I leanedback in my chair, staring at my computer. The letters had all started to blur together. My brain was mush. I liked to call it a hypo-hangover. There was fatigue, of course, but the worst was the brain fog. As if everything were coming at you in slow motion.
Footsteps sounded behind me, and I looked up.
Jordan lowered himself into Eddie’s empty desk chair. “How are you holding up?”
“Good,” I lied as I straightened.
Jordan simply stared at me.
I sighed. “I feel a little out of it.”
“You don’t have to be here. You know you can always call out if you need a day or two to recuperate.”
“I know. But if I’d stayed home, I would’ve been climbing the walls. It’s better to be here and busy. I’ll get good sleep tonight and be back to normal tomorrow.”
Jordan’s mouth pressed into a firm line, but he nodded. “As long as you’re sure.”
“I am.”
I expected him to get up and go back to his office then, but he didn’t. Instead, Jordan picked up a pen and began spinning it between his fingers.
“Is everything okay?”
He clicked the pen a few times. “I know this might be crossing a line…”
“But?”
He sighed. “Caden seems pretty intense around you.”
I studied Jordan for a moment. It might’ve been crossing a line if he were simply my boss, but we’d been friends for as long as I could remember, and I could feel his genuine worry. “I think it’s just that things have been intense in general.”
He nodded. “Law have any idea who might be behind this?”
“Not that he’s told me. I think they’re still waiting for test results on a lot of evidence to come back.” He was always complaining about how slow the county labs could be.
Jordan flipped the pen between his fingers in a staccato motion.
I just waited. I’d known him long enough to know that he was working up to something. He’d say it when he was good and ready.
“I don’t think this thing with Caden is a good idea.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Okay.”
Jordan stilled the pen. “Okay?”
I shrugged. “I’m not going to try to convince you otherwise. You obviously have an opinion about him that’s different than mine.”
Jordan’s jaw hardened. “He’s a player, Grae. In more ways than one. He’ll be gone from here in a matter of weeks, and then where will you be?”
“I’m not trying to be a jerk, but that’s for us to figure out. I don’t need to defend my relationship to you or anyone else.”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“And I might. Heck, I probably will. But that’smychoice.”
Jordan’s fingers tightened around the pen. “I’m not saying it isn’t. I just want you to be careful.”
The hinges on the screen door squeaked, and I looked up.
