One Little Chance (Sweet River)

Chapter 14

SATURDAYS IN SPRING 2023

F or the next few weeks, I spent every Saturday morning watching Jordan coach pre-K soccer then we went for a run. These last few times without a make-out session in the middle of the park. Afterward, we’d get lunch together.

One time, he helped me grocery shop, and we bickered over my shopping list like an old married couple. On the third Saturday in April, Jordan sat in my living room after we made sandwiches and played his favorite Taylor Swift songs.

I shook my head at him. “I can’t believe you finally got into her after all the times I tried!”

“Come on.” He was lying across my couch, ankles crossed, head on a pillow. His eyes were closed as “Mine” blasted from my speakers.

Every inch of my body itched to curl up beside him.

“You didn’t leave me much to hold onto from you. She was one of those few things.”

My mouth went dry. I was curled up in an armchair parallel to the couch. I thought of my feet in his favorite kind of shoes. How I’d made his favorite pasta sometimes when I missed him. Or slip on the navy sweatshirt of his I never did mail back. “I get it.”

“I’d play it in the car, and sometimes, it was like you were sitting across from me again singing along with the melody.” He played with the hem of his shirt.

I was giving us the time to figure out whatever it was we were figuring out. Like pacing ourselves during a marathon so we didn’t burn out too quickly again. But as we sat across from each other with the afternoon light glimmering through my living room blinds, I wondered— what else was there left to figure out?

I still want him running beside me.

He still wants me in the passenger seat of his truck.

That evening, he was walking down my porch steps, and I hated him leaving, so I grabbed his hand, yanking him to a stop.

“Sophie?” he asked.

I wrapped my arms around his waist, burying my face in his chest. He slid his arms around me tight like he didn’t want to let go. A breeze rustled my hair against my back. A couple of kids squealed in the park across the street, but it felt like it was just the two of us.

“Sophie,” he whispered against the top of my ear, sending goosebumps across my skin.

“I missed you then. I miss you now ,” I said, muffled by his tee shirt.

“I thought I was going to miss you forever,” he said back. He scooped his hands around the back of my head and brought his face closer to mine as I lifted up onto my toes.

He kissed my chin softly. “I missed this chin,” he whispered. He kissed both cheeks. “The freckles on these cheeks.” He kissed my nose. “The way your nose scrunches when you think you’ve got me beat.” Then he brushed his lips against my forehead before whispering, “Everything. I missed every single thing about you.”

My mom’s car pulled up in front of my house, behind Jordan’s truck, waking us from our heady haze. I licked my lips, saying, “My mom’s here for Sunday supper.”

Mom and I had started a tradition of having Sunday dinners together—taking turns at our houses. Tonight was my night to host, but she would bring over the ingredients and teach me a new recipe from her and Nonna’s shared recipe collection. “You could join us?”

Jordan shook his head, hands still in my hair. “I’m leaving for a work trip tomorrow morning really early. I need to go pack. I won’t be back until Friday night. But I’ll be there Saturday morning for the last soccer meet for the spring.” He focused his eyes on mine. “Meet me after?”

T hursday night I got a fever after a bad cold had spread across my classroom. Friday morning, I stayed home from work, barely even leaving the bed for food, praying I would wake up on Saturday refreshed and ready to tell Jordan how I felt for him.

Saturday morning, the sun blazed in through my curtains making me squint in pain, my head throbbing. I kicked off the sheets, sweaty and feverish. Coughing fits and a runny nose kept waking me up throughout the night, but I felt too weak to get out of bed to find medicine.

I heard little kids shouting goodbye outside my window. I leaped out of bed, body aching, knowing I’d slept way later than I’d wanted. Today was a big deal to Jordan. We’d been text messaging the day before as he tried to decide if the kids would prefer he made them sprinkle cookies or chocolate chip to celebrate the last day.

He’d texted me before I fell asleep double-checking if I’d be there, but I didn’t want to say I was sick. I was determined to wake up feeling better. To wrap him up in my arms after the final soccer day and tell him I want every Saturday from now on.

