Chapter 6: New Apartment, First Night
The apartment was a disaster zone, and Jordan had never been happier.
Boxes everywhere. Stacked against walls, shoved into corners, forming a cardboard labyrinth between the kitchen and the living room. The futon was still folded up, leaning against the wall like a drunk friend who'd given up on standing. The mini-fridge hummed in the corner, plugged into an extension cord that snaked across the floor because they hadn't figured out which outlet was which yet.
The Packers flag hung crooked above the TV, which was still sitting on the floor because they hadn't bought a stand yet.
Maria had insisted on hanging the flag first. Before the plates. Before the towels. Before anything that could be considered "essential."
"Priorities," she'd said, standing on a kitchen chair with a hammer in her hand, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she tried to get the nail level. "This is a Packers household. Everyone who walks through that door needs to know it."
Jordan had watched her from the futon, drinking cheap beer from a can, and thought about how much he loved her.
Two weeks since Lambeau. Two weeks since she'd won that raffle and looked at him like he'd hung the moon. They'd driven back to Minnesota in a haze of exhaustion and giddy disbelief, and the next day she'd called him from her dorm, her voice shaky, and said, "Let's get a place."
Just like that.
No hesitation. No what-are-we-doing. Just let's get a place.
He'd said yes before she finished the sentence.
The lease was in both their names. The deposit had come from her raffle winnings—she'd insisted, even when he'd tried to argue, even when he'd offered to pay half with money he didn't have. She'd shut him down with a look and a single sentence: "You gave me Lambeau. Let me give us this."
The apartment was small. One bedroom. Cracked tiles in the bathroom. A kitchen counter that had seen better decades. But it was theirs, and that word mattered more than anything else.
They'd spent the first night there with nothing but a mattress on the floor and a bottle of cheap wine. They'd spent the second night unpacking. By the third night, Jordan had stopped counting how many times he'd tripped over boxes in the dark.
The pizza delivery guy knocked at seven-fifteen.
Jordan was in the kitchen, trying to figure out which box had the paper plates. Maria was in the bedroom, yelling something about finding the sheets. The doorbell rang twice before Jordan made it to the door.
"One medium pepperoni, one medium supreme," the guy said, holding out two boxes. He was young—maybe eighteen, maybe nineteen—with acne scars and a bored expression.
Jordan dug for his wallet.
The wallet wasn't in his pocket.
"Hold on," he said.
He turned and walked back toward the kitchen, where he'd left his wallet on the counter. Behind him, he heard the door creak open. Maria's voice, muffled, coming from the bedroom: "Jordan? Did you get the pizza?"
He grabbed his wallet and turned around.
Maria was standing in the hallway.
She'd changed out of her jeans and into leggings—the black ones, the ones that hugged every curve—and a t-shirt that was too big for her, one of his, the hem falling past her hips. Her hair was a wild mess of curls, and her face was flushed from whatever she'd been doing in the bedroom.
She looked at him.
He looked at her.
The pizza guy was still standing in the doorway, holding two boxes of pizza, looking extremely uncomfortable.
"Uh," he said. "Do you want me to—"
Jordan didn't hear the rest of the sentence.
He was already moving.
He crossed the kitchen in three strides, grabbed Maria by the waist, and kissed her. She made a surprised sound against his mouth—half gasp, half laugh—and then she was kissing him back, her hands fisting in his shirt, her body pressing against his like she'd been waiting for this all day.
The pizza guy cleared his throat.
Jordan pulled back just enough to speak. "Leave the pizza on the counter."
"But—"
"On the counter. I'll tip you later."
The guy hesitated. Then he stepped inside, set the boxes on the counter—right on top of a stack of unopened mail—and backed out of the apartment, pulling the door shut behind him.
Jordan didn't watch him go.
He was too busy with Maria.
She was already pulling at his shirt, yanking it over his head, her nails scraping down his chest. He grabbed her hips and spun her around, pushing her toward the kitchen counter—the granite one that had been the only selling point of this shithole apartment.
Her hands landed on the counter. Her back arched.
