Page 16 of Jordan’s Breakthrough (Unexpected Love #3)

JORDAN

I wake up the next morning breathless and sweating, like someone yanked me from a fight. My heart hammers, my skin turning clammy. The edge of a dream hovers in my periphery, the details hazy. But his face is crystal clear.

Charlie .

His lips move fast, face red with emotion. His words are there, right there, in the corner of my mind. I can almost hear them, see them. Whole sentences, pieces of whole scenes lingering just out of reach.

Adrenaline courses through me, hot and unfamiliar. The tiniest of spark, attempting to catch fire. I haven’t felt this in years… and it’s fading fast.

Maybe I can still capture it…

Scrambling out of bed, I nearly trip on the blanket tangled around my legs, but I don’t stop. I just move. Fast. Like if I don’t, Charlie will disappear for good.

Clematis meows in annoyance when I bat her off the recliner to thrust my hand into the side pocket for my notebook. The soft leather cover is cool and familiar against my fingers. Almost sacred. My pen shakes in my hand as I open to a blank page, desperate to catch whatever fragments I can.

I focus on Charlie, his scaly human skin and golden cat-like eyes, but I... I can’t quite see him anymore. He’s already blurry. I can’t make out where he is either. Everything flashes in broken snippets, disjointed and hazy.

But I can still feel his panic, his confusion. Charlie is desperate, screaming into a void about… something. His anger is an acrid burn in the back of my throat. Fast and wild. Unforgiving.

Like everything else on his damn planet.

But what? What is making him so emotional?

There’s nothing to cling to. No piece of the plot or dialogue to hear. No rhyme or reason for his fear. Only that he is afraid.

I shake my head, confused. Am I imagining it? Is my mind playing a cruel trick on me? I mean, of course it is. It’s a fucking dream. But the words, his emotions, were right there! I’d felt them! I’d even seen Charlie’s face, if only for a moment.

It meant something. I know that much. I just don’t understand it.

Shock rings through my system, quickly followed by anger. I can’t believe it. Charlie had visited me, and then he vanished. Without a single fucking word.

As if his anger seeped into my veins, I grip the notebook a little too tight. “Asshole!”

The dark cloud that always lingers settles over my shoulders like an unwanted cloak. But at least it’s not heavy. Not yet anyway. It could be, will be, once my shock wears off.

Rubbing at my sternum, the emptiness pulses. It hurts. It fucking hurts to be this close to Charlie and not connect to him .

Groaning, I throw the notebook across the room. It clatters against the entertainment center and lands with a soft thud on the floor.

How dare my muse betray me like this! To tease me then disappear? I should banish Charlie to hell and burn the notebook for good.

But I won’t ever be able to. He’s a part of me. A huge part. As real to me as Declan or Piper. Only... distant. Like Miles. Someone I know but can’t touch.

I glare at the notebook, as if that will bring the words forward. I need to know what he was trying to show me. Tears prick the edges of my eyes. Will I ever connect to my muse again? Or is this how it’s going to be forever? A desperate yearning that is never quenched?

Across the room, Clematis pounces on a crocheted mouse I made her. She flips it in the air, back arching as she lands in a silly little hop. For a moment, I almost smile.

I only tried crochet because Miles said it helped him not dwell on sad things.

I genuinely didn’t expect it to help me, but it did.

It gave my hands something to do when my thoughts turned ugly.

It gave me something to focus on. Something to finish, even if it isn’t a story. Stitch by stitch, loop by loop.

My heart physically aches for another kind of finish. Line by line, page by page.

Frustrated, I rest my head against the back of the couch.

My throat tightens. I’m so tired of this.

So fucking tired. Life shouldn’t be this difficult.

What I want—what I really want—is to feel alive.

Not this ghost-version knockoff of myself or the shell I drag around the house.

I want more. More fullness. More realness.

More warmth. Like what I’d felt last night when Miles and I had sex through a screen.

For that brief moment in time, I’d felt connected to someone—more than I ever have before. Like the depression wasn’t choking me, like I wasn’t alone. Like he saw me. Touched me. How is it possible to feel that when he’s so far away?

It’s unfair .

I like Miles. I really do, and I crave more, but I don’t know if we’ll ever meet, which means I could be setting myself up for heartbreak. And yet... I can’t seem to stop.

That terrifies me. I don’t know if I’d come back from losing Miles.