I scrambled to the mirror. My nose was as red as Rudolph’s. My room was full of scattered used tissues. I tried to tame my hair the best I could and yanked on leggings and a sweater.

Dazed and sniffly, I ran out to find Jordan alone in the park packing his truck.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” he greeted me as I walked across the park to his truck. “The kids loved the cookies. But they missed Miss Sophia.”

“I’m sorry. I overslept.” I sniffled. I leaned down to grab a case of water bottles to help put away.

His forehead wrinkled as he looked at me. “Sophie? Are you okay?”

“I have a cold, I think,” I admitted, leaving the water bottles on the ground as he placed a hand on my forehead. “I’m so sad I missed your last day. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, you’re burning hot,” he gasped. “We need to get you inside.” Jordan left his truck and everything behind, scooping me into his arms and carrying me back to my house.

My mind was blurry, my body achy as Jordan tucked me into my bed.

“You were still going to try and help me pack up the truck, weren’t you, Rogers?” Jordan said softly.

Rogers. My sick, tired heart soared. He pulled the quilt up under my chin as I shivered.

I closed my eyes for a moment, opening them back up to find him swiping a thermometer across my forehead. “Too high,” he said gruffly.

Next thing I knew, I had a cold rag on my head.

I closed my eyes again, opening them to find Jordan setting a warm mug of tea beside me. “Drink this. I added honey for your throat,” he said.

From my room, I could hear him in the kitchen rustling around in my medicine cabinet.

He made me scrambled eggs on buttered toast. I had vivid memories of a younger Jordan sick under a fuzzy blanket on his family’s couch while his mom delivered him plates of freshly cooked scrambled eggs on toast.

It was as if I had been a wilted flower and Jordan was the sun peeking out from behind the clouds beaming down on me, bringing me back to life. I was already feeling so much better.

I took a bite of toast as Jordan set a fresh glass of water down on my end table. “You know, you obviously remind me of your dad. With the sandy hair. And the love for building things. And the way you two are both always the most welcoming presence in whatever room you enter.”

He stood by the bed, head cocked to the side.

“But, days like today when you make me food and tuck me into bed, you remind me of your mom. She was always the first to clean up my scraped knees or comfort me on a bad day. You’re like that, too. You attune to everyone’s needs, whether it’s physical like getting them cough syrup, or it’s emotional, like how you kept checking in on me since I’ve moved back.”

“The checking in is a little selfish.” Jordan sat down on the end of the bed. “I can’t resist any reason to talk to you.”

“It’s not just that, though. You’ve always been there for me. You didn’t want me to go to school hours away, but you still worked on the college application with me for hours. You even threw me a big party to celebrate when I got in. If things hadn’t…” I let my voice trail off. I had a lump in my throat but kept speaking. “I know you would’ve driven miles and miles every weekend to see me.”

Jordan embodied the healthy kind of love where in his atmosphere my needs always rose to the surface. He never let me bury them. A younger me didn’t realize how rare it was to be loved like that. Older me? I was ready to dig his needs and wants up like buried treasure.

He looked down at the quilt on my bed. “You know I love this town—I love my business—but I would’ve left it all and moved to you. I was already thinking about it even then. Nothing would’ve kept me from you.”

Nothing would’ve kept him from me, except me it turned out.

“Can I say I’m happy you didn’t leave everything?” I whispered, not sure if what I was saying would be received how I meant it. “I love how you give. How you care. But you deserve to have a life about you, too. I see how working with your dad makes you happy. How driving down the streets of Sweet River is exactly where you should be. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the person who took that away from you.”

Maybe our younger selves weren’t meant for each other yet because we weren’t equipped for the depth of our feelings back then. Instead, older Jordan, who’d finally realized he wanted someone whose dreams matched his, was meant for older Sophia who’d come back to Sweet River on her own accord because she grew up and realized all her dreams were here.

