Page 13 of Not Over You
Wide eyes, full of surprise and excitement. Then that smile.
She had the best smile.
He knew it wasn’t scientifically possible, but fuck science, Rayma Young’s smile literally made the world a brighter place. And that laugh…
The only thing better than her laugh was her sass. The woman had enough sass to fill a football stadium. And zero filter. Yeah, she said what she wanted, when she wanted and didn’t give a shit who was in the room. It’d taken some getting used to at first, but after a while, he wished he could be more like that. Honest, candid, and unapologetically blunt. She was also hilarious.
He’d never met a funnier woman than Rayma.
You let her get away. You’re also with Laura. You made your choice, now let Rayma make hers.
He bit back the growl that bubbled in the depths of his chest at his stupid conscience and how right it was.
Yes, he was with Laura and he cared deeply for her.
They’d only been together six months, though.
They met in Tofino. She was there doing research for her master’s degree in environmental science, and when he said he was moving to Victoria she said she would move, too. That she had family in the city and was done with the research portion of her thesis so she just had to work on a computer until her defense.
Jordan hadn’t exactly asked her to move with him or to moveinwith him, but there they were in a one-bedroom apartment in Cook Street Village a couple of blocks up from Dallas Road and the ocean. He worked four on four off, two days, two nights, and she spent her days writing her thesis and her evenings teaching yoga at a studio in Fernwood.
Did he like Laura? Sure.
She was fun, easy-going, kind-hearted, and smart. She was also a great cook. They hadn’t said “I love you” and it seemed like something both of them were actually going out of their way to avoid saying. It was a weird relationship, to say the least, and one that up until a couple of hours ago, he would have said he was happy to be in.
But now … seeing Rayma.
He thought he’d done the right thing by slowly cutting ties with her. He thought he was letting her get on with her life, date, focus on school and be with her friends. She was only twenty when they met. Only twenty-one when they broke up. She didn’t need to be pining over the cop who transferred to a tiny west coast town when she was young, beautiful, smart, and had the world by the balls.
Still, he should have called her when he moved back.
That would have been the decent thing to do.
But he was a coward because he knew the moment he saw Rayma, every ounce of love he had for her would come crashing back like a tsunami and he wouldn’t be able to get her out of his head. And that wasn’t fair to Laura.
A gentle pat on his chest brought Jordan back to the now and he shook his head and blinked a few times before glancing down at serenely smiling Laura. “Sorry, what was that?”
“Paul wants to know if we want to go back to his place in James Bay and watch a movie. I’m kind of bored here anyway.” She rubbed his chest affectionately. “Unless you want to stay a little longer?”
Fuck, he was back looking at the door Rayma, her friend, and The Douche Brigade had walked through nearly half an hour ago.
“Naw,” he murmured, glancing back at Laura and throwing on a fake smile. “Let’s get out of here.” He jerked his chin at Paul. “Lead the way.”
It wasn’t that far of a walk to Paul’s place, which was on the top floor of a high-rise condo building, lending him an unobscured view of the Olympic Peninsula and Ogden Point. Paul was a real estate developer and had done very well for himself. He was also recently widowed and had thrown himself into his work since his wife Kayla passed away two years ago from cancer.
“Drink?” Paul asked from his stainless steel and white kitchen, as he opened the fridge.
“Whatever you’re having,” Jordan replied, still distracted and glancing down at his phone like it held all the answers. It wasn’t like he had Rayma’s whereabouts on his phone. They didn’t have those “find my friend” apps. But he was itching to call her, or at the very least text her and make sure she was okay.
Something about those two guys was just really making his spidey-sense kick into high gear.
Trust your gut.You’re a cop, trust your cop instinct.
Oh, so now his conscience was telling him to reach out to Rayma? Before it was telling him that he made his bed and he needed to leave her alone. He’d only had three beers, was his conscience that much of a lightweight?
Laura padded softly into the living room from where she’d been in the bathroom, sliding one foot under herself as she sat down on the couch beside Jordan. Her slender hand curved over his shoulder. “You okay? You’ve been really distracted tonight.”
He shook his head and glanced up at her. “Sorry, work stuff.”