Stakes and Dates {Chapter 4]

“This is your room?” Jordan stopped in the threshold and just stared. Jeez, I know it’s messy but he didn’t need to be rude about it.

“Gosh, I know it’s messy but y—“

“This is huge!” What? I looked at him incredulously. But then I stepped back and tried to see my room through the eyes of a stranger. The furniture was all cream and matching and had all come from Ikea. My bed was on this little raised dais my dad had installed for me, right up against the wall. I thought that was pretty cool especially since it was a canopy bed and had this flowy organza like material handing from the corners.

My window seat was surrounded by nooks and cranies with little nick-nacks I had collected over the years. Pictures I had drawn were framed and handing from the walls. My desk, which at the moment was shoved all the way across the room, was simple, with two drawers and a pull out keyboard hide-away. Two bean bags and a couple floor pillows were thrown into the corners waiting to be put back in their proper place. A rolled up rug leaned precariously against the side of my desk.

“Well, it has a lot of space but I use all of it.” I said defensively. I actually worked really hard in pulling my room together and it felt really weird having someone come in a look at it differently.

“What did you say your dad did?”

“I didn’t. But he’s an investment broker; he like, deals with people’s money.”

Jordan whistled though his teeth and eyes the room again.

“You can come in; it’s not going to bite you or anything.” I said impatiently watching him eye the room as if it would do just that. Cautiously he stepped in and stopped. Huffing, I stepped behind him and pushed him, sending him stumbling into the center of my room.

“Ahh, there. Isn’t that better? Better check yourself, make sure you don’t have any bite marks.” I winked and walked over to my beanbag chair tower. I manhandled the first one and hefted it him, which he just smacked to the ground. I ended up just rolling the other over and plopping myself down.

Jordan stared at my less than half finished wall then looked around at the other three and a quarter walls that needed to be primed and painted.

“I don’t think this can be done is just one day…”

“Nah, I know it can’t. It took me about a week to complete the entire room by myself. And I’ve done this about four times already. I leaned back and stared at the wall behind me, letting my hair drag on the floor.

“That walls a pain in the ass because I have to move the bed.” I almost wanted to groan in agony already but I stifled the urge. I mean, I had company and all.  

I heard a chuckled and sat up to see that Jordan had done the same thing as I had, gripping the sides of the beanbag and leaning back with his head on the ground. It was actually quite funny to see but I almost wished it was a regular chair so I could have flipped him over.

“You have this room all to yourself?”

“If you mean besides the monsters under my bed, then yeah. I’m an only child. “

“Wow.”

“Why? Don’t you have your own room?” I don’t know what came over me to ask a question like that but he didn’t seem bothered by it, just grunted.

“I share a two bedroom apartment with my dad. The room, if you could call it that, is probably as big as your walk in closet over there.” He nodded to a closed door. How he knew it was a walk in closet beat me. So I asked the only obvious question I could come up with.

“Just your dad?”

“Mhm.” Was all he offered as way of explanation.

“Ahh. Well, we should get painting, we’re burning daylight here.”

“Yeah.” He stood and began to roll up his sleeves.  If he intended to wear that while painting he might as well throw it away now. I was about to get up and go get an extra T from my parents room when I remember last time I left him alone with my things. Not a fat chance in hell that was happening again. So I leaned over and grabbed my phone.

6: 45 [Dad, can you bring me an extra T shirt? I need it for painting.]

I didn’t get a reply back but I heard my parent’s room open and my dad’s footsteps coming towards my room. His presence loomed in the hallway. The T-Shirt I had asked for was slung over his shoulder. I had the greatest dad in the world.

“Did you just text me to bring you a T-shirt when you were in the next room?” He questioned, eyebrows quirked in amusement.

“Um, yeah.”  I could see Jordan’s back stiffen and I’m sure it wasn’t with nervousness this time. He was most definitely listening. And he was most definitely laughing. I glared at his back. I’m absolutely positive Jordan knew why I didn’t want to risk leaving him hear with all my personal belongings. I didn’t want to end up in the same predicament as I am now, multiplied by two.