“Sophie, you wouldn’t have taken anything from me. It’s funny. You’re saying how I’ve always been there for you and would’ve driven miles to see you…as if that wasn’t also for me. Because there’s nothing, not my hometown, not my job, nothing that makes me happier than seeing you smile.” Jordan’s gaze was so intent I could nearly feel it on my skin. “But, maybe, I was young then and didn’t quite know how to navigate what we had between us.”

Maybe we could navigate it now , I wanted to say, trying to collect my fuzzy, NyQuil-laden thoughts enough to broach the subject.

But Jordan was standing up. “Get some sleep,” he said gently, taking my empty plate. “We can talk later.”

After he returned the dish to the sink, he came back to find me sitting up on the bed.

“Will you sit down beside me?” I asked with a sniffly voice.

“Of course, Rogers.” He plopped down beside me, and I nestled into his side. After all these years, I still fit in the nook of his neck just right.

“Wanna watch a movie?” he asked, reaching for the remote.

I nodded.

“Which one?” he asked.

I only murmured into his chest, too tired to think. My symptoms were declining, but now my body was demanding sleep.

Next thing I knew, Julia Roberts and Richard Gere were on the tiny TV screen on the dresser across from my bed. You couldn’t go wrong with Julia and Richard. Jordan ran his fingers through my hair until I was lulled asleep.

L ater, the sun was setting outside my window. The movie was over. Jordan had one of my thrillers in his lap and his arm looped around me. I felt so wholly content.

It felt so good, so right to wake up beside Jordan Silk. To have his ankles crossed, all comfort and warmth, relaxing on my bed. My eyes began to pool with tears—to have something, even if for only a moment, that I’d thought I’d lost forever.

He noticed my waking movements and glanced over at me. “Hey there. Good nap?”

“The best,” I whispered. Still shivering.

“That’s good. I have the thermometer right here.” He snatched it off the end table on his side of the bed. “Let’s check your temp.”

He rested one hand lightly under my jaw as he used the other to swipe my forehead. His fingertips rough against my skin. Maybe it was my fever, but every touch felt magnified. “Seems your fever has dropped a lot. That’s good, but let’s still get you some medicine.”

After I took more medicine, I shuffled into the kitchen to find him warming a jar of Nonna’s Minestrone soup on the stove.

My thinking was still kind of fuzzy, and the rules were still kind of fuzzy, so I thought, Forget the rules . I walked over to him, wrapping my arms around his waist and resting my head on his chest under the kitchen light.

“My sick Sophie.” He ran his rough fingers through my hair, resting his hands against my shoulders. “You should be in bed.”

“I should be with you,” I whispered, my voice a scrape.

He wrapped me in close. “I’m right here.”

“Don’t leave, okay?” I said, my filter gone.

T he clock on my nightstand blinked two a.m. when I woke up. My head finally felt clearer. My skin was no longer sweaty and no shivers. My nose and throat had felt better hours ago. I felt revived.

Jordan was asleep over the covers, laying on his back, still in his soccer coach get-up of running shorts and a sweatshirt.

I was deciding if I should wake him up to send him home or let the man sleep after being my caretaker for hours when he turned and opened his eyes to me watching him. He gave a sleepy smile, another favorite of mine.

“You stayed,” I said, breaking the quietness of night.

“I did,” he said, his voice raw with emotion and sleep.

I sat up beside him, placing a hand against his cheek. “Jordan.” He closed his eyes, turning his face into my hand. “The past few years felt like holding my breath and being near you feels like I can finally exhale.”

He kissed the inside of my palm, as I said, “Thank you for taking care of me today.”

“You don’t have to thank me. I want to be here.” He wrapped his hand around my wrist and pulled me closer to him. He ran his thumb over my forehead. “You still feel cooler.”

“I think my fever dropped for good.” I sat on my folded knees, my body square against his.

He ran his hands down my arms, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake.

“You’re a good doctor.”

“You’re a good patient,” he said gruffly. “Actually, not really. You were torturing me all day.”

“Torturing you?”