He pressed against her from behind, his hardening cock pressing into her ass through his jeans. She pushed back against him, a slow, deliberate grind that made him groan.
"You're going to fuck me on the counter," she said. It wasn't a question.
"Yeah."
"The pizza guy could come back."
"He won't."
"He might."
"I don't care."
He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her leggings and pulled them down. They caught on her hips, and he yanked harder, and they slid down her thighs, past her knees, until they pooled around her ankles.
She stepped out of them. Kicked them aside.
She was wearing underwear—black, cotton, nothing special. He grabbed the waistband and pulled them down too, and she kicked those aside as well.
Now she was bare from the waist down. Bent over the counter. Waiting.
Jordan unbuttoned his jeans. His hands were shaking—not from nerves, but from want, from the desperate need to be inside her. He shoved his jeans down, pulled his cock out, and pressed the head against her entrance.
She was already wet. Soaking, actually. He could feel it on the tip of his cock, slick and hot.
"Fuck," he whispered.
"Shut up and do it."
He did.
He drove into her with one hard thrust, burying himself to the hilt. Maria gasped—a sharp, choked sound—and her fingers scrabbled for purchase on the granite. He grabbed her hips and pulled her back against him, his balls slapping against her ass.
"Oh my god," she breathed.
He didn't give her time to adjust. He started moving—hard, fast, the kind of rhythm that had no room for gentleness. The counter dug into her stomach. The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the kitchen, mixing with the hum of the mini-fridge and the distant thump of music from the neighbor's apartment.
"You like that?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Tell me."
"I like it. Fuck. I love it."
He fucked her harder.
One hand gripped her hip. The other snaked around to cover her mouth. She moaned against his palm, the sound muffled but still loud, still desperate.
"Neighbors," he said.
She bit his hand.
Not hard enough to break skin, but enough to make him flinch. He laughed, breathless, and kept fucking her.
The pizza boxes were sliding across the counter. One of them tipped over, the lid flopping open, the smell of pepperoni filling the air. Neither of them cared.
Maria pushed back against him, meeting his thrusts, her ass slamming against his hips. He could feel her getting close—the way her body was tightening, the way her breathing was turning into short, sharp gasps.
"You're going to come," he said.
"Yes."
"Come on my cock."
"Fuck—"
He reached around and found her clit with his fingers. Two quick strokes, rough and dirty, and that was it.
She came with a scream that his hand barely contained. Her body shuddered, her legs trembled, and she collapsed forward onto the counter, her cheek pressed against the granite.
Jordan didn't stop.
He kept fucking her through it, chasing his own release, his fingers digging into her hips hard enough to leave bruises. The counter was digging into her stomach. She was making small, helpless sounds against his palm.
"You want me to come inside you?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. Fuck. Please."
He felt it building—that pressure at the base of his spine, that heat spreading through his legs. He fucked her harder, faster, the rhythm breaking down into something desperate and sloppy.
And then he was coming.
He emptied himself inside her with a groan that he couldn't have muffled if he'd tried. His hips stuttered. His vision went white at the edges. For a long moment, he couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but feel.
When he finally pulled out, Maria was still lying on the counter, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
"Holy shit," she said.
Jordan leaned against the counter next to her, his jeans around his ankles, his cock still slick and half-hard.
"Yeah," he said.
They stood there for a minute. Maybe two. The pizza was getting cold. The neighbor's music had shifted to something with a heavy bass line. The mini-fridge hummed its eternal hum.
Maria pushed herself up.
Her face was flushed. Her hair was a disaster. There was a red mark on her cheek where the granite had pressed into her skin.
"I need to shower," she said.
"Yeah."
"You coming?"
"In a minute."
She pulled her leggings back on—no underwear, he noticed, and filed that away for later—and padded toward the bathroom. The door clicked shut. The shower turned on.
Jordan stayed in the kitchen.
He looked at the counter. At the pizza boxes. At the smear of something on the granite that he'd have to wipe up before it dried.
He looked at the Packers flag hanging crooked above the TV.
He started laughing.
---
They ate cold pizza on the floor.
