Page 17 of The Chance

Chapter Eight

Jordan

For days, Mac hasignored me in the daylight hours almost as much as he has at night.

We’ve been all over the place, chasing his niblings around, accompanying Toby to AA meetings, and even hitting up Leo’s office.

And bywe, I mean that I have followed Mac like the guard dog that I am, and sat silently in the car or the corner until he’s ready to move onto the next thing.

I don’t hate it. This is part of what I signed up for. The reason why his nickname has become Vida.

Because my life revolves around him.

But there’s something hanging heavy between us and the normal banter seems to have just … disappeared, taking the best friend energy right along with it.

It’s planted me firmly in the irritated category and I’m on the verge of snapping at him, demanding he just tell me what’s going on, when he ushers me to the car and denies my request to go home.

“What could you possibly want to go do now? Nothing is open.”

Mac throws me a look from under the hood of his hoodie that he’s wearing despite the warmth still clinging to the air, then slides a pair of aviators onto his nose.

“Cedar closed up shop.”

He pulls on the hood’s strings, tightening the material around his face and making the curls not held back by his bandana stick out around his forehead.

I let out a long sigh. “So, we’ll be there all night?”

“Hell yeah,” he responds with a grin that doesn’t quite meet the rest of his face. “Tomorrow, too.”

That same grin fades when he turns to the window and watches the world pass us by for the rest of the ride to the tattoo shop.

He doesn’t say a single thing when I jump from the car and clear the alleyway we’ve parked in, and not a word when I usher him in the back door.

The building is on twenty-four-hour surveillance and yet, I still find myself breaking away when the drummer finds his ass in the chair of his sister-in-law’s best friend to do a sweep of the place. Blinds are drawn, doors all locked, and the on-duty guard that gets to hang out here for the next few hours is sitting sentry at the door.

It should give me that settled feeling in my gut to know that this is probably the second safest place for Mac to be.

Instead, my stomach is still in the same knots it’s been for days now.

“Hey, Jordan,” Jonathon greets from his perch by the front door—the only spot with a vantage point to the outside—and juts his chin. “How’s it going?”

Leaning just to the side so that I can also see what’s going on outside, I shrug. “Same old. How about here? All good?”

Jon lifts a shoulder with a nod. “Had to chase off some shitty patron earlier, but otherwise quiet today.” I nod. “Hey, if you wanna take five, I got him.”

My gaze flicks to Jonathon’s at his offer. “Nah, man. I’m all good.”

“Seriously, it’s no big deal. Did he eat this time?”

My brow furrows.

Mac is a grown ass man. He’s already got a ton of tattoos all over his body, including plenty of places I’ve tried not to pay too much attention to, and knows about how well he takes getting ink. What he needs to prep beforehand. How he throws up if the pain lasts more than a few hours.

But something in the way that Jon is asking me has me questioning myself.

Should I have asked him first?

“Go,” Jonathon says, interrupting the beginnings of a spiraling thought process. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t leave before you get back.”

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