Page 100 of The Chance

This is it. It’s over.

Pen in my pocket, I jab my shirt over my head before reaching the exit with the heaviest of weights settling down on me.

I’m at the elevators when my vision clouds.

In the lobby when my throat closes up, hurt coiling its way around the broken organ in my chest.

Closing the car door when a sob works its way out of my gut.

Slam the heel of my palm against the steering wheel.

And for the first time in two decades, tears cascade down my cheeks.

Part III

Chapter Sixty-One

Jordan

One year later

“What’s the damage ifwe close early?”

I barely manage to get the browser I’ve been staring at minimized when I feel the sting of a slap on my ass and the heat of a body sidle up on my right side.

It’s borderline sexual harassment in the workplace but there’s no one here. It’s just Lemon. And unless I wanna fire my second in command and wingman, I’m shit out of luck.

He touches when he’s excited. I’m used to it by now.

It’s actually how we met.

In a moment of confusion and desperation about ten months ago, I went to a bar that’s LGBTQIA friendly and when a shitty patron kept harassing the tiny bartender that flew over the barat him, I stepped in. Made a friend. Then offered him a job at my shiny new gym.

I’d just quit Sentry.

Bought a building two blocks away from Aria’s boutique.

And saw the tabloids all continuously boasting about the infusion of not just As Above with Banger, but the friendship that blossomed between the drummers of each band.

Mac and Dare.

Rumors of more between the two circulated like wildfire when a picture of them leaked. They were just outside of a tour bus, sharing a smoke, but the looks on their faces were enough to burn into my subconscious.

I’d flown halfway across the planet to see Mac and that picture …. it was taken just after I’d gotten there the first time.

And then I did it all over again, only to ruin everything a second time.

I tried to hang on. To wait for Mac to come home. Ignore the ache that spread and do what I’d promised.

Avoid the voice in my head that screamed I’d never be good enough.

But I got nothing in return.

I was ghosted. Ignored.

Left.

And he never said a word back.

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