Chapter 33 Patrick
I’m ashamed to say I hole up in my room after that conversation with Cade. Like shutting the door somehow buys me safety. Like four walls and a lock can keep questions from slipping under the crack.
I tell myself I just need a minute. A breather. Time to settle the storm he stirred up with a few too-perceptive questions. But I know better.
Avoiding him won’t stop future conversations about what’s eating at me. Cade has never been the type to let something fester, especially not when it comes to me. My hiding isn’t prevention — it’s postponement. A flimsy pause button slapped onto something inevitable.
Still, I stay in my room.
I unpack slowly. Fold my clothes with unnecessary precision. Line my shoes against the wall. Sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the lighthouse lamp Jordan gave me years ago, tracing the uneven paint lines with my eyes. The house hums around me — the distant clatter of dishes, the low murmur of the television downstairs, the occasional creak of settling wood.
Every quiet moment leaves too much room for my thoughts.
For her.
So I don’t leave my room until I hear the front door slam open downstairs and Jordan’s voice explodes through the house.
“Dad! You will not believe what happened!”
His voice carries up the staircase like a trumpet blast, loud and bright and alive. Cade answers with something equally booming, and I can practically hear the grin in his response.
Despite myself, I smile.
I push off the bed and head downstairs, following the sound of their overlapping voices. As I round the corner into the living room, they come into sight — sprawled across the couch, leaning toward each other in animated conversation.
Jordan’s hands are flying as he talks, reenacting something dramatic. Cade is half-laughing, half-trying to interrupt, but clearly loving every second of it.
Jordan has grown again.
He’s taller than the last time I saw him — shoulders broader, limbs less gangly. His hair is longer on top now, falling into his eyes when he gestures too wildly. There’s still that same open, earnest energy about him, though. The same spark.
I clear my throat lightly.
Both their heads turn toward me.
Jordan’s reaction is immediate. His face lights up like someone flipped a switch, and a huge grin splits across his features.
“Uncle Pat!”
He’s on his feet in an instant, crossing the room in three long strides before launching himself at me. He crashes into my chest, arms wrapping around my ribs with surprising strength. I let out a startled laugh as I wrap my arms around him, steadying us both. “Hey, Jordie. How have you been?”
He squeezes tighter, like he’s trying to make up for lost time in one hug. “Uncle Pat! I missed you! Come sit so we can catch up!”
Something in my chest warms — uncomplicated and easy in a way so little feels lately.
He pulls back just enough to grab my hand, and before I can protest, he’s tugging me toward the couch like I might disappear if he doesn’t anchor me down.
I let him.
I sink into the middle cushion between Cade and Jordan, the couch dipping under our combined weight. Jordan barely waits for me to settle before launching into a rapid-fire update of his life.
“You remember Charlie, right? We tried to build this stupid snow ramp today, but the snow wouldn’t pack right, so we ended up just—”
His hands slice through the air as he reenacts it. Cade chimes in occasionally with a dry, “Of course you did,” but mostly lets him go.
I find myself smiling — really smiling — as Jordan talks about school, about Charlie, about some debate in his history class, about nearly setting off a minor explosion in the chem lab because someone misread a measurement.
“You would’ve been proud,” he says dramatically. “I caught it before it got bad.”
“You better have,” Cade mutters.
You’d think, considering I teach at his school, I would’ve seen him by now.
But I haven’t.
Jordan hasn’t taken any of the science classes in the building I teach in since I started there, which means there’s been no overlap. No reason for our paths to cross. And I don’t exactly wander campus. I teach my classes. I close my door. I go home.
It’s easier that way.
“So you still hiding in your lab all day?” Jordan teases, nudging my arm. “Dad says you don’t socialize.”
Cade snorts. “I said he keeps to himself. There’s a difference.”
I raise an eyebrow. “And what exactly have you two been saying about me?”
“That you’re mysterious,” Jordan says immediately. “And probably a secret genius.”
Cade adds, “And allergic to staff meetings.”
I huff a quiet laugh, shaking my head. “All of that is slander.”
But as they keep talking — teasing, interrupting, overlapping — I let myself sink into it. The noise. The warmth. The easy rhythm of their banter.
For a while, it drowns everything else out. The ache dulls. The rules fade.
And I can almost pretend that the only thing waiting for me here is laughter, holiday lights, and the comfort of a house that isn’t mine — but feels close enough.
