How to Save a Life

“You’re one of the smartest people I know,” says the man I am madly in love with in a quiet voice.

Coming from him, that’s saying a lot. But I’m doing exactly what I’ve always wanted. I love the home renovation business with all my heart. I was doing what I love. Now that Maisie is back where she belongs, I need to get back to it soon.

“Because everything I need to know I can learn on YouTube.”

Jordan stares, unblinking. “Funny.”

“Have you browsed YouTube lately?”

“No, not lately,” he deadpans.

“Name anything,” I challenge. “Anything. And I’ll find you a video that teaches you how to do it.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

I get the signature Jordan West special, a look so smug it begs to be slapped off his pretty face. “Surgery.”

Sigh. “Name something else.”

He waits patiently for me to get serious, a warm encouraging hand brushing up and down my bare back. Jordan’s an anchor, the steadiness I’ve never had and desperately needed. I realize now I’ve been drifting my entire life.

“My mother…she really loved my Dad. Like crazy love––they were high school sweethearts.”

My throat swells with emotion. I haven’t spoken about this with anyone. Not even Veronica. I used to believe some things are best not examined too closely. Maybe I was wrong.

“When he died, she fell apart. It was bad back then. There were days, sometimes weeks, she wouldn’t get out of bed…clinical depression but I didn’t know that back then and she refused to see a doctor about it until recently.” I swallow. “I missed a lot of school, barely slept for years. I was scared she’d hurt herself…I was afraid I’d be alone.”

Tears well up in my eyes. I bite the inside of my cheek to stave them off, push them back down and out of sight. But Jordan won’t have it. He pushes me onto my back and gets between my legs. Hips to hips. Green eyes to blue. Lips within a hair’s breadth of each other’s.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. Holding my face, he kisses me softly. Jordan can strip the bark right off of me with one look. And it’s the same way he’s looking at me right now. Like I’m the only person in the world who matters. “Don’t hold back…Give it to me. I’ll carry it for you.”

I kiss him back the way he kisses me, like everything rests on this one point of contact, like he’s committing every fiber of his soul to it. He pushes inside of me and I arch up into him. Guiding my hands above our heads, he places mine on the edge of the headboard. His hands bracket mine. And then I do as I’m told…

I don’t hold back. I give it all to him.

The Town of Chatam is exactly what I expected: charming shops, mom and pop restaurants. Vintage clothing stores. Antiques. People getting around on bicycles and sidewalk art shows on Sunday.

It feels like I’ve traveled back in time to a simpler world. One I’d like to get lost in and never return.

“I’m going for a run,” I announce to my lover. I mean, technically he’s my lover. I would like to be his girlfriend but that’s still very much up to him.

Jordan picks his head up off the pillow and looks at me, eyelids heavy. “Come back to bed. I’ll get your heart rate up.”

My body needs a break. Jordan does nothing in half measures, including sex.

“I need some air. Come with me.”

I walk back to the bed we haven’t left for twelve hours and place a kiss on the back of his neck. He sighs.

I’ve never known a person so desperate to be touched than this one, so responsive. And not just in a sexual way. It’s like no one has ever hugged him before. I once read that children who are touched and hugged, shown affection, have better mental health and immune responses. I wonder how true that is.

I run my fingers through his hair and drag my nails down over his shoulder.

“You better stop. I can’t run with a hard-on.”

I slap his ass. “Hurry up. I’ll wait on deck.”

Jordan

I’ve given up trying to anticipate what life has in store. Every time I think I have something figured out, I’m inevitably reminded that I know nothing, proven a fraud.

Riley runs ahead, her long shapely legs eating up the asphalt. Her spectacular ass the best view on the planet.

Mine. My basest instinct plays on a loop in my head, the blood in my veins pulsing with it. I’ve turned into the worst possible version of myself overnight. Insatiably hungry for her, proprietary. I haven’t felt better in years, a decade practically, and it’s not just because it’s the best sex I’ve ever had. It’s more than that.

“Try to keep up, old man.”

“I’m enjoying the view too much.”

We’re surprisingly well matched in every way possible. In bed, there’s no question. But also in life. Because when it comes down to it, I know this woman’s heart.