Page 101 of The Incredible Ordinary

Anya’s arm is linked through mine as we walk, and she regales me with stories from her job as a choreographer, demonstrating some of the more challenging dance moves along the way.

We reach her apartment building.

She leans her back against the front door. Her smile is luminous.

While I stand opposite her.

And like her.

A lot.

She looks at me. No longer with the wide smile. Now it’s just seduction. Straightforward as can be.

She reaches out, and her fingers slide over the front of my shirt. My chest.

She looks at me from underneath her lashes.

“You should come upstairs,” she says.

And maybe I should.

Because I like her.

A lot.

JORDAN

I openthe front door as quietly as I possibly can so I don’t wake anybody. It’s late. There’s no telling who’s home right now, but there’s a good chance that if I wake somebody I’m in for either an interrogation, excessive nosiness, a lot of teasing, or any combination of the three.

I’d like to avoid that if at all possible.

I push the door open, and the first thing I see is the light coming from the kitchen, complete with the murmur of voices.

Shit.

It’s more a resigned sigh than a curse.

I toe off my shoes, square my shoulders, and head toward the voices, ready to get it over with.

The absolute last thing I expect is to find Milán sitting at my kitchen table with my father, their heads close together as they lean over a photo album.

I stop dead in the doorway.

“Uh…” I say.

They both look up at the same time. Milán holds up the album, flips a few pages, and taps a photo of teenage me sleeping on the floor with baby Theo nestled in my armpit.

“The bed is right there,” he says. “Literally right there.”

I can barely look at him. “Nothing beats a good nap on a hardwood floor.”

What if he can tell? What if he can look into my eyes and know?

My smile is stiff.

He laughs. It sets my teeth on edge, the easy way he does it.

It annoys me.