Chapter Nine

About a week later, Jordan was given a clean enough bill of health and was declared free to go. He could now be on his feet for about an hour at a time and walk long distances if he stopped to take breaks in between. He had been told by several people in the facility that he was healing remarkably fast and that he shouldn’t screw it up by exerting himself. Jordan had already promised himself that he would stay with Noah and Lucy for at least three days before trying to get back to work. That was about as easy as he was willing to take it.

He’d already made the call to Noah this morning letting him know that he was being released today. All he had to do was shoot him a text saying that he was ready to be picked up, but Jordan wanted to visit with his uncle first.

Kenny was propped up on pillows in his bed when Jordan got there. He was watching something on TV and holding a glass of water to his extremely chapped lips. He didn’t look any better than the last time he’d seen him, but at least he was more comfortable in his own space. He looked up and beamed at Jordan when he saw him.

“Well look at you! Up and walking like you ain’t never got shot before!”

Jordan smiled.

“It’s good to see you too Uncle Kenny.”

“Don’t sass me boy. Come give your uncle a hug.”

Jordan obliged and sat down next to him. They had talked briefly about the fact that Jordan was going to live with a random stranger. Kenny, of course, hadn’t liked the idea, but ultimately, they both had agreed that he really didn’t have any other good options. Still, Jordan gave Kenny Noah’s name, phone number, and description just in case. He’d also turned on friend tracking on his phone. Kenny had no idea how to use it, but hopefully he could ask one of the orderlies for help if there were an emergency.

They talked for a while about nothing important. Mostly how they both were feeling and how the weather had been lately, even though neither of them had really been outside. There was a brief conversation about this celebrity game show they’d both gotten sucked into recently. Really, they were just stalling because they were nervous and didn’t want to say goodbye.

“I’ll come visit you as soon as I can,” Jordan promised.

Kenny nodded and told him to call him when he got to ‘that crazy white man’s place.’ Jordan told him that he would and then stepped out into the hall. He took short steady strides all the way to the elevator and formulated a text on the way down. He decided to keep it short and simple.

I’m out.

He waited to hit send until he was standing in front of the main doors to the building. Looking out, he could see that the sun was shining brightly even though there was snow on the ground. Dozens of people were walking around out there, some of them pacing back and forth, ruminating on a diagnosis or the state of a loved one, and others were zooming by without giving the hospital a second glance, onto bigger and better things.

Jordan stepped outside and joined them. The cold air instantly seeped through his clothes and into his skin, where it burrowed amongst his organs and bones. Jordan clenched his fists in his pockets and shivered involuntarily. Still, he did not go back inside. It was a privilege to be feeling this brutal and unforgiving cold once again, or at least that’s what he kept telling himself. He wandered around until he found a shiny red bench to sit down on. That’s how Noah found him, staring up at the white tipped pine trees and taking in the fresh air.

“Hey roomie,” Noah said, drawing Jordan’s gaze. “Are you ready to go?”

Jordan internally cringed at the word roomie, but nodded all the same. He let Noah take his plastic bag full of belongings and help him up off the bench. Jordan couldn’t help but notice how warm Noah’s hands were, and how nicely they wrapped around his own. Noah pulled away much sooner than Jordan would have liked him to. He shoved his fists back into his pockets feeling embarrassed. It had been a long time since anyone had held his hand was all. He’d been through a lot. It made sense that he’d get excited over a tiny bit of physical contact.

Jordan did his best to shake off the misplaced butterflies in the pit of his stomach and followed Noah to his car. It was a dark blue mid-sized sedan. A perfect dad car. Jordan could imagine Noah shuttling Lucy and her little friends to and from sporting events in this thing. He stepped in on the passenger side and shut the door behind him.

“Could we uh, maybe swing by my old apartment and pick up some things?” Jordan asked as he was buckling his seat belt.

“Of course,” Noah said.

Jordan gave him the address and they set out on the twenty minute journey. The ride was quiet and awkward with neither one of them really knowing what to say to each other.