The futon was still folded up against the wall. The boxes were still stacked in their makeshift fort. The only furniture they had was a mattress in the bedroom and a single folding chair that Maria had claimed as hers.
Jordan sat cross-legged on the floor, his back against the wall, a slice of pepperoni pizza in one hand. Maria sat opposite him, her legs stretched out, her back against the futon frame.
The Packers flag hung between them, crooked and proud.
"We need to decide where to hang the pennants," Maria said.
"What pennants?"
"The ones in box fourteen. The ones my dad left me."
Jordan stopped chewing.
She'd mentioned the pennants before—briefly, in passing, the way she mentioned most things about her father. Old Packers pennants from the sixties and seventies. Signed. Framed. Worth more than either of them could afford to replace.
"They're in box fourteen?" he asked.
"Should be. Unless the movers lost them."
"We didn't hire movers."
"Then unless you lost them."
"I didn't lose them."
She gave him a look.
"I didn't," he said.
"Then they're in box fourteen. And we need to decide where to hang them."
Jordan set his pizza down on the floor. He wiped his hands on his jeans and looked around the apartment.
The living room was small. One wall was taken up by the window. Another by the kitchen counter. The third was where the TV would go, once they got a stand. The fourth was where the futon would go, once they figured out which wall made more sense.
"The wall above the futon," he said.
Maria shook her head. "That's where the Packers flag should go."
"The Packers flag is above the TV."
"The Packers flag is above the TV right now. But once we get a real TV stand, the flag could go anywhere."
"It's a flag. It goes above the TV. That's the rule."
"There are no rules."
"There are definitely rules."
She threw a piece of crust at him. He caught it and threw it back. She dodged, and it hit the wall behind her.
"We could hang them in the bedroom," she said.
"The bedroom is for sleeping."
"The bedroom is for sleeping and fucking."
"Both of which require focus. Pennants would be distracting."
She laughed—that sharp, sudden laugh that he'd fallen in love with months ago, back when they were just two idiots arguing about play calls in his dorm room.
"Fine," she said. "Living room. Above the futon. And the Packers flag stays above the TV."
"Deal."
She leaned back and closed her eyes. The shower had washed away the sweat, but her hair was still damp, curling tighter than usual. She was wearing his t-shirt again—a different one this time, the one from the Packers-Bears game last season, the one with the faded print.
"This is weird," she said.
"What is?"
"Being here. Being... this." She gestured vaguely at the apartment, at him, at everything. "I keep waiting for something to go wrong."
Jordan didn't say anything. He just waited.
"My dad died when I was fourteen," she said. "I told you that."
"I know."
"After he died, I moved in with my aunt. She lived in Eau Claire. She didn't like football. She didn't like anything, really. She was just... there. Making sure I ate. Making sure I went to school. But the house never felt like mine."
She opened her eyes and looked at him.
"This feels like mine," she said.
Jordan felt something catch in his chest. Something tight and warm and terrifying.
"It's ours," he said.
"I know."
"Both of us."
"I know."
She sat up and crawled across the floor toward him. She settled between his legs, her back against his chest, her head tucked under his chin. He wrapped his arms around her and held her there.
"The pennants go above the futon," she said.
"Done."
"And the flag stays above the TV."
"Done."
"And we need to get more furniture."
"Eventually."
"And we need to find the box with the silverware. I'm tired of eating with my hands."
Jordan laughed. "You ate pizza with your hands tonight."
"Pizza is different."
"How is pizza different?"
"It just is."
He kissed the top of her head. She smelled like cheap shampoo and cold pizza and something that was just her—that warm, familiar scent that he'd come to associate with home.
"Hey," he said.
"What?"
"I love you."
She was quiet for a moment. Then she twisted around to look at him, her chin resting on his chest, her eyes bright in the dim light of the single lamp.
"I love you too," she said.
"And I'm glad we got this place."
"Me too."
"And I'm glad you won that raffle."
She snorted. "Me too. But I'm gladder about Lambeau."
"Gladder?"
"It's a word."
"It's not a word."
"It's a word if I say it is."
