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Chapter 9: Jealousy

That Tuesday night at small group, Greyson, Jordan, Katherine, and I stuck together like peas in a pod. We still talked to everyone else and hung out with everyone like normal but the bond between the four of us was different, especially after I had gone to the play with the boys alone. After everyone had left, the four of us returned to our spots on the front porch to talk. There, Jordan told us that he had quit his job at the hotel.

"Why would you do that?" Greyson asked.

"I don't know, man. It's just like nothing ever changes in the Hotel biz," Jordan said, slapping his knee.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well there's a bar in the hotel and I didn't think it would be a big deal but I started going back to old Jordan and it just wasn't good so I had to stop myself but I couldn't so, I talked to Keegan about it and they want to give me a sort of internship at the church?"

"A what?" I was confused.

"They want me to come in and work with the middle school students and Keegan will keep working with the high school kids. It's not as much money, but it'll give me more freedom with my time."

"Oh, well that'll be good," my heart sank.

I had so many thoughts swirling through my mind. I had poured my heart and soul into working for Keegan and the youth group. I had planned countless events, counseled students, taught and gone far above the expectations of a volunteer and I had never been given thanks, much less a job offer. I decided to try to push it to the back of my mind and be happy for him. I knew Jordan would be good for the kids, even if I didn't like it. I looked at Greyson who was staring at Jordan. I could read his facial expression and imagined what he was thinking. We both knew that he hadn't been being completely honest with Katherine, or Keegan, but there was a silent agreement not to say anything.

~ ~ ~

Towards the middle of June, Jordan and I were asked to go to youth camp as leaders. Keegan needed the help and since Jordan had been brought on as the middle school youth pastor and Keegan still called me his assistant, we were the perfect pair to ask to go. Jordan got the travel approved by his probation officer and within a few weeks, we set off for Florida. The camp had its own counselors, we were just in charge of the students during the rides there and back and during free time. That week at camp is when the two of us got to really know each other. I was taking two online summer classes and he stayed up with me while I did my homework every night. Each night before we headed to our separate rooms, we would say good night, but we'd always end up staying awake for another three hours sharing our life stories with each other. There was so much more to Jordan than he had lead on all the times we had hung out and it wasn't pretty. He had told me that even after he had gotten out of jail, he was still partying with his old friends at home and that he still struggled with everything. He wanted to be a better person, a more "Godly man" but he didn't know how to do that. Everything in him pulled him in the opposite direction of what he was being told was the right thing to do.

I knew how he felt. We were both struggling to do the right thing and be "good" people but we both wanted different lives than the ones that were being pushed on us. I agreed that I wouldn't tell Katherine about the drinking or the drugs or anything he and Greyson had done. He agreed he would keep my secrets too. By the end of the week, we were much closer than we had been when we left. We were so close, that all of the students (who still didn't know about him and Katherine) thought that we had fallen in love and were a couple. They called us a power couple and instead of blowing the secret that he and Katherine were on their way to becoming a couple, we just ignored the remarks.