“So what kind of music do you like?” Noah asked eventually, digging into his console for some CDs.

“Hip hop,” Jordan answered honestly.

The big guy’s face fell, and his fingers halted.

“Oh, sorry. I don’t have any of that.”

“It’s okay,” Jordan said. 

Noah nodded, and the awkward silence returned tenfold. Jordan stared out the window and watched the other cars pass. Noah drove just like Jordan would have expected him to; slow and steady, following the rules of the road down to the letter. When he turned back to look at him, his eyes were planted firmly on the road ahead and he was humming softly to himself. Jordan quickly recognized the song as Carol of the Bells.

“So, tell me more about Lucy,” he prompted, for no other reason than to chase the slight suggestion of Christmas music out of the car.

Noah seemed more than happy to oblige. He told Jordan that Lucy was in third grade. Her favorite color was lime green and she either wanted to be a scientist or a stuntwoman when she grew up. He delivered that last bit of information with a fond little laugh. He went on about what foods she liked and didn’t like, how good she was at school. Her reluctance to watch anything that wasn’t animated because real people “weren’t expressive enough.”

It was like he just radiated happiness every time he talked about his daughter. Was this what all dads were supposed to be like? He knew that Maddie had hated her father. He was controlling and manipulative and somewhat of an alcoholic, always reducing his wife and children to tears. Jordan wondered briefly which kind of father his own would have turned out to be if he had lived. From what Uncle Kenny had told him, his dad was a really nice guy, but you never know. A lot of people said that Hitler was a nice guy too.

As Noah continued prattling on about Lucy, Jordan noticed for the first time just how young Noah seemed. At a glance, it was easy to say mid-thirties just because of the forehead wrinkles and his kind paternal nature, but the more time he spent with him, the more Jordan realized that Noah didn’t really look more than a few years older than he was.

“You seem really young to have an eight year old daughter,” Jordan interjected, unable to hold his tongue.

Noah only laughed and said, “Yeah. I get that a lot.” He paused for a moment to switch lanes before adding, “I’m 25, by the way. In case you were wondering.”

Jordan nodded, doing the math in his head.

“That means you had Lucy when you were…”

“Seventeen,” Noah confirmed.

Jordan readjusted in the seat and cleared his throat. See, this was why he didn’t try and talk to people. Whenever he did, things got uncomfortable really quick. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to pry. It’s really none of my business.”

Noah waved it off.

“No. It’s fine. I don’t mind talking about it.” His eyes darted away from the road and over to Jordan for just a second. “Go ahead and ask all those questions that are burning a hole in your head.”

Jordan swallowed past the lump in his throat and asked if Lucy’s mom was in the picture.

“Nope,” Noah said, popping the p. “The girl I knocked up, her name was Valeria. She had Lucy and stuck around with us for the first few months, but as soon as she turned eighteen, she skipped town and completely disappeared. I never heard from her again, and I hope for Lucy’s sake I never have to.”

“Yikes,” was all Jordan could say in response.

Noah shrugged.

“I don’t really mind. Lucy is amazing, and we’ve done fine on our own. It’s a lot of work, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

Jordan didn’t quite know what to say about that, so he decided to just change the subject.

“Do you ever get shit for her not looking like you?”

Noah let out a startled laugh.

“Yeah. Like all the time. Everyone seems to think I adopted her from a third world central American country. For some reason that’s easier for them to believe than the fact that my daughter’s half Mexican.”

Jordan nodded.

“My dad was white,” he offered. “Like, white, white. My mom met him while she was on vacation in Germany.”

“Really? That’s awesome!” Noah said.

Jordan shrugged.

“I guess. I didn’t really know him.”

“Died young huh?” Noah asked. He seemed surprisingly chill about the topic. It caught Jordan off guard.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Car crash. Him and my mom both.”

Noah gave a low whistle.

“That really fucking sucks. You must have pissed off a witch in your past life or something.”

