Page 115 of The Chance

But for tonight … I’m content to sink farther into the couch and let my drummer sleep on my shoulder and bring life into my apartment with his soft snores.

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Mac

A gym is thelast place I ever expected to find myself, but I have a renewed sense of hope buzzing beneath my skin as I walk the third floor.

Jordan’s apartment is small, and the light was just right to watch him sleep, but then I felt like a creeper staring at him. Felt like a lovesick fool for sticking to his side all night long.

Not even a sleep adventure moved me.

Hence the walk.

Which has led me to a large room, one whole side letting in the early morning light, another covered in mirrors with a bar anchored only a few feet in front of it.

The floor is hardwood, and the ceiling is painted black to hide the duct work, but it’s open and breathing and holds a shit ton of potential.

Following the buzzing energy’s lead, I wander around the rest of the place, passing the clinks of metal and grunts, until there’s pails and buckets and Jordan’s pots all overturned along the hardwood, set up just like an extended version of my drum set.

Sticks in hand, I paradiddle and smash, the attack ringing through the open space with the perfect amount of acoustics to have me grinning.

I’m deep in making a rhythm from the everyday things when a snick registers in my mind.

He held my hand and he’s not straight.

I don’t know what it means. Or where this leads. But just knowing that has lifted a weight off my shoulders. Made it easier to breathe.

He thinks he’s demi. Maybe.

I can work with that.

I push back all those voices in the back of my mind that threaten to remind me of every other asshole that claimed they were something they weren’t, only to back out when things got realish.

Jordan’s different.

He has to be.

Otherwise … after all this time apart … why did he have drumsticks and macaroni? He didn’t know if I’d ever be here, and yet … he was prepared for me to be. Like hewantedme to be.

Was waiting for me to be.

Lips turned up, I rapid fire on the bucket’s bottom with both sticks, tapping the edge every offbeat and I don’t stop until a shadow creeps its way closer.

Even then, I look up at the little guy Jordan called a friend but keep beating away on the pail with one hand.

“Drum lessons would make great cardio.”

I blink, then snort and choke the sound by slapping the sticks sideways against the plastic.

“You the PR guy around here?”

“Me? No. I’m absolutely just pretending not to judge you.”

I settle back on my ass and twirl the sticks, taking the guy in.

“Mighty blunt of you.”

He snorts and flares his hands out in front of him. “Honesty. You should try it sometime.”

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