Losing Graham was one thing. But to lose Miles? I can’t even fathom it. He’s special. He’s the reason I’m even thinking of Charlie at all. I know he is.

Grabbing my vape, I slip outside. The gravel is warm under my bare feet, the sky a dull blue with thin wisps of clouds.

Fresh hyacinth fills the air, calming me.

I turn the hose on and go through the motions of watering the plants.

I’m grateful Gena isn’t in her rocker. I don’t have the energy to talk to anyone.

Clematis trails behind me like a cloud. Without warning, her back arches, eyes fixated on something near a terracotta pot. She bats at it with one paw, then scrambles back down the gravel path. In one practiced move, she jumps back into the motorhome, disappearing from view.

Sweet smoke blows out from my nose. What was that about? I crouch to get a better look, and a weak chuckle escapes my throat when something tiny skitters near the pot.

“ You’re what scared Clem?”

The tiny lizard stares up at me, beady eyes wide and alert. It can’t be more than a few inches long, with faded green scales and a long thin tail. The light hits its back just right, making the scales shimmer like they’re made of magic.

I’m reminded of Charlie, and it hits me.

Charlie stood at the edge of an impossible divide, miles laid out before him. Fractures of light glittered against the jagged rock—a warning and a beckoning. He had a choice to make, but a deadly one. One wrong move, one slip, and he would be lost to eternal darkness.

My breath hitches and my toes dig into the earth as I scramble back inside. Lunging for the notebook on the laminate floor, I scribble the lines down as fast as I can. When I’m done, I sit back and stare at them.

What does it even mean? These aren’t from his story. Not that I remember, anyway. Charlie hadn’t been standing on some ledge when I left him. Or was he? Shit, why can’t I remember?

I slink back against the entertainment center, defeated. Even if I hadn’t left Charlie on that ledge, I still recognize that world. I know it as well as my own home. And to see it again, to hear the howling wind in my ears, disoriented me.

What is he trying to tell me?

I take a picture of the page, and for a second, I imagine sending it to Miles, but the motivation is gone before it even takes root. If I shared it, I’d have to explain what it is, and I don’t have the energy for that. I just don’t.

Suddenly, the cloak of darkness becomes too much. I can feel it, pressing down on me. Choking me.

I don’t think it’ll let up until I know.

The kitchen at Graham’s is quiet when I get there, the metal prep tables cool under my hands as I start sorting the deliveries. Yesterday had been too busy to put some of this away, which is fine. Gives me something to do now.

I toss the lettuce and tomatoes into their crates in the cooler, then add the limes and lemons to the hanging basket above the counter. The work is mechanical. Repetitive. Usually that helps to keep me grounded. But not today.

Today, Charlie’s presence lingers like an annoying gnat I can’t bat away. Why bother me if he isn’t going to tell me what he wants?

The door opens behind me with a burst of conversation. Declan’s voice fills the room, as loud as ever. Seth follows him in, saying something that makes Declan laugh. He shakes his head, nudging Seth.

“Go get it done, dumbass.”

Seth starts to step away, but Declan changes his mind and pulls him in for a chaste kiss. The two men smile, then Seth disappears through the swinging doors.

It slices me open, and not for the first time.

Declan used to come into work quietly, worn down from long nights he wouldn’t talk about.

We used to dance around each other in near silence as we prepped, and now his energy seems to fill the room.

It’s like someone reached in and turned his volume back up.

That someone being Seth. Love looks good on him; I won’t deny it.

But can’t I get a single day without being smothered in it?

I turn back to my station, gritting my teeth so I don’t say something stupid. Declan doesn’t deserve my wrath.

Thankfully, he slips through the other door to head to the office, leaving me to finish the prep work alone.

I grip the table, the darkness pulsing, and a thought hits me out of nowhere: What if that could be me?

What if meeting Miles could be what changes something in me, like Seth changed Declan?

I already know he’s helping me, but what if his physical presence helps more?

If touching him, holding him, being able to make love to his body instead of through a screen is what pulls me out of my personal hell?

I want it. I know I do. But the thought of doing it? Of going to see him? I can’t. It makes me panic.

The terrible part is I know Declan would give me the time off if I asked. I haven’t taken a day off since I started here, and I’ve clocked more hours than any other employee—including him sometimes. And we have a full staff too, so it’s not like I’d be leaving them out to dry.

So why does it make my heart race to think about going?