“Why didn’t you just come and get it yourself?” A perfectly reasonable question for him to ask. I couldn’t really tell him the real reason because well, the real reason was now hacking over in my corner trying to cover his laugh with a cough.

“…my legs hurt?”  I fibbed. It wasn’t a lie, my legs really did hurt from the swim meet but it was a lie none the less. He seemed to mull this over for a second then whipped the shirt off his shoulder and flung it at me.

“Take some Tylenol before you go to bed tonight. It should help in the morning. “And that was that.

“Thanks Dad.”

“No problem, sweetie.” He walked back to the room.

A couple minutes later they were both back but only briefly to tell me they were leaving and to make sure I checked all the windows and turned off the lights before I went to bad. After assuring them ten times each that I would try my best to prevent a break in, they left with a thump of the front door.

“…your legs hurt?” Jordan mocked. "That’s the best you could do?"

“Hey, it worked didn’t it? I couldn’t just come out and say that you were blackmailing me. I don’t think that would have sat very well with my father.” I threw the extra shirt to Jordan who pulled it on over his current shirt. He filled it our pretty well, not as great as my dad, but it could pass.

“No, you’re probably right…Ali-bug.” At the use of my dad’s nickname for me, I whapped him upside the head with my paintbrush.

“Next time it’ll be paint in the face. Better watch yourself.” I warned.

We had spread out more of the painter tarp and it now covered almost the entire floor and most of the furniture.  Jordan opened the cans of primers and poured some into the roll tin. I had brought in 2 fans from my parents room and opened the window to make sure the room was well ventilated. Even though the paint can said non-toxic, I wanted to be absolutely sure.

“I think we should probably put two coats of primer on just to make sure we cover the other color.” He eyed the orange color of the wall with disgust. “What, on God’s green earth, possessed you to paint your room orange?

“I liked sunsets, so sue me.” But I didn’t disagree. The color truly was hideous and I was glad I decided to change to blue. I liked blue.

Jordan’s eyes were blue. Not that I was thinking about Jordan’s eyes but in case I was, they were definitely blue.

“Why are you just standing there gawking at the wall?” I heard from across the room. In the time I had been analyzing the colors of my walls and their resemblance to a certain guy’s eyes, Jordan had already primed half of the wall.

“Damn, that was fast.”

“That’s because I’m no lollygagging around staring at inanimate objects.”

“It’s my room! I’ll stare if I want too!” I thought I heard a laugh but I couldn’t be sure because I decided to ignore his presence and turn on my stereo. Mumford and Sons blared from the surround sound filling the room with sound. I found I didn’t like it that much so I turned it down. A lot. Like off.

“Didn’t like it?”

“Decided I didn’t want to listen to it anyway.”

“Mmm.”

We painted in silence for a bit before I started to get bored. I could see Jordan rolling out the primer like he had been born to do it. Me on the other hand had covered, maybe, half a wall? Walking over to roll some more paint, I watched Jordan work. He was like a machine, never stopping until the section he was working on was complete. God, he needed to chill. I literally had the rest of my life to finish the wall. Eyeing my roller I casually strolled up to him, and then ever so casually I rolled my roller, filled with baby blue paint, right up the side of his face. Hell yeah I did. And walked away.

Jordan just stood there frozen in shock, his extended roller posed midway up the wall. I tried not to laugh, I really did, but his face and the paint were just too much for me. I snorted.

Slowly his head turned towards me and he asked, ever so seriously, “Did you just snort at me?”

I couldn’t answer because my hands were now covering my mouth to prevent me from laughing, so I nodded my head.

“She just snorted at me.” He stated. I guess he was talking to himself because he had just referred to me as “she,” what a weirdo. He finished off the little section he was working on then unclipped the roller extension so he was just holding the rolling bit. He snapped it onto a hand held then rolled it in the paint.

I had a really bad feeling about this.

I rolled the paint roller up the wall and just as I did that Jordan slowly rolled the paint roller up my smock, over my shoulder, and right up the side of my face. He stared at me the entire time he did it too as if daring me to do anything about it. I just stared at the wall, not really surprised, but shocked.

