watch where you are going!” The older woman snapped and gave me the deadliest look ever before walking away.

“Sorry,” I muttered as I started on my way again.

I was grabbing a couple flats of beer when I heard someone call my name. I turned towards the voice and dropped the flat; luckily I had almost had it in the cart before I looked. “Oh hell no!”