“I’m trying to respect this relationship we have here, trying to take my time to figure us out, but it’s torture trying to keep my hands to myself.” He gestured to where I sat beside him, my long hair a mess down my shoulders. “Like, look at you. I feel like a man who’d finally kicked his caffeine addiction, and someone is roasting their favorite beans. And they know exactly…” he let his voice fade.

“How it tastes?”

His eyes were agonized as he asked, his voice so low it echoed through me, “Do you want me to keep my hands to myself?”

I shook my head no.

He grabbed my hands and pulled me onto his lap, and then I pulled away. “Wait, wait,” I hated the words as they left my mouth. “Jordan, I’ve been sick. I just broke my fever?—”

“Please, make me sick. Give me whatever you got. I’ll take it happily.” He brought my lips to his and said between kisses, “Because I’ve missed these lips.” He ran his fingers down my sides and said his words hot and breathless against my lips, “I’ve missed every inch of you. Every single day. For years.”

I’d kissed this man thousands of times. His lips were almost as familiar to me as my own, yet tonight each kiss felt so monumental. My own personal earthquake, everything in me falling to pieces. No one else could kiss me like this—touch me like this.

It was like he hadn’t forgotten anything about me. He remembered how to make me shiver. He’d remembered to kiss along my jaw, grinning when I sighed. Holding onto me like he’d been waiting for this moment for years, his hands needy against my skin.

“I wish I could have all of your Saturdays,” I said between kisses.

He mumbled into my neck, “Rogers, you’ve always gotten whatever you wanted from me, giving you my Saturdays is like asking for pennies.”

When we were teenagers, kissing till we fogged up the truck windows, he’d whisper, “Rogers, I just love you so much.”

And sometimes I’d find it hard to speak. I didn’t know the words to communicate just how downright into my core happy I was he was in my life. How lucky I felt he lived down my street and went to my school and loved me right back.

I was speechless now, too. Finding it hard to communicate, except through my hands in his hair, kissing his lips till they bruised.

I was feverish again—this time just for him, incurably not even trying to resist it.

“Okay then, I’ll take every single day if they’re up for grabs.” I pulled away for a minute, taking in this messy-haired, swollen lips view of him grinning back at me.

He ran his thumb over my bottom lip and I asked, my voice shaking as I pushed myself to expose all the feelings I’ve carried with me for years like battle scars, “Are they, up for grabs?”

He stilled for a moment, thumb still on my lip as I continued speaking, “I’ve been wanting to ask you… Have you figured it out?”

“Us?”

“Yeah, us.” I nodded, hovering over him, my hair grazing against his chest. “Figured us out.”

A phone rang into the night. We both startled. Both of us turned to where it was on the nightstand—it was Jordan’s phone. “It should be on night mode if it’s ringing…” He shook his head. I crawled off him as he rolled to the other end of the bed.

“Dad?” he answered, breathless. The clock blinked 3:04 a.m. I’d felt like I was in a timeless vortex. “What?” he gasped, standing up.

“No, I can get there.” He shuffled around the room, hair a mess, jaw tight.

He hung up his phone and took a long breath, eyes closed.

“Jordan?” I asked, my mouth dry when he opened his eyes.

“I’ve got to go.” He started walking toward the doorway. “One of our builds caught fire. Dad is there with some of the team right now, it’s a…” He stopped in his tracks and looked at me. I didn’t want him to go. I’m sure it was all over my face. “I know we were just…”

I wanted to say something, anything, while I still had him here, even just yell, I’m still in love with you! but as I opened my mouth?—

His phone rang again, he looked down at it. “I’ve got to take this.” He put his phone to his ear, answering as he ran out of the room.

Seconds later, my front door closed with a thud.

Jordan was racing toward a house on fire. Part of me wanted to throw on my shoes and follow him to make sure he stayed safe. Instead, I paced my house hoping he’d come straight back to me once it was all said and done.

He’d said I’d always gotten whatever I wanted from him. Well, what if what I wanted was him ?