Beautiful Chaos/A Jordan Knight FanFic/ Book One in the Beautiful series. ✔️

23

Jordan

NEW DRAPES, REFINISHED FLOORS, AND FRESH coats of paint do nothing to change what this house has always been to me. How it still feels. Like a luxurious prison with me the inmate and my parents the wardens. Redecorating, re-facing my childhood upstate New York home is like wrapping a corpse in a fresh layer of skin. It's still cold, dead, and rotting inside.

I only realize that I'm humming "Rach 3," caught up in its robust virtuosity, and fingering imaginary keys on the dining room table, when everyone around me goes completely quiet. I've sought success as an adult in the mainstream, but concert piano haunts me like a first love waiting in the wings for a second chance. When people, things, situations bore me, which is about half the time, I find myself retreating into the hallowed chambers of my mind. The music that was just always there, still is.

The stares of my family members weigh heavily on me, transporting me, like everything else in this house, back to my childhood when I always felt like a rough-edged puzzle piece that never quite fit anywhere.

Grady and Emmy are the only friendly faces at the table. Even Bristol's expression pulls tight.

I clear my throat, lowering my fingers from my makeshift piano on the dining room table to my lap.

"Sorry," I murmur, spooning some of the lobster bisque into my mouth. It's delicious, but makes me feel like I'm eating a catered meal.

What I wouldn't give for the simple dishes Dallas prepared for Thanksgiving dinner. They tasted like home and care. I can't help but wonder how things are going for her. I glance at my watch. We're having a late lunch since Bristol, Grady, Emmy, and I arrived a little later than we had anticipated. Dallas told me they would serve the homeless in the basement of Glory Falls Baptist Church tonight, followed by a brief service and some traditional carols. I want to be there with her. I try to convince myself that being anywhere would be better than at this long dining room table, as tight and closed as a coffin, but I know anywhere wouldn't do. I want to be with Dallas.

I saw her only briefly before she flew back to Georgia, just long enough for us to exchange Christmas presents. A Pepper nameplate necklace from me to her like the one Carrie wears on Sex and the City. An engraved harmonica from her to me. She left yesterday, and I miss her already.

"So I heard you and Bristol will see Petra in Chicago in a few weeks," my father says, chewing a delicately seasoned piece of fish.

I give Bristol a long look. She better not be spying on me for my parents, reporting my activities to give them something they can use to get back in with me. She shrugs like it's no big deal. With a marble-hard look, I let her know we'll talk about it later.

"Yeah, probably." I give my father a brief glance and swirl my spoon in the bisque.

Seeing his face that looks just like Grady staring back at me, but with hard, calculating eyes and a tight mouth that rarely smiles disconcerts me sometimes. Amazing how two physically identical people can be so completely different where it counts. I glance over at Grady to make sure he's still there, still real, and not some carbon copy of the cold man at the head of this coffin table.

"That will be nice," my mother offers.

She sits to my father's left, but they may as well share a seat, they are always so in sync. I don't know that it's ever been a love match between them, but it's a damn good partnership. Her eyes, seemingly the only physical attribute Bristol and I inherited, consider me down the length of the table.

My mother, Angela Knight, is a beautiful woman. She may have nipped and tucked a few things, and the vibrant, red hair is surely aided by the bottle, but for the most part, she remains as I have always known her. Slim. Expensively attired with pearls at her neck and ears. Perfect and proper.