Jordan’s mouth twitched up into a grin. Who on Earth was this man with his infinite wisdom mixed with social ineptitude? How was he so sweet, blundering, and tactless all at the same time? And why did he find it so damn endearing?

“You’re not gonna say that you’re sorry for my loss?” Jordan asked.

“Do you want me to?”

“No. Not really.”

They settled back into silence for a while, but it was much more comfortable now that they’d broken the ice. Hearing about Noah’s teen escapades was making him think about his own teenage years. Honestly, things weren’t much different than they were now. He’d held two steady jobs, worked hard in school, and tried—to no avail—to get ahead in life. There hadn’t been any time for romance or exploration. He and Maddie didn’t even have sex for the first time until they were both twenty. Honestly, it was a miracle that she didn’t break up with him sooner.

Finally, after a few more minutes of driving, they arrived at the one and only Pine Ridge Apartments. Jordan gave Noah the code for the gate and told him where to park, feeling mildly ashamed. He couldn’t help it. He knew what the complex looked like from the outside, a place only crackheads and broke university students would ever dare to live. The buildings all had cracking and chipped paint. The office had boards over most of the windows from being broken into so many times. The fence had people-shaped dents between the bars and the parking lot was covered in potholes. Noah was probably worried about being jumped or having his car stolen. Still, despite its lack of charm, it was his home; or at least it had been.

Jordan stepped out of the car and closed the door carefully behind him. He dug his apartment key out of his plastic bag, but one glance upward was all it took to see that he wouldn’t be needing it. Chad had stacked up literally everything that Jordan owned on the tiny landing at the top of the stairs. Jordan squeezed his fist around the teeth of the key and walked in the direction of the frost covered staircase. Noah followed closely on his heels. He even reached out to steady Jordan a couple of times as his feet threatened to slide, thanks to the worn out tread on his sneakers.

When they reached the top, Jordan found his small metal suitcase and made quick work of bundling up the frozen sheets of fabric that were his clothes into it. He didn’t pause to look at Noah while he was doing it, nor did he pay any mind to the numbing pain radiating through his upper body as he bent down. He just threw everything in as fast as he could. In the end, he ended up with his entire wardrobe, his toothbrush, and about a dozen overdue library books. Everything else was either too big to take with him, or too ruined from being out in the snow. Maybe one or two things had been stolen, but it was hard to tell. Jordan didn’t really own anything that anyone else might want, as was evidenced by the fact that most of it was still out here at all, who knew how many days later.

Satisfied that he could at least cover his own ass while he was at Noah’s house, Jordan slipped his key under the mat and took one last look at the door that he’d come home to every night for the last five years. Even though it was a sad, embarrassing, bittersweet time, he couldn’t help but rejoice in the fact that he would never have to see Chad again. Silver linings and all that jazz.

Noah snatched Jordan’s suitcase away from him and told him to stay put as he took it down the stairs and placed it into the backseat of the car. Then he returned and offered Jordan his arm. They descended the stairs very slowly. Jordan was trying his best to split his weight evenly between the freezing railing and Noah’s solid, warm hand. He was also trying not to cry. There would be plenty of time for that later, after Noah had gone to sleep and he was alone.

The two of them got back into the car and Jordan sat up extra straight with his back pressed into the seat in order to alleviate some of the pressure on his sternum and ribs. He felt mentally and physically exhausted. Noah turned on the heater and not-so-subtly angled the vents so that they were all facing Jordan. Jordan barely felt it. Noah was looking at him, not with pity or judgement, but with genuine concern. It made him want to crawl under a rock and hide. Eventually he leaned back and let his eyes fall closed so that he didn’t have to see.

Ten seconds went by. Then fifteen. Jordan was fighting the urge to ask Noah what the holdup was. Then, he felt motion beside him. A beat later the car roared to life and they were pulling out of the parking lot. Jordan opened his eyes in time to see Noah exiting the gate. Then the two of them were back on the road. Silently staring straight ahead, lost in their own thoughts.