Thoughts of Lottie churn just beneath the surface of this happy moment I share with them.
Like water flowing under a sheet of ice — unseen, but constant. Moving. Pressing. Waiting for a crack.
I laugh when Jordan laughs. I shake my head when Cade makes some exaggerated complaint about young adults eating him out of house and home. I even chime in with a few dry comments that earn me a dramatic eye roll from Jordan.
On the outside, I’m here.
On the inside, she’s still there.
Always present.
Family time distracts me — but only momentarily. The noise helps. The warmth helps. The easy back-and-forth of people who know each other inside and out helps.
And I’m grateful for even that small mercy.
But in the quiet spaces between Jordan’s sentences… in the half-second pauses when no one is talking… my mind drifts back to her.
The way her eyes soften when she smiles. The tingles that erupt inside of me at the slightest touch from her. The way wanting her feels less like a choice and more like a given.
I push the thoughts down again, forcing my attention back to the couch, to the Christmas lights reflecting faintly in the living room window, to the steady warmth radiating from both sides of me.
Cade stretches his arm along the back of the couch, glancing between Jordan and me with a look that’s far too casual to be innocent.
And then he breaks the fragile peace.
“So,” he says, voice deceptively light, “Uncle Pat here has something that he wants but doesn’t believe he should have because it’s against the rules.”
The words land like a dropped plate.
My stomach tightens instantly. My head snaps toward him. “Cade—”
Jordan turns to me so fast it’s almost comical. His eyes go wide, curiosity lighting them up like he’s just been handed the best gossip of the year.
“Wait. What?” he demands, scooting closer. “You? Want something you’re not supposed to have?”
Cade shrugs, but there’s a glint in his eye. “That’s what he said.”
I feel heat crawl up my neck. “It’s not— You’re oversimplifying.”
“Oh, I’m sure I am,” Cade replies dryly.
Jordan studies me with exaggerated seriousness, then a mischievous smile slowly spreads across his face — the kind that usually means he’s about to say something that’s either brilliant or completely reckless.
“Uncle Pat,” he says, leaning in conspiratorially, “don’t you know that rules are meant to be broken?”
The grin he gives me is pure youthful chaos.
And God help me, a part of me wants to believe him.
I let out a breath that’s half laugh, half something else entirely. “That depends on the rule.”
Jordan waves a hand dismissively. “Most of them. Especially the dumb ones.”
Cade snorts. “That is terrible advice.”
“No, it’s not,” Jordan insists. “Think about it. If nobody ever broke rules, nothing would change. You’d still be wearing those awful cargo shorts from 2008.”
“I liked those shorts.”
“You absolutely should not have.”
Despite myself, I laugh again — genuinely this time. The tension in my shoulders eases a fraction.
But Jordan’s words linger. Rules are meant to be broken.
The problem is… not all rules are arbitrary. Some aren’t written on paper. Some are stitched into the fabric of who you are. Into the expectations people have. Into the lines you’re never supposed to cross.
Some rules exist for a reason. And sometimes breaking them doesn’t just affect you.
I rub a hand over the back of my neck, eyes dropping to the coffee table. “Some rules,” I say carefully, “are there to protect people.”
Jordan’s expression softens slightly, but the spark doesn’t leave his eyes. “Yeah. But sometimes they protect the wrong people.”
The comment hits closer than he knows.
Cade looks between us, more observant now, less teasing. “This isn’t about stealing candy from a store, is it?”
“No,” I say quietly.
Jordan tilts his head. “Is it about a person?”
The room feels warmer all of a sudden. Thicker.
I hesitate a fraction too long.
Cade notices. Of course he does.
Jordan’s grin returns, triumphant. “It is about a person.”
I look up at him, trying for stern but probably landing somewhere closer to constipated. “You’re enjoying this a little too much.”
“Obviously,” he says. “This is the most interesting thing you’ve ever given us.”
Cade shakes his head, but he’s smiling faintly. “Ignore him. He thinks he’s a relationship expert because he’s had two almost-girlfriends.”
“Excuse me,” Jordan says defensively. “They were very meaningful almost-relationships.”
I huff another laugh, grateful for the shift in focus — but my pulse is still a little too fast.
Because beneath the teasing, beneath the warmth and the joking and the safety of this couch, the truth is still there.
I want her. Even though I know I shouldn’t.
And when someone suggests that rules are flexible, breakable, negotiable… something inside me strains against the ice, pressing harder, daring it to fracture.