Jordan shook his head. "You're impossible."
"You love it."
"Yeah," he said. "I do."
She smiled and turned back around, settling against his chest again. They sat there for a long time, just breathing, just existing in the same space, in the same moment.
The apartment was a mess. Boxes everywhere. No bed frame. No TV stand. A couch that was still a futon and a kitchen counter that would need to be scrubbed twice before either of them felt clean.
But it was theirs.
And that was enough.
---
Later—much later—they lay tangled in the sheets on the mattress that didn't have a bed frame yet.
Maria's head rested on Jordan's chest. Her fingers traced lazily through the hair there, following the lines of his muscles, the curve of his ribs, the small scar just above his hip that she couldn't remember him having before.
"What's this?" she asked.
"Appendectomy."
"When?"
"When I was twelve."
"You never told me."
"It never came up."
She traced the scar with her fingertip. The moonlight filtered through the cheap curtains they'd hung that morning, painting the bedroom in shades of silver and gray.
"The first home I had," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, "was with my dad. When he died, I lost it. I didn't think I'd ever have that again."
Jordan's hand found hers. Their fingers laced together.
"This is the first home I've had since then," she said. "The first one that feels real. That feels like it's mine."
Jordan lifted her hand to his lips. He kissed her knuckles, one by one.
"I'm glad," he said.
"Me too."
"I'm glad you're here."
"Me too."
"I'm glad I get to be the one who gets to see you like this."
She lifted her head and looked at him. Her brown eyes were soft, unguarded, the way they only got when they were alone like this.
"See me like what?"
"Like this." He touched her face. Her cheek. Her jaw. "Without the trash talk. Without the walls."
She smiled. "You're the only one who gets this version of me."
"I know."
"You better appreciate it."
"I do."
She kissed him. Slow and gentle and sweet—so different from the desperate, messy fuck on the kitchen counter earlier. This was something else. Something softer.
When she pulled back, she was still smiling.
"I need to tell you something," she said.
"What?"
"I've been thinking about it for a while. About what comes after."
"After what?"
"After school. After this year. After—" She gestured vaguely at the apartment, at their life, at the future that stretched out ahead of them, uncertain and wide.
"And?"
"And I want it to be with you."
Jordan felt his chest tighten. That familiar warmth. That terrifying, wonderful feeling that he'd been carrying around for months.
"Me too," he said.
"I know we're young. I know we don't have everything figured out. I know—"
"Maria."
She stopped.
"I want it to be with you too," he said.
She stared at him for a moment. Then she kissed him again.
"Good," she said against his mouth.
"Good."
"Then stop talking."
"Okay."
She settled back against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her, and they lay there in the dark, listening to the sounds of the apartment settling around them. The creak of the pipes. The hum of the mini-fridge. The distant traffic from the street below.
Somewhere in the kitchen, the pizza boxes were still on the counter.
Somewhere in the living room, the Packers flag was still hanging crooked.
Somewhere in box fourteen, the pennants were waiting to be hung.
But right now, none of that mattered.
Right now, there was only this.
Her body. His arms. The promise of a future they were building together, one Sunday at a time.
Jordan closed his eyes and held her tight.
The apartment was a mess.
But it was theirs.
And that was enough.
The mattress was cheap and the sheets were cheaper, but Jordan didn't notice either one.
He was too busy noticing the way Maria's breath had evened out against his chest. The way her fingers had gone slack where they'd been tracing lazy circles on his sternum. The way her body had melted into his like she'd been designed to fit exactly there.
She was asleep.
He should have been too. His eyes were heavy. His muscles ached from the move—from hauling boxes up three flights of stairs, from wrestling with the futon frame, from fucking her against the kitchen counter like a man who'd forgotten the neighbors existed.
But sleep wouldn't come.
His brain was too loud.
The apartment was quiet. The radiator ticked. Somewhere down the street, a car door slammed and an engine turned over. The sound faded into the distance, and then there was nothing but the hum of the mini-fridge and the soft rhythm of Maria breathing.
Jordan stared at the ceiling.
