Chapter 480 | Pillow Talk Always Counts

Jordan grabbed his boxers off the floor and yanked them on while padding down the stairs, leaving two naked girls tangled together on his bed like the world’s most distracting homework assignment. The buzzer screamed a third time, and he heard Miss Valentine’s door crack open down the hall.

“Coming,” he called out. “One second.”

He opened the door to find a delivery guy in his twenties holding three bags of Thai food and staring at Jordan’s bare chest with an expression that said he’d already pieced together exactly what had been happening in Unit 404. The bite marks probably helped. Kumiko’s teeth had left a purple constellation across his left pec, and Maya’s older mark sat above it like a trophy.

“Pad see ew, green curry, tom yum soup, extra rice,” the guy said, reading off his phone. “That’s forty-seven eighty.”

Jordan tipped him twenty because the food was an hour late and Jordan was feeling generous and also because he wanted the guy gone before Miss Valentine emerged to offer snickerdoodles. He grabbed the bags, kicked the door shut with his heel, and carried everything to the kitchen island.

The loft smelled like sex and lemon cleaner. Harbor light poured through the factory windows in long amber bars across the concrete floor. Upstairs, he could hear Kumiko giggling about something, followed by Chloe’s low voice saying words he couldn’t quite catch.

Jordan set out the containers and grabbed three forks from the drawer. Chopsticks were in there too, but Kumiko had informed him last week that his chopstick technique was criminal, and he’d decided to accept his limitations.

“Food’s here,” he called up the stairs.

“We know,” Chloe called back. “We heard you tip. Twenty dollars is too much for an hour-late delivery.”

“I was feeling charitable.”

“You were feeling post-coital. There’s a difference.”

Kumiko appeared at the top of the stairs wrapped in Jordan’s grey henley again, her bare legs visible below the hem and her hair sticking up on one side. She’d found one of her pink ribbons and tied it around her wrist like a bracelet.

“The pad see ew,” she said, her eyes wide and hungry. “Did it survive? Is it still warm?”

“It’s still warm.”

“Oh thank god.” She came down the stairs two at a time and launched herself onto one of the island stools, her legs swinging. “Chloe-chan is putting on pants. She said her legs work again but I think she’s lying because she wobbled when she stood up.”

“I heard that,” Chloe’s voice floated down from the loft.

“I know! I said it loud on purpose because you told me not to hide things!”

Jordan slid the pad see ew container toward Kumiko, and she attacked it with her fork like she hadn’t eaten in three days. The noodles disappeared at a rate that defied physics. Between bites, she looked up at Jordan with her cheeks full and made a happy humming sound.

“What,” he said.

“Nothing.” She swallowed. “Just thinking about how you put your hand on my head and everything got quiet. In my brain, I mean. It’s usually so loud in there.” She poked at her noodles. “I wrote about it in my notebook. Page thirty-six. The heading says Emergency Calm Button with three exclamation points.”

“Three?”

“One for each time you’ve done it this week. Dr. Nakamura says tracking patterns helps with emotional regulation, but I think I’m just tracking how often you make me go all wobbly.”

Chloe came down the stairs in black leggings and Jordan’s other henley, the one that wasn’t currently on Kumiko. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun, and her glasses sat crooked on her nose, and she looked like someone who’d just been thoroughly wrecked and was refusing to acknowledge it.

She took the stool next to Kumiko and reached for the green curry without a word. Jordan watched her take her first bite and then her second, counting silently. She made it to bite seven before she noticed him staring.

“What.”

“Nothing.”

“You’re counting my bites.”

“I’m not counting your bites.”

“You’re absolutely counting my bites. You do it every meal now. Kumiko told me.”

Kumiko froze with her fork halfway to her mouth. “I didn’t tell her anything.”

“You told her last Tuesday,” Jordan said. “After the massage thing.”

“That was different! That was pillow talk! Pillow talk doesn’t count!”

“Pillow talk always counts.” Chloe took another bite and chewed slowly, maintaining eye contact with Jordan the entire time. “Eight. Are you satisfied?”

“Not until you hit fifteen.”

“Fifteen is excessive.”

“Fifteen is baseline. Brooke sent me a chart.”

Chloe’s fork stopped moving. “Brooke sent you a nutritional chart for my pregnancy diet?”

“Brooke sends me a lot of things. Most of them have graphs.”

“I’m going to have words with Brooke.”

“You’re going to have words with your accountant about caring too much about your health?”

Chloe opened her mouth to argue, then closed it, then opened it again. Her ears went pink. She took bite nine with aggressive determination and refused to look at either of them.

Kumiko leaned over and stage-whispered to Jordan, “She’s pretending to be mad, but her cheeks are doing the thing.”

“I can hear you.”

“I know! I said it loud on purpose!”

Jordan ate his tom yum soup and watched the two of them bicker over the remaining spring rolls. Kumiko insisted she deserved three because she’d done a Sally hem repair that morning. Chloe countered that she’d sung for two thousand people last night and therefore deserved four. The argument devolved into Kumiko trying to feed Chloe a spring roll by hand while Chloe batted her away with increasing frustration.

This was his life now. Three months ago, he’d been crying in a parking lot while his ex-girlfriend walked into a love hotel with someone else. Now he had two girls fighting over spring rolls in his kitchen, and one of them was pregnant with his kid, and the other one had just experienced what she called a massage orgasm on his living room floor.

Character development was wild.

His phone buzzed on the counter, and the golden glow caught his eye. He’d been ignoring it all day, but the notification banner showed a name that made his stomach clench.

Alexis Van Der Berg: Tomorrow at 7. I bought a silk set.