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In the vacuum of his absence, I discovered how much I wished he had never entered my life. Not that I could blame Mom and George for any of it. They hadn’t realized what it would mean to bring a guy like Jordan into my life. They hadn’t known what effects a tall, well-shaped, clever, and witty young man would have on someone as impressionable as me. Had they expected me to fall in love with Jordan, I doubted they would have risked it.
Fall in love. What a crazy idea. Jordan wasn’t someone you fell in love with. He was like a sunset; gorgeous to look at but incapable of feeling anything for you. You were nothing to him. The best you could ever do was admire him from a distance.
When a boy excelled at everything he touched, you couldn’t find a way to connect. You resorted to the next best thing. Resentment.
When Jordan’s freshman year ended, he announced he would spend his summer break with Beckett Partridge and his uncle, Nate, rather than join us at the lake house. I wouldn’t have expected to feel a thing. Except, as we finished our dinner, and George told us, blood drained from my face. He can’t even visit? I demanded internally, my grip tightening on my fork and knife. Do we mean so little to him?
“May I be excused?” I asked dryly after another bite of meatloaf.
“Of course, honey,” Mom said.
“Are you alright, champ?” George asked.
Prickles rose along my neck. “I’m fine.” I set my plate by the sink, wiped my lips with a paper towel, and stalked off to my room. That fucker. I hadn’t realized I had hoped to see him until I knew I wouldn’t. I hadn’t known what my expectations had been until they were taken away. But now I knew. I knew by the emptiness they had left in my mind.
Another quiet afternoon by the lake; Jordan diving, emerging from the clear blue water, shaking his head, and spraying the water in every direction. Not gonna happen. Had I hoped for Jordan to see me after half a year of absence and realize, at long last, that I was more than just his kid stepbrother? I wasn’t a kid anymore. I had spent my time well, focusing on hockey and conditioning, pushing my grades up, preparing for my final year, and hoping to get the same scholarship as Jordan. Of course, I hoped he would see that. I hoped it would make him realize that there was more to me than he had ever cared to notice.
The three weeks we spent in the lake house that summer were depressing. There wasn’t a gym within a ten-mile radius, so I needed to swim every morning to stay in shape. At the height of summer, ice was a distant memory, and a proper rink was a pipe dream. I had an abundance of free time. Absolutely nothing kept me busy or distracted.
One evening, close to the sweet and merciful release from the cage that this summer vacation had turned into, I sat down in the living room and surfed through channels. Mom and George were washing the dishes together. I paused on some figure skating competition and got absorbed in the solo performance of a young man who did such wonders on the ice. He swirled around and performed acrobatics that I hadn’t dreamed of. His lithe body appeared even thinner in his tight clothes. He spun and moved like the laws of physics didn’t apply to him.
I didn’t hear George until he spoke, and then I realized he was sitting on the back of the sofa, looking at the screen. “Wonderful,” he murmured. “I didn’t realize you liked figure skating.” I saw him grin from the corner of my eye. “Or is it just a ‘skating’ thing? Too long since you were on the ice?”
I chuckled. “It’s a ‘cute boy’ thing,” I said in a cheerful voice, then realized I’d admitted it to him for the first time.
“He sure is cute,” George mused. He placed his hand on my shoulder and squeezed.
“Excuse me?” Mom called, wiping her hands on a kitchen cloth.
George winked at me playfully and the strongest sense of kinship connected us. He was my ally. And until this moment, I hadn’t realized I needed one. Not that Mom was my enemy. Her surprise was hard to read. “Oh, um,” I stammered. “I think…”
“Honey, it’s alright,” Mom said. “You simply caught me unprepared.”
My brows knitted slightly. Was I supposed to prepare her for it? It didn’t seem fair. “I didn’t think you’d…”
“Eileen,” George said at the same time, but that was when the last thing I wanted happened. The door of the house opened and my big stepbrother entered with a wide grin on his face. “Am I too late for dinner?”
“Jordan!” Mother clasped her hands together and pressed them against her face.
“Son?” George’s eyebrows shot all the way to his short-cropped hair. “What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t not visit, could I?” Jordan dropped his duffel on the floor and crossed the large area at the entrance of the house to hug my mother, then his father, and clasped my hand lightly for the briefest of moments. Not a hug. Not even a proper handshake. “‘Sup?” He took his hand back before I could feel his warmth. A light trace of cool sweat remained on my fingers. I wished I could bring it to my lips without anyone noticing.
I bit my lip. Anger warred with joy. He was as tall as ever and his shoulders were somehow even broader than last winter when I had seen him for the holidays. And he had just stolen my moment. I had only just said those words aloud, no matter how unplanned it had been, and Jordan stole my thunder.
“I’m returning to Northwood on Wednesday to spend some time with the guys before Murray starts drilling us for the season,” Jordan said as if there had been no conversation without him in this house. “But I wanted to surprise you before you go back to civilization.” He laughed by himself.
“You sure surprised us, Son,” George said, but he was visibly happy. “Wednesday? That’s perfect. We are leaving on Thursday morning.”
I knew that George had to go back to work on Friday. A client, an older woman, wanted to build additional rooms on one side of her house, and George had agreed to come out and assess the job before the week’s end.
“This night is full of surprises,” Mom said.
“Eileen,” George repeated just as Jordan asked, “What do you mean?”
“Well, your brother just decided to tell us he likes boys,” Mom said conversationally.
“Mom,” I huffed, heat rising to my face.