He thought about the lease. Both their names. A one-year commitment, signed in blue ink on a formica table at the rental office while Maria's leg bounced with nervous energy and Jordan tried to pretend his hands weren't shaking.
He thought about the check she'd written for the deposit. The raffle money. She'd insisted on covering it, and he'd let her, and that decision had been sitting in his stomach like a stone ever since.
He thought about his parents.
Three months since they'd talked. Three months since his dad had called sports journalism a "hobby" and his mom had nodded along, her mouth pressed into that thin, disappointed line she got whenever Jordan said something they didn't want to hear.
He thought about the email he'd gotten yesterday.
He hadn't told Maria.
The Packers were hiring. Entry-level sports media position. Content production, social media, game-day coverage. The kind of job that paid shit and demanded everything, but the kind of job that thousands of people would kill for.
The kind of job Jordan had been dreaming about since he was six years old.
He'd applied on a whim. A drunk night, maybe a week and a half ago, after Maria had fallen asleep and he'd been scrolling through LinkedIn with a beer in his hand. He'd written a cover letter in twenty minutes. He'd attached a portfolio of articles he'd written for the campus paper.
He hadn't expected to hear back.
The email had come at 4:47 PM on a Tuesday. He'd been unpacking the kitchen box—the one with the silverware Maria had been bitching about—when his phone buzzed. He'd opened it and read the words three times before they'd made sense.
We'd like to schedule a preliminary interview.
Preliminary. That was the word. That was the word that had been lodged in his brain like a splinter ever since.
He hadn't told her.
He didn't know why.
That was a lie. He knew exactly why.
Because the job was in Green Bay. Because accepting it would mean moving. Because Maria had just signed a lease on an apartment in Minnesota. Because her graphic design program was here, and her friends were here, and her whole life was here.
Because he was terrified that she'd tell him not to go.
Or worse—that she'd tell him to go, and he'd have to figure out what that meant for them.
He turned his head and looked at her.
She was curled against his side, one arm thrown across his stomach, her cheek pressed to his shoulder. Her hair was a mess of curls, tangled and wild against the pillow. Her lips were slightly parted. Her lashes were dark crescents against her skin.
She looked peaceful. She looked like she belonged here.
She looked like home.
Jordan closed his eyes.
The email sat in his inbox like a grenade with the pin already pulled.
---
He woke up to the smell of coffee.
Which was strange, because they didn't have a coffee maker.
He sat up, groggy and disoriented, and found Maria standing in the doorway holding two cups from the gas station on the corner. She was already dressed—jeans and one of her vintage Packers sweatshirts, the green one with the faded logo.
"You're awake," she said.
"How long have you been up?"
"An hour. Maybe two." She crossed the room and handed him a cup. "I couldn't sleep."
Jordan took the coffee. It was hot and bitter, the kind of gas station swill that tasted like burnt rubber and desperation. He drank it anyway.
"Something on your mind?" he asked.
Maria sat down on the edge of the mattress. She wasn't looking at him. She was looking at the wall, at the unpainted patch near the ceiling where the previous tenants had hung something that had left a mark.
"Just thinking," she said.
"About what?"
"The apartment. The future. The usual existential bullshit."
Jordan waited.
She took a sip of her coffee. Then another. Then she set the cup down on the floor and turned to face him.
"I've been thinking about what I want to do after graduation," she said. "After the program. After this."
"And?"
"And I don't know. That's the problem." She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. "I've been on this track for so long—go to school, get the degree, get the job—that I never really stopped to think about what I actually want."
"You want to design."
"I want to create things that matter." She shook her head. "But that's not a career plan. That's a horoscope."
Jordan set his coffee down. He reached out and took her hand.
"You're the most talented person I know," he said.
"Flattery."
"Truth."
She looked at him. Her eyes were tired—not from lack of sleep, but from something deeper. Something that had been building for a while.
"I don't want to waste this," she said. "The money from the raffle. The chance we have. I don't want to look back in ten years and realize I just... floated."
Jordan's stomach tightened.
"What if we moved?" he said.
The words were out before he could stop them.
Maria blinked. "What?"
