As a practice, I still mentally curse out Jordan with words I don’t usually like to say out loud. I’ve been told that I have a hard, unforgiving nature, and that may very well be the case with Jordan—which I’ll admit could be awkward given our work situation. But he’s done nothing to make my life easier, and I don’t trust him.
Jenna might be single again, but she’s still not mine. And nothing Jordan has advised me to do has helped that.
“Yes? What?” I say.
Jordan hesitates and then smiles. “Just checking in. I heard about the LARP duel. Adam filled me in.”
I almost growl at him. “It’s not LARPing.”
He blinks. “Don’t you guys, uh, roleplay and stuff? Isn’t that was LARPing is?”
“LARP is live-action roleplay. That’s not what we do. We reenact. We have personas, but we recreate history in an authentic way—we don’t do fantasy roleplay. I save that for sitting around the table and playing D&D.”
“Oh, uh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. Actually, I wanted to be at your duel, but April had a family thing down in San Diego.”
I try to stifle more bitterness. Sure, he is happily in love with a very pleasant and pretty girl, all while dispensing crap advice to those of us not born with his suave moves. He doesn’t deserve her.
I don’t reply and Jordan continues. “I’m sorry about the duel, man. I was really pulling for you.”
“I didn’t need any pulling,” I reply, forcing away the mental image of him grabbing my arm and pulling it.
“No, I mean I was hoping you’d win.”
I fold my arms across my chest and swivel on my workbench stool. “Why, so you won’t feel guilty anymore?”
Jordan’s lips thin and his eyes get squinty. “I see how it is. You’re still pissed at me.”
“I have a very good memory.”
“Yes, I’m well aware. I’ve already offered to make it up to you. I could fix you up with someone—”
My jaw tightens and heat rushes to my face. I stand up stiffly from my stool. “Maybe women are interchangeable to you, but they are not to me!”
Jordan blinks. “William—dude, calm down. I’m serious. I want to make this up to you. Maybe I could show you how—”
I point at him with my index finger. “I’m not taking your advice! Do you think I’m stupid? Clearly, you think I’m stupid.”
Jordan holds out a hand, palm out. “William, quiet down, okay? Let’s go talk in the warehouse or my office. Or let me buy you a coffee.”
“No. I don’t even like coffee.” I fold my arms across my chest again.
Jordan rubs his jaw and looks at me for a long, silent moment. “What can I do to make this up to you? Tell me…”
“Did Adam make you come here and talk to me? Why do you care?”
He glances up at the ceiling and blows out a breath. “Because I feel bad that you didn’t get your girl.”
My arms tense against my chest. “And you think something you can do will make up for that?”
He hunches his shoulders. “I don’t know. Look…call me when you feel like talking about it.”
“I deleted your number from my contacts,” I say.
His gaze shifts to the ceiling again. I wonder if there’s something up there—a bug or a spider. “Dude, throw me a bone here,” he says.
Images zip through my mind—a pirate flag with skull and crossbones, a dog carrying a bone in his mouth, a pile of dinosaur bones. “What?”
He waves his hands, sighing. “Never mind. Look. Here’s my number.”
He bends, grabbing a pad of sticky notes from my desk and my favorite pencil. I’m about to shout at him to drop the pencil when I stop. The vivid image of facing Doug in the battle arena floods my mind. I’m staring through the grill of my helmet and I’m swinging fiercely at him. The swords clank, the flash of metal in the sunlight blinding me. I can taste the dust in my mouth. Doug’s blocking me with his sword—held firmly in his left hand.
Jordan’s using his left hand, cocked at weird angle, to scribble down his number in his typical messy writing. I study him as he does it. I’ve known that Jordan is left-handed, but before now, that information hasn’t been important to me.
Jordan is saying something again, and I faintly hear it through the whirlwind of images flashing through my mind. Doug and I are on par, skill-wise. But his advantage is that he fights right-handed men far more often than I practice against left-handers. Practicing and sparring against a left-hander—even if not as skilled as Doug—might give me a competitive edge against him. Left-handed people only represent roughly twelve percent of the population. I know of no one who is physically fit enough to match my training regimen and who is also left-handed. Until now, that is.