Chapter 4-How I Feel

I wake up around ten thirty the next morning. Therrien gave the guys the day off, so they don’t have to head into the rink today, but they have to be at the airport in the late afternoon to head to Boston. Jordan’s still fast asleep, so I take a shower and then decide to make some breakfast. I know he has a bunch of food in his apartment, so I decide to scramble some eggs and make some toast. I hear some noise coming from Jordan’s room, and a minute later he comes out of his room, only wearing his boxers. Why does he keep torturing me?
“Morning,” he greets me, and I can tell his throat’s a little dry.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, laughing as I pour the eggs into the frying pan.
“I’ve felt better, but not too bad.”
I laugh and hand him some Advil from my purse and he grabs a glass of water.
“Thanks,” he says to me as he downs the Advil and water. We look right at each other for a few seconds, and I wonder what he’s thinking about. I get back to working on breakfast, and Jordan grabs the plates and silverware and puts them at the counter where there are a couple of stools. He pours the orange juice right as the eggs are done, and we sit down and eat breakfast.
“Excited about not having practice today?” I ask him.
“You have no idea,” he laughs as he eats some scrambled eggs. “Maddie, who taught you how to cook? I won’t lie, these eggs are amazing.”
“Jordan, they’re eggs,” I tell him as I laugh. “They’re not that tough.”
“They’re really good.”
“Well, thanks. I guess I’ll just take it as a compliment. Next time I make them, I’ll show you.”
“You better.”
We just chit chat for the rest of breakfast, and decide to just hang out for a couple hours before he takes me back to my apartment so he can head up to Boston for a game.
“Well, I’ll be back very late on Monday night,” he tells me as he pulls up to my building. “Do you want to grab something to eat on Tuesday or Wednesday after you’re done with class?”
“Yeah, sure,” I say, nodding my head. “Give me a call when you get back?”
“Definitely.”
I give him a hug before I leave the car, and then head inside.
“So, how’s Jordan?” Ann asks as I walk through the front door.
“Just fine,” I tell her, heading to my room to drop my purse in there. “Just fine.”
“Mmm-hmm, keep telling yourself that.”
“He is fine. I crashed on the couch last night. We just hung out for a couple of hours after we woke up, and he dropped me off on the way to the airport.”
“This has never happened to me before, obviously, but what is it like to hang out with him all the time and be like, totally in love with him?” Ann asks me as we sit down on the couch.
“I mean, he doesn’t know. And we’re best friends, so I like hanging out with him. But it can be totally shitty sometimes. Like, this morning, when I was in the kitchen, and he walked out of his room in just his boxers, I wanted to die. Well, jump him, but since I couldn’t, die.”
“He came out in his boxers?” Ann asked. “And how does that look?”
“Well, I had seen him shirtless before, like up at the lake this summer, but it’s pretty nice,” I laugh as I tell her.
We talk more about last night, what she did, and what I did. She tells me just to see how everything goes, and that I shouldn’t keep my feelings a secret forever. After our little chat, I decide to work on a paper for one of my classes that isn’t due for a couple weeks yet, but I just need to do something to take my mind off of everything.
*****
Around six o’clock, my phone starts ringing. I look at it; it’s Ryan. Oh shit.
“Hey, what’s up?” I ask him.
“Not too much, I just got back. How was the rest of your weekend?” he asks me.
“Good. I went to the game last night and partied at Diesel with the guys afterwards.”
“You have to take me with you next time!” Ryan hasn’t met any of the guys except for Jordan, and he’s a huge Pens fan, and dying to hang with the team. Too bad it’ll never happen. “Anyways, I have a bunch of stuff to do tonight, but do you want to grab lunch tomorrow? You’re done by what, one thirty?” he asks.
“Yeah, where do you want to meet?”
He suggests a place that’s right near the building my last class of the day is in, and I tell him I’ll meet him there at one thirty. When I get off the phone, I walk down the hall to Helen’s room and knock on the half-open door.
“Hey, what’s up?” she asks me.
“Hey, so I just talked to Ryan on the phone,” I begin, sitting down on her bed next to her.
“And?” she asks.
“We’re meeting for lunch tomorrow. I didn’t tell him anything was wrong, we’re just meeting to catch up. Should I do it then?”
She thinks about it for a minute, and then nods her head.
“You can’t lead him on, it’s not fair to either of you,” she says to me.
“What should I say? I’ve never really broken up with anyone before. I hate to do the old ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ cliché, but that’s kind of how it is.”
“Well, I can’t tell you exactly what to say, since I don’t know exactly how you feel, but he is a nice guy, so don’t let him down too hard.”
We talk for a little while longer, and I try to decide what to say to him tomorrow.