"What if we moved? After graduation. After this year. What if we went somewhere else?"
"Where?"
He didn't answer.
She stared at him. Her eyes narrowed, not with suspicion, but with something closer to curiosity.
"You've been thinking about this too," she said.
"A little."
"A little?"
Jordan looked away. The coffee was getting cold in his hand. The radiator ticked. The mini-fridge hummed.
"I applied for a job," he said.
Maria went still.
"What kind of job?"
"Sports media. Content production. It's—"
"Where?"
He forced himself to meet her eyes.
"Green Bay."
The words hung in the air between them.
Maria didn't move. Didn't blink. Her hand was still in his, and he could feel the tension running through her fingers like a wire pulled taut.
"When did you apply?" she asked.
"A week and a half ago."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"I didn't think I'd hear back."
"But you did."
He nodded.
She pulled her hand away.
Jordan felt the absence like a physical blow. She stood up and walked to the window, her back to him, her arms crossed over her chest.
"Green Bay," she said.
"Yeah."
"You applied for a job in Green Bay."
"Yeah."
"Without telling me."
"I know."
She turned around. Her face was unreadable—not angry, not sad, just... blank. Like she was processing something too big to fit into a single emotion.
"This is what you want," she said.
"I don't know."
"It's what you've always wanted."
"That's not—"
"It is." She cut him off. "You've been talking about the Packers since the day I met you. You've been talking about covering them, writing about them, being part of that world. This is your dream, Jordan."
He stood up. The sheet fell away, and he was naked, but he didn't care. He crossed the room and stopped in front of her.
"It's not just my dream," he said. "I'm not doing this without you."
Maria laughed. It was a short, sharp sound, not quite bitter but close.
"You're asking me to move to Green Bay."
"I'm asking you to think about it."
"There's nothing to think about. My program is here. My life is here. We just signed a lease."
"I know."
"Then why—"
"Because I can't stop thinking about it." He grabbed her hands. She tried to pull away, but he held on. "Because every time I close my eyes, I see myself on the sideline at Lambeau. I see myself writing about the games. I see myself doing the thing I've wanted to do since I was old enough to hold a football."
He paused.
"And I see you there. Next to me. Every time."
Maria's resolve cracked. Just a little. Just enough for him to see the hesitation underneath.
"The interview is tomorrow," he said.
"Tomorrow?"
"Over the phone. I set it up before I told you. Before I knew if I even had a chance."
She stared at him. Her jaw was tight. Her eyes were wet.
"You're an asshole," she said.
"I know."
"You should have told me."
"I know."
"You should have let me be part of the decision."
"I'm trying to do that now."
She yanked her hands free and walked toward the bathroom. She stopped at the doorway, her hand on the frame, her back to him.
"I need a minute," she said.
The door closed behind her.
Jordan stood alone in the bedroom, naked and cold, listening to the sound of the shower turning on. The radiator ticked. The mini-fridge hummed. The Packers flag hung crooked in the other room, waiting for someone to fix it.
He sat down on the edge of the mattress and put his head in his hands.
The interview was in eighteen hours.
He didn't know if he'd be able to go through with it.
---
The rest of the day passed in fragments.
Maria came out of the bathroom after twenty minutes, her hair damp and her face set. She didn't mention the interview. She didn't mention Green Bay. She just started unpacking boxes like nothing had happened, pulling out kitchenware and books and the framed photo of her father that she'd brought from her dorm.
Jordan helped.
They worked in silence for a while. The apartment slowly took shape—unpacked boxes flattened and stacked by the door, the futon finally assembled and pushed against the wall, the TV stand that Maria had found on Facebook Marketplace hauled up three flights of stairs and positioned under the Packers flag.
The flag stayed above the TV.
The pennants went above the futon.
The silverware finally made it to the kitchen drawer.
By evening, the apartment looked less like a disaster zone and more like an actual home. Not perfect. Not finished. But something.
Maria heated up leftover pizza in the microwave—the same pizza from last night, the one that had witnessed everything—and they ate on the futon, sitting side by side but not touching.