“That color looks great on you, I think you need a little more, “he rolled it right over my nose, “here.” And he just walked away, just like that. I stared at his aghast.  

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against a non-painted section of the wall. “Well, princess, what are you gonna do about that?” He watched me as I rolled my pin in the primer and walked toward him. He caught my rolling pin before I could roll it up his face, what he hadn’t accounted for was me sticking my hand in a can of the baby blue paint, and smearing in an ‘s’ shape down the front of his face; then wet-willied him with the rest.

Leaning close just as my dad had done, I whispered, “Whatcha’ gonna do about that, princess?”

He grinned wolfishly then attacked. He swiped my feet out from under me then pinned my hands. Slowly he dunked his right hand into the paint then firmly pressed it onto my face; he continued to do this until I’m sure it looked like someone had a slap fest with my face. 

He laughed  when he saw the end result and I’m sure I would have laughed too had it not been me as the victim.

Angrily, I shoved up and over with my knees. Since he was already leaning forward it wasn’t too hard to throw him off balance and when he fell he fell hard. And I mean right into the roll tin.

I laughed so hard I was crying. God, if only I had a camera. I grabbed my phone, mindless of the paint.

“Hey, Jordan, look this way!” When he looked up to see what I was talking about I tapped the ‘take’ button multiple times, just to make sure I got his good side.

“Here, here! I’m sorry!” I looked around and noticed all the paper towels were gone and the paint rags were all dirty.

I looked down. Well, at least my smock is semi-clean. Making sure his eyes we, in fact covered with paint, I pulled my smock off over my head and handed it to him, dashing for the bathroom at a breath neck speed. If there was any time I was glad to had an en suit bathroom, it was now. Man, was I glad that I was a slob, there was clothing thrown all over the bathroom. I threw on the oldest T-shirt there then walked out again.

Jordan sat in the middle of the room berated. I kinda felt bad for the snot.

“Here let me help.”  I grabbed the t-shirt and wiped the rest of the paint off his face. When he at least looked slightly human, I dropped the shirt in his lap and stood back to examine my handy work.

Most of the paint was off his face anyway, and he could breath, which was a plus.

“Thanks.” He grinned. It was then that I remembered that I must look like a clown. Laughing, I handed him my phone.

“Take a picture of me, for memories sake.” He snapped a couple then handed the phone back. Oh yeah, this was definitely something I would remember.

“So much for painting,” I said.

“What time is it?” He looked around for a clock. I looked down at my phone and almost gasped in surprise. How could the time pass so fast!?

“Almost 10:00.” He nodded then started cleaning up, first wiping up the dropped paint then putting all the supplies in a bucket of water.

“I should get going. My dad gets worried when I stay out too late.”

“Does your mom worry too?” Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut for once? He froze with his back turned to me. I didn’t expect him to answer, if fact, I expected his to joke about it then walk out. But he did neither of those. He just sat back down silently.

“Jordan? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have a—“

“My mom left us when I was three.” It came out all in a rush as if he had had trouble saying it and, in the end, had just ended up throwing it out there.

“Oh. Do you know why?”

“My dad never told me. I suspect it was another guy but he never talks about it so I don’t know.” He nodded his head as if confirming his own suspicions. I couldn’t image having only one parent. Both of my parents were such major parts of my life that I would feel empty if one of them weren’t in it.

I reached out to touch his shoulder, “I’m so—“

He pulled away. “I didn’t tell you because I wanted your pity. What would you know about it anyway? You have a perfect family. " he cut himself off and sighed, "I really need to go now. I’ll talk to you later.” He stood abruptly and walked out. Minutes later I heard the front door open then close, outside a car started and drove off.

It seemed that the more I learned about Jordan the more confusing he became.

I sighed. Well, there was nothing I could do about it now. I gathered up the dirty paper towels and shoved then in a trash bag. Making sure my feet were free of paint before walking on the carpet I headed downstairs to check the windows and doors.

After securing those, I shut off all the lights besides the foyer and headed up stairs for a nice hot shower.

What a day.