"I'm not mad," she said.
Jordan looked at her.
"I was. But I'm not now." She took a bite of her pizza and chewed slowly. "I'm just... scared."
"Of what?"
"Of losing you." She didn't look at him. "Of getting left behind."
"You're not going to—"
"You don't know that."
"I do."
She set her pizza down and turned to face him. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but her voice was steady.
"If you get this job," she said, "you're going to take it."
"I don't know—"
"You're going to take it. And you should."
Jordan's chest tightened.
"I'm not going to ask you to stay," she said. "That's not fair. Not when this is everything you've ever wanted."
"Maria—"
"But I'm not going to pretend it doesn't hurt." Her voice cracked on the last word. "I'm not going to pretend I'm okay with you leaving."
He reached out and pulled her into a hug. She resisted for a moment, her body rigid, and then she melted into him, her face pressed against his shoulder, her arms wrapping around his waist.
"I haven't even had the interview yet," he said.
"Doesn't matter. You're going to nail it."
"You don't know that."
"I do." She pulled back and looked at him. "You're the most stubborn person I've ever met. You'll nail the interview because you don't know how to do anything else."
Jordan laughed. It came out shaky.
"I love you," he said.
"I know."
"I'm not going to take the job if it means losing you."
She smiled. It was a sad smile, the kind that meant she knew something he didn't.
"Don't make promises you can't keep," she said.
---
The interview was at ten AM.
Jordan woke up at six. He showered. He shaved. He put on the one button-down shirt he owned—the one Maria had made him buy for a campus networking event last semester—and stared at himself in the bathroom mirror.
He looked like a liar.
He looked like someone who was about to make a decision that would change everything.
He walked into the living room and found Maria sitting on the futon.
She was dressed. Her hair was done. She was holding two cups of coffee—the good kind, from the café down the street, not the gas station swill.
"I thought you might need this," she said.
Jordan took the cup. His hands were shaking.
"You didn't have to—"
"I wanted to." She stood up and straightened his collar. "You're going to do great."
"Maria—"
"Shut up." She kissed him on the cheek. "Do the interview. I'll be in the bedroom."
She walked away before he could respond. The door closed behind her.
Jordan sat down on the futon. He set his coffee on the floor. He pulled out his phone and stared at the number in his email.
The phone rang three times before someone picked up.
"Jordan Bell?"
"Yes, this is him."
"This is Sarah from the Green Bay Packers media department. Thanks for making time for us today."
"Thanks for having me."
The interview lasted forty-five minutes. They asked about his writing. They asked about his knowledge of the team. They asked about his experience with content production and social media and breaking news coverage.
Jordan answered every question.
He didn't stumble. He didn't falter. He talked about the Packers the way he'd been talking about them his whole life—with passion, with precision, with the kind of knowledge that only came from years of obsessive fandom.
At the end of the call, Sarah told him they'd be in touch.
For the rest of your life.
Jordan would remember that sentence for the rest of his life.
He sat on the futon for a long time after the call ended. The coffee went cold. The morning light crept across the floor. The Packers flag hung above the TV, watching him.
The bedroom door opened.
Maria emerged slowly. She looked at him. He looked at her.
"I did it," he said.
"I know."
"I don't know if I got it."
"You got it."
"You don't know—"
"I know." She crossed the room and sat down next to him. "I know you, Jordan. I know what you're capable of."
He didn't say anything.
She took his hand.
"If they offer you the job," she said, "you're going to take it."
"Maria—"
"I mean it. You're going to take it. And we're going to figure out the rest."
"How?"
She smiled. That same sad smile from last night.
"I don't know yet," she said. "But we will."
Jordan pulled her close. He buried his face in her hair and breathed her in—the cheap shampoo, the coffee, the warmth that was just her.
"I don't deserve you," he whispered.
"Probably not." She laughed against his chest. "But you're stuck with me anyway."
They sat there for a while, tangled together on the futon, the morning light pooling around them like water. The apartment was still a mess. The boxes were still half-unpacked. The pennants were still hanging crooked above their heads.
But they were together.
And that was enough.